Free Indeed

Series on Galatians

III The Apostolic Applications

A The Yoke of Bondage

Text: 5:1-6

Introduction

On July 4, 2011 citizens of the United States again celebrated their freedom as they do every year. Freedom celebrations are common throughout the world. The French celebrate Bastille day on July 14 as marking the end of the absolute monarchy, the birth of the sovereign Nation, and, eventually, the creation of the Republic, in 1792. For centuries the Jewish people have celebrated the Passover on the 15th of their month of Nisan. Passover is the festival celebrating the Exodus from Egypt and liberation from bondage. Freedom is the festival’s dominant theme. In Florida where we now live Cinco de Mayo is a big holiday because we have such a large Hispanic population. It represents a significant event in the history of Mexico. Spain dominated the Mexican people, culture, and government for nearly 300 years. So Cinco de Mayo is widely celebrated in many Mexican-American communities as the triumph of a people over oppression. Bolivian Independence Day is August 6th each year when the country gained its freedom from Spain after several centuries of occupation and celebrated by signing a Declaration of Independence. On April 27th South Africans celebrate their deliverance from apartheid and their new freedom and throughout the rest of Africa May 25th is Liberation Day. Juneteenth is another annual observance on June 19 to remember the Emancipation Proclamation and freedom for slaves in the United States. It is a day is to celebrate freedom and equal rights. I remind you of the widespread devotion to celebrating freedom because it is as Mohandas Ghandi said “the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living free?” The flame of freedom always burns in the human heart. However we know that the freedom that is celebrated in so many places around the world is a fragile thing, and easily lost. Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” He was echoing the words of the famous abolitionist, Wendell Phillips who reminded his generation that eternal vigilance was the price of liberty. This political freedom which we celebrate is easily lost because we live in a fallen corrupted world. My point is that there is only one freedom lastingly guaranteed and it is the freedom of Christ. Jesus spoke of it in John 8, and we read in verses 32-36, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abides not in the house for ever: but the Son abides ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Paul is talking about that liberty here. The Galatian believers were free indeed but they were losing it. As Paul discusses this calamity we discover that there are three results of this loss of freedom and they are labor, liability and loss.

I Labor

Labor is a dignified thing as we celebrate it every year on Labor Day, but that is free labor for which we are compensated. It is labor ordained by God in the beginning when Adam is commanded to keep the garden, Genesis 2:15 says, And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Paul says in verse 1, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. The labor of a slave is miserable existence; a system under which people are held against their will and treated as property and forced to work. In I Corinthians 4:1 Paul writes, So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. The word translated “servants” is translated “ministers” in the King James Version. Nether of these reveals the full meaning of the underlying Greek which means literally somebody rowing on the bottom deck of a galley. Typically these people were slaves. Thus Paul identifies ministers of the gospel, as well as Apostles, as slaves of Jesus Christ. The real issue here is whether we will be slaves of sin and death or slaves serving the prince of life. One is a slave against his will, the other chooses to be a slave out of love and gratitude. To be a servant of Jesus is a privilege because in Him we have true freedom. As Paul says in Romans 8:35-39, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

II Liability

The second result of accepting the false teaching of the Judaizers is liability as Paul describes it in verses 2 and 3, Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. When we seek to be justified in the sight of God by keeping the law, we place ourselves under an impossible obligation. It is like having a mortgage that you can never hope to pay. A liability can be any hindrance that puts an individual or group at a disadvantage, or something for which they are responsible. Legally it is an obligation that legally binds an individual or company to settle a debt. When one is liable for a debt, they are responsible for paying the debt or settling for a wrongful act they may have committed. Debts in civilized societies can last a long time. In the Chancery Division of the British High Court of Justice in 1960 it was decided that gambling debts incurred in 1913 by a now-deceased bankrupt person were a part of his legal debts and that the receivers should pay some $15,000 of the assets of the estate to the survivor, who held the proof of debt. The fact that 47 years had passed had nothing to do with the legality of the debt, and the nature of the debt did not affect that legality. This is just a drop in a bucket compared to the debt owed by sinners. Since the debt is infinite because the offense is against an infinite God, they have no hope of paying and no matter how much they pay it can never be enough. The only way out of such a debt is forgiveness. That is what God offers in Jesus Christ His Son. His atoning sacrifice and perfect righteousness appeases God’s wrath and enables our forgiveness. If we reject that grace, then we are left with the impossible debt of unrighteousness that crushes us and leads to perdition. Of course, just as you are slave whichever road you take, you are equally a debtor. The only question is, “To whom do you owe the debt?” You can owe it to the Judge, or owe it to the Savior. Which would you choose? The Battle of Bastogne in Belgium represents one of the bloodiest action in World War II. A monument there pays tribute to the heroism of the US 101st Airborne Division: “Seldom has so much American blood been shed in the course of a single action. Oh, Lord, help us to remember!” But when we think of the cross of Christ, we can say: “Never in the history of the universe have we owed so much to One.”

III Loss

The Ultimate result of accepting a return to Old Testament practices and Judaism is summarized by Paul in verses 4-6, You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. In Philippians chapter 3 Paul is talking again about circumcision and he calls the Judaizers,”Men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.” He goes on to recite why if anyone had confidence in the flesh it would be Paul, himself. He had all the right credentials from family and birth forward. But he says in verse 7-9, Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. In life people lose a lot of rubbish that cannot possibly be construed as beneficial. A Saudi Prince in the 1970’s lost a million dollars in Las Vegas in one night. In Australia legal and illegal gambling is rampant and Australians part with over eight billion dollars a year in foolish losses. The folly was shown by the western sheriff who confiscated a group of slot machines on the basis of a law banning the use of steel traps for catching dumb animals. But their are also losses in life that could be construed as serious and as real tragedies. Samson lost his God-given strength in dalliance with Delilah. Saul lost a kingdom because he defied the word of the Lord and spared the king of the Amalekites, Agag. David tragically lost a child after an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. What Paul is talking about in Philippians, however, is a loss of a different order. If he loses Christ he loses everything forever. This is eternal loss and it turns every other loss into something negligible and inconsequential. If you reject the gospel of grace, you reject life itself and all hope is ended and every prospect extinguished. Martin Luther at the time of the Protestant Reformation said, “I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” Thus it is that we can choose law and labor, liability and loss, or choose the gospel of grace and find a yoke that is easy, a debt that is paid, and a loss that is only fleeting. Thus Paul wrote to the Corinthians in II Corinthians 4:17 and 18, For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.