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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gal_5:1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
“You are not under the law, but under grace. Do not subject yourselves, therefore, to legal principles. Do not live as if you were working for wages, and were earning your own salvation. Do not submit yourselves to the ritual and commandments of man, which would rob you of your liberty in many ways, but having once become a free man, never again wear the chain of a slave: ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.’ Because you are the seed of Isaac, who was born according to the promise, you are not the children of the bondwoman, you are not Ishmaelites; therefore, as you were born free, as Christ has made you free by virtue of your new birth, stand fast in that glorious liberty.”
Gal_5:2-3. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
If you begin being saved by the law, you must go through with it. You cannot take the principle of law and the principle of grace, and blend those two together. They are like oil and water, they will never mix. If salvation be of works, it is not of grace; and if it be of grace, it is not of works. You cannot go upon the two contrary principles of merit and of favour.
Gal_5:4. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
You have turned aside from it you are not standing with one foot upon grace and one foot upon the law but you have gone right away from grace. You must cleave to one or the other. If you take the law to be your hope, you must keep to it; and the end will be that you will die in despair.
Gal_5:5-6. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision but faith which worketh by love.
It is not any rite, and it is not the neglect of any rite which can produce righteousness. It is as easy to trust in your non-observance of a ceremony as to trust in the ceremony itself, and it will be quite as delusive. It is faith in Christ that brings righteousness, the “faith which worketh by love.”
Gal_5:7. Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
“You Galatians seemed to receive the gospel very readily, and to be very earnest in obeying it; what has caused you to turn aside to the old legal righteousness? You are very changeable, very fickle; you seemed very energetic in running the Christian race; whatever has got in your way?
‘Who did hinder you?’ Somebody or other must have done so.”
Gal_5:8. This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
“It does not come from God. He called you to faith in his dear Son, and to all those virtues and graces which naturally spring from the root of faith. Somebody else has called you aside, some false shepherd, who is but a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and who would destroy you if he could.”
Gal_5:9. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
One false doctrine very soon sours all your belief; the whole lump is leavened with it. If you have a wrong ground of confidence, you are wrong altogether.
Gal_5:10. I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.
Depend upon it, every man who troubles a church with false doctrine is amenable to the High Court above; and, sooner or later, he may expect even a temporal judgment here below.
Gal_5:11. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.
“The offence of the Cross” is that it sets up faith as the infinite merit of Christ’s atonement, and knocks down all confidence in outward ritual and ceremonies. Paul says that, if he had preached the flesh-pleasing doctrines of men, he would not have been persecuted; but the fact that he was persecuted was a proof that he was standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made him free.
Gal_5:12. I would they were even cut off which trouble you.
Excommunicated, and put out of the church; nay, it would be better if they were even dead, rather than that they should live to spread such evil even in a Christian church. Sometimes, when we think of the interests of immortal souls, we are apt to grow indignant, and rightly so, towards willfully false teachers.
Gal_5:13. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Do not let liberty become license; do not say, “I may do this or that, and therefore I will do it because it pleases me.” You are not to do anything because it pleases you, but you are to do everything because it pleases God. When a man is no longer a slave to sin, or self, or Satan, let him begin to serve his brethren: “By love serve one another.”
Gal_5:14. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
The legal spirit is all for expansion; it multiplies it commands, and lays down its ritual for this, and that, and the other; but the gospel spirit is all for condensation. It has condensed the whole law into a single word, that is “love.”
Gal_5:15. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
This man finds fault, the other must have his own way, a third is for something quite new, a fourth is for nothing but what is antique, and so they fall to squabbling and quarrelling.
Gal_5:16. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Be obedient to that great principle of the Spirit which goes with the doctrine of grace and salvation by faith, and then you will not be obedient to that lusting of the flesh which is in you by nature.
Gal_5:17. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
You are pulled about by two contrary forces; you are dragged downward by the flesh, and you are drawn upward by the Spirit.
Gal_5:18. But if ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law.
The Spirit never brings the soul into bondage, the terrors and the fears which come of legal slavery are not the work of the Spirit of God. Where he works, holiness is delight, and the service of God is a continual joy. Oh, that we may be thus led of the Spirit!
Gal_5:19. Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
They are clear, plain, self-condemned.
Gal_5:19-21. Which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelling, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Observe that the gospel gives no toleration to sin. Some people tell us that the doctrine of faith is not practical, but they know better although they say that. They have only to observe those who are actuated by the principle of faith, and they will find them abounding in good works, while the men who are swayed by the principle of law talk a great deal about works, but have little enough of them in practice. The gospel denounces sin, ay, and kills it; it gives us the force with which we fight against it and overcome it.
Gal_5:22-23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Either human or divine; everybody is agreed that these things are all good.
Gal_5:24. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
Condemned it to die, nailed it up to the cross, and kept it in a dying, mortifying posture.
Gal_5:25. If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit.
If our spiritual life is the result of a divine work, let our actions be in harmony with it: “If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit.”
Gal_5:26. Let us not be desirous of vain glory,-
We call it glory, but it is vain glory. It is marred by vanity if it arises from anything done by us. Glory for you or for me because of anything that we can do is too absurd an idea to be entertained for a moment: “Let us not be desirous of vain glory,”-
Gal_5:26. Provoking one another,-
For, whenever a man is proud, and blustering, and vain-glorious, he is sure to provoke somebody or other, and then they who are so provoked fall into another sin, the sin of-
Gal_5:26. Envying one another.
O brethren, let us try to get over all this, and reach out to that blessed state of love which will bring to us peace and joy in the Holy Ghost!
Gal_5:1-4. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ had made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
If you mean to have anything to with salvation by works, get you gone; you are the children of the bond-woman.
Gal_5:19-21. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like:
A black catalogue, but sin is very prolific. We must take care that we avoid each one of these works of the flesh, or else we shall give no proof that we are led by the Spirit of God and possess the grace of God.
Gal_5:21. Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Read over the list. Put the question to conscience, “Am I guilty of such things?” If so, do not suppose that the holding of orthodox doctrine will save you, or that any kind of religious ceremony will save you. You must be delivered from these lusts of the flesh — these deeds of the flesh, or you cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal_5:22-23. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Surely, neither human nor divine. These are things which are commended on all hands. But if we do not have them — if they are not found in us —then we have not the Spirit, for if we had the Spirit, we should boast the fruit of the Spirit.
Gal_5:24-26. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory,
A very common sin — wishing to shine. Whether we deserve to be honoured or not, still wanting to be fore-horse in the team, and to take the leading place. “Let us not be desirous of vain glory.”
Gal_5:26. Provoking one another, envying one another.
If each would strive who should do the greatest deeds of love, and each were willing to take the lowest place, then this evil would never be known again.
This exposition consisted of readings from Gal_4:12-31; Gal_5:1-4; Gal_5:19-26; Gal_6:1-11.