Galtians 5: Freedom in Christ

Paul opens this chapter saying "for freedom Christ has set us free." Freedom is one of the main themes of this passage, and Paul again states in verse 13 "...you were called to freedom, brothers." Now, the freedom of the believer in Christ is an issue that much ink has been spilled over. I have no intention in delving into those arguments or developing a robust theology of the topic in this short post. There are better places that you can go to find those, if that's what you're looking for.

Instead, in this post I would like to go over a few basic points that I think Paul makes clear in this chapter. First, I would like to quickly speak to what Christians are free from. And second, I would like to talk about what we are free to.

Freedom from...

It is clear that if we are now free as Christians, then at one time we were not free. We were slaves. But were we slaves to?

As I talked about last week, those who do not trust in Jesus for their salvation necessarily trust in themselves and in the law to make them acceptable before God. This is something that Paul develops here in this chapter as well as in Romans 4 and 5. Because of this, it is clear from the context here that we are free from the obligations of the law. This is, indeed, why it is not necessary for the Gentiles to whom Paul is writing to be circumcised.

But we too are free from the obligation of the law. Jesus perfectly obeyed it and has given us His righteousness in exchange for our wretchedness, our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). And because we are no longer under the law, we are also free from the guilt of our sin. As Romans 8:-21 says, "there is therefore now now condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."

Before we came to know Jesus, before we came to love Him, we were chained by our guilt. We had broken the law of a perfect God, a holy God, and we were condemned to death by His justice. But this same God, not content to leave us dead in our sins, sent His Son to be our substitute, living in perfection as we were should have, and dying in punishment for the sins we committed. This is the glorious mystery of justice and mercy of our God. And it is the best news on earth!

This is what we are free from. Our guilt and the penalty of our sin has been removed. The claim that the law had on us is expunged. We are free.

Freedom to...

But, lest we misunderstand, Paul makes sure to let us know what we are free to do with this freedom. It might seem logical at first, after hearing this news, to think that being free from the law means that we are free from obeying or considering the law altogether. And, in a saving sense, that is 100% true. But (and this is an important "but"), that does not mean that we are free to do whatever we want.

Both times that Paul mentions are freedom in this chapter, he immediately adds a warning. In the first verse he warns us not to "submit again to a yoke of slavery." This may seem odd. If we're free, why would we ever want to go back to slavery? Of all the stories I've heard of slaves given their freedom, I've never heard of one who wanted to go back.

But this is where the image of earthly freedom and slavery breaks down a little bit. We are free, yes, from the consequences of sin and our heart has been changed so as not to always want that which is sinful. We are called "saints," that is holy ones because God has given us the righteousness of Christ. But we are not completely free from sin. Not yet. Paul says in verse 13 that we are not to let this freedom become "an opportunity for the flesh."

Our flesh is our old self, our fallen body in which we still live. And though our desires now have been changed and, as we grow in love of our God, these desires will increasingly be those that please God. So this freedom is not given to us so that we can sin more, but so that we can not sin (and I do mean "can not sin", not "cannot sin").

In addition, we are free now to obey the law. We don't do so perfectly and not to earn God's favor, but out of love for God and the perfect law that He has given us. Notice that Paul here says that the whole law is fulfilled. If the law was of no consequence to us, why would he care if it was fulfilled or not?

And how is fulfilled? By love, love for our neighbor. And our neighbor includes everybody (see Luke 10:29-37). This is what we are free to. To not sin. And to love. Praise God!