It was rather to have Gentile liberty secured by the twelve apostles, and that the Judaizers should be condemned by the church at Jerusalem. So he calls on them to be as free of the law as himself. That's the position where we stand. Love is the fulfilling of the law. (iv) Sod, the allegorical meaning. The Spirit of God can employ it to make a man feel that all is over with him; but He goes farther in grace, and by that very law brings the man in dead to the law, and not merely condemned. In this case it was God that gave the promise; it was He that confirmed the covenant to Christ, without saying a word about the law till four hundred and thirty years after. He specifies the works of the flesh, which must be watched against and mortified, and the fruits of the Spirit, which must be brought forth and cherished, and shows of what importance it is that they be so, ver 19-24. They had been idolaters before they became Christians; and to take up Jewish principles in addition to Christ is to turn back again to their cast-off idols. In this case, happily, the brethren near at hand went along with him in heart. ( Matthew 27:46 ) Who was He crying to? At any rate, the Galatians, naturally fickle, were quick to take up prejudices. Your mind has to be bent in that direction through their writings. Strange as all this may seem to us, it enshrines one great truth. Paul urged his readers to live unbound to the Law of Moses (Galatians 5:1-12). All right, I'm still one of His sheep, you know. "Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and," in order to make it still more evident, "by God the Father, who raised him from the dead." Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith ( Galatians 5:5 ). Such was the will of God the Father that had raised Christ from the dead. Paul reminded Christians: " You must love your neighbour as yourself." And, as this would be the best means of preserving them from fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, so it would be a good evidence that they were Christians indeed; for, says the apostle (Galatians 5:18; Galatians 5:18), If you be led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded ( Galatians 5:10 ): Now Paul is now saying, "Oh, who did hinder you, you know, and this teach and all. Certainly not God, nor His plain and precious word. Plutarch says that it has a far wider place than justice. The law necessarily makes the man, and the man's doings, to be the prominent object. They are now controlled by Gods Spirit (24-26). Enmity; the idea is that of the man who is characteristically hostile to his fellow men; it is the precise opposite of the Christian virtue of love for the brethren and for all men. But there was no sense of union then. "Bite" refers to the sudden action brought on by uncontrolled emotions that hurt other members of the church. of Concerning these things, or those in whom these fruits of the Spirit are found, the apostle says, There is no law against them, to condemn and punish them. He does not say, that the Gentiles were under that curse, but that Christ bought off us who were in this position from its curse; for in truth, whatever might be our boast, all we (the Jews) got from the law was a curse, not a blessing; and what Christ did for us was to purchase us from that awful plight in which the law could not but put us because we had transgressed. Unitarians. Law is gone and grace ensures forgiveness anyway." Love is the sum of the whole law; as love to God comprises the duties of the first table, so love to our neighbour those of the second. The law was given them with all pomp and solemnity. Don't despise the chastening of the Lord. It is never used in the New Testament at all. It does not so much want the things for itself; it merely wants to take them from the other. This agape love is gentle; it is good. And devour one another - As wild beasts do. Liberty from the law and from the bondage of the law, because that cannot make you righteous. Now, there are two ways that I can be righteous. Just as he had shown that God in His love to man had given the promise direct, so the apostle Paul acts in his care for the saints of God where all the foundations were endangered. There you have in a figure the two parties that are still found on the earth: the law party symbolized by Ishmael, the child of flesh; and those that cling to the grace of God, who have their pattern in Isaac, the child of promise. If I am walking in the Spirit, if I am walking in love, then there can be no law to regulate my life. Even in Christianity how much need there is to remember what the Lord warns us of inLuke 5:1-39; Luke 5:1-39 that no man accustomed to old wine straightway desires new, but says, The old is better. (a) It means being submissive to the will of God ( Matthew 5:5; Matthew 11:29; Matthew 21:5). Such is the reasoning in which the apostle uses this very remarkable prophecy. The apostle goes up to Jerusalem, not only with Barnabas, who had come from thence, but taking with him Titus, who seems not to have been there before Titus, his own valued companion in labour, but a Gentile. Merge them, as unbelief does, and all is confusion and ruin. They had somehow become uneasy. He has set you free from the power of the flesh. If the promise be the only means of enjoying the inheritance, what is the good of the law? Some are sins against the first and second commandments, as idolatry and witchcraft. Very powerful words for those who would seek justification through the law, through rules, through keeping rules, through keeping ordinances. The world of spirits can never be comfortable to those who plunge themselves in the filth of the flesh; nor will the righteous and holy God ever admit such into his favour and presence, unless they be first washed and sanctified, and justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God,1 Corinthians 6:11. We can understand a foolish man making a covenant, and the next day repenting of it, which is never true of the divine purposes. Galatians 1:1-24. Let others talk as they will of the law, no law can censure the real fruits of the Holy Ghost, or those in whom they are found. No doubt also his line of procedure did not at all consort with their desires, who were sticklers for earthly order, and a line that looks safe and respectable to natural eyes. He says, "If, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore the minister of sin?" Here one may be very brief: "The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors, until the time appointed of the father. Here he takes up, not the mischievous troublers of the Gentiles, whom he does not hesitate to call "false brethren," but the highest in office he found there. The word used here ( dakno), means, properly, to bite, to sting; and here seems to be used in the sense of contending and striving - a metaphor probably taken from dogs and wild beasts. He had been trained up under the most distinguished teacher the great Rabbin Gamaliel; but "when it pleased him, who had separated him from his mother's womb, and called him by his grace, to reveal his Son in him." These things are not allowed in the kingdom of God. Jesus said, "I'm not talking about that. The law is never life to the dead, but kills morally those who seem alive. The contents of the greeting ( Galatians 1:3a ) ii. Selfishness in the end does not exalt a man; it destroys him. 16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. He who bites has exhausted his angry passion, but he who devours has given a demonstration of extreme cruelty. Chrysostom. "Unless," he says, "you solve the problem of living together you will make life impossible." Don't become seekers after empty reputation; don't provoke each other: don't envy each other. Writing was a somewhat laborious task in those days, and it was a kind of profession to be a writer or scribe, before printing, of course, was known. It supposed, and went forth to every creature on the ground of the total ruin of Jew and Gentile. No doubt there was a difference of tone. The cross has sentenced the world; and this very sentence of the world is our deliverance from the world. Christ will never own those as his who yield themselves the servants of sin. The Rheims version of 2 Corinthians 6:6 translates it sweetness. Paul was pleading for the real interests of the Jew just as much as of the Gentile; but he presses this most clenching argument that Peter's conduct involved the making Christ Himself the minister of sin; "for if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.". "Well, yeah, I read that book but, you know, God showed it to me." But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. (I mean by this, of course, exclusive of sin and falsehood.) I cannot soil a life which God paid for with his own life. The word Paul uses for goodness (agathosune, G19) is a peculiarly Bible word and does not occur in secular Greek ( Romans 15:14; Ephesians 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:11). A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Not to the place of being ridiculous. In the latter part of this chapter the apostle comes to exhort these Christians to serious practical godliness, as the best antidote against the snares of the false teachers. It was to demonstrate his sinfulness, not to gain the inheritance. To put a stop to coveting is to "head other sins off at the pass.". Thus, then, God directed and ruled that the apostle should go up and have the evil condemned on the spot, and at the centre from which it had emanated. Forgive us for the times we abuse this freedom, living more by the flesh than by the Spirit. "Here, I'll show it to you in this book." It was not merely that Paul was lowered by the carping Judaizers God's grace was being sacrificed. You have fallen from grace. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these ( Galatians 5:18-19 ). "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another. Next, we are told, wherein this consisted. Theirs was the slave's son Ishmael. Truth must necessarily be exclusive, and all who hold the truth must, in their adhesion to it and Him who is its personal expression, be exclusive too. That you're not going to be otherwise minded.". Note, If we should approve ourselves to be Christ's, such as are united to him and interested in him, we must make it our constant care and business to crucify the flesh with its corrupt affections and lusts. The gospel had led Peter to treat the Jews and Gentiles all alike. You are saved. With the utmost simplicity he shows that his own separation from man was a part of God's ways for the purpose of making more strikingly felt the great truth that he was afterwards to proclaim. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. And it is given to me through my faith in Jesus Christ. And I encourage you to just read your Bible.Now, why is it that Jehovah Witness can't tell you that? You can't do anything to buy forgiveness. Glory, the glory of man is indeed empty; it's vain. These concepts, these heresies that develop within the church are passed on by men. "Cast out the slave girl and her son, for the son of the slave girl must not inherit with the son of the free woman." It is a grim illustration at which a polite society raises its eyebrows, but it would be intensely real to the Galatians who knew all about the priests of Cybele. Consequently it is plain from the beginning, that the apostleship of Paul made a demand upon faith which the other apostolate did not. 18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. The result of this is, that neither God has His place, nor they. The salutation ( Galatians 1:1-5 ) a. On the contrary, they must think of others and act to please them. I. Circumcision is part of the old law that enslaves us. "We had ten thousand souls saved last week. "But neither Titus [he takes occasion to say parenthetically], being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised." There is such a thing as, by patient continuance in well doing, to seek for eternal life. If it should be asked, What course must we take that the better interest may get the better? That's where I come in touch with God. No person can intelligently read the New Testament without perceiving the utter fallacy of such a system; for Peter was expressly, as the next chapter of this epistle tells us, apostle of the circumcision. Again, it is not a liberty to do anything I please. But God took care that the call of Paul should be delayed till the whole order of the Jewish apostleship should be complete. But if ye bite and devour one another That's the old nature, reckon that to be dead. The particulars he specifies are of various sorts; some are sins against the seventh commandment, such as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, by which are meant not only the gross acts of these sins, but all such thoughts, and words, and actions, as have a tendency towards the great transgression. But in the old days the child who was born in the ordinary human way persecuted the child who was born in the spiritual way; and exactly the same thing happens now. He had before been exhorting these Christians by love to serve one another (Galatians 5:13; Galatians 5:13), and had put them in mind of what would be the consequence if, instead of that, they did bite and devour one another,Galatians 5:15; Galatians 5:15. Galatians 5 Galatians 5:7 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. The law brings man in his nothingness into evidence, it proves that he is only a poor lost sinner. In so many things. Undoubtedly such is the assurance of God's word to His children; and thus Galatians 5:1-26 is in contrast withRomans 7:1-25; Romans 7:1-25. Even so we, when we were children," etc. 2 Mark my words! And they say, "Oh, well, I was just waiting upon the Lord and reading the Scriptures, and the Lord showed this to me." Christianity brings everything to a climax; it also settles all questions. He gives freely the Holy Ghost on their acceptance of Christ's name; or, as it is here written, "He sent forth the Spirit of his Son in your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." the Christian dooms himself to such hard labour instead of resting in the faith of Christ, whom has he to blame? church state should be destroyed and come to nothing, since love "If righteousness come by the law," (he does not merely say, "come of the law," but come by it,) "then Christ is dead [died] in vain." For in Jesus Christ it is not of the slightest importance whether a man is circumcised or uncircumcised. It was ordained by angels, who had nothing to do with promise, which God gave direct to His friend. Not at all. So, Paul here exhorts us to walk in the Spirit and to live after the Spirit or on the spirit side of our lives. That's what God accounts, the righteousness of Christ accounted to my account through my faith in Jesus Christ.Now, because I can't keep the first, I have opted for the second. 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