The question we are going to wrestle with today is this: How do we live in spiritual freedom instead of living in religious slavery? We kind of stepped into this theme last week in verses 21 – 31 of chapter four, but this is actually going to be the main question Paul is trying to answer throughout the rest of this letter to the Galatians.

How do we live in spiritual freedom instead of living in religious slavery? What does it practically look like for us to live in freedom rather than being enslaved to the law? Does spiritual freedom mean that we get to make the rules without anyone imposing any kind of standards upon our lives? Or does spiritual freedom mean that we have been set free to live within the boundaries of God’s desires for our lives? What should our lives look like if we have truly been set free by the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Now, the theology of the gospel – namely the message that proclaims that the presence, and the power, and the penalty of sin has been dealt with in the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus, and that everyone who believes this message has been set free from Satan, Sin, and Death – that theology of the gospel is absolutely beautiful and astounding. Paul was a great theologian who has gone to great lengths to explain the beauty and the astounding nature of the theological truths of the gospel in the first four chapters of this letter to the Galatians. It is astounding to think that God would provide a way for filthy sinners like us to be made right by the sacrifice of his own son so that we could be in relationship with him.

But even Paul knows that theology must be practical if it is going to produce transformation in our lives; our thoughts, our desires, and our behaviors must be addressed practically (the “what” or the “essence” of the gospel must inevitably lead to the “how” or the “daily activity” of the gospel) so that we can grow into the image of Christ.2 Theology (the study of God and his self-revealed desires for and his activity on behalf of mankind) was never meant to be a mere intellectual study, it is meant to be a life altering or life changing relationship that centers on our justification in Christ Jesus and then moves outward into a transformed lifestyle of holiness – a life lived with faith in action.

Even the apostle James understood that while we can only be justified or made right with God based upon the work of Christ, there is also an expectation that our faith in Christ must be lived out; our faith is not something to hide under a bushel, it is something that must be lived out in the public sphere as James would say, “Go ahead and talk about your faith all you want – I will show you my faith with my works” (Js. 2:14 – 26). Authentic faith in Christ is a faith in action, and obedient faith, otherwise it is dead faith. But it also a kind of faith that works from the place of freedom not the place of slavery.

The reality is that there are many great preachers who have taken up this theme (the theme of gospel freedom) in their preaching of this specific text and have done a great job with it; some of whom, helped me greatly this last week as I prepared to preach this text. I whole heartedly commend those sermons to you, and they can be found in my notes.3, 4, 5 

But without further ado, we come back to that central question: How do we live in spiritual freedom instead of living in religious slavery? The first way Paul gets after answering this question is by encouraging us to stand firm in the gospel. Look at the text with me…

1For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

#1: STAND FIRM IN THE GOSPEL (V. 1)

When Paul opens in verse one by saying, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” he is quite literally commanding the Galatians to stand firm in the gospel. We know from our previous studies that the Judaizers, also known as the circumcision party, had been following Paul around from the day he launched into public ministry, so that they could interfere with his preaching of the gospel and so they could upset new believers in the churches he planted.

Their entire aim was to hang a heavy weight of chains around the necks of these new believers in the form of the Mosaic Law – specifically the ceremonial laws that pertained to things such as festivals, feasts, sacrifices, and circumcision. The moral law (The 10 Commandments) never lost its significance as it should guide all of humanity towards a more God honoring expression of society, but the ceremonial laws (feasts, festivals, circumcision, etc.) were only ever meant to point Israel towards the coming Christ who would set them free from Satan, Sin, and Death.

This is why Paul points out that it is for freedom that Christ had set them free. Jesus did not die on a cross and leave a tomb empty so that you and I could live in bondage, under the heavy yoke or the set of chains that is commonly called religious activity. Church attendance, baptism, tithing, Bible studies, spiritual disciplines, etc. are not activities that make us right with God; they are activities that we have been set free to engage in joyfully and consistently as we grow in our relationship with God. We cannot come to God with our checklists of religious behaviors and expect to earn his affection

Many commentators reminded me that our understanding of freedom is deeply affected by our western concepts of freedom from tyranny, or freedom of speech, or freedom to choose our elected officials, or freedom of religion. But, the kind of freedom Paul is talking about here, is not that kind of freedom. The freedom we have in Christ does inform our understanding of nationalistic freedom, and the privileges that all mankind should be free to enjoy, but at its root, freedom in Christ is about being set free from the bondage of Satan, Sin, and Death. All other freedoms or privileges in this life are meaningless if we are not free in Christ, if we are still in bondage to Satan, Sin, and Death.

We have been set free from the curse of the law so that we do not need to try to earn God’s approval through our performance of the law. Instead, since we are free in Christ Jesus, we are free to live in joyful obedience to his commands upon our lives. Does God command church attendance? Yes (Heb. 10:23 – 25). Does God command that we tithe and give generously? Yes (2 Cor. 8 – 9). Does God command that we obey the Ten Commandments still? Yes (1 Pet. 1:15 – 17). Does God command obedience to spiritual leaders? Yes (Heb. 13). The list could go on and on!

And yet, we are not called to perform these laws or commands to gain a better standing with God or to gain his affections. We have been set free to live in accordance with God’s purposes and plans and commands for our lives with all the joy that a newly freed slave would have as he began to pay his own self-employment taxes as he stewarded the gift of his own business and property apart from his old slave owner. To live in any other way is to live in submission to and therefore bondage to the law and then by default, to run right back to the slave owners of Satan, Sin, and Death again. To live according to the law is to fall away from Christ and to go back to the plantation. That is the second point Paul makes when he basically says, “Don’t fall away from Christ!”

#2: DON’T FALL AWAY FROM CHRIST (VV. 2 – 4)

In verses 2 – 4, Paul says that “if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you” because “every man who accepts circumcision… is obligated to keep the whole law” therefore “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.” The bottom line here is this, if you think that some kind of religious activity will make your salvation more secure, or make God more affectionate towards you, or prove that you are more loveable or better than you were yesterday, then you must obey the entire law perfectly because you have fallen away from Christ, and you are no longer trusting in his gracious work at the cross and the empty tomb.

Paul’s greatest fear for the Galatians is that they would fall away from Christ and prove that they were never saved in the first place because they were trusting in their own works rather than the work of Christ on their behalf. Christ would be of no “advantage” or no benefit to them if they proved to be a people who trusted in their own works.

The Galatians would effectively prove that they were never united with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection, but instead they would prove that they were severed from him – cut off from him, like the foreskin that was cutoff in circumcision – and therefore living in a state of slavery and eternal separation from God. The question now is “how”. How could the Galatians stand firm in the gospel and not fall away from Christ? How would Paul tell them to do this? The answer is to simply wait in faith-filled love.

#3: WAIT IN FAITH-FILLED LOVE (VV. 5 – 6)

In the final portion of our text today, Paul says, first of all in verse 5, that the way we are to stand firm in the gospel and the way we resist falling away from Christ is “through the Spirit by faith [as] we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” The idea that our right standing with God is a now and later kind of thing is written all over the scriptures; we are in right standing with God through faith in Christ right now, but we will also experience the full realization of our perfection in heaven.

That is what we wait for; we wait for the full realization of that day when we stand in the perfect presence of Christ in our newly attained perfection for all of eternity. We hope for this with certainty and with full assurance, that God promises to bring us through the flood waters of this broken life into the perfection he has promised for us in eternity, and in that hope of our future perfection, is where we can stand in the gospel as we resist falling away from God’s grace. That future hope is what keeps us on the highway of gospel-centered living in the freedom that we have been given in Christ Jesus at the cross and the empty tomb!

Secondly, Paul also says that we can stand firm in the gospel, and we can resist falling away from Christ, as we come to trust in the fact that according to verse 6, that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Simply stated, obey the ceremonial laws or don’t, it doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters, the only thing that will keep you living in freedom, is if your faith is working through love, if your faith is worked out in your public life as an authentic love for God and for people.

We wait with expectant, certain assurance of the hope of our future perfection. But as we wait, we live, fully alive, and fully free to love God in our obedience to him and in our sacrificial love for others as Christ loved us in the cross and the empty tomb. The thing that sets truly freed believers apart from legalists, is their expression of love for God and others.

Legalists do not love God or people; they love their laws and their performances. People who have truly been set free by God in Christ Jesus, have experience a profound kind of love that radically transforms them and sets them free from the yoke of slavery to truly love God and their neighbor in joyful obedience.

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion, Paul has answered the question: “How do we live in spiritual freedom rather than living in religious slavery?” His answer is simple: Stand firm in the gospel and do not submit your life to a life of slavery; Don’t fall away from Christ, don’t make Christ of no benefit to you, don’t accept the law as your new way of life, don’t be cut off from him who called you by his gracious work at the cross and the empty tomb; Wait in Spirit led, hope-filled, faith-filled love for God and others. Stand firm in the gospel. Don’t fall away from Christ. Wait with full assurance of God’s promise to perfect you as you love him in obedience and love those around you sacrificially.

Personally, I think the hardest part is the waiting. I desperately want to be set free once and for all from the shackles of Satan, Sin, and Death. I grow weary of fighting my sinful urges and I often fail. In those failures I am often tempted to lose heart and to lose faith in God as I attempt sometimes to make myself better so that he will be happy with me.

I am thankful for passages like this – for texts like this letter to the Galatians – because in the pages of this letter I am corrected, I am encouraged, and I am strengthened to live in the freedom of the relationship with God that was purchased for me at the cross and the empty tomb of my crucified, risen, and returning Savior.

I don’t know about you. I don’t know where you have been this last week. I don’t know how many times you failed to live up to God’s desires for your life, or how many times you nearly tapped out of following him. But I do hope that you would catch a fresh vision for what it means to live in spiritual freedom rather than religious bondage.

I pray that the Spirit of God would do a work of freedom in your heart and your mind today. I pray that God would remove the effects of Satan, Sin, and Death from your eyes, just long enough for you to catch a vision of the future that has been promised to you in Christ Jesus.

I pray that in that vision of your future perfection, you would find, by the Spirit of the Living God, the strength to wait with full assurance – faith-filled hope – that God will complete the work he began in you, and that in this realization, you would be strengthened to stand firm in the gospel, to not fall away from Christ, and to continue waiting in faith-filled love for God and others around you. – Amen!!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).

2 Philip, Graham, Ryken, Galatians, Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 192.

3 David, Mathis, What is Freedom in Christ? (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/what-is-freedom-in-christ).

4 John, Piper, Eagerly Waiting for Our Hope, (https://www.desiringgod.org/light-and-truth/the-christian-reservoir-of-hope/eagerly-waiting-for-our-hope).

5 John, Piper, For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free, (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/for-freedom-christ-has-set-us-free).