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­­­­LSB  Galatians 5:1-6    Free Indeed

1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, stand firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace! 5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

It must be a God thing that on 4rth of July week, a time we set aside to reflect on our nations independence and freedoms from tyranny, bought at great price, we have come to this powerhouse of a verse about freedom.

We skimmed it a couple of weeks ago as we studied Paul's analogy of spritual tyranny and slavery embodied in Hagar and Ishmael, compared to spiritual freedom in Christ, embodied in Sarah and Isaac.  

Paul sealed his parallel discussion with this axiomatic truth and it is also a bridge, a connection to this next section which is kind of the slam dunk on everything Paul needs to say to these folks.

But we're going to stall right here for a while this morning and talk about what freedom actually is.  And Independence Day is a perfect lead in to try to understand what freedom actually is, biblically.  When Paul used the word, what did the word mean to him and to his hearers.  That's a biblical view.  Not what Fox News or CNN says about freedom.  What does God's word say?

First a backdrop to bring us into our current modern understanding for the sake of a comparison.  Because the very idea of freedom has changed drastically since the British settlers founded the colonies until today.  Just in that 250 years the idea has changed.  Most dramatically.

In 2023 freedom has come to mean Absolute Personal Autonomy.  Me.  Anything that restrains me and what my desires are in my mad pursuit of happiness and fulfillment is a detriment to freedom.  Therefore, freedom is me doing as I please, with no restraints.  At all.

In order to be free by the 2023 ideal;  There is no God.  No God given morality.  No threat of any judgement.  God must go so I can be free from His judgements, His morality.  Our nation has divorced God and sent Him as far away as we can force Him to go.  We have a restraining order against the judeo-christian God.  That's our basis for freedom 2023

Since there is no God, it's entirely up to me to set my own limits and restraints for me alone.  I must not judge anyone else's personal limits or restraints.  We dismissed the entire Bible in the God divorce, but we kept one verse that we liked which we use out of it's original intent and context.  Judge not that ye be not judged.  

Absolute Personal Autonomy.  I don't judge you.  You don't judge me.  The judeo christian God is dead.  And in a very real sense, Absolute Personal Autonomy is just another way of declaring that actually, there is a god, and it's me.  I'm god.  I choose.  I decide if I'm a man or a woman.  Or something undefined in between.  I decide who or what I'll engage with sexually.  Little children beware.  Nothing to restrain any more.  

I decide what is truth.  I decide what is reality.  I lie if it benefits me.  I steal if I can get away with it.  I work if I feel like working.  Or I don't.  I take from you if I'm bigger and more powerful than you.  I force you into a ditch if you're in my way while I'm traveling on my highway.  

Finally, if you do anything or say anything that might abridge or limit my freedoms I've declared for myself as god of me, I will rage against you with violence.  Anything you say or do that limits my absolute freedoms becomes a holy war.  Freedom 2023.  Did I overstate the case?  We shall see.

1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free.

What an interesting statement when compared against the backdrop that I just painted of freedom 2023.  Because it's the same word.  Freedom.  But the meanings are wildly different.  In fact polar opposites.

What would we say is the polar opposite of freedom?  Slavery.  Slavery.  No autonomy at all.  Slavery to a master who dictates what we shall and shall not do.  Right?

OK, well that part stayed the same, because Paul uses the same idea here.
1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, stand firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Same words but different ideas of what is freedom and what is slavery.  Freedom 2023 says that what we Bible believing christians call freedom is actually slavery.  And the biblical view is that Freedom 2023, absolute personal autonomy, is not freedom at all, it is in fact, slavery.

Ideologically, America in 2023 is polar opposite in what it believes freedom is, as opposed to the biblical reality taught by Paul to the Galatians.  So we have a conundrum.  Biblical freedom is slavery to the world.  Something to actually go to war over if necessary, and perhaps even if not really necessary.  The biblical view of freedom is something the world rages against.

What Paul calls a yoke of slavery is what the world will go to absolute war to keep.  Our slavery is their freedom, and our freedom is what they think is utter slavery.  The Bible and the world are absolute polar opposites when it comes to the ideologies of freedom and slavery.

And yet the church keeps lowering the bar trying to appease the world, trying to accomodate the world, when we are actually dealing with polar opposites.  Making peace with this world's so called freedom, what I've called freedom 2023, is an utter impossibility.  There is no common ground.  We are warring camps.

So let's talk about this then.  What, actually, did Paul mean when he told the Galatians;  1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, stand firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Well, it turns out, Jesus had this very discussion with the Pharisee's who were in fact trying to kill Him.  This is most interesting!  John ch. 8:

31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s seed and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. 35 And the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

I would draw your attention first to that last word.  free indeed.  Even in Jesus day, He had to dilineate freedom.  The pharisee's claimed they were free without Jesus or anything He had to offer.  But Jesus argues for something that isn't freedom in their way of defining freedom, and in order to differentiate the two polar opposite freedoms, He actually calls real freedom, free indeed. Free for real.

Jesus says something astonishing here.  everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.  All sin is slavery.  According to Jesus.  

Paul understood and agreed.  1 Cor. 6:12b All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

This idea of sin making you it's slave is everywhere in the new testament.  Sin enslaves us.  Paul tells the Roman christians;  12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.  Rom. 6:12 - 14

Or consider Paul's words to Titus;  
3 For we ourselves also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and affection of God our Savior appeared, 5 He saved us, not by works which we did in righteousness, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior  Titus 3:3 - 6a

We were, like the world that surrounds us, enslaved to lusts and pleasures.  Christ set us free.  The world says lusts and pleasures are true freedom.  The Book says lusts and pleasures are slavery.  Polar opposite definitions of the same word.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have worked out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.  We were slaves to those things in our former life.  Christ sets us free from the sin that the world loves.

The last thing the world wants is to be set free from it's lusts and pleasures.  In fact the world is no longer ashamed of those lusts and pleasures, it's proud of it's slavery.  It embraces it's slavery with pride.  June is LGBTQ+++ pride month.  This sin defines me and I'm proud to be it's slave.  And if you don't affirm my particular slavery, it's you who should be shamed.  Not me.

Christian freedom, biblical freedom, according to Jesus own definition, the definition Peter and Paul both understood and embraced gladly, is freedom from the enslavement of sin, and by extension, death.  Because sin brings death.  

But, there is a component of us, the flesh that remains, even after embracing Christ, our flesh still loves sin and wants to be enslaved by sin.  Not less than Paul, the greatest apostle of them all, cries out;  Romans 7:

21 I find then the principle that in me evil is present⁠—in me who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23 but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?

Biblical freedom, which is the freedom from sin that enslaves the whole world, is in conflict with that part of me that still craves to be enslaved by the lusts of the sins of this world.  There is a war going on inside of me.  The old sinful Jim that loves sin, and the new regenerated Jim who is IN Christ and who loves this book, this Word, who is also Jesus, the risen Son of God.

The freedom Paul is talking about to the galatian christians is the freedom that happens when God calls us out of this world and into His ownership.  Biblical freedom is nothing less than a cataclysmic regeneration where God quickens my dead spirit to life, with Him, and removes me from the authority to reign of Satan, and places me under His authority to reign.  

Sin is no longer my king.  Satan and this world is no longer my sovereign.  Death is no longer my ruler.  Those bonds of slavery are broken!  I am quite literally removed from this world and placed into God's kingdom.  God's authority to reign.  

Sorry to break this to you.  It doesn't sell well in America according to freedom 2023.  The religion of Absolute Personal Autonomy hates what I'm going to say next.  Fasten your seat belt for some news that drives this world crazy.  Ready?  You're a slave either way.  You're a created being who is under the lordship of the Creator, either in rebellion and hatred against Him, or in worshipful loving obedience to Him.  Either way, He is Lord and you are slave.  

But!  OH!  The blessed freedom of being the slave of someone who loved me so much that He sent His own Son to pay the penalty of all of my rebellion and hatred against Him, and then He adopted me into His family, and  has stored up for me treasures and wealth that is uspeakable.

Christian freedom, biblical freedom is actually the removal of all of the sin that was held in my accounts on God's books, all of my rebellion and sin, forgiven, and freedom from the debt, the liability I could never pay, all of it is wiped off the books, and written in Jesus own blood, on my page of accounting is the word; forgiven.  Forgiven!  Redeemed.  Purchased out of sin, by Jesus shed blood.  Death is paid.  Jesus died in my place.

I am free from the debt and liability of enmity and rebellion against the Creator who owned me either way.  Free indeed!  That's the freedom Jesus offered when He told the pharisee's;  Jn. 8:

“If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Let's talk positional freedom and practical freedom then.  Positionally I am free of the liability of sins and rebellions against my Creator which demanded ultimate punishment forever.  It was a debt I was powerless to pay.  A liability that would cast me into outer darkness and torment forever.  

Positionally the debt is paid.  Positionally I am in Christ.  Positionally I am an adopted son, a fellow heir with Christ.  Positionally I have been purchased out of perdition and death and placed into God's own family.  I'm an adopted son.  Positionally, I have wealth beyond my wildest imagination waiting for me in heaven.  Kept for me there.  Unspeakable wealth waiting in heaven for me.  Positionally I am no longer a citizen of this world, my citizenship has been severed here.  I am a citizen of heaven and a stranger in this world.

All of that wealth is associated with my freedom from sin, freedom from death, freedom from this condemned world, freedom from my old task master who owned me, Satan.  Freedom from judgement that hung over me, waiting for the day I departed this world.

A biblical understanding of the word freedom envelops all of those ideas.  Unspeakable torment was what I deserved.  Unspeakable wealth is what I inherited.  How?  Freedom by purchase out of the liability of the condemnation and death of sin, into the kingdom of God.

Biblical freedom is being freed from this world and united with Jesus into the wealth of His kingdom.  Most of that is positional truth.  But not all of it.

When Jesus regenerated my dead spirit and quickened me to life, my new regenerated living spirit is joined with the Holy Spirit of God and I have new life.  Life I never knew before in this world.  God's Spirit lives in my heart.

Therefore, practical freedom as opposed to all of the positional wealth in the next world that waits for me, in the future, practical freedom, right now, in this life, is the freedom from sin.  The old slave master, sin, is powerless over me when I walk daily with my new Master, the Lord Jesus.

Without Jesus, without the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, the unregenerate world has no real power to live godly.  Apart from the Spirit there is no possibility of pleasing God.  There is no practical righteousness available for those who do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit living inside their hearts.  

Christian freedom is freedom from all of the sin this world loves.  Listen carefully to how Paul defines being free indeed;  Romans ch. 6:

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16 Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see how Paul uses slavery and freedom interchangeably there.  Slavery to sin is freedom from righteousness.  Freedom from sin is slavery to righteousness.  Like I said;  You're a slave either way.

The slaves of so-called freedom 2023, absolute personal autonomy, are slaves of their own sin and will be slaves of darkness and torment, free from God in black darkness forever.  And if you tell them that, you're the enemy.

Having now defined biblical freedom, what exactly is Paul telling the galatians here in this verse?  

1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, stand firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

What is the yoke of slavery that they are in imminent danger of subjecting themselves to which would negate the freedom that Christ had freed them into?

The judaizers had come with a message;  Christ didn't set you free.  You cannot be free unless you become jews first.  Then christ can set you free.  But you need to be jews first.  Righteousness according to the laws and customs of Moses.  Circumcision is required to join the club.  Self generated righteousness by doing stuff.

And Paul comes along and says, that isn't freedom, you fools!  That's a yoke of slavery.  And not just a yoke of slavery, but a yoke of slavery that actually cancels the freedom that Christ bought and paid for.

Here is why.  If righteousness is granted unto you, accounted unto you by faith in the finished work of someone else who did everything necessary on your behalf, in your place, then trying to accomplish a self righteousness by doing stuff, cancels out that faith.  You've stopped relying on the finished work of Jesus on the cross, and started relying on your own works of merit.

You can't have it both ways.  Either Jesus did it all and you did nothing, and your faith is in His death and resurrection and righteousness in your place, or it isn't.  Doing stuff to gain merit towards your own salvation cancels out the faith in what Jesus did.

So the judaizers come along and tell you, Paul's gospel is insufficient.  God wants you to do* stuff.  Get circumcized.  Convert to judaism.  Keep all of Moses law given to the jews, including all of the feasts and customs and ceremonies and moons and dietary laws.  All of it.  Then Jesus can save you*.

If you buy into that*, then, the original simple righteousness by faith in the completed work of someone else in your place;  is void.  The two concepts are mutually exclusive.  One is right.  One is wrong.  If you hold to the error, it effectually cancels the truth.  Mutually exclusive.  

Salvation by faith alone through grace alone, in Christ alone, according to the Word of God alone, for the glory of God alone.  OR  

Salvation by grace plus meritorious works which divides faith into faith in Christ plus faith in your meritorious works.  Both are necessary.  Salvation according to the holy Bible plus church tradition.  Salvation by the glory of God but also by the glory of your meritorious effort.  Works.  Salvation by faith that isn't faith through grace that isn't grace accomplished by Christ plus your works, as defined by the holy bible plus the church magisterium.

Somebody's right and somebody's wrong.  Somebody is anathema.  That's where Paul began in chapter 1 vs. 8.  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed!

This is life or death.  To be accursed is to be separated from Christ, in the torments of hell, for all of eternity.  We cannot afford to get this wrong.  And God made it so simple that; . . .  an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

The gospel doesn't require a college degree.  It isn't fine print written in lawyer-ese.  It's so simple a child can understand.  Indeed it's so simple that it's easier for children to accept and believe; because it's so simple.  It's so simple that proud men want to reject it and make it hard.  It's so simple that it slays our pride.  Surely it must be difficult enough for a proud person to feel some accomplishment, some achievement.  The true gospel is a pride slayer.

Paul now comes to his ultimate conclusion after all of his arguments for faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God, alone.  These are shocking words.  Fearful words.  Paul means absolute business here.

2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.

We can expand on this.  Circumcision is representative of any sacramental act that you perform in order to effect a salvation by works.  Circumcision was only the origination fee to join the jewish club.  It was your first sacramental step towards a sacramental and sacerdotal righteousness by effectual works.

I would go out on an unpopular limb here and say if you have been baptized in order to begin or effect your salvation;  Christ will be of no benefit to you.  If you go to the mass and receive the elements in order to further your effectual salvation;  Christ will be of no benefit to you.

It's the same thing Paul is saying to the galatians.  When you get into the salvation business by doing works of righteousness Christ gets out of the salvation business as regards you.

If you go to the priest and confess your sins and do a bunch of hail mary's and whatever else is required of you by some priest; working off your sins by works of your own flesh in order to obtain salvation;  Christ will be of no benefit to you.

3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.

Circumcision was the passkey into judaism.  Congratulations.  Now all you need to do is keep the entire law, perfectly, without sin, ever, one time, and you'll be saved.  

Baptism is the passkey into Romanism.  Congratulations.  Now all you need to do is keep the entire law, perfectly, without sin, ever, one time, and you'll be saved.

Oops.  The Bible says no man can accomplish that.  Faith in your own works cancels out and voids faith in the Lord Jesus.  And you are a bankrupt sinner.  Not a good idea.  Either Jesus does it ALL and receives ALL of the glory for satisfying the debt of a bankrupt sinner, or He doesn't.  

If the latter is what you choose, you're going to help Christ save you by contributing merit, sacraments, jumping through religious hoops, extrabiblical religious hoops I might add, then the next verse applies to you.

4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace!

As I studied this text what immediately came to my mind was the principal of idolatry and God's jealousness.  A principal that never changes from eternity past to eternity future.  God will not share His glory with another.  That's why pride is so deadly.  

The principal of God's jealousy over His glory extends to the very mechanics of salvation.  If I DO anything to add to what God has accomplished in my redemption, if I add works of any kind, merit of my own accomplishment, I have become my own idol.  

I have displaced some of the glory of what God alone has accomplished for me, and taken ownership of that accomplishment of salvation, myself.  I helped.  I did some of it.  I worked for my own redemption.  Me.  

My glory in my own redemption, by my own meritorious works, casts a shadow on God's glory.  Move over YahWeh and admit, I did part of this.  I helped.  I added my accomplishments.  Stop being so jealous of your glory and give me a little credit for what I accomplished by my righteous works.

Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,  Ex. 20:1 - 5

4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace!

Adding any meritorious works on the front side of effecting your own salvation, robs God of His glory and gives the glory of redemption to you, and that is idolatry, and God will NOT have it.  All of the glory of redemption belongs to His Son, alone.  

You doing any kind of works of merit to accomplish your salvation, your redemption, is tantamount to idolatry.  It makes a jealous God furious.  It severs you from Christ.  It removes you from grace.

There is always confusion in these discussions about salvation.  Because works of righteousness that cast glory onto Christ is what we are saved in order to do.  Good works are the effectual proof of what God has accomplished in you by redeeming you.

So we could say, good works did nothing to effect my salvation, but after Christ redeemed me and filled me with His Spirit, good works are the evidence of what He has accomplished.

5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.

Here's the positional versus practical reality illustrated for us perfectly.  We have been given the down payment of the Spirit of God.  Christ in you, the hope of glory.  5 For we through the Spirit, by faith,

Practically speaking, we are imperfect in this life.  We still possess the old nature along with the new, the quickened spirit alive with the Holy Spirit of promise.  We are quite capable of sin.  We live by faith.  

But there's more in that verse.  We have the Holy Spirit.  We have faith.  We believe by faith that our salvation is complete.  Perfect in Christ, in His perfect redemption, His death in our place, but it's incomplete, practically.

That's why the Holy Spirit is only the downpayment.  The engagement ring, so to speak of the wedding yet future.  We are begun, by faith, through the Spirit, that's the practical truth as of right now, but there's more in that verse;

For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.

We are waiting for the completion of a righteousness that is purchased for us and waiting for us.  Positionally righteous now.  But not practically.  Not yet.  We wait for the full inheritance of our positional righteousness.  We are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.

Hope is waiting for something yet future.  When we see His face, for the first time, when we meet Him in the air, then our salvation will be complete.

The galatians were trying to churn out some kind of righteousness in their own flesh.  They had been bewitched into thinking they could achieve practical righteousness churned out by their own fleshy accomplishment of Moses law.

Paul says no.  All that did was displace Christ and shift undeserved glory, idolatrous glory, back onto you.  Actual righteousness acceptable to God has already been purchased for us.  By Christ.  

For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.

We're waiting for actual acceptable to God righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus, risen from the dead, given freely to us, waiting for us on the day we see Him who purchased us.  

Churning out a self righteousness according to Moses laws is filthy rags to God.  Filth.  Soiled rags.  Plus it has the added effect of making Him jealous because it displaces what Christ accomplished.

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

Doing stuff to effect salvation, whether it's circumcision, or baptism, or sacraments, or whatever else man dreams up, means zero to God.  Except that it has the opposite effect of becoming an idol and making Him furious and jealous.  Anything you do, all of your merit towards salvation by works, is idolatry.

We rest in grace and hope of our future completed salvation.  We do that by faith in the finished work of Jesus, in our place, for us.  He did it all.  All glory goes to Him.  What's left for us then?

but faith working through love

Because we are regenerated.  Because we possess Christ, living in our hearts.  Because He causes miracles to happen in the spiritual realm, in us and through us, we work good works for His glory, and they are bathed in His love, poured through us, onto others.

Our good works have zero to do with accomplishing salvation.  But because He has accomplished salvation in us and given us the power through His Holy Spirit, we pour His love out on others.

When christians work to advance God's agenda's in this world, the source is God's Spirit in us, and the result is because of salvation, it doesn't cause the salvation already accomplished before the good works were ever possible.  Christ in us after regeneration, accomplishes good works, for His glory alone.  faith working through love