The law kills instead of giving life, and puts under condemnation instead of giving that Spirit which is necessarily a spring of sonship and liberty. He went simply to make the acquaintance of Peter, and abode with him how long? Christ is forgotten. Some would have received the inheritance because of promise, and others on the ground of law. All that the law can do, even when yielded by the might of the Spirit of God, is to force on a soul the consciousness of being dead before God. Certainly not God, nor His plain and precious word. But its most suggestive use is that katharos ( G2513) is used of that ceremonial cleanness which entitles a man to approach his gods. And you can't do this, and this, and this, and this, and this." But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. I get an attitude that is not of the Lord. Now notice, works of the flesh, works plural. Here it is the total judgment of flesh in its religious pretensions, and more particularly a blow to that which is an essential principle of law. I am perfectly delivered, and the measure of my deliverance is Christ, and Christ raised from the dead. Even though it might be a minor departure from the truth, be careful. As if he had said, "You must expect a struggle between flesh and spirit as long as you are in the world, that the flesh will be lusting against the spirit as well as the spirit against the flesh; but if, in the prevailing bent and tenour of your lives, you be led by the Spirit,--if you act under the guidance and government of the Holy Spirit and of that spiritual nature and disposition he has wrought in you,--if you make the word of God your rule and the grace of God your principle,--it will hence appear that you are not under the law, not under the condemning, though you are still under the commanding, power of it; for there is now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God," Romans 8:1-14. One of these covenants--the one which originated on Mount Sinai--bears children who are destined for slavery--and that one is represented by Hagar. If that is the purpose, you're thinking that it's going to make you righteous before God, you think it's going to make you acceptable before God, Paul said, "Christ will profit you nothing," if that's your mental attitude towards your circumcision. What does Galatians 5:15 Mean? Then the apostle at once explains, as annexed to this, the real state of the case. So the minute I start peddling books and saying, "Now, to really understand the Bible, you better read my books, because you'll just, you know, read the Bible, you'll be in darkness. Now, Paul taught righteousness through faith. I have confidence in you in the Lord; I am sure that you will take no other view. The Galatian Christians should have been the most peaceful people in the province. That's the old nature, reckon that to be dead. And it is given to me through my faith in Jesus Christ. Galatians 5:1 (NASB) It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. They're contrary, and I do not always walk after the Spirit. One degree, and you've only gone hundred miles, you don't even notice. For if I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ." He saith not, And to seeds, as to many; but as to one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. This is peculiar to our epistle. For he, though a Jew, had completely done with the law, and all that pertains to it. having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Galatians 5:17 Galatians 5:16. On the other hand, where unity becomes an object, it is never understood; and at the same time the walk of faith cannot be maintained. I cannot soil a life which God paid for with his own life. The apostle states it with perfect calmness, and without comparing others. So far from this being the smallest allowance of Jewish prejudice, it was itself a powerful blow against it. Galatians 5:15 - John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible BUT IF YE BITE AND DEVOUR ONE ANOTHER,.. Had they been occupied with Christ, they would have really loved one another, and in other respects too fulfilled the law, without thinking about themselves or it. "Paul closes this little section on the idea of circumcision and all and he gets a little testy with those. Partisan strife will be fatal to the Christian community as a whole. Therefore, when a man is baptized, he is not, of course, baptized into his own death; there is no sense in such a thought. But there was no sense of union then. The very defence set up, and the meanings which these men put on the forms and ceremonies of which they make Christianity so largely to consist, demonstrate their most barefaced turning back to idolatry. It is not a question of law at all. It was by revelation, not by summons from Jerusalem, or to acquire a title thereby. When we get to the root meaning of these words, we see that life has not changed so very much. it had a resurrection-source, instead of being from Christ on earth, and in relation to the work God was doing when He sent His Son here below. This is exceedingly important, and the more as I believe the scope of the allusion to Abraham and to his seed is not often appreciated. too often might be ready to turn aside. Now, the law always brings fallen man into importance: such it must be in its principle. In other words, if the believer simply were one forgiven by grace, without having either life in Christ or the Holy Ghost dwelling in him, he might, perhaps, plead that he could not avoid sinning. But this could not be. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 13:3.). He says to those who would be under the law, why do you not listen to the law? (2.) (c) Storge (compare G794) rather means affection and is specially used of the love of parents and children. 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. And this comes up every day in many situations, and I have actually the choice in this situation. Not that they have actually broken down and failed; but so incapable is man of standing before God on the principle of doing the law, that it is all over with him the moment he pretends to it. THE INTRODUCTION ( Galatians 1:1-10) 1. After wishing those addressed grace and peace, as usual, he speaks of the Lord in a manner singularly in unison with the object of the epistle: "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us" not from judgment, not from the wrath to come, but "from this present evil world." As in their baptism they were obliged hereunto (for, being baptized into Christ, they were baptized into his death, Romans 6:3), so they are now sincerely employing themselves herein, and, in conformity to their Lord and head, are endeavouring to die unto sin, as he had died for it. (14) An exhortation to the duties of charity, by the profit that follows from it, because no men proved worse for themselves than they that hate one another. done his duty; but it was precisely what he could not do, because he was a sinner. Consequently, without further preamble, and with an ominous silence as to their state (for, indeed, it could not be spoken of), he at once breaks the ground. It describes the deliberate effort--which we can make only with the help of God--never to seek anything but the best even for those who seek the worst for us. An undue regard to the approbation and applause of men is one great ground of the unhappy strifes and contentions that exist among Christians. Peter would have been horrified at such a conclusion. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love ( Galatians 5:6 ). He who is upsetting you--whoever he is--will bear his own judgment. . This the apostle represents as our duty, and directs us to the most effectual means of success in it. And sometimes they'll lie to me. That's my old prideful nature. The first letters of these four words--P-R-D-S--are the consonants of the word Paradise--and when a man had succeeded in penetrating into these four different meanings he reached the joy of paradise! There are many present privileges and future glories that belong to the Christian; and promise is one of them. The apostle turns this into an admirable piece of divine reasoning in defence of the gospel. though he had prayed thrice, as his Lord had done on another and wondrous occasion, so the apostle was to have communion with Christ in this way, and learn that there is something better than the taking away of that which makes nothing of the flesh. And when he went there, was it a question of receiving aught from the twelve? But when men would have anything fraught with distress to His people, when through their folly confusion must ensue, contrary to all that His heart loved, then it was left to others. And so in the fullness of time, God sent His Son to die for man's sin, in order that through Him man might be born again by the Spirit of God. How could it be otherwise with one persecuting at the moment that he was arrested, in hot deadly opposition to God's church up to his most unexpected call from heaven? Man is only the receiver; and truly, as we know, "it is more blessed to give than to receive." The sense is, "if you contend with each other;" and the reference is, probably, to the strifes which would arise between the two parties in the churches - the Jewish and the Gentile converts. Outline of Galatians 5:1-15. Thus, whether it be the Gentile without law, or the Jew with it, all are shut up under sin. 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. the Christian dooms himself to such hard labour instead of resting in the faith of Christ, whom has he to blame? ( 2 Corinthians 6:14 ) How can I really fellowship with God if I'm unrighteous? But now I have liberty in Christ Jesus, for I don't have to follow after the flesh anymore. one another is unnatural. In Galatians 4:1-31 the relation is taken up, not of the law to the promise, but of the Christian now to the condition of the saints of old a very important point also. How impossible, therefore, to add the law to the promise! But they drank it in the proportion of three parts of water to two of wine. The apostle urges that all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator." "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." Exhortation to Stedfastness; Persuasives to Stedfastness. And Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength; and thy neighbor as thyself. You weren't persuaded to be circumcised because God was speaking to your heart and convicting you of this. 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. Such was the serious but necessary import of Peter's act. You ever seen a person in love and all of the joy that they have? Christian freedom is not licence, for the simple but tremendous reason that the Christian is not a man who has become free to sin, but a man, who, by the grace of God, has become free not to sin. And this is of immense moment to remember. 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. Selfishness in the end does not exalt a man; it destroys him. Those that walk according to this rule would be saints in general. It is . "Christian freedom is not licence [sic] for the simple but tremendous reason that the Christian is not the man who has become free to sin, but the man, who, by the grace of God, has become free not to sin." I could quickly get in trouble. That's the position where we stand. My responsibility is defined by the place in which I am found. He warns against "another gospel," i.e., a different one, which was really none at all. If the law, introduced afterwards, were allowed to exercise control, the effect would be to set aside the promise. My very nature is dealt with. He strikes accordingly at the root of all successional or derived authority. To this the apostle endeavours to persuade these Christians, and there are two considerations which he sets before them for this purpose:-- (1.) He mentions another fact, and of the greatest gravity, closing this part of his argument that when Peter subsequently came down into the Gentile quarters, he had been himself affected by the subtle spirit of Judaism, i.e., the chief of the twelve! "Here we have the Gentiles expressly named, and to this the apostle refers. He is brought into another condition. "Bite" refers to the sudden action brought on by uncontrolled emotions that hurt other members of the church. self-seeking, dissension, heretical division, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and all that is like these things, I warn you, as I have warned you before, that those who do things like that will not inherit the Kingdom of God. What comforts the soul, what strengthens and keeps it up, is that He "loved me, and gave Himself for me.". Not so; it is exclusively of grace by Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And there were reasons why Peter was grievously in fault, particularly as he did no longer adhere to the law, but lived as one conscious of the freedom from it which the gospel gives those who believe in a risen Christ. I began to think it through and I thought, "Yes, it is a work of the flesh, because usually a person gets into heresy to attract attention to himself." There was no insult to him, nor injury done, in saying that he did not acknowledge the law for a Christian. He had derived the gospel that he preached from the Lord, and not from any of his fellow-servants who had been engaged in the work before him. "Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.". When He gave the promise to Abraham, He said, "I will give." What a condemnation of themselves, that no system which ever seeks for an earthly succession can in the least make Paul answer its purpose! To the Galatians there was an exception. Apparently the believers who advocated grace and the believers who advocated law bitterly opposed one another in the Galatian churches. In the epistle to the Galatians we have another tone and style, a serious and grieved spirit, with feelings not less deep it may be, even more profoundly moved than in writing to the Corinthians; and for this reason, that the foundations were still more deeply affected by that which was working among the assemblies of Galatia. As it is reasoned out in Romans 7:1-25, the law came, and he died. Aristotle defined praotes ( G4236) as the mean between excessive anger and excessive angerlessness, the quality of the man who is always angry at the right time and never at the wrong time. When in the garden, or when on the cross, Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?" And this is the thing that you try to describe to people, and they don't understand. He leaves it to spiritual wisdom to gather what was the evident impression of the truth. Accordingly, the language would have been premature and entirely beyond the conscious experience of the saints, or the real truth of the matter in the sight of God. It was not merely that Paul was lowered by the carping Judaizers God's grace was being sacrificed. Heathenism! Paul says, "If you go on in this way, of which circumcision is the beginning, you might as well end up by castrating yourselves like these heathen priests." The legal mischief had emanated from Jerusalem: the remedy of grace must be applied by the apostles, elders, and brethren there. You can't do anything to buy redemption. If understood, it completely cut all the earthly swaddling-clothes of the heavenly church, and of the Christian. He said, "What do you mean? Whoever despises the facts of Christianity, as if nothing in Scripture were worthy of meditation, or of ministering to others but exercises and speculative deductions, will be found, if he do not find himself often, on the verge of dangerous delusions, both for the mind and for the walk. I mean, if you're walking in love, what rules can you lay down? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you ( Galatians 5:7-8 ). Our Christianity obliges us not only to die unto sin, but to live unto righteousness; not only to oppose the works of the flesh, but to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit too. There are times when I lapse into the flesh. It is the law of Christ. Ours is Jerusalem above, not a city on earth. They're wanting to strive, they're wanting to argue; they're wanting to prove their points how that baptism is essential for salvation. You were running well. But the liberty is not a liberty to indulge my flesh in anything that I may desire to do after the flesh. (a) It means being submissive to the will of God ( Matthew 5:5; Matthew 11:29; Matthew 21:5). In other words, you did not get this from God. Both sides of the dispute are guilty. The Greek word is pharmakeia, translated here witchcraft, because in the sorceries, they're into witchcraft. 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. "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. And I can set up these rules, and I can get out my little gold stars. Paul ends with a very blunt saying. For He knows our tendency to mingle law with grace in some form or measure, and treats that which was of the fathers and long before Moses, as a foreign ingredient deleterious to Christians. He revealed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Others are sins against our neighbour, and contrary to the royal law of brotherly love, such as hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, which too often occasion seditions, heresies, envyings, and sometimes break out into murders, not only of the names and reputation, but even of the very lives, of our fellow-creatures. The truth of God to our hearts.So, you has he made alive who were dead because of your trespasses and sins. I am not at all worried about anything you will come to believe by just simply reading your Bible. Thus he accepts the challenge that was given by unbelief. The essence of it is that it does not describe the spirit which desires, nobly or ignobly, to have what someone else has: it describes the spirit which grudges the fact that the other person has these things at all. What throws most light on its meaning is that the adjective praus ( G4239) is used of an animal that has been tamed and brought under control; and so the word speaks of that self-control which Christ alone can give. divided against itself, can stand long, so no religious one; and What he preached was the truth as to this matter. Democracy means government of the people, by the people, for the people. Bite, devour, and consume are used metaphorically by Paul, giving the Galatians a good insight into the wrongfulness of their attitudes and actions toward each other. By the Spirit of God, we're waiting for that hope of righteousness through faith. Look at Abraham and his house; look at the maid Hagar; look at Isaac and Ishmael. Dictionary entry details GALATIANS (noun) Sense 1 Meaning: A New Testament book containing the epistle from Saint Paul to the Galatians Classified under: Jewish elements were borne with in a Jew. (i) One he does not mention here but it is implicit in all his thinking. Thus, it is seen, the truth was established. Fornication; it has been said, and said truly, that the one completely new virtue Christianity brought into the world was chastity. So there's only one real fruit of the Spirit, that is love. This is best seen by turning to Genesis 22:1-24, where both facts are found in the same context. 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. GALATIANS 5:2-12. Thus, clearly, in the law man becomes the prominent and responsible party, not God. When a Gentile Christian, mark, takes up such Old Testament elements, according to the Holy Ghost, it is not to him merely Judaism, but a return to his Gentile idols, little as he may think so. If your navigational instruments are one degree off, and you take your heading and you start for Hawaii, by the time you've gone that distance, you'll miss Hawaii by two hundred and forty miles.Oh, by the time you get to Santa Barbara, you won't even notice anything. It is evident that the thorn in the flesh was something which left him open to a slight, and made it difficult indeed for any one to understand how a man who was called to be an apostle should find it hard to convey plainly his mind in preaching. You couldn't believe the things the Jehovah Witnesses believe, unless you read their screwy attitudes and ideas in their books. And he gives to us here a listing, incomplete to be sure, because he ends it by saying, "And do such things." It went on to mean canvassing for political or public office, and it describes the man who wants office, not from any motives of service. And so with the Mormons. "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" This is what the law commands, but those who want to put themselves under the law cannot do it. Thus it wrought among the Galatians. By the Spirit of God, we're waiting for that hope of righteousness through faith. May the truth of God sink into our hearts! All this is counted a great, wise, and sensible help to devotion. Or are you inclined toward the easy-going yieldingness of Peter? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. If it should be asked, What course must we take that the better interest may get the better? For the world there is nothing yet executed, any more than the great results of grace for the saints as yet appear in their fulness. For what has a risen man to do with Israel more than the nations? 5:16-21 I tell you, let your walk and conversation be dominated by the Spirit, and don't let the desires of the lower side of your nature have their way. Secular Greek uses it of the virtue of an Emperor who never lets his private interests influence the government of his people. It comes by reading the book of Mormon. 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. But I have confidence in you that you're not going to be persuaded by this. The Lord did stamp the testimony of Peter as being truly the revelation of His Father. But when I do fail, the Spirit is right there, and that's why I know I'm a child of God. It was through no such channel that he had his apostleship. He feels what he ought to do, but he does it not, and thus is increasingly wretched. It is therefore a feeling of the mind as much as of the heart; it concerns the will as much as the emotions. Euripides called it "the greatest of all diseases among men." Here they might flatter themselves were plain tangible facts; here the amplest testimony on the Lord's part that the twelve are really His chosen apostles. Galatians 1:1-24. That is to say, Ishmael was born of the ordinary human impulses of the flesh; Isaac was born because of God's promise; and Sarah was a free woman, while Hagar was a slave girl. Therefore law, sin, and death may not hurt you or drive you to despair.