Sermon Notes

5 1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that, if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. 4 You who want to be reckoned as righteous[a] by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working[b] through love.
7 You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth? 8 Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. 10 I am confident about you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise. But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty. 11 But my brothers and sisters, why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!
13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,[c] but through love become enslaved to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue)

5 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. 2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.
4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
7-10 You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.
11-12 As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!
13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
16-17 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are contrary to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. (The Message, MSG)

In Galatians, Paul addresses theological conflict that challenge the spiritual cohesiveness of the church that he founded in the Roman province of Galatia—an area of northeast Asia Minor. Although Paul painstakingly established this Christian community, he says it was infiltrated by “Judaizers,” who sowed division, discord, and false theology within the Galatian church. They taught that Gentiles must submit to the tenants of the Mosaic covenant—including physical body markers (circumcision)—as a prerequisite for salvation. Circumcision was primarily a maker of Jewish identity.
Despite the Judaizers sowing seeds of discontent within the Galatian church, Paul says he was nevertheless able was able to preach the “truth” of the Gospel: Gentiles did not need to submit to circumcision in order to be saved just because Jesus was himself a Jew. The only requirement that Gentiles needed to fulfill in order to become a Christian and be justified—made right with God so they could be warmly welcomed into God’s family—was to confess that Jesus was Lord. As a consequence of the Jerusalem church leaders acknowledging Paul’s assignment to the “gospel of the foreskin,” as Peter was assigned to the “gospel of the circumcision,” (Galatians 2:8-10), they also accepted the cultural and ethnic diversity that naturally occurred within the early Church.
The Jerusalem Conference (Galatians 2:1-10, Acts 15), outlines that Paul and the Jerusalem leaders are preaching a gospel that was not uniform but was unified. Both preach the “truth” of the gospel—that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected by God—however, their proclamation it is not identical. Instead, there is mutual acceptance and fellowship (koinonia in Greek), between the many diverse communities of early Christianity. Both Paul and the Jerusalem elders had the freedom to interpret the gospel for their respective communities within the confines of the good news (euangelion in Greek) of Jesus Christ. That freedom in Christ inherently forms the basis of their proclamation, fellowship, and mutual love for each other. In Paul’s mind, to ignore this freedom in Christ is a rejection of God’s grace and represents enslavement to the Law.

Like all epistolary literature, The Letter of Paul to the Galatians is occasional pastoral theology. As the founding Pastor, and undisputed author of Galatians (also Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon), Paul writes to clarify the membership boundaries—or lack thereof—of Christian communities within the Roman province of Galatia. The Galatians were relatively new faith community who were established in the late 40s or early 50s CE after Paul’s visit to Galatia in 48-49 CE. Historically, Galatia was a multinational area with ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity with people who hailed from Jewish, non-Jewish, and possibly Celtic, ancestries. While scholarship does not precisely indicate the location of the Galatians—some scholars say it included the cities of Lystra, Derbe, and Iconium—Galatia was within what is now modern-day Turkey.
In this week’s lesson (Galatians 5:1-17), Paul proclaims that the gospel is not encumbered by requirements of the law. Employing slavery as a metaphor for Christian identity, Paul argues that Gentiles who choose to become circumcised essentially enslave themselves to Jewish law. Because chattel slavery is the historic, economic and political context(s) of the Roman Empire—with the majority of people within the empire existing as enslaved persons—the Galatian hearers/readers of Paul’s letter would have understood how being a doulos (slave in Greek) permeated the lives of everyone within Greco Roman culture.
Therefore, the ideas of enslavement and freedom are ingrained within the psyche of the Galatians. The freedom that Jesus inaugurates—the freedom inherent in the Kin-dom of God—is therefore central to their understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus of Nazareth ushers in freedom that is not mediated by Empire. Further, the binary categories that are often operative in imperial contexts (Jew/Gentile; slave/free; male/female) are redefined—not erased—within the liberated, diverse, unified Christian community that enfleshes what it means to be God’s family through living by love under the Spirit.

1Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. 2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. 4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
In the opening verses of the lesson text, Paul boldly declares that Christ set humanity free for the sake of freedom—free to be who God called us to be; free to live the way that the Divine intended humanity to live. God calls us not to be at odds with each other, but to live in liberated harmony together. That harmony looks like justice, love, and freedom from enslavement of any kind. Bondage is the opposite of freedom, and since adherence to the dictates of the law produces bondage, adhering to the law is inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus boldly said in Luke 4: 18 that the Spirit of the Lord has sent him to, “set free those who are oppressed.” Therefore anything that oppresses is antithetical to the Spirit of the Lord and the work of Jesus Christ.
“Take your stand” indicates the diligence and commitment required to maintain the freedom that Jesus inaugurated. Unless we diligently guard our liberty, we can easily will be drawn back into bondage. “Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you,” implies that we are personally accountable to backsliding into slavery. We fall back into those enslaved habits and mindsets because we choose to do so, whether consciously or unconsciously. Paul tells the Galatians that to turn from grace ensures a turn towards submitting ourselves to re-enslavement.
Then, Paul directly confront the issue of circumcision. He says when Gentiles choose to become circumcised, they are essentially rejecting God’s invitation to become part of God’s family through God’s grace and Jesus Christ, for an attempt at becoming God’s family through an outdated covenant that was accessed by works alone. According to Paul, those Judaizers are exchanging God’s grace in Christ for human works. He asserts trading grace for the albatross of the law—or any rules-keeping system—squanders the work and sacrifice of Jesus. Why, queries Paul, would any Gentile Christian even consider submitting to circumcision? Those rules are irrelevant to their lives and will endanger the grace that God has freely offered.
According to Paul, no one has to change their present state, because the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus has covered any state they might find themselves. The Galatians can remain Gentiles and still become Christians. They can keep their cultural traditions and become Christians because faith operates within realm of the Spirit. The Spirit doesn’t require you to change ethnicity or heritage in order to become part of God’s family. We are justified and made righteous by God’s grace, not by human works.
Further, those who “eagerly await God’s righteousness” exhibit an eschatological faith that operates within the context of Christian love, not Christian work. Because Paul envisions a day when God’s kin-dom is a fully actualized reality, he sees faith as expressed in Christian love as the “work” we do until God’s reign is fully manifested. At that time, categories of circumcised and uncircumcised will not exist. The work we do until then is to erase the categories of division that divide instead of unify by expressing Christian love.
7-10 You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment. 11-12 As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!
If in verses 5-6 Paul envisions an eschatological Christian community that expresses faith in love, in verse 7-12 he redirects his gaze towards the Galatians whose vision has been injured by the Judaizers. Employing an athletic metaphor—running superbly—Paul asserts the Judaizers have tripped up the Galatians as they run their Christian race. The community had been running well, but have fallen off their game. The interloping Judaizers have thrown them off balance and messed up their flow.
Next, Paul uses a pun—“cutting in”—to describe how the Judaizers are literally demanding that they “cut” their flesh in the ritual of circumcision. Paul says, Jesus did not require this ritual for Gentiles. So why would the Galatians allow these people to extract flesh where it is not required by Christ? Then Paul drives his point home with a metaphor drawn from the sphere of baking: “It only takes a little yeast to mess up the whole loaf of bread.”
While Paul is confident that the Galatians will eventually see the “truth” of the gospel, he scolds the ones who teach this aberrant theology. They will have to answer for leading people astray. Further, the “truth” is not just what the Galatians believe, but what they do. Truth demands actions that flow from their faith in Jesus. And those actions center in love. Utterly frustrated with the real-world consequences of false teaching, Paul declares if those who lead the Galatians astray are so concerned about cutting flesh, they should go castrate themselves. Because Mosaic Law forbade a castrated man from entering the assembly of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:1), a Jewish male would never castrate themselves. Further, the priests of Cybele castrated themselves in ritualistic worship. Thus, to go to this extent was to imitate pagan non-Christians. From their knowledge of both the Hebrew Scriptures and contemporary Greco-Roman culture, the Galatians would recognize castration as too extreme. Therefore Paul employs this illustration to shock the community back to their senses.
13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then? 16-17 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are contrary to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.
In the final verses of the lesson text, Paul says God has called the Galatians to freedom. This freedom is not personal license to do whatever they want to do. Instead, it’s freedom to serve in love. The Galatians are called to love others as they love themselves as indicated in Deuteronomy. Through an ethic of love, Christians become “doulos” to one another. However, Paul makes it clear that the only way a person can commit themselves to loving service—as opposed to feeding “the flesh” (sarx in Greek)—is to submit to the Holy Spirit. Christians must choose to discipline the sarx by submitting to God’s Spirit, which is incompatible with sin.
The visible sign of authentic fellowship with God is not following religious rules such as circumcision, but is demonstrating love. Walking in love is the ultimate goal of freedom in Christ Jesus. That is what Jesus demonstrated. His love for humanity necessitated that he go the way of the Cross. So all persons would have the opportunity to gain access to the kingdom/kin-dom of God.