consumed, &c.Strength of soul, health of body, character, and resources, are all consumed by broils [Bengel]. This was at work even in those early days. 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. But not from God. "And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. The promise has another and most blessed place. If they took that gr. Now, evidently these Paul people were saying, "Well, Paul was circumcised and he's preaching circumcision. The law of Moses tells a man to do his duty in his own place. "We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Impurity; the word that Paul uses (akatharsia, G167 is interesting. "Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.". I wish we could always remember, when the devil tempts us to disputes, that the disagreement of members within the church can lead to nothing else than the ruin and consumption of the whole body. Is He a ventriloquist? I'm, you know, not stupid. And what is this? And it is in the realm of the spirit where man meets God. For he had shown that our purchase by Christ delivers even the Jew from subjection to the law; whilst Gentiles are set at once on the ground of grace without the intervention of any legal apprenticeship whatever, "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." There is no approach to a vaunt about his dignity. "Paul closes this little section on the idea of circumcision and all and he gets a little testy with those. Bondage is there; and He is a deliverer, but it is to God's glory, and for His own service in the liberty of grace. And I can just go and pass it by.And so, another issue arises in five minutes. Thus, it is seen, the truth was established. 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. (iv) Sod, the allegorical meaning. It is for this freedom that Christ has set us free. I cannot soil a life which God paid for with his own life. Galatians 5:16. God is a superior Trinity; man is an inferior trinity. It is not only that we are put now where we can be the witness to grace in all its outgoings, but, besides that, we are where flesh might show itself. The cross paid it all. 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. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, which answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. To excite Christians hereunto, and to assist them herein, the apostle shows. Nor is there a greater evidence of God's tender and considerate care for us than such a fact as this. Paul adds a grim bit of advice. It was really part of God's wondrous ways with him, as indicating the true character of Christianity and of its ministry as contrasted with Judaism. So were the others that seemed to be the chief. They knew very well that he had nothing to do with the law or its ordinances. It was exactly what Christ was on earth; and the expression of Christ is the prime call of the Christian. So, they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh. He tells them that as many as take the ground of law works are under the curse already. It was through no such channel that he had his apostleship. What can be conceived more serious or trenchant than such a statement as this? 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. Anything else would have been imperfect; but still it had essentially a transitional character. 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! Do your souls go along with Paul's decision? remove, the candlestick out of its place. The Lord did stamp the testimony of Peter as being truly the revelation of His Father. It will stand. "Because ye are sons." it. They are acting like animals, satisfying their own desires of the flesh, in order to get back at those who differ with them. 15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. But as for the apostle Paul, he says he was called, and this by his master from heaven; but by his own showing nobody heard the call of Christ but himself. Eternal life is spoken of in this double way in scripture (Romans 6:22-23); and I also press this as a truth of no small importance and but too much forgotten. Drunkenness; in the ancient world this was not a common vice. Will I be mastered by the Spirit or will I be mastered by the flesh? Well, "sensible" help in the meaning of an appeal to nature it is; but it is a sensible help to idolatry, not to living faith. THE INTRODUCTION ( Galatians 1:1-10) 1. Gentiles might boast in their freedom. Nor this only. "Now, a lot of times when people come to me with some weird concept, I'll say, "Where in the world did you get that idea?" I can say, "Well, this, these are the rules of righteous living. Paul begins chapter 5 by stating flatly that Christ has set us free in order that we should be free. This is heavy. The apostle takes notice of the latter here, because he is speaking of their behaviour towards one another; and, when he makes use of this as an argument to persuade them to mutual love, he intimates both that this would be a good evidence of their sincerity in religion and also the most likely means of rooting out those dissensions and divisions that were among them. One of them fell from his place, but the vacancy was filled up directly. 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. The law is of a wholly different nature, and hence was ordained of angels in the hand of a mediator. When God speaks of the seed numerous as the sand or the stars, He gives them a Jewish character of blessing. Everybody knows this. This is all that people's zeal and labour come to. Promise was before the law, and flowed out of the grace of God. If ye bite and devour one another These Churches seem to have been in a state of great distraction; there were continual altercations among them. or dogs to worry sheep is not strange; but for sheep to distress So "cursed is the man that continues not in the whole law to do that which is written therein" ( Galatians 3:10 ). Accordingly he draws from this a most weighty argument against bringing in the law as the rule of life for the believer. Suppose a man desires to become a naturalized subject of a country and carefully carries out all the rules and regulations of that country as they affect naturalization. Arabia was regarded as the land of slaves where the descendants of Hagar dwelt. The deeds of the lower side of human nature are obvious fornication, impurity, wantonness, idolatry, witchcraft, enmity, strife, jealousy, uncontrolled temper. "Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.". That you're not going to be otherwise minded.". Some are sins against the first and second commandments, as idolatry and witchcraft. for want of love the Lord threatens to remove, and sometimes does And of course, that's exactly what the temptation led Adam to is fleshly domination. Try and stay right on course. This never can bring man to God any more than glory to God. For in Jesus Christ it is not of the slightest importance whether a man is circumcised or uncircumcised. Galatians 5 Galatians 5:7 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. For these two women stand for two covenants. I was wrong. person's state and condition God-ward may be safe; or lest their The application of this is as plain as it is conclusive, for those who appealed to Abraham and bowed to the word of God. You can't be both. We have those that come around here. 2 Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. That is, if you are circumcised ritually for the purpose of having a righteous standing before God. The old law, while it accomplishes its purposes, makes no provisions for that "weakness of the flesh" (see Romans 8:2). What the Jews would have liked, no doubt, was power (and the Galatians, after all, were in danger of slipping into the same snare; for the law suits the world, as grace does not), and in the world present power and honour. We must set ourselves in good earnest both to mortify the deeds of the body, and to walk in newness of life. to bite, N.T.o. What comforts the soul, what strengthens and keeps it up, is that He "loved me, and gave Himself for me.". 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Being, of course, dying men, whether it be the general privileges of Israel, or the special place of the priest, all was transmitted from father to son. Of none else could it be so said that "it Pleased God to reveal his Son in him." They were only, as they supposed, beginning to cherish a becoming attitude toward the religion of the fathers, and of all who had before Christ honoured God on earth. The Fruit of the Holy Spirit (sometimes, incorrectly, referred to as the Fruits of the Holy Spirit) is a biblical term that sums up nine attributes of a person or community living in accord with the Holy Spirit, according to chapter 5 of the Epistle to the Galatians: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, . Adultery, fornication, uncleanness [sexual impurities], [wantonness] lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft [drug abuse] ( Galatians 5:19-20 ). You got to keep the law. #1 "It is for freedom" By "freedom," this verse means that we can serve others in the name of the Lord and reap the reward of joy that comes from it (Galatians 5:13-15). Do not abuse your freedom (13-15) I. Christ has set us free (1-6) Discussion Questions What has Christ set us free from? The truth of the gospel, therefore, was compromised. Galatians 5 shows that spiritual liberty comes from knowing the truth. But he lists some of the works of the flesh. But when one is miserable, does not every duty, even where it may be as light as a feather, feel as if it were an iron chain on you? Where was the harm of taking up what saints of old submitted to? He was not converted first, and then gradually led into that highest degree, but called at once to be an apostle as well as saint in a way that belonged to no one but himself. 50.]. "Yet undergirding all of Pauls admonitions regarding love and service is the reality of life lived by the Spirit, with references to the Spirit being more frequent in Galatians 5:13 to Galatians 6:10 than references to either love or service." Or I can walk after the Spirit and say, "Oh Lord, it doesn't matter. Both sides of the dispute are guilty. To this the apostle endeavours to persuade these Christians, and there are two considerations which he sets before them for this purpose:-- (1.) Such was the case with the Old Testament believers, and many Jewish believers then alive. Paul urged his readers to live unbound to the Law of Moses (Galatians 5:1-12). In lxx metaphorically, Micah 3:5; Habakkuk 2:7. Now, what does God say about it? And we can all see how exactly the phrase falls in with the words of our Lord given in the Acts of the Apostles; for the wonderful truth burst upon the apostle's ear from the beginning, in the Saviour's call to him from heaven. It was the very reverse of deriving his authority from either. The apostle, as far as I know, wrote no other letter to any one of the churches of the saints. (2.) But they drank it in the proportion of three parts of water to two of wine. It was not a question of man's wit. If he wrote to the Romans;, it was transcribed, or at any rate written, by another. One degree, and you've only gone hundred miles, you don't even notice. If you're looking to that as a righteous standing before God, then you are not experiencing the grace of God in your life. 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." But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" 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