Galatians 5

Study Guide 141: Galatians 5:13-6:18 THE GOOD NEWS OF FREEDOM Overview In Galatians Paul was deeply concerned with contrasting his Gospel with a counterfeit taught by Judaizers — men who insisted that to be a Christian one must keep the Mosaic Law. Paul first characterized his Gospel. It is a Gospel of life; life that is ours through faith in Christ. The Law could never produce life, nor enrich it. Law was a temporary expedient, a household slave charged with directing the immature till Christ appeared. Now that Jesus has come and reaffirmed the ancient place of faith, Law is no longer relevant. Now there is an exciting freedom: freedom found in a new, direct relationship with God; freedom to live a truly good life. Now, in the final section of the Book of Galatians Paul explained how the dynamic of faith operates in the believer to produce a righteousness that Law was never able to generate. As we read it, we need to be aware of several key terms, and how each of these terms is used in Paul’ s argument. The key words are: freedom the Spirit fruit sinful nature new creation There are also key phrases. Among them are “ live by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), “ led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18), and “ keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). As we study this passage we will realize in a fresh way the wonder of the Good News of Jesus, and its promise for each life.

Commentary For the first time in his life, Jim found himself wildly cursing. The vicious words poured out, fed by a rage that both frightened and exhilarated him. His face twisted with anger, Jim shouted out words that he had been too ashamed even to think. “ Good! Good!” encouraged the young professor when Jim’ s rage finally collapsed in sudden exhaustion. “ Jim, you’ re really learning to express your feelings. The real you is finally surfacing.” The scene is imaginary, but it has been repeated many times. The young professor represents one particular school of psychological therapy. “ We’ re only allowed to talk about the here and now. And we’ re going to learn to express what we really feel. So whatever you feel — about yourself, about anyone else here — I want you to express it openly and honestly.” Such instructions are designed to break through the barriers of convention that cause people to repress their feelings, and to help them find a kind of release. The notion seems to be that by bringing negative feelings out into the open, the person will rid himself of them. Somehow this process is supposed to give a new freedom to individuals to find themselves, and to grow. This is not a picture of Christian freedom. Such excesses can turn us away from the whole idea of freedom. Some of us are frightened to discover that God has now taken away the bars of the Law and has left us uncaged. No wonder that we, like the Galatians, rush to build new cages! We not only seek safety from a hostile world, but we just as desperately try to place restraints on our hostile selves. We know only too well the hidden thoughts and motives, the secret desires, that we struggle to keep buried. If the bars of the Law are taken away, won’ t something terrible in us be released? LINK TO LIFE: YOUTH / ADULT What does “ freedom” mean to most people, and how does their notion of freedom affect their lives? Divide your group into teams. Each team is to take one of three people and on the basis of his or her view of “ freedom,” predict how he or she is likely to behave: on the job, at home, in friendship. The people are: Jack. Jack is a libertarian. To Jack, freedom means, “ I do what I want to do when I want.” Jenny. Jenny is a legalist. To Jenny any thought of freedom is frightening. She looks to a long list of do’ s and don’ ts to protect her from herself and others. Jan. Jan is a Christian whose idea of freedom is freedom to love Jesus and others. After each group has developed a profile of each individual, have them share with the rest. Discuss: “ What is freedom to the Christian? How have members of your group experienced freedom? Do they feel free now?”

Freedom The Bible insists, “ It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). Scripture is not speaking of the kind of freedom the young professor was encouraging. For the Bible says, “ Do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love” (Galatians 5:13). Christian freedom is designed to help us grow in goodness. Let’ s be sure of one thing. In affirming freedom, the Christian is not expressing a desire to release sinful passions. In affirming freedom, the Christian responds to God’ s own call to shake off old bonds and to find Christ’ s pathway to goodness. The Law, throughout its long history, never succeeded in producing righteousness. We are to look beyond Law now — to a better way. The group therapy offered Jim a counterfeit freedom. Encouragement to express anger and other negative feelings (in order to “ get rid of” them or to “ get in touch” with oneself) has been shown to produce just the opposite of the desired effect. The more a person expresses hostility, the more deeply he seems to feel it. And the more quickly he interprets others’ actions as a cause for anger. For a person without Christ in a society of people who do not respond to God, the Law’ s restraints are both wise and necessary. Unchecked, the tiger within man does quickly take control. But there is a basic difference between the believer who has established a personal relationship with God through faith and the unbeliever who has not. The Christian is no longer under the Law because, unlike other men, he can now “ live by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16). An entirely new principle of life governs and guides the believer and provides a basis for Christian freedom. Made alive. One of the most exciting themes in Scripture is that of life. In Genesis we see God giving life to all His Creation. We see Him breathing a special life into Adam and Eve: physical life, and more! They were spiritually alive, aware of God, capable of fellowship with Him. When Adam and Eve chose sin, they died spiritually (Genesis 2:17). This spiritual death was passed on to their children and became the one great devastating flaw in humankind. Dimly aware of God and goodness, man’ s spiritual deadness leads him to respond to the self-centered drives of his sin-warped nature rather than to God. “ As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,” Paul wrote later in Ephesians 2:1. “ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). Man needs both human law and divine Law. Without restraint, with each individual given license to express his cravings, society would fall and individuals would prey on those weaker than they and, in turn, be a prey to the stronger. If we think this picture is exaggerated, we are ignorant of history. The wars, the rapes, the murders, the systematic crimes of economic oppression, the private brutalities — all fill in the details of man’ s Fall. The very fear which so many feel when one speaks of freedom from the Law’ s restraint is adequate testimony that, deep down, each of us is already aware of man’ s depravity — by each being aware of our own. But the Bible story does not stop at death. The Bible goes on to share the Good News of life. God “ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions” (Ephesians 2:5). When we come by faith into a relationship with Jesus Christ, God plants His own new life within our personalities. All the New Testament writers speak of it. Peter, the other apostle on whom the Book of Acts focuses, put it this way: “ For you are sons of God now; the live, permanent Word of the living God has given you His own indestructible heredity” (1 Peter 1:23, PH). There is a new kind of life swelling up within the Christian. It is God’ s kind of life, and our possession of God’ s life changes everything. We wisely are afraid to remove the restraints from our old selves. But who feels a need to restrain God? The Spirit. Now we will begin to penetrate to the root of our freedom. Six times in the next few verses of Galatians (Galatians 5:16-25) Paul spoke of the Holy Spirit. “ Live by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16). “ The Spirit . . . is contrary to the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:17). “ Led by the Spirit . . . not under law” (Galatians 5:18). “ The fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22). “ We live by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). “ Keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). The dynamic of Christian freedom is found not only in the possession of new life but also in the person of the Holy Spirit. God Himself has entered us with His gift of power. In affirming freedom, Paul was not telling us to let the old nature go on an orgy of selfish self-expression. Instead Paul was asking us to trust ourselves to God the Holy Spirit, and to look to Him alone to express through us that quality of life which is both new, and His own. Only if the tiger in me is truly tamed do I dare take the bars away. With new life and through the Holy Spirit’ s power, I can at last find the courage to be free.

Observations on the Text: Galatians 5:13-6:18 This vital and exciting passage contains Paul’ s explanation of what he meant when he wrote in Galatians 2:20, “ I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Paul found freedom not to be “ himself,” but to be his new self. And Paul realized that new life as God’ s own. Christian freedom (Galatians 5:13-15). We are never to mistake Christian freedom for the kind of liberty the therapy group tried to force on Jim. Christian freedom is always in harmony with the Law, though it does not rely on the Law. Christian freedom is not freedom “ to indulge the sinful nature” but rather freedom to “ serve one another in love.” Here Paul argued, as he did in Romans 13:8-10, that the entire Law can be “ summed up in this one rule: ‘ Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Thus the person who expresses the new life within him or her by loving others will find his actions actually fulfill the Law of God (see Romans 8:3-4). The problem with the Law has always been that while it warns us if we misuse freedom, it can never produce love. But now, with a new life from God and with the Holy Spirit granted to us, love can be produced in our hearts, and expressed in loving acts. New nature and Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-18). The Holy Spirit is not motivated by the cravings of a sinful nature, for He does not possess one. We do possess a sin nature, which Law has never been able to change. So the real issue in the Christian life is whether we will live according to the old nature, or the new that has been given us in Jesus. Paul argued that Law is linked with the old nature, for it speaks out against its sins. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit is associated with the new nature. If we surrender ourselves to the Spirit, to let Him guide or control us, then the Spirit will see to it that we do not “ gratify the desires of [our] sinful nature” (Galatians 5:16). The who issue of Christian life and freedom has nothing to do with the Law. Acts of the sinful nature (Galatians 5:19-21). All those things which the Law speaks out against and is designed to protect society from are listed here. And they flow from the old, sinful human nature. As long as our sinful nature is in control, and its desires expressed in our actions, Paul’ s list of evils will appear in our lives. Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-26). As the sin nature produces its fruit in an individual’ s life, so the Holy Spirit also produces fruit. That fruit, love, joy, peace — all those things we yearn for — stand in stark contrast to the fruit produced by man’ s sinful nature. And that fruit appears as we walk by, and keep in step with, the Spirit of God. And against this fruit no law has ever been passed. Christian freedom must be understood in the context of man’ s two natures. Freedom is a release from the domination of the old and warped within us, and a release which gives the Spirit full reign to produce good fruit. Christian freedom is the capacity, and the strength, to act in love, to know and share joy, to experience and promote peace, and all those other blessings that come only through the Spirit of our God. Greetings and injunctions (Galatians 6:1-18). The last chapter of this early New Testament letter contains several injunctions and personal greetings. The brothers are encouraged not to deal harshly with those who are learning to walk the new life (Galatians 6:1-2). One who falls should be restored gently. Each brother should seek to help others along the way and fulfill Christ’ s new commandment to love (John 13:33-34). Recognizing the divine source of the new life, each man can rejoice in his own gifts and actions without the kind of pride that comes from feeling better than someone else (Galatians 6:3-5). In all of life’ s adventures, we can live in total honesty with ourselves and with God. We will never deceive ourselves into believing that Christian freedom is a license to sin (Galatians 6:7-10). We can always commit ourselves to doing good, sure that “ at the proper time we will reap a harvest” (Galatians 6:9) of joy. Summing up (Galatians 6:12-18), Paul again pointed us to the cross of Jesus Christ, where He (and each believer too!) was crucified. Jesus died — but He rose again. In Him, you and I have risen as well to a new life in a new world. It is a world not ruled by the old Law but one filled with the vital presence of God Himself. In this new world “ neither circumcision or uncircumcision means anything” (Galatians 6:15). Jew and Gentile meet at the cross, and at the cross each abandons his old lifestyle and culture, to find, as Christ’ s new creation, a new and better way. LINK TO LIFE: YOUTH / ADULT Ask your group members to explore the implications of the image of “ fruit” in this passage. Draw a tree with roots and branches, on which fruit labeled love, joy, peace, etc., are found. The fruit are specifically said to be the “ fruit of the Spirit.” What does that suggest about the Spirit’ s role? About our own? See how many different implications your group can draw in six minutes.

Freedom to Live Galatians 5:1-26 “ Sinful nature” (Death) Characteristics“ Spirit” (New life) Characteristics Not responsive to GodResponsive to God In conflict with the SpiritIn conflict with the sinful nature Ruled by its cravingsRuled by God ProductsProducts Immorality Impurity Debauchery Idolatry and witchcraft Hatred Discord Jealousy Fits of rage Selfish ambition Dissensions Factions Envy Drunkenness OrgiesLove Joy Peace Patience Kindness Goodness Faithfulness Gentleness Self-control Relationship to the LawRelationship to the Law The Law is “ against such things” (Galatians 5:23) and was added “ because of transgressions” (Galatians 3:19).NONE “ Against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22). Teaching Guide Prepare Be prepared to talk through these chapters, verse-by-verse, with your group members.

Explore

1. Tell the story of Jim and his therapy group. Discuss: “ If you were Jim, would this experience help you feel more free? Why, or why not? What would it make you feel? What in Jim’ s case would constitute freedom?”
2. Divide into teams, each of which is to take a different person’ s concept of freedom and from it develop a profile that suggests how that person will tend to act. See “ link-to-life” above.

Expand

1. Give a minilecture on the roots of Christian freedom, drawing on material in the commentary.
2. Then work with the whole group through these chapters, summing up paragraph by paragraph. When you come to Galatians 5:19-23, distribute the Galatians 5:1-26 chart.

Apply Go around the circle, giving each person a word or phrase from Galatians. Ask each to try explaining its meaning briefly, and then let others add to or refine the definition. Appropriate words and phrases are: freedom, the sinful nature, live by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, fruit of the Spirit, against such things there is no law.