Galatians 5:7–15 (ESV) — 7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
One of the Apostle Paul's favorite teaching analogies was the foot race. In this passage, he used it as a way to illustrate how the Galatians were in danger of getting off the course God had assigned them. He told them, "You were running well" (7).
That's how Paul left these Galatian believers. They had heard the gospel and were running in God's grace. It was only later that someone had come along and disrupted their progress by telling them they had to add Jewish laws to their faith in Christ—that if they wanted to be truly accepted by God, first-class citizens in God's kingdom, they needed to adopt the Old Testament law.
So Paul unleashed this paragraph on the Galatians. It is a string of clauses that do not connect as cohesively as his more measured logic elsewhere in the letter. It's a section infused with passion, a rapid fire cavalcade of blunt emotion, proverbs, rebuke, honesty, disappointment, and desperation for God. Paul was truly concerned about the young believers in Galatia—were they really going to abandon the grace of Christ for the works of the law?
This emphasis is why Paul spoke with such severe passion in this passage. The stakes were so high, he felt compelled to state with conviction how he felt about false-gospels and their messengers. These high stakes are why he went the length of saying, "I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves; they will bear the penalty" (10, 12).
Paul didn't go around talking like that over every minor disagreement, but adding to the gospel is a major offense, and Paul wished the legalists would completely cut off their ability to reproduce their doctrines in others. It might sound on the surface like Paul is harsh or intemperate, but his ferocity came from a bedrock of love for the people of this earth. If legalists had their way, the life-saving message of the gospel would've been buried.
So the Galatians were in danger of abandoning the incredible grace they had in Christ. They had been bumped off course and were wobbling along, searching for their balance. Paul's letter was an attempt to get them on sure footing once again, and this section is an emotional plea for them to get back on the grace track. How could they, and how can we, get back to running in grace?
1. Identify Hindering Voices (7-11)
Stop And Think
First, we must identify voices that hinder us from running in grace. Paul came right out and asked them, "Who hindered you from obeying the truth?" (7). Someone had tripped up these Galatians, and Paul wanted them to examine and inspect who it might be. Stop and think, who hindered you?
On Thanksgiving Day 2013, the Pittsburgh Steelers played a football game against their rival, the Baltimore Ravens. During one play, a Ravens player was bolting down the sideline on this way to a long touchdown when the Steelers coach edged his way onto the playing surface just a bit. It forced the Ravens player to adjust his course, which led to his tackle and stopped him from scoring. It happened so fast, no one thought much about it at first, but then they started showing replays. And it looked bad. Like the coach had intentionally tried to trip the player. And even though he denies it was intentional to this very day, he does admit his actions changed the outcome of that play.[^1]
Paul wanted them to run their own replay review of their long run in grace. Who tripped us up? What doctrines did we start believing that caused us to downgrade the gospel? When did we start thinking law-keeping could save us? Who taught us this error? Paul wanted them to identify the hindering voices they had listened to so that they would stop listening to them.
Paul said this because he knew it wasn't God who had called them into the legalism they were about to adopt, but a person or group of false teachers (9). He said, "This persuasion is not from him who calls you" (9). God hadn't authored the persuasive things they had believed—and that should always be alarming to God's people. Anytime we are persuaded, moved, and influenced by a message God did not create, we should be concerned. Why?
Because, Paul said, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (9). This saying was a well known proverb from their time, and it meant that even a small amount of evil teaching could spread through the entire congregation, just like a small amount of leaven impacts the whole loaf of bread. Like yeast, their anti-gospels would spread and permeate everything in the Galatian church, which is why Paul wanted to them to take the task of identifying the hindering voices seriously.
What about you? What voices have shaped you the most? What voices have helped you process the world? Are they pushing you toward the gospel more, or do they cause you to dillute or devalue the gospel? Do they hold it up as the highest message, or do they rarely mention it? Do they champion it as the hope for mankind, or is it relegated to the corner of the room like a disobedient child in the olden days? Questions like these can help us identify the voices from outside and inside us that hinder us from running in grace.
Embrace The Offense Of The Cross
One way to remain alert to voices that hinder us from the gospel, according to this passage, is to embrace the offense of the cross. Paul said, "If I still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed" (11). Apparently, the false teachers had made the false accusation that Paul preached circumcision whenever it suited him. They might have claimed that Paul didn't preach circumcision—or law-keeping for God's approval—to Gentiles, but that he did preach it to Jews.
The confusion might've stemmed from Paul's practice of being sensitive to the cultures he preached in. For instance, there was a time he asked a young man named Timothy to be circumcised before they went to preach to Jewish people. Everyone knew Timothy had Jewish blood in his veins, so Paul thought it would be respectful to remove that obstacle for them before sharing the gospel with them. But this was misunderstood by some as a two-faced way to conduct ministry. Paul, though, was not flip flopping, but applying the same truth in nuanced ways. Timothy was saved by grace through faith, not law-keeping, but law-keeping would help the message find traction, so he asked Timothy to go along with it.
But the interesting thing is that Paul knew that if he preached works-based righteousness—if he told people that being a good person who kept God's law was the way to be saved—then the offense of the cross would be removed (11). And, clearly, the offense had not been removed, because Paul was still persecuted for the message he preached (11).
The cross of Christ is offensive because it tells us that we are sinners who can't do anything to save ourselves. Some say all religions are the same, messages that encourage us to be good people. But that is not what Christianity says. Christianity claims that we are so far gone that it took a rescue mission to save us. It tells us that sin has sunk itself so deeply within our species that, even though we are made in God's image and reflect him often, our brokenness and sin is too big an obstacle to be overcome by human effort. Instead, God himself had to become one of us, live perfectly for us, and die in our place. All this is the offense of the cross.
The Greek word for offense here is skandalon—a scandal to many who hear it. In another place, Paul called it "a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23). "Human beings take umbrage in being told that even their best works are stained with evil, that everything they do is insufficient to be right with God, and that the only basis for right standing with God is the cross of Jesus Christ."[^2]
Jesus claimed to be the way to God. The way can only be found by discovering the truth bound up in him and expecting that life can only come from him (John 14:6). Some find this exclusivity offensive—it's only through Jesus you can find God—all the while missing its utter inclusivity. Everyone is declared guilty by God—there is no caste system of people more valuable than others. And everyone is invited to receive Christ—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16, KJV). Whosoever—that's the language of inclusion.
And if you think about it, so many false-gospels say they are inclusive when in reality they are not. If any view of the world holds out some as the insiders and others as the outsiders, it is by nature exclusive. This is what I mean by saying the cross is an inclusive message—it presents all people as in need of the Savior. But this stumbling block is an important one to hold onto if we are going to run in grace. Once we think of some as better than others, we will slip from relating to God or others by and with grace. But as long as we see how the cross has leveled all of humanity, demanding that we repent and believe, then we will be well on our way in grace.
2. Adopt A New Slavery (13-15)
It Is Not For The Flesh
So we must constantly identify hindering voices if we are going to stay strong in grace. But a second way to run the grace race is to adopt a new slavery. In the thirteenth verse, Paul explains this new slavery by first telling us that our freedom is not for our flesh. He said, "You were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh" (13). So right away, we discover a new tone. Paul had been exhorting us not to lose our gospel freedom, but now he warns us not to abuse our gospel freedom.[^3]
We often think of freedom as doing whatever we please. Many of us believe that denying our rights or impulses is sacriligious, unnacceptable behavior. But the truth is that type of freedom leads to enslavement. We can see this in our recent societal history. The sexual revolution, along with birth control, offered women the right to commitment-free sex. It's a practice many men have engaged in for centuries. This was celebrated as a freedom by our society, freeing all of us—men and women—from the shackles of marital exclusivity.
"A growing body of evidence has shown that, for women especially, having multiple sexual partners is correlated with lower levels of mental health and happiness. Conversely, far from being locked into misery, the happiest wives in America are highly religious women married to highly religious men. Couples who pray together, read Scripture at home, attend church, and so on are twice as likely as their secular peers to say they are satisfied with their sexual relationship. We might think that Christian marriage is robbing women of sexual freedom. But the data suggests that it’s pulling women (and men) away from the train wreck of commitment-free sex." — Rebecca McLaughlin, Jesus Through the Eyes of Women[^4]
But the early church initiated their own sexual revolution. When men converted to Christianity, they gave up their sexual freedom and committed to faithfulness in marriage. Though free from the law, they could not imagine practicing unholiness in front of their beloved and holy God, so they restrained themselves. They would not use their freedom on their flesh and neither should we, because the flesh enslaves. To deny the self in a culture of self is one of the most countercultural things we can do. Self-disobedience is seen as taboo, but it is Christian, and it leads to a better life.[^5]
To illustrate this, consider the computer and phone application, Freedom. Once installed, you choose when and what internet it will allow. If you tell it to shut the internet off your devices first thing in the morning to protect some undistracted time with God, it will do it. And the restriction—or lack of freedom—is meant to produce a greater freedom to do what you are made to do. Restriction leads to freedom, but spending yourself on your flesh leads back to slavery.
It Is A New Slavery
Then Paul said, "Through love serve one another" (13). That's the language of a new version of slavery—serve one another. Jesus, of course, nudged and trained his disciples in this direction. The night before he was crucified, Jesus took the position of the lowest household worker and washed the feet of his men. He said it was meant as an illustration of how they should serve one another (John 13:14).
To many, service of others sounds terrible, but Jesus said to his men, "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them" (John 13:17). And anyone who has given themselves to the service of others had discovered the truth of his words. When we use our freedom for the flesh, we become miserable. But when we use our freedom to serve others, burdens lift, problems are put in perspective, and life becomes what it was meant to be as God's image bearers.
I began walking with God at the end of the summer of 1996. It was a tumultuous summer, one where I wrestled over the decision to fully submit myself to God. Like a yoyo, I was up and down in my obedience—committed one day, waffling the next. And I was miserable until I surrendered myself more wholly to God. I contrast this with the summer of 1997. It was one of the best summers of my life, because I was exposed to ministry for the first time. My days and nights were filled with pouring into others, serving others, and it was so, so good.
And this new slavery leads to life and health for the communities it touches. When a man denies his impulses and works hard to serve his people, he creates a place of safety and love. When a woman lays down her life to serve a congregation, she becomes a beacon of love and nurture in a brutal world. When pastors deny their baser instincts and instead sacrifice themselves to be men of the word and prayer, the churches they serve are blessed.
The word Paul used for "serve" is a word he used to describe our condition before Christ—we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world (Gal. 4:3). This is a hint that he thought of Christians as being set free to come under a new empowering principle—love.
This love is the launching pad from which all good ministry occurs. If we try to help people because we are bothered by them, see a problem with them, or have a need to fix them, we are as annoying as a "noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (1 Cor. 13:1). As Paul said in another place, we can have all power, all faith, and all sacrifice, but if we have not love we are nothing and gain nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-4).
It Fulfills The Law
Then Paul told us how this new slavery fulfills the very law the Galatians were tempted to obey, though they never could. He wrote, "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (14).
This statement might shock those of you who have tracked with Paul's argument in Galatians up to this point. He has said we are free from the law, but now he returns to the Law and holds it up as something he is happy to see fulfilled.
You might think he's quoting Jesus when he says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," but Jesus was quoting from Leviticus 19 when he said it, so, since Leviticus is Law, Paul is quoting the Law (Lev. 19:18). In other words, love fulfills the true purpose of the Old Testament law, and Paul was in total support of Christians exercising their freedom by obeying the law of love.
Think of the ten commandments. The second tablet—or final six—of the ten commandments had to do with loving others, our horizontal relationships. For instance, to honor your parents is a way to respect the family structure (Ex. 20:12). And since society is better when people listen to and care for their elders, instead of neglecting them and ignoring their wisdom, honoring your parents is a way to love your neighbor.
And all the other horizontal commandments will be fulfilled through love. To refrain from murder, theft, to refuse to lie, to resist covetousness, and to keep marriage vows are all other ways to love your neighbor as yourself. How can I love you and hurt you, or expect you to pick up the relational, psychological, and societal damage that murder, hatred, abuse, and the like leave behind? How can I love you and steal your money or time or attention for my own selfish gain? How can I love you and lie to you? How can I love you and promote fornication or adultery that would harm current or future marriages? To love is to keep the law, and Christ has set us free so that we can.
The Old Testament anticipated this message. Since no one kept the law perfectly, the prophets of old eventually began promising that the Spirit would one day come to make us new. At that time, God would put us under a new covenant, and he would transform us from the inside out (Jer. 31:31-34, Ezek. 36:24-28, Heb 8:6-13). So the Old Testament, knowing its adherents were not capable of obedience and were guilty before God, anticipated an era when God would give his people new natures and enable them to obey. This is true freedom—freedom to follow God. Free to fulfill the law through love.
So are we obligated to keep the law or not obligated? Yes. In one sense—getting our acceptance from law-keeping—we are not obligated at all to keep the law. It has been fulfilled for us and we are set free. In another sense—since we are regenerate people with new natures who are free from sin—we are obligated to keep the law. We are free from the law as a way to earn a position before God, but the law-keeping by neighbor-loving is still a way to please God. And people who have been remade by Christ's cross want to please God!
Conclusion
Paul was confident that God would help these Galatians run again in grace. He said, "I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view" (10). He believed God would work on their behalf and get them back on course, running the race of grace. He had the same attitude towards them that he had about the Philippians:
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6, ESV)
I pray we could have the same confidence about one another. I pray that God would form in us a community that helps one another identify hindering voices and adopt the new slavery of love. Let us not be a people who use freedom as a mask for fleshly sin, but abandon our freedoms for the sake of love. Let us be like Jesus, who laid down the freedom of eternal privilege to obey the impulse of love. Let us fulfill the law by going past mere requirement and into sacrificial love. Let us run in grace.
[^1]:Schottey, Michael. 2013. “NFL Must Come down Hard on Mike Tomlin for Sideline Interference.” Bleacher Report. November 29, 2013. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1869638-nfl-must-come-down-hard-on-mike-tomlin-for-sideline-interference. [^2]:Schreiner, Thomas R. 2010. Galatians. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. [^3]:Keller, TImothy. 2013. Galatians For You. New Malden, England: Good Book Company. [^4]:McLauglin, Rebecca. 2022. Jesus Through the Eyes of Women: How the First Female Disciples Help Us Know and Love the Lord. The Gospel Coalition. [^5]: Sayers, Mark. 2016. Disappearing Church: From Cultural Relevance to Gospel Resilience. Moody.