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Chapters 5, 6. (Third Division of the Epistle.)

Practical Exhortations based on the preceding Doctrinal Teaching

Galatians 5:1-12. Exhortation to stand fast in the Liberty of the Gospel

1. Many editors place this verse at the end of ch. 4, connecting it immediately with Galatians 4:31 of that chapter; ‘we are not children of a bondwoman, but of her who is free with that freedom wherewith Christ hath emancipated us. Stand fast therefore and be not again entangled with a yoke of bondage’.

But the received arrangement of the chapters is better. Chapter 4 is didactic; chapter 5 is hortatory, and therefore properly begins with the injunction ‘stand fast’.

It is however interesting to note that in the original the last word of ch. 4 is ‘free’, and ‘the freedom’ are the opening words of ch. 5. We have a similar instance of the repetition of a word in juxtaposition in Romans 15:12-13, ‘In Him shall the Gentiles hope. Now the God of hope fill you … that ye may abound in hope’.

Here we may render, In the freedom then wherewith Christ made us free stand fast &c. The freedom thus bestowed is spiritual liberty which is quite independent of outward circumstances. St Paul in chains, a prisoner in Rome, exulted in it. Nero on his throne, the master of the world, with thirty legions at his back, was the miserable slave of his lusts. Luther beautifully remarks: ‘Let us learn to count this our freedom most noble, exalted, and precious, which no emperor, no prophet nor patriarch, no angel from heaven, but Christ, God’s Son, hath obtained for us; not that He might relieve us from a bodily and temporal subjection, but from a spiritual and eternal imprisonment of the cruelest tyrants, namely the law, sin, death, the Devil’.

Stand fast] perhaps, ‘stand upright’, not bowing your neck to the yoke of legal observances.

again] They who had escaped from the thraldom of heathenism were not to submit to the slavery of Judaism. They who had once tasted freedom in Christ were not to be again entangled in the bondage of the law.

2. St Paul here speaks with the Apostolic authority which he had vindicated at the opening of the Epistle, but which he has hitherto kept in abeyance while using argument, and remonstrance, and entreaty.

if ye be circumcised] St Paul and the other Apostles, and indeed every convert from Judaism, were circumcised. It is clear therefore that this expression (repeated in Galatians 5:3) must mean not the fact of being circumcised, but the deliberate submission of Gentiles to the rite by which proselytes were admitted to the Jewish Church, as if it were necessary to salvation. A better rendering would be, if ye submit to be circumcised. The act of such submission implied that a man sought salvation in and by the law, of which circumcision is the seal. But to such a man Christ and His righteousness bring no advantage. ‘He who submits to circumcision does so because he stands in fear of the law, and he who so stands in fear distrusts the power of grace, and he who distrusts gains no advantage from that which is so distrusted’. Chrys.

St Paul, though as ‘touching the righteousness which is in the law,’ he was found blameless before his conversion, yet turned his back on it all that he might win Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of his own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Php 3:6-9.

3. By receiving circumcision a man voluntarily put himself under the conditions of the law, which were, ‘fulfil perfectly and live: fail and die’. The tremendous responsibility thus incurred may have been disguised by the false Apostles: or the Galatians may have been slow to realise it. St Paul’s appeal is to the individual conscience. ‘Warning every man and teaching every man’ (Colossians 1:28) was his maxim as a minister of the Gospel, and it ought to be the maxim of all who claim to be successors of the Apostles.

4. The same great and solemn truth is repeated in different terms. “Christ shall profit you nothing” = “a debtor to do the whole law” (and therefore under a curse in consequence of failure) = “Christ is of no effect unto you” = “ye are fallen from grace”. Similarly, “if ye become circumcised” = “every man that submits to circumcision” = “justified by the law”.

Christ is become of no effect] Lit. ‘ye were cut off from Christ’, brought to nought as regards any benefit accruing to you from Him.

are justified by the law] i.e. seek to be justified by the law.

ye are fallen] Probably, ‘ye are cast forth’ (like Hagar and her son), banished from grace. The Apostle is not here stating anything as to the possibility of recovery after such a relapse. His object is to make it quite clear that if righteousness (or justification) is sought in the law (i.e. by works) it involves the forfeiture of grace, and the forfeiture of grace is ruin.

5. ‘For we on the contrary, we who are Christ’s, through the Spirit are waiting for the hope of righteousness from faith’. The connecting particle ‘for’ has reference to the falling from grace. The gospel is a gospel of grace (Acts 20:24). The Spirit is the Spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:29). We have a good hope through grace (2 Thessalonians 2:16). Righteousness (justification) is of faith that it might be by grace (Romans 4:16).

the hope of righteousness] This does not mean the righteousness hoped for. We who believe are now perfectly righteous, ‘being made’, as the Apostle says, ‘the righteousness of God in Him’. It may refer to that sanctifying righteousness which is progressive, ‘inherent in us but not perfect’ (as Hooker says), the perfection of which is the aim and end of our earthly discipline. Luther understands the expression to refer either to the hope of a full assurance of justifying faith, or to the hope of complete deliverance from sin. Writing out of the fulness of his own spiritual experience he adds: ‘Either sense may well stand; but the first, touching the inward desire and affection of hoping, bringeth more plentiful consolation, for my righteousness is not yet perfect, it cannot yet be felt: yet I do not despair; for faith sheweth unto me Christ, in whom I trust, and when I have laid hold of Him by faith, I wrestle against the fiery darts of the devil, and I take a good heart through hope against the feeling of sin, assuring myself that I have a perfect righteousness prepared for me in heaven. So both these sayings are true; that I am made righteous already by that righteousness which is begun in me; and also I am raised up in the same hope against sin, and wait for the full consummation of perfect righteousness in heaven. These things are not rightly understood, but when they be put in practice’. But it is better to understand it of that object of hope which belongs to and arises out of our justification. By the faith which appropriates the righteousness of Christ we become sons of God and heirs of His everlasting kingdom. The inheritance is ‘that blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Titus 2:13).

6. Anxious to remove all possibility of a misconstruction of his meaning, St Paul gives a reason for thus connecting the inheritance with faith. The fact of being circumcised or of being uncircumcised in itself is of no avail to a man’s salvation. If he is ‘in Christ Jesus’ he is safe; and he is in Christ by faith—a faith working through love. We have a repetition of this statement in ch. Galatians 6:15 with the substitution of ‘a new creature’ for ‘faith working through love’.

Abraham believed before he was circumcised, St Paul was circumcised before he believed. Therefore the being circumcised or uncircumcised in itself availeth nothing.

but faith which worketh by love] better, working by love. Most commentators regard this statement as reconciling the language of St Paul with that of St James concerning justification. But it may be observed that St Paul nowhere teaches that the faith which is without works justifies. He does assert (and St James does not contradict him), that man is justified by faith without works. Neither works, nor love, nor any other Christian graces, cooperate with faith in the justification of the sinner. They are the necessary fruits of a living faith.

The addition of the words, ‘working through love’, is an answer by anticipation to the charges of Antinomianism, so constantly brought against those who maintain the doctrine of justification by faith only.

7. The abruptness of thought and style is a marked feature of these two chapters. It is not always possible to trace the connexion with certainty.

Ye did run well] ‘You were running nobly’. The metaphor is taken from the stadium—a favourite one with St Paul, c. Galatians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, &c.

who did hinder you] who was it that threw obstacles in your way? There may be a covert allusion here to some particular individual, prominent among the false teachers, to whom reference is again made Galatians 5:10.

that ye should not obey the truth] The truth personified, and here equivalent to the Gospel which Paul had preached to them. These words have been transferred from this place to ch. Galatians 3:1; see note there.

The verb ‘obey’ has the same root as the noun rendered ‘persuasion’ in the next verse, and they are in juxtaposition in the Greek. We have another instance of the Pauline usage pointed out in the note on Galatians 5:1. It is not easy to preserve the play on the words. It may be indicated by translating, ‘that from the truth you should withhold obedience. The obedience which you are rendering cometh not from him who calleth you’.