Scripture Daily

Context No. 1556 of 4322 · Galatians

Context · Reflection

Galatians 5:1-6: in context

1Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. 3Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is a debtor to do the whole law. 4You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. 5For we through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision amounts to anything, but faith working through love.

Paul urges the Galatians to stand firm in their freedom. For freedom Christ has set us free, he says; do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. He warns them against turning back to the law as a way of earning righteousness: if you seek to be justified by the law, you have cut yourselves off from Christ and fallen from grace. What matters is not the outward mark of circumcision or its absence, but something else. For in Christ Jesus, he says, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

The phrase that gathers up Paul's point is the last one: faith working through love. The Galatians were being pressured to add the observances of the law, circumcision and the rest, as though these external marks were what made them acceptable to God. Paul says they count for nothing; what matters is not the outward observance but a living faith that expresses itself in love. This cuts two ways against two common errors. Against the error of trying to earn God's acceptance by rule-keeping, by racking up religious observances and external marks, Paul says such things count for nothing; we are not justified by the law, and to seek acceptance that way is to fall from grace and take up again a yoke of slavery. But against the opposite error, of imagining that faith is a private matter with no visible fruit, Paul insists that real faith works through love; it is not mere inward belief but a trust that expresses itself in the way we love. The Christian life is neither the treadmill of earning God's favor by rules nor a bare, inactive faith; it is faith that works through love, a trust in Christ that shows itself in a life of love. There is freedom in that, freedom from the exhausting effort to earn what Christ has freely given, and freedom for the love that genuine faith produces. Neither the outward observance nor the inward belief alone is the point; the point is faith working through love, and in that we are meant to stand firm and free.

Am I caught in the slavery of trying to earn God's acceptance by observances and rule-keeping, or in the opposite error of a private faith with no visible fruit, when what counts is neither of these but faith working through love, in which Christ calls me to stand firm and free?

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