Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)

Why would Paul need to utter such a sharp warning to congregations where the LORD had led him to first preach the Gospel? It is because where the Seed of the Gospel is sown, the LORD has purposed that tares also grow, that in the end, it might be made clear the distinction between what is Truth and error. Truth never shines so brightly except against the backdrop of error.

1. Stand fast against even the most subtle error: It was with subtilty that Satan first deceived Adam and Eve, and as the Spirit of God directed Brother Paul to write in 2 Corinthians 11:3, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” The error that Paul addresses with the Galatians did not appear so grave to many. It was simply a matter of Jewish legalizers (Pharisees who had converted to Christ, at least in profession), but requiring that Gentile believers submit to the rite of circumcision in order to be saved, Acts 15:1-5. It seems harmless enough to say, ‘We believe Christ finished the work, but you still need to be circumcised in order to make it effectual.’ But that is the same as those that preach that salvation is in Christ, by His shed blood, but YOU must make it effectual by your accepting Him as your Savior, or else, He died in vain!

2. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free: That word ‘free’ means ‘justified.’ There is only one place, one time, and one Sacrifice whereby saved sinners were justified, and that is in the blood shed of the LORD Jesus at the cross, Romans 5:9-11.Therefore, to make any other work of man to be necessary, either to gain or maintain that justification before God, is to completely deny the work of the LORD Jesus altogether. That sounds exclusive, and it is, based on God’s Word. In Galatians 5:2 we read, “…Christ shall profit you nothing”. The conclusion in Acts 15:11 is, “But we believe that through the grace of the LORD Jesus Christ we shall be saved.”

3. Stand fast against all attempts to subject you to the yoke of bondage: The ‘yoke of bondage’ is a description for the ‘law of God’. Herein is the subtilty of the error in that it appears that the law would be good to teach people to observe. The problem is that the law cannot save. It can only condemn. And therefore, to teach it as a means of salvation in any way, can only condemn sinners further, whether for redemption, sanctification, or justification before God. Paul wrote in Galatians 2:21, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” If one could achieve a righteous standing before God by the works of the law, then Christ died in vain. The truth is that it is ONLY in the righteous obedience of the LORD Jesus to the law, and His satisfaction of it both in its precepts and its penalty, that those sinners that He has saved are justified before God.

Consider these few questions:

i. Since the Spirit declares in Romans 7:4 that sinners for whom Christ paid the debt are dead to the law, having been crucified with Christ in His death by substitution, how then can the law be our rule, being married to another - Christ?

ii. Since Romans 8:2 declares the ‘law of the Spirit of Life in Christ’ has made me free from the ‘law of death’, how can it be that the ‘law of death’ (called in another place the ‘killing letter’) could be my rule of life? If the ‘law of death’ is my ‘rule of life’ after it has killed me, how am I made free from it?