Galatians: The Gospel of God’s Grace

#10 The Believers Great Law of Life: Love, 5:13-15

 At the close of an important speech to Congress on January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt shared his vision of the kind of world he wanted to see after the war was over. He envisioned four basic freedoms enjoyed by all people: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. To some degree, these freedoms have been achieved on a wider scale than in 1941, but our world still needs another freedom, a fifth freedom. Man needs to be free from himself and the tyranny of his sinful nature.

The legalists thought they had the answer to the problem in laws and threats, but Paul has explained that no amount of legislation can change man’s basic sinful nature. It is not law on the outside, but love on the inside that makes the difference. We need another power within, and that power comes from the Holy Spirit of God.

There are at least fourteen references to the Holy Spirit in Galatians. When we believe on Christ, the Spirit comes to dwell within us (Gal. 3:2). We are “born after the Spirit” as was Isaac (Gal. 4:29). It is the Holy Spirit in the heart who gives assurance of salvation (Gal. 4:6); and it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to live for Christ and glorify Him. The Holy Spirit is not simply a “divine influence”; He is a divine Person, just as are the Father and the Son. What God the Father planned for you, and God the Son purchased for you on the cross, God the Spirit personalizes for you and applies to your life as you yield to Him.

This paragraph is perhaps the most crucial in the entire closing section of Galatians; for in it Paul explains three ministries of the Holy Spirit that enable the believer to enjoy liberty in Christ.

With this paragraph Paul's letter changes its emphasis.  Up to this point it has been theological; now it becomes intensely ethical.  Paul had a characteristically practical mind.  Even when he has been scaling the highest heights of thought he always he has been scaling the highest heights of thought he was not the slightest use unless it could be lived out.  In Romans he wrote one of the world's great theological treatises, and then, quite suddenly, in the 12th chapter the theology came down to earth and issued in the most practical advice.  Vincent Taylor once said, "The test of a good theologian is, can he write a tract?"  That is to say, after his flights of thought can he reduce it all to something that the ordinary man can understand and do?  Paul always triumphantly satisfies that test, just as here the whole matter is brought to the acid test of daily living.

His theology always ran one danger.  When he declared that the end of the reign of law had come and that the reign of grace had arrived, it was always possible for someone to say, "That, then, means that I can do what I like; all the restraints are lifted and I can follow my inclinations wherever they lead me.  Law is gone and grace ensures forgiveness anyway."  But to the end of the day there remained for Paul two obligations.  (i)  One he does not mention here but it is implicit in all his thinking.  It is the obligation to God.  If God loved us like that then the love of Christ constrains us.  I cannot soil a life which God paid for with his own life.  (ii)  There is the obligation to our fellow men.  We are free, but our freedom loves its neighbour as itself.

The names of the different forms of government are suggestive.  Monarchy is government by one, and began in the interests of efficiency, for government by committees has always had its drawbacks.  Oligarchy means government by the few and can be justified by arguing that only the few are fit to govern.  Aristocracy means government by the best, but best is left to be defined.  Plutocracy means government by the wealthy and is justified by the claim that those who have the biggest stake in the country have a logical right to rule it.  Democracy means government of the people, by the people, for the people.  Christianity is the only true democracy, because in a Christian state everyone would think as mush of his neighbour as he does of himself.  Christian freedom is not license, for the simple but tremendous reason that the Christian is not a man who has become free to sin, but a man, who, by the grace of God, has become free not to sin.

Paul adds a grim bit of advice.  "Unless," he says, "you solve the problem of living together you will make life impossible."  Selfishness in the end does not exalt a man; it destroys him.

(5:13-6:18) DIVISION OVERVIEW: Believer, Walk: this passage begins the last section of Galatians. Up until now everything has dealt with doctrine; now Paul begins to deal with the practical day to day affairs of the believer. Paul has six very practical subjects to discuss. Bunching all six subjects together, a simple title would be: “The Believer’s Life and Walk: Free and Spiritual.”

     1.  The Believer’s Great Law of Life: Love (5:13-15).

     2.  A Walk Combating the Great Enemy in Life: The Lusts of the Flesh (5:16-21).

     3.  A Walk Bearing God’s Nature: The Fruit of the Spirit (5:22-26).

     4.  A Walk Restoring the Man Who Slips (6:1-5).

     5.  A Walk Doing Good to One’s Teacher (6:6-10).

     6.  A Walk Boasting in the Cross of Christ (6:11-18).

(5:13-15) Introduction: Jesus Christ has set the believer free. The believer no longer has to work and work in order to secure God’s approval and acceptance. The believer is accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ. However, there is a critical fact that must always be remembered: Christian liberty is not license, that is, being free to sin, to do as a person likes. Christian liberty is being free not to sin. It is being free to overcome the passions and urges of the flesh that unceasingly wage war against the better judgment of man. The believer is a person who is so conscious of the indwelling Holy Spirit and His power that he is able to purge himself and to love his neighbor as himself.

     The point is this: the believer does not walk in sin, for he loves God and loves his neighbor. The believer walks and lives under the greatest of laws—the law of love. Love is the guiding law of the believer’s life and walk.

     1.  Liberty versus license (v.13).

     2.  Love is serving others (v.14).

     3.  Love is not offending, but caring for one’s neighbor (v.14).

     4.  Love is not biting and devouring one another (v.15).

(5:13) Liberty versus License—Law versus Faith—Love: there is liberty versus license. It has been well established that the believer does not live by the law nor by some work or act of goodness. The believer knows that he can never become perfect, no matter how much good he does. He knows that he cannot keep enough laws nor can he work to make himself like God. He knows that he is short, far short, of God. If he is ever to be acceptable to God, it has to be because God loves him enough...

·    to provide an Ideal Righteousness for him.

·    to provide Someone to bear his punishment for having violated the law.

     The believer knows that God has loved him and everyone else that much. He knows that God has loved the world so much that he sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to do both things for him and for all the people of the earth. He knows...

·    that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life and secured the Ideal Righteousness for him.

·    that Jesus Christ died for him—died bearing the judgment of the law for him.

     The point is this: when a person believes this about Christ—that Christ is His Savior—God takes that man’s belief and counts it as righteousness. The man becomes acceptable to God. This is what the believer knows: he is not acceptable to God because he works and becomes better and better by keeping some law or rule or ritual. He is acceptable to God because Christ has set him free from having to struggle to be good enough to be saved and always wondering if he has done enough good. Man no longer has to work and keep laws to be saved. Living by law was always a hopeless task that left man lost and helpless (see note—^§ Galatians 3:10-12; note—^§ Galatians 3:19). Man is saved by the grace of God in giving His Son for the world: by believing that Jesus Christ is his Savior—that Jesus Christ died for him. However, having said this, note two things.

     1.   There is the danger of license. A question needs to be asked: if Christ sets us free from the law, does this mean that a person can believe in Christ and then go out and live like he wants, doing his own thing? Can he use his liberty as an occasion to go out and satisfy the flesh knowing that God will forgive him? Can a person continue to seek the things of the world and give way to the desires and lusts of his flesh? Can he believe in Christ and still live in worldliness? No! A thousand times no, Scripture declares!

     A person who thinks and declares such an idea fails to understand belief—true belief. In the Bible belief does not mean intellectual belief, to just believe something in the mind. Belief means a committed belief, to believe something with one’s life. To believe Christ is to commit one’s life to Christ (see Deeper Study #2, Believe—John 2:24 for more discussion). Just think about it for a moment and it becomes perfectly clear: if a person is not willing to commit his life to Christ, he does not believe in Christ. He could not believe, not really; for if he really believed, he would beyond all question give all he is and has to the Son of God. (Cp. Romans 6:16; Hebrews 5:9.)

     2.   There is the restraint of love. A person who thinks that belief in Christ frees him and gives him license to sin does not understand what love is. This is the subject of the present passage. The true believer is freed from having to secure God’s approval by law, but love is the one restraint that is placed upon him. The believer needs no restraint but love. There are at least two reasons for this.

Þ  God has loved him, so the person who truly sees the love of God is drawn to love God and to love all God’s creatures.

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).

Þ  Love embraces all the commandments of God. Jesus Himself said so, and the fact is clearly seen in the points of this passage.

      “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40).

(5:13) Love—Service: love is serving one another. A believer is free in Christ: he is set free of all law, restraints, and works. He is under nothing, absolutely nothing but Christ. He lives in Christ, moves and has his being in Christ. The love of Christ is his law and restraint. Why? Because Christ loved the believer, served and gave Himself for the believer, and the believer knows it. Therefore, the believer loves Christ with all his heart and life. He wants to please Christ and do all he can to serve Him. And this is just the point: how can the believer serve Christ? By doing exactly what Christ did: loving and serving others.

“By love serve one another.”

A person who loves does not act like a lord over people; he...

·    serves and helps

·    shows kindness and gentleness

·    expresses concern and care

·    demonstrates sympathy and empathy

     The person who truly loves identifies with a person, gets down where they are, even below where they are, and ministers to them. Love serves—always reaches out to do whatever it can for the other person. It never withdraws from the other person, feeling that he or she...

·    does not deserve the effort or help.

·    is not worth the effort or help.

·    is less than what he should be.

·    is too derelict, immoral, uneducated, unrecognized, below others.

(5:14) Love: love is not offending but caring for one’s neighbor—caring as much as one cares for oneself. It must be admitted:

Þ  If a person cared for everyone else as much as he cared for himself, he would need no law. He would be living and doing exactly what he should.

     This is the reason love fulfills all the law. Love does not take advantage of other people. Love will not use other people to fulfill one’s own purpose, greed, or lust. Love will not hurt someone else any more than we would want someone to hurt us.

     Love involves some very practical acts that are clearly spelled out in Scripture (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

Þ  Love suffereth long (endures long and is patient).

Þ  Love is kind.

Þ  Love envies not (is not jealous).

Þ  Love vaunts not itself (does not brag; does not boast).

Þ  Love is not puffed up (vainglorious, arrogant, prideful).

Þ  Love does not behave itself unseemingly (unbecomingly, rudely, indecently, unmannerly).

Þ  Love seeks not her own (is not selfish or self-seeking; does not insist on its own right and way).

Þ  Love is not easily provoked (not touchy, angry, fretful, resentful).

Þ  Love thinks no evil (harbors and plans no evil thought; takes no account of a wrong done it).

Þ  Love rejoices not in iniquity (wrong, sin, evil, injustice), but rejoices in the truth (justice and righteousness).

Þ  Love bears all things.

Þ  Love believes all things (exercises faith in everything; is ready to believe the best in everyone).

Þ  Love hopes all things (keeps up hope in everything and under all circumstances).

Þ  Love endures all things (without weakening; it gives power to endure).

(5:15) Love: love is not biting and devouring one another. A.T. Robertson says that the picture is that of a fight between a dog and cat or a fight between wild animals (Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol.4, p.311). Biting and devouring refers to much more than just feuding and fighting. Men bite and devour each other when they violate each other. For example, nothing takes a hunk out a person any more than the biting or devouring that takes place between a wife or husband. However, love respects the other person—no matter who he is or what he has done. Love does not bite or devour others in any way whatsoever. Love does not...