Galatians 5:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Stand fast therefore in the liberty, &c. The apostle (chap. 3.) having, from Abraham's justification by faith, proved, 1st, That all who believe in Christ, and in the promises of God through him, are the seed of Abraham, whom God in the covenant promised to justify by faith: 2d, That the law of Moses, which was given long after the Abrahamic covenant, could neither annul nor alter that covenant, by introducing a method of justification different from that which was so solemnly established thereby: 3d, That men are heirs of the heavenly country, of which Canaan was the type, not meritoriously, by obedience to the law, but by the free gift of God: 4th, That the law was given to the Israelites, not to justify them, but to restrain them from transgressions, and by making them sensible of their sins, and of the demerit thereof, to lead them to Christ for justification: further, having (chap. 4.) observed that the method of justification by faith, established at the fall, was not universally published in the first ages, by immediately introducing the gospel, because the state of the world did not admit thereof; and because it was proper that mankind should remain a while under the tuition of the light of nature, and of the law of Moses: also, having declared that the supernatural procreation of Isaac, and his birth in a state of freedom, was intended to typify the supernatural generation of Abraham's seed by faith, and their freedom from the bondage of the law of Moses, as a term of salvation: the apostle, in this 5th chapter, as the application of his whole doctrine, exhorts the Galatian believers to stand fast in that freedom from the Mosaic law which had been obtained for them by Christ, and was announced to them by the gospel; and not to be entangled again with, or held fast in, (as ενεχεσθε may be rendered,) the yoke of Jewish bondage, as if it were necessary to salvation. “The apostle, though writing to the Gentiles, might say, Be not again held fast in the yoke of bondage, because the law of Moses, which he was cautioning them to avoid, was a yoke of the same kind with that under which they had groaned while heathen. By this precept, the apostle likewise condemns the superstitious bodily services enjoined by the Church of Rome, which are really of the same nature with those prescribed by Moses, with this difference, that none of them are of divine appointment.” Macknight.