CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Galatians 5:1. Stand fast in.—Stand up to, make your stand for. The liberty wherewith Christ has made as free.—As Christ has given you this liberty you are bound to stand fast in it. Be not entangled.—Implicated in a way which involves violence to true spontaneous life. The yoke of bondage.—Contrasted with the yoke of Christ, which is compatible with the fullest spiritual freedom.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 5:1
Christian Liberty—
I. Should be valued considering how it was obtained.—“The liberty where, with Christ hath made us free.” It is a liberty purchased at a great cost. Christ, the Son of God, became incarnated, suffered in a degree unparalleled and incomprehensible, and died the shameful and ignoble death of the crucified to win back the liberty man had forfeited by voluntary sin. The redemption of man was hopeless from himself, and but for the intervention of a competent Redeemer he was involved in utter and irretrievable bondage. Civil liberty, though the inalienable right of every man, has been secured as the result of great struggle and suffering. “With a great sum,” said the Roman captain to Paul, “obtained I this freedom;” and many since his day have had to pay dearly for the common rights of citizenship. But Christian liberty should be valued as the choicest privilege, remembering it was purchased by the suffering Christ, and that it has been defended through the ages by a noble army of martyrs.
II. Should remind us of the oppression from which it delivers.—“And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” The Galatians had been bondmen, enslaved by the worship of false and vile deities. If they rush into the snare of the legalists, they will be bondmen again, and their bondage will be the more oppressive now they have tasted the joys of freedom. Disobedience involves us in many entanglements. It is among the most potent of the energies of sin that it leads astray by blinding and blinds by leading astray; that the soul, like the strong champion of Israel, must have its eyes put out, when it would be bound with fetters of brass and condemned to grind in the prison-house (Judges 16:21). Redemption from the slavery of sin should fill the heart with gratitude. A wealthy and kind Englishman once bought a poor negro for twenty pieces of gold. He presented him with a sum of money that he might buy a piece of land and furnish himself a home. “Am I really free? May I go whither I will?” cried the negro in the joy of his heart. “Well, let me be your slave, massa; you have redeemed me, and I owe all to you.” The gentleman took him into his service, and he never had a more faithful servant. How much more eagerly should we do homage and service to the divine Master, who Himself has made us free!
III. Should be rigorously maintained.—“Stand fast therefore.” The price of freedom is incessant vigilance; once gained it is a prize never to be lost, and no effort or sacrifice should be grudged in its defence. “As far as I am a Christian,” said Channing, “I am free. My religion lays on me not one chain. It does not hem me round with a mechanical ritual, does not enjoin forms, attitudes, and hours of prayer, does not descend to details of dress and food, does not put on me one outward badge. It teaches us to do good, but leaves us to devise for ourselves the means by which we may best serve mankind.” The spirit of Christian liberty is eternal. Jerusalem and Rome may strive to imprison it. They might as well seek to bind the winds of heaven. Its seat is the throne of Christ. It lives by the breath of His Spirit. Not to be courageous and faithful in its defence is disloyalty to Christ and treachery to our fellow-men.
Lessons.—
1. Christ is the true Emancipator of men.
2. Christian liberty does not violate but honours the law of love.
3. Liberty is best preserved by being consistently exercised.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSE
Galatians 5:1. Freedom from Bondage.—
1. Every man by nature is a bondslave, being under the bondage of sin. The Jews were under bondage to the ceremonial law, involving great trouble, pain in the flesh, and great expense.
2. Jesus Christ by His obedience and death has purchased freedom and liberty to His Church—liberty not to do evil, nor from the yoke of new obedience, nor from the cross, nor from that obedience and reverence which inferiors owe to superiors; but from the dominion of sin, the tyranny of Satan, the curse and irritating power of the law, and from subjecting our consciences to the rites, doctrines, ceremonies, and laws of men in the matter of worship.
3. Though civil liberty be much desired, so ignorant are we of the worth of freedom from spiritual bondage that we can hardly be excited to seek after it, or made to stand to it when attained, but are in daily hazard of preferring our former bondage to our present liberty.—Fergusson.
Bondage and Liberty.
I. We are in bondage under sin.
II. We are subject to punishment.—Implying:
1. Bondage under Satan, who keeps unrepentant sinners in his snare.
2. Bondage under an evil conscience, which sits in the heart as accuser and judge, and lies like a wild beast at a man’s door ready to pluck out his throat.
3. Bondage under the wrath of God and fear of eternal death.
III. We are in bondage to the ceremonial law.—To feel this bondage is a step out of it; not to feel it is to be plunged into it.
IV. We have spiritual liberty by the grace of God.—
1. Christian liberty is a deliverance from misery.
(1) From the curse of the law for the breach thereof.
(2) From the obligation of the law whereby it binds us to perfect righteousness in our own persons.
(3) From the observance of the ceremonial law of Moses.
(4) From the tyranny and dominion of sin.
2. Christian liberty is freedom in good things.
(1) In the voluntary service of God.
(2) In the free use of all the creatures of God.
(3) Liberty to come to God and in prayer to be heard.
(4) To enter heaven.
V. Christ is the great Liberator.—He procured this liberty:
1. By the merit of His death. The price paid—His precious blood—shows the excellence of the blessing, and that it should be esteemed.
2. By the efficacy of His Spirit—assuring us of our adoption, and abating the strength and power of sin.
VI. We are to hold fast our liberty in the day of trial.—
1. We must labour that religion be not only in mind and memory, but rooted in the heart.
2. We must join with our religion the soundness of a good conscience.
3. We must pray for all things needful.—Perkins.