GALATIANS

The teaching is that Christ died on the Cross to give us the advantage of having this liberty or freedom. This liberty consists of the believer’s freedom from the law.

Under the Law:

Here were these Galatian believers, free from the law, having been placed in the family of God as adult sons, indwelt by the Holy Spirit Who would enable them to act out in their experience that maturity of Christian life in which they were placed, now putting on the straight-jacket of the law, and depriving themselves of the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Galatians, having escaped from the Slavery of Heathenism, were in danger of becoming entangled in the meshes of the Legalistic Judaism - and after Calvary, a "turn" to Judaism was counted as a "return" to Heathenism!

Not only would the Galatians lose the aid of the Holy Spirit in the living of their Christian lives, but they would be assuming the burden of the entire legalistic system.

The obligation is as the context shows, one which the believer ought not to assume. We, the believers, are free from the law in three respects:

The believer in this Age of Grace is obligated to obey either all of the law or none of it.

THE LAW WAS A LEGAL LEDGER
It showed our obligations of debt to God
But it was unable to help us pay it.

Literally "to have power, to exert or wield power." In the case of the one who is joined to Christ Jesus, the fact that he is circumcised or is not circumcised, has no power for anything in his life. The thing that is of power to effect a transformation in the life of the believer is Faith - the faith produced by the Holy Spirit.

5:7 - 6:10

DID RUN = (etrechete) = The Greek word here is in the imperfect tense, referring to a continuous action going on in past time. Here, as in 4:12, Paul breaks off his argument to make an appeal to his readers on the basis of their past experience. He uses the figure of a Greek runner: "you were running well."

WELL = (kalos), suggesting the translation: "You were conducting yourselves bravely, honorably, becomingly."

HINDER = (anakiphen), from  (anakopto) = "to beat back, to cut, make an incision, to hinder." When using the figure of a race, this word suggests a breaking into the race course, a cutting in on a runner by another runner, thus slowing up his progress.

The Galatian believers were running the Christian race well - beautifully - but the Judaizers cut in on them and now were slowing up their progress in their growth in the Christian life. They had deprived the Galatians of the ministry of the Holy spirit, and were thrown back by self effort in an attempt to obey a set of legal restrictions, with the result that their lives had lost the fragrance of the Lord Jesus and the enabling power for service which the Spirit formerly gave them.

The question Paul asks is rhetorical, not for information. He knew well enough who had slowed up the Christian growth of the Galatians, and so did they.

This activity of the Judaizers does not come from the One who called them into salvation - namely, God. This negative statement indicates that the influence which was turning them away from Grace was actually hostile to God. He definitely expresses this in the next verse where he speaks of the teachings of the Judaizers as leaven.

5:9 - LEAVEN   =  a symbol of evil in the Bible.

1. The Jews, before the days of unleavened bread each year, would remove every particle of leaven from their homes. Leaven, which operates on the principle of fermentation, is an apt symbol of moral and spiritual corruption. A very small lump readily permeates the entire bread dough.

2. Jesus used it as a symbol of the false doctrines of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 16:6-12).

3. In I Cor. 5:6, Paul uses the symbol to describe the immoral conduct of a few in the church which was endangering the life of the entire church, and which unrebuked, would spread through-out the local assembly.

The verb ( zumoi) is in the present tense - "A little leaven is leavening the whole" - indicating that the process of doctrinal fermentation was going on, but that it had not yet corrupted the entire church structure. It had made but a little progress.

Paul was more alarmed over its INSIDIOUS NATURE than over the extent to which it had already permeated the churches.

In other words, if circumcision is preached as one of the prerequisites of salvation, the the cross of Christ would cease to be an offense. The offensiveness of the Cross to the Jew lay in the teaching that believers in the Lord, whether Jew or gentile, are free from the Mosaic Law. It was offensive to the Jew therefore, because it set aside the entire Mosaic economy, and offered salvation by Grace through Faith alone, without the added factor of Works in an effort to merit the salvation offered. The Cross did, in fact, fulfill the promise God made to Abraham so that the need for the sign of that promise was no longer necessary.

The word here referring to bodily mutilation. Paul expresses the wish that the Judaizers would not stop with circumcision, but would go on to total castration.

The town of Pessinus was the home of the worship of Cybele in honor of whom bodily mutilation was practiced. The priests of Cybele castrated themselves. This was a recognized form of heathen self-devotion to the god and would not be shunned in ordinary conversation. This explains the freedom with which Paul speaks of it to his Galatian converts.

In Philippians 3:2, he speaks of the Judaizers as the "concision," or, "those who mutilate themselves."

The whole expression shows that circumcision had become a purely physical act without religious significance, and performed as a religious rite, it became a bodily mutilation not different in character to the mutilations of the heathen religions. By glorying in the flesh, the Galatians would be returning to the bondage of their former heathenism.

Clark offers this interpretation of verse 12: "Let those who are unsettling the Church of Christ in your district be excommunicated; this is my wish, that they should no longer have any place among you."

The sentence, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty," is transitional -

This love is produced in the heart of the yielded believer by the Holy spirit; the love with which the believer would love his fellow-believers.

The chief essence of this love is Self-Sacrifice for the benefit of the one who is loved.

SERVE - (douloo)   =    quite literally, "slave".

The word Paul used when he spoke of the slavery that is imposed by the law upon the one who is under law.

The Galatian believers were rescued from the slavery which legalism imposed, and brought into a new servitude - that of a loving, glad, and willing service to God and man which annihilates self and subordinates all selfish desires to love.

5:14 - ALL THE LAW IS FULFILLED IN LOVE

This statement becomes intelligible and consistent when we recognize the following points:

This was common usage in connection with wild animals in deadly struggle. That condition was existing in the Galatian churches. Neither the passage itself nor the context tells us in so many words to what this condition of strife was due, but most probably it was strife over matters on which the Judaizers were unsettling them. The words constitute a strong partisan antagonism resulting in the actions that lead to mutual injury.

The word "not" in this passage is formed by two Greek negatives (a double negative in Greek does not make a positive assertion as in English, but actually strengthens the negation). It could be translated: "Walk in (yield to) the Spirit, and it will be impossible for you to fulfill the lust of the flesh!"

The will of the believer has been liberated from the enslavement to sin and is now free to choose the right and refuse the wrong. The Holy Spirit has been given as the Agent to counteract the evil nature, but He only does that for the believer when that believer gives control to the Holy Spirit, and by an act of free will, says a point-blank positive NO to sin. In other words, there must be a cooperation of the believer with the Holy Spirit in His work of sanctifying the life.

5:17 - THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT ARE CONTRARY

When the flesh presses hard upon the believer the Holy Spirit is there to oppose the flesh and give the believer victory over it. Romans, chapter 7, shows the constant battle between the flesh and the Spirit that goes on within the believer. Before Christ, there was no choice.

We were slaves to walk only in the realm of the flesh.

Paul here presents to them a third way of life, distinct from that of a person under law, and also from that of a person who, because he is no longer under the restraining influences of law, thinks that he is now without restraint of any kind, and continues to yield to the impulses of the evil nature.

It is a highway of freedom both from statutes and from the sinful nature.

It is a highway which is a FAITH way - a dependence upon the Spirit.

The word "FRUIT" is in the singular in the Greek  - all of the elements of character spoken of in these verses are a unity, making a well-rounded and complete Christian life. 
Leave out any one ingredient, and the fruit is incomplete  =  not brought to maturity.

LOVE - (agape)" = The love that God is (I Jn. 4:16).

JOY - (chara)

PEACE - (eirene)  =  To bind together.

LONGSUFFERING - (makrothumia) = Steadfastness of the soul under provocation.

GENTLENESS - (chrestotes) = Kindness

GOODNESS -  (agathosune) = Morality

FAITH -  (pistis) = a word with very deep meaning.

MEEKNESS -    (praotes)  =  Mild and gentleness.

TEMPERANCE-  (egkrateia)  =  Self-control.

1. If only one ingredient of this fruit is missing, then the fruit is not perfect, and loses flavor.

2.  We are the field   -   God is the owner of the field.

3. THE  FRUIT  IS  FOR  THE  BENEFIT  AND  ENJOYMENT   OF  THE  OWNER  OF  THE  FIELD.

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