You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Who hindered you from obeying the truth? - "The Galatian Christians were running the Christian race well, 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 the latter had been thrown back upon 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. The great apostle knew well enough who had slowed up the Christian growth of the Galatians." (Wuest)
"Many Christian people entertain the notion that apostasy from the truth begins with a denial of one or more of the fundamentals of the faith (such as the infallibility of the Bible, the deity of Christ, or the efficacy of His redemptive work). The moral aspect of apostasy, they suppose, comes about in much the same way. This view is not wholly correct, for apostasy generally begins not with the believing spiritual or moral error, but with condoning it. Eve fell into sin, not by denying what God had said, but by listening to Satan ... Some doctrine or practice, clearly unscriptural and subversive of spiritual blessing, had been condoned when, like the little foxes of Solomon's song (Song of Solomon 2:15), they should have been caught and disposed of. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine from Paul's Epistle to the Galatians just what the Galatian believers thought the rite of circumcision would accomplish for them spiritually. We doubt that they knew themselves, but the Judaizers had come in among them and had captured their attention so that they now 'desired to be under the law' (Gal 4:21). They did not deny the efficacy of the finished work of Christ, but they were interested—just interested—in submitting to a religious ceremony which would in itself be a denial of the all-sufficiency of His redemptive work (Gal 3:1; 5:2-4). Result: the blessing was already vanishing (Gal 4:14) and the apostle had to warn them: 'A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump' (Gal 5:9)." (Stam)
A little leaven leavens the whole lump - "Leaven is always a symbol of evil in the Bible. The Jews before the days of unleavened bread, 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." (Wuest)
if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? - "The Judaizers said that Paul was still preaching circumcision when it suited his purpose. Paul answers this charge by calling the attention of the Galatians to the fact that he was still being persecuted, implying that it was for his anti-legalism ... The Book of Acts records the fact that he was continually being persecuted by the Jews because of his break with the Mosaic economy. It was as a Pharisee that he had preached circumcision ... The idea is, 'If I am still preaching circumcision, why am I in spite of that fact being persecuted? The persecution of Paul had its basis in the fact that the Cross was an offense to the Jew. What made the Cross an offense to the Jew? Paul tells us in the words, 'If I yet preach circumcision, then is the offense of the cross ceased.' That is, if circumcision be preached as one of the prerequisites of salvation, then the Cross of Christ would cease to be an offense. Thus, the offensiveness of the Cross to the Jew lay in the teaching that believers in the Lord Jesus are free from the Mosaic law ... The Cross was offensive to the Jew therefore because it set aside the entire Mosaic economy, and because it offered salvation by grace through faith alone without the added factor of works performed by the sinner in an effort to merit the salvation offered." (Wuest)
"—the apostle turns suddenly to meet a charge of inconsistency, perhaps of insincerity, made against him by the Judaizing party, one to which indeed he had already somewhat indirectly referred, 1:8, 9, above. His action in regard to Timothy may have afforded ground for this charge. But the case of Timothy differed from that of Titus 2:3 in an important particular. Titus was a Gentile born of Gentile parents; Timothy's mother was a Hebrew, his father a Gentile, he was therefore the offspring of a union plainly prohibited by the Mosaic Law. It may have seemed expedient to the apostle on this account to circumcise Timothy in order to conciliate some who through ignorance, or through weakness in the faith, were sensitive on the point. However that may have been, the apostle soon learned that any attempt to conciliate the Judaizers was foredoomed to failure, and would probably involve the churches in disaster. The time arrived when it became necessary to oppose them at all points, and to attack their hybrid system of salvation by works and faith with every legitimate weapon available. The pressure in favor of circumcision was renews when Titus came to Antioch, but now the apostle did not yield. So long as he hoped to further the interests of the gospel by conciliating the Judaizers he endeavored to conciliate them, perhaps even hoped to win them; now he saw clearly that these interests could be preserved and furthered only by bold and insistent attack upon those who opposed them." (Vine)
"If we can preach something for man to do in addition to all that Christ has done, then the offense of the cross will cease. The cross is an offense to the world. The unbeliever asks, 'Am I so bad that someone had to die for me?' Paul said that was why he was suffering persecution—because of 'the offense of the cross.' He was preaching the truth that the cross is the only thing that God will accept for salvation." (Stam)
freedom - "—eleutheria; slavery, established and regulated by law, was an integral element in the social fabric of the apostle's day. Provision was made, among other things, for the liberation of the save, and this was effected by a legal fiction according to which he was purchased by a deity, Apollo or another; the purchase money was in fact provided by the slave who, as he had no legal standing, no civil rights, could not purchase himself. To meet this difficulty the sum appointed was paid into the temple treasure, whither master and slave proceeded. There, when the money was paid over, a document was drawn up and duly attested, to the effect that so-and0so had been purchased by the deity at such a price; in some of these documents the same words that are used by the apostle here, 'for freedom,' i.e., 'with the object of setting him free,' were inserted. Henceforth the erstwhile slave is his own master, and may do 'the things that he will,' nor may any him into bondage again inasmuch as, in theory at least, he is the property of the god who purchased him. In the New Testament men are declared to be in bondage, the Jews to the law, 4:3, Romans 7:1, the Gentiles to idols, 4:8, 1 Corinthians 12:2, and all to sin, Romans 6:6, 17; therein, too, the way to freedom is declared in language which is largely that of the manumission from the social slavery just described. The seed from which this conception of salvation as deliverance from bondage afterwards developed is found, however, in the words of the Lord Jesus, cp. Matthew 20:28, 'the Son of Man came ... to give His life a ransom for many,' and Luke 21:38, 'your redemption draweth nigh,' and John 8:36, 'If ... the Son shall make you free [lit., free you], ye shall be free indeed.' Thus men are set at liberty by Christ who purchased them at a price, 1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23, which is His own blood, Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 1:18, 19, for He actually did at His own cost what the god did fictionally with money provided by the slave. Thus those who were in bondage to law, idols and sin, become the bond servants of Christ, of God and of righteousness, Romans 6:18, 22; 1 Corinthians 7:22." (Vine)
"In the light of the Word of God, we have no right to forgo our liberty in Christ. We would be disobeying the truth as well as being foolish if we left out standing in grace to go back under the law. God tells us that Christ died to deliver us from the curse of the law so that we no longer need to be under that curse. Therefore, it is a sin to put ourselves back under it. We may forgo our rights for the welfare of others, but we have no right to forgo our liberty and allow men or theologians or religious leaders to entangle use with the yoke of bondage. God tells us to 'Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.' If we were to forgo our liberty and put ourselves under the law again we would be poor representatives of Christ who died to save us from the law. We would be in a poor position to preach the gospel of the grace of God. That is why the apostle, all through this epistle, emphasized so strongly that we are not under the Mosaic law with it Ten Commandments. Galatians 3:13 says very clearly that 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.' Galatians 3:25 says that 'after faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster.' Galatians 4:4,5 says that 'when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son...to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption [placing as full-grown] sons (Gal 5:4). Did you get that? It does not mean that after you are saved you can be lost again. But Christ profits you nothing if He does not profit everything. He must be all or nothing, and as we just read in verse 13, 'Brethren, we have been called unto liberty.'" (Stam)
an opportunity for the flesh - "The antidote against using their liberty from the law as a pretext for sinning, is found in the exhortation, 'By love serve one another.' The Greek word for love here is agape, which refers, not to human affection but to divine love, the love produced in the heart of the yielded believer by the Holy Spirit, and the love with which that believer should love his fellow-believers. This love is a love whose chief essence is self-sacrifice for the benefit of the one who is loved. Such a love means death to self, and that means defeat for sin, since the essence of sin is self-will and self-gratification. The word serve is from douloo which means 'to render service to, to do that which is for the advantage of someone else.' It is the word Paul used when he spoke of the slavery that is imposed by the law upon the one who is under the law. The Galatian Christians 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. This is the secret of victory over the totally depraved nature whose power over the believer was broken when God saved him, when that nature attempts to induce the Christian to use his liberty as a pretext to sin." (Wuest)
"It is true that there are people who say that if we are under grace we can do anything we desire. Theoretically this may be true. It is true that when the Lord gave the blind man his sight again, He said, 'Go thy way; they faith hath made thee whole' (Mark 10:52). But you know what the man did; the very next phrase tells us that he 'followed Jesus in the way.' There you have it exactly. God has redeemed us from the condemnation of sin, redeemed us 'by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,' and there are no strings attached. He says, 'Your faith has made you whole, go your way.' 'Whomsoever the Son shall make free shall be free indeed.' Our liberty is real. Ah, but the result of this grace is that the recipient wants to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, and he offers himself as a bond-slave to Christ, as Paul did. Paul wrote of himself again and again as the servant, the bond-slave, of Christ. The believer wants to follow Christ in the way and obey Him. I know that there are always ungodly men who want to 'turn the grace of God into lasciviousness,' (Jude 4). But we are not following them; they know nothing about grace. If they have come to Christ at all, perhaps in some intellectual sense, they did not come to be freed from sin; they came to be freed to sin. They accepted God's grace intellectually, in order to have a license to sin1 Peter 2:15-16 put its beautifully. Free, but not using our liberty for a cloak. If we do that, we are all hypocrites, and we show clearly that we do not understand the grace of God." (Stam)
the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” - "The normal mother does not need laws to make her take care of her child. She loves that child; she nurses it, washes it, dresses it, cares for it, protects it, feeds it. Why? Because the law says that she must? No, because she loves the child. In just the same way love will motivate us to right living far more than the requirements of the law could ever do. Yes, my unsaved friend, you may try until Doom's Day to keep the law, but you will go out of this world lost in your sins if you reject God's grace. 'For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Rom 6:23). May all of us who know Him as Savior seek by His grace to live in ways that will please and honor Him." (Stam)
Who hindered you from obeying the truth? - "The Galatian Christians were running the Christian race well, 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 the latter had been thrown back upon 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. The great apostle knew well enough who had slowed up the Christian growth of the Galatians." (Wuest)
"Many Christian people entertain the notion that apostasy from the truth begins with a denial of one or more of the fundamentals of the faith (such as the infallibility of the Bible, the deity of Christ, or the efficacy of His redemptive work). The moral aspect of apostasy, they suppose, comes about in much the same way. This view is not wholly correct, for apostasy generally begins not with the believing spiritual or moral error, but with condoning it. Eve fell into sin, not by denying what God had said, but by listening to Satan ... Some doctrine or practice, clearly unscriptural and subversive of spiritual blessing, had been condoned when, like the little foxes of Solomon's song (Song of Solomon 2:15), they should have been caught and disposed of. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine from Paul's Epistle to the Galatians just what the Galatian believers thought the rite of circumcision would accomplish for them spiritually. We doubt that they knew themselves, but the Judaizers had come in among them and had captured their attention so that they now 'desired to be under the law' (Gal 4:21). They did not deny the efficacy of the finished work of Christ, but they were interested—just interested—in submitting to a religious ceremony which would in itself be a denial of the all-sufficiency of His redemptive work (Gal 3:1; 5:2-4). Result: the blessing was already vanishing (Gal 4:14) and the apostle had to warn them: 'A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump' (Gal 5:9)." (Stam)
A little leaven leavens the whole lump - "Leaven is always a symbol of evil in the Bible. The Jews before the days of unleavened bread, 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." (Wuest)
if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? - "The Judaizers said that Paul was still preaching circumcision when it suited his purpose. Paul answers this charge by calling the attention of the Galatians to the fact that he was still being persecuted, implying that it was for his anti-legalism ... The Book of Acts records the fact that he was continually being persecuted by the Jews because of his break with the Mosaic economy. It was as a Pharisee that he had preached circumcision ... The idea is, 'If I am still preaching circumcision, why am I in spite of that fact being persecuted? The persecution of Paul had its basis in the fact that the Cross was an offense to the Jew. What made the Cross an offense to the Jew? Paul tells us in the words, 'If I yet preach circumcision, then is the offense of the cross ceased.' That is, if circumcision be preached as one of the prerequisites of salvation, then the Cross of Christ would cease to be an offense. Thus, the offensiveness of the Cross to the Jew lay in the teaching that believers in the Lord Jesus are free from the Mosaic law ... The Cross was offensive to the Jew therefore because it set aside the entire Mosaic economy, and because it offered salvation by grace through faith alone without the added factor of works performed by the sinner in an effort to merit the salvation offered." (Wuest)
"—the apostle turns suddenly to meet a charge of inconsistency, perhaps of insincerity, made against him by the Judaizing party, one to which indeed he had already somewhat indirectly referred, 1:8, 9, above. His action in regard to Timothy may have afforded ground for this charge. But the case of Timothy differed from that of Titus 2:3 in an important particular. Titus was a Gentile born of Gentile parents; Timothy's mother was a Hebrew, his father a Gentile, he was therefore the offspring of a union plainly prohibited by the Mosaic Law. It may have seemed expedient to the apostle on this account to circumcise Timothy in order to conciliate some who through ignorance, or through weakness in the faith, were sensitive on the point. However that may have been, the apostle soon learned that any attempt to conciliate the Judaizers was foredoomed to failure, and would probably involve the churches in disaster. The time arrived when it became necessary to oppose them at all points, and to attack their hybrid system of salvation by works and faith with every legitimate weapon available. The pressure in favor of circumcision was renews when Titus came to Antioch, but now the apostle did not yield. So long as he hoped to further the interests of the gospel by conciliating the Judaizers he endeavored to conciliate them, perhaps even hoped to win them; now he saw clearly that these interests could be preserved and furthered only by bold and insistent attack upon those who opposed them." (Vine)
"If we can preach something for man to do in addition to all that Christ has done, then the offense of the cross will cease. The cross is an offense to the world. The unbeliever asks, 'Am I so bad that someone had to die for me?' Paul said that was why he was suffering persecution—because of 'the offense of the cross.' He was preaching the truth that the cross is the only thing that God will accept for salvation." (Stam)
freedom - "—eleutheria; slavery, established and regulated by law, was an integral element in the social fabric of the apostle's day. Provision was made, among other things, for the liberation of the save, and this was effected by a legal fiction according to which he was purchased by a deity, Apollo or another; the purchase money was in fact provided by the slave who, as he had no legal standing, no civil rights, could not purchase himself. To meet this difficulty the sum appointed was paid into the temple treasure, whither master and slave proceeded. There, when the money was paid over, a document was drawn up and duly attested, to the effect that so-and0so had been purchased by the deity at such a price; in some of these documents the same words that are used by the apostle here, 'for freedom,' i.e., 'with the object of setting him free,' were inserted. Henceforth the erstwhile slave is his own master, and may do 'the things that he will,' nor may any him into bondage again inasmuch as, in theory at least, he is the property of the god who purchased him. In the New Testament men are declared to be in bondage, the Jews to the law, 4:3, Romans 7:1, the Gentiles to idols, 4:8, 1 Corinthians 12:2, and all to sin, Romans 6:6, 17; therein, too, the way to freedom is declared in language which is largely that of the manumission from the social slavery just described. The seed from which this conception of salvation as deliverance from bondage afterwards developed is found, however, in the words of the Lord Jesus, cp. Matthew 20:28, 'the Son of Man came ... to give His life a ransom for many,' and Luke 21:38, 'your redemption draweth nigh,' and John 8:36, 'If ... the Son shall make you free [lit., free you], ye shall be free indeed.' Thus men are set at liberty by Christ who purchased them at a price, 1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23, which is His own blood, Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 1:18, 19, for He actually did at His own cost what the god did fictionally with money provided by the slave. Thus those who were in bondage to law, idols and sin, become the bond servants of Christ, of God and of righteousness, Romans 6:18, 22; 1 Corinthians 7:22." (Vine)
"In the light of the Word of God, we have no right to forgo our liberty in Christ. We would be disobeying the truth as well as being foolish if we left out standing in grace to go back under the law. God tells us that Christ died to deliver us from the curse of the law so that we no longer need to be under that curse. Therefore, it is a sin to put ourselves back under it. We may forgo our rights for the welfare of others, but we have no right to forgo our liberty and allow men or theologians or religious leaders to entangle use with the yoke of bondage. God tells us to 'Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.' If we were to forgo our liberty and put ourselves under the law again we would be poor representatives of Christ who died to save us from the law. We would be in a poor position to preach the gospel of the grace of God. That is why the apostle, all through this epistle, emphasized so strongly that we are not under the Mosaic law with it Ten Commandments. Galatians 3:13 says very clearly that 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.' Galatians 3:25 says that 'after faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster.' Galatians 4:4,5 says that 'when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son...to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption [placing as full-grown] sons (Gal 5:4). Did you get that? It does not mean that after you are saved you can be lost again. But Christ profits you nothing if He does not profit everything. He must be all or nothing, and as we just read in verse 13, 'Brethren, we have been called unto liberty.'" (Stam)
an opportunity for the flesh - "The antidote against using their liberty from the law as a pretext for sinning, is found in the exhortation, 'By love serve one another.' The Greek word for love here is agape, which refers, not to human affection but to divine love, the love produced in the heart of the yielded believer by the Holy Spirit, and the love with which that believer should love his fellow-believers. This love is a love whose chief essence is self-sacrifice for the benefit of the one who is loved. Such a love means death to self, and that means defeat for sin, since the essence of sin is self-will and self-gratification. The word serve is from douloo which means 'to render service to, to do that which is for the advantage of someone else.' It is the word Paul used when he spoke of the slavery that is imposed by the law upon the one who is under the law. The Galatian Christians 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. This is the secret of victory over the totally depraved nature whose power over the believer was broken when God saved him, when that nature attempts to induce the Christian to use his liberty as a pretext to sin." (Wuest)
"It is true that there are people who say that if we are under grace we can do anything we desire. Theoretically this may be true. It is true that when the Lord gave the blind man his sight again, He said, 'Go thy way; they faith hath made thee whole' (Mark 10:52). But you know what the man did; the very next phrase tells us that he 'followed Jesus in the way.' There you have it exactly. God has redeemed us from the condemnation of sin, redeemed us 'by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,' and there are no strings attached. He says, 'Your faith has made you whole, go your way.' 'Whomsoever the Son shall make free shall be free indeed.' Our liberty is real. Ah, but the result of this grace is that the recipient wants to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, and he offers himself as a bond-slave to Christ, as Paul did. Paul wrote of himself again and again as the servant, the bond-slave, of Christ. The believer wants to follow Christ in the way and obey Him. I know that there are always ungodly men who want to 'turn the grace of God into lasciviousness,' (Jude 4). But we are not following them; they know nothing about grace. If they have come to Christ at all, perhaps in some intellectual sense, they did not come to be freed from sin; they came to be freed to sin. They accepted God's grace intellectually, in order to have a license to sin1 Peter 2:15-16 put its beautifully. Free, but not using our liberty for a cloak. If we do that, we are all hypocrites, and we show clearly that we do not understand the grace of God." (Stam)
the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” - "The normal mother does not need laws to make her take care of her child. She loves that child; she nurses it, washes it, dresses it, cares for it, protects it, feeds it. Why? Because the law says that she must? No, because she loves the child. In just the same way love will motivate us to right living far more than the requirements of the law could ever do. Yes, my unsaved friend, you may try until Doom's Day to keep the law, but you will go out of this world lost in your sins if you reject God's grace. 'For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Rom 6:23). May all of us who know Him as Savior seek by His grace to live in ways that will please and honor Him." (Stam)
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