Galatians 5:1 - Printer Friendly

ESV: For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

NIV: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

NASB: It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

CSB: For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.

NLT: So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

KJV: Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

NKJV: Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Paul is writing to a group of Christians in the region of Galatia. He met them when he traveled through their area and preached the message of Jesus to them (Galatians 1:11). They heard from Paul that, through faith in Jesus' death for their sins on the cross, they could be forgiven by God and welcomed into His family as His children. They believed (Galatians 1:6).

Later, though, a group of Jewish religious leaders from Jerusalem showed up to add to what Paul taught them. These men said that it was good to believe in Jesus, but they also said men must be circumcised and all must follow the law of Moses to truly be included in the family of God (Galatians 2:4). Without the works of the law, nobody could be saved.

Paul has spent the last two chapters building a case against this teaching. He has been emphatic that the rituals and sacraments of the law cannot save anyone. The law reveals our sinfulness, but it cannot provide a way out (Galatians 3:22–24). Jesus is the only one who ever kept the law of Moses perfectly, and then He died to pay the penalty for the sins of others. Those who continue to follow the law in order to be right before God are still slaves to their own sin, Paul has written (Galatians 4:8–9). Those who come to God by faith in Christ are free.

Now Paul repeats that message with a call to rebellion against sin and slavery. He tells the Galatians—and, by extension, all Christians—that Christ has set us free, so we ought to stand firm. We should not take that yoke of slavery again. In other words, believers ought not let anyone tell them they must follow all of the rules and restrictions of the law of Moses to be right with God.

Paul will show in the following verses the dire consequences of trying to be justified by God through following the law.

Galatians 5:1–15 focuses on what those in Christ should do with our freedom in Christ. First, we must guard it, especially from those who would pressure us to follow the law. Paul was confident the Galatians would resist the one leading them in the wrong direction. Paul also warns us not to waste our freedom in Christ to selfishly serve ourselves instead of serving each other in love. The entire law is fulfilled in that one word: love. Those who serve themselves, though, will always end up in conflict with each other.

Those who trust in Christ have been set free. Paul's readers were in danger of wasting that freedom, by veering off in one of two directions. On the one hand, false teachers were pressuring them into circumcision in order to be sure of being right with God. On the other hand, freedom can also be squandered on serving only our sinful desires instead of investing it through serving others in love. God's Spirit gives us the power to do that when we let Him lead us. Life in the Spirit bears powerful and positive fruit in a Christian's life.

Galatians 3—4 focused on theology. Galatians 5—6 focus on how Christians should live in response to those truths. In short, we must resist being dragged away from the freedom we have in Christ to follow the law. We must also resist wasting our freedom on serving our sinful desires instead of serving others in love. We can do this by the power of God's Spirit with us. When we give Him the lead, powerful, positive characteristics show up in us. Galatians 6 will show how to use those characteristics to serve each other.

Galatians is sometimes called “a short Romans” for its similar themes of justification and sanctification through faith. A group of Christians known as “Judaizers” were preaching a gospel of legalism, rather than grace. Paul’s main purpose in writing the letter to the Galatians was to reiterate the true nature of the gospel: we are justified (made righteous) and sanctified (made more Christlike) through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. This letter was probably written shortly before the church elders in Jerusalem issued their official refutation of the Judaizers, commonly called the Jerusalem Council.