Our Liberty In Christ Jesus

Galatians 5:1-3

Being saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-10), we are free. The truth has made us free indeed. We are now free from the bondage of the law of Moses, which had kept us under tutelage until faith came (Gal. 3:23). We have been made free from sin (Rom. 6:18), free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2), and free from all men (1 Cor. 9:19). We are free to serve Jesus Christ and be among his bondslaves, or servants of Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1).

Now that we are free, we are to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. We do this by faith, knowing that we are no longer in bondage but are set free from the bondage of sin and the law and are made free in Christ Jesus, 1 Peter 2:16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

The greatest challenge, evidently, of nominal new-born believers is that temptation that comes to bring ourselves (usually by the help of those who have come in unawares) back under the bondage of the law, the "yoke of bondage." Those unconverted proselytizers demanded that new believers be circumcised, as under the law; but Paul instructs the Galatians that, if they are to be circumcised, there is no profit from Christ in that, Gal. 6:12 As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.

Under the New Covenant Jesus Christ does not bind us under the obligatory service of the Old Testament Law; therefore, circumcision means nothing, and uncircumcision means nothing (See 1 Cor. 7:19; Gal. 3:28; Rom. 3:22; 10:12).

If a man is circumcised, he is a debtor to the whole law. The Greek word for "whole" here is HOLOS and means "completely, every whit, every part." James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. This means every jot and tittle of the law, every nuance of the law, every practice of the law, and this, being impossible to do, plunges those who surrender to it into a situation of a dire circumstance, one from which a man cannot lift himself except by divine faith in Jesus Christ and not in Moses.

If one cannot stand in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and if he is willing to be put back under the yoke of bondage, then it seems to me that he does not have genuine, divine faith in Jesus Christ and that he is not indeed free but is still in his sins.

Be thankful for your freedom, your liberty. We are free in Christ, and the law cannot condemn us, for Christ has nailed all of these ordinances to the cross. Col 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

We are servants either of sin or of Christ. When Christ made us free, we were freed from being servants of the law to being servants of God and of Christ. Romans 6:13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.