You Are Free
“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.” - Galatians 5:1
Galatians 5 helps to free us from the need to be perfect. At the time of this text, those new to the faith were being challenged by Jewish Christians who felt that in order to be saved, a true Christian had to observe all 613 commandments, customs, and ritual laws in the Old Testament.
These sanctimonious saints went around monitoring people. They were like the morality police. They tried to determine if people’s moral lives were perfect. And new converts really tried to do it all. They tried to follow every command, every custom, and every prescription. They wanted to be good Christians...in fact, they wanted to be perfect Christians.
But it was an unrealistic standard that placed an impossible burden on people’s shoulders. So Paul says to them in Galatians 5:1, “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.”
Paul wanted them to know that their freedom in God, their liberty in Christ, was because of the love of God and not from their meticulous obedience to the law. Their salvation had nothing to do with them or some idea of moral perfection, but it had everything to do with what Jesus did on Calvary’s cross.
What Paul was telling them is the same thing he would tell you now: YOU ARE FREE. You are free from trying to be perfect because that isn’t what God has required. It is not about what you do, but what Jesus did on the Cross! He has set you free, and he who the Son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36)!
Galatians 5 helps to free us from the need to be perfect. At the time of this text, those new to the faith were being challenged by Jewish Christians who felt that in order to be saved, a true Christian had to observe all 613 commandments, customs, and ritual laws in the Old Testament.
These sanctimonious saints went around monitoring people. They were like the morality police. They tried to determine if people’s moral lives were perfect. And new converts really tried to do it all. They tried to follow every command, every custom, and every prescription. They wanted to be good Christians...in fact, they wanted to be perfect Christians.
But it was an unrealistic standard that placed an impossible burden on people’s shoulders. So Paul says to them in Galatians 5:1, “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.”
Paul wanted them to know that their freedom in God, their liberty in Christ, was because of the love of God and not from their meticulous obedience to the law. Their salvation had nothing to do with them or some idea of moral perfection, but it had everything to do with what Jesus did on Calvary’s cross.
What Paul was telling them is the same thing he would tell you now: YOU ARE FREE. You are free from trying to be perfect because that isn’t what God has required. It is not about what you do, but what Jesus did on the Cross! He has set you free, and he who the Son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36)!
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