Galatians 5:13-15 – Hinge Pin

Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³For brothers you were called upon freedom. Only [do not use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh, but be serving one another through the love; ¹⁴for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵But beware, if you are biting and devouring each other, lest you are consumed by one another.

Verse 13, I would suggest is a hinge pin of the whole book of Galatians. Paul has spent the entire book to this point establishing the fact of our freedom in Christ, that grace transcends law, that law-keeping is a miserable and beggarly alternative to the glorious Cross-won, Spirit-given sonship of the Gospel.

As I have written earlier, this book to me has been an explosion of truth. I feel for the first time in my life I really understand the freedom I have in Christ. Words fail to express the wonder, the dignity that I feel, freed from “rules” to actually know the heart of God and live out His image in me. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning these things and writing them down to help me organize my thoughts and perhaps to bless someone else.

But … all the while, something has been eating at me. I have been very aware that something “else” needed to be said. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew it was there.

To me, in these three verses, Paul hits the nail on the head. Freed, freed, freed … to what? To what? That is precisely the matter that needs to be addressed head on, that needs to be addressed very, very clearly. In verse 13, I believe Paul turns from establishing the fact of our freedom and like a giant mental hinge pin he turns to paint a picture of what that freedom is, what it looks like, how it expresses itself in the reality of our daily lives. I believe that in these three little verses and then (as I look ahead) in the discussion which follows, he leaves no uncertainly whatsoever in understanding what life is like for people who understand and wish to live out the reality of grace.

I foresee this taking a few posts. There is so much to think about and ponder.

Interestingly, he first of all assaults one of the most likely misunderstandings. “Only [do not use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh…”  The purpose of law, as we learned earlier, is to restrain our flesh. Fallen human beings need the rule of law to set before them “good” and to threaten them if they should choose the bad. It doesn’t work very well but it at least keeps them from being as bad as they could be. If you tell them, you no longer live under law, what is their most likely response? To throw off restraint, of course.

This is exactly the something “else” that needs to be said, the issue that needs to be addressed clearly and head on. Freed to what?

We of course are at exactly the point where this whole discussion has always culminated: What about antinomianism?” “Isn’t all of this teaching leading to a bunch of believers gone wild?” If I really cast off legalism and embrace grace, does that mean I’m going to rush out, get shame-faced drunk, and run off with the neighbor’s wife?

The same objection was raised from the very beginning. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” (Rom 6:1). Paul answered it then, and the same answer applies now: “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer in it?” (v2).

I would suggest the very act of using freedom as an opportunity for the flesh proves we don’t understand the freedom at all. I even wonder if that response doesn’t betray a heart that has never really been redeemed.

Here’s what I mean: since I have been redeemed, although sins (and certain ones in particular) still very powerfully allure my heart, and I would in a sense very much love to indulge them, yet that is patently NOT the freedom my heart desires. My heart would be free of the very temptations themselves. I long to live “above” all of that. To tell me that freedom in Christ meant I was somehow free to “go wild” would be no freedom at all to me. My heart longs to be free of sin, to be free to love God and love people unhindered by this evil, selfish, conniving, manipulating heart of mine, to be free of doing and saying things that have again and again only caused me misery in the long run. As a young man, I thought freedom was to cast off restraint and indulge my every passion; but in time I found it wasn’t freedom at all but instead a miserable slavery that wrecked my life and left me knowing I somehow could not escape.

What Paul says in this passage is literally music to my redeemed ears: “… but be serving one another through the love; for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Love. Real relationships. Good relationships. Now that sounds like living!

And I love Paul’s choice of words: “be serving one another in love.” The word translated “serving” is the same root word that he used back in 5:1, ^“Christ freed us to the freedom, therefore be standing firm and do not be being bound again to a yoke of slavery”.  Don’t be bound again to a yoke of slavery. A yoke of slavery. Yet I could translate v13, “be enslaved to one another in love.” It’s the same root word. Don’t be bound to a slavery of rule-keeping, but enslave yourself to loving others! Love to others doesn’t cast off restraint and “go wild.” As Paul says in Romans 13:9, 10: “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

I would suggest again that a redeemed heart understands this and joyfully embraces it. A redeemed heart gladly yields to the “yoke of slavery to love.” Somehow my heart has always known the beggarly rule-keeping didn’t “cut it,” that there was something much grander that my faith was all about. Here we see it – the freedom to love, the freedom to rise above myself, my selfishness, my pride and my fears, and actually know and live a Christ-like love for other people.

Now that’s freedom! What a hinge pin! Free to love. I think I have a lot more I want to record regarding this passage, but for now I just want to say I can’t thank the Lord enough for the indescribable gift of His freedom, of His indwelling Spirit, of the Christ-love that made it all possible.

Awesome.