True Love: Christ's Freedom from Legalism and License

^{Galatians 5:13-15}

True Love: Christ's Freedom from Legalism and Lawlessness

Sermon delivered at Lodi Avenue Baptist Church, August 19, 2012

Introduction

[Matthew 7:23; 1 Timothy 1:8-9; Romans 6:14]

There was a time when trying to reconcile these verses and their ideas of lawlessness and being under grace were difficult for me. I think it is that way for many people.

I have also noticed that today, there is so much talk about being free in Christ, and you have to wonder, What does this expression mean? In what way am I free in Christ Jesus? Free from what? What am I free to do now as a believer that I wasn’t as an unbeliever? And if you were to take a survey of Christians today, I suspect you may get a wide range of answers as to what this actually means. You will probably get a very confusing plethora of responses as to what purpose this freedom serves. 

Before we answer these questions, let’s get some background on Galatians so we can find our bearings in our own key text for this morning.

Background

As you read through Galatians you find the apostle Paul writing a letter that is vehement and passionate. The Gospel, as Paul and the other apostles know it, is under attack, and the Galatians are the victims of a group of false teachers, often called the Judaizers, who want to pervert the Gospel by adding the Law of Moses to Grace as a means of salvation. Most specifically, they want to add circumcision to grace. Paul responds to what he hears about these teachings in the churches that he himself established in Galatia, and right from the beginning he opens the flood gates with a MASSIVE warning. We need to keep this warning in mind this morning. Turn with me to Galatians chapter 1, verses 8 to 9:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed!

I want you to feel the weight of these words. We need to be honest about what Paul is saying here. The God’s Word Translation is the only one that I found that gives the full brunt force of this statement. It says:

Whoever tells you good news that is different from the Good News we gave you should be condemned to hell, even if he is one of us or an angel from heaven. I'm now telling you again what we've told you in the past: If anyone tells you good news that is different from the Good News you received, that person should be condemned to hell.

Feel the weight and seriousness of getting the Gospel right. To miss the solid simplicity of the Gospel is to find oneself in an accursed position. That’s what our passage deals with this morning, because there are two extremes that unregenerate, false teachers will sadly draw out of the Gospel: 1) Legalism or 2) License. They never seem to come to the truth. Let’s briefly talk about each.

Two Extremes

[1] For most of the Epistle to the Galatians, we will find Paul fighting strongly against those who would say that the purpose of the Gospel is to put our trust for salvation in Christ plus something else; maybe Christ + Baptism; maybe Christ + Weekly Church Attendance; maybe Christ + Not Drinking Alcohol; maybe Christ + Worshipping on Saturday; maybe Christ + Not Eating Pork or Clams. People in all times and in all cultures will always want to add their own righteousness to the Gospel so that God will accept them. That extreme is called “legalism.” Legalism would be the earning of God’s acceptance for salvation and forgiveness, and it damns people to Hell every day, from everywhere, and from every religion, says the apostle, speaking for the risen Christ.

[2] There’s another extreme, and for the most part, Paul has not dealt with it in Galatians before 5:13, but in our passage for this morning, he will bring out this second extreme: that extreme is called “License.” License is the abuse of freedom. It is to say that there is no law at all. It is the taking of freedom to the point of no boundaries. Licentious people are those who believe that the Law being nailed to the cross means that, as long as they “believe in Jesus,” they can gossip, lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, have homosexual relations, etc., etc. without any repercussions whatsoever. Paul says, “NO!” I believe that John Calvin said it best,

[Libertines] extend Christian liberty to include everything lawful for man, without exception…But these [pretenders] give man full liberty so that nothing may hinder him or prevent him from having a good time…These frantic people without distinction abolish the law, saying that it is no longer necessary to keep it, since we have been set free from it.

Illustration: Two-Sided Coin

Therefore, what I want you to see is that Galatians deals with a two-sided coin. Let me illustrate: A quarter has two sides both of which look different from one another. One the one side there is the head of George Washington. On the other side is the picture of one of the states like Montana or Idaho. No matter what side of the coin you look at, it still has the same value of 25 cents. It is the same with sinful man and his works; on the one side he believes that he can work his way to heaven, yet the value of his work is still an eternity in Hell. On the other side of that coin is the man who believes that he is free to do anything he wants and so gratifying the fleshly lusts and desires of self-worship, but he fails to realize that the value of his unchanged life is still an eternity in Hell. Both men are sinning!

So my prayer for this morning’s message is that God would open our hearts to see how Freedom is NOT Legalism, and it is NOT License. It is completely different, and we will try to harmonize these issues that wage war against the truth of Christian freedom in the Gospel; that is, Christian freedom in the way that God defines TRUE freedom.

Notice first, there is…

I.          The Call to Freedom (5:13a, 13c-14)

I don’t want to spend much time here because the implications of this calling are secondary to our main purpose this morning, but…

[A] It is God who calls us to freedom (5:13a)

 

This freedom comes because we are called. It isn’t something you just conjure up of your own will. It is a calling from God Himself; it is the fulfillment of Christ’s words, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). It is the portrait of God letting men and women rot in the filthy decay of their sin and/or self-righteousness for years, and then, by grace He calls them out by name: “Lazarus, come forth!” And with that, the straying, wayward lamb hears the voice of his shepherd and is imputed with life eternal! He stumbles out of the tomb of sin and walks into the presence of Christ “in whom is life, and the life is the light of mankind” (Jn 1:4).

 [B] The Paradox of Freedom (5:13c)

As Paul does so well, he can speak in paradoxes that can be confusing at first. He will say things like “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,” or “I have learned the secret of being content with all or nothing.” But here in verse 13c, we have a truly interesting and beautiful paradox. We’ll be revisiting verse 13 throughout our time together, but for now, look at the very end of verse 13: “Through love serve one another.” You’ve probably heard this verse a thousand times and maybe missed the depth of this truth. Let’s zoom in.

The word we want to zoom in on is the word “serve.” It is an important word because the word “serve” today has lost its thrust. It doesn’t mean serve in the way that we often use it so flippantly, like community service. This word “serve” in English is the Greek word douloV which means “slave.” But let’s look deeper: this word is also an imperative verb. I mean that it is an active COMMAND! He is saying, “Through love enslave yourselves to one another,” or “through love become as a slave to your brothers and sisters in Christ.” 

So here’s the paradox: if we compare this statement to the beginning of verse 13, we see that not only are we called to Freedom, but somehow that freedom still enslaves us! [READ v.13 again.] How can we be free and yet be slaves?? It is an enslavement to righteousness; it is an enslavement to loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is what Paul said just a few verses earlier [read Galatians 5:6…] Faith works through love, and when faith works through love, it willing enslaves itself to the people of God; not from an impure, ungodly or selfish motive like the people of the world that are “nice people,” but instead, it is a love that serves because of an active FAITH in the perfect life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus alone. So this freedom is paradoxical because it enslaves believers to love one another.

With that paradox, Paul gives us…

[C] The Purpose of Freedom (5:14) 

When I was first coming to saving faith in Christ, I started ordering free materials from a certain church in PA. I saw all kinds of “keeping the Commandments this” and “keeping the Commandments that.” And I really started grabbing hold of this teaching; that is, until I started really reading the context of passages that they cited and I started to realize what these commandments were meant to do. It was then that I began to realize that this keeping of the Commandments by Arminianist theology was being used as a way of saying that, even if grace gifts salvation to you, you must still KEEP IT. Somehow they have come to believe that the Spirit helps along the way, but eventually you have to keep yourself saved through commandments. And to that, Paul, in Galatians 3:3 would say, “Are you so foolish, legalists? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” They have really missed the mark of how the Law works with Grace and not against grace; I’m afraid that many of us have missed it too. 

God has commanded us to become slaves of righteousness and slaves of love to one another; that is, slaves to the family of believers in Christ. Here in Galatians 5:14 we find the ground (or the root) for doing this. Look at your Bibles again at 5:14. He says, “…through love, serve another. For  (or because) the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” I’m disappointed in the NIV84 because they drop out the word “for,” which is frustrating when so much understanding between the relationships of words rides on that one conjunction. The word “for” gives us the purpose for why we serve one another, which is so that we might fulfill the whole law. 

Now….About this verse, Southern Baptist professor, Timothy George, says,

‘Doing’ the Law was what was required of those under the law; ‘fulfilling’ the Law, was, for Paul, the result of Christians living the norms of which are stated in quite different terms.

So like our savior who was the fulfillment of the Law, we are now freed from sin and self-righteousness to become like our savior; we are called to fulfill the whole Law through enslaving ourselves to each other in love. But it is important to remember that the “whole law hangs on two commandments”: Love the LORD your go will all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. We don’t do the OT Law; we fulfill the Law through the power of Christ who is the fulfillment of the whole Law. We fulfill the two greatest commandments.

But the question may come up: Why does Paul not mention the “first and greatest commandment” of loving God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind? The answer is simple: Jesus says that loving your neighbor as yourself is the second great commandment. Whenever you see these two love commandments, or even when you look at the 10 Commandments, you will find that the first of those commandments is always the source of all the other commands. 

So in this case, loving your neighbor the way God wants us to love our neighbor becomes possible ONLY if we love God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind! The second commandment of loving others flows directly out of the first command to love God. Without the first, the second becomes impossible to do as far as God is concerned. It is in the motive of loving God that we love others TRULY. Let’s look at the words of our LORD in John 14:15--

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” 

I had to translate this recently. And one word stuck out. It’s the future tense of the word “will keep.” I think that those who are legalists will often read this as children do. A child would say, “Daddy, if you really loved me, then you would do this for me.” Or “Do this Daddy, to prove to me that you love me.” Legalists often see this verse as a LORD who is coercing people into keeping His commandments. But that isn’t what Jesus is saying at all. 

The words are way more powerful and more profound. “If you love me, you WILL (future tense) keep my commandments.” He is not coercing us into loving Him. He is saying, “Because you love me, there is, from your hearts, a natural flowing out of commandment keeping love. It is a love that cannot help but desire to keep my commandments.” He is not saying that you have to work your way into keeping some Law that the human heart cannot keep. Instead, this is the supernatural love of Christ within us that gives us the ability to love Jesus and therefore, love His commandments. He is telling us that this is PROOF to the world that you love Him. And guess what? “We love because He first loved us.”

So what is the purpose of freedom? The purpose of Freedom in Christ is so that we might fulfill the whole law of Christ by loving our neighbors as ourselves, which is motivated to do so because of the grace of God that loved us first. It is how we bear witness to Christ in us.

So…from Galatians 5, I see the definition of Christian freedom as: the enablement to love without legalism or license. [REPEAT]. This is Gospel love. It is the kind of love that stems from the power of God and is enabled by the power of God, and it is by grace alone that we have been empowered. 

QUESTION: What, then, are the implications on our eating meats, or drinking wine, or worshiping on Sunday or Saturday, watching movies, etc?

1.      Implications on Fulfilling the Law

[a] Against Legalism, Christian freedom is a love that says, “I desire Christ so much, that attending church on Sunday Lord’s Day (or Saturday Sabbath) is a fulfillment of my joy; I don’t go to church so that God will accept me and my righteousness, but instead I desire to commune with the body of Christ. I desire satisfaction in Christ because it brings Him glory, and his glory brings joy to me and those around me.” 

Legalism says, “You cannot drink alcohol, because it is sin!” Against legalism, Christian freedom is love that says, “Since there is no commandment for the people of God not to drink, then you are free to do so. I will keep silent even if I feel that I cannot drink alcohol.”

Legalism says, “The OT tells us that we cannot eat meat.” Against Legalism, Christian freedom is love that says, “The law was fulfilled in Christ’s perfection and the OT ceremonial laws about unclean meats were done away with in Mark 7, Acts 10 & 11, Romans 14, Galatians 2, etc…...”

[b] Now License, says, “I can drink alcohol as much as I desire and whenever I desire!” Against License, Christian freedom is a love that says, “I am free in Christ to drink alcohol, but if my drinking alcohol should make my brother or sister in Christ stumble or become uncomfortable, then I will not drink it in front of them. I am free to abstain.” 

License says, “I am free to watch movies that are violent or full of sorcery and darkness or sensuality. I am strong enough to not be affected spiritually.” Christian freedom responds by saying, “If my watching this movie has any potential, any, to turn my passions and desires away from Christ, then that would be detrimental to my witness and adornment of the Gospel for my fellow believers and also the unbelievers around me.” 

License says, “I disagree with Obama on abortion and gay marriage, so because he hasn’t earned my respect, I will not submit to his authority on anything.” Christian freedom responds, “Although I disagree with 80% of what my President believes, I will submit to his authority as Romans 13 declares, wherever God’s commands are not violated, so that I can show myself as a lawful citizen, and not like the lawless nominal Christians who tarnish the name of Christ Jesus for the world to see.”

Do you see the difference in the love fueled by Christian freedom against legalism and license? Legalism tries to force commands on people that God never intended to use as a means of salvation and sanctification. 

License is pushing the limits to say that all things are lawful and without spiritual repercussions. But God is much more interested in our heart’s motivations than in the Law itself. He says in Galatians 3:24, “The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” The law of God was meant to show us that we cannot keep the law without God’s intervention, and once the fulfillment of that Law came (Jesus), the Law then pointed us to faith in His perfection, and we are justified through Faith in Christ Jesus alone. 

So if I died today, and I was to stand before Christ, and He was to ask me, “Ben, why should you enter into eternal life?” My answer had better not be, “Lord, I kept the Sabbath,” or “Lord, I performed miracles in your name,” or “Lord, I avoided consuming alcohol or pork or bottom feeder seafood!”  My answer had better be that I put my entire trust in Christ alone, for any other answer will garnish His response from Matthew 7:23, “Depart from me, your workers of lawlessness”; that is, “you workers of legalism or license! You workers who do not love their neighbor as themselves!”

The difference is in the motives behind our law keeping. If you keep the 10 Commandments because you want to be approved by God, then you have already fallen short. If you throw the law out because you believe that you prayed a prayer once and now you can live just like the heathen, then you have fallen short. 

But if you believe that your righteousness truly comes from Christ alone, who is the fulfillment of the Law, WHO IS THE LAW, then your desires change; you fall in love with Christ, and you can’t help but walk in a way that is pleasing to Him; you want to be keeping His commandments because your heart is in sync with the holiness and character of God. Your faith in Christ allows you to fulfill the Law, and by association of your love for God, you are overflowing with a love for your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. OH, how contagious this love is for a world desperate to be loved. If only the world could see the fountain of love overflowing in the hearts of the saints of God! How different their opinions would have to be!

So, having said all that, it is imperative that we do understand God’s mercy toward us here in Galatians 5. He is about to give us a MASSIVE warning. True freedom that produces a commandment-keeping love knows that there is a flip side to these truths: If loving others from a pure heart proves that the love of God abides within us, then to live in Lawlessness or to live in Legalism is to prove that we do not love God. In other words, Legalism and License are 2 sides on the same coin of slavery. Therefore, those living in Legalism or License, those who are fooling themselves into believing that they love Christ will be horrified to one day experience…

II.   The Consequences of Slavery (5:13b, 15).

Let’s go back to verse 13 again briefly. Let’s read it as a whole verse now.

A.    Legalism and License are slavery and the opposite of loving others (see 13b)

 “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.” So you were called to freedom. But Paul says, “do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” The word for “opportunity” in Greek can actually mean a “springboard”; it can also be a military term used for “a base of operations.” Paul is saying, “Do not, in your heart and mind, set up a base of operations by which you use freedom as the motivation for appeasing the fleshly desires of your old ways. Do not springboard from the point of sin and mask it as Christian freedom.”

QUESTION: How do we know that serving sinful desire is slavery?
I think the answer is in the wording of verse 13. Look at it. Paul contrasts the word “freedom” with the word “only” (or “but” in the NIV) and then commands us not to serve the flesh. In effect, by saying “only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh,” Paul is giving us the opposite of Christian freedom; namely slavery.

With a good look at Galatians as a whole, I believe that the consequences of this slavery are two-fold. 1) PRESENT consquences, and 2) ETERNAL consequences. Let’s look at both of them.

B.    Slavery ends in destruction (5:15)

1.  PRESENT CONSEQUENCES

There are consequences that come with slavery right now, in our present time. The most notable are here in 5:15. Look at your text. Paul warns against biting and devouring one another. The NEB says, “But if you go on fighting one another, tooth and nail, all you can expect is mutual destruction.”

QUESTION: What happens when you try to accomplish moralism in the world and in the church through the works of the flesh? ANSWER, Verse 20: fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, etc.

QUESTION: What happens when you try to tell the church that we are now enlightened by culture, so live how you want because God has forgiven you? ANSWER, Verses 19 and 21: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, drunkenness, orgies and things like these.

Now, some here may feel that this means that we do not exhort one another about doctrinal truths. And I would have to disagree with that, because then that would mean this whole Galatian letter about getting the Gospel right would have to be thrown out. I think what Paul is getting at here is this: if you give legalism or lawlessness an inch, then it will take a mile. If you force people into commands that God did not intend for the NT church to observe, then you will cause all kinds of divisions and anger, and the Gospel will be nullified. On the flipside, if you give lawlessness an inch, then soon enough you will find that, within a couple of generations, church members will freely live like pagans and the Gospel will be nullified.

Therefore, as far as I’m able to read this text, verse 15 is a warning to the Church right here and now. If we do not want our light snuffed out, if we do not want our work to become useless to God, then we had better love our neighbors as ourselves!
But I believe the implications here go further than just the destruction of the Church, which is Christ’s unified body. I believe that there is also an…

2. ETERNAL CONSEQUENCE

I don’t think I have to say too much about this. If the Gospel of Christ is lost, then that means that Legalism and/or Lawlessness has ensued, and the Church’s purpose has been nullified.

QUESTION: What does that mean for the individuals responsible? I think the answer comes in Gal. 5:21 and also at 6:8.

The end of 5:21 says, “I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Then in 6:8, “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

“Ben, this isn’t saying the same thing as ‘not inheriting the kingdom of God.’” Look at 6:8 again. Notice that when we sow to the Spirit we reap eternal life. 

QUESTION: What is the opposite of sowing to the Spirit? 

ANSWER: First half of 6:8, “Sowing to the flesh.”

QUESTION: What is the opposite of reaping eternal life? 

ANSWER: First half of 6:8, “Reaping corruption.” 

A simple text comparison and you can see how Paul works in contrasting colors. If you live by giving in to the desires of the flesh, then you will reap corruption. Paul says that this is the opposite of walking by the Spirit and reaping eternal life.

III.   Application

Now……some of you are squirming in your seats. You are thinking about how you might love your neighbor through your own will and power. You are saying, “Oh! I must get up and do something for Christ!” But that’s not it. It is about your heart, for Paul will also tell us the only way that this commandment-keeping love IS possible. We already said that it is possible through Faith in the finished work of Jesus, but the answer to the empowerment is provided in Galatians 5:16, of which we will only look at briefly.

How does one change his or her heart and love others, thus fulfilling the law of Christ and keeping the commandments of God?
Look at 5:16… “But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Do you see that?? It is the Spirit of God that allows you to do this. This isn’t just NT theology. Israel was told this very thing by the prophet Ezekiel. They were given a glimpse of the New Covenant in Ezekiel 36:26-27, when God says,

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (See also Deuteronomy 30:6).

What I truly believe that the OT was meant to do, was to show God’s people that without His Spirit overcoming the Flesh, we cannot and we will not obey Him and reflect His nature. The biggest difference between the two testaments is that in the NT, we are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and now we are finally enabled to keep the very commandments that Israel was not able to keep; that is, “Love the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, strength and mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is not rooted in our ability. It is rooted in the Spirit of God having come upon us and into us! It is by being born again that we are changed. 

Now…….Don’t think that you begin by the Spirit and then take over the process of sanctification by your own will. Don’t think that you will walk out of here and make up all the times you didn’t love your neighbor! Don’t think that you can live however you feel simply because you are free in Christ. No! You need only rest right in your pew, right where you are, and plead with God that His Spirit would intervene in the desires of your heart. 

Plead with God! Tell Him that you as a branch know you cannot do anything without Christ, who is the vine; that you deserve all the wrath and fury of God and Hell, but O, how you want His love and compassion and His Spirit to show you His power in causing the desire within you to walk by the fruit of the Spirit! You want to live in such a way that your desires reflect the very desires of God Himself here on earth, and through that changing of your heart, that you would become empowered to shine a light in the darkness that cannot overcome the Christ’s glorious light! Plead with Him! You don’t need to come to me or anyone else this morning. Plead with God NOW!

This is for you believers just as much as it is for unbelievers who have felt the conviction of the Spirit of God this morning. It is just as much for you Christians that have been coming to Church all your life and thought that your acceptance from God was because you warmed a pew each Sunday or Saturday your whole life. PLEAD with God that His SPIRIT would overcome your heart and change you in a way that would magnify His name for those around you to see! For Christian freedom is the enablement to love others without legalism or license…