James 1 - Introduction

SPECIAL STUDY

ALIVE AND FREE IN CHRIST

A Brief Consideration of Galatians 5:13-26

Alive means to be joined. Freedom means to be loosed. It appears that they mean the opposite. To be alive in this world means the body is joined to the spirit. To be alive in Christ means our Spirit is joined to Christ. Alive, that is, joined to Christ, and Free in Christ at the same time! It may seem strange, but true it is. The only way to be free indeed is to be alive in Christ. The love of sin so commits and binds our affections that it appears man can do nothing else than sin. The practice of sin forms chains so strong that man is completely shackled by his own evil deeds. Sin's consequences in the next existence after this earth are so clearly described in God's Book that they cannot be correctly denied. Sin's results in this life are evident on every hand, and in every person. Surely the binding is so irrevocable that man, psychologically confined by the guilt of his own sin, cries out for release.
And God in the person of Christ our Lord has given that release. Through His love for us, our prison of the love of sin is changed to the love of Christ. Our confinement to the practice of sin is changed by conversion, (i.e., repentance) to Christ Jesus. The terrible consequences of sin, eternal death, are changed by the new birth in Christ to eternal life with Him forever. Surely, we have been freed! But this is only part of our prison, you may argue.
Even in Christ man is limited. Man is limited by the power and authority of God. Man is limited by his existence in time. and it seems so short when the journey is finished! Man is limited by space, and can never in this life hope to escape the solar system to which he is confined. Man is limited by his environmental circumstances. He cannot help, and is not responsible for the color of his skin, the place of his birth, the conditions of the home of his childhood. yet every one of these influence his life! Man is limited by his own fleshly body and is constantly having to alter that which he wishes to do to conform to that which he can do.

You may then argue: Since man, a Christian man, is bound by these things. how then is man free in Christ? The first two verses of our text answer this question for us. Let us examine them:

Galatians 5:13-14For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

We are called unto liberty. by love serving one another. We are free to be a voluntary slave! How then is slavery freedom? you may ask. It is freedom, because I am a slave by choice. I am called into liberty: a life of love. I voluntarily serve God, because I love God. I love God because He first loved me. The non-christian may ask: Then if you must serve God, is this not slavery? Is it not being bound? Yes, I am bound to Christ. but you don-'t understand. You see, I choose to be bound to Christ. The action of the Jew in the Old Testament was governed by Requirement of the law. The action of the Christian, now, is controlled by his love for his fellow man. The Old Testament Jew was the old man sin, forced to govern his action because of the binding force of the law. The New Testament Christian is a new creature in Christ.. Born again, voluntarily governing his action because he is born again of God's kind of love. The Christian, in serving God and his fellow man, is doing precisely what he wants to do.

You see, as a new-born saint of God, I am free. free to do exactly what I wishfor exactly what I wish is to serve Christ! My will is His will, for my will is surrendered completely to Him. Thus, with Christ's love in my heart, I voluntarily serve my God and my neighbor. No wonder the Scriptures state.

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Galatians 5:14.

To fulfill does not mean to destroybut rather to complete (to fill up, or fill full). Thus if the law is fulfilled, it is accomplished. Not because the law requires it, but because the love of Christians makes them want to do it. So the requirements of the law are fulfilled by love. This very principle itself is taken directly from the Old Testament:

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:18.

You mean, you may ask, That Christians never attack one another? You mean they keep the good deeds of the law out of the love principle, and they never misbehave? No! This is not what I mean. Christians may bite and snarl at one another like animals. But if they are true Christians, this is not what they want, and they regret it from the depths of their hearts. Look at James 1:15 :

But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Galatians 5:15.

When you bite and devour your brother, you are destroying and consuming him. As a Christian who loves his brother, this is precisely what you do not want. Your flesh may even demand that you sin, but the real you inside, wants to please God.

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Galatians 5:16-17.

Man must fulfill something. If you serve Christ in love, you will fulfill the law. If you do sinful things, you fulfill the lust of the flesh. Which will you fulfill? The law, or lust of the flesh? The only way to fulfill the law is by the loving spirit of Christ in you. People under the law could not fulfill the law. Christ fulfilled the law; and we, through Him, continue to fulfill the law. But this new spirit within us does often oppose the appetites of the flesh, which continue right or wrong!

But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Galatians 5:18.

I am not bound by the binding force of legal obligations and requirements, but yet my life is more successfully controlled! You see, I-'m in love! The object of my affection is Jesus Christ, and by choice I do not want to displease Him, for I love Him. (If I want to displease Him, then there is something wrong with my love!)

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21.

These sins are obvious desires of the flesh. If I do not have desires to please Jesus, then these fleshly desires may be all that is left. How tragic are the thousands who know not Jesus and live continually after only these fleshly, sensuous pleasures! They know nothing of the fruit of Christ. They have no knowledge of God's kind of love! They cannot even understand freedom in Christ. freedom to walk after the life of the Spirit.
These next items are the things a Christian wants. These are not laws that inhibit, but fruits that result from identifying with the Spirit. See how this freedom applies to the fruits of the Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23.

Notice that the first fruit is love. By this, we are motivated to produce all the other fruits. Notice also, that the last fruit is temperance. i.e. self-control. Real self-control is possible through love. Partial self-control may be enforced by law, but this is misery if it is against the person's heart-desire. If you love to do that which the law states, then the law is not an objectionable control force to you, but merely a statement of that which you want and intend to do. The word meekness does not mean to be weak and submissive, but rather a spirited war horse filled with energy and life that responds to the will of his master with all the energy at his command.

And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. Galatians 5:24.

Old man sin is dead. Our new creature does not agree with the fleshly appetites. Yes, we are still in the flesh, but the flesh has a new master: the loving spirit of Christ within. The flesh can no longer get its way. We are alive in the spirit.

**Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Galatians 5:26.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5:25.

If I as a Christian walk in the flesh and not the spirit, I become miserable. I then do that which I do not wish to do, and I am torn with remorse and disgust. When I walk in the Spirit. i.e., I do the things the Holy Spirit desires, then I am elated in Christ. I have the peace that passes all understanding. Because I am good? No I am not good. but Christ, who is in me, in whom and for whom I live ... he is good. Let us again implies that this walk is a matter of our will and that God wants us to so walk because we freely choose to so walk. Mr. Burke put it this way: Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. **Galatians 5:26.

To think that I myself must be glorified brings contention and envy. To put the glory on Christ, where it belongs, is the way of joy and freedom of spirit. To sum it up we might say that the will of Christ expressed in the New Testament is my command. because I choose to be commanded by His Spirit. Since this is my choice, then the governing of my life goes beyond the expressed will of Christ in the New Testament. I will voluntarily conform my life to what I determine to be the will of Christ even though I do not find that will clearly stated in New Testament words. Thus, the borderline sins of this life, though they may tempt me, present no problem to my heart's desire. to my inner man. to the new born creature.

But if I am not born again and have not the Spirit of Christ within, then Christ's will is not my will; and I find the New Testament expressions of the will of Christ to be commandments that would hedge me in against my will. Even the New Testament becomes to me a law that would hinder me from doing the things I want to do.
The New Testament, to the unconverted, is a legal pen, a law system that inhibits the actions of man and keeps him from doing what he wants to do. To him the New Testament is distasteful, and moreover, is impossible as a legal systemimpossible, for the commandments therein are beyond the commandments of the Old Testament. And man stands condemned before God, for his unconverted heart makes the New Testament to him a lawa law that must be kept, against his willa law that not only would restrict his desires, but a law that condemns because he has not obeyed and cannot obey.

To be born again is to be alive, Life is to be joined to Christ. His will becomes my will. His will in the New Testament is an expression of what I intend and want to do because it is His will. Consequently I am free to do exactly what I want to do: The Will of Christ. The same Christ is either my hope and salvation and joy, or a stumbling stone and the author of a system of commandments. It all depends on my relationship to Him. Alive, and free in Christor dead, and hedged about by a perfect legal system.