Galatians 5 v 13 – 15 - The boundaries of Christian freedom

 ‘For you were summoned and called on the basis of freedom, brothers, but not the freedom to penetrate into a starting point of the flesh. On the contrary, we are serving one another by means of practical beneficial love. 14 For the whole law is made full and complete within one saying, within this: ‘You will beneficially love those close by in the manner of yourself’. 15 But if you are biting and eating up one another, look, in case you are consumed under one another’, (Galatians 5 v 13 – 15).

Paul says that the Judaizers are undoing the whole object for which Christians were called. Christians are not called to legal bondage, or enslavement to the Sinai Covenant with its written codes of law, but to freedom. ‘We are not like Moses putting a veil over his face, toward the sons of Israel not intently looking towards the completion of that which is being rendered idle. 14 But their minds were hardened. For up until the present day, the same veil remains on the basis of the reading of the old Covenant - unless uncovered, for it is rendered idle within the Messiah. 15 But up until today, when Moses is being read a veil lies over their heart. 16 But whenever, if turning back toward the Lord, the veil is completely removed’, (II Corinthians 3 v 13 – 16). 

Now we come to one of the usual opposing arguments presented by Jewish and Christian legalists. If Christians are freed away from the written codes of law, then this will penetrate into a starting point of the flesh. The desires, impulses, energies and raw passions inherent in our fleshly constitution will be unleashed and unrestrained if the law is removed. If Christians are free, away from the written codes of law, then what is being introduced is lawlessness, permissiveness, a licence to speak and behave in any way that they please. And so legalists argue that Christians need Covenant law so as to avoid falling into wayward behaviour, and they direct Christians back to being governed and ruled by the written codes of Sinai Covenant law. 

‘On the contrary’, says Paul. ‘We are serving one another by means of practical beneficial love’. There is the principle of living a godly life. This is not a rosy, ‘Barbie Doll’ sentimentalised view of love. This principle arises from out of spiritual considerations that Christians are able to comprehend by means of the set-apart Breath. It is beyond the ability of unbelievers. It is the primary fruit of the Breath that indwells the Christian’s heart or deep inner core. It is directed at Christians serving one another.   

In response to legalists, Paul says, ‘For the whole law is made full and complete within one saying, within this: ‘You will beneficially love those close by in the manner of yourself’.

There it is, the primary principle of Christians living a godly life – 

The whole law is made full and complete within this: ‘You will beneficially love those close by in the manner of yourself

This is contrasted with Christians ‘biting and eating up one another’ – criticising and picking fault with one another. The allusion is to beasts of prey falling upon and devouring one another. For wolves or dogs to worry sheep is not a strange event, but for sheep to distress one another is unnatural. Paul does not say, ‘if grievous wolves should enter in among you and not spare the flock’, but warns against Christians themselves acting the part of wolves in relation to one another, devouring one another like wild beasts. Such attacks would consist of abuse, slander, sarcasm, invective or innuendo. The result can only be mutual destruction - the ruin of both parties because in due course there is an utter end to what constitutes the Christian community, the organic life of which is mutually destroyed by its own members.