STAND FAST

 Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. ² Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. ³ And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. ⁴ You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. ⁵ For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

STAND FAST

Introduction

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The gospel brought liberty, freedom, to the Galatians. It brought freedom to the Western world. It is not just liberty for the individual regarding his or her own personal sin. It brought freedom from that which sinful human beings involve themselves in, as per the Cultural or Dominion Mandate (Gen. 1:26-28). Sin affects education, economy, marriage, family, sex, self-government, local, state, and national governments, international relations, conduct in times of war, conduct in times of peace, judicial systems, punishments for crimes, animal welfare, neighbours, worship, etc., i.e., everything to do with human society.

For all that, contemporary Christianity has reduced the gospel to only caring whether a person is saved or not. It’s like every outer skin of the onion has been peeled away and discarded until all we have been left with is a truncated gospel, “Are you saved?” As important as that is, for we would never have been so blessed with all the freedoms we have in the West were it not for converted individuals, Paul here is reminding the Galatians and us what the gospel is about – liberty! He wants us to stand firm like statues in this freedom. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free” (Gal. 5:1a). The word “therefore” in this verse connects it to what has preceded it, i.e., the explanation that the liberty believers have is not the bondage of the earthly Jerusalem of the past or the present, but the freedom we have by belonging to the Jerusalem above, the heavenly Jerusalem of the present and the future.

This freedom is “the liberty by which Christ has made us free.” Though our salvation is of the utmost importance, it is not about you or me. Rather it is about Christ. It is about Him and His claims on you and me, and the society in which we live, i.e., family, church, and state, yes, the whole Galatian nation back then and our nation today.

We’ll get to it later, but up ahead Paul demonstrates that this liberty is more than just about personal salvation. It affects everyone else. For he says in verses 13 and 14 that we are to serve one another. You are to love your neighbour. “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the following we will focus on gospel liberty.

Statues

            Earlier we spoke of the Statue of Liberty standing fast at New York harbour. We mentioned some of the words written on her base:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

America opened her borders to the world from 2021-2025. Along with those “yearning to breathe free” came sex and child-traffickers, thieves, rapists, murderers, who robbed, raped, pillaged and murdered their way across the USA. Obviously, these were not exercising the freedom that comes from the gospel but were clearly illustrating by their actions that they were still in bondage to sin.

To be sure, the Galatians under the influence of the gospel corrupting Judaizers, had not rejected the gospel to the point of becoming rapists and murderers, but they were en route to indulge the appetites of the flesh. As Paul says, “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (5:8). To be estranged from Christ is to be devoid of His Spirit. It is to be in bondage to sin. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

Now, there is, of course, a difference between being in bondage to the Old Testament’s ceremonial law and being in bondage to one’s own sinful nature. Mosaic covenant law, with its moral, judicial and ceremonial aspects were to point Old Testament Israel to the promised Messiah, the One who was coming to save His people from the punishment they deserve because of their sins against God. However, Paul’s point is that to seek to be justified by the Mosaic law is to demonstrate your estrangement from Christ. It is to turn away from Christ. And look where that can lead:

 

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. Romans 1:26-32.

Notice that it “God gave them up to vile passions” and “God gave them over to a debased mind.” The Galatians had been saved out of all the types of things listed here and so have we! This is why Paul is saying, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (5:1). Up ahead, Paul gives a list of the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit so that we can easily identify which is which.

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There was an unforgettable scene at the end of the first Planet of the Apes movie. Charleton Heston (who played Moses in The Ten Commandments) is walking along a sandy beach. He sees the neck and shoulders of a great object jutting out of the sand. It’s the half-submerged Statue of Liberty. Paul is shocked to see the Galatians, who should’ve been standing tall in their Christ-bought freedom, now being buried under the dross piled upon them by the Judaizers.

“Stand fast” urges Paul. We in the West must do likewise in our own generation. To do so we must think Christianly. The Reformation of the Lord’s Church began in earnest in 1517. That Church had been formed, then became deformed, and was reformed. The great creeds and confessions of the reformed Church began stating in clear terms what the Bible taught. When it comes to Presbyterianism, we Presbyterians follow the Westminster Standards as our expression of what we believe the Bible teaches. (In 1689, the Baptists basically took our Confession and made a couple of minor changes to incorporate their baptistic notions.) The Westminster Standards are the documents that were drawn up by the Westminster Assembly in 1643–1649. The Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Directory of Public Worship, and the Form of Church Government are all included. These Standards were to do with Christian Doctrine and church polity, which formed the basis for uniformity of religion for the United Kingdom of the 1600s, and by extension, the whole of the British Empire from that time forward. In other words, the Westminster Standards are about uniting Christians, not dividing them. The Three Forms of Unity, (the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism), are so similar to the Westminster Standards.

 Presbyterian churches and Reformed churches share the same Biblical doctrines and forms of church government. The “peeling of the onion” began with the Church of England/Anglican Church breaking away from the Westminster Standards. Then came, as already mentioned, the Baptist Church. And on and on it went until we are left with just the kernel at the middle of the onion, i.e., the truncated gospel that unites us. All the rest, apparently, is up for private interpretation. I suppose we ought to be thankful that at least we still have the middle of the onion!

Now the Western nations are under attack from mass migration, Islam, Hinduism, neo-Marxism, Socialism, theological Liberalism, Feminism, Transgenderism, Wokeism, you name it. Why? All because we did not “stand fast” on the gospel. If only the West would get back to her Westminster Standards and Three Forms of Unity and be done with all its unbiblical deviations.

Those of the Reformed Faith, i.e., those of the Church that was reformed during the Reformation, need to “stand fast” like statues!    

Statutes

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Instead of being statues standing fast in the faith the Galatians are returning to statutes. Paul says, “Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law” (5:3-4). Circumcision here is a shorthand way of referring to the whole of God’s Law handed down by God to Israel at the time of Moses, i.e., the moral, and the judicial or civil, and the ceremonial laws.

We have noted that the ceremonial laws have been abrogated with the life, death, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the promised Messiah. The baptism of all the nations with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit according to the Scriptures testifies to this (Isa. 52:15; Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:1-21, 10:44-45). Only the general equity of the judicial law of Old Testament Israel remains. However, God’s Moral Law, as in His Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, remains forever. Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 19.3-5 says,

 

3. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a Church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated under the New Testament.

4. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

5. The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen, this obligation.

The “foolish Galatians,” by wanting to place themselves under the bondage of the ceremonial law are in danger of placing themselves under the curse of the moral law. This is what happens when “Christians” turn their backs on the free grace revealed in the gospel. Paul, as we know, is spitting chips: “As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). They and we are bound to obedience to the moral law only, under which Paul says clearly elsewhere, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1-2). The Galatians are considering subjecting themselves to “the law of sin and death” from which they already had been set free by the gospel. Madness!

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The meaning and mode of baptism is a serious debate among those of the Reformed Faith. However, even more serious is that between the Reformed and those of the Arminian persuasion. The Canons of Dort, on of the Three Forms of Unity mentioned above, were specifically written to counter the views of the followers of Jacobus Arminius, after which Arminianism is named. The Canons of Dort are also know as the Doctrines of Grace or the Five Points of Calvinism or the much more flowery T.U.L.I P.

It has been my experience that the Arminians misidentify the Calvinists as Hyper-Calvinists. Thereby, albeit inadvertently and unintentionally joining the Calvinists in a joint put down of the deterministic Hyper-Calvinistic doctrines! For the record, the Reformed hold that the Bible teaches the following tension that God is 100% sovereign in all things while holding humans 100% responsible for their actions. We ought not to balk at such a paradox since the Bible was 100% written by God and 100% written by humans. Then there’s the Person of Jesus: 100% God and 100% human! The Reformed are happy to leave these mysteries with God. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).

Doing “the words of this law,” statutes, are where the Judaizers are misleading the Galatians. We have noted that the Galatians and us are free from needing to keep the ceremonial law, which has been abrogated since the coming of Christ to whom it pointed. And we have noted that, though the moral law stands forever, the same freedom that has set us free from any obligation to be circumcised or keep any of the other aspects of the ceremonial law, has also set us free from the condemnation of God’s eternal moral law.

To become circumcised profits nothing for the one who has his foreskin needlessly removed (5:3). Rather, by so doing it obligates the recipient to keep every jot and tittle of the law. The law still stands for those outside of Christ, for Jesus says, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17-18). Jesus has fulfilled the ceremonial aspects of which the Judaizers want the Galatians to keep. They want to entangle themselves again in a yoke of bondage (5:1).

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As we begin to tie it all together, the Celtic Galatians are under attack from Judaizers who wish to hang their scalps as trophies around their waists. We see the same going on today with Protestants who defect to Roman Catholicism and Calvinists who become Arminians and all the rest. The receiving party then brags about their trophies. However, as Paul says elsewhere, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13). The Arminian looks at these verses, and says, “See! You are to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” while the Calvinist says, “Thank You Lord for Your grace. For You are the “God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Thus, God is 100% sovereign, and humans are held by God to be 100% responsible for their actions. Perhaps Oliver Cromwell summed this tension up best when he said, “Trust God and keep your powder dry.”

It’s not about statutes. It’s about us being statues. The Celtic people are well known for raising stone pillars all over Europe, Great Britain and Ireland. These are memorial stones, pillars of truth. The Standing Stones of Callanish, for example, have been standing fast for millennia. We, today, are left wondering as we try to figure out their original meaning. They let us know that a people have been here, a people whose memory has been written in stone. The standing stones shock us into wondering what happened to them, and to us. How did they do this and what does it all mean? The half-buried Statue of Liberty in the Planet of the Apes movie had the same effect. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians likewise leaves us wondering what happened to their civilization. Will the present day West just become a hazy memory of which those in the future will be left to speculate about? “I perceive that in all things you are very religious…” (Acts 17:23).

Conclusion

            What are we going to be, followers of statutes or statues of liberty? Let’s get back to the “Doctrines of Grace.” “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”