We learned in the last chapter of this study that you must begin with freedom and work from there in determining the conduct of a Christian. When you begin elsewhere, as when you start with a list of ethical codes and do's and don't's, then you begin in bondage. The Christian must first learn that he or she is free from all things. In Christ you have died to the Law, to sin, the devil, and even the world. The influence that these have on you is a fable which we believe only because we haven't realized our position in Christ. We are seated with him in heavenly places even now (Eph.2:6), although it appears that you are sitting somewhere on earth. If we could learn to see and to judge from that perspective, peace, joy, and love would fill our lives, along with all the other things which Paul says are ours in Christ.

Being "in Christ" means a great many things, not the least of which is that we are free from every kind of bondage. This means that moral guidelines should not predominate Christian teaching. Paul models this principle by spending about 80% of this letter telling us about our freedom in Christ, leaving only a few sentences for telling us how we are supposed to live. Compare that with the typical array of sermons you have heard in your lifetime. Probably close to 95% of the sermons you have heard speak directly to how you are supposed to live, and what it is okay and not okay to do as a Christian. Most of the messages you will ever hear will come from that sliver of exhortation passages which typically comes at the tail end of Paul's letters. What about all the stuff that came before that? It is usually left behind as irrelevant, or at least not useful towards getting God's people to live like they are supposed to (i.e. "quit sinning so much!"). But if you start there you never get beyond that level, and no wonder our churches lack any depth or genuine love for the Lord! The image of Him which we present is that of an exacting drill Sergeant, waiting to catch us up in what we are doing wrong. Who could do anything but cower away from a God like that?

We should start with freedom because Paul started there. This is the first letter any church ever got, and among the New Testament books it was the first written. Far from being a coincidence, the truths found here are foundational to the Christian life. Only after we have learned that the old "natural" way of doing things is not God's way can we truly learn what our lives really are about.

The Forgotten Essential

After five chapters of glorious, heavenly teaching about what we have in Christ, Paul will now spend ten short verses touching on two or three issues pertinent to the believers in the four churches of Galatia. But the key to the practical outworking of these things is something which completely eludes us in America today. Can you guess what that is? Simplistically put, it is the intimate fellowship of the Body of Christ. You may respond, "Oh, but we do have the fellowship of the Body of Christ!" However, what we have today is a sad substitute for the culturally radical community of the first-century Church. Believers in Galatia did not "have everything in common" in the same way that the Jerusalem believers did at one time, but what they had was an intimacy unlike anything which you could find in the whole Roman Empire. Here people gathered so frequently that you might think they were all brothers and sisters. They seemed to be under the same impression! Here was a community of people unlike anything else in the world, and you could find gatherings very similar in every town where Paul had preached the gospel.

When Christians hear the incredible riches that are theirs in Christ, something amazing happens: they start to bond together instinctively. There is just something about hearing that you are all truly members of a single, living Body that unites believers like no amount of coercion would ever accomplish. Like water droplets that get too close to one another, Christians "gel" instantly under the influence of a revelation of Christ. We lack this intimacy today because we lack this brilliant light about who Christ really is and what he has really done.

So Paul begins to exhort the believers in Galatia about how they should live by addressing them as "brothers"(6:1). Let it be known that whatever follows will work well only in a similar setting. This letter wasn't written to you, an individual; it was written to a fellowship of believers in Asia Minor. The Christian life will never work in a "lone ranger" fashion, and such an image comes from our own post-Enlightenment, Western, individualistic culture. You need other believers for even the most basic things in your life, and if your life seems substandard, you probably are mostly isolated from the Body of Christ.

Paul turns around once again and gives a very simple statement which covers in one sentence what it took the Law of Moses 613 laws to say: "Carry each other's burdens"(v.2). By sharing in each other's lives, believers can help each other grow as they never could as mere individuals. Put very simply, this is Love, and it is the only rule in the House of God. You watch out for one another, and if one is falling into something destructive, the rest of you pick that one up and restore him to the right way of life. Are you afraid that your freedom in Christ will cause you to live in sin? Just try doing that when you live shoulder-to-shoulder with other Christians in real spiritual intimacy. It won't happen! In such a setting your "brothers and sisters" will never let you get away with it. You have nothing to fear. The exposure which happens in the (truly functioning) Body of Christ is enough to humble and discipline the worst of criminals, which you might be! Pride can hardly survive in a setting like this.

If I were you I would seek this type of intimate Christian fellowship, because the standard fare of Christian fellowship around you is sadly lacking. When hundreds of formally-dressed people shuffle into a classroom and then an auditorium for two or three hours a week only to stare at the back of one-another's heads for the entire duration, rest assured that no real fellowship has taken place there. That is a formula for individualism if ever there were one, and that setting is not the one Paul had in mind when he delivered these injunctions. How can a Christian live outside of his true home so much? This remains one of the mysteries of our day. We need to restore a first-century concept of the Christian community.

After a short statement about helping those who spend a great deal of time in the ministry of teaching (remember they didn't have a tithe), Paul reminds us that if we live as if we are still in the flesh we will reap the consequences. This has absolutely nothing to do with law, it has to do with avoiding further bondage again. For example, if you have sex with someone other than your husband or wife, your life will be miserable. You will hurt everyone around you, and today it could even kill you. At that point, what does it matter that God does not hold it against you, you died way too early! Living in submission to your own flesh is bondage worse than being under the law. For your own sake, and for those around you, don't get in bondage to your flesh.

If doing what is right ever becomes tiresome, seek the encouragement of the Body of Christ. They will help you remember that the results (in this life!) of our endurance will be more than worth the pain it may have caused at one point or another.

Most importantly of all, Paul says, shower your best on the believers with which you meet. He said, "especially believers"(v.10). What about evangelism? Isn't that the main thing Christians do? No. The main thing Christians do is love each other. You will notice that there was no mention in this letter about "evangelizing the world." In fact, you will find very little mention of that in any of Paul's letters. Most of the exhortation Paul gives to the churches relates to loving the members of the Body of Christ. Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another" (John 13:35). Remember when he told the story of the sheep and the goats, and some fed the hungry and clothed the naked, while the others didn't? He wasn't talking about social service in general. He said, "whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers, you did it for me" (Matt. 25:40).

The greatest tool for evangelism is the love that people see within the Body of Christ. Who could not be drawn to a people who live and die for each other? The only reason we have to resort to evangelism programs today is that our "Body life" is substandard--almost non-existent. Nothing will draw the world to Christ more than the intimate fellowship of believers who have been set free from everything that puts the world in bondage.

Paul writes the closing of the letter with his own large handwriting (he is over forty now, and they didn't have eyeglasses back then), reminding them of the initial reason for his correspondence. The men who are trying to rob the Galatians of their freedom in Christ are trying to look good in front of the religious world, especially the unbelieving Jews. Paul rejects this motivation and declares that the cross of Christ is the only "issue" worthy of our life's devotion.

"The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world"(v.14). Like a broken record, Paul restates once again that any man who is in Christ is a totally new creation. You have died to the world, why be swayed by it? The world has died to you. What does that mean? It means you are free from everything which once bound you. All your enemies have been destroyed. Now Christ is all there is in your life. Your entire life is now just Christ. Do you receive good things? That is Christ. Do you experience hardships? That is Christ, too. Paul says even his beatings that he received from the rods and whips of evil men are just the Life of Christ coming out of him. That is what happens when you are one with Christ: you begin to experience his Life. And his Life always meets with this reaction from the world. If they hated him, they will hate you, too (John 15:21-22). Just don't be surprised. Suffering is a good thing, because it is how you get to know him better (Phil.3:10-11).

Yet in all this you will experience peace and mercy. Paul, the scarred apostle, says so himself (v.16). After what he went through, if that is what he says, then I believe him. In the midst of suffering for the Name of Christ, you will find mercy and peace.

Paul leaves them, and us, with one prayer: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit"(v.18). If there is one thing we need in our spirits, it is grace. The Law came through Moses, but Christ himself is the incarnation of Grace and Truth. Let us dive into him and drink it all in.