This section of Galatians, which is Galatians 5:1-15, is focusing on what we, as believers, should do with our freedom in Christ. We're told several things about this, the first being to guard it, especially from those who desire to pressure us to follow the Law. We're also told not to waste our our freedom in Christ to thereby selfishly serve ourselves instead of serving each other in love. This is where today's Verse of the Day comes into play.
First, let's discuss what Paul has been telling the Galatians thus far. He has repeatedly warned the Galatians not to waste the freedom that they have through their faith in Christ by living as slaves under the Law. Rather, they were to recognize that Jesus had fully paid for all of their sins. This means that they are completely justified before God by being believers in Christ, and as such, cannot earn any more of God's approval through their own actions/obedience of the Law (Galatians 3:23-29).
Now we move into a warning from Paul about the other way that we could waste the freedom that Christ has won for us. And it's a question that I've heard a lot, and today we're going to address it.
"Since we believe in Christ and are free from condemnation, why not just indulge in everything that we want to do anyway? We'll just be forgiven and all will be good, right?"
Wrong. Many theologians and teachers call this concept "license," as in thinking that we have a license to sin.
It's important to realize that Jesus didn't come to do away with the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17), meaning that the Law isn't discarded, but instead, Jesus accomplished the purpose for which it was given. Jesus was falsely accused of "abolishing" the Law of Moses, but as we can clearly see, as the fulfilling of the prophecies found throughout Jewish scripture, Jesus had no desire to wipe out those messages.
That's why we see Paul pointing to Jesus's response in Matthew 22:36-40 where He was asked what the greatest commandment in the law was. He then provided two commandments.
"...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
It is through loving the Lord with everything we have that we are able to even consider a second commandment. It is when we love and begin to know God that we begin to love what He loves, and He loves people.
This command is brilliant, for a couple of reasons. First, it assumes that we love ourselves in the sense that we know how we would like to be treated. And through this assumption, we are then required to take the focus off of ourselves and then use this knowledge of what we innately desire as the basis for serving each other.
We are able to love other people in this way because we have experienced it firsthand. Jesus' life and death upon the cross was the perfect example of this self-denying love.
