Gospel Meditation Galatians 5:1–15

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Recite the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1. We look to Jesus for our salvation and not to an ability  to keep all of the Law of Moses, so Paul urges the Galatian believers not to once again, under the pressure of the Judaizers, those Jewish Christians, to continue to obey that Law in hopes of achieving salvation.
2. These Judaizers are urging the non-Jewish Galatian Christians to become circumcised, which would present a barrier to many Gentiles and would lead astray those Gentiles into Law keeping and make them slaves to law keeping.
3. In reality, for followers of Jesus, circumcision is irrelevant since doing so does not save anyone. Our salvation, our forgiveness, is the result of trusting in Jesus, His work on the cross, for our salvation, and this alone.
4. Law keeping binds one to slavery, but in Christ we have freedom, and this from having to keep the entirely of the Mosaic Law. That Law informs us of what is proper conduct, but this is not the means of salvation.
5. This freedom however does not make sinful practices acceptable, or in Paul’s words, “an opportunity for the flesh.” Rather in Christ we are called to serve one another through love, and that love is ‘agape,’ the love by which we are loved by God.
6. Indeed, as followers of Jesus we are to love one another, thus seeking the best for all.