Galatians 5:7-15

Can you imagine back in 1790, after our Founding Fathers had gone through the War of Independence, the struggles with the Articles of Confederation, and all the struggles that they had with forming the Constitution, that the Founding Fathers would have said, "This is just too much. Let's go back to Britain?" Can you imagine them doing that? After they had received their liberty, fought tooth-and-nail for it, having the internal struggles that they'd had and now finally coming to some resolution, would they have said, "Forget it. We don't want this liberty anymore?"

That is what Paul has been talking about here in Galatians . He begins this passage in verse 7, "You ran well". He's saying that you had it, and yet now you've given up your liberty. Is that not what he has been talking about through this entire book? Now Paul is summarizing, coming to conclusions, and he is getting ready to give us some practical insight as to how we are actually to live.

We see Paul, in verses 7 through 15, moving towards a particular phrase and then a movement from that phrase towards the practical outworking of the things he has taught. That phrase in verse 11 is "Then the offense of the gospel has ceased." It is that whole idea of the offense of the Gospel that we need to remember. We need to remember that the cross is the very place in which we start, and yet it is the cross that is attacked because people take offense at it. Yet we who have not taken that offense need to remember that we live with the cross and because of the cross. So let's look at those ideas.

The Cross Is The Start Of Our Spiritual Journey

The cross really is the start of our spiritual journey, where we come to life. Paul here tells them, "You ran well." You were doing fine. When I was there, when I came and brought the Gospel to you, you embraced it by faith and you were doing just fine; you were doing very well. Notice that Paul uses a metaphor. He is looking at the Christian life in terms of a race. Maybe he had just seen a race through Corinth, or the Corinthian games were going on, or they had just been staged, or they were coming up, whatever the case may be, and he uses this metaphor. He tells the Galatians, "You ran well. You were in the race. You were going and you were striving and you were running well." That was when they first started. Paul had brought the Gospel and they understood the Gospel. They were obedient to the truth unto salvation. They understood that it was by grace in Jesus Christ alone. They took the cross as the point of exchange, and they relied on Christ and not themselves. Paul is saying they ran well.

But hindrances came. Look at the rest of verse 7 through 9: "Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump." Now notice what he is doing here. He's saying you ran well, and now somebody has cut in front of you. And what did you do? You went along with them; you followed them. Who hindered you from obeying the Truth? They were obeying the Truth, and somebody cut in front of them, using the racing metaphor, and stopped them from obeying the Truth. They were doing it; now they are no longer doing it. And Paul continues to use persuasion, this new doctrine that has come to you, is not from God. It never was from God. It didn't come from Him. And so he is trying once again to say, Look, go back to where you started. Think of what it was when you started out. What was Truth? How you were liberated from all these ceremonies and laws. It is God who saves us, and it is God through Jesus Christ. And then he puts this little proverbial saying, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." My son has been making some sourdough bread periodically, and you can taste the sour dough. You know that the sour dough has gone through the entire batch of bread. You can see when we use yeast and leavening agents that they cause the dough to rise, and you know that it has been permeating the entire lump, because it isn't just one little spot that pops up, it is the entire thing. Paul is saying that this hindrance, the sin that has come in, is going to affect not just the individual who is teaching them; it is going to affect everyone, everybody there in Galatia. Because they have taken hold of this, you can see that that leaven is working in their midst.

Think about this leaven in our modern day. We have those churches that have rejected the Word of God. They have embraced instead a social gospel. Because of higher criticism, they've said, We can't believe this part of the Bible, we can't believe that part of the Bible, so they've reduced the size of the Bible to just a very miniscule part. Anything supernatural we can't believe, and so on and so forth. Are there true believers within some of those churches? There may be. Do you think that that teaching has affected them? I believe so. Look at the issue of homosexuality within these churches and we see the struggles, these massive struggles, within these denominations. But they didn't lose the battle just now when homosexuality is being pushed and thrown at them. They lost the battle when they lost their Bibles, That yeast, that leaven, has simply permeated their thinking, and they have embraced so many other things along with it.

What about ourselves? Our culture affects us. We think in cultural terms. We are taught in a cultural manner. How our families operate and function has a large bearing on how we function and operate. Perhaps we're rejecting the way things were done in our families. Interestingly enough, often we will become exactly like the one that we tried to reject and do the things we vowed to avoid. For example the son of a drunkard may reject alcohol but become obsessed with gambling instead. Think of the four soils in terms of hindrances. The one was so hard that there wasn't a hindrance because there wasn't any faith, it was just outright rejection. But the middle two-no deep root, the cares of life, and those sort of things-those become hindrances in our spiritual continuation and walk.

But as we see here in verse 10, we can return. Listen to Paul's hope; listen to Paul's confidence: "I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is." In that first section, listen to that confidence of Paul. It's not confidence in the people; it is the confidence in Christ that He will work in these people to bring them back. They have a different viewpoint, and Paul is saying, I am confident that you will come to understand and to embrace my viewpoint, what I am trying to tell you here, that our faith-and it's faith alone, not by anything we can do, it's not by doing various ceremonial things-but rather our faith in Jesus Christ. Paul is confident that the Lord will bring them back, and it is possible as we repent, as we turn away, to be brought back to obedience to the Truth. Because we depart doesn't mean that we are lost forever but rather that we can come through repentance, understanding what the Word, the Bible, says, using it as a mirror to show ourselves all the ugliness of our sin.

The Cross Is An Offense To Some

The cults prey upon Christians, at least those who claim to be Christians. They look rather similar, but without knowing more, without having a firm grounding in the Truth, when the cults come to knock on their door, these people fall for the line that has been brought to them. And what may have looked like a good beginning comes to a sad and horrible end. But that's because, like those who bring these hindrances, the cross is an offense to some. In verse 11, we read that phrase, "Then the offense of the cross has ceased." Remember the context. Paul is saying because he preaches the Gospel, not circumcision, he is persecuted. And that persecution is because of other people taking offense at the cross. He's using the word cross to signify the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The true Gospel is an offense, as we also read in 1 Corinthians. It is an offense to the Jews who cannot get over the fact that the Messiah would have to die on a cross, become a curse. It is a curse to the Gentiles because it is intellectually unsatisfying, and how can we deal with this supernatural thing that we cannot even get our minds around, and so they reject it outright. The cross basically chips away any confidence that we can have in ourselves. The Jew and the Gentile who don't want to embrace it, come to understand that at some level. They may not understand it consciously but they do understand it at some level. And so to preach anything but the cross is to preach a human doctrine, not God's doctrine. If we preach human doctrine, then other human beings who do not believe the Gospel will tolerate it.

Do we see that in our day and age? Madeline Murray O'Hare could not tolerate prayer in school because prayer in school was still done in the Name of Jesus Christ with reference to His cross, to the Gospel. She could not bear it, and she persuaded enough people-the right people-so that prayer was stripped from our schools. We see today that little grade-schoolers cannot take a Bible to school with them; that is an offense. You cannot have teachers that read with some Christian reference to the cross, because that is an offense. But you can have all sorts of other things, and while those things may offend Christians, the rest of the world tolerates those things.

It is those who take the offense that persecute. Verse 11: "And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution?" Notice that conditional clause, "If I still preach circumcision." In other words, he's saying he doesn't preach it. The false teachers tried to argue that he did, but he is saying, I don't. And if that's the case, why would you still persecute me. If I preached circumcision, why do the Jews still continue to persecute me? You see, it's someone who takes offense that persecutes, those who cannot bear the truth, those who cannot or are not willing to admit their own guilt before God-they are the ones who persecute. They persecute the preaching of the Gospel. They refuse, as it were, to remove the fig leaves of their own self-deception. They try and cover themselves, and the Gospel strips those things away. They try and make themselves look good, and the Gospel strips it all away. Therefore they take offense.

Those who continue in this way will be judged. Notice the last part of verse 10 and 12: "But he who troubles you will bear his judgment, whoever he is. I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off!" Judgment is waiting for those who do reject the cross, who reject the Gospel, who take offense at the Gospel. Justice. These Judaisers that Paul is talking about here are trying to remove that offense, and in removing an offense, they remove the Gospel, and they will be judged. In fact, Paul was so upset here that basically he was bringing a curse upon them. He is talking about circumcision and removing a little bit of skin, and he's saying they need to go the whole nine yards-why don't they make themselves eunuchs. They will be judged in God's good timing, not ours.

Think about the persecution that's going on around the world today. Yes, there's persecution here in this land, but there is persecution in China, Saudi Arabia, Colombia. . . the list goes on and on. Why? Because people take offense at the cross. Government persecution comes because the government cannot bear that there is Someone before whom they must bow-Jesus Christ. They cannot bear that they cannot control something, as in China under the Communist system. It becomes an offense to them. Just as today we have Atheists within our culture who are now beginning to scream and rant and rave. You know what? I'm glad they rant and rave, because as they do so, people see them for the ineptitude that they have. If you listen to some of their argumentation, they would seek to obliterate all religion, and yet their focus is on destroying Christianity. Yet they have a religion themselves, a religion with man or themselves as the center.

The Cross Is What Gives Us Our Liberty

"For you, brethren, have been called to liberty." (5:13) The believer's call is to liberty. Christ has given us freedom. He is the one who has set us free. We have freedom for a price, because He is the one who sets us free. We have His liberty, the freedom to be what we were made to be. Isn't that marvelous? Think about it. Instead of struggling to be something that we aren't, we can simply, through Christ, be that which we were meant to be, to have fellowship with our God, to care, and to be His stewards over His creation, to love Him, to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and those around us. We are free from the bondage of guilt, free from the bondage of sin, free from the bondage to Satan and to this world. Instead, we have freedom to serve, not as duty-bound, but freedom to serve with joy, our God and our fellow man. That is true freedom. It's not freedom to do whatever you wish to do-that is bondage. It is freedom to be what we were created to be, in the service of our God, to have a marvelous and wondrous relationship with Him.

And so, in this liberty, we need to be careful that we do not take an occasion to sin. "So you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another." (5:13, 15) We need to be careful not to presume on this liberty that we have in Christ. That has happened in the past. People have said, Well, Jesus has paid for all my sins, so it really doesn't matter how I live. They are all taken care of, they are all gone. And that is providing opportunity for the flesh, because if we aren't careful, we are going to go the direction our nature takes us-into sin. And the only one we have deceived is ourselves as we have taken this opportunity to sin. The opportunity for the flesh is sin, and if we indulge in the opportunities of the flesh, we will then begin to destroy one another. It's not strange that he put verse 15 there-after verses 13 and 14. Our sin will ultimately push us into self-centeredness; our self-centeredness will push us to the point where the only desire we have is for ourselves. And thereby we will start pushing back against other people, because they want what we want; we want what they want, and we begin to devour one another, consuming one another, destroying one another.

Instead, we need to take this liberty as an opportunity to serve. The last part of verse 13 and verse 14: "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.'" Our freedom is to serve not ourselves but to serve others. That is what our freedom is all about. We are no longer bound by this inevitable collapse as we become more and more self-centered, but rather we become free to look beyond ourselves and to serve others. Because we know that God will care for us, that God will provide for us. Because we know that God is the one who calls us to do it, and we marvel and wonder at what He has done. If we huddle and grow inward, we become darker and darker. It is only as we begin to look outward that things become brighter and brighter. That is what our liberty is all about.

Love is the fruit of our liberty. Love is where our liberty should take us. Because we are free, because we are free from our sin, because we are free from trying to hide from God, we have peace with God. We can then look to others and seek after them, to love them, and to love our God. And you know what? That's what happens in the Persecuted Church. Think of China. They care for one another. They love their God because of what He has done, and they continue to seek to share with one another, to share with those around them, even their enemies. As one of the hymns puts it: "The martyr first, whose eagle eye Could pierce beyond the grave, Who saw his Master in the sky, And called on Him to save: Like Him, with pardon on his tongue In midst of mortal pain, He prayed for them that did the wrong; Who follows in his train?" It is speaking of Steven as he prayed for those who were stoning him. He was at liberty; he had freedom.

At the 2008 Olympic Games, in the men's Four by One Hundred Relay, if you remember, if you watched it, I believe it was the semi-finals, they started off really well. That first guy took off and away he ran with the baton. He passed it to the second guy, and he ran, passing the baton to the third. But when the third tried to pass the baton to the fourth runner, they dropped the baton. Disqualified. What hindered them? These were four of the fastest men on this planet. They ran well to begin with. What hindered them? They dropped the baton. You're not supposed to drop the baton.

How about us as we run the race-as we run the race for ourselves, but also for the next generation, as we pass the baton. Are we keeping true to the Gospel? What are some of the things that are hindering us, that will then hinder the next generation? A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Let us look at ourselves. What are some of those things that are hindering us from obeying the Truth-the Truth that Christ has given to us that we might serve Him with joy and thankfulness, in full liberty? In this New Year, let us love the Truth and obey it.

The Ninth Article of the Apostles' Creed includes both the "Holy Catholic Church" and "the communion of saints." The obvious question is: "Why is there a statement about the communion of saints?" And the immediate answer is that the early Church felt that additional information about the Church was necessary. That is the reason "the communion of saints" was added to the Apostles' Creed. The Church is not only "a chosen communion," but a communion that ministers to herself. When God blessed Abraham, He also made him a blessing to others (Genesis 12:2). Likewise, God summons His saints to be saintly toward all saints.

Church history tells us that the first indication of this article came at about the end of the fourth century in Serbia; from there it spread to Gaul and was finally included in the baptismal creed in Rome. But from earliest times the practice of the communion of the saints was one of the premiere activities of the Church. For example, the Romans complained that Christians were into incest because of their late evening meetings and that they practiced cannibalism because of their frequent coming together to partake of the Lord's Supper. Some of the older commentators restricted the Communion of Saints to those in heaven, but later on this article of faith was applied to all the saints.

In Reformed churches the phrase "the communion of saints" unpacks the meaning of "the holy Catholic Church." Let us underscore the emphasis on holiness: the Church is both wholly catholic and holy catholic. This means that the premiere trait of the Church is holiness, without which no man (or visible church!) shall see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). The Church is a sacrosanct institution by virtue of the Holy Spirit's presence. We should think of the Church as a temple that must not be profaned or prostituted (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:15, 19). So, it is saints as saints (holy ones) who commune.

We Fellowship As Saints

We know from the previous article about the "Holy, Catholic Church" that the Church is an ecclesia of "called out" persons. God calls out of the whole race a people for Himself (1 Peter 2:9). And when God calls us out, He calls us to be holy (2 Thessalonians 1:9; 2:13). If the great Scottish Reformer John Knox was right that the Greek word for Church means the predestinated ones, then we must also emphasize that the Church was elected to holiness, not in holiness or because of holiness (Ephesians 1:4). We were not holy originally. At birth we were "vipers in diapers," our natures were serpentine because we were conceived and born in sin (Psalm 51:5). But when God chose us in eternity, He chose us to be holy. And when we are chosen to be holy, we become a community of saints.

In the Roman Catholic Church, sainthood is an elitist idea. Only some qualify. By this standard, the Apostle Paul would not qualify, since he spoke of himself as lesser than the least of the saints (Ephesians 3:8). One criteria for sainthood is that it must be shown that the candidate performed a miracle in his or her life. Accordingly, if Mother Theresa is ever enshrined as a saint, it will have to be proved that she performed at least one miracle. But Scripture teaches that every Christian is a saint (1 Corinthians 1:2). Some Roman Catholics speak of "saints without the St" to distinguish them from those who have been officially canonized. But if we want to use the standard of miracle as our criteria, we can argue that one reason why every Christian is a saint is because every Christian has experienced "a miracle," that is, the miracle of the new birth. By definition, a saint doesn't do miracles; a saint is a miracle.

An Important Question Is Answered

A keen question about "the communion of the saints" is whether this article describes our communion with God or our communion with one-another. The answer, of course, is that it describes both (John 15:2, 5; Ephesians 1:4, 6-7, 10-11, 13, etc). If we have "union and communion" with Christ, then the corollary is that we have union and communion with one another. Our communion with one another in Christ's Church does not dissolve our personalities and differences, but rather manifests itself in this very body. For example, every Christian is graced with specific gifts that must be cheerfully used in the body of Christ. These different gifts are blessings that distinguish us. This means that every Christian has communion "in each other's gifts and graces; and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man" (Westminster Confession of Faith, Article 26:1). This teaching is very striking in our own Heidelberg Catechism, in question and answer 55: "What do you understand by the "communion of saints?" To which the answer is: "First, that believers one and all, as members of the Lord Jesus Christ, are partakers with Him in all His treasures and gifts, secondly, that each one must feel himself bound to use his gifts readily and cheerfully for the advantage and welfare of other members." In short, there is no communion of saints unless there is communion with Christ.

Yet, this heavy emphasis upon congregational communion must not be interpreted too rigidly. While it is true that there are two theaters of communion, it is also true that Christ communes with us through the saints, too. For example, what is preaching but Christ drawing close to us through the preached word (Romans 10:8)?! This mediate communion occurs because we are members of one another in the body of Christ, with Christ as the Head of the body. Since both the hand and the feet and the eyes are all attached to one another in the body (the Head of the body being Christ Himself), our communing with one another is really communing with Christ since the Head communicates through the members. One of the errors of monastics and hermits is that they attempt to live holy lives apart from the communion of saints. Indeed, even in the Christian ministry a pastor can sequester himself with his books in his prayer closet, and begin to die spiritually. He may ask himself why, when he seems to be doing everything right? The answer is that he (like all God's people) needs the communion of saints.

There Is No Place For Rugged Individualism

The teaching of "communion of saints" also dashes rugged individualism. No Christian has the right to baptize the philosophy of "dog eat dog, every man for himself." No Christian should be an island-in-and-of- himself! The Heidelberg speaks about "believers one and all" which is to affirm "all for one and one for all." Rugged individualism has many faces and each face is a blight and practical denial of the communion of saints. For example, I once had a Church member who would drive to San Francisco each Sunday morning to watch the San Francisco 49er football team. When I accosted him about forsaking God's people on the Lord's Day, he explained: "When I drive to San Francisco I always turn on the radio and listen to a sermon. This is how I get a good feed on Sunday morning." I thought to myself: "This is one of the most selfish things I've ever heard! He thinks only about himself when he drives to the Church of the National Football League!" The problem here is that he was thinking only of what he could get out of it. He did not see his participation in the life of the Church as a ministry to other Christians. He should have thought about what he could have given the Church and of the potential loss to the Church by his absence! Not only is the Church weakened by the non-participation of some of her members, but to be absent from the Church also dampens the spirit de corps of the whole congregation.

"One-Anothering" Is Synonymous For The Communion Of Saints

The Bible emphasizes "the communion of saints" to such an extreme, that no less than 56 times in the New Testament do we find the words "one another." For example, we are "members of one another," we are to "love one another," show hospitality to one another," pray and confess our sins to one-another (1 Corinthians 12:12, 27; John 13:34-35; 1 Peter 4:9; James 5:16). I like to tell God's people in Sacramento, "If you ever leave here to search for another church, make sure it is a ‘one anothering' church." This is highlighted by Christ's command in John 13 where no less than three times He commands us to "love one another." A minister friend of mine even calls our one anothering (especially when there is fellowship into the wee hours!) "Christian nightclubbing."

A sample of the many one anothering passages in the New Testament that could be emphasized are as follows:

1. Forbearing one another (Ephesians 4:2)

2. Showing kindness to one another (Ephesians 4:32)

3. Submitting to one another (Ephesians 5:21)

4. Forgiving one another (Colossians 3:13)

5. Admonishing one another (Colossians 3:15; Romans 15:14)

6. Edifying one another (Ephesians 5:11)

7. Exhorting one another (Hebrews 3:13)

9. Provoking one another to good works (Hebrews 10:24)

10. Fellowshipping with one another (1 John 1:7)

11. Loving one another (1 John 4:7)

12. Comforting one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

13. Speaking truth to one another (Ephesians 4:25)

Communing Through The Use Of God's Gifts

We also need to think of the communion of saints as the communion of the gifts of the saints. In 1 Peter 4:10, Peter speaks about each Christian as a steward of the "manifold grace of God," that is, we have gifts that Christ expects us to give. But concerning these gifts, there is a great deal of misunderstanding today. For example, there are those who believe that God is still giving his Church gifts of revelations and miracles, extending into the Twenty-first Century of Church history. So, we need to ask: What does the Bible teach about this? The New Testament distinguishes between the ordinary gifts of the Spirit and the extraordinary gifts. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that there are foundational gifts of the Spirit and super-structural gifts of the Holy Spirit. We can catch the distinction when we think of it in terms of a foundation of a building. For example, Paul teaches in Ephesians 2:20 that the Church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. Notice: he uses the word foundation. And this foundation consists of the ministries of the apostles and prophets. If I may be permitted to milk the term foundation: it is common knowledge that a foundation is a once laid entity. After the foundation is completed, there arises the super structure (Ephesians 2:21). Jesus' very death on the cross is even called a once-laid foundation in 1 Corinthians 3:11. The great point of the analogy is that there are foundational gifts and super structural gifts. The foundational gifts of the Spirit were once laid. This means that prophecy, apostleship, speaking in tongues (speaking in tongues was a mode of prophecy-Acts 2:22), are over. They are completed because they were never intended to be a part of the super structure of the Church. The foundational workers with their special gifts completed their work over 2000 years ago.

What remains for us today are the super structural or ordinary gifts of the Spirit. Some of those gifts are stated in Romans 12:6ff: Ministry, Teaching, Exhorting, Giving, Ruling, and Mercy. And to these gifts we add: Music, making money (the Parable of the Talents), hospitality, wisdom, prayer, bringing good cheer, bringing comfort, etc. And in addition to these gifts we must not neglect the fruit of the Holy Spirit Who gives such gifts as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, self-control, and meekness (Galatians 5:22-23) Obviously, if God gives His Church these gifts, then these gifts must not be hidden in a safety deposit box or buried in the ground. The gifts, one and all, are for the edification of the body of Christ (1 Peter 4:10).

The plague that works against "the communion of saints" are the sins that hinder us from ministering to one another. When we become bitter, envious, selfish, and proud, the communion of the saints is disrupted. For example, Peter writes that we are to practice hospitality "without grudging" (1 Peter 4:10). Paul says that when we give, we are not to do so grudgingly, but with cheerfulness (2 Corinthians 9:7). The Greek word here for cheerful is the root of our English word hilarious. Yes, we are to give to the kingdom of God hilariously. The communion of saints touches both the inward man and the outward. When we give to others, we are also communing with the saints.

The Church is a "chosen communion" and a communing communion. God has not called us to be hermits or monastics. We do not worship God in isolation. When we go up to the house of God, we hear communing saints exhort us, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord" (Psalm 122:1).

We greatly prize the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. We know that the saints persevere because God perseveres in us. But let us not short-change the communion of saints either. The Perseverance of the Saints takes place when God's Holy Spirit works through a saintly and communing Church.