Galatians 5:13
13 For [gar], brethren [adelphos], ye [humeis] have been
called [kaleo] unto [epi] liberty [eleutheria]; only [monon] use not [me] liberty [eleutheria] for [eis] an occasion [aphorme] to the flesh [sarx], but [alla] by [dia] love [agape] serve [douleuo] one another
[allelon].
KJV-Interlinear
13 For you were called to
freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the
flesh, but through love serve one another.
NASB
Why were you called by God? Was it to enter into some program or effort
whereby you have to earn or prove your worthiness? Was it to do what He has
done in order to validate your being chosen?
Was it to give you an excuse to go out and do whatever you want in the
name of God?
If you think the answer to any of these is yes,
then you have a lot to learn.
God called you, through the gospel, so that you can
be brought to liberty. But what is liberty?
Liberty, ‘eleutheria,’ means freedom, unrestrained,
unrestricted, exempt from liability, free.
Throughout this book, we have already seen that the
Mosaic Law condemned mankind, placing humanity in the chains of restraint and
slavery, whereby someone else, the world, made decisions for you and you have
no rights or choices in life or even in the next life.
Liberty is the removal of that restraint, giving
you unlimited freedom to make your own decisions, to go your own way, but of
course within the boundaries of freedom.
Why then would you want to go back to the
boundaries of restraint? God did not
give salvation so that you could go back to slavery and try again to earn
salvation on your own, but that is exactly what most of the world tries to do. And most people do not realize that they are
placing themselves in a trap of their own making.
Who do you serve in life?
You serve that which you commit your life to, and
unfortunately most folks commit their life to human works of one type or
another. When you should be serving the
content of the scriptures, meaning the principles and mandates that are taught,
which means faith. But what does that
mean?
The word for love, ‘agape,’ is one of several words
for personal relationships that can exist between people and so forth. But ‘agape’ refers not to the emotional
attachments, but to the principles behind the relationships. And those principles cannot be known unless
you learn them. And you cannot learn
them unless you are engaged in a learning process whereby you are being taught
them.
Human effort or works, as we have been calling it, is
any and all effort on your part that excludes Gods spiritual growth and
function process.
Trying to do good deeds, trying to be obedient to
cultural rituals or expectations that require that sort of obedience in order
to gain salvation, complying with religious mandates in order to qualify for
religious perks or promises, setting standards and trying to live by them in
order to elevate yourself to some higher level of humanity and then of course
looking down on others that do not or cannot match your standards, living life
for appearances or pretense, and many, many more things, are all works and are
all rejected by God. Even presuming that
you know enough and therefore excuse yourself from Gods mandate to be taught,
is a violation of truth and a part of works.
These are all energies of the flesh, or your doing
something in order to gain salvation, or adding to salvation, and they are all
false ideas or lies which are traps that keep you out of the spiritual process and
out of the freedom process which God has designed for you.
And salvation comes to you in order to make you
free from these chains.
Common sense teaches that anything a person can do,
cannot possibly be done by everyone without exception. Therefore doing a thing, becomes disqualified
as a prerequisite of salvation simply because everyone cannot do it. Women cannot be circumcised, so why would that
be a requirement of salvation? Some people
are handicapped and therefore cannot perform certain types of work, so working
is disqualified. Some people cannot go
door to door, cannot stand on a street corner all day long, cannot do a lot of
things that others might be able to do, so these things are invalid salvation
aids or add-ons. Most people do not
belong to the same culture, so any and all cultural requirements are invalid
salvation requirements.
Mans rules always exclude someone, and therefore
are invalid rules. And those rules are
more generally designed to keep people trapped inside some invented culture or
religion or membership or class structure by threatening them with some bad
thing, if they stray or leave.
There is only one thing that everyone can accomplish
equally, and that is to believe, and even for those who do not have adequate
brain function or are not old enough to make responsible decisions, if they
were to die, are automatically saved. So
God is fair to babies, young kids, and severely mentally impaired folks. So no one is excluded from salvation by Gods
plan. No one.
And so Paul repeats his point. You were called to freedom through salvation by
faith, for the purpose of being and remaining free and having the benefits of
freedom, and not so that you would go back to a slaves environment and gain
nothing of the benefits of freedom.
And of course the benefits of freedom are
many. The primary benefit is so that you
can study daily, grow up spiritually, and advance to spiritual maturity wherein
places you in front of the Lord for phenomenal eternal rewards and blessings
that are beyond your imagination. That
means infinite benefit. Where else in
this world can you get that? Nowhere.
