Christ Has Set Us Free

Title: Christ Has Set Us Free
Preacher: Pastor Wilson Tan
Date: 4 July 2021

Questions:
What does Paul mean when he said the Galatian church was running well? They have been
faithful in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What issues were they facing that hindered them from the truth? Theological differences
between Works/Law vs Grace.
Who was persuading them from the truth? Judaizers but Paul didn't specify who.
What was this untruth (yeast) that had corrupted the whole truth (lump of dough)?
That you need to be Jewish (to be circumcised) to be saved. If this were true, then, Christ's
death on the cross was for nothing. Whoever was spreading this untruth would weaken
themselves.
What is the offence of the cross? Christ's death on the cross.

Key verse: 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything,
but only faith working through love. (Gal. 5:6)

Key message: The offence of the cross has been removed if we continue to preach
circumcision. Christ alone is sufficient. We are saved by faith, not by works. Our freedom in
Christ must be transformed into a freedom for others.

 
Introduction:
Paul's letters to the Galatians were written around 53-54 A.D, about 20 years after the
death of Jesus. The theology and practices of this new-found faith was still in its early
development. Following last week's sermon by Elder Yook Cing, we learn that Sean, the new
Gentile Christian, was struggling with theological questions regarding his recent conversion
to Christianity. Some Jewish converts have been telling him that he needs to be a Jew before he can be a Christian. Paul was furious when he heard about this controversy. His response was written as our passage today.

Do new Gentile believers really need to be circumcised like their Jewish brothers? Male circumcision, or specifically known as Milah, the Covenant of Circumcision, is at stake here. This covenant was first established between God and Abraham in Gen. 17:10-12.

Gen. 17:10-12
10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after
you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of
your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight
days old among you shall be circumcised.

To be clear, Paul is not against male circumcision for Jews. But he does not see it necessary for a non-Jew to perform this ritual. The reason is simple. Because Christ has already set us free from this law. He is the new covenant that superseded this covenant of circumcision.

Circumcision in itself is not a form of slavery. It remains the most obvious mark of a Jew even today. By making it a pre-requite for conversion, it has turned this covenant into a yoke of slavery.

How so? To understand this, we need to return to last week's passage, Gal. 4:21-31, the
allegory between Hagar, the slave; and Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Gal. 4:23 tells us about the two sons of Abraham: “the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise." The two women represent the two covenants: the covenant of slavery and the covenant of freedom.

The new Gentile believers did not come from the human lineage of Sarah’s son, Isaac, but they were grafted into the kingdom of God through the promise of the Spirit. It is through the faith of Jesus Christ that they become children of promise.

What is Christ's Freedom?
Paul explains: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). Freedom is the goal of Christ. The Hebrew word for freedom used here is “eleutheria.” The theme of Christ’s freedom runs through the entire book of Galatians. It is a very special word that describes the liberating work of Christ.

In Paul's mind, the Gentiles believers are already free. For them to accept circumcision is to take a step backwards. It is akin to asking a free man to become a slave.

Furthermore, if they accept circumcision, they will need to follow the whole law. They
cannot pick and choose which law to follow. In so doing, the benefit of Christ will count for nothing. Christ's suffering and death on the cross will be in vain.

They would have severed themselves “from Christ...fallen away from grace" (v. 4). To be
severed is to be cut off completely. This is as serious as it gets. Once you are severed from Christ, you are no longer children of promise.

This is Paul’s first important point. We are justified by faith and not by law. Paul’s second point is that it is through the Spirit that we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. This righteousness refers to the final righteousness in Christ. On the Day of Judgment, those who are in Christ, through the Spirit, by the faith of Jesus Christ, will be judged as righteous because of the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Those who remain in Christ have a hope of righteousness at the end of days.

Therefore, there is only one name that matters. It is the name of Jesus Christ.

The Son of God who gave his life for humanity. It is an act of love. A love that is like no other.

It is not our faith that will justify our righteousness at the end. It is the faith of Jesus Christ working through love (v. 6). We can only respond in faith to the perfect love of Christ. We place our trust and our faith in Christ alone.

Our faith is far from perfect. We lose heart. We doubt God in our most trying times. We only pray when we need God. Our faith is imperfect. It is not our faith that will justify us. God doesn’t look at our individual faith alone. He sees only the perfect faith of Christ as it embraces our imperfection in him.

Paul acknowledges that the church at Galatia was, in fact, "running well," (v. 7). Paul has used this imagery of a runner finishing well to describe our Christian life. Maybe we are also “running well” in our Christian journey. We come to church regularly. We pray every night before we sleep. We share the good news to our friends in school or at work. We follow the Ten Commandments. We do our best to love God and to love others.

Just like the church at Galatia, we are also running well. Yet, there is something that is hindering us from the truth. For the Galatians, there was a group of Jewish converts, known as the Judaizers, who have been spreading false teaching in the church. They have been telling the new Gentile believers that they need to first convert to Judaism before they can be followers of Christ. Paul believes that this untruth did not come from God (v. 8).

The Yeast that Corrupts
Paul describes this untruth as like a yeast in the bread dough.

9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. [1]

This phrase is a common proverb at that time. Did you notice the use of alliteration in this verse? Alliteration is when two or more words share the same first letters in the sentence. It is used to denote something of importance and also to help us remember the phrase easily.

In this case, the alliterated words are: little, leaven, leavens, and lump. The translators for the ESV did a very good job, as the same alliteration also occurs in the original Greek text.

Yeast in this context is used negatively. Something as small as yeast can permeate the whole
dough. The yeast is the untruth that the Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised first. The untruth is that Christ’s death on the cross is not enough!

Paul's reasoning was this. If the Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised first, then the death of Christ on the cross would be meaningless. (v. 11).

Why? Because that means there is an additional step in God's salvation plan for humanity. That means Christ has failed to set us free. The consequence of the cross is removed. Christ’s redeeming love is no longer sufficient. It is no longer a justification by faith alone, but by works. It is back to the old ways of justification by law, and not by grace.

For those who preached this untruth, Paul has some very strong words for them. They will "bear the penalty, whoever he is" (v. 10), "I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (v.12). To emasculate is to deprive a man of his manhood. One translator calls it, castration! To summarise: those who preach the removal of foreskin will instead have their own manhood removed!

It is one of few rare insults we find from the lips of Paul. But for Paul to use such strong
words here is to show how angry he was against this falsehood. Their untruth had turned the whole gospel on its head.

The Offence of the Cross
The offence of the cross refers to the death of Christ on the cross. It is offensive because it goes against all human reasoning, that God will allow his own Son to die for his created beings. It is ungodly! A divine scandal!

Have we been so used to this offence that it is no longer offensive anymore? Has it become logical to accept a God who died? Where has the offence gone? [pause]

The offence of the cross has been lost to many people today. The yoke of slavery once removed from our necks, have returned. There is only one person we should be a slave to, and that is, Christ. Yet, many Christians are slaves to so many idols in our lives. Greed, pride, hypocrisy, self-centeredness, violence, apathy. We see it in all of us.

Sometimes, movies portray soldiers returning from wars suffering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. They are free from fighting in a war, but they remain under a yoke of slavery to their mental illness.

Some young people freely use their parent’s credit cards and purchase many things beyond their means. They are free to buy things, but are slaves to consumerism. We see a similar yoke of slavery for many people pursuing plastic surgery in the name of eternal beauty. We also see many Singaporeans being slaves to their work. Coming home late every night and missing out on family time. We pay for an expensive house, over many years, but we don’t make that house a home.

Many people have misunderstood this freedom we have been given. The freedom that Christ gives is to set us free to live our lives according to his purpose. But we chose to abandon this freedom for a life of slavery instead.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Freedom of God
Maybe something from a German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, can help us understand the kind of freedom that is, of Christ, a “freedom for” humans.

Bonhoeffer: “It is a question of the freedom of God, which finds its strongest evidence precisely in that God freely chose to be bound to historical human beings and to be placed at the disposal of human beings. God is free not from human beings but for them. Christ is the word of God's freedom.” [2]

God, in Christ, freely chose to bind himself to human beings. His freedom is never a freedom from us, but a freedom for us. No matter how corrupted the world is, God will never give up on us. He is always for us!

John W. Gruchy, a prominent Bonhoeffer scholar, explains further: “Human beings have been given the freedom to rule over the created order but must do so responsibly. Genuine human freedom is freedom “for others,” just as God's freedom expresses itself in covenantal love for the world.” [3]

Many of us only understand freedom only as a “freedom from”. We often talk about “freedom from” sin, from evil, from the world, but we don't talk much about “freedom for”.

Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom
Coincidentally and unrelated to Bonhoeffer, Erich Fromm, a Frankfurt-born social psychoanalyst, wrote a book in 1941 entitled, Escape from Freedom. In this book, he also talks about the distinction between "freedom from" (negative freedom) and "freedom to" (positive freedom). Negative freedom is seeking and fighting for “freedom” from the social ills and economic constraints in society.

The rise of social nationalism and Nazi ideology are examples of this “negative freedom.” He believes that Hitler's desire for absolute authority is supported by the insecure German middle class who believe that their social and economic situation will be alleviated when he comes into power. They were seeking negative “freedom from” poverty and insecurity. For the same reason, this is why many poor white Americans supported Trump during his presidency. If we only have negative freedom, we will soon find ourselves moving from one negative freedom to another negative freedom, becoming just another form of slavery.

Instead, Fromm advocates “positive freedom” – that is, freedom from authority to freedom to act spontaneously for others. Positive freedom seeks to find a sense of meaning in our lives for others. We don’t live our lives for ourselves anymore. We escape from negative freedom to find a positive freedom for others.

Both Bonhoeffer and Fromm spoke on the concept of freedom from two different
perspectives. Yet both are so similar in many ways.

What do you think our “freedom for” would look like today? Are we living our lives for ourselves or for others? How does Christ’s own freedom affect our own sense of freedom?

Conclusion:
Allow me to end my sermon with a short video clip from the award-winning movie, 12 Years
Of A Slave. It is based on a true story of a free black man in 1853. His name was Solomon
Northup. He was a free man but was kidnapped and sold back into slavery for another 12
years before he escaped again.

[video clip - 12 YEARS A SLAVE] https://youtu.be/zf-HkfZGung

When Solomon was reunited with his family, he was in tears and asked for forgiveness. His wife told him, "there is nothing to forgive." For 12 years, Solomon bore a yoke of slavery but in that one moment, the words from his wife lifted that yoke off completely and set him free.

Paul's words to the church at Galatia are well reflected in Solomon's story. You are a free
man, already set free by Christ, but if you accept circumcision, you will once again become a slave. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” from our yokes of slavery, whatever they may be, so that we may live our lives for others.

[1] Paul also used the same proverb in 1 Cor. 5:6.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology, ed. Hans-Richard Reuter and Wayne Whitson Floyd Jr., trans. H. Martin Rumscheidt, vol. 2, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 90–91.
[3] John W. De Gruchy, “Editor's Introduction to the English Edition,” in Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3, ed. Martin Rüter and Ilse Tödt, trans. Douglas Stephen Bax, vol. 3, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 11.

Bilingual Service Video Link: https://youtu.be/lHuVd2Lph7c