This week we elect the next President of the United States. Today we observe Reformation Sunday. What do the Reformation and a National Election have in common? How are they similar? One might say they both have to do with the important matter of freedom. Regardless of political party, each side has expressed its concern over loss of freedom, whether that concern is tied to the fear of an agenda on the part of one political party or the fear of unilateral actions on the part of the President. During the Reformation, the freedom Jesus came to bring was being stripped by the Roman Catholic Church.
Yet, it is that similarity that could potentially cloud how drastically different each event is. One deals with what is temporal; the other what is eternal. One deals with our role as citizens of an earthly nation; the other deals with our place in the spiritual kingdom. One may some day be taken from us or limited; the other never can.
During the month of November until Thanksgiving, we’ll be directing our thoughts not on the temporary, worldly freedoms we enjoy, which have undoubtedly been a blessing to us in this great nation for so long, but rather on the freedom that lasts forever and is a far greater blessing to us now and into eternity. We will see how the freedom we have in Christ plays a role in our lives on a daily basis. The freedom we have in Christ allows us to Face Judgment, to Face Death, and to Be Ruled.
For starters, though, we must understand the source of the freedom we have as Christians, and why that freedom we have in Christ is so very important. It is not just because of the liberties it allows us in our Christian living, the freedom to live for and serve God and others not out of coercion, fear, or obligation, but rather with love and gratitude and thanks. These are tremendous blessings, indeed! But they pale in comparison to the greatest blessings of being free – the blessings of being free from the guilt of sin, free from Satan’s control, and free from the fear of death. These, friends, are the blessings of being free!
The Galatian Christians were at risk of losing those blessings of being free. They had heard and believed the gospel message that salvation was God’s gift to them through faith in Christ Jesus. They had experienced the joyful realization that a perfect Savior had fully satisfied every requirement necessary to be at peace with God, and had paid with his own life to cover the cost of their own inability to do so. But Paul wrote this letter to them because they were in danger of trading all of that in – and the freedom that comes along with it. He put it this way in the beginning of his letter: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all” (Galatians 1:6-7).
What was the big deal? What was Paul so concerned about? Some among the Galatians were insisting that being a Christian still had its requirements, that faith in Jesus didn’t mean that God had let his people off the hook of ceremonial requirements and restrictions, but that those were still binding. What a person ate and wore and the rules you kept – they were insisting that those were still essential. In fact, they accused Paul of deliberately removing such requirements from his preaching and teaching to make his message more attractive to his hearers. The scary part was that the Galatian Christians were starting to buy it.
Have you noticed that the same threat to the gospel appears today? While it may perhaps be a bit more subtle, it’s present. In fact, you may even have been guilty not only of believing it, but declaring it yourself. Today’s version of it sounds like this: “No Christian would ever eat/drink/wear/watch/listen to [blank].” “You can’t be a Christian and support this company or that organization.” “No God-fearing Christian could ever vote for [blank].” “You can’t be a good Christian and [blank].” It doesn’t matter how one fills in any of those blanks, either, because even implying that there are such conditions to Christianity puts an asterisk by our salvation. It implies that Jesus and his work alone aren’t all that really matters for salvation, but that certain requirements and restrictions still apply. If we start believing that rhetoric or find ourselves speaking that way, are we any different than the enemies of the gospel that Paul was addressing in Galatians?
And if anyone thinks this is a little matter, listen to Paul: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (1:8-9). Those are strong words directed at anyone that wants to convey that Christianity is based on the good news of the gospel AND anything else! If anyone teaches that it’s necessary to “read the fine print” or that “certain restrictions apply” when it comes to the gospel, Paul says, “let him be eternally condemned!”
Do those words sound familiar? Ironically, it was the same threat directed at Martin Luther and others who questioned the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that works were necessary for salvation. So in essence, the church in Luther’s day was guilty of committing the exact same crime as those Paul was addressing in Galatians, implying that only the gospel AND works could save, but here the tables are turned and it is the church of Luther’s day condemning the very teaching Paul was defending in Galatians – that we aren’t saved by what we do, but through faith in Jesus and what HE did for us! Paul condemned anyone insisting that what we do saves, and the church of Luther’s day condemned anyone who denied it!
In an effort to defend the good news of the gospel, Paul encouraged the Galatians and us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (5:1). Paul plays off the words of Jesus, who invited us to come to him when we’re spiritually worn out and need the rest of forgiveness that only he can provide. Jesus invites us to rely on the “yoke” that he bore for us to provide that rest. But to resort to the law is essentially to remove Jesus’ yoke of rest from our shoulders and replace it with the unbearable yoke of slavery to the law. Paul is trying to establish how ludicrous it would be to exchange the freedom we have in Christ for suffocating standards of the law. And he doesn’t just stop there, but goes on to highlight three devastating consequences of trading in the yoke of Jesus’ rest and forgiveness for the yoke of slavery to the law.
The first Paul lays out in verse two: “Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.” What Paul is saying that if you want to insist on bringing observance of the law back into the equation, then Christ holds no value to you. Imagine an edited Bible that cut out out every reference to Jesus Christ, Savior, Messiah, etc. What would you be left with? You’d have nothing but law. Sure, there would still be talk of God’s love, but any assurance of that love would be entirely dependent upon one’s ability to keep the law – an impossibility! Without Christ in the picture, all that is left is the law. That leads into Paul’s second devastating consequence of putting on the yoke of the law.
To be bound to any part of the law is to be bound to all of it. Paul wrote, “Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law” (v.3). There is no middle ground with the law – it is all or nothing. The law makes clear that God isn’t interested in you giving it your best effort or the old college try. Only perfection from A to Z is acceptable. Martin Luther’s experience in a monastery enlightened him to how deceiving the appeal to observance of the law can be. He wrote, “Thus it is certainly true that those who keep the Law do not keep it. The more men try to satisfy the Law, the more they transgress it. The more someone tries to bring peace to his conscience through his own righteousness, the more disquieted he makes it” (LW, 27:13). He spoke about having seen many murderers facing execution die more confidently than “these men who had lived such saintly lives” [monks]. The law appears to offer the promise of a legitimate utopian oasis, but it is nothing more than a mirage that leaves souls parched with unquenchable thirst.
Finally, if Christ is of no value and we have obligated ourselves to the whole law by thinking we could keep any part of it, the ultimate consequence is that we fall out of grace. “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (v.4). Picture God’s grace as him scooping you up in the palm of his hand. You did nothing to deserve it. He chose you, even working in you the faith to believe that Jesus is your Savior. As you rest, suspended up in the palm of his hand, you see the exemplary achievements of the law falling all around you, enticing you with their promise of acclaim and worth if only they can be accomplished. Wondering, imagining, that you can perhaps reach out and grab just one or two of them, you stretch yourself too far, falling out of the his palm, out of his grace, into the abyss that awaits all who make the mistake of thinking God’s favor can be earned instead of freely given by his grace. Shudder the thought!
No, friends, the law will never earn us the righteousness God demands. That is ours only through faith. Martin Luther rejoiced to discover what Paul wrote, “For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope” (v.5). Luther knew that his freedom wasn’t granted to him by the pope or an emperor, but by faith. Faith alone made him righteous before God – and free! Friends, faith alone makes us righteous before God – and free! No earthy election can ever rob us of that freedom.