GALATIANS 5:1-12

Mikolawski labels this section “The freedom of faith” while Metzger calls it “The nature of Christian liberty.”

Galatians 5:1 Some translations indicate that this verse concludes the previous allegory of Sarah and Hagar while others go with the current chapter division instead. It should probably best be treated as a transition verse.

Galatians 5:2 Brauch brings up a potential problem associated with this verse. “Galatians 5:2 seems to express a limitation in the work of Christ...Can the submission to something as external as the rite of circumcision blunt the effectiveness of his sacrificial death?” He goes on to explain that if one approaches circumcision “as a means toward right standing before and with God” then as Galatians 2:21 states, 'if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.'”

Galatians 5:2-4 “If the Galatians embrace the false gospel of justification by works of the Law, Paul warns, 'Christ will not benefit you at all...You are severed from Christ...you have fallen from grace.' In other words, the Galatians would cut themselves off from the hope of salvation.” (Gundry-Volf) Campbell points out: “It is not that the apostle condemned circumcision in itself...but Paul was strongly opposed to the Judaistic theology which insisted that circumcision was necessary for salvation.”

Galatians 5:3 Carson points to a problem with an argument advanced by some based on this verse, namely that Paul believed that anyone who was circumcised should obey the whole OT law. In fact, he notes, this particular verse says nothing at all regarding Jews circumcised at birth who later became Christians. He is only commenting on the situation of a Christian Gentile who allows himself to then be circumcised.

Davids explains that this unitary concept of the law found also in Matthew 5:18-19; 23:23; James 2:10; and many intertestamental writings. It basically states that violation of even one commandment is the same as violating the whole law. “It is a forceful way of stating that every command is important, even if in unskillful (i.e. causistic) hands it can lead to an overemphasis of minutiae...”

Galatians 5:4 Gundry-Volf expresses the opinion that “(U)nless this cryptic verse is a threat that all was in vain, Paul here thinks of their losing salvation as an impossible possibility.”

Galatians 5:5 Fee suggests “that faith itself, as a work of the Spirit, leads us to receive and experience the Spirit who also comes through that same faith. Although it does not fit our logical schemes well, the Spirit is thus both the cause and the effect of faith...The object of faith, as always, is Christ; the Spirit is the means whereby such faith is sustained.”

Galatians 5:6 This particular verse in the passage seems to have generated the most comments from a number of scholars. Thus:

“From the local sense of dia there naturally developed the instrumental sense, which marks the medium through which an action passes before its accomplishment. Thus, in the expression pistis di' agape energoumene, love is specified as the means by which faith becomes visibly operative or effective. Expressions of love (= good works) must intervene between faith in its infancy and faith in its maturity.” (Harris)

Mohrlang puts it this way: “Paul reminds the Galatians that what really counts is not the Jewish law but 'faith working through love' – a phrase that perhaps comes closer than any other to summarizing his view of the Christian life.”

“The events of the cross, resurrection and new creation in the Spirit nullify any advantage resulting from circumcision.” (Woodbridge)

Furnish examines the parallelism of three important Pauline pronouncements – I Corinthians 7:19; Galatians 5:6; and 6:15. “Each begins with the assertion that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value in itself...However, each of these three parallel epigrams specifies what does matter in a different way. In I Cor. 7:19 it is 'keeping the commandments of God'; in Gal. 5:6, 'faith active in love'; and in Gal. 6:15, 'a new creation.'”

Brauch corrects Luther's understanding of James 2:14-26 “for James was not speaking about faith and works as a means of salvation. Rather, he is speaking about saving faith whose authenticity is revealed in the fruit it bears. The passage can even be seen as an exposition of Paul's statement in Galatians 5:6 that “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

Galatians 5:7 “The confused and staccato conclusion to the paragraph, from v. 7, betrays the intense emotion under which the apostle wrote.” (Coad)

“Employing a metaphor he was fond of, Paul described the Galatians' Christian experience as a race (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24-26; 2 Tim. 4:7). They had begun well, but someone had cut in on them, causing them to break stride and stumble.” (Campbell)

Galatians 5:8 “The noun peismone in Gal. 5:8 ('persuasion' RSV) may be understood actively in relation to peitho ['persuade']. But there may be a play on words with peithesthai in the preceding verse which means to obey: 'Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who called you.' The result of this persuasion which did not come from God would thus be that the Galatians would no longer allow themselves to be persuaded by the truth.” (Becker)

Galatians 5:9 Briggs points out that Paul utilizes this same proverb (“a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough”) in I Corinthians 5:6. “He is concerned his opponents will win over the whole Galatian community.” Schaller notes that both warnings had as their original settings a celebration during the Feast of Passover.

Galatians 5:10 Gundry-Volf summarizes that “in the final analysis he [Paul] is 'confident in the Lord' that the Galatians will not make the decisive break with the gospel (and lose salvation). This expression of confidence does not make the danger less real or the warning less urgent, but it finds the way out in the faithfulness of the Lord, through whose intervention Paul anticipates his admonitions achieving their desired effect.”

Galatians 5:11 John Stott compares this verse with Galatians 6:12: “The cross of Christ is mentioned in both these verses, and in 5:11 it is called an 'offense' or 'stumbling block' (skandalon). In both verses too there is a reference to persecution. According to 5:11 Paul is being persecuted because he preaches the cross; according to 6:12 the false teachers are avoiding persecution by preaching circumcision instead of the cross. So the alternatives for Christian evangelists, pastors and teachers is to preach either circumcision [the law] or the cross [grace].”

Galatians 5:12 This is perhaps the most disturbing verse in the whole passage in that Paul does not hold back in venting his anger against his opponents. Orr and Walther say, in commenting on the quotation in Titus 1:12-13 denouncing Cretans as liars, “While nobody can say that Paul could not have, in a fit of impatience or even with a certain wry humor, approved such a quotation as a pardonable exaggeration, it is still not the kind of language he employed elsewhere...with the possible exception of Gal 5:12.”

“The passage ends with a mocking reference to circumcision (cf. Phil. 3:2) but a reference to excommunication might be implied...and the NIV hints at the play on words between the Gk. For 'cut in on you' (enkopto) (7) and emasculate (apokopto) (12).” (Coad)

Coad may be true in his observations, but I prefer to go with Campbell's explanation instead: “He wished that the Judaizers, who were so enthusiastic about circumcision, would go the whole way and castrate themselves, as did the pagan priests of the cult of Cybele in Asia Minor. Perhaps the resulting physical impotence pictured Paul's desire that they also be unable to produce new converts.”