“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” (Galatians 5:13-18)

At the close of an important speech to Congress on January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt shared his vision of the kind of world he wanted to see after World War II.  He envisioned four basic freedoms for all people:

“Freedom of speech everywhere, freedom of worship everywhere, freedom from want everywhere, and freedom of fear everywhere.” 

Depending on how you scale them, these freedoms (to varying degrees) have been achieved since 1941. Nevertheless, our world always needs a fifth freedom!  Man needs to be set free from himself, from the tyranny of his sinful nature.  This fifth freedom is freedom that everyone needs and only Christians possess.     

“Freedom” is on everyone’s lips – today!  Our culture is repeating sins from a generation before and a generation before and a generation before.  Yes, we have added levels of sophistication to our sins and these sins have different names.  However, in the words of Solomon, “There is nothing new under the sun!” (Eccl. 1:9). 

Any Bible believer knows that sin originates within the human heart and man’s heart has been filled with the machinations of sin since the fall (cf. Gen. 3). “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5). Paul testifies that we continue to battle our sin throughout our entire life. 

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” (Romans 7:18) 

Galatians has been called the “Christian manifesto for freedom” or the Christian’s “Declaration of Independence!”  This book of the Bible dismantles that errant path called legalism.  The belief that you can work off the guilt of your sin.  This path is a dead end, faithless, lifeless, and will leave you joyless.  This is the path of trouble.  Galatians 5:13-15 introduce the other side of the coin.  A second path to be avoided.  This path, as dangerous as the first and equally deadening, wears a disguise called “freedom.”  This second path is the path called license. 

Paul, having crushed legalism, rightly assumes the church will swing the pendulum of error all the way to the other side.  This mindset defines freedom just like the world’s heart cry, “I have no constraints!”  “I do not have to keep the Law so I will live with reckless abandon!” 

Martin Luther compared legalism and license with a drunk peasant.  The drunk peasant left the bar to ride home on his donkey.  He mounted one side only to slip off the other side and then the other side only to slip off the other side.  For Luther, one side was legalism and the other is license.  Luther exhorts believers that to move forward as a Christian you have to “sit on the donkey!” 

These opposite extremes within the church are parallel streams that run between earth and heaven. The stream called legalism is clear, sparkling, and pure; but its waters run deep with ferocity making it impossible to enter without being drowned and smashed the rocks of harsh demands.  The stream called license appears quiet and still, making crossing it appear easy and attractive.  However, this stream is filled with contaminants, poisons, and pollutants making entrance mean certain death.  Both streams are deadly because of either impossible moral demands or moral filth. 

What we need is true Christian freedom.  Our culture is crying out to be “free!”  It wants to do whatever it wants with no consequences, no guilt, where nobody gets hurt.  This is not reality.  “You are a slave to something” – “You are either a slave to sin or a slave to God.”  Being God’s slave is true Christian freedom.  Galatians defines and teaches this sacred and golden freedom!