I once watched a highlight reel of bizarre football moments—miracle catches, crazy laterals, and plays that made you wonder if physics had taken the day off. But one clip stood out. A kickoff returner caught the ball on his own two-yard line, weaved through defenders like a man late for dinner, and broke free down the sideline. With nothing but daylight ahead, he was all but guaranteed a touchdown—until someone on the opposing bench stuck his foot out and tripped him! The crowd gasped. The officials threw a flag. The guilty player never belonged on the field in the first place. Paul must have seen that clip, because he uses the exact same imagery in Galatians 5:7: “You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?”
The Galatians had started strong—running in the freedom of grace, living in joy, growing in love. Then the Judaizers stepped in from the sidelines and stuck out a legalistic foot. They had no right to interfere, but they did it anyway. Paul says earlier in Galatians that they “slipped in to spy out our freedom,” and once they were in, they began demanding religious rituals and law-keeping as conditions of being right with God. They tripped up the Galatians with what could be called “the leg of the law,” and the race of grace turned into a collision of confusion. I have seen it happen in churches too. A body of believers will be growing, worshiping, and serving—then someone sneaks in with a rulebook thicker than the Bible and starts handing out spiritual red tape. Suddenly grace seems suspicious and joy dries up. Legalism never joins the game to help—it joins to hinder.
That is why Paul’s question matters: “Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” To disobey the truth is not to fall into scandalous sin—it is to abandon salvation by grace and return to salvation by works. Gary Richison writes, “We get off the road of grace when we descend into the belief that we can impress God by what we do.” That is Satan’s favorite strategy: tempt Christians into thinking they can earn God’s approval by performance. When that happens, faith becomes a treadmill of guilt and anxiety. Martyn Lloyd-Jones offered a wise antidote: “When you realize your love is weak and poor, stop thinking about your love, and realize that in spite of its poverty, He loves you.” Jesus said, “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9). Legalism trips us with doubt; grace lifts us with love. We run well when we run with our eyes fixed on Christ—not on our performance.