Chuck Larsen

Paul told the Galatians that they had been running a good race and making great time. But something happened to them, so in Galatians 5:7, he asks, “Who tripped you up?” Why did they let themselves get hoodwinked away from Christ and back to the law? It seems that there aren’t a lot of Judaizers, just a few very persuasive ones. Verses 8-9 say, “This persuasion is not from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” I’m confident that these legalists came in the guise of friendship and wooed the Galatians by expressing their concern for their welfare. “We only have your best interest in mind,” they might say as they turn young Christians away from grace and freedom in Christ toward the binding chains of legalism. You’ve heard the saying, “Lord, deliver me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies myself.”

We know where that kind of persuasion comes from. Or better, we know where it doesn’t come from! It certainly isn’t from God. It’s just a bit of “yeast” in the lump causing all the problems. Where does this yeast come from? In 1 Corinthians 5:6, Paul also refers to yeast. He speaks of its penetrating power. Jesus also warned His disciples to watch out for the “yeast” of the Pharisees (Matthew 13:33). Boice says, “The point is simply that the doctrine of salvation by works is not of God but rather proceeds from that which is hostile to God’s grace.” The UBS handbook for translators says, “The meaning of the proverb is fairly obvious: evil, no matter how small it seems, will always in the end result in great harm. Paul may be applying the proverb either to the teachers, who obviously were only a handful or to their teaching, especially to their possible insistence on circumcision as only a small thing.”

I like the way Richison applies this passage. He writes, “It only takes a little false doctrine to ruin a local church. A speck on the telescope will distort the heavens. Benjamin Franklin said, ‘For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; and for want of a rider the battle was lost.’ Any teaching that adds to Christ’s work on the cross, no matter how small, does damage to His work of grace. Grace plus any work, no matter how small, is evil leaven.”

Paul reminds us in Galatians 5:5 that believers “by faith” eagerly await “the hope of righteousness”—our future perfection when Christ returns and completes what He began in us. Then, in Galatians 5:6, he brings that truth down to street level: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” There it is—Paul dismantles both legalism and spiritual laziness in a single sentence. Whether you wear a badge of religious achievement (“circumcision”) or a badge of proud non-religion (“uncircumcision”), neither means anything to God. External religious status does not impress Him. Spiritual resume? Irrelevant. The only thing that carries weight with God is “faith working through love.” Not faith talking through religion, but faith acting through love. But if faith is what matters, then we must ask—faith in what?

That question separates the apostle Paul from a lot of sentimental spirituality floating around today. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower famously said, “Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious faith—and I do not care what it is.” That may work for civic speeches, but it does not work in Scripture. Paul cares what your faith is in. God cares what your faith is in. Faith is only as strong as its object. Faith in faith is pointless. Faith in tradition is powerless. Faith in ourselves is suicidal. True faith is faith in Christ alone. Anything less is an empty slogan. I once heard of a liberal pastor who preached the resurrection every Easter, even though he privately did not believe a word of it. When asked why, he said, “I do not preach my personal faith but the faith of the Church.” That may sound sophisticated in a committee meeting, but Paul would have called it spiritual nonsense. You cannot preach a truth you do not believe. You cannot outsource faith. As theologian Steven Lawson puts it, “What matters is honest faith in Christ. The outward paraphernalia of religion—circumcision, dietary laws, Sabbath observance, or the mere mouthing of doctrine—cannot save us.”

Paul is not dismissing obedience or holiness. He is exposing the futility of religious performance as a substitute for faith. Gary Richison gives a great summary: “Christians who work and struggle in hope that somehow they will gain merit with God ultimately end in futility. They never arrive because they cannot live up to perfection. Religious rites cannot produce spirituality, for only God can take us to perfection. However, God’s love working in our faith will produce what we need. God does the providing.” That is why Paul says faith must work—but not through rituals, formulas, or self-effort. Faith works through love—love empowered by the Spirit, rooted in Christ, and poured out in real life. Religious rituals fade. Spiritual posturing collapses. But faith that loves? That is the mark of someone who truly belongs to Jesus.

Galatians chapter five opens with a rallying cry that could hang on the walls of every Christian heart: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Paul writes these words like a freedom fighter, reminding newly liberated captives not to return to their chains. I once read that after the Civil War, many emancipated slaves in the American South became sharecroppers—technically free but practically bound. Out of fear and habit, they submitted to the same oppressive systems that once owned them. The Galatians were doing something similar. Though set free by Jesus—the greatest liberator in history—they were allowing the Judaizers to drag them back under a system of religious slavery. Paul shakes them awake: Stand firm! Don’t go back to a life of bondage disguised as devotion.

The first command is clear—stand firm in liberty. Hold your ground on the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. Paul knew how relentless legalists could be. They would guilt you, shame you, and spiritualize the handcuffs until you believed bondage was holiness. Some Galatians were starting to wilt under the weight of religious pressure, exchanging joy for rule-keeping. But true believers owe nothing to legalism. Christ has already paid it all. As theologian Robert Gromacki puts it, “The shackles of sin and selfishness were removed. The power of the gravitational pull of the sin nature downward has been conquered. The believer is now free to become and to do all that God, in His wisdom, wanted men to be.” That’s real freedom—not the right to sin, but the power to live whole and fully human, body, soul, and spirit.

Paul then warns against slipping back under the “yoke” of slavery—the crushing weight of the Mosaic law. Peter described the same burden during the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:10, asking, “Why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” Jesus offers a better yoke, one made not of rules but of relationship. In Matthew 11:28–30, He invites the weary and religiously exhausted: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message captures it beautifully: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life… Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” Legalism weighs you down. Jesus lifts you up. The world offers religion with shackles; Christ offers freedom with rest. True discipleship is not a treadmill—it’s walking in step with the Savior who teaches us how to live “freely and lightly.”