Thoughts on Galatians 5:13

"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."

I can’t count the number of times I’ve told people that we are saved by faith and not by works and they come back with something like “well then I can just sin all I want to because I’m still going to heaven.” Paul addresses this ridiculous statement in this verse. “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.” Paul is telling the Galatians “look, you are saved by faith through grace and there is nothing you can do to earn your salvation but that doesn’t mean you should take advantage of Jesus’ gift by seeing it as a license to sin.” Instead we should be thankful to God for His gift to us and serve Him by obeying Him. How do we obey Him? Paul tells us: “through love, serve one another.” Paul is just echoing what Jesus says in a conversation recorded in the book of Mark: “And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28-31). Jesus tells us to love Him and love the people around us.

If you see God’s grace as a license to sin, if you see what Jesus did on the cross as “an opportunity for the flesh” and not a call to love one another as he loved us, I would suggest seriously asking yourself if you are even a Christian at all. Loving Jesus and serving him go hand in hand. Look closely at verse 31 from above: “There is no other commandment greater than these.” Notice the subject, commandment, is singular, not plural. Jesus does this for a very specific reason. Although he gives us more than one commandment in those verses, he is telling us that they are inseparable. These two commandments: “love the Lord your God” and “love your neighbor” are one, they are singular, they are inseparable. My point is this: if you are truly a Christian and you truly love God, you will not use grace as a permission slip to cheat on your spouse, get drunk, go to the strip club, yell at your wife, abuse your kids, or gratify any fleshly desire. If you love God, you will see grace as a gift from Him and share the love He has given to you by serving those around you.