FREEDOM IN CHRIST
“Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” Galatians 5:1
There are two contrasting thoughts in this text: the freedom of the Gospel and the bondage of the law. The reformation sets these in order. At the time of Dr. Luther, the church was all tangled up with false doctrine, most especially with the teaching that a man can gain heaven by his good works. Dr. Luther had tried that, but it didn’t seem to gain him heaven. This dreadful teaching had kept him in bondage to the law and could give him nothing more than a guilty conscience.
This is really how the Reformation started. It started with Dr. Luther’s guilty conscience, a conscience that gave Him no rest because he realized that in no way could he keep even a single commandment. He found rest only after the Holy Spirit had touched his heart with this refreshing word of Scripture: For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Romans 1:17. Now passages like this one from the Galatians took on new meaning: Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified, Galatians 2:16.
Dr. Luther was a born teacher. Once he had experienced the wonderful freedom that faith brought, freedom from the guilt of his sins and freedom to worship the Lord without the legalistic traditions of the church of his day, he wanted to spread this truth with as many people as possible. He began writing and singing and preaching this wonderful message. As a result, through the miraculous power of the Spirit, this unbelievable message of the Bible spread like wildfire. Within 10 years, thousands of people from all over Germany and surrounding countries were led from bondage of works to a new and refreshing freedom in Christ that offered forgiveness as an unmerited gift. But alas, by the time of Dr. Luther’s death, error had crept into the Lutheran church and compromise had taken the place of truth. A new kind of works was introduced. False teachers in many congregations readily accepted that one is saved only by faith without the works of the law. Yet faith, they taught, was not a free-gift of the Spirit, but a work that man had to do. The devil was happy and the liberty in Jesus Christ was jeopardized.
1,000 years earlier St. Paul faced this very problem in Galatia. When that congregation was founded, it was founded on the Rock of our salvation, Jesus Christ. In his sermons, St. Paul never stopped preaching the Gospel and the freedom that comes with it. He spoke of the amazing love of the Father who adopted them as His dear children through faith in His Son. Are they any more beautiful words than these words to the Galatians?: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. He reminded them that the law, to which they had been slaves, and which they vainly had tried to keep, had been kept for them by Jesus who came to earth for just that purpose.
This is what he taught. The holy Son of God humbled Himself to come to earth as our servant, as a human being. He literally made Himself a slave to the perfect law of God. With His holy life and His innocent death on the cross, He kept every commandment perfectly in our place. God in heaven sees you and me as perfect in His eyes, because He sees us in His Son, and that salvation is not about you and me. It is all and always about His Son who sets us free.
Only a child of God can appreciate the relief this brings. No more strutting around trying to please God by doing this or by doing that, but the wonderful relief of knowing that we are free from all that. The relief of a conscience free from sin is one of the greatest blessings of the Gospel. We are sons, writes the Apostle, and not slaves. The Savior has made all of us members of the divine family. He has given us sinful undeserving mortals the added privilege of prayer, by which we are able to talk directly to Almighty God. As members of the divine family, he further promises us His care and guidance in all that we do. As His heirs, we joyfully look forward to our inheritance in heaven with Him.
This liberating Gospel of God deals a stunning blow to the devil with his damning philosophy of works. We can see that in Galatia. St. Paul’s congregation understood and cherished these wonderful truths of the Gospel just as did Dr. Luther’s congregation in Wittenberg and just as our congregation does today. In Galatia, however, It didn’t last. Remember what Jesus teaches us in the Gospel of St. Matthew: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Matthew 7:15! That is just what happened here in Galatia. St. Paul wrote earlier in this letter that false brethren were brought in unawares who came in privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage: Galatians 2:4. Notice, these were not some false radio or TV evangelists, or some door-to-door crusaders relentlessly spreading their false doctrine! These were brethren, members right in the congregation, who felt that St. Paul had gone too far by promising free forgiveness through Jesus Christ without any works on their part whatsoever. These teachers had no problem with salvation by grace, but not grace alone. Man has to do something, they argued, and so they reintroduced many of the Old Testament laws. Keeping laws, they claimed, make a person feel good about himself. God surely has to be proud of someone like that.
St. Paul’s words to them are devastating. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, Galatians 3:1. This was not a moment for kind words. Heaven was at stake. Jesus words about the Scribes and Pharisees are just as devastating: For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20. This is a matter of life and death. We are saved either by faith or by works, but there is no halfway ground. Either God gets the credit or we do. If we are deceived by the devil into trusting our righteousness on the last day, he’s got us and our hope of heaven is forever gone.
This situation in Galatia was duplicated at the time of the Reformation. The world, of course, has always been the playground of the devil, as it always will be, but even the church of the day had gone astray. The Catholic church at Luther’s time believed in grace, but not grace alone. This is what they taught: “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.” Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon P. Only after the Holy Spirit had opened Luther’s heart through the precious word of God, was He able to direct men and women away from all works to salvation by grace alone, a teaching that became a cornerstone of the Reformation.
When the Apostle says in the text, “Stand firm,” he is not only talking to Galatians or to Germans; he is talking also to you and me. Is that the boast of our congregation and our conference that we refuse to compromise God’s Word at any cost? If it is our boast, then we won’t stand firm very long. Look what has happened in many orthodox churches that once stood firm. Little by little, the bondage of the law displaced the freedom of grace. Many once faithful Christians have chosen to place their own free will above God’s grace. Love of the world, love of things, love of pleasure, and love of popularity has made people slaves to themselves instead of servants to God.
If it could happen to others, it can happen to us. Only God can make us stand firm against the assaults of the devil. Christ is mighty and powerful to keep all His servants true and faithful during our time of grace. Through His Word, he brings us the liberty that counts; not the liberty to trust ourselves, but the liberty to confess our sins to Him and to receive a forgiveness He has already provided. O God, grant us the grace to remain faithful to that word and to stay by that word unto everlasting life.
Let me be thine forever, Thou faithful God and Lord,
Let me forsake Thee never, nor wander from Thy Word.
Lord, do not let me waver, but give me steadfastness
and for such grace forever, Thy holy name I’ll bless.
-------------------- Hymn 334, stanza 1
This sermon was preached by Pastor Robert Dommer at the Joint Reformation Service of the Reformation Lutheran Conference at St. Lukes Ev. Lutheran Church in Stoddard, Wisconsin, on October 28, 2007.