It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. – Galatians 5:1.
If Galatians is the esteemed charter of Christian liberty, then Galatians 5:1 should most certainly be considered one of the key verses of the epistle. With the language of freedom and slavery still ringing in their ears from the analogy of Hagar and Sarah given in previous verses, the Galatians are now told by Paul: “Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has won for us, and do not let yourselves be caught again in the shackles of slavery” (Phillips). This verse contains both an assertion, “For freedom . . . Christ has set us free,” and a command based upon it, “Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
The contrast of an indicative followed by an imperative is a common grammatical feature in Paul’s writings, as we see in much of his letters. The imperative, “Stand firm,” not only does not contradict the indicative, “Christ has set us free,” but in fact results from it. Because of who God is and what he has done for believers in Jesus Christ, Christians are commanded to “become what they are,” that is, to make visibly apparent in the earthly realm of their human existence that which God has already declared and sealed in the divine verdict of justification. When this enduring connection is forgotten or downplayed, the temptation for the believer, the disciple of Christ, to lapse into legalism on the one hand or into abject wantonness on the other, it then becomes a serious threat to Christian freedom/liberty.
The structure of the indicative/imperative formula in Paul also relates to the salvation-historical situation of the believer who must live out the Christian life in the eschatological (end times doctrine) tension between the No Longer and the Not Yet of this “present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). We have seen Paul struggling with this tension throughout Galatians, and it continues to shape his moral instructions found throughout the chapters of Galatians 5–6.
As the late German Protestant theologian, Walter Grundmann, has written:
“The Christian stands in the tension of a double reality. Basically freed from sin, redeemed, and reconciled . . . [yet] he is actually at war with sin, threatened, attacked and placed in jeopardy by it.”
The fact of justification propels the Christian into a world of struggle, an in-between time bounded by the great accomplishment of redemption in Christ’s finished work on the cross on the one hand and the yet-to-be-realized consummation of God’s redemptive purposes at the second advent of Christ on the other. In this real world of struggle and temptation, the sham gods of this present evil world, war against the people of God, ever seeking to subject them again to the yoke of bondage.
By the power of the Holy Spirit and His anointing, however, Christian believers are enabled and empowered to “stand firm” against the encroachment of such demonic forces. The indicative of their Christ-won freedom secures the imperative of their Spirit-led obedience and victory.
In the words of the Dutch theologian, Herman Ridderbos:
“Indicative and imperative [grammatical features] are both the object of faith, on the one hand in its receptivity, on the other in its activity. . . . The indicative represents the ‘already’ as well as the ‘not yet.’ The imperative is likewise focused on the one as well as the other.”
On the basis of the No Longer, Paul could say to believers that all things are theirs, and they are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s (see 1 Corinthians 3:22–23). On the basis of the Not Yet, he could command, forbid, warn, and even threaten, as he did here in Galatians 5–6. The object of Paul’s ethical and moral exhortations, then, is not just a final justification, as if the first application did not quite take, but rather an imperative towards the Christians’ growth in grace, their call to holiness, sanctification, and new life in Christ.
Christian freedom is the precious birthright of every believer, “An inestimable blessing,” Calvin called it, “for which we should fight even to the death. For we are not talking here about our hearths but about our altars.”
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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