Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

5:1 Christ has set us free from Jewish ceremonial laws and regulations (see note on 2:11-12) but not from obedience to God's moral standards (5:14-6:1).

5:2 The Galatians may have thought that requiring circumcision would not make much difference, but Paul knows that if they require obedience to any one part of the Mosaic law for justification, then they are committed to obeying all of it perfectly for their justification (v. 3), something none of them can do (cf. 3:10-11, 21). Therefore he says, if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

5:4 severed from Christ . . . fallen away from grace. Paul is not discussing here the question of whether a genuine believer can lose his or her salvation. He is only saying that people who may once have made a profession of faith, if they now are truly seeking to be justified by the law, must not really have a relationship with Christ and have fallen away from the grace that was offered and available to them.

5:5 We . . . wait for the hope of righteousness means that Christians do not attempt to produce perfect righteousness in their lives by their own efforts (as Paul's opponents were futilely trying to do), for their hope is not in themselves; instead, they wait for God to complete righteousness in them--either when they die and are with the Lord (Heb. 12:23) or at Christ's return (1 Cor. 15:49; cf. Rev. 21:27). An alternative explanation is that "the hope of righteousness" refers to the believer's hope and expectation that God will declare that the believer is in fact going to be judged righteous at the final judgment.

5:6 Paul is not opposed to circumcision in and of itself but only if it is required for salvation. True faith is a living and active thing and produces love.

5:11 If Paul was still preaching that people had to be circumcised, then the offense of the cross would be removed because human pride in human effort would return. In other words, there would be no "offense" to humble us by declaring that no work of ours can make us righteous before God.