STAND FAST (Galatians 5:1)

STAND FAST (Galatians 5:1)

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1)

Free - Deliverance from the curse that the law pronounces on the sinner who has been striving unsuccessfully to achieve his own righteousness (Galatians 3:13, 22–26; 4:1–7), but who has now embraced Christ and the salvation granted to him by grace (Galatians 2:4; 4:26; Romans 7:3; 8:2). Stand fast - Stay where you are, Paul asserts, because of the benefit of being free from law and the flesh as a way of salvation and the fullness of blessing by grace. Entangled again - Better translated “to be burdened by” or “to be oppressed by” because of its connection with a yoke. Yoke of bondage - “Yoke” refers to the apparatus used to control a domesticated animal. The Jews thought of the “yoke of the law” as a good thing, the essence of true religion. Paul argued that for those who pursued it as a way of salvation, the law was a yoke of slavery. Matthew 11:28–30.