On Liberty and Bondage

Introduction

There are many who seems to think that having material worship, and ritual, and discipline, constitutes some kind of bondage.

They like to quote St. Paul's letter to the Galatians, which reads as follows:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. 5:1

By quoting that verse, they are accusing us of practicing a religion of "bondage", opposed to "liberty", because we have material things and rituals and stuff.

If one just takes select snippets without context, it's possible to weave them together to craft just such a narrative. But we ought not: St. Peter says that those who do so, especially taking from the letters of St. Paul, do so to their own destruction. 2 Pet 3:16 Rather, we should seek to understand the whole counsel of God, and rightly divide the word of truth.

To do so, ignore the chapter and verse divisions: they weren't there in the original inspiration. Pay attention rather to the structure of the letter, and especially what things the author repeats. See how he builds his point. It's a corrective letter: What is he trying to correct? What points does he make to try to correct it? How are the points he makes corrective?

Only once you've understood the letter as it was written to them is it possible to then say, Ok, what does this have to do with me? Let alone, Great, now I can see clearly to correct my brother.

So let's take a look.

The Galatian Temptation: To Abandon the Gospel of Christ

St. Paul mentions the problem he's addressing several times:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel 1:6

But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel… 2:14a

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth...? 3:1

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 4:8

Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? 5:7

The Nature of the Tempation: Materiality Per Se?

In what way, then, were they being tempted to turn back from the covenant of Christ? and what are these weak and beggarly elements to which he says they are desiring to be in bondage?

One might posit that he wants them to stop using rituals and material things in their worship, since he refers to elements of the world, and also to days, and months, and times, and years. However, this quickly falls apart when we note that St. Paul used icons himself in his preaching of the Gospel, as he wrote in this very letter:

…before [your] eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you 3:1

Or do you think that he set forth before their eyes something that their eyes could not see?

The Nature of the Corrective

When figuring out an author's motive, we can look at what it is, and what it clearly is not.

He reminds them of the Material

How can St. Paul wish to excoriate them for using material and ritual in worship, when his primary method by which he seeks to correct their wandering is to anchor them in exactly those things?

Far from being against such things, he rather seeks to bring to their attention that very icon which they have displayed openly before their eyes by wood and paint, so that every time they see it, they will remember anew the truth of the Gospel which he preached to them, and not abandon Christ but rather to be crucified with Him and so have His form completed in them 4:19 as they continually behold the glory of the Lord "as it were a mirror" via the icon and are so transformed into that same image little by little, as he wrote to the Corinthians:

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Cor 3:17-18

He confirms this in the conclusion of the letter to the Galatians we are examining, saying:

As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised…that they may glory in your flesh. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. … And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. 6:12-14, 16

He reminds them of the Ritual

In addition to pointing their eyes to the icon, he also calls their remembrance to their baptism into Christ by which they are united to that very death and resurrection of His and received the Spirit, through which a man is born into the liberty from which we ought not go back.

As Sts. Peter, and John, and also this same Paul elsewhere describe, baptism is a union of ritual, material, and inner life. There is the water, and the word, and the spirit.

So we see that St. Paul's corrective method begins by anchoring their minds back to the material and ritual: reminding them of their baptism, and pointing their eyes to the icon of Christ crucified standing there before them. Whereupon, seeing this, they should call to mind the truths of the Gospel which he preached to them, and stick with the crucified Christ into whom they were baptized, not receiving circumcision so as to become debtors to fulfill the Law of Moses which although good in and of itself is yet powerless to overcome sin and death.

The Nature of the Temptation: Judaizing

Whenever you're trying to understand Scripture, there are clues you can look for on a basic level. One of which is key connective words, like "since", "for", "therefore", "wherefore", etc.

When I was in Bible College, one of my professors liked to say, When you see a "therefore", go back and see what it's there for! This means we have to go back to the previous verses and see the context. What's the lead-up? Does he define already or use the term you are trying to understand in a definitive or clarifying way?

In the case of the favorite quote-mined verse, Galtians 5:1, there is indeed a "therefore" there. Stand fast therefore in the liberty… So let's go back and see if we can find anything that looks relevant.

… the heir, as long as he is a child, … is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: … 4:1-3

In bondage? elements of the world? Looks like we have a winner! Let's continue and see if we can grasp what St. Paul is referring to by these phrases:

…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. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. 4:4-7

Sounds like it has something to do with "the law". I wonder which law that is? Maybe we should keep reading.

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.

Here, he says that before they did not know God, and they served "gods" who were not actually gods in their nature. This sounds a lot like idolatry. So they were pagans.

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

It seems that whatever it is they are doing will have the effect of going backward and bringing them again into the same bondage as before: service to things of the world which are not God nor gods. What law, then, constitutes this bondage? Who is bewitching them? And to what?

The Manner in which they received the Truth

Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

⋮

Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

⋮

They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.

⋮

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

When he preached to them at the first, he did so in weakness, battling some temptation in his flesh, but putting aside the comfort of his flesh for Christ's sake, preferring instead the sufferings of Christ in accordance with his gospel, and they received this with joy.

Now, however, it appears that some have come and troubled them, and caused them to reject him for telling them the truth of the Gospel. These want to get them worked up, and pull them away, so that they will like them and do what they say, so that they can glory in their flesh, unlike Paul who did not glory in the flesh.

The Two Covenants

But what law does he refer to that they are desiring to be under?

He says, do you not hear the law? Then he quotes the Law of Moses: not the list of commandments, but rather the book of Genesis.

Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

⋮

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Now we're getting somewhere. These are the two covenants. And he gives a solid lock on the identity of the first covenant: the one from mount Sinai. That is, the Covenant of Moses. Now, he says something interesting here that this one gendereth to bondage. What does this mean? This word, gendereth is an older term in English, but it comes from the same root as our other word "generate" and has the same meaning: to give birth to. So there is a connection between birth and that covenant, but the birth given is not to a life of freedom, but slavery, in bondage to something.

This is contrasted with the Jerusalem which is above, which, he says, is free. But what is this Jerusalem which is above? Whatever it is, it is the mother of us all, by which he means himself together with those to whom he is writing. He mentioned one covenant already, the Old. The new covenant, then, is that which gives birth to citizens of that Jerusalem, free sons, and not slaves.

This he shows by quoting the prophet Isaiah, immediately following the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, in which God promises to take away the sins of His people by the Cross and create a new family by the Resurrection from the dead.

…when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed…

⋮

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong…

Isaiah 53:10, 12

What is this spoilage except to set the captives of the strong man free, thus spoiling all his goods?

No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. Mark 3:27

Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?…) Eph 4:8-9

The temptation they are undergoing, then, is that of leaving the New Covenant of Christ and going back under the Old Covenant of Moses by accepting circumcision.

The Motives of the Tempters

You may ask, But Steve! Doesn't the Covenant of Sinai include a bunch of instructions for material worship? How is that not what he refers to as the weak and beggarly elements of the world?

That's an astute question. He also mentioned such elements when they were doing service to idols. But let's consider the rest of the passage and see. (Keeping in mind that we have already seen that St. Paul uses the material and ritual things positively.)

…they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.

⋮

…they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.

4:17; 6:12

I can hear them now: Don't you love us? You don't want us to suffer, do you? Just accept circumcision and our problem goes away! You don't even have to mean it; after all, you have freedom in Christ.

Or perhaps it went like this, which also lines up with what they were saying in Antioch Acts 15:1: Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

That is, Yes, Christ is the fulfillment of the Law for righteousness; so you need to keep the Law in order for His righteousness to be fulfilled in you. You Gentiles must keep the Law of Moses, and accept circumcision in order to be of the household of God.

I imagine it was both, to be honest. Strongarm them and also appeal to their love. This is a common tactic among false teachers, as St. Peter also warned:

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

⋮

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you…

⋮

beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices;

But St. Peter and St. Paul both reveal the true inner motive of these: they do not wish to suffer for Christ. They do not wish to follow Him all the way. They want to continue to live according to the flesh. They like having His sacrifice around to foot the bill, but they have no desire to be like Him.

Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin…

⋮

…they allure through the lusts of the flesh …

⋮

…after they have escaped the pollutions of the world…they are again entangled therein, and overcome…

⋮

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

2 Pet 2:14, 18, 19, 20

…if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off which trouble you. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

⋮

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

⋮

…they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Gal 4:12-13, 16, 24

Clearly, the bondage to which he refers is not the use of material and ritual in worship, but rather the living according to the flesh, in the fear of death, relying on (hypocritically) the Law of Moses to be declared righteous before God, which it cannot do. This is not freedom at all, but slavery to the flesh.

Hypocritically? Yes.

As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. 6:12-13

It's not the use of material and ritual that is the problem. It's the change of covenant. And it's the not the ritual and material of the old covenant, nor even of the idolaters, that is the problem. The return to a state of serving and walking in the flesh and doing its works. Circumcision and accepting to live by the Law of Moses are just a cover for that, since although it does constitute a fair shew in the flesh, it nevertheless awakens the motions of sin in the flesh, as St. Paul wrote to the Romans. (Or rather, sin takes occasion by the commandment to do so.)

This is that "bondage" that he's referring to in 5:1: the covenant of the Law given on Mt. Sinai, allegorized by [H]agar and her children, and under which the city of Jerusalem on earth (symbolizing the Jews) was yet still in bondage, symbolized and effected by circumcision in the outer man. While they cut off a little circle of the flesh, the great bulk of it remained not only in the world but connected to themselves, and they continue to walk in its desires, inventing loophole after loophole to justify themselves while condemning others, even to the point of crucifying the most Innocent.

The Pauline Admonition: Stand Fast In the True Liberty of the Spirit

When St. Paul wrote, Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage, he was referring to the liberty from the fear of death by which sin reigns, moving the flesh to sin. That is, more directly, the liberty from the passions, from the snares of the adversary that bind us and bring us down to the earth and beneath it, where He descended by obedience even unto death, in order to set us free, thereby opening up the Way to Life in Himself.

Do not return, he says, to the bondage of the service of that which by nature is not god, and which is weak and beggarly, yet demands all its sufferings be assuaged, corrupting itself ever more in search of such consolation.

Rather, stand fast in your faith working through love and bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, following Him and emulating Him in His sufferings, cutting off the flesh entirely by living out the circumcision of the heart you received in baptism, and purifying your hearts through fervent love for one another.

If you waver, look to the icon of the Crucified, and remember your baptism. You who have not wavered but continue to walk in the Spirit, restore those who have fallen back into the flesh in a spirit of meekness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.

As I said before, they who wish to apply a fig leaf to their shame only cut off a little circle of the flesh, the great bulk of it remains not only in the world but lording over their soul, and they continue to walk in its desires. However, when a man comes to baptism and is made to be in Christ, he dies with Christ, receiving by union with His crucifixion a cutting off not just of the little circle on the end of that small extremity — and not just the one passion that it represents — but he receives the cutting off of the whole flesh, with the entirety of its passions and lusts.

And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses… Col 2:10-12

That is, he receives in his baptism the circumcision of Christ for the Law, but also the curse of Christ from the Law, being cut off by and to it with Him. Thus, the man in baptism receives circumcision of the heart, dying to flesh with all its passions and desires, keeping only the heart (where we meet God, which is then purified it by the cutting off of the motions and desires of the flesh every day. This is that carrying about in the body the marks — that is, the cuttings — of the Lord Jesus. 6:17 I die daily.

Thus living in the Spirit, he will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, and so the ordinances of the Law of Moses are taken away, since the whole of them is fulfilled in the one: Love.

How the Christian Must Live With The Body

What then? Does the man actually die in baptism such that his soul is separated from his physical body? No. The man is separated from the way of the flesh. He dies to the law of Moses, legally, and also to the law of sin and death which reigns in the flesh. But just as Adam did not pass back to the earth for some several hundred years after the day he died by eating the fruit — for in that day he died to God and became alive to sin for a time, the wages of which were the eventual death and return to the earth — likewise we do not immediately return the flesh to which we die in baptism to the earth. Rather, we die to it. Nevertheless, from then on we bear it about until the wages of the sin in it are come to the full and it perishes.

Why is this given to us? Why are we not immediately returned to the earth in baptism, and spend the rest of our eternal lives in the heavens?

It is a great mercy that this is not the case. First of all, who would accept baptism but only those few who are graced as martyrs? The faith of many is a weak and small thing at the first, a smoking flax. The merciful God knows our weakness, and has arranged things such that the fear of death may not be so immediately present as to overwhelm and quench this little faith. He introduces our death immediately in the spirit, but only little by little in the flesh, and that only with our cooperation in the spirit.

Furthermore, the flesh is not one big mass of only evil. Yes, sin and death work in it, and the passions as well. But when ruled by the spirit in proper order it is yet capable of being an instrument of righteousness, and to become a holy thing. To return it to the earth immediately would rob the Christian of the opportunity to exercise himself in righteousness as a member of Christ in faith working through love and therefore gain the rewards that come from such labor. So the all-good God leaves us to continue on in these walking arenas of the spiritual warfare, so that we may come to ever more glory, since He is good and the lover of mankind.

This is why he continues the verse originally quoted by saying Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing and, a little further on, in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

The liberty with which Christ has made us free is the New Covenant in His blood, resulting in union with Himself by and in the Spirit of liberty, as he says in another place, Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail — that is, the blinder that covers the understanding of those under the old covenant — shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Cor 3:16-18

What liberty? From bondage to what? Not to live according to any law at all? No; that would be antinomianism, and would contradict the instruction to live according to the Law of Christ. Rather, that from which we are freed is the bondage to the law of sin and death, bondage to the passions, bondage to the "weak and beggarly elements" that constitute the world, as he wrote to the Romans:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

By which power (i.e. of death) the Law of Moses operated.

This is why he says, For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Gal 5:13 And, This I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. … But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 16, 18 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 24

There is a huge difference between we have and use material things in the Church and we wish to be under the law of sin and death, submitting ourselves to the passions of the flesh, while being debtors to the Law of Moses against such things by the very fear of death that allows it to bring us into bondage in the first place.

But that the flesh should be brought under bondage to the soul, and the soul to the spirit, and the spirit to the Spirit of God, I doubt anyone would contradict. This is not the same sense of "bondage", but rather more in the sense of "bands" by which things are properly ordered and nourished from the Head. Col 2:19 Otherwise the same Paul would not have said, I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection 1 Cor 9:27.

By which we see that the body should be trained in disciplines most suited to it, to bring it into subjection not to the Law of Moses, nor of sin and death, but rather to the soul, which is brought into subjection to the spirit, which itself is given over to the Spirit, and so the whole man is subject to God, and walks in the Spirit. The disiplines that are proper to the body are the things that have to do with the material world it inhabits: fastings, vigils, labors, alms, weepings, consolations, chastity, holy kisses, bowings, prostrations, viewing and painting the holy icons, hearing the holy writings, smelling the incense, hearing and chanting the hymns, lifting up the hands, making the sign of the cross, and tasting the holy gifts, etc. In short, everything outward.

This is the why to St. Paul's question to the Colossians:

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

Because we are men, although we have died with Christ we yet still live in the world. Therefore we are subject to ordinances in the world. Or rather, not we are subject, as we have been set free, but we bring out bodies under subjection. However, this is not, as those who tempted the Galatians, out of desire to make a fair shew in the flesh 6:12, nor to glory in it, for the proper subjection to these things is not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh Col 2:23b.

Rather, these things shew their wisdom in voluntary piety, and humility, and neglecting of the body Col 2:23 — my translation

Of course these bodily disciplines are not alone. They should be married up with disciplines of the soul and spirit, which really are the various virtues opposed to the desires of the flesh: the chief of which is humility, and also patience, meekness, gentleness, kindness, generosity, examination of conscience, refusing to remember wrongs, remembrance of death, remembrance of God, contemplation, composition of holy songs, memorization of scripture, etc.

And these should be governed by the spirit, the disciplines of which are faith and hope. The energy of all of this, of course, which both nourishes and binds it all together into one glorious unity is love, which is first of the fruits of the Spirit of God Who is love, and is what remains when all the rest is passed away.

These bodily disciplines and tools ' the material and the ritual ' are not what St. Paul is correcting in the Galatians. Indeed, they are part of the correction, since he pointed them to them as a reminder.

Liberty is freedom from bondage, not freedom from discipline, nor from persecution, trial, tribulation, etc. Confusing these things is how one ends up returning to the very bondage one claims to have got rid of. To return once again to St. Peter's second letter:

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise mastery. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to blaspheme glories.

⋮

These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

Conclusion

Let us love one another, and bring our bodies under subjection, not using this liberty of Christ as an occasion to the flesh, to return to its bondage, but bearing one another's burdens, let us go with Him even to the cross, suffering whatever persecution, offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, that we may be found in Him not having our own righteousness but the righteousness which is of God by faith.