Daily Devotionals

Grace for Today

Devotional: August 12th

Galatians 5:1

‘Christ hath made us free’

Read Galatians 4:8-31

It is common today for preachers to say that the law is the believer’s rule of life. Very few people would tell us that the law is a means of justification. But many insist upon bringing the children of God back under the yoke of bondage for sanctification.

The apostle Paul says that such reasoning is foolish! ‘Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’ He states the fact very plainly: ‘Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. ‘We have been made free, for ever free, by the Son of God, and we are free indeed! ‘stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.’

Not only is it unwise, it is a sinful practice, contrary to the faith of the gospel, for a believer to make the law a basis for his life before God. Our acceptance before God is entirely the work of Christ. He is all our righteousness, both in justification and in sanctification. If you do anything, whether it be circumcision, the keeping of the Sabbath, or even purity of conduct, in order to be accepted by God, you are fallen from grace! And Christ shall profit you nothing!

In Jesus Christ, by virtue of his representative obedience and substitutionary death, we are free from the law. We have no curse from the law, no covenant with the law, no condemnation by the law and no commitment to the law. Does that mean that we are lawless? Can we now sin without fear? Perish the thought! We live by the commandment of God. ‘And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.’ We trust Christ alone for our entire acceptance before God. And we walk before our brethren in love. These are ‘those things that are pleasing in his sight’.