Galatians, written to the assemblies in the region of Galatia (possibly meaning “milky”), is an earnest remonstrance against the evil doctrine that works of law form the standard for a believer’s walk and conduct. Though saved by grace through faith, yet they had added law as the principle of maintaining their salvation. This mixture is abominable to God, the God of all grace.

The apostle Paul shows that the blessed Person of Christ, not law, is the standard of a believer’s walk, and the Spirit of God the power for a walk with God. The cross of Christ is presented powerfully as cutting off all expectation of good coming from man under law. By that cross the believer is crucified to the world, cut off therefore from the very realm in which legality is the ruling principle. He is seen now connected with a “new creation” (6:15), and is therefore to walk no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.

The death of Christ is seen in chapter 4 as our redemption from the bondage of law, that we should be brought into the dignity and liberty of sonship before God—a position that could never have been known in the Old Testament but is true of all saints in this dispensation of grace. As verses 3 to 7 show, we are sons of God by adoption, by being divinely placed in that position. How needful this letter to the Galatians is to preserve us from selfishness, from confidence in the flesh, and from the innumerable evils that are engendered by a legal attitude.