When the apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church in Galatia, he wrote to address some false teaching that had made its way into the church and was polluting the true gospel. Misguided people, called the Judaizers, had infiltrated the church and were teaching that Christians still needed to follow the letter of the Law in order to be saved, that salvation was not complete in Christ, and that these early Christians needed to pick up the yoke of the Law again. They taught that these Christians needed to be circumcised and needed to follow all the ceremonial requirements of the Law. 

When understanding how Jesus and the New Testament writers incorporated and viewed the Law, we have to differentiate between the promise, the ethics, and the code of the law. In an article on Bible.org, David Malick writes, “The Mosaic Law may well be subdivided into three categories: Promise, Ethic, and Code. One must always be careful to grasp the aspect of the Law which is being emphasized when the writers of Scripture address it. In Galatians Paul is not concerned about the imposition of the moral Law of Moses (Gal. 5:13-14ff), and he recognizes the fulfillment of promise through Jesus (3). He himself will encourage the Galatians to obey the Law of Love. Paul’s concern is with the imposition of the code of the Law upon the Galatians (Gal. 2:11-21; 3:1-5; 4:9-10; 5:2-6,12).” 

So, understanding this, Paul was not instructing the early Christians to completely disregard all they had learned through the Law about the ethical and moral living God desires. But he was calling them to a higher law- the Law of Love. It wasn’t about abolishing all they had come from, but instead about taking their faith from rituals and rules that were a shadow of things to come, to living in the light of the love of Christ. 

But living this way is hard. It requires constant sacrifice to self. Where God’s people had slipped into believing that sacrifice was something only for ceremonies and in the temple, Jesus calls His people to live lives of constant sacrifice. He calls us to live every second of every day on mission for Him and in surrender to His will. He calls us to a life of humility and love.  

But in a world that neither rewards humility nor encourages sacrifice, this kind of living is difficult and feels out of place. In the verses before today’s verse, Paul encouraged the reader to sew into the things of the spirit and not the world. He recognized that to do so would be difficult and often discouraging. To stand out in this way, to stand up to these false teachers, to love unconditionally, to sacrifice and give without restraint… These were all incredibly hard things to do.