Galatians 5:1
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty (the freedom) wherewith Christ (in His finished work and power of resurrection) hath made us free, (we have liberty) and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Remember the yoke of bondage in lawlessness, unbelief and these are but terms for sin. They mean religious legalism of any sort. Why? because they depend on our doing something other than simply trusting God and taking Him at His Word. They make self and the world the god in place of God and become an idol. Also remember Lazarus' grave clothes were a type of old testament religious legalism (or the Levitical Laws the very system that God places us in at conversion for one purpose our training and teaching to learn our need for obedience, righteousness and holiness all to bring us to humility) when he arose from the tomb and those around him we told to release him from his graves clothes. Those grave clothes were nothing more than rags at that time. Now this is nothing new to scripture as the old testament prophet Isaiah was said to have said as much in his time and season (compare Isaiah 64:6, John 11; 2 Corinthians 3:7-9, 15-18, 1:9-10).
The yoke of bondage is what the Law was and remains as such. Judaism was the religion of Christ's day, and pretty much the extent of Orthodox Judaism today, an external ministration not a spiritual internal ministration of the Spirit. But what were the roots of Judaism? Well the pure Mosaic and Levitical Law that we had back there in the time of Moses, it was a safe guard, a tutor or corral to keep the called out peoples free from the paganism of the world around them. Its the system we are to pass through on our way to the New Covenant of promise and the high order of things known as the Better Way in the Epistle of Hebrews. But the true religion degenerated, and as it and they came up through the centuries, and the Rabbi's begin to make comments on the various portions of the Old Testament, it just gradually became watered down from its original purity. We're not saying this with any criticism of the present day Jewish religion, but truth is Truth. So it had degenerated down to a religion corrupted and defiled, it became a form of idolatry and that's why Paul called it that in chapter 1:13 at the time shortly after Christ's ascension. It was no longer resting on the Ten Commandments and the Torah, but it had become 613 rules and regulations imposed by man.
Now can we imagine living 24 hours a day under the constant pressure of 613 rules? Why we couldn't take a breath without breaking one of them. And yet they had to be scared to death of what their religion would demand of them if they broke one of these 613 commandments, and curses. Now Paul is saying that they've (the Hebrews, as we as gentiles were never under there influence or hold, accept that God places us in it to teach and train us toward our whole dependency on the Holy Spirit and obedience upon death, the sentence which its ministration carried and exacted) been set free from all of that. Now let's turn on into the Book of Colossians, and this is one of our favorite verses. Oh what beautiful language we have here. We hope the new versions don't take this out, but leave it just like it is. Paul, writing to Gentiles up there in Asia Minor writes:
Colossians 2:14
"Blotting out (to remove, erase, wipe out) the handwriting of ordinances (what do you suppose that was? The Levitical Law and its 613 added writings) that was against us (the Hebrews, the curses and all who are placed into its rule), which was contrary to us , and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;" See that finished it. The Cross was the end of the Levitical Law with its system of rites, ceremonies, customs and traditions, and we must never forget that. And yet so much of our preaching and teaching today is in that area before the Cross. And that's why they can hang onto all this legalism. And the idolatry which it sperms. That's why they can hang on to all the commandments because they are not recognizing that the Cross completely finished it and erased it as if it never was there in the first place. The Lord Himself took them all and nailed those things to His Cross. Yes, including the Ten Commandments. We're not under their binding power. Now we're under their moral principles. Absolutely we are. We still live under the moral code of the Ten Commandments, we'll never take that away. In fact Paul makes that so clear in Romans chapter 13. It's so obvious that they still have a valid role in our Christian experience. But it's not a religious dogma or idolatry as it had become. God has written them and more in our inward parts and written them on our minds by the Holy Spirit when we've truly become His. By way of the baptism which is received at conversion and again when after death (the operation of coming out from among them, self, self-will, pride and the spirit of the world and the asking in total humiliation for the Light that brings Life) and being born into the power of an Endless Life. Where the Lord becomes our LORD the Spirit. Now turn to Romans chapter 13 and verse 8:
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