Galatians 5:1

Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Read Chapter 5 Verse 2

Cornelius a Lapide

AD 1637

Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. You once served idols and devils: why do you now wish to serve the shadows and burdensome ceremonies of the Mosaic law? The Greek for entangled is rendered by the Vulgate contained, by Vatablus implicated, by Erasmus ensnared. The Judaisers, says S. Paul, are enticing you to their law as into a net, in which, if you are once entangled, you will be unable to escape from its legal windings and toils.

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Cornelius a Lapide

AD 1637

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER i. S. Paul proceeds to urge the Galatians not to submit to the yoke of the Old Law, lest they be deprived of the fruits of Christ"s righteousness, since in Him neither circumcision nor uncircumcision will avail anything, but only faith which worketh by love. ii. He invites them (ver13) to Christian liberty, and shows that it is based on charity, which causes him to pass from the dogmatic to the ethical portion of the Epistle. iii. He points out (ver17) how the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and then he enumerates the works of each respectively.

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Gaius Marius Victorinus

AD 400

He had to add an exhortation that they should persevere in the same way that they had first begun to receive from him the gospel and not return to the slavery under the law. He says “stand” which is not possible for one who is under a heavy yoke. For he bows his neck submissively and therefore cannot stand. .

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Gaius Marius Victorinus

AD 400

He obviously means that freedom by which our mother [the church] is free, and she obviously is free by faith. For this is true freedom, to keep faith in God and to believe all God’s promises. Therefore by faith Christ has brought us back to freedom and made us free by the freedom of faith. .

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

Be not held again under the yoke of bondage, of the old law. (Witham) This verse must be understood in the same manner as the 9th verse of the preceding chapter. See the annotations upon it.

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Jerome

AD 420

He adds “again,” not because the Galatians had previously kept the law … but in their readiness to observe the lunar seasons, to be circumcised in the flesh and to offer sacrifices, they were in a sense returning to the cults that they had previously served in a state of idolatry. .

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

By the name of yoke he indicates to them the gravity of the affair. By “again” he shows how profound is their confusion. Paul implies, “If you had no experience of that yoke, you would not deserve such recriminations. But when those who have learned by experience the heaviness of the law submit themselves to it again, what forgiveness do they deserve?” Homily on Galatians

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Do you see how many reasons he employs to lead them away from the error of the Jews? He shows first that it is the utmost foolishness, having become free instead of slaves, to desire slavery again instead of freedom. Second, he reveals them to be unmindful of and ungrateful to their benefactor, despising the one who frees them and preferring that which enslaves them. Third, he shows that this is absurd, since [as Paul says] “the law has no power over you, since another has purchased you once for all from it.”

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

With freedom did Christ set us free; stand fast therefore . Have you wrought your own deliverance, that you run back again to the dominion you were under before? It is Another who has redeemed you, it is Another who has paid the ransom for you. Observe in how many ways he leads them away from the error of Judaism; by showing, first, that it was the extreme of folly for those, who had become free instead of slaves, to desire to become slaves instead of free; secondly, that they would be convicted of neglect and ingratitude to their Benefactor, in despising Him who had delivered, and loving him who had enslaved them; thirdly, that it was impossible. For Another having once for all redeemed all of us from it, the Law ceases to have any sway. By the word, stand fast, he indicates their vacillation.

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

And be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. By the word yoke he signifies to them the burdensomeness of such a course, and by the word again he points out their utter senselessness. Had you never experienced this burden, you would not have deserved so severe a censure, but for you who by trial have learned how irksome this yoke is, again to subject yourself to it, is justly unpardonable.

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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220

For the Jews say, that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His works which He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said to the People: "Remember the day of the sabbaths, to sanctify it: every servile work ye shall not do therein, except what pertaineth unto life.". As we have found, they were both sketched out beforehand. When he speaks of "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free". It was not meet that those who had received liberty should be "entangled again with the yoke of bondage". Xerophagies, however, (they consider) the novel name of a studied duty, and very much akin to heathenish superstition, like the abstemious rigours which purify an Apis, an Isis, and a Magna Mater, by a restriction laid upon certain kinds of food; whereas faith, free in Christ,

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