Freedom from Legalism

In Romans 8:15, Paul was speaking to Christians baptized in the Holy Spirit, and he said:

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear.”

Bondage means enslavement. Paul was warning Christians not to let the devil get them back into slavery. And the suggestion is very clear that the form of slavery to which they would be enticed to return would be that of religious slavery—subservience to the law from which they had been delivered when Jesus died on the cross.

The whole of the book of Galatians deals with this very issue of not being enslaved by religious legalism after having been set free by the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, Paul treated that issue as something much more severe and dangerous than even sexual sins, such as fornication or adultery. It is quite remarkable, but the epistle to the Galatians is the only one of Paul’s epistles that he does not open by giving thanks to God for the people to whom he was writing. So upset was he by what the Galatians were doing that he launched straight into his subject.

“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ” (Galatians 1:6)

This is a clear example of religious demons bringing people back into the slavery of legalism. Let us heed Paul’s emphatic warning:

“Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage [slavery]” (Galatians 5:1, KJV)