Galatians 5:6

In Jesus Christ. Paul thus describes the status of one who has been justified by faith in Christ, one who has become a Christian, not in name only, but in fact.

Circumcision. See on Gen. 17:10, 11; Rom. 4:11. In no sense does Paul condemn those who have been circumcised; he simply warns that when a person is “in Jesus Christ” it makes no difference whether he is circumcised. The decisive factor is faith. Circumcision itself is a matter of indifference to the Christians, so far as anything beyond the physical aspect is concerned, but with the supposed religious value of the rite and the concept of works-righteousness it connotes, Christianity is unalterably at war.

Faith which worketh. Faith does have “works,” but these are not the “works of the law” (see on ch. 2:16). Thus excluded are all “works” performed for the purpose of earning righteousness (see p. 934). The “works” that accompany genuine faith are inspired by the spirit of appreciation for the gift of divine grace, by love for God and for one’s fellow men (see Gal. 5:14; see on Matt. 22:34-40). It is of works such as these that James speaks when he declares that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26; cf. ch. 4:17). At this point the teachings of Paul and James meet. The two are not in conflict, as some have hastily concluded. It is a counterfeit faith that does not produce the “fruit of the Spirit” in the life (Gal. 5:22, 23). It is a counterfeit faith that leads a man to think himself released from obedience to the will of God as expressed in the Decalogue, which is simply a brief outline of how love toward God and man will find expression (see on Matt. 5:17, 18; 7:21-27). Without obedience a profession of love is sheer hypocrisy.

Obedience to known duty is an inevitable result of the righteousness that comes by faith, and is the supreme test of its genuineness (see James 2:18). Paul emphatically declares that God’s purpose in giving His Son to save sinners (see on John 3:16) was to make it possible for the principles of His holy law to be worked out in the lives of men (see on Rom. 8:3, 4). In the section from Gal. 5:13 to 6:15 Paul deals with the kind of “works” that he recommends to the Galatian Christians.

By love. Love for God and man is the spirit that prompts the “works” that accompany faith.