Paul now moves to the practical consequences of all that he has been saying. In 5: 1 he commands the Galatians to preserve the freedom (from sin and the Law) which Jesus Christ has given them. He attacks the central point of the propaganda of the Judaizers, their insistence that the Galatians must be circumcised. In itself, circumcision is a very minor physical operation which need have no significance at all. What made it very significant to the Jews, of course, was that it had the strongest religious significance. It was the physical badge of the people of God (Genesis 17). Amongst peoples who did not practise circumcision, the Jews were distinguished as the circumcised people who followed the Law of Moses. Circumcision had become synonymous with following the Law, as Paul shows in 5:3. 'Once more I warn any man who allows himself to be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the whole Law.' In the circumstances of the Galatian churches, Paul saw that to submit to circumcision was to submit to being cut off from Christ (5:4). 5:6 is a great simple statement of what it means to live as a Christian. The consequence of faith in Jesus Christ is the life of practical loving, in the community of those who have found salvation, irrespective of who and what they are.

In 5:7-10, he asks again who persuaded the Galatians to turn from the truth, as he had in 3: 1. Even if it was only one or two people who were causing all the trouble, they had affected the churches just as strongly as a small amount of yeast can change a lot of dough. However, Paul still has confidence that the Galatians will reject the influence of the Judaizers. He expresses anger, however, in 5:11-12. That the Judaizers had said that he preached the need for circumcision in other places; this refers to the slander that he had preached a deficient gospel to the Galatians (I: 9). His very strong words in 5: 12 would have been very well understood by the Galatians because in Phrygia, not very far from the Galatian churches, there was found the barbaric worship of a pagan goddess, Cybele; the priests of Cybele were castrated. It is possible that some of the Galatian Christians had previously been worshippers of Cybele. Paul seems to be suggesting that the Judaizers are as perverted and ignorant as the priests of Cybele. In 5: 13 Paul moves to very practical teaching about Christian freedom. Freedom is not license to live selfishly without thinking of anyone else. 'Let love make you serve one another'. 5:15 reflects Jesus' summary of the Law (Mark 12:29-31).