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`freedom from the law of sin and death' are made known. The whole of Paul's ministry
is characterized by this trumpet call to liberty, the word in one or more of its forms
occurring in Paul's epistles some 28 times.
Had the Apostle intended to speak of entanglement, he had the choice of two words;
he could have used a word that meant to be ensnared, as is used in Matt. 22: 15
"entangle Him in His talk"; or he could have used empleko as he did in II Tim. 2: 4 "no
man that warreth entangleth himself". He uses neither however, but selects enecho, a
word that means `to hold in' as with a `yoke' which Weymouth renders `Be not
hampered'.
The intention of the Apostle is best perceived by passing from the verb `to hold in' to
the noun, the thing that does the holding--he calls it `the yoke of bondage'.
Yokes were of two kinds. There was the yoke that was used for cattle (Numb. 19: 2);
but we read that Jeremiah made bonds and yokes to fit the human neck as tokens of
servitude.
To Israel the Lord said:
"I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye
should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you
go upright" (Lev. 26: 13).
When Isaiah looked forward to the `acceptable year of the Lord' he uses this figure of
freedom from the yoke:
"For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of
his oppressor, as in the day of Midian" (Isa. 9: 4).
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy
shoulder and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the
anointing" (Isa. 10: 27).
"I will break the Assyrian in My land, and upon My mountains tread him under foot:
then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders"
(Isa. 14: 25).
Acts 15: is devoted to the twofold question:
(1)
Is it needful that Gentile believers should be circumcised and keep the law?
(2)
Should they be asked to abstain from certain practices because of the sensitiveness of
Jewish believers?
Paul refers to either this council at Jerusalem or to a similar one in Gal. 2: and his
reference to the yoke of bondage would come with force to those who may have been
leaning somewhat to Peter's authority.
The Apostle of the Gentiles was not only "Hebrew of the Hebrews", he was a citizen
of Tarsus, and a Roman citizen also. He had a wide knowledge of the ways and customs
of the nations, and he knew that the Galatian Christians would be personally acquainted