Galatians 5:16-26 ©
Gal
5:16-26
16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not
gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what
is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is
contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that
you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not
under law.
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual
immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred,
discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and
envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that
those who live like this will not inherit the
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have
crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by
the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us
not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Brief background
update:
Paul had gone through
the region of
The goal of the church
is the glorify God by following Jesus by the power of the spirit. These false
brothers had inserted themselves between God & the people. That’s
claimed that following Jesus was not very trustworthy, you also need our
“teaching”. They had it all systematized for them, “…follow
us and we will get you to God.”
Paul’s letter is
to defend the gospel and to uphold Jesus. Their traditions had been put in over
the Bible and they were called to be obeyed more than the scriptures. They want
to go back to their old way of life and the old way of “serving God”.
We should all go back to the OT way of doing religion.
These “false
brothers” came to “spy on our freedom in Christ”. Something
about the liberation of these non-Jewish believers was not seen as good to
these false teachers. You will notice something about “legalists”
that want everyone to live by their conscience. Yet, they were effective and influential: how good of a teacher would you
have to be to convince adult males to become circumcised?
So, there arose in the
church some intense factions. To the point where if they did not get this issue
under control, it would join the ranks of those churches whose doors would
close forever.
What is the solution to such biting, devouring,
and destroying that is all too common among Christian assemblies? The answer,
Paul says, is in living by the Spirit. Then, and only then, will one cease to
gratify the desires of the flesh. It is the Spirit alone who can keep the
believer truly free.
V. 16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify
the desires of the sinful nature.
He emphasizes the
Spirit's work not ours.
John 15:4,5:
"Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself,
unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the
vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I
in him, he it is that bears much fruit."
Why do we need to do
this? When we do we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Literal translation of the
this passage is: "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not
carry out the desire of the flesh."
- So
the first reason why we should walk by the Spirit is that when we do, the
desires of our flesh are overcome.
- The
flesh is the ego which feels an emptiness and
uses the resources in its own power to try to fill it. Flesh is the
"I" who tries to satisfy me with anything but God.
Notice Galatians 5:24,
"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its
passions and desires." Now compare with this Galatians 2:20, "I have
been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in
me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me."
The flesh is the ego
which feels an emptiness but loathes the idea of
satisfying it by faith, i.e., by depending on the mercy of God in Christ. It
does not want to submit to God's absolute authority or rely on God's absolute
mercy. It is not surprising, then, that in verse 17 there is a war between our
flesh and God's Spirit.
There is an ongoing
conflict between the flesh and the spirit. The flesh is connected to those
things which can connect to us sinful behavior.
V. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the
Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each
other, so that you do not do what you want.
The main thing to
learn from this verse is that Christians experience a struggle within.
If you said to
yourself when I was describing the flesh, "Well, I have a lot of that
still left in me," it does not necessarily mean you aren't a Christian. A
Christian is not a person who experiences no bad desires. A Christian is a
person who is at war with those desires by the power of the Spirit. So take
heart if your soul feels like a battlefield at times. The sign of whether you are indwelt by the Spirit is not that you have
no bad desires, but that you are at war with them!
Distinctive Pauline Uses. The uniquely Pauline
understanding begins from the idea that flesh, as weak,
1.
becomes the gateway to sin (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 12:7; Gal 4:14).
2.
Still more, as the arena in which sin entrenches itself it becomes
the instrument of sin (Rom 6:12-14) to the extent that it becomes sinful itself (Rom 8:3), and so an occupying alien power (Rom 7:17-20). The accompanying war Paul describes as a
struggle between flesh and Spirit (Rom 8:5-17; Gal 5:16-24).
3.
The seriousness of the struggle is indicated by the fact that the
mind-set of the flesh leads to death (Rom 8:6), and that those living in the flesh cannot please
God (Rom 8:8). Accounts of this conflict are most vivid in
contexts where Paul is describing the demands of the law on the one hand (Rom 7:4, 7-11; Gal 5:2-5), and its impotence to enable the believer to meet
them on the other (Rom 8:3; Gal 3:10-12).
4.
Flesh, however, is not intrinsically sinful, and may therefore be
the scene of sin's defeat. This it became through Christ's coming and
crucifixion in the flesh (Rom 8:3). Those who identify themselves with him by faith
likewise crucify the flesh (Gal 2:20; 5:24) so being emancipated from the power of sin in the flesh
(Rom 6:14; 8:9). This reading appears to be confirmed by the Pauline use
of the largely parallel term "body." The "body of sin" was
done away with at the cross (Rom 6:6). The "body of our humiliation" (Php 3:21), which is weak and still
subject to the attack of sin, is the body of the interim. The "body of
glory" (Php 3:21), transformed and
imperishable (1 Cor 15:42-44,50-53),
is the body of the age to come.
V. 19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality,
impurity and debauchery;
He calls the vices in
5:19-21, "works of the flesh" and the virtues in 5:22,23, "fruit of the Spirit." Why? Keep in mind that
"flesh" does not mean "body," as though our bodies were the
root cause of our sins. The sinful acts are obvious Paul says. If I let me
passions and desires are let go it will look like a certain thing. If our flesh
is hooked up to our passions and desires It will look
different than if we are connected to the Spirit.
Four basic ways that the flesh will show up
1.
Sexual:
immorality, impurity, debauchery. Sexual depravity & perversion. Certain
things have a propensity to attach to our flesh in such a way as to show up in
us and through us in this way. Pornea – “pornography”.
2.
Spiritually: idolatry and witchcraft: Witchcraft is not that we cease to worship, but that we worship
something other than God. The human heart can be an idol factory. AW Tozer taught that an idol in the mind is just as real an
idol in the hand. Witchcraft teaches that God must be
manipulated to get him to do what we want him to do.
3.
Socially: hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish
ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; Separates
us from each other. The desire here is to separate us from Christian community.
Sins desire to have a person all by yourself. Ever
motive this about sin. It makes you run away.
4.
Addictions/compulsions: drunkenness, orgies (Paul calls it debauchery): We cannot moderate
ourselves. We cannot have a drink, we have to get drunk, we cannot have a meal,
we have to overeat. We cannot have a conversation; we
have to talk about other people in a debasing way and gossip about them.
V. 21
I warn you, as I did before,
that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God
Paul adds a solemn warning, saying that those
who habitually practice such things will never inherit God's kingdom. This does
not mean that if a Christian falls into sin through getting drunk, or some such
thing, he thereby loses his salvation. The
tense of the verb (present) indicates a habitual continuation in fleshly sins
rather than an isolated lapse, and the point is that those who continually
practice such sins give evidence of having never received God's Spirit.
When Paul says that he warned the Galatians of this previously (presumably when
he was among them), he reveals that his preaching was never what one might call
mere evangelism but that it always contained a strong dose of the standard of
morality expected from Christians.
V. 22
But the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness
and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
The nine virtues that are the Spirit's fruit
hardly need classification, though they seem to fall into three categories of
three each. The first three appear to
"comprise Christian habits of mind in their more general aspect,"
as Lightfoot notes. Their primary
direction is God-ward. The second set primarily concerns the Christian in his
relationship to others and are social virtues. The last three concern the
Christian as he is to be in himself.
The Virtues
"Joy" (chara)
is the virtue in the Christian life corresponding to happiness in the secular world.
On the surface they seem related. But happiness depends on circum stances,
whereas joy does not. In the NT a form of the word "joy" becomes a
typical-- and the most popular--Christian greeting (Matt 28:9; Luke
The second of the two most
popular Christian greetings is "peace"
(eirene). It is roughly the equivalent of the Hebrew
shalom. But, though it is related to this word, it also means more. Above all,
peace is God's gift to man, achieved by him at the cross of Christ. It is peace
with God (Rom 5:1) and is to express itself both in peace of mind (Philippians
4:6, 7) and in a very practical peace between all those who know God. This
latter peace should be seen, as Barclay notes: in the home (1Cor
"Patience" (makrothumia) is the
quality of putting up with others, even when one is severely tried. The
importance of patience is evidenced by its being most often used of the
character of God, as in the great text from Joel: "Return to the LORD,
your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in
steadfast love, and repents of evil" (2:13, RSV).
"Kindness" (chrestotes) is the divine
kindness out of which God acts toward men. It is what the OT means when it
declares that "God is good," as it so frequently does. The Christian
is to show kindness by behaving toward others as God has behaved toward him.
"Goodness" (agathosune) is hard to
define, just as in English. However, though it is related to
"kindness" (above), it differs from it in being a more active term
and being often directed toward that which does not merit the action. The
primary idea seems to be generosity that springs from kindness.
He is to be
characterized by "faithfulness"
(pistis). This word also means faith, as KJV translates it here, but in this list it undoubtedly
means that which makes a person one on whom others can rely-- trustworthiness
or reliability. It is the word by which a faithful servant is described (Luke
23 "Gentleness" (prautes)
describes the person who is so much in control of himself that he is always
angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, IV, 5, 1-4), just like Moses, who is
praised for being the gentlest or meekest among his contemporaries (Num 12:3).
This is the spirit in which to learn (James
"Self-control" (enkrateia) is the
quality that gives victory over fleshly desires and which is therefore closely
related to chastity both in mind and conduct. As Barclay says (in loc.), "Enkrateia is that great quality which comes to a man when
Christ is in his heart, that quality which makes him able to live and to walk
in the world, and yet to keep his garments unspotted from the world."
V. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have
crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
Paul assumes that some
powerful battle has been fought and won in deep territory of our soul. That's
the meaning of verse 24. This flesh of ours cannot be given any allowance. Either we kill the sin or it will kill us.
What we can tend to do is chase away all
of the effects of sin, but never conquer the sin & works of the flesh. We
can move around inside our cell, but we are never out of the prison-like
bondage that sin has upon us. We can put off a whole lot of behaviors, but
never curb sin – maybe because we have never fully came to Jesus. We need
to stop chasing all the sins and kill the flesh. You do not kill all those things you kill the flesh, once the flesh
dies all the works of the flesh die too. So how do you kill it? You belong to
God, love Jesus, submit the work of the Holy Spirit.
He loves us & we love him. The more
we love him the more the flesh dies off. When we first come to Jesus this
is very obvious, we do not set out to stop doing things, we
just love Jesus. And in loving Jesus and the closer we get to him the further
we get from our sin. The closer we get to Jesus the more our flesh will die. This all happens by the power of the Holy
Spirit.
The goal is to be with Jesus, not away from
sin. The closer we are to Christ the less sin there will be.
We want to go from the works of the flesh to
the fruit if the spirit, but
the way we do it is by the works of flesh: we make our list’s,
we make our vows. We may stop drinking and then get prideful about it. We try to do it in the power of the
flesh and wonder why it fails. We give up because we get weary. Time goes by
then we try to reconnect, pick up the bible and reconnect with friends.
We can end up trying to be like Jesus instead of trying to be with him. God is a person we live with not a concept
with try to obey. If you hang out with Jesus you will become like Jesus. But try to become like Jesus without being
with Jesus and that is a work of the flesh. My righteousness is only from
Christ. I cannot do this on my own.
He knows I cannot love him – L cannot be
like him - I cannot worship him I cannot 0bey Him - I cannot follow him - I
cannot understand him. So, he puts his spirit in me. And this is where the
fruit comes from.
We can easily put the lists next to each other
and say this is what I will do and this is what I will not do. But without the
indwelling spirit they are all works of the flesh.
Do we
know how to love Jesus? No. Do we know how to draw near to him? No. But the spirit
does! Do we know what our real problems are and what our deep flaws and what we
need from god to get through it? No, nut the spirit does, Spirit knows exactly
how to convict us, propel us, direct us, discipline us toward Jesus. As he does
his work we grow in our intimacy with Jesus.
V. 25
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step
with the Spirit.
What do we do to do this? What is it? What does
it mean? Cannot say? If I tell you what it is, your goal will be to do this and
not to connect with Jesus. There is not a process that will bring you to
maturity. It’s connection with Jesus. Cannot say do this and this and
this and it will deliver you out the other side a mature believer and an on
fire Christian. I cannot replace the list of what to do to be made right with
God from like those in Galatians with a set I come up with. We must all follow
the spirit of God. The spirit will do a better job than anyone can to lead you
to Jesus. Only the spirit of God knows what it is you need. I do not know. Ask
the spirit of God to lead you in this process. It may be healing, teaching,
obedience, submission, service,
The goal is not morality, the goal is worship.
But there is a great danger in giving morally
depraved people like us a list of right things and wrong things. It is the
danger of the law that we have seen all through Galatians. The danger is that
instead of seeking transformation from God in our hearts to rid ourselves of
our depravity, we may take the list of virtues and find a way to use them to
express our depravity. For example, if our problem is that at root we are very
proud and self-sufficient people, and a moral authority like Paul tells us that
kindness and faithfulness are virtues, we may very well train ourselves to do
kind things and to keep our promises so that we can be proud of ourselves and
feel morally self-sufficient before God and man. Then the list of virtues would
not have helped us overcome our depravity at all. In fact, it would have
deepened our sin, because now we prostitute the very Word of God and use it to
satisfy our depraved desires. John Piper
V. 26
Let us not become conceited,
provoking and envying each other.
Conceited (self-important, proud, smug, stuck
up). When God does something in us and through us we can easily become
conceited about it and toward those we used to be like. We can actually think
it us who have accomplished something and begin to boast and be proud in the
flesh. We can become envious toward what God is doing for other people. We can
also try to follow the process that God took other people through and is
blessing them, thinking that what they did is the magic process.
If God really did it you really cannot boast in
it, but if you did – or think you did – you can.
Your
problems, your drugs, your sex, your spirituality, your addictions, your
jealousy, your factions, they’re really all Jesus issues.
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