The way of life Christians are to follow
5
📚Therefore stand firm in the liberty for which Christ has set us free, and do not allow yourselves to be tied again to the yoke of bondage. 5:1 All teaching that promotes self-effort and observance of laws and rules and rites and ceremonies as a way of salvation is like a yoke of slavery (Gal 4:3-9). Especially, Paul has in mind the law of Moses (compare Acts 15:10-11). Christ has set believers free from any such yoke. This means He has set us free from all forms of religious bondage whether it goes under the name of Judaism or of any other religion or of a perverted kind of Christianity. Free means free. Believers in Christ should recognize their freedom and value it and not give it up. They are yoked to Christ (Matt 11:28-30). This is the only yoke they need. And this yoke brings freedom.⚜
2 📚Look, I, Paul 📖, tell you that if you receive circumcision 📖, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all. 3 📚For once again I solemnly declare to every man who receives circumcision, that he is duty bound to keep the whole Law.
5:3 He means that circumcision in that situation would make them like Jewish converts and as such they would be obligated to keep the whole law of Moses. And, as he had pointed out already, this would not result in blessing but in a curse (Gal 3:10-12).⚜
4 📚Christ has been put at a distance from you 📖, you who are trying to be justified by the Law. You have fallen away from grace 📖. 5 📚For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness 📖 which is by faith. 6 📚For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision can accomplish anything, but only faith that works through love.
5:6 See Gal 6:15; 1 Cor 7:19; Rom 2:28-29; 4:9-12. The same is true of any outward ceremony. There is none which can make a person acceptable to God. God counts men righteous and saves them through faith alone, and after He saves them they are to walk by faith and obey Christ’s command to love one another (John 13:34; 15:12). What possible good could it do us to observe any number of rules or ceremonies if we do not trust and love Christ? A faith that results in love is not one important thing among many. It is the only thing that counts.⚜
7 📚You ran well 📖. Who hindered you 📖 that you should not obey the truth? 8 📚This persuasion does not come from the One who calls you.
5:8 The one who called them was God (Gal 1:6). He certainly was not the One Who kept them from obeying the truth.⚜
9 📚A little yeast permeates the whole lump.
5:9 See 1 Cor 5:6-8. Even a little false teaching can eventually affect a whole church, a whole denomination.⚜
10 📚I have confidence in you in the Lord, that you will have no other mind. But the one who is troubling you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
5:10 After warning them about falling away from the way of grace (v 4), he expresses his confidence that they will not. The Lord Himself had made him sure that they would agree with the truth he has written to them. Compare Heb 6:9 after Heb 6:4-8 and Heb 10:39 after Heb 10:26-31. As for the false teacher (or teachers) who was leading them astray he was sure that God’s judgment would come on him in due course. Compare 2 Pet 2:1-3.⚜
11 📚And as for me, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution 📖? For then the offense of the cross 📖 has ceased.
5:11 Had anyone there said that Paul taught circumcision was necessary for salvation? If so, it was a slander.⚜
12 📚I wish those who trouble you 📖 would amputate themselves!
5:2-12 Here Paul in plain language sets forth the impossibility of mixing the two ways of law and grace. Men must choose one or the other. They cannot have both. Men cannot be saved both by God’s grace and by their own efforts, both through faith and through ceremonies and rules and law keeping.⚜
Serving by love
13 📚For, brethren, you have been called to liberty. But do not use liberty 📖 as an opportunity for the flesh 📖. Instead, with love serve one another.
5:13 Paul now turns to the practical application of the truth he has written up to this point. This is his usual method – he lays a foundation of truth and then pleads with believers to live in accordance with it. Compare Rom 12:1-2; Eph 4:1.⚜
14 📚For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”.
5:14 Did they want to be under the law (Gal 4:21)? Paul says forget the rules and ceremonies of the law and fulfill the whole essence of the law – love (Lev 19:18; Matt 22:39; Rom 13:8-10; Jam 2:8). Actually the essence of the law can be fulfilled only in those who believe in Christ and have His Spirit (Rom 8:4).⚜
15 📚But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by each other.
5:15 The false teachers there had brought strife and divisions. This is always one result of their activities (Rom 16:17). God wants His people united in love and truth – not in love without truth nor in truth without love. Error and strife destroy churches. Truth and love keep them spiritually alive and growing.⚜
The struggle between God’s Spirit and the sinful nature in believers
16 📚So I say, walk 📖 in the Spirit, and you will not fulfil the desires of the flesh. 17 📚For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. These are opposed to one another, so that you cannot do what you want.
5:17 God’s Spirit and the flesh (man’s fallen, sinful nature) have absolutely nothing in common. They have different desires, different thoughts, different aims (Rom 8:5-8). They will be at war with one another until the end of our earthly lives. The flesh – what we are by the nature we received from our parents – will never give up, will never stop desiring the wrong things, will never become good and holy. In fact, with the passing of time it gets worse (Eph 4:22). And God’s Spirit will resist the flesh every step of the way, and will never give in to a single one of its demands.
What does Paul mean by “you cannot do what you want”? It may mean that believers do not do all the good they want to do because their sinful natures hinder them (see Rom 7:15, 18, 20). Or it may possibly mean they do not fulfill the desires of their sinful nature because the Holy Spirit in them opposes those desires. To some extent both of these things are true, and both show that the sinful nature is still in believers.
And observe carefully that Paul is not teaching the Galatians that the way of victory is to have their sinful nature eradicated here on earth. He does not hold out this hope in any of his letters (and it is not found anywhere else in the Bible). In fact, he teaches something else altogether. The way to victory, Paul says, is living by God’s Spirit (v 16).⚜
18 📚But if you are led by the Spirit 📖, you are not under the Law 📖.
The works of the “flesh” (sinful nature)
19 📚Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are these: adultery, fornication, impurity, lewdness, 20 📚idolatry 📖, witchcraft 📖, hatred, discord, jealousies, rage, selfish ambition, dissensions 📖, heresies, 21 📚envy 📖, murders, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. Concerning these I tell you in advance, just as I have told you in time past, that those who go on doing 📖 such things will not inherit the kingdom of God 📖.
5:19-21 Observe that he puts idolatry alongside immorality, and selfishness and strife alongside drunkenness and debauchery. To spiritual people it is “evident” that these things come out of the sinful nature, out of the fallen heart of man. Compare Matt 15:19; Mark 7:21-23; Rom 1:29-32; 3:9-18. Paul does not list here all the acts of the sinful nature. These are only examples. Some of these acts are directly against God, some against other men, some against the person who does them. They are all destructive and worthy of God’s anger and judgment.⚜
The fruit of God’s Spirit
22 📚But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy 📖, peace 📖, patient endurance 📖, kindness 📖, goodness 📖, faith 📖, 23 📚meekness 📖, self-control 📖. Against such there is no law.
5:22-23 These things are not fruit of the believer’s spirit but produced by the Spirit of God in the believer. They are not the result of self-effort. But this does not mean that the believer should be passive and do nothing. He must live in the Spirit and follow the Spirit’s leading. Otherwise his fruit will not appear in his life. The word “fruit” suggests a process of growth. Compare Matt 13:23.
For fruit to appear in the realm of nature there must be first the seed, then the growth of the plant or tree, then the bud and the flower, and then the fruit. So it is with spiritual fruit. When we first believe in Christ there is often a rush of love, joy and peace to the heart. But these need to be developed and perfected, and other spiritual virtues added. Things like patience, faithfulness and self-control develop over a period of time. Compare 2 Pet 1:5-8.
God wants everyone of His children to have all the qualities in this list, and by the working of His Spirit we can have them. Paul puts love first. He knew it was the greatest of all qualities (vs 6,14; 1 Cor 13:13).⚜
24 📚And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
5:24 This is true of all real believers, all who belong to Christ, and not of just a few exceptional saints. In Gal 2:20 Paul speaks of the believer’s crucifixion with Christ. Here he speaks of what the believer himself has done. He does not say believers should do this, but that they have done it. Believers did this when they first repented and trusted in Christ.
Repentance signifies a complete break with the old way of living which was under the power of the sinful nature. Faith in Christ accepts His death in the believer’s place. In other words, by their action in repenting and believing in Christ they are saying (though in the very beginning they may not have a good understanding of this), “I am the one who should have been crucified, not Christ”. They are confessing that the proper place for their sinful nature is on a cross. They agree with God’s verdict about it.
And they deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Christ (Matt 10:38-39; 16:24-26. See notes there). If people are not willing to do this there is no good reason to think they are true Christians. Paul is here defining what true believers are. If they have not “crucified” their sinful nature they do not belong to Christ.
However, this whole passage from v 16 does not lead us to think that believers will have no more trouble with their sinful nature. Paul shows very plainly that the opposite will be true. Believers, in the attitude they take toward God and sin, have crucified the sinful nature, and they are united with Christ Who was crucified in their place (Rom 6:4-7). But the sinful nature is not dead and buried in believers. And it continually tries to get its own way again in their lives (v 17). So Christ tells us we must take up our cross “daily” – Luke 9:23. “Crucified the flesh” speaks of the attitude of believers toward their sinful nature and toward the cross of Christ.⚜
25 📚If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
5:25 God’s Spirit has given spiritual life to all believers (John 3:3-8). Since this is true they should follow where the Spirit leads and go step by step with Him. This is the only way of victory over the sinful nature, the only way to keep it where it belongs – on a cross.⚜
26 📚Let us not desire empty glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
5:26 Paul begins to speak of keeping in step with God’s Spirit in some very practical matters. The Spirit hates conceit, strife, and envy, and so should we who want to walk with Him. They are works of the flesh.⚜