For *ye* have been called to liberty, brethren; only [do] not [turn] liberty into an opportunity to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;
The Galatians were turning back to the law of Moses. Paul answers with the law's own summary: it all comes down to loving your neighbor as yourself. So does he put Christians back under law? Or does he show that only those set free from it ever meet what it asks?
The verse opens with "for," so it gives a reason: freedom is meant for serving. One writer shows how grace, not law, produces that life:
God gave the law to convince of sin; the flesh would use it to work out righteousness. He acts in grace, so that we may be above sin and outside its rule. The flesh would use grace as an opportunity to sin without restraint. The Christian, truly free from the yoke of sin as well as from its condemnation... instead of serving his lusts, seeks to serve others, free to do it in love. So the law itself is fulfilled, and we are not under its yoke. The whole practical law comes down to this one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Much hangs on the word "fulfilled." It does not mean the same as "obeyed." The same writer marks the difference:
This one commandment itself amounts to keeping the whole law — filling up the measure of its requirements. It is not, "He who has done this has obeyed this as law," but "He who has done this has, in every respect, done all that the law aims at." The whole righteous requirement of it is met.
Paul cites only the second of the two great commandments. Commentators read that silence in different ways. One takes it as deliberate — Paul keeps clear of the first table, the commands about loving God:
When the apostle speaks of this point, which he does more than once, he never speaks of the first table. Not only that, he declares that the whole law is fulfilled in loving one's neighbour as one's self. See Romans 13:8-9; Galatians 5:14. So when this point is before him, he avoids saying that love to God is included, and in fact calls the whole law love to our neighbour.
Another answers that the greater command has taken a new form in Christ, and that no one keeps the lesser one without it:
He does not mention here the other and greater of the two, because the old commandment has taken a new form since God Himself fulfilled it in His Son (1 John 4:10-11). Yet he is bold to say that all the law is fulfilled in this one saying. The law is one and not many, and the same Spirit runs through all its words... No one who does not love God can truly love his brother. So to keep the lesser charge is to fulfil the whole commandment.
The verse tells us what the law wants. It does not tell us where to get it:
The law demands love, but it gives no ability to meet its demands. Being holy, it can only condemn us, since we have all failed to meet what it asks.
Another writer points to what fills that gap:
If they turned to law, the law was fulfilled in this way and no other. It was not fulfilled by putting themselves under it, but by the love that comes from the presence of the Spirit of God. For "the fruit of the Spirit is love."
Paul's choice of command carries a sting for anyone eager to be under law:
Love of others absolutely cuts off selfishness. Selfishness is the unvarying motive of the legalist, for he seeks blessing for himself, not for others. So the more legal-minded one is, the more thoroughly he ignores the claims of the Law in which he boasts!
Does Paul's use of this command prove Christians are still under law? One writer answers with a courtroom picture:
Paul's appeal to the law was most apt for the Galatians. They wished to put themselves under the law, and what is more telling than to show them that the law itself condemned them? But we can quote the law as showing God's mind without putting ourselves under it. Some of our judges have cited Roman law in their judgments, because of its admitted excellence. Who imagines that these judges held Roman law to be binding in our country? If God lays down principles in the law, they must be perfect, and Paul quotes them as such.
- Called — grace does not free the flesh to sin; it frees the Christian to serve others in love.
- Given — the law demanded love but supplied none; the Spirit supplies the love the law only asked for.
- Fulfilled — to love your neighbor is not to obey a rule but to reach everything the law was aiming at.
- Summed — one command holds the whole law, because the law is one and not many.
- Tested — the legalist seeks blessing for himself, so he ignores the very law he boasts in.
but if ye bite and devour one another, see that ye are not consumed one of another.
The Galatians were trying to live by the law, and this verse shows what came of it. Paul's words picture animals tearing at each other, and they raise a hard question: how did people so eager to keep the law end up destroying each other?
The verse reads like a warning about the future. One writer points out that the trouble was already there.
His words take the form of a caution. But they plainly have in view an evil that is not distant and merely possible. It was already at work in their gatherings. How quickly and how bitterly their inward slide from grace to law was showing its practical effects! With a lower standing, lower morals had come too. Each one should have valued the other above himself, in self-forgetting brotherly affection. Instead there was a self-conscious rivalry among them, in which each destroyed the other.
One writer names the soil these quarrels grow in, and gives a sharper wording of Paul's warning.
The apostle warns these believers: "If you keep on biting and devouring one another, beware lest you should be consumed by one another." The law makes men hard; the law knows nothing of love. In soil like that, quarrels grow fast, and the biting and devouring soon appear. Each man thinks he is standing for righteousness, when all the time he is only trying to force his own will on his neighbour. Proverbs tells us that quarrels between brothers are like the bars of a castle — cold and straight, each one held away from the other by the cold stone it is set in (Proverbs 18:19). That is the result of a heart that puts itself under law. Another translates these words: "If you are always snarling and snapping at one another, beware that you are not destroyed by one another."
The Galatians were proud of the law. Paul answers by pointing at the results it produced in them.
Had they not been trying the law? And what had been the result? He says, You have been biting and devouring one another: that is not fulfilling law, but lusts. When people talk about it, or want to be its teachers, do they ever fulfil it? It begins with confident words, and ends without deed or truth.
There is a motive under the biting. One writer names it, and shows where it ends.
The vanity of the flesh will always lead to fault-finding, and to belittling others, in the effort to exalt self. In this way strife and contention spring up among the people of God. Once brothers start biting and devouring one another, they may well "take heed." If they do not judge this spirit, it will not be long before they consume one another. How many companies of God's people have fallen apart and scattered, because people fought and insulted one another instead of serving one another in love!
The Galatians hoped the law would make them holy. One writer traces where it actually took them.
Living by law leads to the very opposite of love in action. The Galatians had to beware. Their pursuit of holiness by law might only lead them to the unholy end of consuming one another in their arguments and criticisms. They would avoid the offence of the cross, only to come to complete ruin in the offence their own unholy conduct produced. It is sad to say it, but this just sums up the history of Christendom.
The same spirit can enter the way a church corrects its members.
It is to be feared that more and more, in practice, people see the assembly's part in discipline as enforcing what is really law, not grace. They forget the tender compassion of Christ toward His own, and the word to the Galatians becomes a necessary warning for us.
Paul does not stop at the warning. He moves straight to the positive remedy in the following verse.
They were giving in to the flesh and attacking those who were not circumcised. If they devoured one another like this, they were to take heed that they were not consumed by one another. But the apostle would give something more positive… "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Putting yourself under the law gives no power against sin. It is the Spirit… who is the Christian's strength.
- Cause — the slide from grace to law came first. The quarrelling followed, because the law knows nothing of love and hardens those who take it up.
- Motive — the biting is pride in disguise. People find fault and belittle others so that self may look bigger.
- Contradiction — they boasted in the law, yet served their own desires. Confident words, no deed or truth.
- Cost — whole companies of God's people scattered. They escaped the offence of the cross and fell into the worse offence of their own conduct.
- Cure — not stricter rules but the Spirit. His power, not law, is the Christian's strength against the flesh.
But I say, Walk in [the] Spirit, and ye shall no way fulfil flesh's lust.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh and these things are opposed one to the other, that ye should not do those things which ye desire;
Two powers live inside one believer, and each is set against the other. Much hangs on the last clause: one reading leaves the believer helpless, the other puts the Spirit in charge.
Before God gives the Spirit, nothing in a person resists the flesh. One writer sees the same order in Israel's journey out of Egypt:
God had given the gushing water through the struck rock, a picture of the Spirit. Right after that, Amalek — a picture of the flesh — appears... So it is not until we receive the Holy Spirit as believers that this conflict begins. In our unconverted days the flesh reigned supreme, and its power in our lives was unchallenged.
Some people insist their old nature is dead and gone. One story shows what is still there:
There was a man who insisted that his flesh was dead, and he had no more passionate desires. Someone threw a cup of water in his face, and at once he lost his temper, and became very angry. His flesh was not dead, but was only waiting for a chance to show itself... Let us not forget that the flesh is still here, as this chapter in Galatians shows. It is passionately opposed to the Spirit, to stop us walking by the Spirit. And the Spirit is opposed to the flesh, to stop the Christian walking according to the flesh.
Older English versions end the verse with "so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Commentators reject that wording. The ESV has "to keep you from doing the things you want to do," which is closer to what they argue for:
Taken as it stands, it would teach that both the Spirit and the flesh are equally powerless. Or rather, it would mean that the result of their fight against each other is that the believer can do nothing at all... The words should be rendered, "that you should not do those things which you desire." This at once clears away the difficulty... The flesh will always be evil, and cannot be made better, improved, or changed. The Spirit, thank God, is holy. So the two can never be in agreement.
Misread, the verse becomes an excuse:
Galatians 5:16 clearly teaches that if we walk in the Spirit, we shall have sure and constant victory over the flesh. So it would be a very serious mistake to quote Galatians 5:17 as a reason for a low, fleshly walk. Its teaching is designed to produce the direct opposite.
Romans 7 also describes an inner fight. But the two passages end in opposite places. The difference is who opposes the flesh:
In Romans 7 it is the flesh against the inward man, instructed and enlightened by the law. In Galatians 5 it is the flesh against the Spirit, and the position is completely reversed. The renewed mind, directed and urged forward by the law, is no match for the flesh; but the flesh is no match for the Spirit.
The last clause states a purpose, not a defeat:
When our flesh stirs us up to desire its old things, the Spirit of God does not remain passive in us, but causes conflict within... He holds the believer back from doing the things the flesh likes, and moves him to do the things God loves. He does this by acting on the new man.
Commentators differ on whether the fight ever stops. One writer holds that the verse states the fixed opposition of the two, and not a daily battle:
Galatians 5 states the fact of the two opposing principles — flesh and Spirit — set against each other. This is not necessarily conflict. When we walk in the Spirit we are above the influence of the flesh, and do not carry out its desires.
- Two natures. A believer has two natures at once, and they can never agree. The flesh stays what it always was.
- New war. The conflict only starts when God gives the Spirit. Before that, the flesh met no opposition at all.
- One word. Read it as "should not," not "cannot." The clause names the Spirit's purpose in blocking the flesh, not the believer's helplessness.
- Two outcomes. Under law the renewed mind loses (Romans 7). Under the Spirit the flesh loses — same fight, opposite result.
- One walk. The verse is not an excuse for a poor life. It is the reason to walk in the Spirit, where the flesh's desires go unmet.
but if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under law.
Paul has just set the flesh and the Spirit against each other inside the believer. Here he draws the conclusion: who leads you settles what you are under. So if the law is not the rule for daily living, what is?
Commentators point out that Paul's wording rules out what many assume — that keeping the law is how a Christian becomes holy.
What we find here is that the Spirit of truth is the power of holiness — it is the Spirit of God who enables a Christian to walk rightly, not the law. That is the point he brings them to, and so he concludes the matter: "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." The point is plain. Suppose being under the law were the means of Christian holiness. Then it would have said, "If you are led by the Spirit, you are under the law," and not, "you are not under the law."
The phrase "led by the Spirit" looks back to earlier chapters, where the law minds a child like a tutor. One guide has replaced another.
The expression "led by the Spirit" carries us back to the earlier passage, Galatians 3:2 — 4:7. Formerly the law took our hand and led us about as a schoolmaster or tutor. Now that redemption is accomplished, we are sons of full age. The Spirit of God's Son is sent into our hearts, saying, Abba, Father. The Spirit now lives in us and does the work the outward law once did — only He does it far more fully. We cannot be under the leadership of both at the same time.
Other writers press the point from what the law was given for.
We do not need two guides at one time. It is characteristic of the believer that he is led by the Spirit; to such a person the law has nothing to say. So it makes no sense to place believers under law in any shape. Those who do so understand neither what they say nor what they are talking about. The law was not made for the righteous but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane (1 Tim. 1:7-10).
So where does the Spirit lead? Toward one Person — and by love, not by demands.
The Spirit has come to take of the things of Christ and show them to us. He fills our thoughts with Christ, the One who died for us and lives for us. The Spirit will not lead us under a law that makes demands we cannot meet. He leads us under the influence of a love that surpasses knowledge, a love the new nature delights to answer.
That direction rules out a common mistake — turning "walk by the Spirit" into another set of rules to master.
Some believers do not understand that all goodness and truth is in God alone. They suppose that to "walk in the Spirit" is a requirement like the rules of the law. So they fast, punish themselves, go through severe self-discipline, labouring to reach such an experience. But such attainment is impossible. Instead God asks for the patience of faith and quiet rest in His presence — no labour, no pressing or forcing. The Spirit of God never leads us to set up legal standards as guides.
Law and Spirit also mark out two positions. To put a believer back under law would move him backwards.
The Spirit will always lead us to behold the glory of the Lord, and to be changed into the same glory. The Spirit gives liberty, not bondage. Which is your portion — the liberty of the sons of God, or the bondage of the servant, the slave? And sons do not stop being sons and become slaves again.
Does dropping the law as the rule of daily life lower the standard? Commentators answer that it raises it.
May I then break the law? Certainly not. Denying that the law is the Christian's rule of walk is far from weakening holiness. The Christian is to walk by the entire Word of God, taught so as to show Christ — the One the whole Bible unfolds from cover to cover. The law kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). The Holy Spirit brings in a deeper character of holiness than was asked for in the Ten Commandments.
One writer records the everyday effect of getting this wrong.
As a young man said to me the other night, "I have been trying for twenty-five years to keep the law, as I was told I must, and I have only got worse. I have resolved and prayed each morning, and by night felt so bad that I was almost in despair."
- Guide — The verse turns on who leads. The law once took the believer's hand like a tutor. Now the Spirit does that work from within, and no one can be under both at once.
- Direction — The Spirit leads in one direction: to Christ. He shows the things of Christ and works by a love the new nature delights to answer, not by demands that cannot be met.
- Status — Being led marks out sons, not slaves. The Spirit gives liberty, and sons do not revert to bondage.
- Standard — Dropping law as the rule of walk does not lower holiness. The Spirit brings in a deeper holiness than the Ten Commandments asked, measured by the whole Word and by Christ.
- Test — If law-keeping produced holiness, Paul would have written the opposite conclusion. Twenty-five years of trying, and getting worse, is the evidence in daily life.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness,
Paul has just set the flesh and the Spirit against each other inside the believer. Now he stops describing the fight and names what one side produces — a list that starts with sins of impurity and raises a hard question: what has such a list to do with anyone who belongs to Christ?
The first thing Paul says about these works is that they are obvious. They need no discernment to spot. They fall into two broad kinds, and they can show up even where people profess Christ:
"Now the works of the flesh are evident" — there was no difficulty in recognising them. So you have human corruption and human violence. You have idolatry and sorcery brought in, and on the other hand dissensions and divisions, which refer to the party-spirit that might be at work even among people who profess to be Christians. A child of God might slip into any of these evil things for a time. But Paul pronounces a solemn sentence on them: "those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
The obvious works are not everything the flesh does. Some of its activity never reaches this list, and the entries that do reach it do not all repel us in the same way:
These verses (Gal. 5:19-21) give us a very dark catalogue of the works of the flesh, which are evident. Other workings of the flesh are not open and obvious, and only the spiritual can discern them. There is the mind of the flesh (Col. 2:18); and the flesh in its religious form, in which Paul could put no confidence (Phil. 3:3-4). But even among the evident works of the flesh, some offend us morally and others do not. They all offend God: "for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15).
One commentator groups the whole list under seven heads. This verse supplies the first of them:
In the remaining verses of the chapter the Apostle contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. It seems that he sums up the works of the flesh under seven heads. First comes the lusts of the flesh: "sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality." Then the superstition of the flesh: "idolatry" and "sorcery." Then the malice of the flesh, "enmity," leading to "strife"…
The list never sorts these sins into serious and minor. Sexual sin comes first, but temper and rivalry sit in the same column.
Who but the Spirit of God would have given the unholy list in this way? Who but He would have put fits of anger, strife and the like in the same category as offences everyone knows are vile — sexual immorality, murder and drunkenness? Man would have sorted them, putting first the ones that looked worst to him… But not so the Holy Spirit. He traces all to the one root. Whether it is murder or strife, sect-making (that is what "divisions" means here), or rivalries — which may even happen among believers — all of it comes from the flesh. And the flesh is incurably evil, in the saint as much as in the unconverted sinner.
The entries that trouble the conscience least carry the sharpest warning:
The lust of the flesh brings forth its works as evil opportunity allows. Paul now lists them in their main varieties, as things the spiritual mind should fear and hate. They describe the evil activities of our fallen and marred humanity… A few deserve special notice: those which offend the natural conscience less, and for that very reason are more dangerous to the unwatchful believer.
Paul does not use the same word here that he uses for the Spirit's side three verses later:
There is a remarkable point in chapter 5, if we pay attention to it. It shows the character of this power that works in us. In verses 19 and 22 we see the contrast between "the works of the flesh" and "the fruit of the Spirit." Why are the words different? "Works" imply effort; the natural man understands this; it expresses his life in the world. But there is no effort connected with the thought of "fruit." No amount of trying would ever get fruit from a tree.
- One root. Paul traces every item — from murder down to rivalry — back to one source: the flesh. It stays incurably evil in the believer as much as in the unbeliever.
- Root on display. Paul calls these works evident because they need no discernment to spot. The flesh puts human corruption and human violence on public view.
- Display is partial. Other workings only the spiritual can detect: the mind of the flesh, and the flesh in its religious form.
- Danger in the tame ones. The Spirit refused to rank these sins by how bad they look to us. So the items your conscience hardly notices are the most dangerous, and a child of God can slip into them for a time.
- Root against root. The flesh yields works — effort, noise, activity. The Spirit yields fruit, and no amount of trying produces fruit.
idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strifes, jealousies, angers, contentions, disputes, schools of opinion,
Paul is listing what the flesh produces when nothing holds it back. The company these sins keep is startling: quarrelling and jealousy stand next to sorcery and murder.
This list is not a random sample of human evil. Paul wrote it for readers who had gone back to law-keeping.
The law and the flesh go together, and applying the law provokes the flesh. As Paul wrote elsewhere, "if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'" That is why bringing the law back among the Galatians came with such a vigorous display of the works of the flesh.
We sort sins into serious ones and minor ones. This list refuses that sorting.
Who but the Spirit of God would have given the unholy list in this way? Who but He would have put wrath and quarrelling in the same class as notoriously vile offences like fornication, murder, and drunkenness? Man would have sorted them, putting them in the order that seemed serious to him… But not so the Holy Spirit. He traces all to the one root. Whether it is murder or strife, sect-making (that is what "heresies" means), or rivalry — which may even happen among believers — all of it comes from the flesh. The flesh is incurably evil.
Idolatry and sorcery sound like carved images and spells. One writer, living in China, points to forms much closer to home.
We may make other idols than the ones we see around us in China. My house may become my idol, or my books, or my study, or even my child. Anything that takes the place that God alone should have is an idol… And how many people are what we call "superstitious"! There are many things they will not do, because they say it will bring them "bad luck." This all comes under the heading of "witchcraft."
The word translated "sorcery" turns up again in Revelation:
Revelation uses another word for sorceries, pharmakeia. It refers to drugs, "to stupefy with drugs," and then to any system of sorcery by spells… Sorcery belongs with the worst of sins, and Revelation uses the word for the professing church too, pictured as Babylon. The same word is translated "witchcraft" in Galatians 5:20.
The middle of the verse turns to how believers treat each other. One writer takes these words in order and cuts off our usual excuse.
How easy it is to have a spirit of enmity against a brother. He may have wronged us, and we do not forgive; after the enmities comes quarrelling. The enmities we may have kept in our heart, but very soon it comes out in an open quarrel. The fault, we think, is all on his side. But when we quarrelled as children, my mother always told us: "It takes two to make a quarrel." We can be certain that if we are mixed up in a quarrel, it is because we have yielded to the flesh… Then comes jealousy, one of the most common things in the heart of man. Then come outbursts of anger. We call it "quick-tempered" or "short-tempered," but it is one of the works of the flesh.
"Rivalries" names something most of us learned young:
Rivalry is the work of the flesh. It is the principle behind most of our education. But in its spirit it is the exact opposite of the Spirit of Him "who did not quarrel or cry aloud, nor make His voice heard in the streets."
The verse ends with "dissensions, divisions" — older versions say "seditions, heresies." One writer draws the line between splitting a church and teaching error.
The apostle uses "heresy" for a party of self-will, a faction that cuts itself off from the assembly… A split inside soon becomes a split outside. False teaching, by contrast, looks for shelter inside, hoping to spread through the whole like yeast.
The verse sets such a person beside idolatry and murder:
What terrible company the sect-maker is put in here… Scattering and dividing the saints of God is plainly a fleshly and devilish work.
- Root. Every item in the verse comes from one source: the flesh. Murder, sect-making and rivalry all rise from the same spring.
- Provoked. Law does not hold the flesh down; it stirs it up. When the Galatians went back to law, these very works broke out.
- Unranked. The Spirit refuses our grading of sin. He sets temper and quarrelling beside the sins we call notorious.
- Everyday. Idolatry is anything that takes God's place — a house, books, a child. Fear of "bad luck" falls under sorcery.
- Divisive. "Heresy" here means a self-willed party that splits off. The verse names the sect-maker in the same breath as the murderer.
envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revels, and things like these; as to which I tell you beforehand, even as I also have said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit God's kingdom.
Paul ends his list of the works of the flesh with a warning he had already given the Galatians once before. So what is the warning for? Does it leave believers unsure of their standing, or does it show what the flesh is and where it ends up?
He closes the list with a sentence of exclusion, and points out that they have heard it from him before.
You have here human corruption and human violence. You have idolatry and witchcraft brought in. On the other hand there are divisions and sects, which point to the party-spirit that might be at work even among people who claim to be Christians. A child of God might slip into any of these evil things for a time. But the sentence on them is solemn: "I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
The verse sets envy and drunkenness beside offences everyone calls vile. That is not how people usually rank sins.
Who but the Spirit of God would have given the unholy list in this way? Who but He would have put wrath, quarrelling and the like in the same class as such notoriously vile offences as fornication, murders and drunkenness? Man would have sorted them by how serious they looked in his own eyes… But not so the Holy Spirit. He traces all to the one root. Murder or strife, sect-making (that is what "heresies" means), or rivalry, which can even appear among believers — all of it comes from the flesh. And the flesh is evil beyond cure, in the believer as much as in the unconverted sinner.
Two sins in this list — drunkenness and revelling, which the ESV calls "orgies" — are the ones society is quickest to excuse.
"Drunkenness" and "revellings" usually harm the person who indulges in them more than they harm anyone else, so ordinary moralists judge them leniently. Revellings, under slightly changed names, count among the accepted social customs of a society that calls itself Christian. Fashion, not the love and fear of God, decides how far this license may go, whether personal or social… But against these things the Spirit has perpetual war.
The list is not complete, and the closing phrase is no filler. It covers every sin the apostle did not name.
The apostle closes his list of things that are "obvious" with the sweeping phrase "and things like these." Hidden in it lies an ambush of countless other "passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." The Spirit of grace urges God's children, as strangers and exiles, to keep away from them. They all share one character, because they all contradict the will of God and go against the leading of the Spirit. The varieties of self-pleasing are as endless as the differences of face and form among people… Only those who are born of God can inherit the kingdom of God, and so they not only rejoice in His goodness but also, in spite of their natural selves, watch His ways and copy them.
The verse speaks of those who do such things — a settled practice, not a single fall.
Here the apostle disowns those who persist in an evil course… The truest believer may fall into the gravest sins when he stops watching himself. But you could not say he lives in them; they do not mark out his life. The Spirit of God works on the believer's conscience, so he owns and confesses his sin, and he receives forgiveness and cleansing. Such statements are not meant to stir up doubts in the hearts of saints. They are meant to test and sift what people claim to be.
So the warning does not hang a threat over the Christian. It works by contrast.
Unbelievers practise such things: it is their life, their character. What a shame, then, if even a little of a believer's conduct looks like the conduct of someone bound for eternal punishment! Paul is not threatening the believer with this. He is showing him how wretchedly inconsistent it is to act as the world acts, when his own character and destiny are so far from the world's.
That leaves the practical question: how is the flesh held in check?
The remedy for the working of the flesh is not in trying to regulate it by law. It is in freedom from the flesh, by walking in the Spirit.
- One root. Envy, temper and party-spirit spring from the same source as murder and drunkenness. That source is the flesh, and it is evil beyond cure in believer and unbeliever alike.
- One open list. "Things like these" leaves no loophole. Every kind of self-pleasing goes against God's will and against the Spirit's leading.
- One repeated warning. Paul had said it before and says it again. The solemn sentence tests what people claim; it is not there to unsettle believers.
- One dividing line. A true believer may fall into these sins. He confesses them, and God cleanses him. His life is not marked by them — and that is what "those who do such things" means.
- One remedy. The answer to the flesh is not a stricter rule. Freedom comes by walking in the Spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity,
Paul has just listed the works of the flesh; now he turns to what the Spirit produces in a believer. That change of word — fruit instead of works — sets up the whole passage. It raises a practical question: is a good life something we make, or something that grows?
Commentators point to the difference between noisy activity and quiet growth.
Notice the contrast between the "works" and the "fruit." The "works" are easy to understand. Their noise fills the earth. You can see their confusion and damage on every side. "Fruit," on the other hand, grows silently, even in nature. In summer, no one in the orchards is bothered by the noise of ripening fruit. The wonder of its growth takes place without a sound. So it is with the fruit of the Spirit. Notice that it says "fruit," not "fruits." These lovely moral features are thought of as one bunch. There are nine of them, but they all grow from one stem — the Spirit of God.
The word "works" carries the sense of straining; "fruit" does not.
"Works" mean effort. A person without God's Spirit understands that, because effort is what his life in this world is made of. But there is no effort in the thought of "fruit." No amount of trying would ever get fruit from a tree. If the tree is in the right climate, healthy and watered, it will bear fruit.
The order is not random. Love heads the list, and the rest are treated as its outgrowth.
If we turn to Galatians 5:22, we find the first fruit of the Spirit is love. All the other fruits grow out of that one. If love is missing, the rest is only artificial fruit tied onto a tree — it never grew there... The next on the list is joy. Our joy will always match our love. This is an unfailing principle. And so it is with the next, peace. If, in all we do and say and think, we are moved by love, we shall enjoy a peace which nothing can disturb.
The first three named are a condition of soul, and the rest depend on them.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on… Notice that the first of these fruits are love, joy, peace. The Spirit does produce the practical fruits that show the life of Christ to other people. But the inward fruits come first — the ones that face God. They are the state of soul the others grow out of.
This is why happiness in God changes how we take insults from others.
If I am fully happy in God, I do not mind when someone insults me; I take it patiently. I am fully happy, and my soul rests in these blessed affections. So nothing else has power to pull me away.
Read the list as a portrait. It describes a person.
But what is this list? It is a beautiful description of Christ as He walked through this world in lowliness. So if such fruit is seen in believers, it will result in the reproduction of Christ in His people. Christ Himself has gone from this world. But God intends the character of Christ to still show in those who belong to Him. Christ in person has gone to the Father's house. Christ in character continues in His people on earth.
Gifts and public service are given to some. This fruit is not limited that way.
We are not all gifted, or called to be teachers and preachers, or to undertake great works. But "the fruit of the Spirit" is open to every believer, from the youngest to the oldest. It is the one thing all true service needs.
As for how it comes, writers point away from effort and toward time spent with Christ.
The Spirit of God works to reproduce in us the likeness of the One we give our attention to. It is not a question so much of trusting Him as studying Him; it is a matter of love rather than of faith. As we love Him, we come to resemble Him. So the Spirit produces in our lives love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The closing phrase answers the argument about the law head-on. Law can command love, but it cannot grow it.
But all these are the fruits of the Spirit; and he adds, "against such things there is no law." When did law ever produce these? So the law will never condemn those who walk in these things… If you are producing these fruits of the Spirit, there is no condemnation against them.
Those who press law on Christians face a further problem.
By the law they can never produce fruit like this. And even if someone could keep the law perfectly, the result would still not compare to the beauty and worth of the fruit of the Spirit.
- One stem — it is fruit, not fruits: nine features hanging together as one bunch, all drawing from the Spirit of God.
- One root — love stands first, and joy and peace follow. Without love, the rest is fruit tied onto a tree that never grew there.
- Inward first — the state of soul that faces God comes first, and the qualities others see follow. Being happy in God is what makes an insult bearable.
- One likeness — the list is a portrait of Christ. He has gone to the Father, and His character is meant to continue in His people.
- No effort, no law — fruit grows quietly out of time spent with Christ. Law has nothing to say against it, and never had power to produce it.
meekness, self-control against such things there is no law.
The list of the Spirit's fruit ends with two quiet qualities: gentleness and self-control. Then comes a verdict that answers the teachers who were pushing the Galatians back under law: no law stands against such things.
The flesh has "works." The Spirit has "fruit" — and the singular matters.
Notice the contrast between the "works" and the "fruit." It is easy to understand the "works." The earth is filled with the noise of them. Their confusion and disruption are visible on every side. "Fruit," on the other hand, is of silent growth, even in nature. In summer time, among the orchards no one is driven to distraction by the noise of maturing fruit. The wonder of its growth takes place without a sound. So it is with the fruit of the Spirit. You notice it is "fruit," not "fruits." That is because these lovely moral features are thought of as one bunch: nine in number, but all growing from one stem — the Spirit of God.
Older translations read "meekness, temperance." Both words point inward, to a curb on what we are by nature.
Then he gets down to what deals more with one another: "meekness, temperance." These suppose a bridle put on the evil nature — the self-control which the Holy Spirit works in the soul for the Lord's sake. We are clearly set in this world to be a letter of Christ, so that we should not give a false character to Him whose name we bear.
One of these qualities gives up its rights. The other wins a victory inside.
Gentleness (or meekness) is the quality that submits to personal humiliation, if need be. It does not demand our personal "rights" as we see them. Self-control is a great inner conquest. Proverbs 16:32 reminds us: "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city." In contrast, "Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls" (Proverbs 25:28).
Self-control also guards what we know. Knowledge without it swells the head.
Temperance is needed in our knowledge. In Galatians 5:23, this same word is translated "self-control." Knowledge without self-control may leave us puffed up with a sense of self-importance, as it did the Corinthian believers.
God will not condemn what He Himself has produced.
It is not God's way to seek to produce holiness in the flesh through the law. The flesh is not subject to the law, and cannot be. God gives a new life in Christ, and the Holy Spirit, to produce fruits which are acceptable to Him. Against these fruits there is no divine law. God cannot condemn the fruits of His own Spirit.
Those who press law as the rule of life must admit two things.
Those who love to teach the law must admit that there is no law against the nine lovely fruits we have just been considering. Further, they must admit that they can never bring forth such fruit as these by the law. And even if one could keep the law perfectly, the result still could not compare to the beauty and preciousness of the fruit of the Spirit.
The one who is not under law is the one who fulfils it.
If I am walking after the law, I do not fulfil it; if I am walking after the Spirit, I do. The same teaching appears in Galatians 5. If we walk according to the Spirit, there are good fruits: "against such there is no law." On the contrary, the law justifies the fruits of the Spirit. But the Spirit never justifies the ways of any man who makes the law his rule of life.
Read the nine together and a familiar figure appears.
What is this but a beautiful description of Christ as He passed through this world in humiliation? So when such fruit appears in believers, it reproduces Christ in His people. Christ Himself has gone from this scene. But God intends that the character of Christ should still be seen in those who are Christ's.
- One stem. Nine qualities, one fruit. It grows quietly from one stem, the Spirit. Effort does not assemble it.
- One bridle. Gentleness gives up its rights. Self-control rules its own spirit. Both look inward, where the flesh is loudest.
- One verdict. No law condemns this, because God will not condemn the fruit of His own Spirit.
- One impossibility. The law never produced these things. Even perfect law-keeping could not match their beauty.
- One portrait. The full list is Christ's own character, and the Spirit reproduces it in His people.
But they that [are] of the Christ have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts.
Paul has just listed the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. He now states a fact about everyone who belongs to Christ — one that raises three questions: when did this crucifixion happen, who did it, and what does it change today?
This verse is one of three places in Galatians where the cross meets a specific enemy. One writer traces the pattern across the whole letter:
Legalism turns back to the principles of the law. That at once gives the flesh a place, because the law appeals to the flesh, and the flesh brings in the world. So the law, the flesh and the world go together. To correct the wrong use of the law and the evils of the flesh and the world, the Spirit of God brings in the Cross of Christ. So in this letter we find the Cross applied to the law in Galatians 2:20; to the flesh in Galatians 5:24; and to the world in Galatians 6:14.
Willis translates the verse closely, then stops on the phrase that names the people:
"But the ones of Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with the emotions and passionate cravings." "The ones of Jesus Christ" reminds us of Galatians 3:29, where being of Christ makes you Abraham's seed. We noticed that the expression "of Christ" meant more than "belonging to Christ." It also means being a part of Christ, members of Christ, not merely the property of Christ.
Willis quotes a literal translation; the ESV has "passions and desires" for "emotions and passionate cravings."
Paul uses the past tense here. That one point carries the weight of the verse.
This is part of the comfort God gives me. As a matter of faith, and not of mere feeling, I am entitled to know that "those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." It does not say, "They are crucifying it," as if it were something still going on. It is done in receiving a crucified Christ. In God's sight, and now to faith also, their nature was nailed to the tree, and is done with before God.
Christ was crucified — so how can Paul say that we crucified the flesh? The answer turns on consent.
How have I crucified the flesh with its passions and desires? The answer is plain. As a believer, I have consented to God's just and righteous judgment of myself as a man in the flesh — a man who cannot please God, and who is unfit for His presence.
Another writer ties this consent to belonging to Christ at all:
This last scripture shows what belonging to Christ involves. No one comes into allegiance to Him on any other terms. He must himself solemnly endorse and confirm the sentence carried out against the flesh at the Cross.
This crucifixion is not the same as the daily work of putting sin to death.
Scripture does not call the "members which are on the earth" crucified. The old mortal body and its members, prone to evil, are still with us, and we have to subdue them. "Mortification" is the process that controls them... To mortify is to put to death. We cannot put to death what is already dead.
Because the flesh is a crucified thing, no amount of religious effort can improve it.
We can make the flesh moral — we can even make it religious — but we cannot make it please God. So the seeker after holiness in the flesh may starve or punish his body. That merely pleases the flesh and puffs him up with pride... No one can make a crucified thing better or sanctify it... The only remedy is the walk in the Spirit, with the flesh in its true place — "no confidence in the flesh."
Kelly names the power for this. It is not restraint but occupation with Christ, which "fills the soul, by the energy of the Spirit, with all that is good."
The verse states a fact about every Christian. So each of us should ask whether it fits.
We do well to ask whether we have really arrived at this, which is the proper attitude of the Christian. Have we definitely put the sentence of death on the flesh?... Is this what we profess to have done as Christians — but are we living up to our profession? A very serious question which we must each answer for ourselves. Let us give ourselves time for conscience to answer!
- Cross — Galatians applies the cross three times: to the law (2:20), to the flesh (5:24), to the world (6:14).
- Verdict — God judged the flesh at the cross. The believer crucified it by consenting to that judgment.
- Past tense — Paul says it is done, not being done. Faith knows the old nature was nailed to the tree and is finished with before God.
- Distinction — Crucifixion is finished. Mortifying the members is the daily work, since you cannot put to death what is already dead.
- Result — You can make the flesh moral or even religious, but never pleasing to God. The remedy is walking in the Spirit and occupation with Christ.
If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit.
Paul has just set the works of the flesh against the fruit of the Spirit. Now he draws the conclusion: the Spirit who gives the Christian life should also set the pace of the Christian's conduct.
The opening word does not put anyone's standing in question. It states the ground on which the appeal rests.
This "if" suggests no doubt, for they who answer to the call of God are made alive by His word, and live both in and by the Spirit. If otherwise, we are dead still in our natural selves. The apostle's exhortation is here, as always, grounded on a state that is assumed. None but Christians can be justly invited to a Christian walk, since a person's behaviour is, or ought to be, a proof of what he is.
The order matters. The walk does not create the life; it matches a life the believer already has.
It is certain that we live by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Well, then, let us walk by the Spirit. Our walk must certainly match our life. A bird cannot have its life in the air and yet all its activities under the water. A fish cannot have its life in water and yet its activities on land. Christians cannot have their life in the Spirit and yet their activities in the flesh.
The words "keep in step" carry a picture.
We live by the Spirit. We walk by the Spirit. We are led by the Spirit, and by the Spirit we keep in step. The word means to walk in a line, as a line of soldiers. If each soldier went his own way, and only walked when he chose, there would be no line at all. But the soldiers are under authority, and obedience to that authority produces the line of soldiers, and all must keep in step. The Holy Spirit has authority over us; if we hear and heed Him, then we will walk in line — we will keep step.
Pridham reads the word the same way, and then names what settles the direction.
Let us keep the order of the Spirit, Paul says, if we live in Him. We once walked in a path of our own, when our ignorance cut us off from the life of God. Let our ways now match the light in which we live. We walk as we are led. If we forget that we are not our own but Christ's, we will be led by the deceiver into the ways of sin.
This is where the Galatians slipped.
Every believer lives in the Spirit, for He is the source of the new life the believer has received. To walk in the Spirit is to accept in practice His gracious leadership and control in all the details of life down here. From this the Galatians had slipped, through the harmful teaching they had listened to.
So the walk is not optional, and it has definite marks:
Certainly. To question it would be antinomianism, or organised unholiness. We are called to walk in the Spirit by the faith of Christ, in confidence in His care, in habitual self-judgment, and in obedience to the word.
The flesh has not been removed from the believer.
The Spirit is in us, as well as the flesh. Not only has the strong delivering arm of the Lord brought us out of being "in the flesh," but the Spirit of God Himself lives within us. He is mightier than the inclinations of our evil hearts. It is our privilege and our responsibility to walk in the Spirit — not in our own poor strength, and not by the force of our own resolutions.
The next verse turns at once to conceit, provocation and envy. That is no change of subject — it is the direct alternative to keeping step with the Spirit, and it is what a return to law actually breeds.
The law feeds rather than destroys vain glory, because the law makes us think of self. When rightly used, it is most useful for convicting of sin, not for producing righteousness.
- Life — the "if" is not a doubt. Everyone born of God already lives by the Spirit, and the appeal rests on that fact.
- Match — the walk must answer to the life. A bird does not live in the air and act under water, and a Christian cannot live in the Spirit and act in the flesh.
- Step — "keep in step" pictures soldiers in a line. The Spirit has authority, and we walk as He leads.
- Power — the flesh is still there. But the Spirit within is mightier than our inclinations, so the walk rests on His strength, not on our resolutions.
- Detail — His leadership reaches the ordinary details of daily life, through self-judgment and obedience to the word. Going back to law only feeds self-importance.
Let us not become vain-glorious, provoking one another, envying one another.
Paul ends the chapter with a sin that sounds mild next to the works of the flesh he has just listed. Why does he put conceit right beside walking by the Spirit, and how does it grow into both provoking and envying?
This warning belongs with the verse before it. Every believer already lives by the Spirit. The question is whether the Spirit also runs the daily details.
Every believer lives in the Spirit, since He is the source of the new life that they have received. To walk in the Spirit is to accept His gracious leadership and control in practice, in every detail of life down here. The Galatians had slipped away from this. They had been listening to harmful teaching. That is why the apostle gives this serious warning and rebuke in the words that close the chapter.
Older translations say "vainglorious" where the ESV says "conceited." One writer gives the everyday word for it, then names what feeds it.
"Let us not become vainglorious, challenging (or provoking) one another, envying one another." We usually call vainglory conceit. The law does not destroy our vainglory. It makes us more vainglorious, or conceited, than we were before — because the law makes me think of myself.
Conceit shows itself in two opposite ways.
Looking for vainglory also causes a provoking of one another; these two go together. If I have a desire to be first among my fellow believers, I try to put someone else down, which is a provocation. This happens so easily when we place ourselves under man-made rules. And there is the opposite extreme too: to envy one another. This is the first instruction connected with walking in step. If I become vainglorious, if I provoke or envy, I walk out of step. That damages me and the others who walk with me.
Envy does not stop where it starts.
The vainglorious man will always be an envious man — jealous of everyone who is more spiritual or more gifted than himself. And jealousy expresses itself in malice, and malice ends in strife.
This is not just a private fault. One writer traces the splits among believers back to this one desire.
Nothing hurts the heart more, or weakens our testimony more, than the differences of judgment among the true people of God. In Philippians 2 the apostle traces all envy and strife to one root — "vainglory." Even in the Lord's own presence the apostles argued, because each wanted to be counted the greatest. So, in the apostle's day, there was strife as the result of the vainglory of some who wanted to be great. And in our day, all the division and strife that has come in among the people of God can be traced to this one root — someone wanted to be great.
Thinking of another believer as better than yourself can feel hard when you can see his faults.
We may find this hard at times. As one has said, "We may see great vanity or pride in another, and we may be doing better than this or that person." But if we are close to Christ, we will feel our own nothingness in His presence, however well we may be walking. We will see our brother in Christ, and all that is of Christ in him, rather than his faults.
The next chapter puts this to the test. Someone has fallen, and everyone else must decide how to respond.
Do not let us miss the connection between the last verse or two of Galatians 5 and the first of Galatians 6. If the flesh is at work in others, and they want glory for themselves, they will only provoke the flesh still more in the brother who has failed. But some are spiritual. The Spirit of God governs their thoughts and affections, and so their judgments and behaviour, instead of the flesh. These are the ones who are "walking in the Spirit," and they should restore such a person in a spirit of meekness.
- Root — Vainglory is plain conceit. The law feeds it, because rules keep a person thinking about himself.
- Branch one: provoking — Wanting to be first means putting someone else down. That is provocation.
- Branch two: envying — The same conceit turns sour toward anyone more gifted. Jealousy then runs on into malice and strife.
- Fruit — The divisions among God's people trace back to this one root: someone wanted to be great.
- Cure — Close to Christ, self feels its own nothingness. Then we restore a fallen brother in meekness instead of provoking him.