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.