236 Galatians 5:13-26 - a podcast by Dr David Petts - Pentecostal preacher, former AoG Bible College Principal

Galatians   Talk 8   Galatians 5:13-26

As we have seen again and again in our studies in Galatians, Paul wrote this letter to demonstrate that salvation is by faith and not by works. Last time, as we looked at 5:1-13, we saw how Paul encouraged the Galatians to stand firm in their faith in Christ and not to get entangled again with the burden of the law from which Christ had set them free.

 

In verse 1 he had said:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

 

He goes on to say that circumcision means nothing. All that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Now, in the second part of the chapter, he picks up this theme by saying in verse 13:

 

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature (the flesh); rather, serve one another in love.

 

Having emphasised that we’re called to freedom, Paul now makes a very important clarification. He doesn’t want to be misunderstood. Freedom does not mean freedom to indulge the flesh. (The NIV translation is unhelpful here. The word is sarx which means flesh. I’ll be saying more about this in a moment). We’re not free to indulge the flesh. We’re free to love, and love is the fulfilment of the law (14). The important thing is to be led by the Spirit. This results in two things. If we live by the Spirit:

 

1.     we are not under the law (18) – which he has discussed at length already

2.     we will not gratify the desires of the flesh (16).

 

But what does he mean by the flesh? It’s probably best understood to be the tendency to sin that we have all inherited from Adam. But to clarify this we need to consider two other NT passages, Hebrews 12:9 and Romans 7:8-11.

 

In Hebrews 12:9 the writer distinguishes between:

our human fathers who are the fathers of our flesh

and

God, our heavenly Father who is the Father of our spirits.

 

So, we do not receive our spirit from our parents. That is given to us by God. And surely God would not give us anything sinful? But our flesh, which we receive from our parents, has an inbuilt tendency to sin which is ultimately inherited from Adam.

 

With this in mind, we now turn to Romans 7:8-11 where Paul says that before the law came, sin was dead. He applies this to himself personally. Once he had been alive, but when the commandment came, sin came to life, and he died. Sin took the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived him, and put him to death.

 

Now if we apply this to ourselves, we were all born with a tendency to sin. This tendency was not in our spirit which God gave us, but in our flesh, inherited from Adam.  We were spiritually alive until the time came when we understood, through God’s commandments, the difference between right and wrong, and, because of the tendency to sin in our flesh, we have chosen to do wrong. At that moment we died spiritually, and we needed to be born again. When we were born again, we became alive spiritually, but there remains in our flesh that tendency to sin, to which Paul tells us in Romans 6:11 we must consider ourselves as dead, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Now, back to Galatians 5:13

 

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature (the flesh); rather, serve one another in love.

 

We’re not to use our freedom in Christ as an excuse for giving in to the temptations that come to us because of the tendency to sin that is natural to our flesh. We can overcome them because, through the Holy Spirit’s work in regenerating us, we are spiritually alive. In verses 16-17 he says that if we live by the Spirit we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. The desires of the Spirit and the desires of our flesh are diametrically opposed to each other. And without the help of the Spirit we cannot do the good things we would like to do (cf. Romans 7:18-8:2). But if we are led by the Spirit and follow the things we know he desires, we will fulfil the requirements of the law (to love God…) (18, cf. Romans 8:4 where he says very much the same thing).

 

With all this in mind we now turn to verses 19-26, where Paul contrasts the acts of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit.

 

The acts of the flesh

 

19 The acts of the flesh 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 kingdom of God.

 

Paul says that the acts of the flesh are obvious. He nevertheless feels the need to cite some examples! This is clearly not an exhaustive list as he adds at the end, and the like. He assumes that his readers will be well aware that these things are wrong, as he has already warned them about them. This was presumably when he planted the churches in Galatia, as there is no specific mention of them earlier in the letter. But what does he mean in verse 21 when he says that

 

…those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God?

 

Those who live like this, literally translated, is those doing these things. However, the verb doing is a present participle, which in Greek implies continuous action. This is presumably why NIV translates it as those who live like this.

 

Paul is not saying that anyone who ever does any of these things will never go to Heaven! He is reminding them that when he first preached the gospel to them he had warned them about the eternal consequences of sin, and now they are Christians they need to be aware of the dangers of reverting to their old lifestyle. Both the present and future blessings of the kingdom of God are forfeited unless they repent,

 

The fruit of the Spirit

 

In stark contrast to the acts of the flesh is the fruit of the Spirit.

 

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 law of the Old Testament was against the things listed as the acts of the flesh, and so is the law of love that is the fulfilment of the law. If you really love God and other people, you won’t do the things listed as acts of the flesh, and you will do things that manifest the fruit of the Spirit. There is no law against love!

 

The fruit of the Spirit is such an important subject that we’ll devote an entire talk to it next time. So now let’s move directly to verse 25 where Paul reminds us that we live by the Spirit. We have eternal life through the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit.

 

And just as we are saved by faith and continue to live by faith, so too at conversion we are sanctified by the work of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11) and by the same Spirit we are enabled to live holy lives. Compare Colossians 2:6 – just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him.

 

So Paul says, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. We who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (24). This takes us back to Galatians 2:20-21 where Paul says:

 

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

 

In talk 4, I explained this in some detail and in case you missed it, I encourage you to go back there and read my notes on the subject of our identification with Christ, which I concluded by saying:

 

Because Jesus loved us and gave himself for us, and because we have put our faith in him, we are identified with him. We are in Christ and Christ lives in us. By accepting him as our Saviour we accepted his death as our death (and that’s why our sins are all forgiven). So, if his death was our death, we’re dead! We no longer live, but Christ lives in us.

 

So how in practice do we keep in step with the Spirit?

 

We need to:

 

1.     Remember that even after we become Christians there’s still a tendency to sin in our flesh.

 

2.     Recognise that we cannot overcome this by obeying man-made rules and regulations (cf. Colossians 2:20-29 where Paul says that they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence).

 

3.     Reckon ourselves to be dead. Dead to the law, dead to sin. Dead to the acts of the flesh. We’re identified with Christ. We should live like Christ.

 

4.     Rely on the help of the Holy Spirit.

 

We’ll be talking about this next time as we consider the fruit of the Spirit which are a wonderful summary of the character of Jesus. These are the kind of things that will be evident in our lives if we seek to be led by the Spirit rather than trying to please God by our own good works.

 

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