But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Parallel Translations
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But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
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I saye walke in the sprete and fulfill not the lustes of the flesshe.
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Then I say, Walke in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lustes of the flesh.
Cross-references (20)
Passages linked to Galatians 5:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Galatians 5:24-25 Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
- Romans 8:12-14 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.
- Galatians 6:8 For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
- Galatians 5:19-21 Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.
- Colossians 3:5-10 Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. For these things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. You also once walked in those, when you lived in them; but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth. Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
- Romans 8:4-5 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
- 1 John 2:15-16 Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s.
- 1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
- 2 Corinthians 7:1 Having therefore these promises, beloved, let’s cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
- Romans 13:13-14 Let’s walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.
- Romans 6:12 Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
- Jude 1:19-21 These are those who cause divisions and are sensual, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, keep building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
- Ephesians 2:3 We also all once lived among them in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
- 1 Peter 4:1-4 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries. They think it is strange that you don’t run with them into the same excess of riot, blaspheming.
- 1 Peter 1:14 as children of obedience, not conforming yourselves according to your former lusts as in your ignorance,
- 1 Peter 4:6 For to this end the Good News was preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in the spirit.
- Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
- 1 Peter 1:22 Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from the heart fervently,
- Colossians 2:11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,
- Galatians 3:17 Now I say this: A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (24 sources)
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Martin Luther 1535 · Public Domain VERSE 16. This I say then, Walk in the…
VERSE 16. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
"I have not forgotten what I told you about faith in the first part of my letter. Because I exhort you to mutual love you are not to think that I have gone back on my teaching of justification by faith alone. I am still of the same opinion. To remove every possibility for misunderstanding I have added this explanatory note: ’Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.’"
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With this verse Paul explains how he wants this sentence to be understood: By love serve one another. When I bid you to love one another, this is what I mean and require, ’Walk in the Spirit.’ I know very well you will not fulfill the Law, because you are sinners as long as you live. Nevertheless, you should endeavor to walk in the spirit, i.e., fight against the flesh and follow the leads of the Holy Ghost."
It is quite apparent that Paul had not forgotten the doctrine of justification, for in bidding the Galatians to walk in the Spirit he at the same time denies that good works can justify. "When I speak of the fulfilling of the Law I do not mean to say that you are justified by the Law. All I mean to say is that you should take the Spirit for your guide and resist the flesh. That is the most you shall ever be able to do. Obey the Spirit and fight against the flesh."
VERSE 16. And ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
The lust of the flesh is not altogether extinct in us. It rises up again and again and wrestles with the Spirit. No flesh, not even that of the true believer, is so completely under the influence of the Spirit that it will not bite or devour, or at least neglect, the commandment of love. At the slightest provocation it flares up, demands to be revenged, and hates a neighbor like an enemy, or at least does not love him as much as he ought to be loved.
Therefore the Apostle establishes this rule of love for the believers. Serve one another in love. Bear the infirmities of your brother. Forgive one another. Without such bearing and forbearing, giving and forgiving, there can be no unity because to give and to take offense are unavoidably human.
Whenever you are angry with your brother for any cause, repress your violent emotions through the Spirit. Bear with his weakness and love him. He does not cease to be your neighbor or brother because he offended you. On the contrary, he now more than ever before requires your loving attention.
The scholastics take the lust of the flesh to mean carnal lust. True, believers too are tempted with carnal lust. Even the married are not immune to carnal lusts. Men set little value upon that which they have and covet what they have not, as the poet says:
"The things most forbidden we always desire, And things most denied we seek to acquire."
I do not deny that the lust of the flesh includes carnal lust. But it takes in more. It takes in all the corrupt desires with which the believers are more or less infected, as pride, hatred, covetousness, impatience. Later on Paul enumerates among the works of the flesh even idolatry and heresy. The apostle’s meaning is clear. "I want you to love one another. But you do not do it. In fact you cannot do it, because of your flesh. Hence we cannot be justified by deeds of love. Do not for a moment think that I am reversing myself on my stand concerning faith. Faith and hope must continue. By faith we are justified, by hope we endure to the end. In addition we serve each other in love because true faith is not idle. Our love, however, is faulty. In bidding you to walk in the Spirit I indicate to you that our love is not sufficient to justify us. Neither do I demand that you should get rid of the flesh, but that you should control and subdue it."
Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 16. This I say then. Now follows the remedy.…
16. This I say then. Now follows the remedy. The ruin of the church is no light evil, and whatever threatens it must be opposed with the most determined resistance. But how is this to be accomplished? By not permitting the flesh to rule in us, and by yielding ourselves to the direction of the Spirit of God. The Galatians are indirectly told, that they are carnal, destitute of the Spirit of God, and that the life which they lead is unworthy of Christians; for whence did their violent conduct towards each other proceed, but from their being guided by the lust of the flesh? This, he tells them, is an evidence that they do not walk according to the Spirit.
Ye shall not fulfill. We ought to mark the word fulfill; by which he means, that, though the sons of God, so long as they groan under the burden of the flesh, are liable to commit sin, they are not its subjects or slaves, but make habitual opposition to its power. The spiritual man may be frequently assaulted by the lusts of the flesh, but fulfill them, — he does not permit them to reign over him. — On this subject, it will be proper to consult the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He acknowledgeth the great weakness of the godly, for…
He acknowledgeth the great weakness of the godly, for that they are but in part regenerate: but he willeth them to remember that they are endued with the Spirit of God, which hath delivered them from the slavery of sin, and so of the Law so far forth as it is the virtue of sin, that they should not give themselves to lusts.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit,…
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Ver. 16. This I say then] For an antidote against abuse of Christian liberty. Set the Spirit, as Pharaoh did Joseph, upon the chief chariot of your hearts, and let all be at his beck and check.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Walk in the Spirit; the apostle having, Gal 5:13,…
Walk in the Spirit; the apostle having, Gal 5:13, cautioned them against turning the grace of God into wantonness, by using their liberty as an occasion to the flesh; here he directeth them to the best means for the avoiding thereof, viz.
walking in the Spirit. Where by Spirit he doth not mean our own spirits, or the guide and conduct of our own reason; for the term Spirit, set (as here) in opposition to the flesh, is in no place of Scripture understood of any other than the Holy Spirit of God, which dwelleth in and influenceth believers, guiding them both by a rule from without, (which is the word of God, given by its inspiration), and by its inward motions and operations. Walking, signifieth the directing of their whole conversations. The phrases
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in the Spirit, and after the Spirit, Rom 8:1, seem to be of the same import, uuless the alteration of the preposition signifieth, that Christians are not only to look to the word of God dictated by the Holy Spirit as their rule, and to listen to its dictates, but also to look up to the Holy Spirit for its strength and assistance; and implieth a promise of such assistance. The sense is: Let your whole conversation be according to the external rule of the gospel, and the more inward motions, directions, and inclinations of the Spirit of Christ, dwelling and working in you, and moving you to the obedience of that word.
And ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; this doing, though the flesh be yet in you, and you will find the lustings and warrings of it, yet you shall not fulfil the sinful desires and lustings of it; that is, sin, though it be in you, shall not be in dominion in you; it shall not reign in your mortal bodies: Rom 6:12; Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain "To prevent the fore-mentioned evils, as if the apostle…
"To prevent the fore-mentioned evils, as if the apostle had said, I advise and exhort you to walk had said, I advise and exhort you to walk in the Spirit, that is, according to the guidance and direction, according to the influence and motion, of the Holy Spirit speaking to you in his word, and then you never will fulfil the lusts of the flesh; that is, you will never accomplish and bring into complete act (especially with deliberation and consent) the inordinate motions of corrupt nature."
Learn hence, That the more Christians set themselves to obey the new nature, and follow the motions of the spirit of grace, the more will the power of indwelling sin and inbred corruption be mortified and kept under. This expression, Ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, may be thought to import and imply these two things:
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1. That an inward principle of grace in the heart will give a check to sin in its first motions, and cause it oft-times to miscarry in the womb, like an untimely birth, before it comes to its full maturity; it shall never gain the full consent of a gracious person’s will, as it doth of an unregenerate person.
2. But if notwithstanding all the opposition grace makes to hinder the production of sin, if yet it doth break forth into act, such acts of sin are not committed without reluctance and regret, and are followed with shame and sorrow, yea, those very surprisals and captivities of sin at one time, are made cautions and warnings to prevent it at another time; and thus they that walk in the Spirit, do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,.... By "flesh"…
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,.... By "flesh" is meant, not the carnal or literal sense of the Scripture, which is Origen's gloss, as militating against the spiritual sense of it; nor the sensual part of man rebelling against his rational powers; but the corruption of nature, which still is in regenerate persons: and is so called because it is propagated by carnal generation; has for its object carnal things; its lusts and works are fleshly; and though it has its seat in the heart, it shows itself in the flesh or members of the body, which are yielded as instruments of unrighteousness; and it makes and denominates men carnal, even believers themselves so far as it prevails: by "the Spirit" is meant the internal principle of grace in a regenerate man, and is so called from the author of it, the Spirit of God, whose name it bears, because it is his workmanship; and from the seat and subject of it, the soul or spirit of man; and from the nature of it, it is spiritual, a new heart and a new Spirit; its objects are spiritual, and it minds, savours, and delights in spiritual things: and the meaning of the lusting of the one against the other, for it is reciprocal, hence it follows,
and the Spirit against the flesh, is that the one wills, chooses, desires, and affects what is contrary to the other; so the flesh, or the old man, the carnal I, in regenerate persons, wills, chooses, desires, and loves carnal things, which are contrary to the Spirit or principle of grace in the soul; and on the other hand, the Spirit or the new man, the spiritual I, wills, chooses, desire, approves, and loves spiritual things, such as are contrary to corrupt nature; and this sense is strengthened by the Oriental versions. The Syriac version reads, "for the flesh desires that" "which hurts", or is contrary to "the Spirit"; and "the Spirit desires that which hurts", or is contrary to the "flesh"; and much in the same way the Arabic version renders it, "for the flesh desires that which militates against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires that which militates against the flesh"; to which the Ethiopic version agrees, reading it thus, "for the flesh desires what the Spirit would not, and the Spirit desires what the flesh would not"; the reason whereof is suggested in the next clause:
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and these are contrary the one to the other; as light and darkness, fire and water, or any two opposites can be thought to be; they are contrary in their nature, actings, and effects; there is not only a repugnancy to each other, but a continued war, conflict, and combat, is maintained between them; the flesh is the law in the members or force of sin, which wars against the spirit, the law in the mind, or the force and power of the principle of grace; these are the company of two armies, to be seen in the Shulamite, fighting one against the other. So the Jews say (w) of the good imagination, and of the evil one, by which they mean the same as here, that they are like Abraham and Lot; and that
"though they are brethren, joined in one body, , "they are enemies to one another";''
hence it follows,
so that ye cannot do the good that ye would which may be understood both of evil things and of good things. The former seems to be chiefly the apostle's sense; since the whole of this text is a reason given why those who walk spiritually shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, because they have a powerful governing principle in them, the Spirit, or grace; which though the flesh lusts against, and opposes itself unto, yet that also rises up against the flesh, and often hinders it from doing the works and lusts of it. There is in regenerate men a propensity and inclination to sin, a carnal I, that wills and desires sin, and wishes for an opportunity to do it, which when it offers, the flesh strongly solicits to it; but the Spirit, or the internal principle of grace, opposes the motion; and like another Joseph says, how can I commit this great wickedness and sin against a God of so much love and grace? it is a voice behind and even in a believer, which, when he is tempted to turn to the right hand or the left, says, this is the way, walk in it, and will not suffer him to go into crooked paths with the workers of iniquity; and so sin cannot have the dominion over him, because he is under grace as a reigning principle; and the old man cannot do the evil things he would, being under the restraints of mighty grace. This is the apostle's principal sense, and best suits with his reasoning in the context; but inasmuch as the lusting and opposition of these two principles are mutual and reciprocal, the other sense may also be taken in; as that oftentimes, by reason of the prevalence of corrupt nature, and power of indwelling sin, a regenerate man does the evil he would not, and cannot do the good he would; for he would always do good and nothing else, and even as the angels do it in heaven; but he cannot, because of this opposite principle, the flesh.
(w) Tzeror, Hammor, fol. 15. 3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain I say then - He now explains what he…
I say then - He now explains what he proposed, ver. 13. Walk by the Spirit - Follow his guidance in all things. And fulfil not - In anything. The desire of the flesh - Of corrupt nature.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 16. Walk in the Spirit] Get back that…
Verse 16. Walk in the Spirit] Get back that Spirit of God which you have grieved and lost; take up that spiritual religion which you have abandoned.
Ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.] If the Spirit of God dwell in and rule your heart, the whole carnal mind will be destroyed; and then, not only carnal ordinances will be abandoned, but also the works and propensities of the flesh.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gal 5:16-18. I say then — He now explains…
Gal 5:16-18. I say then — He now explains what he proposed Gal 5:13; Walk in, or by, the Spirit — Namely, the Spirit of God: follow his guidance, exercise his graces, and bring forth his fruits: at all times endeavour to conduct yourselves as under his influence, and in a way agreeable to the new nature he hath given you. We walk by the Spirit, when we are led, that is, directed and governed by him as a Spirit of truth and grace, of wisdom and holiness. And we walk in the Spirit when, being united to him, or, rather, inhabited by him, we walk in faith, hope, and love, and in the other graces, mentioned Gal 5:22. And ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh — Ye will not gratify any sinful appetite or passion, any corrupt principle of your nature or disposition, which may yet have place in you; such as envy, malice, anger, or revenge. For the flesh lusteth — Επιθυμει, desireth; against the Spirit — Your corrupt nature, as far as it remains corrupt, and is unrenewed, has inclinations and affections which are contrary to, and oppose the operations and graces of the Spirit of God: and the Spirit against the flesh — The Holy Spirit, on his part, opposes your evil nature, and all your corrupt inclinations and passions. These — The flesh and the Spirit; are contrary to each other — There can be no agreement between them: so that ye cannot do, &c. — Greek, ινα μη, α αν θηλητε, ταυτα ποιητε, that what things you would, or may desire, or incline to, these you may not do, that is, connecting it with the clause immediately preceding, “though the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, yet the Spirit desireth against and opposes the flesh; that, being thus strengthened by the Spirit, ye may not do the things ye would do if the Spirit did not thus assist you.” This seems to be the genuine sense of the passage. But if ye be led by the Spirit — Of liberty and love, into all holiness; ye are not under the curse or bondage of the law — Not under the guilt or power of sin.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain This I say then - This is the true…
This I say then - This is the true rule about overcoming the propensities of your carnal natures, and of avoiding the evils of strife and contention.
Walk - The Christian life is often represented as a journey, and the word walk, in the scripture, is often equivalent to live; Mar 7:5. See the notes at Rom 4:12; Rom 6:4, note; Rom 8:1, note.
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In the Spirit - Live under the influences of the Holy Spirit; admit those influences fully into your hearts. Do not resist him, but yield to all his suggestions; see the note at Rom 8:1. What the Holy Spirit would produce, Paul states in Gal 5:22-23. If a man would yield his heart to those influences, he would be able to overcome all his carnal propensities; and it is because he resists that Spirit, that he is ever overcome by the corrupt passions of his nature. Never was a better, a safer, or a more easy rule given to overcome our corrupt and sensual desires than that here furnished; compare notes, Rom 8:1-13.
And ye shall not fulfil ... - Margin, “Fulfil not” - as if it were a command. So Tyndale renders it. But the more common interpretation, as it is the more significant, is that adopted by our translators. Thus, it is not merely a command, it is the statement of an important and deeply interesting truth - that the only way to overcome the corrupt desires and propensities of our nature, is by submitting to the influences of the Holy Spirit. It is not by philosophy; it is not by mere resolutions to resist them; it is not by the force of education and laws; it is only by admitting into our souls the influence of religion, and yielding ourselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. If we live under the influences of that Spirit, we need not fear the power of the sensual and corrupt propensities of our nature.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain This I say then--Repeating in other words, and explaining…
This I say then--Repeating in other words, and explaining the sentiment in Gal 5:13, What I mean is this."
Walk in the Spirit--Greek, "By (the rule of) the (Holy) Spirit." Compare Gal 5:16-18, Gal 5:22, Gal 5:25; Gal 6:1-8, with Rom 7:22; Rom 8:11. The best way to keep tares out of a bushel is to fill it with wheat.
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the flesh--the natural man, out of which flow the evils specified (Gal 5:19-21). The spirit and the flesh mutually exclude one another. It is promised, not that we should have no evil lusts, but that we should "not fulfil" them. If the spirit that is in us can be at ease under sin, it is not a spirit that comes from the Holy Spirit. The gentle dove trembles at the sight even of a hawk's feather.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 16-18. Traces the inward struggle between the spirit and…
16-18. Traces the inward struggle between the spirit and flesh, with the remedy. The remedy is given first, Gal_5:16, and last, Gal_5:18.
16. This I say—On this rule I lay special emphasis.
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Walk in the Spirit— As the true preventive of the internal strife of Gal_5:17.
Walk—Live and act.
In the Spirit—In obedience to conscience and Scripture enlightened by divine influence.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 16–26. The spiritual life of liberty inconsistent with the…
16–26. The spiritual life of liberty inconsistent with the indulgence of the works of the flesh
16. This I say then] After affirming the great law of Christian perfection in Gal_5:14 and pointing out the effects of its violation, St Paul proceeds to shew how alone the former may be obeyed and the latter escaped. The controversies and heartburnings from which the Galatian Chruch was suffering were due to the lusts of the flesh (comp. Jas_4:1-2). There was only one means by which the tyranny of these lusts could be resisted and broken—by the guidance and power of Him Who is the Spirit both of love and of liberty.
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Walk in the Spirit] R.V. ‘Walk by the Spirit.’ This is differently explained, (1) by, or according to the rule of the Spirit, comp. Gal_5:18; Gal_5:25; Gal_6:16; (2) by the guidance of the Spirit; (3) by the help of the Spirit; (4) spiritually. For each view something is to be said grammatically. All together do not exhaust the fulness of the expression. The points to be noted are (a) The antagonism between the Spirit—the Holy Ghost in all that He is, and works and produces, and the flesh with its appetites and works. (b) The absolute certainty of victory over the flesh to all those who walk in or by the Spirit. Unspeakably great as is the blessing of pardon and justification by faith, it would be an incomplete blessing but for the assurance of this verse. Freedom from condemnation cannot satisfy the conscience which God’s Spirit has touched without the assured hope of victory over the lust of the flesh. Walking denotes activity. The metaphor is very common in St Paul and in St John. To walk in truth, in darkness, according to the flesh, &c., are familiar instances. The word in the original is not the same as in Gal_5:25, where not mere activity, but deliberate movement is intended.
ye shall not fulfil] The strongest negation possible. ‘Ye shall in no wise fulfil.’ Blessed assurance!
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (16) Walk.—Conduct yourselves: a metaphor very common in the…
(16) Walk.—Conduct yourselves: a metaphor very common in the writings of St. Paul, but not peculiar to them. It occurs three times in the Gospels, once in the Acts, thirty-three times in St. Paul’s Epistles, once in the Hebrews, ten times in the Epistles of St. John, and once in the Apocalypse.
In the Spirit.—Rather, by the Spirit—i.e. by the rule of the Spirit, as the Spirit directs. “The Spirit” is here undoubtedly the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of God, not the spirit in man.
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(16-26) To follow the guidance of the Spirit is to obtain a double release: on the one hand, from the evil appetites and passions of the flesh or of sense—which is the direct antithesis to the Spirit—and on the other hand, from the dominion of the Law. It is easy to tell which has the upper hand—the flesh or the Spirit. The flesh is known by a long catalogue of sins, the Spirit by a like catalogue of Christian graces, the mere mention of which is enough to show that the Law has no power over them. Those who belong to Christ have got rid of the flesh, with all its impulses, by their union with a crucified Saviour. All the Christian has to do is to act really by the rule of the Spirit, without self-parade or quarrelling.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain This I say then (legw de). Like touto degw…
This I say then (legw de). Like touto degw ingw Gal_3:17, and le de ingw Gal_4:1, the phrase, le de, here introduces a further illustration of a point already referred to. It points back to the line of remark commenced in ver. 13 in the words, "No freedom to be an occasion to the flesh! but through love be in bondage one to another." The voluntary bondage of love is one most important part of the spiritual life; as indulgence in malignant passions is also a leading branch of the working of the flesh. The mention, therefore, of these two points in vers. 14, 15 naturally leads up to the more general exhortation of the present passage. Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil (or, fulfil not) the lust of the flesh (Pneumati peripateite kaian sarkov ouj mhshte); walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust (or, desire) of the flesh. The precise meaning of the several words and statements in this verse, as also in the two which follow it, have been much disputed. It must suffice here briefly to explain and justify what appears to the present writer the true view. The word "spirit," it seems most natural to understand in all three in the same sense. To take it in the first two verses as meaning that part of our composite being which has the nearest affinity to the higher moral and spiritual life (whether as in a state of nature or as informed by the Spirit of God), whilst in ver. 18 its import is determined by comparison with other passages to be the Divine Spirit, appears to be an arbitrary variation of its sense, which there is no necessity for adopting. The "Spirit" is mentioned alongside with "the flesh," not because it belongs to the like category of being a part of our nature, but because he has been graciously sent forth by God to contravene in us that evil principle which else we should be unable to overcome. This evil principle is termed "the flesh;" not as being merely sensual corruption, though vices of that class are mentioned in vers. 19 and 21 as leading instances of its working; for we see in vers. 20 and 21 vicious works of the flesh specified, which are to be referred to malignity, (comp. 1Co_3:3) or to a perversion of the religious element, rather than to sensuality. It appears, therefore, to denote the principle of corruption which taints our moral nature in general that which in the ninth of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England is deflated under the heading of "Original or Birth-Sin." The word "flesh" may be supposed to have been selected to denote this, because the depravation of our sensuous beings into sensuality constituted the most prominent and noticeable form in which the general degradation of our state from its proper nobler life in God manifests itself. The dative case of Pneumati, marks either the sphere, element, path, in which we are to walk, which is intended by the rendering in our Authorized Version, "in the Spirit," as the dative is used with poreuesqai (Authorized Version, "walk") in Act_9:31 Act_14:16, and with peripatein, walk, in Act_21:21; 2Co_12:18; or the rule according to which, together with the enabling power by which, our daily behaviour is to be regulated, so as to be synonymous with the phrase, "walking after (kata) the Spirit," in Rom_8:4. The meaning at all events seems to be, Let the prompting of the Spirit be your guide, and the grace of the Spirit your strength, in the course of your life continually. This is afterwards expressed as being "led by the Spirit" (ver. 18), and as an "orderly walking by the Spirit" (ver. 25). The exhortation implies two things: first, that the Christians addressed, had had the gift of the Holy Spirit imparted to them (comp. Gal_3:2 Gal_4:6, where" our hearts" includes the persons addressed; 1Co_12:13) and next, that this gift would not avail for the actual sanctification of their life without diligent endeavours after self-improvement on their own part. Php_2:12, 13, "Work out your own salvation i.e. by your own endeavours work out your salvation) with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure." The generality of the form in which the exhortation is couched intimates that they were to endeavour to live in compliance with the Spirit"s promptings in all the branches of spiritual activity proper to their Christian calling; not only in that of "love" already adverted to, but in those others also which the apostle presently after counts up in vers. 22, 23. It inculcates, therefore, the cultivation of a joyous spirit of filial love towards God, as well as a high strain of virtuous conduct towards their fellow-men and in relation to their own selves. In the next clause, the words, ouj mhshte, "ye shall not fulfil." are by many (see margin of our Authorized Version)taken in an imperative sense; as if it were, walk by the Spirit, and by no means fulfil the desire of the flesh. It is, however, with much force objected to this view that, although the future with ouj is often used for an imperative, as ouj kloyeiv oujk ejpiorkhseiv, etc., there is no instance adduced of ouj mh being used in the New Testament in this sense. We are led, therefore, to adopt the other view, that the passage belongs to that form of sentence in which an imperative clause is followed by a clause denoting the result which will ensue in case the direction before given has been complied with; as e.g. Come unto me and I will give you rest." In place of the simple ouj telesete, we have the more emphatic form, ouj mhshte, "Of a surety ye will not," etc. By writing thus the apostle strongly accentuates the statement that walking by the Spirit is absolutely incompatible with an indulgence in the inclinations prompted by the flesh. There is probably a twofold doctrinal inference couched under this emphatic statement; namely, Ye will of a surety not fall under the Law"s condemnation; (comp. Rom_8:1-4) and, Ye will not need the Law"s restraints. (1Ti_1:9) But it is pregnant also with a hint of rebuke and of practical direction, not unneeded by the Galatians (ver. 15). The article is wanting before ejpiqumian, probably because it is wanting before sarkov, as in katabolhv kosmou sewvrgwn Luk_11:50; ajrchv kti Mar_10:6; e nomouan Rom_3:20, etc.; so that ejpiqumi sarkov is put for than thv sarkov. The verb teleshte is selected in preference to poihshte (of Eph_2:2, poiountev) to express the idea that it is impossible for one walking by the Spirit to carry into full effect any desire of the flesh. For this is the proper force of the verb telein, of which the ever-memorable Tetelestai, "It is finished", (Joh_19:30) is a typical illustration. This meaning obtains even in Rom_2:28 and Jam_2:8. The apostle seems to concede that the desire of the flesh may be felt by one who is walking by the Spirit; nay, even in at least an inchoate degree, given way to; but this much he affirms, that it will be impossible for such a one to ear," it out into full accomplishment. This qualified representation of the Christian"s holiness is intimated in the next verse more explicitly.
Vers. 16-18.
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The life and warfare of the Spirit in the soul.
This important passage suggests a comprehensive view of the Spirit"s work in the believer"s life.
I THE WORK Or THE SPIRIT IN THE BELIEVER.
1. "Walk in the Spirit." Nothing could be more descriptive of the naturaleffect of the spiritual change produced in regeneration. The new-born child soon discovers symptoms of activity. The language of the passage reminds us:
(1) Of our dependence on the Spirit. It is not enough that we begin the Divine life; we must maintain it through all its stages and experiences. The exercises of a believer are only effectual by the Spirit,
(2) It implies consistency. Our life must be in harmony with the mind of the Spirit. His will must be our constant guide. "Therefore grieve not the Holy Spirit." "The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth." Only thus can we walk in the Spirit.
(3) It implies progress. If we walk, we make progress in our journey. "Enoch walked with God.
2. Led by the Spirit. This implies an entire surrender of ourselves to the authority and guidance of the Spirit. The traveller in a strange land must follow his guide. So the believer is led by the Spirit with the Word, which is the chart of his journey through life. The term implies, not an isolated act of the Spirit, but a continuous help provided through all parts of a believer"s life.
II THE REASONS BY WHICH WE ARE HERE URGED TO MAINTAIN OUR DEPENDENCE UPON THE SPIRIT.
1. There wilt be no fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. This is self-evident. The Spirit"s guidance will keep us apart from all sinful indulgences, from all earthliness, from all the sins and purposes of the merely natural man. The Spirit and the flesh exclude one another. We shall not trust in our own strength, and so we shall be kept; we shall consult his will supremely, and he will deliver us from the perversities and delusions of our own will.
2. The warfare between the flesh and the Spirit demands extreme care on our part to be always in the Spirit"s complete disposal.
(1) The conflict in question is inevitable. Indwelling sin is the calamity of all the people of God. Two powers are at work within one and the same person. If there were no such strife, with the irreconcilable antagonism involved in it, there could be no grace. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit." It uses the senses to mar the Spirit"s power. It presents to the eyes what will inflame evil passions; it appeals through the ear to appetite; it finds the tongue often too ready to serve its purposes. "The Spirit lusteth against the flesh." He is there entrenched within the soul and will not be dislodged. He uses the senses the eye, the ear, the tongue, the hand, the foot for the purposes of edification. He conveys thoughts, suggests impressions, and imparts motives, which restrain, guide, and influence the soul.
(2) The effects of the conflict. "So that ye cannot do the things that ye would." This implies that the believer would be free from temptation, but he cannot; he would uninterruptedly serve God, but he cannot; he would be perfect as God is perfect, but he cannot. It is a comfort, after all, to think that on account of the Spirit"s operation a believer cannot get doing all the evil he would.
(3) This conflict is not without its spiritual advantages. It humbles the believer, by giving him a better knowledge of his sin; it makes him mere watchful; it endears the Saviour to him; it commends the riches of Divine grace; it calls into exercise all the graces of the Spirit and all the faculties of his nature. It makes him long all the more for the rest of heaven.
3. The Spirit"s guidance exempts us from the Law. "If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the Law." The Galatians were for putting themselves again in subjection to Law and forgetting the free rule of the Spirit. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." It was necessary to remind them that they were now "dead to that in which they were held". (Rom_7:4) It was no longer to them "a Law of sin and death." "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus " made them free from it. How, then, does the Spirit"s guidance set them apart from the Law?
(1) The Spirit discovers the hopelessness of acceptance with God through Law.
(2) He enables the believer to acquiesce in the blessed discovery that "Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
(3) He enables the believer to regard the Law in a new light. It is now a rule of life. The believer does not tremble before it, because Christ fulfilled it. He delights in it after the inward man. It is to him a Law of liberty, now that he is not really under it as a way of justification.
Vers. 16-26.
Christian progress realized through antagonism.
We must not suppose, however, that the love which God gives us as our liberty can work out its will without experiencing opposition. Opposition we know it will meet in the world of selfish men; but Paul here points out the antagonism it meets within our own personalities. The flesh antagonizes the Spirit. Love does not get its own sweet way as often as we would. Self becomes a battle-ground, and God contends with the flesh for the supremacy of the soul. So violent is the contention that the flesh is actually "crucified with its affections and lusts." We are introduced, therefore, to the law of Christian progress which, because of our sinful nature, has to be through antagonizing the sinful tendencies in the interest of love. Observe
I SIN LEADS MAN TO FALL OUT WITH HIMSELF. (Ver. 17.) As Ullmann has beautifully said, "Man forms a unity, which is, however, only the foundation of that higher unity which is to be brought about in him, as a being made in the Divine image, by means of communion with God. Now, sin does not merely obstruct this unity, but sets up in its place that which is its direct opposite. He who has fallen away from God by sin, does, as a necessary consequence, fall out both with himself and with all mankind. True unity in man is possible only when that which is Godlike in him that is, the mind acquiesces in the Divine order of life, and governs the whole being in conformity therewith. But when he has once severed himself from the true centre of his being, that is, from God, then also does that element of his being, his mind, which is akin to God, and which was intended to be the connecting and all-deciding centre of his personal life, lose its central and dominant position; he ceases to be lord of himself and of his own nature; the various powers which make up his complex nature begin to carry on, each for itself, an independent existence; the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit wages a fruitless war with the flesh (ver. 17); sinful desire becomes dominant, and while the man seems to be in the enjoyment of all imaginable liberty, he has lost the only true liberty and has become a slave to himself; for "whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin" (Joh_8:34; Rom_6:16-23) He is the dependent of self; and being thus the slave of self, he is also the slave of pleasure, and of all those objects which it requires for its satisfaction." Man becomes thus a distracted manifold, instead of a God-centred unity.
II THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST ANTAGONIZES THE DISTRACTING TENDENCIES AND REDUCES MAN TO A UNITY AGAIN. The way in which we are united in heart and being is by having Jesus Christ pressed resistlessly upon our attention. Faith realizes in Christ not only a perfect personal Ideal, but also a Saviour on whom man may evermore depend. "The Christ of Christendom is not simply a Master to be loved and revered; he is a Saviour to be leaned upon. His followers are to have that profound sense of their own weakness and sinfulness which renders them sensitive to the purifying and reforming influences that radiate from the personality of Jesus. Without this, their love for the ideal would lead to no practical results; it would be merely an aesthetic sentiment, expending itself in a vague and fruitless admiration. But combine the two and you have the most effective reforming influence that the world has ever known." Christ is not only the unifying element in Church life, but in the individual life as well. He fuses all the distracted faculties into a glorious unity, and makes man his own master instead of his own slave. Hence, to quote the writer last referred to, "Christianity alone among all religions maintains a constant antagonism to the special tendency which controls the nature of its followers.
III BUT POSITIVE FRUIT IS PRODUCED BY THE ANTAGONIZING SPIRIT AS A GLORIOUS SET-OFF TO THE WORKS OF THE FLESH WHICH HE DESTROYS. (Vers. 19-24.) Religion is not to be regarded as a negative thing, contenting itself with antagonisms, but has positive and most important fruits. It is not a system of severe repressions, but a system full of stimulus towards a better and fuller life. It does not merely forbid "fornication, uncleanness," etc., under the penalty of exclusion from the kingdom of God, but it produces "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control. What a catalogue of virtues! What a contrast to the works of the flesh! Thus is man restored to something like his true and better self. The gospel of Christ is not a weary round of prohibitions, but is a glorious system of positive attainment, in a Divine life, which is loving, joyful, peaceful, and humane to its deepest depths.
IV AGAINST SUCH SPIRITUALLY MINDED ONES THERE CAN BE NO LAW OF CONDEMNATION. (Vers. 18-23.) Law, when translated into love, becomes light. God"s commandments are not grievous to the loving soul. In the keeping of them there is a great reward. Hence the Law presses heavily and hardly upon no loving spirit. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit". (Rom_8:1) It is to such a blissful experience we arc asked to come. R.M.E.
Walking by the Spirit.
I THE TRUE CHRISTIAN WILL AIM AT NOT FULFILLING THE LUST OF THE FLESH. It is the fashion of the age to decry asceticism. St. Paul was not an advocate of the monkish ideal according to which there was a virtue in restraining desires and activities which are harmless in themselves. But this revulsion of our own day with its "fleshly school" of poets goes much further in the opposite direction and honours as "natural," what St. Paul would repress as "carnal." It ignores two most important facts.
1. We have a higher and a lower nature. A man is as much an animal as a dog is. But he is also something more. In his right state the spiritual controls the animal in him. To be truly natural is not to reverse this relative position. To permit the lower self to dominate the upper self is to allow a most unnatural rebellion against right order to take place within us. As it is natural for a man to walk with his head erect, and as he is in an unnatural posture when he has fallen with his head downwards, so, as Bishop Butler has taught us, it is truly natural for conscience to be supreme, and it is going against nature to let the lower powers have unbridled liberty.
2. Our lower nature is unduly powerful. It has been indulged. It has broken through its proper restraints. It has grown too strong, while the higher spiritual nature has been starved and checked and weakened. As fallen creatures, we have lost the right balance of our powers. Our present nature is a corrupt nature. To reverence the unrestrained exercise of all our nature, as it now is, is to treat corruption and confusion with the honour that belongs only to order and perfection. The evil of the unrestrained sway of the lower nature is seen in its fruits Poetry hides them, but conscientious truthfulness declares them, and a more hideous collection of horrors cannot be imagined (vers. 19-21). Such fruits are certain proofs that the root is evil. Hence the aim of all fight-minded men must be to check the "lust of the flesh.
II THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN" THIS AIM IS WALKING BY THE SPIRIT. It cannot be accomplished by mere resistance and repression. This is why the method of Law failed. No laws will make a nation moral. Positive influences only can counteract the furious passions of the lower nature. We must walk by the Spirit.
1. Spiritual things must be the chief concerns of our lives. We must draw off our thoughts from the lower things by engaging them with the higher. Our own spiritual nature will thus grow stronger to resist the impulses of" the flesh.
2. God"s Holy Spirit must be sought as the guide and strength of our highest activities. Our spirituality can only flourish as the outcome of the indwelling Spirit of God. A real, direct influence will thus strengthen our better selves against the evil powers within.
3. Spirituality growing out of the indwelling of God"s Spirit must become a habit of daily life. It is not enough that we have brief moments of devout elevation above earthly things, if, when we return to the world, our hearts and minds are as much occupied with the lower interests of life as if we knew no others. We must "pray without ceasing." The tone and temper of our mind in the world must be above the world.
4. This condition is realized through union with Christ. The Spirit we need is "the Spirit of Christ." When we are Christ"s we crucify "the flesh with the passions and lusts thereof," and learn to walk by the Spirit. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil…
Gal_5:16
Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
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Flesh versus Spirit
A Galatian Christian might argue that the religion of Christ had not wrought for him the deliverance which he had expected; that whereas he had been taught to believe in the Almighty power of Christ, and of Christs grace, he found that there yet abode within him another power of a wholly different kind, a power antagonistic to the grace of Christ, a power constantly inclining him to evil. How was he to account for this state of things? was it that Christs gospel was ineffectual; or that he had not rightly apprehended it?
I. The abiding presence of the law of sin in the believers soul. Scripture everywhere assumes and asserts this (Jam_3:2; 1Jn_1:8).
II. Its hostility to good. Compromise is impossible. If sin be false to everything else, it must be true to its own nature; it must be hostile to that principle which aims at its destruction.
III. Note certain features in the action of sin.
1. It is secret.
2. It is constant.
3. It is subtle.
Seeks to discover the weakest parts in the souls defences; to deceive and beguile the soul, and so lead it captive.
IV. The maintenance of the spiritual life.
(1) The spirit acts upon the soul as the Revealer of spiritual truth; and
(2) as the Giver of spiritual power.
(3) There must be co-operation on our part. No tampering with evil. A circumspect walk. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)
Twofold nature of man
Mans nature presents two sides. On the one hand the body, with all its physical needs, desires, impulses; on the other hand that spiritual nature which distinguishes him from the animal creation. These two sides are often found in collision, warring against each other; the question is, how shall they be adjusted, and which ought to rule? The two extremes of crushing out one or the other entirely, are both wrong. The Christian method does no violence to any true part of human nature. It respects all parts; but gives special emphasis to the highest, not by crushing out the lower, but by bringing it into proper subordination, so that there shall be harmony, due proportion, and complete unity.
I. The spiritual nature must have the first place. It is the most noble, and therefore the most worthy of attention.
II. The spirit is to be the directing and ruling element. It is to sway the body, not the body to sway it.
III. The physical nature is to be allowed to exercise its natural rights, but under the guidance and control of the spiritual. How practical is all this! St. Paul does not content himself with taking up a merely negative attitude. To have simply forbidden this or that, or to have told his readers that they were to exercise a restraint upon their passions, would have been at best only a partial and an unsatisfactory way of dealing with their danger. He was far too true a master of the human heart to fall into the error that nothing more than prohibition was needed. If man is to be saved from evil thoughts, habits, passions, he must be given definite and positive duties to fulfil. This is true both of
(a) the body, and
(b) the mind, as well as
(c) the soul.
Be up and doing. Dont be idle. Let your life have definite aims; your heart and mind definite impulses, desires, principles. In this way will you be better able not only to resist what is evil but to grow in what is best. (A. Boyd Carpenter, M. A.)
The appeal to the spiritual nature
Such is St. Pauls method, and it is the one which treats man with the greatest respect, and is calculated to effect the desired end most completely. Man is not a machine to be regulated only by external influences. He has reason, will, conscience, love; in a word, a spiritual nature. To appeal to this spiritual nature, to place it in its proper position of authority and rule, is to treat man as man, and to do so with the greatest hope of success. Law alone will not succeed unless there is a response from within. Self-restraint will not be sufficient. What is needed is the creation of an inward power of good; a self-acting principle that shall love and will and strive after what is highest and best, and from the innermost citadel of the spirit rule every thought, word, act. This is what St. Paul advocates when he says, Walk in the Spirit. He contends for voluntary service as against enforced; for spiritual obedience as against the mere living by rule. It is the life of love and purity and wisdom that he advocates as the life, as against the impulses, desires, passions of the physical nature. And in doing this he not merely respects man as spiritual, he not merely points out the superiority of the spiritual, but he seeks to base thought and word and deed, and the whole tenor of the life, upon a heart loving what is good and hating what is evil. Service, with St. Paul, is spiritual, free, spontaneous, high-minded. The higher desires and spiritual forces for what is good not only check what is baser, but, influencing the whole manhood, lift up every faculty, power, impulse into a purer atmosphere. (A. Boyd Carpenter, M. A.)
The spiritual walk
In these words observe--
(1) A duty enforced;
(2) The consequent and fruit of it.
1. The duty is to walk in the Spirit, which is the sum of all Christian piety.
2. The motive is taken from the consequent and fruit of it: and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Let us fix the sense.
1. For the duty, to walk in the Spirit. Walking implieth the tenor and course of our actions, in all which we should follow the direction and inclination of the Spirit. Therefore by flesh and spirit is meant the old man and the new, and so by spirit is meant the renewed part, or the new man of grace in the heart (Joh_3:6, That which is born of the Spirit is spirit); that is, there is a work of saving grace wrought in our hearts by the Spirit of God, which new nature hath its motions and inclinations which must be obeyed and followed by us. And by flesh, is meant inbred corruption, or the old man, which is corrupt, with his deceivable lusts (Eph_4:22). Now, then, you see what it is to walk after the Spirit, to direct and order our actions according to the inclinations of the new nature.
2. For the consequent fruit of it: and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Here two things must be explained:--
(1) The lust of the flesh.
(2) Fulfil.
1. The lust of the flesh. By it is meant the inordinate motions of corrupt nature. The flesh doth not consider what is right and good, but what is pleasing to the senses, and craveth their satisfaction with much importunity and earnestness, to the wrong of God and our own souls; especially in youth, when the senses are in vigour, and lust and appetite in their strength and fury.
2. Ye shall not fulfil; that is, accomplish and bring into complete act, especially with deliberation and consent. Mark, he cloth not say that the lusting of corrupt nature shall be totally suppressed, but it shall not be fulfilled. The best of Gods children feel the motions of the flesh, but they do not cherish and obey them. The lusts of the flesh may be said to be fulfilled two ways--
(1) When the outward act is accomplished, or when lust hath conceived and brought forth (actual) sin (Jam_1:15).
(2) When for a continuance we obey the flesh, usually accomplish its motions without let and restraint, and with love, pleasure, and full consent of will; this is proper to the unregenerate. The flesh doth reign over them as its slaves; this is spoken of (Rom_6:12), Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Let it not have a power over you as slaves. The doctrine, then, is this: That the more Christians set themselves to obey the new nature, the more is the power of inbred corruption mortified and kept under.
To understand this point, let me lay down these propositions.
1. That there is a diversity of principles in a Christian--flesh and spirit.
2. That there is a liberty in a Christian of walking according to each principle, either the spirit or the flesh.
Application:
1. It showeth what necessity there is that we should look after conversion to God, or a work of grace wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, for the apostle supposeth they had the Spirit. There is no walking without living, for otherwise our motions are but the motions of puppets, not proceeding from internal life, but acted from springs and engines; no subduing the flesh without setting up an opposite principle.
2. Being renewed by the Holy Ghost, that is, having our minds enlightened and hearts inclined, we must obey this inclination; for life is not given us that we may have it, but that we may act by it, and do things suitable to that life which we have. Grace is not a sluggish, idle quality, but is always working and warring on the opposite principle.
3. Though at first we are pestered and encountered with the lusts of the flesh, which divert us from God and heavenly things, yet we should not be discouraged by every difficulty; for difficulties do but inflame a resolved spirit, as stirring doth the fire.
4. The carnal life is not of one sort. Some wallow in sensual pleasures, others have head and heart altogether taken up with the world and worldly things. Now if God hath put a new bias upon our wills and affections, we must show it forth by a heavenly conversation; for they that mind earthly things are carnal, and the great inclination of the new nature is to carry us unto God and the things of another world (2Co_5:5).
5. They are much to blame that complain of sin, and will not take the course to get rid of it by obeying the instincts of the Holy Ghost, or the motions of the new nature. The Lords spirit is a free spirit (Psa_51:12.), and His truth maketh us free (Joh_8:32).
6. How much we are concerned in all conflicts, especially in those which allow deliberation, to take part with the Spirit, and obey His motions rather than to fulfil the lusts of the flesh: otherwise, by consent and upon deliberation, you are unfaithful to Christ and your own souls. Your business is not to gratify the flesh, but to crucify it, to overrule sense and appetite, and cherish the life of grace (Gal_5:24).
7. It is of great use and profit to us to observe which principle decayeth, the flesh or the Spirit; for thereby we judge of our condition, both in order to mortification and comfort.
The increase of the flesh may be known--
1. By your backwardness to God. Grace is clogged when you cannot serve Him with sweetness and delight (Rom_7:18).
2. When the heart groweth careless of heaven, and your life and love is more taken up about things present than things to come.
On the other hand, the prevalency and increase of the Spirit is known--
1. By a humble contentedness and indifference to plenty, pleasures, and honours.
2. When your delight in God, heaven, and holiness is still kept up.
3. When the heart is kept in a preparation for the duties of your heavenly calling. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Walking in the Spirit, the preservative from the lusts of the flesh
I. We are to inquire what it is to walk in the Spirit. I scarcely need to observe, that the Spirit of God is always represented in the New Testament as the Author of all holiness in the hearts of Christians; whence the Christian dispensation is eminently styled the ministration of the Spirit.
1. And first I imagine, that a regard to all the great evangelical principles is implied in the words, walk in the Spirit. In the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, in which the phrases of walking in the Spirit or after the Spirit are chiefly used, the apostle takes much pains to wean the Judaizing converts from a servile spirit of dependence upon the law, and to instil into them a spirit of liberty in Christ Jesus. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.
2. By walking in the Spirit may be also implied habitual dependence upon His help. To walk in the Spirit, therefore, is to acknowledge with the heart our own weakness and inability to serve God; to expect victory over sin only by the gracious operation of His Spirit.
3. To walk in the Spirit implies also, that we use the means by which the Spirit has promised to convey His influence, in the humble hope of thus receiving it. Bible-reading, attendance on the preaching of the gospel, reception of the Holy Communion, and especially prayer.
4. I observe, further, that to walk in the Spirit implies the exercise of a holy fear of Him; which will manifest itself by avoiding those things which would grieve Him, and by complying with His holy motions.
II. If we thus walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. This is the second point which I proposed to illustrate. There is a certain degree to which victory over the sinful desires of the flesh is obtained by every real Christian; and this degree is, perhaps, proportioned to that in which he walks in the Spirit. (J. Venn, M. A.)
How may we be so spiritual as to check sin in the first risings of it
I. The principle and root of sin and evil--the flesh with its lusts.
II. The opposite principle and root of life and righteousness--the Divine Spirit.
III. The terms and bounds of a Christians conquest, how far he may hope for victory--Ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
IV. The method and way of conquering--Walk in the Spirit. The best expedient in the world not to fulfil the lusts of the flesh, is to walk in the Spirit; which what it imports, I come now to show.
1. Walk in the Spirit; that is, in obedience to Gods commandments, which are the oracles of the Spirit (see Psa_119:1-3).
2. Walk in the Spirit; that is, as becometh those in whom Gods Spirit dwells. As if the apostle had said, The part which ye are now to act, O ye Christian Galatians, it is that of new creatures--see that ye keep the decorum. Demean yourselves like the children of God who are led of the Spirit of God (Rom_8:14).
3. Walk in the Spirit; that is, Fulfil the counsels and advices of the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. But if these three rules are too general and remote, I shall now lay down some more particular and exact directions for checking the beginnings of sin.
Rule
I.
Before the paroxysm cometh, prepare and antidote thy soul against these lusts of the flesh, by observing these advices.
1. That notable counsel of Eliphaz to Job: Acquaint now thyself with God, and be at peace (Job_22:21).
2. Stir up spiritual and holy lastings in thy soul after the love and favour, the grace and image, of thy God; and thou shalt not fulfil the lastings of the flesh.
Rule
II.--Study thoroughly the unchangeable natures, the eternal laws and differences, of moral good and evil. The sum of this rule then is: Deeply possess and dye thy soul all over with the representation of that everlasting beauty and amiableness that are in holiness, and of that horror, and ugliness, and deformity that eternally dwell on the forehead of all iniquity. Be under the awe and majesty of such clear convictions all day long, and thou shalt not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
Rule
III.--Understand thyself; be no stranger to thy own breast; know the frame, and temper, and constitution of thy mind. See what grace is principally wanting in thee, which is weakest, in what instances thy greatest failure betrays itself, in which of thy passions and affections thou art most peccable, and what lastings of the flesh they are which give thee the frequentest alarms, and threaten the greatest dangers.
Rule
IV.--Get and keep a tender, conscience. Be sensible of the least sin. The most tender-hearted Christian--he is the stoutest and most valiant Christian. Happy is the man that feareth always: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.
Rule
V.--Keep an exact guard upon thy heart (Pro_4:23). Let the eyes of thy soul be open and awake, upon all the stirrings of thy thoughts and affections.
Rule
VI.--Be daily training and exercising all thy graces. Have them always in battle-array.
Rule
VII.--Be well-skilled in the clenchs of temptation. I mean, in unmasking the sophistry and mystery of iniquity, in defeating the wiles and stratagems of the tempter, and in detecting and frustrating the cheats and finesses of the flesh with its deceitful lusts (Eph_4:22; 2Co_2:11). No small part of spiritual wisdom lies in the blessed art of discovering and refuting sins fallacies and impostures.
Rule
VIII.--Withdraw thyself, if possible, from the occasions of sin. Be thou as the deaf adder to that great charmer: the best entertainment thou canst give him is, Get thee behind me, Satan!
Rule
IX.--Bind thyself beforehand With the severest of thy resolutions, not to trust thy judgment, when the temptation begins to get within thee. A man in passion is not himself.
Rule
X.--Awe them with the authority of thy reason and understanding. It is infinitely unbeseeming a man, that his lower appetites should grow mutinous and untractable, that the inferior and brutish faculties of our soul, should rebel against that sovereign faculty of reason. How soon doth the presence of a grave magistrate allay a popular tumult, if he comes in soon enough, in the beginning of the riot? God hath made reason the magistrate of the little world; He hath given it a commission to keep the peace in our souls.
Rule
XI.--If thy distempered affections and lusts slight the authority of thy reason, as thou art a man; bid thy conscience do its office, as thou art a Christian. Try to awe them with Gods written Word. Bring out of the register of conscience the laws of Him that made thee; oppose some clear text of Holy Writ, that comes into thy mind against that very lust that is now rising.
Rule
XII.--If all this effect nothing, then draw the curtain, take off the veil from before thy heart, and let it behold the God that searcheth it (Jer_17:10; Heb_4:13). Show it the majesty of the Lord; see how that is described (Isa_6:1-3).
Rule
XIII.--If these great real arguments be slighted, try whether an argument, ad hominem, drawn from sense, will prevail. Awe thy lusts with the bitterness of thine own experience. Consider how often thou hast rues their disorders; what dismal consequences have followed upon their transports, and how dearly thou hast paid heretofore for thy connivance at them.
Rule
XIV.--Labour to cure thy justings and affections in the first beginning of their disorders, by revulsion, by drawing the stream and tide another way. As physicians stop an hemorrhage, or bleeding at the nose, by breathing the basilic vein in the arm, or opening the saphaena in the foot; so may we check our carnal affections, by turning them into spiritual ones: and those either--
1. Of the same nature. For example: catch thy worldly sorrow at the rise, and turn thy mourning into godly sorrow. If thou must needs weep, weep for something that deserves it.
2. Turn thy carnal affections into spiritual ones of a contrary nature. For example: allay thy worldly sorrow by spiritual joy. Try whether there be not enough in all-sufficiency itself to compensate the loss of any outward enjoyment; whether there will be any great miss or want of a broken cistern, when thou art at the fountain-head of living waters; whether the light of the sun cannot make amends for the expiring of a candle. Chastise thy carnal fears by hope in God. Set on work the grace contrary to the lust that is stilting; if it be pride and vain-glory in the applause of men, think how ridiculous it were for a criminal to please himself in the esteem and honour his fellow-prisoners render him, forgetting how guilty he is before his judge. If thou beginnest to be poured loosely out, and as it were dissolved in frolic, mirth, and joviality, correct that vainness and gaiety of spirit by the grave and sober thoughts of death, and judgment, and eternity.
Rule
XV.--If this avail not, fall instantly to prayer.
Rule
XVI.--When thou hast done this, rise up, and buckle on the shield of faith (Eph_6:16). Go forth in the name and strength of the Lord, to do battle with thy lusts. Conclusion: Let me now persuade the practice of these holy rules. Let us resolve, in the strength of Christ, to resist these lustings of the flesh. Let me press this with a few considerations.
1. The more thou yieldest, the more thou mayest. Sin is insatiable; it will never sayenough. Give it an inch, it will take an ell.
2. It is the quarrel of the Lord of hosts in which thou tightest. A cowardly soldier is the reproach of his commanders. Thou hast a noble General, O Christian, that hath done and finished perfectly whatever concerns thy redemption from the powers of darkness.
3. The lusts of the flesh are thy greatest enemies, as well as Gods. They war against thy soul (1Pe_2:11). To resist them feebly, is to do not only the work of the Lord, but of thy soul, negligently.
4. It is easy vanquishing at first in comparison. A fire newly-kindled is soon quenched, and a young thorn or bramble easily pulled up.
5. If thou resistest the victory is thine (Jam_4:7). Temptation puts on its strength, as the will is. Cease but to love the sin, and the temptation is answered.
6. Consider what thou doest. If thou fulfillest the lusts of the flesh, thou provokest thy heavenly Father, rebellest against Him (and rebellion is as witchcraft, and stubbornness as idolatry), thou crucifiest Jesus Christ afresh, and puttest Him to an open shame. Is this thy love and thanks to thy Lord, to whom thou art so infinitely beholden? Canst thou find in thy heart to put thy spear again in His side? Hath He not suffered yet enough? Is His bloody passion nothing? Must He bleed again? Ah, monster of ingratitude! Ah, perfidious traitor as thou art, thus to requite thy Master! Again, thou grievest thy Comforter: and is that wisely clone? Who shall comfort thee, ii He depart? (John Gibbon, B. D.)
The renewed man
If, therefore, you would judge of the life in the soul by the command which is exercised over the body, you must bring into account the agency employed, as well as the result effected. You must calculate whether the non-fulfilment of the lust of the flesh be in consequence of a radical change of the heart, or nothing more than the proud device of a weak, and self-sufficient nature.
1. It is not necessary that a man should be what Scripture calls a renewed man in order to his effecting a vast reformation in his ordinary conduct. Reformation, indeed, will unavoidably follow on renewal; and when thus produced, will be far more vigorous and decided than when traced to any other origin. But Satan, yea, oven Satan, can busy himself with the reforming of a man; for has the devil nothing to do with self-righteousness? has he nothing to do with the substitution of morality for faith? There will, indeed, have been all this outward change if an individual has been renewed by Gods Spirit; but, alas! it is not true, that because there is a change there must have been renewal! For you should remember that there follows, in the chapter from which our text is taken, a catalogue of the works of the body; and this catalogue contains emulations, wrath, strife--though these may have seemed to be mental rather than bodily actions. We are bound, therefore, to set down as works of the body many works which are not wrought by the agency of our corporeal members. Pride, for example, is classed as a work of the flesh, though it passes ordinarily as a disease of the mind. We argue, therefore, that since a man may gratify his pride by the higher discipline which he exercises over appetite and passion, he may be fulfilling, in one sense, the lust of the flesh, whilst to others he may seem to be mortifying that lust. Pride is emphatically a sin of the devil, and, therefore, to trace the action of pride is to trace it to the devil. Thus, we think our first proposition sufficiently established. There may be a struggle with the lust of the flesh where there is no walking in the Spirit, and, therefore, well might the apostle fix our thoughts on the agency as well as on the result.--This I say, then--oh! be not content with the appearance of resistance to the corruption of nature without searching into the origin of that resistances this I say, then, Walk in the Spirit, then, and then only, shall you really and actually not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
2. We proceed to set more definitely before you our second position, that there can be no effectual non-fulfilment of the lust of the flesh--none such as shall prove spiritual--unless there be walking in the Spirit. It is unquestionable, as we have already admitted, that a man may mortify many deeds of the body. He may climb the mountains, and there, far away from all companionship with his fellows, the rock for his couch, and the wild fruits for his sustenance, he may live down the fierceness of passion, and win over carnal desires so effective a sovereignty, that though they have heretofore been most imperious in their cravings, they shall ever after yield obedience to the severer calls of the Divine law. We know of nothing that may more confound those who have embraced true religion--who prefer deliverance through the satisfaction of Christ--than the ready submission to every kind of toil and privation which is presented by the votaries of false systems of theology. But, whatever the appearance, there is no thorough mortification of the lust of the flesh unless it be with the heart that the mortification begins. Yes, when the flesh is covered with the ashes and torn with the stripes, may pride be abroad in its strength, and man be regarded by the Holy Spirit of God as cherishing that self-sufficiency which it is the first object of the gospel to eject, and which must be subdued ere there can be admission to the kingdom of heaven. And if it be thus true that the lust of the flesh Scannel be thoroughly unfulfilled unless the heart be overcome and brought into subjection, then no withstanding of the lusts can be that which proves a man quickened from the death of trespasses and sins, unless effected by the Spirit of God. As to outward conduct, a man may change it for himself, and, even as we have shown you, be assisted by Satan; but an internal change, the bringing order and harmony out of confusion and discord in the human soul, the crucifixion of the flesh, the renewal of the heart, can only be brought about by the Holy Ghost. See, then, whither you must turn for instruction and strength if you would live and not die. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Oh I not to be Christs, after Christ has taken flesh, and sorrowed, and suffered, and died in order to make us His! Oh! not to be Christs, though redeemed by Christ at the untold cost of His agony and His blood! And what is wanting to make us Christs? Just that we have His Spirit, that Spirit which is freely promised to all by whom it is earnestly sought. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Walking in the Spirit
As having a steady forward movement, as requiring not only an action of the will, but purpose, strength, and circumspection, the Christian life is very well conceived in figure as walking. Now, there are two ways or roads on either of which we may be walking--a way of life and a way or death. And the way of life is not easy to find. It is full of questions. The paths divide and diverge at all angles. We do not travel by trains. The apostle uses the more accurate word. It is a walk--step by step--an individual, personal thing, with free choice, continual effort, and an onward movement. If it is to be worth anything, if it is to come to anything noble here, or immortal hereafter, life is costly. We must pay; we must think; we must watch and work, and perhaps suffer. We are equal to it, not in our own strength, but by a Power given us from above. What is the Power? Where is the Guide? To have the life that is glorious and eternal--all its failures forgiven, and its end perfect--perfect victory and perfect peace--we must walk--in that way? We come back to St. Paul He answers, This I say then, Walk in the Spirit. He is positive and peremptory. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit. There is one way to take and follow. There is a guide for this life. Walking is living; it is our lifes movement forward in this world. But how that shall be in the Spirit is what we want to know more perfectly. And here, as often happens, we are helped by contrasts. Throughout all this writing to the Galatians, and through all his preaching of the gospel of Christ, we find this grand expounder of it pointing out two opposite forces in the nature of every man. He has various names for them--the law of the members and the law of the mind--the old man and the new man--but oftenest the flesh and the spirit. It is popular language: we all know well enough what he means, not because the terms are precise, but because we are all conscious of having in ourselves the two things--if not always at work or at war, yet always there, ready to start up at any time and renew their battle. Take notice, the New Testament never says that the worse force of the two is wholly evil, or the better one wholly good. The gospel does teach everywhere that the spirit in man is the natural organ of what is highest and best in him, while the flesh is the natural organ of what is lower--the one connecting with the spiritual world above us, the other with the world below. St. Paul does preach, plainly and with all his might, that there is a struggle of each of these two forces for the mastery, and that it is a desperate fight till the right one gets the upper hand and rules. There are only two ways anywhere. It is one thing or the other. If we are not living in the spirit, we are living as part and parcel of a material world, which then overgrows and stifles the spirit, absorbs all interests into its outside show and passional comforts, then runs down, perishes, and has no immortality but the lingering one of the second death. If it is inquired then, What is our spiritual life? it is that within us which feels God to be a Father, which seeks and follows what is good in itself, which chooses what is lovely in conduct and generous in judgment, which tests friendships by their purity, and pursuits by their righteousness, which has faith in the unseen, which worships, which is touched and sometimes enraptured by the beauty of holiness. The spirit is that in us which would rather suffer than do wrong, and rather be crucified than mistake Caesar for the Saviour or Mammon for its maker. It would choose truth before falsehood: no matter what bribe is put into the balance with the lie. It is that by which we forgive injuries, and confess our own sins, and are willing to be made poorer for the kingdom of heavens sake, and take in the glorious sense of the encomium on charity in 1Co_13:1-13. There is another contrast still. St. Paul, through all this passage, has in mind not only a comparison of the spiritual mind with the sensual and selfish mind, but of the life lived in the spirit and a life which looks somewhat like it, but at heart, under the surface, is a very different thing:--i.e., a life lived under a set of rules formed by external regulations, fashioned, pieced together, cut and dried by the law. You know how determined his assaults were always, in every sermon and every epistle, from his conversion at Damascus up to his martyrdom at Rome, on the system which sees nothing in religion but rule. The reason is that in a character shaped by outside rules you will never have anything deeper than an outside piety. It will not be character at all, but only the shell of it. The heart of love has not begun to beat, the Spirit of Christ has not begun to breathe in them. Whoever would be a Christian must be one heartily and cheerfully, not grudgingly or of necessity. The Christian life must spring and bubble up from within, not be fitted on from without. (Bishop F. D. Huntington.)
The positiveness of the Divine life
There are two ways of dealing with every vice that troubles us, in either ourselves or others. One is to set to work directly to destroy the vice; that is the negative way. The other is to bring in as overwhelmingly as possible the opposite virtue, and so to crowd and stifle and drown out the vice; that is the positive way. Now there can be no doubt about St. Paul. Here comes his poor Gatatian fighting with his lust of the flesh. How shall he kill it? St. Paul says not, Do as few fleshly things as you can, setting him out on a course of repression; but, Do just as may spiritual things as you can, opening before him the broad gates of a life of positive endeavour. And when we have thoroughly comprehended the difference of these two methods, and seen how distinctly St. Paul chose one instead of the other, we have laid hold on one of the noblest characteristics of his treatment of humanity, one that he had gained most directly from his Lord. I should despair of making any one see the distinction who did not know it in his own experience. Everywhere the negative and the positive methods of treatment stand over against each other, and men choose between them. Here is a man who is beset by doubts, perhaps, about the very fundamental truths of Christianity. He may attack all the objections in turn, and at last succeed in proving that Christianity is not false. That is negative. Or he may gather about him the assurance of all that his religion has done, and sweep away all his doubts with the complete conviction that Christianity is true. That is positive, and that is better. We see the same principle, the superiority of the positive to the negative, constantly illustrated in matters of opinion. How is it that people change their opinions, give up what they have steadfastly believed, and come to believe something very different, perhaps its very opposite? I think we all have been surprised, if we have thought about it, by the very small number of cases in which men deliberately abandon positions because those positions have been disproved and seem to them no longer tenable. And even when such cases do occur, the effect is apt to be not good, but bad. The man abandons his disproved idea, but takes no other in its stead; until, in spite of their better judgment, many good men have been brought to feel that, rather than use the power of mere negation, and turn the believer in an error into a believer in nothing, they would let their friend go on believing his falsehood, since it was better to believe something, however stupidly, than to disbelieve everything, however shrewdly. But what then? How do men change their opinions? Have you not seen? Holding still their old belief, they come somehow into the atmosphere of a clearer and a richer faith. That better faith surrounds them, fills them, presses off them with its own convincingness. They learn to love it, long to receive it, try to open their hands and hearts just enough to take it in and hold it along with the old doctrine which they have no idea of giving up. They think that they are holding both. They persuade themselves that they have found a way of reconciling the old and the new, which have been thought unreconcilable. Perhaps they go on thinking so all their lives. But perhaps some day something startles them, and they awake to find that the old is gone, and that the new opinion has become their opinion by its own positive convincing power. There has been no violence in the process, nor any melancholy gap of infidelity between. It seems to me that there is something so sublimely positive in Nature. She never kills for the mere sake of killing, but every death is but one step in the vast weaving of the web of life. She has no process of destruction which, as you turn it to the other side and took at it in what you know to be its truer light, you do not see to be a process of construction. She gets rid of her wastes by ever new plans of nutrition. This is what gives her such a courageous, hopeful, and enthusiastic look, and makes men love her as a mother and not fear her as a tyrant. They see by small signs, and dimly feel, this positiveness of her workings which it is the glory of natural science to reveal more and more. We find the same thing in the New Testament. The God there revealed to us is not a God of repression, or restraint, but a God whose symbols should be the sun, the light, the wind, the fire--everything that is stimulating, everything that fosters and encourages and helps. Such is the God whose glory we see in the face of Jesus Christ. The distinction is everywhere. Not by merely trying not to sin, but by entering farther and farther into the new life, in which, when it is completed, sin becomes impossible; not by merely weeding out wickedness, but by a new and supernatural culture of holiness, does the saint of the New Testament walk on the ever-ascending pathway of growing Christliness, and come at last perfectly to Christ. This is the true difference between law and grace, add the New Testament is the book of grace. And this character of the New Testament must be at the bottom in conformity with human nature. The Bible and its Christianity are not in contradiction against the nature of the man they try to save. Let us never believe they are. They are at war with all his corruptions, and, in his own interest, though against his stubborn will, they are for ever labouring to assert and re-establish his true self. And in this fundamental character of the New Testament, by which it is a book not of prohibitions but of eager inspirations, there comes out a deep harmony between it and the heart of man. For mans heart is always rebelling against repression as a continuous and regular thing. Man is willing to make self-sacrifices for a certain temporary purpose. The merchant will give up his home, the student shut his books, the mother leave her household for a time, to do some certain work. The world is full of self-sacrifice, of the suppression of desires, the forcing of natural inclinations; but all the while under this crust the fire is burning; all the time, under this self-sacrifice, there is a restless, hungry sense that it is not right, that it cannot be final; there is a crying out for self-indulgence. All the time there is a great human sense that not suppression but expression is the true life. And what has Christ to say to one, who, acting on this prompting of his nature, gives up restraint and tries indulgence? My brother, I can hear him say, you are not wholly wrong. Nay, at the bottom, you are right. Self-mortification, self-sacrifice, is not the first or final law of life. You are right when you think that these appetites and passions were not put into you merely to be killed, and that the virtue which only comes by their restraint is a poor, colour-less, and feeble thing. You are right in thinking that not to restrain yourself and to refrain from doing, but to utter yourself, to act, to do, is the purpose of your being in the world. Only, my brother, this is not the self you are to utter, these are not the acts you are to do. There is a part in you made to think deeply, made to feel nobly, made to be charitable and chivalric, made to worship, to pity, and to love. You are not uttering yourself while you keep that better self in chains, and only let these lower passions free. Let me renew those nobler powers, and then believe with all your heart and might that to send out those powers into the intensest exercise is the one worthy purpose of your life. Then these passions, which you are indulging because you cannot believe that you were meant to give your whole life up to bridling them, will need no forcible bridling, and yet, owning their masters in the higher powers which come out to act, they will be content to serve them. You will not fulfil your passions any longer, but the reason will not be that you have resumed the weary guard over your passions which you tried to keep of old. It will be that you have given yourself up so utterly to the seeking after holiness, that these lower passions have lost their hold upon you. You will not so much have crushed the carnal as embraced the spiritual. I shall have made you free. You will be walking in the Spirit, and so will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Is not this Christs method? Is not this the tone of His encouraging voice? Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, but Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. It is the positive attainment and not the negative surrender. It is the self-indulgence of the highest, and not the self-surrender of the lowest, that is the great end of the gospel. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
The spiritual walk
I. The point from which we have to start--Walk in the Spirit. In every walk there is a place from which we first proceed. The starting-point for every man in the spiritual walk is a state of unrenewed nature, an unconverted, unregenerated condition.
II. Let us now proceed to our second part: Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. We have seen the point from which, we now consider the course by which we are to walk--Walk in the Spirit. But here there must first of all be life in order to our obeying this exhortation. A dead man walks not, moves not, from whence he is. But to walk not only requires life, there must be strength, and willingness to exert strength. The sick man often cannot walk, the slothful man often will not; the spiritually diseased and slothful walk not in the Spirit; but the Holy Ghost infuses an energy into the soul of man. But in walking beside life, strength, and willingness, there must likewise be a constraining motive to induce man to walk in the road marked out for his path. The constraining motive in the spiritual walk is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Redeemer. But still there must be a road marked out for walking. There is one marked out for each of you by the Holy Spirit; there is a way, little trodden indeed by the multitude, but well known to all who have gone, and who are going to heaven. It is a straight and a narrow way; it has its difficulties.
III. Our third part yet waits. A walk, we have seen, has a point whence, a way by which, and now a place whither men are walking. The point to which the spiritual walk is intended to lead is perfect holiness, meetness for heaven, yea, heaven itself. (J. Hambleton.)
The spirit and the flesh
When St. Paul talks of mans flesh, he means by it mans body, mans heart and brain, and all his bodily appetites and powers--what we call a mans constitution; in a word, the animal part of man, just what a man has in common with the beasts who perish. To understand what I mean, consider any animal--a dog, for instance--how much every animal has in it what men have,--a body, and brain, and heart; it hungers and thirsts as we do; it can feel pleasure and pain, anger and loneliness, and fear and madness: it likes freedom, company, and exercise, praise and petting, play and ease; it uses a great deal of cunning, and thought, and courage, to get itself food and shelter, just as human beings do; in short, it has a fleshly nature, just as we have, and yet, after all, it is but an animal, and so, in one sense, we are all animals, only more delicately made than the other animals; but we are something more--we have a spirit as well as a flesh, an immortal soul. If any one asks, what is a man? the true answer is, an animal with an immortal spirit in it; and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and pain, which are mere carnal, that is, fleshly things; it can feel trust, and hope, and peace, and love, and purity, and nobleness, and independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong. There is the infinite difference between an animal and a ,,nan, between our flesh and our spirit; aa animal has no sense of right and wrong; a dog who has done wrong is often terrified, but not because he feels it wrong and wicked, but because he knows from experience that he will be punished for doing it: just so with a mans fleshly nature;--a carnal, fleshly man, a man whose spirit is dead within him, whose spiritual sense of right and wrong, and honour and purity, is gone, when he has done a wrong thing is often enough afraid; but why? Not for any spiritual reason, not because he feels it a wicked and abominable thing, a sin, hut because he is afraid of being punished for it. Now, in every man, the flesh and the spirit, the body and the soul, are at war. We stand between heaven and earth. Above us, I say, is Gods Spirit speaking to our spirits; below us is this world speaking to our flesh, as it spoke to Eves, saying to us, This thing is pleasant to the eyes--this thing is good for food--that thing is to be desired to make you wise, and to flatter your vanity and self-conceit. And where mans flesh gets the upper hand, and takes possession of him, 1t can do nothing but evil--not that it is evil in itself, but that it has no rule, no law to go by; it does not know right from wrong; and therefore it does simply what it likes, as a dumb beast or an idiot might; and therefore the works of the flesh are--adulteries, drunkenness, murders, fornications, envyings, backbitings, strife. When a mans body, which God intended to be the servant of his spirit, has become the tyrant of his spirit, it is like an idiot on a kings throne, doing all manner of harm and folly without knowing that it is harm and folly. This is not its fault. Whose fault is is it, then? Our fault,--the fault of our wills and our souls. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)
Walking in the Spirit
I. We are to walk in the spirit of God.
II. How are we to know that we have the Spirit?
1. Not simply by natural conscience.
2. By the effect of the Spirit on the Christian life.
3. By a life that has an uniform God-ward tendency.
III. The Spirit must influence our daily life and actions.
1. The Spirit comes to young and old.
2. The Spirit influences in different ways.
3. His operation is necessary.
4. His operation must be deep and permanent. (Canon Tristram.)
The life and warfare of the Spirit in the soul
I. The work of the Spirit in the believer.
1. We live in the Spirit.
(1) He begins the new life.
(2) Sustains it.
2. We walk in the Spirit. Activity the first symptom of life. This
(1) reminds us of our dependence on the Spirit.
(2) Implies our consistency. Deportment must harmonize with character.
(3) Is significant of progress.
3. We are led by the Spirit.
(1) An entire surrender to His authority.
(2) Following Him in the path of duty, we find the truest happiness and perfect safety.
II. The reasons why the believer should be urged to maintain it.
1. We shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
(1) We shall be kept from sin.
(2) We shall grow in grace.
2. We are not under law. Freedom from
(1) the law of sin;
(2) the law of death.
3. We shall be victorious in the great battle between the flesh and the Spirit.
(1) Indwelling sin is strong.
(2) The Spirit makes us conquerors. (J. Morgan, D. D.)
The marks of a Christian
I. He walks in and is led by the Spirit, i.e., he has--
1. A heart always open to Divine influence.
2. A life subordinate to Divine rule.
II. He conquers the flesh.
1. In the inward strife described here, and in Rom_7:1-25., the Christian is not under the law of the flesh, but subdues the corrupt nature and brings it into subjection to the Spirit.
2. He does this daily.
III. He brings forth the fruits of the Spirit. Examine yourself by the list (verses 22, 23).
The principles and method of Christian life
I. The practical principles of the Christian life.
1. The virtues which are God-derived and God-ward.
(1) Love, the tie which binds us to God as a Father.
(2) Joy, the glad emotion which makes music in the renewed soul.
(3) Peace, the summer calm which settles upon the conscience.
2. Those which refer to our fellow-men--longsuffering meekness.
(1) They are the counterpart of the Divine virtues.
(2) Are derived from the same spring.
3. These belonging to the general disposition and habit of the soul, Faith temperance.
II. The method by which we appropriate these principles and make them effective in our character.
1. Negatively: the apostle does not
(1) throw us back on our own will;
(2) hold up minute regulations and restrictions.
2. Positively: he tells us to walk in the Spirit.
(1) Not simply after a spiritual manner,
(2) by a mere Divine influence; but
(3) by personal power of the Holy Spirit.
III. Remember the true order of Christian life as here unfolded.
1. The bad is not overcome by mere abstinence from evil.
2. Be filled with the Spirit and evil will be overcome. (S. Pearson, M. A.)
The non-fulfilment of the lust of the flesh without the Spirit
I. When man trusts in anything he has done it cannot be Gods Spirit who leads to the doing of it.
II. No non-fulfilment of the lust of the flesh, which is not the result of walking in the Spirit, affords any proof of life in the soul.
III. The operations of grace may be closely imitated, though no change may have passed over the heart.
IV. In his endeavour to destroy men the devil may employ morality as well as villainy.
V. It is not enough for the mortification of the deeds of the body that the lusts of the flesh should appear unfulfilled.
VI. If, therefore, you would judge of the life in the soul by the command which is exercised over the body, you must bring into account the agency employed as well as the result effected. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Flesh and Spirit
Thou hast a double nature. Choose between the worst and the better that is within thee. Thou hast it in thy power to become the slave of passion, the slave of luxury, the slave of sensual power, the slave of corruption. Thou hast it also in thy power to become the free master of thyself, to become the everlasting benefactor of thy country, and the unfailing champion of thy God. (Dean Stanley.)
The Divine rule
Keep the spiritual nature uppermost. Give the spiritual man the advantage. Settle every account in the Spirits favour. It will not make everything convenient, or merry, or prosperous. There may be mistakes of judgment; life may seem like a strain of bad music pitched to a minor key; your ideals may not be attained. Never mind that. The voice rings out over all the contradictions and ruins, This I say then, walk in the Spirit. To be spiritually minded is life and peace--life now and peace at last. (Bp. Huntington.)
The Pauline ethics
are as stern and strict as those of any system which has ever been promulgated. The liberty on which he insisted was no cover, no apology, no defence for licence, for those wild and profligate excesses which the fanatics faith has sometimes permitted. The extravagances of the Adamites, of the Cathari, of the Anabaptists, have been quoted as a reproach on the genius of Christianity. In reality they are a homage to it. The claim of Christianity on the allegiance of men has been so strong that they who have repudiated its spirit have affected to call themselves by its name. The Israelites often fell into that idolatry which the law donounced, condemned, chastised. But there is no reason to think that they forgot their nationality in their sin. (Paul of Tarsus.)
Value of spirituality of mind
A beautiful flower--the wood sorrel--grows among the trees in some parts of England. It has shining green leaves, and transparent bells with white veins. When it is gathered roughly, or the evening dew falls, or the clouds begin to rain, the flower closes and droops; but when the air is bright and calm, it unfolds all its loveliness. Like this sensitive flower, spirituality of mind, when touched by the rough hand of sin, or the cold dews of worldliness, or the noisy rain of strife, hides itself in the quietude of devout meditation; but when it feels the influence of sunny and serene piety, it expands in the beauty of holiness, the moral image of God. (S. J. Wright.)
Entire consecration necessary
Suppose you were to buy a ouse and lot and an elegant residence, pay the money and get the deeds, and the day you were to go in the gentleman said, Heres the key to eight rooms, I have reserved two rooms. Didnt I buy the house? Yes Well, what do you mean? I want to keep four tigers in one room, and the other I want to fill with reptiles. I want them to stay here. You say, Well, my friend, if you mean what you say I would not have your house as a gracious gift. You want me to move my family into a house where one room is full of tigers and the other full of snakes. Many a time we turn over our whole heart to God, and when He comes in we have reserved some rooms for the wild beasts of pride and the hissing serpents of iniquity. Let me tell you, brethren, I wont ask God to come and live in a house that I wont let my family live in. Empty every room in the house, and then the heart is the centre of gravity to Jesus Christ, and He will come in and live with you. (S. Jones.)
How to overcome temptation
Flee youthful lusts. Fight not, but flee; or if fight you must, copy the old Parthians, who, seated on fleet coursers and armed with bow and arrows, shot from the saddle, flying as they fought. If you cannot flee, then in Christs name and strength face round on the foe, and make a bold stand for God; and the virtues of youth shall rebuke the vices of age, and hoary sin shall go down before you armed with Gods word, as did the Philistine before the young shepherd and his sling. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
How to vanquish sin
Prudence: Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances at times as if they were vanquished? Christian: Yes, when I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my broidered coat, that will do it; also when I look into the roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it. (John Bunyan.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Chapter 23
Chapter 23
CHRISTS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH.
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Gal_5:16-26
LOVE is the guard of Christian freedom. The Holy Spirit is its guide. These principles accomplish what the law could never do. It withheld liberty, and yet did not give purity. The Spirit of love and of sonship bestows both, establishing a happy, ordered freedom, the liberty of the sons of God.
From the first of these two factors of Christian ethics the Apostle passes in Gal_5:16 to the second. He conducts us from the consequence to the cause, from the human aspect of spiritual freedom to the Divine. Love, he has said, fulfils all laws in one. It casts out evil from the heart; it stays the injurious hand and tongue; and makes it impossible for liberty to give the rein to any wanton or selfish impulse. But the law of love is no natural, automatic impulse. It is a Divine inspiration.." Love is of God." It is the characteristic "fruit of the Spirit" of adoption (Gal_5:22), implanted and nourished from above. When I bid you "by love serve each other," the Apostle says, I do not expect you to keep this law of yourselves, by force of native goodness: I know how contrary it is to your Galatic nature; "but I say, walk in the Spirit," and this will be an easy yoke; to "fulfil the desire of the flesh" will then be for you a thing impossible.
The word Spirit (πνευματι) is written indefinitely; but the Galatians knew well what Spirit the Apostle meant. It is "the Spirit" of whom he has spoken so often in this letter, the Holy Spirit of God, who had entered their hearts when they first believed in Christ and taught them to call God Father. He gave them their freedom: He will teach them how to use it. The absence of the definite article in Pneuma does not destroy its personal force, but allows it at the same time a broad, qualitative import, corresponding to that of the opposed "desire of the flesh." The walk governed "by the Spirit" is a spiritual walk. As for the interpretation of the dative case (rendered variously by, or in, or even for the Spirit), that is determined by the meaning of the noun itself. "The Spirit" is not the path in which one walks; rather He supplies the motive principle, the directing influence of the new life. Gal_5:16 is interpreted by Gal_5:18; Gal_5:25. To "walk in the Spirit" is to be "led by the Spirit"; it is so to "live in the Spirit" that one habitually "moves" (marches: ver. 25) under His direction.
This conception of the indwelling Spirit of God as the actuating power of the Christians moral life predominates in the rest of this chapter. We shall pursue the general line of the Apostles teaching on the subject in the present chapter, leaving for future exposition the detailed enumeration of the "fruit of the Spirit" and "works of the flesh" contained in Gal_5:19-23. This antithesis of Flesh and Spirit presents the following consideration:-
(1) the diametrical opposition of the two forces;
(2) the effect of the predominance of one or the other;
(3) the mastery over the flesh which belongs to those who are Christs. In a word, Christs Spirit is the absolute antagonist and the sure vanquisher of our sinful human flesh.
1. "I say, Walk by the Spirit, and you will verily not fulfil the lust of the flesh." On what ground does this bold assurance rest? Because, the Apostle replies, the Spirit and the flesh are opposites (Gal_5:17). Each is bent on destroying the ascendency of the other. Their cravings and tendencies stand opposed at every point. Where the former rules, the latter must succumb. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh."
The verb lust in Greek, as in English, bears commonly an evil sense; but not necessarily so, nor by derivation. It is a sad proof of human corruption that in all languages words denoting strong desire tend to an impure significance. Paul extends to "the desire of the Spirit" the term which has just been used of "the lust of the flesh," in this way sharpening the antithesis. Words appropriated to the vocabulary of the flesh and degraded by its use, may be turned sometimes to good account and employed in the service of the Holy Spirit, whose influence redeems our speech and purges the uncleanness of our lips.
The opposition here affirmed exists on the widest scale. All history is a battlefield for the struggle between Gods Spirit and mans rebellious flesh. In the soul of a half-sanctified Christian, and in Churches like those of Corinth and Galatia whose members are "yet carnal and walk as men," the conflict is patent. The Spirit of Christ has established His rule in the heart; but His supremacy is challenged by the insurrection of the carnal powers. The contest thus revived in the soul of a Christian is internecine; it is that of the kingdoms of light and darkness, of the opposite poles of good and evil. It is an incident in the war of human sin against the Holy Spirit of God, which extends over all time and all human life. Every lust, every act or thought of evil is directed, knowingly or unknowingly, against the authority of the Holy Spirit, against the presence and the rights of God immanent in the creature. Nor is there any restraint upon evil, any influence counteracting it in man or nation or race, which does not proceed from the Spirit of the Lord. The spirit of man has never been without a Divine Paraclete. "God hath not left Himself without witness" to any; and "it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." The Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of all truth and holiness. In the "truth as it is in Jesus" He possesses His highest instrument. But from the beginning it was His office to be Gods Advocate, to uphold law, to convict the conscience, to inspire the hope of mercy, to impart moral strength and freedom. We "believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life."
This war of Spirit and Flesh is first ostensibly declared in the words of Gen_6:3. This passage indicates the moral reaction of Gods Spirit against the worlds corruption, and the protest which in the darkest periods of human depravity He has maintained. God had allowed men to do despite to His good Spirit. But it cannot always be so. A time comes when, outraged and defied, He withdraws His influence from men and from communities; and the Flesh bears them along to swift destruction. So it was in the world before the Flood. So largely amongst later heathen peoples, when God "suffered all nations to walk in their own ways." Even the Mosaic law had proved rather a substitute than a medium for the free action of the Spirit of God on men. "The law was spiritual," but "weak through the flesh." It denounced the guilt which it was powerless to avert.
With the advent of Christ all this is changed. The Spirit of God is now, for the first time, sent forth in His proper character and His full energy. At last His victory draws near. He comes as the Spirit of Christ and the Father, "poured out upon all flesh." "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. I will put My Spirit within you": {Eze_36:25-27} this was the great hope of prophecy; and it is realised. The Spirit of Gods Son regenerates the human heart, subdues the flesh, and establishes the communion of God with men. The reign of the Spirit on earth was the immediate purpose of the manifestation of Jesus Christ.
But what does Paul really mean by "the flesh?" It includes everything that is not "of the Spirit." It signifies the entire potency of sin It is the contra-spiritual, the undivine in man. Its "works," as we find in Gal_5:20-21, are not bodily vices only, but include every form of moral debasement and aberration. Flesh in the Apostles vocabulary follows the term spirit, and deepens and enlarges its meaning precisely as the latter does. Where spirit denotes the super-sensible in man, flesh is the sensible, the bodily nature as such. When spirit rises into the supernatural and superhuman, flesh becomes the natural, the human by consequence. When spirit receives its highest signification, denoting the holy Effluence of God, His personal presence in the world, flesh sinks to its lowest and represents unrenewed nature, the evil principle oppugnant and alien to God. It is identical with sin. But in this profound moral significance the term is more than a figure. Under its use the body is marked out, not indeed as the cause, but as the instrument, the vehicle of sin. Sin has incorporated itself with our organic life, and extends its empire over the material world. When the Apostle speaks of "the body of sin" and "of death," and bids us "mortify the deeds of the body" and "the members which are upon the earth," {See Rom_6:6; Rom_6:12; Rom_7:4; Rom_8:23-24; Rom_8:10-13; Col_2:11-13; Col_3:5} his expressions are not to be resolved into metaphors.
On this definition of the terms, it is manifest that the antagonism of the Flesh and Spirit is fundamental. They can never come to terms with each other, nor dwell permanently in the same being. Sin must be extirpated or the Holy Spirit will finally depart. The struggle must come to a definitive issue. Human character tends every day to a more determinate form; and an hour comes in each case when the victory of flesh or spirit is irrevocably fixed, when "the filthy" will henceforth "be filthy still," and "the holy, holy still". {Rev_22:11}
The last clause of Gal_5:17, "that ye may not do the things that ye would," has been variously interpreted. The rendering of the Authorised Version ("so that ye cannot") is perilously misleading. Is it that the flesh prevents the Galatians doing the good they would? Or is the Spirit to prevent them doing the evil they otherwise would? Or are both these oppositions in existence at once, so that they waver between good and evil, leading a partly spiritual, partly carnal life, consistent neither in right nor wrong? The last is the actual state of the case. Paul is perplexed about them; {Gal_4:20} they are in doubt about themselves. They did not "walk in the Spirit," they were not true to their Christian principles; the flesh was too strong for that. Nor would they break away from Christ and follow the bent of their lower nature; the Holy Spirit held them back from doing this. So they have two wills, - or practically none. This state of things was designed by God, - "in order that ye may not do the things ye haply would"; it accords with the methods of His government. Irresolution is the necessary effect of the course the Galatians had pursued. So far they stopped short of apostasy; and this restraint witnessed to the power of the Holy Spirit still at work in their midst. {Gal_3:5; Gal_6:1} Let this Divine hand cease to check them, and the flesh would carry them, with the full momentum of their will, to spiritual ruin. Their condition is just now one of suspense. They are poised in a kind of moral equilibrium, which cannot continue long, but in which, while it lasts, the action of the conflicting forces of Flesh and Spirit is strikingly manifest.
2. These two principles in their development lead to entirely opposite results.
(1) The works of the flesh- "manifest" alas! both then and now-exclude from the kingdom of God. "I tell you beforehand," the Apostle writes, "as I have already told you: they who practise such things will not inherit Gods kingdom". {Gal_5:21}
This warning is essential to Pauls gospel; {Rom_2:16} it is good news for a world where wrong so often and so insultingly triumphs, that there is a judgment to come. Whatever may be our own lot in the great award, we rejoice to believe that there will be a righteous settlement of human affairs, complete and final; and that this settlement is in the hands of Jesus Christ. In view of His tribunal the Apostle goes about "warning and teaching every man." And this is his constant note, amongst profligate heathen, or hypocritical Jews, or backsliding and antinomian Christians, - "The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." For that kingdom is, above all, righteousness. Men of fleshly minds, in the nature of things, have no place in it. They are blind to its light, dead to its influence, at war with its aims and principles. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him-the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ-and walk in darkness, we lie." {1Jn_1:6} "Those who do such things" forfeit by doing them the character of sons of God. His children seek to be "perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect." They are "blameless and harmless, imitators of God, walking in love as Christ loved us." {Php_2:15; Eph_5:1-2} The Spirit of Gods Son is a spirit of love and peace, of temperance and gentleness. {Gal_5:22} If these fruits are wanting, the Spirit of Christ is not in us and we are none of His. We are without the one thing by which He said all men would know His disciples. {Joh_13:35} When the Galatians "bite and devour one another," they resemble Ishmael the persecutor, {Gal_4:29} rather than the gentle Isaac, heir of the Covenant.
"If children, then heirs." Future destiny turns upon present character. The Spirit of Gods Son, with His fruit of love and peace, is "the earnest of our inheritance, sealing us against the day of redemption". {Eph_1:14; Eph_4:30} By selfish tempers and fleshly indulgences He is driven from the soul; and losing Him, it is shut out from the kingdom of grace on earth, and from the glory of the redeemed. "There shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean; "such is the excommunication written above the gate of the Heavenly City. {Rev_21:27} This sentence of the Apocalypse puts a final seal upon the teaching of Scripture. The God of revelation is the Holy One; His Spirit is the Holy Spirit; His kingdom is the kingdom of the saints, whose atmosphere burns like fire against all impurity. Concerning the men of the flesh the Apostle can only say, "Whose end is perdition". {Php_3:19}
Writing to the Corinthians, Paul entreats his readers not to be deceived upon this point. {1Co_6:9-10; Eph_5:5} It seems so obvious, so necessary a principle, that one wonders how it should be mistaken, why he is compelled to reiterate it as he does in this place. And yet this has been a common delusion. No form of religion has escaped being touched by Antinomianism. It is the divorce of piety from morality. It is the disposition to think that ceremonial works on the one hand, or faith on the other, supersede the ethical conditions of harmony with God. Foisting itself on evangelical doctrine this error leads men to assume that salvation is the mere pardon of sin. The sinner appears to imagine he is saved in order to remain a sinner. He treats Gods mercy as a kind of bank, on which he may draw as often as his offences past or future may require. He does not understand that sanctification is the sequel of justification, that the evidence of a true pardon lies in a changed heart that loathes sin.
(2) Of the opposite principle the Apostle states not the ultimate, but the more immediate consequences. "Led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law" (Gal_5:18); and "Against such things-love, peace, goodness, and the like-there is no law" (Gal_5:23).
The declaration of Gal_5:18 is made with a certain abruptness. Paul has just said, in Gal_5:17, that the Spirit is the appointed antagonist of the flesh. And now he adds, that if we yield ourselves to His influence we shall be no longer under the law. This identification of sin and the law was established Gal_2:16-18; Gal_3:10-22. The law by itself, the Apostle showed, does not overcome sin, but aggravates it; it shuts men up the hopeless prisoners of their own past misdoing. To be "under law" is to be in the position of Ishmael, the slave-born and finally outcast son, whose nature and temper are of the flesh. {Gal_4:21-31} After all this we can understand his writing law for sin in this passage, just as in 1Co_15:56 he calls "the law the power of sin." To be under law was, in Pauls view, to be held consciously in the grasp of sin. This was the condition of which Legalism would reduce the Galatians. From this calamity the Spirit of Christ would keep them free.
The phrase "under law" reminds us once more of the imperilled liberty of the Galatians. Their spiritual freedom and their moral safety were assailed in common. In Gal_5:16 he had said, "Let the Holy Spirit guide you, and you will vanquish sin"; and now, "By the same guidance you will escape the oppressive yoke of the law." Freedom from sin, freedom from the Jewish law-these two liberties were virtually one. "Sin shall not lord it over you, because ye are not under law, but under grace". {Rom_6:14} Gal_5:23 explains this double freedom. Those who possess the Spirit of Christ bear His moral fruits. Their life fulfils the demands of the law, without being due to its compulsion. Law can say nothing against them. It did not produce this fruit; but it is bound to approve it. It has no hold on the men of the Spirit, no charge to bring against them. Its requirements are satisfied; its constraints and threatenings are laid aside.
Law therefore, in its Judaistic sense and application, has been abolished since "faith has come." No longer does it rule the soul by fear and compulsion. This office, necessary once for the infant heirs of the Covenant, it has no right to exercise over spiritual men. Law cannot give. {Gal_3:21} This is the prerogative of the Spirit of God. Law says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God"; but it never inspired such love in any mans breast. If he does so love, the law approves him, without claiming credit to itself for the fact. If he does not love his God, law condemns him and brands him a transgressor. But "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." The teaching of this paragraph on the relation of the believer in Christ to Gods law is summed up in the words of Rom_8:2 : "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death." Law has become my friend, instead of my enemy and accuser. For Gods Spirit fills my soul with the love in which its fulfilment is contained. And now eternal life is the goal that stands in my view, in place of the death with the prospect of which, as a man of the flesh, the law appalled me.
3. We see then that deliverance from sin belongs not to the subject of the law, but to the freemen of the Spirit. This deliverance, promised in Gal_5:16, is declared in Gal_5:24 as an accomplished fact. "Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh…They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts." The tyranny of the flesh is ended for those who are "in Christ Jesus." His cross has slain their sins. The entrance of His Spirit imports the death of all carnal affections.
"They who are Christs did crucify the flesh." This is the moral application of Pauls mystical doctrine, central to all his theology, of the believers union with the Redeemer (see chapter 10). "Christ in me-I in Him": there is Pauls secret. He was "one spirit" with Jesus Christ-dying; risen, ascended, reigning, returning in glory. His old self, his old world was dead and gone-slain by Christs cross, buried in "His grave." {Gal_2:20; Gal_6:14} And the flesh, common to the evil world and the evil self-that above all was crucified. The death of shame and legal penalty, the curse, of God had overtaken it in the death of Jesus Christ. Christ had risen, the "Lord of the Spirit," {2Co_3:18} who "could not be holden" by the death which fell on "the body of His flesh." They who are Christs rose with Him; while the flesh of sin stays in His grave. Faith sees it there, and leaves it there. We "reckon ourselves dead unto sin, and living unto God, in Christ Jesus." For such men, the flesh that was once-imperious, importunate, law-defying-is no more. It has received its death-stroke. "God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh". {Rom_8:3} Sin is smitten with the lightning of His anger. Doom has taken hold of it. Destroyed already in principle, it only waits for men to know this and to understand what has been done, till it shall perish everywhere. The destruction of the sinful flesh-more strictly of "sin in the flesh"-occurred, as Paul understood the matter, virtually and potentially in the moment of Christs death. It was our human flesh that was crucified in Him - slain on the cross because, though in Him not personally sinful, yet in us with whom He had made Himself one, it was steeped in sin. Our sinful flesh hung upon His cross; it has risen, cleansed and sanctified, from His grave.
What was then accomplished in principle when "One died for all," is realised in point of fact when we are "baptised into His death"-when, that is to say, faith makes His death ours and its virtue passes into the soul. The scene of the cross is inwardly rehearsed. The wounds which pierced the Redeemers flesh and spirit now pierce our consciences. It is a veritable crucifixion through which the soul enters into communion with its risen Saviour, and learns to live His life. Nor is its sanctification complete till it is "conformed unto His death". {Php_3:10} So with all his train of "passions and of lusts," the "old man" is fastened and nailed down upon the new interior Calvary, set up in each penitent and believing heart. The flesh may still, as in these Galatians, give mournful evidence of life. But it has no right to exist a single hour. De jure it is dead-dead in the reckoning of faith. It may die a lingering, protracted death, and make convulsive struggles; but die it must in all who are of Christ Jesus.
Let the Galatians consider what their calling of God signified. Let them recall the prospects which opened before them in the days of their first faith in Christ, the love that glowed in their hearts, the energy with which the Holy Spirit wrought upon their nature. Let them know how truly they were called to liberty, and in good earnest were made sons of God. They have only to continue as heretofore to be led by the Spirit of Christ and to march forward along the path on which they had entered, and neither Jewish law nor their own lawless flesh will be able to bring them into bondage. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Where He is not, there is legalism, or license; or, it may be, both at once.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 16–18. Walk in the Spirit. Under its guidance, as…
16–18. Walk in the Spirit. Under its guidance, as it directs. We have its directions in the words of Christ and the apostles. He who is guided by the Spirit will not obey the lusts of the flesh.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Galatians
‘WALK IN THE SPIRIT’
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Gal 5:16
We are not to suppose that the Apostle here uses the familiar contrast of spirit and flesh to express simply different elements of human nature. Without entering here on questions for which a sermon is scarcely a suitable vehicle of discussion, it may be sufficient for our present purpose to say that, as usually, when employing this antithesis the Apostle means by Spirit the divine, the Spirit of God, which he triumphed in proclaiming to be the gift of every believing soul. The other member of the contrast, ‘flesh,’ is similarly not to be taken as equivalent to body, but rather as meaning the whole human nature considered as apart from God and kindred with earth and earthly things. The flesh, in its narrower sense, is no doubt a predominant part of this whole, but there is much in it besides the material organisation. The ethics of Christianity suffered much harm and were degraded into a false and slavish asceticism for long centuries, by monastic misunderstandings of what Paul meant by the flesh, but he himself was too clear-sighted and too high-toned to give his adhesion to the superficial notion that the body is the seat and source of sin. We need look no further than the catalogue of the ‘works of the flesh’ which immediately follows our text, for, although it begins with gross sins of a purely fleshly kind, it passes on to such as hatred, emulations, wrath, envyings and suchlike. Many of these works of the flesh are such as an angel with an evil heart could do, whether he had a body or not. It seems therefore right to say that the one member of the contrast is the divine Spirit of holiness, and the other is man as he is, without the life-giving influence of the Spirit of God. In Paul’s thought the idea of the flesh always included the idea of sin, and the desires of the flesh were to him not merely rebellious, sensuous passion, but the sinful desires of godless human nature, however refined, and as some would say, ‘spiritual’ these might be. We do not need to inquire more minutely as to the meaning of the Apostle’s terms, but may safely take them as, on the one hand, referring to the divine Spirit which imparts life and holiness, and on the other hand, to human nature severed from God, and distracted by evil desires because wrenched away from Him.
The text is Paul’s battle-cry, which he opposed to the Judaising disturbers in Galatia. They said ‘Do this and that; labour at a round of observances; live by rule.’ Paul said, ‘No! That is of no use; you will make nothing of such an attempt nor will ever conquer evil so. Live by the spirit and you will not need a hard outward law, nor will you be in bondage to the works of the flesh.’ That feud in the Galatian churches was the earliest battle which Christianity had to fight between two eternal tendencies of thought--the conception of religion as consisting in outward obedience to a law, and consequently as made up of a series of painful efforts to keep it, and the conception of religion as being first the implanting of a new, divine life, and needing only to be nourished and cared for in order to drive forth evils from the heart, and so to show itself living. The difference goes very far and very deep, and these two views of what religion is have each their adherents to-day. The Apostle throws the whole weight of his authority into the one scale, and emphatically declares this as the one secret of victory, ‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.’
I. What it is to walk in the Spirit.
The thought which is but touched upon here is set forth more largely, and if we may so say, profoundly, in the Epistle to the Romans {chap. viii.}. There, to walk after the flesh, is substantially the same as to be carnally minded, and that ‘mind of the flesh’ is regarded as being by fatal necessity not ‘subject to the law of God,’ and consequently as in itself, with regard to future consequences, to be death. The fleshly mind which is thus in rebellion against the law of God is sure to issue in ‘desires of the flesh,’ just as when the pressure is taken off, some ebullient liquid will bubble. They that are after the flesh of course will ‘mind the things of the flesh.’ The vehement desires which we cherish when we are separated from God and which we call sins, are graver as a symptom than even they are in themselves, for they show which way the wind blows, and are tell-tales that betray the true direction of our nature. If we were not after the flesh we should not mind the things of the flesh. The one expression points to the deep-seated nature, the other to the superficial actions to which it gives rise.
And the same duality belongs to the life of those who are ‘after the Spirit.’ ‘To walk,’ of course, means to carry on the practical life, and the Spirit is here thought of not so much perhaps as the path on which we are to travel, but rather as the norm and direction by which we are to travel on life’s common way. Just as the desires of the flesh were certain to be done by those who in their deepest selves belonged to the flesh, so every soul which has received the unspeakable gift of newness of life through the Spirit of God will have the impulses to mind and do the things of the Spirit. If we live in the Spirit we shall also--and let us also--walk in the Spirit.
But let us make no mistakes, or think that our text in its great commandment and radiant hope has any word of cheer to those who have not received into their hearts, in however feeble a manner and minute a measure, the Spirit of the Son. The first question for us all is, have we received the Holy Ghost?--and the answer to that question is the answer to the other, have we accepted Christ? It is through Him and through faith in Him that that supreme gift of a living spirit is bestowed. And only when our spirits bear witness with that Spirit that we are the children of God, have we a right to look upon the text as pointing our duty and stimulating our hope. If our practical life is to be directed by the Spirit of God, He must enter into our spirits, and we shall not be in Him but in the measure that He is in us. Nor will our spirits be life because of righteousness unless He dwells in us and casts forth the works of the flesh. There will be no practical direction of our lives by the Spirit of God unless we make conscience of cultivating the reception of His life-giving and cleansing influences, and unless we have inward communion with our inward guide, intimate and frank, prolonged and submissive. If we are for ever allowing the light of our inward godliness to be blown about by gusts, or to show in our inmost hearts but a faint and flickering spark, how can we expect that it will shine safe direction on our outward path?
II. Such walking in the Spirit conquers the flesh.
We all know it as a familiar experience that the surest way to conquer any strong desire or emotion is to bring some other into operation. To concentrate attention on any overmastering thought or purpose, even if our object is to destroy it, is but too apt to strengthen it. And so to fix our minds on our own desires of the flesh, even though we may be honestly wishing to suppress them, is a sure way to invest them with new force; therefore the wise counsels of sages and moralists are, for the most part, destined to lead those who listen to them astray. Many a man has, in good faith, set himself to conquer his own evil lusts and has found that the nett result of his struggles has been to make the lusts more conspicuous and correspondingly more powerful. The Apostle knows a better way, which he has proved to his own experience, and now, with full confidence and triumph, presses upon his hearers. He would have them give up the monotonous and hopeless fight against the flesh and bring another ally into the field. His chief exhortation is a positive, not a negative one. It is vain to try to tie up men with restrictions and prohibitions, which when their desires are stirred will be burst like Samson’s bonds. But if once the positive exhortation here is obeyed, then it will surely make short work of the desires and passions which otherwise men, for the most part, do not wish to get rid of, and never do throw off by any other method.
We have pointed out that in our text to walk in the Spirit means to regulate the practical life by the Spirit of God, and that the ‘desires of the flesh’ mean the desires of the whole human nature apart from God. But even if we take the contrasted terms in their lower and commonly adopted sense, the text is true and useful. A cultivated mind habituated to lofty ideas, and quick to feel the nobility of ‘spiritual’ pursuits and possessions, will have no taste for the gross delights of sense, and will recoil with disgust from the indulgences in which more animal natures wallow. But while this is true, it by no means exhausts the great principle laid down here. We must take the contrasted terms in their fullest meaning if we would arrive at it. The spiritual life derived from Jesus Christ and lodged in the human spirit has to be guarded, cherished and made dominant, and then it will drive out the old. If the Spirit which is life because of righteousness is allowed free course in a human spirit, it will send forth its powers into the body which is ‘dead because of sin,’ will regulate its desires, and if needful will suppress them. And it is wiser and more blessed to rely on this overflowing influence than to attempt the hopeless task of coercing these desires by our own efforts.
If we walk in the Spirit, we shall thereby acquire new tastes and desires of a higher kind which will destroy the lower. They to whom manna is sweet as angel’s food find that they have lost their relish for the strong-smelling and rank-flavoured Egyptian leeks and garlic. A guest at a king’s table will not care to enter a smoky hovel and will not be hungry for the food to be found there. If we are still dependent on the desires of the flesh we are still but children, and if we are walking in the Spirit we have outgrown our childish toys. The enjoyment of the gifts which the Spirit gives deadens temptation and robs many things that were very precious of their lustre.
We may also illustrate the great principle of our text by considering that when we have found our supreme object there is no inducement to wander further in the search after delights. Desires are confessions of discontent, and though the absolute satisfaction of all our nature is not granted to us here, there is so much of blessedness given and so many of our most clamant desires fully met in the gift of life in Christ, that we may well be free from the prickings of desires which sting men into earnest seeking after often unreal good. ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,’ and surely if we have these we may well leave the world its troubled delights and felicities. Christ’s joy remains in us and our joy is full. The world desires because it does not possess. When a deeper well is sunk, a shallower one is pretty sure to give out. If we walk in the Spirit we go down to the deepest water-holding stratum, and all the surface wells will run dry.
Further, we may note, that this walking in the Spirit brings into our lives the mightiest motives of holy living and so puts a bridle on the necks and a bit in the mouths of our untamed desires. Holding fellowship with the divine Indweller and giving the reins into His strong hand, we receive from Him the spirit of adoption and learn that if we are children then are we heirs. Is there any motive that will so surely still the desires of the flesh and of the mind as the blessed thought that God is ours and we His? Surely their feet should never stumble or stray, who are aware of the Spirit of the Son bearing witness with their spirit that they are the children of God. Surely the measure in which we realise this will be the measure in which the desires of the flesh will be whipped back to their kennels, and cease to disturb us with their barks.
The whole question here as between Paul and his opponents just comes to this; if a field is covered with filth, whether is it better to set to work on it with wheel-barrows and shovels, or to turn a river on it which will bear away all the foulness? The true way to change the fauna and flora of a country is to change the level, and as the height increases they change themselves. If we desire to have the noxious creatures expelled from ourselves, we must not so much labour at their expulsion as see to the elevation of our own personal being and then we shall succeed. That is what Paul says, ‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.’
III. Such a life is not freed from the necessity of struggle.
The highest condition, of course, would be that we had only to grow, not to fight. It will come some day that all evil shall drop away, and that to walk in the Spirit will need no effort, but that time has not come yet. So in addition to all that we have been saying in this sermon, we must further say that Paul’s exhortation has always to be coupled with the other to fight the good fight. The highest word for our earthly lives is not ‘victory’ but ‘contest.’ We shall not walk in the Spirit without many a struggle to keep ourselves within that charmed atmosphere. The promise of our text is not that we shall not feel, but that we shall not fulfil, the desires of the flesh.
Now this is very commonplace and threadbare teaching, but it is none the less important, and is especially needful to be strongly emphasised when we have been speaking as we have just been doing. It is a historical fact, illustrated over and over again since Paul wrote, and not without illustration to-day, that there is constant danger of lax morality infecting Christian life under pretence of lofty spirituality. So it must ever be insisted upon that the test of a true walking in the Spirit is that we are thereby fitted to fight against the desires of the flesh. When we have the life of the Spirit within us, it will show itself as Paul has said in another place by the righteousness of the law being fulfilled in us, and by our ‘mortifying the deeds of the body.’ The gift of the Spirit does not take us out of the ranks of the combatants, but teaches us to fight, and arms us with its own sword for the conflict. There will be abundant opportunities of courage in attacking the sin that doth so easily beset us, and in resisting temptations which come to us by reason of our own imperfect sanctification. But there is all the difference between fighting at our own hand and fighting with the help of God’s Spirit, and there is all the difference between fighting with the help of an unseen ally in heaven and fighting with a Spirit within us who helpeth our infirmities and Himself makes us able to contend, and sure, if we keep true to Him, to be more than conquerers through Him that loveth us.
Such a conflict is a gift and a joy. It is hard but it is blessed, because it is an expression of our truest love; it comes from our deepest will; it is full of hope and of assured victory. How different is the painful, often defeated and monotonous attempt to suppress our nature by main force, and to tread a mill-horse round! The joyous freedom and buoyant hope taught us in the gospel way of salvation have been cramped and confined and all their glories veiled as by a mass of cobwebs spun beneath a golden roof, but our text sweeps away the foul obstruction. Let us learn the one condition of victorious conflict, the one means of subduing our natural humanity and its distracting desires, and let nothing rob us of the conviction that this is God’s way of making men like angels. ‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye…
But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The works of the flesh:
The works of the flesh:
v. 16. This I say, then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
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v. 17. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
v. 18. But if ye be led of the spirit, ye are not under the Law.
v. 19. Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
v. 20. idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
v. 21. envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
The apostle here develops the topic which he announced in v. 13. His first point is a general exhortation to walk by the Spirit: Now I say, Walk by the Spirit, and the desire of the flesh you will not fulfill. The entire conduct of the believers is controlled by the power of the Spirit; He enters into their hearts and works in them by impelling and determining their walk. To walk by the Spirit, therefore, means to follow His leadership gladly, to put no obstacles in His way. By heeding the voice of the Spirit at all times and under all conditions, the believers will avoid doing the desire of the flesh. Christians indeed have their old evil nature to contend with at all times, their flesh being active to incite them to sins of every kind. But they do not yield to these temptations; they suppress every evil desire and inclination toward sin.
The apostle now substantiates his admonition: For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other that you may not do what things you would. In the heart of every Christian there is a continual battle, based upon irreconcilable antagonism between the spirit and the flesh, between the new and the old man. The flesh, the old evil nature, has only one desire, namely, to overcome the spirit, the regenerated nature, and to make the believer fall back into the service of sin and every form of ungodly conduct. On the other side, the spirit, the regenerated self of the Christian, defends itself against such attacks, desiring at the same time to overcome and suppress the old Adam, that he die with all sins and evil lusts, no matter whether they appear in a gross or in a fine form. The object of these two opponents in the believer’s heart is that he should not perform what he wants to do. The flesh tries to prevent him from doing good in any form, as he desires to do in the power of the Spirit. The spirit battles against the flesh, lest the Christian do that which is evil, what he desires to do after his evil nature. Both the flesh and the spirit are straining their utmost in this combat. See Rom 7:15-23. If the Christians now walk in the Spirit, then the victory is bound to come to their regenerated selves, and they will be able more and more to quench the lust of the flesh. This must be the final result, as St. Paul writes: But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. The side of the Spirit, by the power of the Spirit, must remain victorious, and thus Paul proves his contention that the Christians are not under the Law, that it is impossible to bring them back into the bondage of the Law. He that walks in the Spirit and is impelled and led by the Spirit will look upon the will of God contained in the Law as the great ideal of a sanctified life, and he will therefore strive to live up to this ideal, not by coercion of the Law, not out of fear of punishment, not with the hope of reward or of earning salvation, but because it is his greatest joy and desire to do what pleases his heavenly Father.
The apostle now specifies some of the vices which flow from the service of the flesh, and which therefore should not be found in Christians: Manifest, however, are the works of the flesh; they are of such a nature that they cannot escape notice and that no one will deny their heinousness. Of such is adultery, marital unfaithfulness of the one or the other spouse; fornication, carnal intercourse of people that are not united in holy wedlock; uncleanness, sexual impurity in general; wantonness or sensuality, marked by shameless impudence and exuberance, all of these being sins of voluptuousness to which the ancient heathen were addicted openly, just as the modern heathen are. Of such is idolatry, to which the Galatian Christians were tempted to return by reason of the heathen festivals and banquets; and sorcery of every kind, the secret tampering with the powers of evil, including especially the use of remedies of witchcraft, both of which sins were prevalent in the Greek cities of Asia Minor in those days, Act 8:9; Act 13:8; Act 19:19. Of such is enmity, which causes people to observe a malevolent attitude toward their neighbors; quarrelsomeness, which continually seeks occasion to begin wrangles; envy, which grudges one’s neighbor all that he has and always seeks its own advantage and benefit; anger, in which the jealousy of the heart breaks forth; quarrels, the natural result of anger; rivalries and factions, by which people separate themselves and refuse to associate with one another; hatred, which refuses to tolerate one’s neighbor; and finally murder, the taking of a neighbor’s life,—all of which are found also in the hearts of the Christians, making constant vigilance necessary. Of such is, in the last group, drunkenness or drinking bouts, the excessive use of intoxicating liquor; and revelry, or revelings, intemperance in partaking of both food and drink, bestial gluttony. And other things of the same category Paul adds; to which Luther remarks: "For who could enumerate the entire morass of carnal life?... He has indicated only a few, in order that the Galatians might not pretend to be ignorant how they might withstand the lusts of the flesh. " Note: There is a solemn warning in this enumeration of vices also for the Christians for these latter days; for it is only too evident that the boundary between Church and world is being obliterated in many cases; the world is entering the Church because the church people are no longer withstanding the world.
With great emphasis Paul therefore says: Of which I now tell you in advance, just as I have said before, that they who make it a habit to do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. The apostle had given them this warning when he was present with them, and he here repeats his warning lest the judgment of the Lord come upon them for committing such crimes. Paul was not afraid to raise his voice in the endeavor to rouse the sinners before it might be too late. Because the flesh of the Christians is always active, therefore the warnings must always be repeated. Mark that he does not refer to such as are tempted to perform such heinous sins, but to such as actually give way to the temptation. All those that yield to the flesh and its desires, and live and walk in its sins, have their sentence of condemnation in advance: they cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Glory, heaven and salvation. Hell and damnation is their lot as children of wrath.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul explains how the Spirit gives control over sin.
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walk by the Spirit
Walking is a metaphor for living. AT: "conduct your life in the power of the Holy Spirit" or "live your life in dependence on the Spirit" (See: Metaphor)
you will not carry out the desires of the sinful nature
The phrase "carry out someone's desires" is an idiom meaning "do what someone desires." AT: "You will not do what your sinful nature desires" (See: Idiom)
the desires of the sinful nature
The sinful nature is spoken of as if it were a person and wanted to sin. AT: "what you want to do because of your sinful nature" or "the things you want to do because you are sinful" (See: Personification)
not under the law
"not obligated to obey the law of Moses"
translationWords
Holy Spirit
fulfill
lust
flesh
law
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 5:16-26 A law-free faith will not lead to moral…
5:16-26 A law-free faith will not lead to moral ruin because having the Holy Spirit to guide people’s lives changes their hearts to follow the will of God and not sin (cp. Jer 31:33; Heb 8:10).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.