Original Meaning
BECAUSE PAUL DEMONSTRATED that acceptance with God is based on faith in Christ, not on works of the law—and he got into all kinds of arguments as to why this was the case—he contended that the life of faith in Jesus Christ and life in the Spirit is characterized by freedom (5:1), freedom especially from the law and its curse. He then showed what this freedom meant regarding circumcision (vv. 2–12). His main point was that submitting to circumcision meant abandoning Jesus Christ and the grace of God. Paul now applies the doctrine of freedom to the issue of fighting off the “flesh” (Gk. sarx; translated “sinful nature” in the NIV; we will use the word “flesh” throughout this chapter). The antidote to the flesh is living in the Spirit, not obeying the law of Moses. God’s people, he argues, are marked by the Spirit of God rather than the law. This is how they are defined and this is how they live: in the Spirit. While chapters 1–4 might be characterized as “life through Christ,” chapters 5–6 might be characterized as “life in the Spirit.”
The section before us is concerned with the significance of freedom for battling the flesh. It may be broken into four units. (1) Paul calls us to the life of freedom from the flesh (vv. 13–15): living in freedom means not indulging the flesh but living in love (cf. v. 6). (2) He restates his call to freedom by a call to a life in the Spirit against the flesh (vv. 16–18). (3) He expounds on the life in the flesh (vv. 19–21). (4) He expounds on the life in the Spirit (vv. 22–26).
Before we examine these verses more carefully, we must sketch the setting of this section. I shall do so under two different topics: (1) the Judaizers’ problem with Paul’s view of life in the Spirit, and (2) the rabbinic context of the Pauline view of how to do battle with the flesh.
(1) What was the Judaizers’ problem with Paul’s view of living before God by conducting one’s life “in the Spirit”? Some have argued that the letter of Galatians actually battles off two separate problems at Galatia. One problem was legalism, addressed by Paul in chapters 1–4, and the other was libertinism, antinomianism, or outright immorality as an option for Christian lifestyle. I argued in our last section that it is most unlikely that Paul would argue against one group of people in the first two-thirds of the book and then turn to another group of people in the last third. Such a structure of the book would leave the first group with no application and the second group with no theology. Paul does not operate like this. Furthermore, it is quite within our grasp to imagine how these two issues can be put together.
The Judaizers, we suspect, claimed that the Galatian converts needed to adopt the whole law to be accepted by God because in so doing, they would express their trust in the entirety of God’s revelation and provide themselves with an adequate moral guide (the law). I suspect this latter point was appealing to the Galatian converts. H. D. Betz puts it well: “In the absence of a code of law, how should one deal with transgression?”3 And J. M. G. Barclay adds: “With no law to distinguish right from wrong, and no rituals to deal with transgressions and provide assurance, their security and self-confidence were somewhat shaky.”4 The Judaizers had a ready answer: assume the yoke of the law. In assuming these laws, the Galatians would then acquire a social identity: Jewish proselytes who were part of Judaism, a religion recognized by Roman law.
They then argued (I suggest) that Paul was teaching an abbreviated gospel (Jesus without Moses) in order to gain their initial hearing; but had he stayed longer, he would have gotten them into a catechism of the law of Moses. Therefore, they ought now to accept the law to finish off Paul’s work in their midst. Furthermore, I suspect they argued that if the Galatians were to think hard about it, “life in the Spirit” was profoundly inadequate by itself. For one, it would lead to immorality faster than anything they could think of, and it would never be able to counter the forces of the flesh in their lives. But if they were to adopt the law, all would be solved: no immorality, no problem with the flesh, and full acceptance with God—not to mention acceptance with Jerusalem and the nationalists! This, I believe, is how the Judaizers made their case. And the Galatians bought it, and the emphasis Paul gives to factions in 5:13–26 makes me think that factionalism, or partisanship, is the focus of these verses (cf. 5:15, 26, and 20–21). Paul’s letter is what we have of their telephone conversation—just one end of it, but Paul says enough for us to catch on to what they were saying to him.
(2) One of the issues the Judaizers countered Paul with was the issue of the flesh. Judaism’s moralists had thought long and hard over how people are to ward off the forces of the flesh and, though very little of the evidence from the first-century discussion has survived, we do have some significant evidence from the later rabbis who can be brought in to illuminate Paul’s own response. How did the Jews, and especially the rabbis, envision the obedient Jews fighting off the flesh?5 All Jews, as well as Greco-Roman moralists, recognized the human propensity to sin and knew that transgressions took place. What was desirable was the capacity to fight off such inclinations to sin. The rabbis contended that every human being had two desires: the yetser tob and the yetser hara (the good impulse and the evil impulse). Such an idea is found in a non-rabbinic text that may come from before the first century A.D.: “If the soul wants to follow the good way,6 all of its deeds are done in righteousness and every sin is immediately repented” (Testament of Asher 1:6). The rabbis were convinced that this battle took place in the heart and that the yetser hara sought to lure people into sexual sins and idolatry (observe their emphasis in vv. 19–21). Most importantly, the rabbis contended that “the chief means of protection against the evil impulse was the study of the Torah” and repentance.7 Furthermore, some rabbis thought that in the age to come the evil impulse to sexual immorality and idolatry would be destroyed. Is it not likely that Paul is saying that the “age to come” has come in Christ and that on the cross the evil impulse (i.e., the flesh) was put to death (v. 24)?
Several things come together here and, in my view, provide a more accurate picture of the social and religious context out of which Paul was speaking. The Galatian converts were insecure about their moral guidance and in particular about how to fight off the flesh. The Judaizers, having been taught that the law of Moses is God’s moral guide, contended that it would enable the Galatian converts to fight off the flesh. Paul contends that the flesh has actually been put to death already and that the means of moral guidance has already been given: God’s Spirit. For Paul, just as Jesus was the fulfillment of the law, so the Spirit is the replacement (and fulfillment) of the law as God’s instrument for moral guidance. In other words, the Spirit takes the place of the law for the Christian. This is the historical context of Paul’s application of the idea of freedom to the battle with the flesh.
A Call to a Life of Freedom from the Flesh (vv. 13–15)
IF MY SURMISINGS above are close to accurate, then Paul’s call here to a life of freedom that does not indulge the flesh is directed at the Judaizing claim that life apart from the law always leads to indulgence. Paul contends that a life of freedom is a life of loving others (the essence of the law!) and not indulging the flesh. Thus, the call to freedom (v. 13) restates the earlier call to freedom (v. 1) but takes the implication of freedom now in a different direction. Whereas before freedom did not lead to circumcision, now it does not lead to indulging the flesh.
After the call to freedom (v. 13a), Paul orders his thoughts in a chiasm:
A. Do not use freedom for the flesh (v. 13b)
B. Instead, use it for love (v. 13c)
B.′ Love is the summary command (v. 14)
A.′ Flesh is seen when you fight with one another (v. 15)
To facilitate explanation, I shall look first at flesh and then at love.
The criticism of Paul’s blanket endorsement of “Freedom and Spirit ethics” is that it may lead to indulging the flesh, to anarchic behavior, and to life completely out of line with the law of Moses. But Paul insists that freedom should not be used “to indulge” (Gk. aphormen) the flesh. This Greek expression for “to indulge” is metaphorical and picturesque. It is sometimes translated “an opportunity for” (RSV), “an excuse for” (New Century Version), or “a base of operations for” (The New Translation). The term was originally a military description of the army’s “base of operations” or a “starting point” for some kind of military maneuver, but it also acquired a metaphorical sense of “opportunity,” “pretext,” or “occasion.”8 Paul uses it elsewhere for sin taking opportunity for sin (Rom. 7:8, 11), for an opportunity for boasting (2 Cor. 5:12) or comparison (11:12), and for an opportunity for Satan to find fault in the community (1 Tim. 5:14). One papyrus records a daughter who says, “I never miss an opportunity to write to you [her father] about both my health and the health of my family.”9 Though believers are free, that freedom is not to become the platform for living sinfully.
Once again, to live “in the flesh” is fundamentally living outside the realm of the Spirit of God. “Flesh” is not effort necessarily (though that could be involved); rather, “flesh” is unspiritual life. Thus, “flesh” becomes closely attached to living “under the law” because, as Paul explains throughout his letter (see at 3:19–25), allowing one’s life to be governed by the law is choosing not to live under the governance of the Spirit. Flesh and law belong to an era that is now past; the new era is characterized by the Spirit and Christ. Furthermore, moderns need to understand that when Paul uses “flesh,” he is not thinking primarily in terms of “body” and the inferiority of the body in comparison to the spiritual aspect of human nature. This is a Platonic notion, not a biblical one. What Paul has in mind is the “total person living outside of God’s will and apart from God’s guiding influence through the Spirit.”10
As stated above, verse 13b corresponds to verse 15: indulging the sinful nature fosters internal dissensions. Actually, verse 15 is a sentence in which the conditional aspect is fulfilled in an imperative. Paul says literally: “If you keep on biting and devouring each other you, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Technically, Paul could have said: “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, you will be destroyed by each other.” The addition of “watch out for” puts emphasis, emotionally, on the sin. The problem of the Galatians is typically human: egos enter into the debates between people and before long the issue is who is going to win; it becomes who is right, not what is right.
This was a major issue at Galatia: there were lots of internal fights, as a quick survey of 5:1–6:10 proves. In 5:1–12 we find the apparent need for the Galatians to make a decision over which group they would join, and the focal point of entering the Judaizing faction was circumcision. In the same verses we find ringleaders (vv. 7–10) and false accusations against Paul (v. 11). In verses 13–26 we find the emphasis on factions and strife: they were quarreling at a major level (v. 15). The wording of conflict in verses 16–18 is probably a reflection of the conflicts in the churches. In Paul’s list of sins in verses 19–21, he emphasizes interpersonal ones (of the fifteen sins listed, eight concern interpersonal relationships); similarly, his emphasis on “the fruit of the Spirit” is clearly on interpersonal relations (vv. 22–23). At the end of his list he further indicates conflict in the words, “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other” (v. 26). In chapter 6 we find emphases on pride (6:1–5), miserliness (v. 6), and being thoughtful of others (vv. 7–10).
When we think of the Galatian churches, we should not think of a fork in the road, with Paul going down one road and the Judaizers down the other, each beckoning the Galatian travelers to make the right decision as they come to the fork. Rather, we should think of Paul and the Judaizers on the stage platform, having made their cases for their systems, and the Galatian congregation at war with one another, forming separate enclaves here and having proud, vociferous leaders claiming minor victories there. We should think of rivalries, of separate house churches not speaking with one another, of spiritual pride on the part of those who have been circumcised (just a “cut above” the rest!), and of slogan after slogan being bandied about in the communities. The picture we draw is sad—sad because they had adopted the pattern of letting their freedom become a launching-pad for indulging the flesh.
On the contrary, Paul says, their freedom is to be a platform for serving one another in love. While I cannot get into a long excursus about “love” in Pauline theology, I do want to summarize the three main lines of his teaching. For Paul (1) love is defined by Christ’s sacrificial giving of his life in love (2:20), (2) love is inspired by God’s Spirit (5:22–23), and (3) love is expressed in doing good and in interpersonal relationships in society, especially in the church (5:13–14; 6:10).11
In our passage, Paul says two things about love: (1) the Galatians are to “serve one another” in love, and (2) the entire law of Moses is summed up in the commandment from Leviticus 19:18: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no question about what Paul is doing here: he is taking away the law of Moses in the letter to the Galatians as passé, but he does so by way of fulfillment. He tells the Galatians that their desire for moral guidelines is the best guideline. If you live in the Spirit, he writes to them, you will have love (5:22), and living in love is far better than the law because it is the fulfillment of the law (v. 14). Just as typing on a computer is the fulfillment of typing on a manual typewriter, so living in the Spirit and love is the fulfillment of living in the law of Moses.
Paul’s entire ethic can be handled in three simple expressions: the Galatians are to live in love (vv. 6, 13), or in the Spirit (v. 22), or under the law of Christ (6:2). These are all the same; and each is the fulfillment of the law of Moses (and better). Here he allows the will of God with respect to our relationship to others to be distilled down into the word “love.” But this love of Paul is not passion. It is the love of God for us that changes us so we can serve one another in love.
According to Leon Morris, “My first point, then, is that we know love in the New Testament sense only because we see it in the cross; my second point is that to see this love is to be affected by it.”12 This is the love Paul is talking about: God’s love for us in Christ (2:20) enables us to be filled with God’s Spirit, who then generates the fruit of love in us as we relate to others. Because it is the Spirit of God who awakens love in our hearts, it is not something we can claim as our own. Being able to love others is not the result of discipline; it is a miracle. And love works as the dynamic of human relationships, as Paul knows. Morris ends his book with a question: “Where is there a system that works better than the way of Christian love?”13
A Call to a Life in the Spirit Against the Flesh (vv. 16–18)
AFTER MAKING HIS point that freedom is not an excuse for indulging the flesh, Paul clarifies what he means by a life of freedom. Such a life, he says, is living in the Spirit. But this life is a war, a war between the Spirit and the flesh. But this war is not some “personal psychological struggle” or the “struggle within a person’s soul.” Rather, as E. P. Sanders has said, “The war … has to do with which power one—body and soul—belongs to.”14 The powers are “flesh” and “Spirit.”
Once again, Paul arranges his thoughts in a chiasm:
A. Live by the Spirit and you escape flesh (v. 16)
B. The conflict is between flesh and Spirit (v. 17a)
B.′ The conflict prohibits doing God’s will (v. 17b)
A.′ Be led by the Spirit and you escape law (v. 18)
This structure permits a ready understanding of this passage. Paul is dealing here with opposites. When a person lives in God’s Spirit, he or she escapes the power of flesh (v. 17a) and the power of law (5:18).15 Once again, Paul connects law to flesh and to the former era (3:3; 4:21–31; 6:12–13). But this life of the Spirit is a battle—a battle over God’s will; those who are engaged in it recognize that flesh and Spirit are opposites. When one lives in the flesh, one does not do what God’s Spirit wants.
In general we see something fundamentally important here as to how Paul depicts the Christian life. It is life in the Spirit, the life of a person who is surrendered to letting the Spirit have complete control. But we see here also that one does not gain this life by discipline or by mustering up the energy. One does not huddle with oneself in the morning, gather together his or her forces, and charge onto the field of life full of self-determined direction. Rather, the Christian life is a life of consistent surrender to the Spirit.
What Is the Fleshly Life? (vv. 19–21)
PAUL GOES ON to explain what he means by “life in the flesh” and “life in the Spirit,” giving a list for each. Listing vices and virtues was common among moral teachers in the ancient world, and I give some parallels in Paul’s letters that readers may want to examine: 2 Corinthians 6:1–10; 8:1–7; Ephesians 4:1–10; Philippians 4:8–9; Colossians 3:12–17; 1 Timothy 1:9; 6:4–6; 2 Timothy 3:2–4; Titus 3:3.16 The lists were used as a characterization of someone or some idea, and they were not used as a lawbook.
More importantly, the lists here of the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit are not abstract listings, nor are they comprehensive. Rather, they are context specific. In the context of church conflict, the observer will find the manifestation of the flesh in such things as factionalism and will find that the Spirit, when in control, will produce such things as love and patience. In other words, we interpret these lists incorrectly if we take them out of their context and pretend that they are complete listings of either the flesh or the Spirit. These are the kinds of things Paul wants to focus on because he is concerned with conflict. Had he written to the Ephesians, he would have had other items in both lists.
Paul divides the “works of the flesh” into four areas that we cannot discuss in detail:17
(1) sexual sins: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery”;
(2) religious sins: “idolatry and witchcraft”;
(3) social sins: “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy”;
(4) drinking sins: “drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”
These four areas are typical areas for problems of excess. The third area appears to be Paul’s focus, for it has more detail than the others—the social sins that the flesh was working in their midst. The flesh destroys fellowship, unity, and holiness. What is most important, and what sounds like Jesus, is Paul’s final word: “those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (v. 21). Whether a person made some kind of profession of faith, whether a person had a charismatic experience, or whether a person endured a great deal of suffering does not matter if he or she lives in the flesh (cf. Matt. 7:15–27; 2 Cor. 5:10; James 2:14–26). One’s final standing before God, Paul contends, is directly related to whether or not a person lives in the flesh or in the Spirit.
What Is the Life in the Spirit? (vv. 22–26)
PAUL’S LISTING OF the “fruit of the Spirit” does not seem to have any particular order, though some have proposed an order. J. R. W. Stott sees in these nine virtues three groups of three: attitudes to God, others, and self, while J. B. Lightfoot sees dispositions of the mind, qualities governing human relations, and principles of conduct.18 We do need to comment on the terms fruit and love, but we are not able to spend time with each word.
Paul describes “flesh” under the term works, while he sees the Spirit’s work as “fruit.” The former is plural while the latter is singular. Is there anything significant in the change of terms or the change of number? Above all, it must be observed that works has been a term of negative associations in Galatians and that Paul probably delighted in associating the “works” of the flesh with the “works of the law” (2:16; 3:2, 5, 10). The change of terms to “fruit” evokes a different image: from one of human responsibility to one of divine enablement. The image of fruit has a certain sense of passivity to it; it is the Spirit of God who produces such things, and they grow in the life of the Christian.
However, while this may be one reason for the change of terms, it is also clear that Paul sees evil as having fruit (6:8) and thinks that the Christian is responsible to let the Spirit be operative in his or her life. Note that Paul shoulders the responsibility of the Spirit’s fruit onto the Christian: “have crucified their flesh” (v. 24), “let us keep in step” (v. 25), and “let us not become conceited” (v. 26)—not to mention verses 13, 16, and 18. It is possible that the unity of the fruit is emphasized in the singular while the chaotic multitude of sins of the flesh is represented in a plural noun. On the other hand, “fruit” can be seen as a collective plural; if so, there is nothing significant in the change to a singular.
While “love” is not the only “fruit” of the Spirit, it is the most important to Paul (cf. vv. 6, 13–14; also Rom. 5:5; 1 Cor. 13; Col. 3:14).19 It summarizes the demand of God’s law (Gal. 5:14), endures forever (1 Cor 13:13), and unites all the virtues of life (Col. 3:14). Fundamental to Paul’s view, however, is that love comes from God’s Spirit (cf. Rom. 5:5). Moreover, as we look over this list, we observe the reverse of the list of the works of the flesh. Whereas the flesh destroys fellowship; here the Spirit creates fellowship, unity, and holiness.
As if summarizing his whole point, Paul says that (1) those who have surrendered themselves to Jesus Christ “have crucified the flesh” and so should not be involved in the works of the flesh (v. 24); (2) those who have been given God’s life by the Spirit and Christ (cf. 2:20; Rom 8:9–11) should march according to the Spirit’s orders (Gal 5:25); and (3) those who live in the freedom of the Spirit should not be conceited and so fight with one another (v. 26). Once again, we end up with Paul’s emphasis in this context: Galatian factionalism.
Bridging Contexts
I KNOW OF no Christian parents or youth leaders, or for that matter any pastors, who seriously believe what Paul teaches in verses 16–26, that the sole foundation of Christian ethics is dependency on the Spirit and a life of freedom in the Spirit. In my life, which at the time of the publication of this book will be about forty years—nearly twenty-five of which has been spent actively in the evangelical movement and beyond—I have met only one person who ever expressed this view of Paul in a definitive and, to him, practical way. That person was F. F. Bruce, and our family was privileged to spend an afternoon with him while we were living in Nottingham during the time of my doctoral program. After receiving an invitation for us to visit him and his wife, we traveled by car from Nottingham to their home in Buxton. I spent the majority of my time in the car wondering just what I could ask a scholar whose work has been hailed as some of the finest in our century. I had been warned that Professor Bruce was quiet and modest and that it might take work on my part to keep the conversation going. So I prepared some questions, not of course in writing but in my mind. He met us at our car, hospitably ushered us into his home, and introduced us to his wife; I then introduced my wife and our two children, Laura and Lukas, to them.
After our pleasantries were exchanged and after a light tea, I could tell it was “question and answer time.” I began with some warm-up questions about what he was working on (he had just finished his commentaries on Galatians and Philippians) and what he thought of some of the issues I was working on (Jewish missionary activity). I then asked the question I wanted him most to answer. I asked him about women in the church. My question was something like this, “Professor Bruce, do you think women should be ordained?” His response I shall remember forever. He said, “I don’t care much for ordination. But what I can say with regard to the exercise of women’s ministries in the church, is this: I am for whatever brings freedom in the church. I am for whatever brings the freedom of the Spirit in the church of God.” His answer seemed so nebulous, so full of holes, so full of problems, and so full of unanswered questions. As I have subsequently reflected it, however, I am sure I was wrong in my puzzlement. His answer is very biblical, very Pauline, and very much like Galatians. In fact, his answer is so much like Galatians that his answer must be right.20
What I am saying is this: while Professor Bruce’s comment is uncommon, it corresponded to Paul’s view of the essence of Christian living. It is a view that few are willing to live with. How can we condemn the Galatians for being unwilling to live according to Paul’s view of ethics if we have the identical problem? How can we accuse the Galatians of being gullible and of embracing what was clearly an inferior system when we are unable and unwilling to live with the open-endedness of the Pauline view of Christian freedom? Are we perhaps as guilty of “legalism” as they were? Do we perhaps also want legal guidelines and Mosaic law? These questions are worth pondering.
We must first convince ourselves that God’s Spirit is a sufficient guide for moral life before God. We must thoroughly grasp God’s goodness in his granting to us the Holy Spirit as the sure guide to holiness and love. To do this we need to read Galatians once again with an open mind, and then proceed to Paul’s other letters (this makes really good sense if Galatians is the first of Paul’s letters), to see what Paul has in mind there when he speaks of “life in the free Spirit.”
Furthermore, it is not that Paul did not have available rules and regulations to appeal to: he could have gone to Moses for some moral guidelines or even to Jesus. He could have appealed to such texts as the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7) or to specific texts in the Old Testament (e.g., Lev. 11:44–45: “Be holy, because I am holy”). He did not, however, and he knew that in not doing so he was leaving these as options. He did not see the teachings of Jesus as new laws,21 nor would he appeal to the law of Moses as binding on the Christian. Instead, Paul described the essence of Christian living as “freedom in the Spirit.”
To be sure, Paul knew that when a person was controlled by the Spirit, that person was holy. He also knew that a person who lived in the Spirit lived in a loving way. Thus, he knew that the Old Testament moral guidelines and the teachings of Jesus on holiness, righteousness, and compassion would be confirmed by anyone who lived in the Spirit. This is important to remember. Paul’s statement that the law of Moses cannot condemn anyone who lives in the Spirit shows that he knew that life in the Spirit would not and could not lead to moral anarchy (cf. v. 23). However, even with this important qualification, Paul stressed that true living before God was a life in the Spirit and a life of spiritual freedom. The question for us is direct: Is our ethic an ethic of freedom in the Spirit or is it much more like that of the Judaizing invaders? We begin to apply our text today when we answer “Yes” to the following question: Is God’s Spirit a sufficient guide for Christian living? If you answered “yes,” pass go.
Another way of looking at this matter is to pause to question whether we think that all our “good traits” are the result of God’s grace or not. Do we think it is we who have made us capable to think? to walk? to write? to speak? to relate to others? to create imaginatively in our careers? to expend tremendous amounts of energy in our vocations and avocations, in our activities and in our relationships? If we do, we are not on the side of Paul. According to Paul, everything, from back to front and from beginning to end, is by faith, in the Spirit, and through Christ. It is only by extension of this basic principle that Paul’s teaching on the Spirit becomes immediately clear: our moral guide is the Spirit because everything good in our life is the result of God’s work on our behalf. I quote from F. F. Bruce in another context:
The Letter to the Galatians can be thought of as so completely devoted to the theme of justification by faith that its teaching on the Holy Spirit may be overlooked. In fact, its teaching on the Holy Spirit is so interwoven with its teaching on justification by faith that the one cannot be understood without the other, any more than in real life the justifying grace of God can be experienced apart from the Spirit.22
To facilitate application, it would be good to have before us a brief survey of the Spirit in Galatians on both the social and the theological context of the text.23 (1) The Spirit of God is what the Christian receives at conversion (3:2, 3, 5, 14; 5:25), and this was evidently made known through charismatic experiences (see comments on 3:1–5). Such an experience makes the convert a “son of God” who can call God Abba (4:6). Indeed, the reception of the Spirit is what the entire Old Testament looked forward to as it came to fruition in the universal plan of God (3:13–14). To live in the Spirit is to live in the age when God inaugurates his kingdom.24 (2) Those who are “in the Spirit” are persecuted by those in the “flesh” (3:4; 4:29). (3) Those who are “in the Spirit” exercise hope for the coming establishment of God’s righteousness and their own declaration of fitness before God (5:5). (4) Those who are “in the Spirit” are victorious over the “works of the flesh” (vv. 16–18, 19–21) and so live a life full of the manifestation of the Spirit (vv. 22–23). For this victory to occur, Christians need only submit to, or walk in step with, the Spirit (v. 25; cf. 6:8).
Thus, for Paul “life in the Spirit” begins at conversion with the gift of the Spirit, continues as it is sustained by that same Spirit, and waits for the final establishment of God’s kingdom in the Spirit. It is all in the Spirit. “If Paul was rightly described, in the title of a recent book, as the ‘apostle of the free Spirit,’ Galatians might be described, with equal justice, as the epistle of the free Spirit.”25
I pause here to admit discouragement. I do not know about you, but when I look through the list of virtues in the fruit of the Spirit, and when I examine such teachings on the Holy Spirit in the light of the whole letter, I become befuddled over the church. How can we confess Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit and live in so much tension in the Christian world? Why is the Christian church so torn and divided, here over theology and there over practice? Why do we know so much of personalities and so little of Christ? Why is it that the decisive argument against the church for so many is that the church is full of hypocrites, full of dissensions, and full of denominationalism? To be sure, I am aware that the children of the flesh will find any argument possible to use against the truth of the Spirit (because light and darkness do not mix; cf. John 3:19–21). But nonetheless, the argument is compelling at times and it hurts. Why is it that Christians claim to have the Spirit but show little of his power and his love? Why is it that Christians claim to live in the Spirit but spend so much of their time “out of step” with the Spirit? It is my prayer that God will renew his work of the Spirit and that this chapter will be used by God to that end.
Contemporary Significance
I MUST BEGIN here with a bit of irresistible humor about the Galatian social context. One of my students recently gave me a book called The Garimus File: A Back-Door Look at the New Testament, by Gary Stanley, an obvious wit.26 In his attempt to communicate the message of the New Testament to the youth of modern times, the author decided to introduce Galatians by imagining the kinds of graffiti that would have been written on city walls by the various parties and factions in Galatia.27 I quote here from some of his imagined (but highly penetrating) graffiti. One reads: “The only good Gentile is a circumcized one.” Next to this comment is a Christian’s comment: “Abraham was a gentile,” but this was supplemented by a Judaizer with: “Yea, but he was circumcized.” Some Paulinist came along and commented on the whole debate: “So what?” (cf. Gal 5:6). At another place on the wall it reads: “LONG LIVE THE LAW,” which is crossed out by some Christian who wrote: “Long live life!”—to which someone depressed added: “Life stinks!” Under this some Christian wrote: “The law stinks,” and some Judaizer came along and crossed that out and wrote: “Gentiles stink!” On another part of the wall it reads: “Jews are just a cut above the rest” (obviously written by a circumcised Jew). A Christian wrote: “Grace isn’t cheap but its free,” but someone else crossed this out, perhaps a Judaizer, and wrote: “Nothing is free.”
Someone wrote a poem about Paul:
There was a young man named Saul
Who changed his first name to Paul.
It didn’t make him an apostle
or anything colossal,
Just a fellow with an awful lot of gall.
Next to this graffito was a string of sayings about freedom: “Free me!,” “Free Beer” (crossed out with “Nothing is free” written in its place), “Freedom is a myth,” and “A promise is a promise” (alluding to Paul’s view of God’s covenant with Abraham). Another one reads: “The best fruit is fruit of the vine,” to which someone added: “Amen!” (cf. 5:22–23). A picture of a fish has a hook in its mouth and a graffito reads: “Suckers get hooked.” The Judaizing wing made this comment on those who got hooked into Paul’s gospel (here symbolized in the fish symbol).
Stanley has a great imagination; but it is also quite accurate as to the kinds of slogans that might have been exchanged. In context and tone, these slogans aptly capture the atmosphere at Galatia. This, I believe, is a creative method of applying Galatians: thinking of how the various Galatians might have written graffiti on the walls of the cities in which they lived. Such a method forces us to think of the message as well as of catchy phrases that condense various viewpoints. Such a method could be continued for each chapter and for other books relating conflicts.
There are several options before us about what to apply. The most common approach to this passage is to focus on the individual dimensions of the fruit of the Spirit and to seek to make this list a character-building piece of instruction. This approach lists the nine virtues and spends perhaps a week on each one to see if a person will improve his or her Christian character by practicing the presence of these characteristics. Since many others have done this, I need not do it here; and, while this is fine, I am also convinced that such an approach is slightly misguided. To repeat what has been said earlier: this list of the fruit of the Spirit is not comprehensive but is contextually determined. This is an important list for a church that is full of conflict—the key issue behind the whole letter!
Besides, there are many other ways the Spirit manifests himself in the lives of individuals and in the life of the church. Does not the Holy Spirit work holiness, justice, and righteousness, to name but a few? And surely there are more manifestations of the flesh than those listed here. I need not wear this remark out. While I think it is profitable to see if the fruit of the Spirit is in our lives, I also believe it is important to see just what the Spirit is doing in our lives and to see that as his fruit as well.
We could also explore the idea of the Christian life as a battle. Most of us wear some battle scars, and so we are fully aware of the pitfalls of following the Lord. Galatians 5:16–18 speaks to this issue most clearly. We could “muster” together all the military imagery of Paul on ethical conflict (like Eph. 6:10–18) and come up with “Paul’s Ethical War Strategies.” We would not want to exclude Jesus’ temptation here (Matt. 4:1–10).
What we will concentrate on in this section is “conflict mediation in the church” and Paul’s approach to it. Of course, we are not talking about what modern sociologists, psychologists, and administrators are talking about, but the issues are similar and Paul’s teachings are more than adequate to solve the majority of problems. And, of course, we have to simplify (which is not necessarily bad) because Paul is simple here. Our applications cannot get into a taxonomy of every conflict in the Bible, of how the people worked through them, and of what God’s Word says about each one. We are dealing with Galatians, and with only one text at that; but we do believe that Paul’s directives here are profoundly important for managing conflict in the church. Perhaps if we listened less to sociologists and more to the Bible, we would be further ahead in our conflicts.28
Furthermore, we need to understand the nature of this Galatian conflict: it was theological (through Christ or through the law?); it was social (Jews or Gentiles?); it was sexual (male or female?); and it was undoubtedly tied into the power of various personalities. It resulted in factions in the Galatian churches, factions that were at one another’s throats. This context is what Paul found when he wrote this letter. His solution was to live in the Spirit.
Situations of conflict today are found between spouses, between parents and children, between denominations, and between various groups in local churches (to name a few). Is Paul’s teaching relevant to these various conflicts today? Yes, I believe so. But how?
First, conflict mediation teams will always remind us that when there is tension, the first order of business is to clarify the issues. This is what Paul does in the letter: he explains the problems that are confronting them, in both theological and social terms. I do not take this point from sociological theory; this is common sense that works itself out in every conflict that is solved. This is how we solve problems with our children and problems at work; this is how we solve problems with our spouses; and this is how we solve problems in the church. Paul did not know any specific theory about “conflict management,” but he did know that he had to get all the options on the table before he knew which one to choose. I believe Galatians can be seen as a letter that seeks to explain the options (albeit in a highly persuasive manner) and to clarify the issues that confronted the Galatians churches.
Second, it does no good to talk about the Spirit’s sufficiency as moral guide if we are not all agreed that the Spirit of God is the chief leader of our lives. We must agree here. Unless the two parties can stop and remember the sufficiency of the Spirit, there will be no progress. This is the hardest step for all those seeking to find peace and for those called in as arbitrators. Why? Because in that admission comes an intuition that one is going to get steamrolled into an answer that will roll over one’s egocentrism or cherished viewpoint. We find this in theological arguments: if a theologian admits that he has been wrong, he knows that he will be embarrassed and have to change a lot of his ideas (which may have been getting him a lot of press!). In the history of the church, there have been few theologians who have publicly changed their minds, and I believe that it has often been so because of the stubborn egos of scholars. The church has suffered from this immensely. So rare is it that one scholar’s magazine article was recently introduced in an editorial remark with “he is a scholar who is known for changing his mind.”
The same problem faces marriage partners and church groups. If one church group willingly admits that the Spirit will be the guide, they are surrendering their power to make the decision. People who have vested interests (our expression for “desires of power”) do not like to surrender their decisions to someone else. Furthermore, in surrendering to the Spirit people are willingly giving the matter over to the God of the Bible and to his Word. More often than not, they know what the Bible says about their personal arguments and their personal desires. And also more often than not, they know they are partly wrong.
In other words, management of conflict gets nowhere until the parties come to terms with the fundamental solution to conflict: an admission that the Spirit of God is to be the guide and director of the issue. What the Spirit wants is what the people should want, regardless of their desires.
Third, the parties need to stop and examine what the Bible teaches about the problem. Of course, I am aware that the Bible does not address everything under the sun, but it does address many things that divide us. It does not talk about carpet colors for churches, just as it does not talk about the Mastricht Treaty in the debate over the European economy. But the Bible does speak clearly about dissensions and divisions in the church. It does not matter what the issue is; divisiveness and fighting is wrong for the Christian church. So while we may disagree over the kind of organ we are going to buy (and how much it is going to cost) and over certain unimportant theological issues, we cannot get into fights about them. We must submit ourselves to this word of the Lord: “But the fruit of the Spirit is … peace” (v. 22); and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is not only freedom (2 Cor. 3:17) but also peace. Likewise, we know that in situations of conflict, the Spirit is not at work the way God wants. There ought to be peace and joy, there ought to be kindness and gentleness, but often there is not. When the parties submit to these virtues of the Spirit, then genuine progress can take place. Fightings stop, and that is major progress regardless of the outcome.
Fourth, the parties must stop and trust that the guidance that the Lord gives is sufficient. Here I am talking about the willingness of the parties to call in an arbitrator (whether it be the Bible, a friend, a church board, or whatever), listen to the Spirit, and trust that that solution is what God wants. Moderns have a tremendous problem here. The Western world is enthralled with its individualism and its freedom (see our discussion of freedom in “Bridging Contexts” and “Contemporary Significance” at 5:1–12); thus it has a hard time (some might call it impossible) allowing others to make decisions for them.
Yes, at times the arbitration may go against our wishes. But do we sincerely think that we are always right? We must always salt and pepper our positions with the possibility that we are wrong. We must always pursue what is right and not who is right, and we must never pretend that we are always right. In submitting to the decision of arbitrators (and Paul stepped in here as the arbitrator whether they wanted him or not!), we have to exercise trust. This trust is ultimately in the guidance of the Spirit of God. Do we genuinely believe that God’s Spirit is a sufficient moral guide?
I mentioned in the paragraph above that I believe God guides us through his Spirit. I also mentioned several ways that happens. It remains for me to fill this out in a little more detail. I believe that the Spirit of the Lord guides us usually in one of four ways: through circumstances, through other Christians, through the Bible, and through prayer and/or spiritual intuition. It is not unusual for those who are being trained in Christianity to want to become like the person training them; thus, if that person has been to seminary, then they should go too. We have lots of students at Trinity whose first impulse to go to seminary came from a desire to be like their leader. It is also not unusual for churches with a major emphasis on missions to raise up from their church lots of missionaries. Circumstances, in other words, often are used by God to guide us. More often than not, however, in situations of church conflict, the leading instruments of God’s guidance will be how he speaks in his Spirit through other Christians, through the Bible, and through prayer. The issue, however, remains the same: Do we really believe God’s Spirit is a sufficient guide?
Factionalism is wrong because it is incompatible with the Spirit who brings fellowship and peace. Perhaps I am overstepping my bounds here, but I shall venture a view on denominationalism. I am fully appreciative of the diversity of people and their viewpoints. I am thoroughly convinced that our human minds are fallible and unable to make infallible judgments about many things. So we “see darkly” at times. Our fallibility has led to denominations.
But having said this, I still find that there are too many denominations and too much factionalism in the church. There are too many factions because there is too little trust in the Spirit of God and too little living in the Spirit. God is not pleased when his people split over insignificant issues. Let me suggest that churches should never split over whether one should be baptized as an adult or as a child; we may disagree, but I cannot see that issue as so crucial that it touches on our common acceptance by God. Let me also suggest that our churches should never split over whether one should play contemporary music or classical music; again, we may disagree, but we should be big enough to handle one another, to learn from one another, and to grow in our appreciation of the different gifts God gives to his people. As long as something is consistent with the Bible, church traditions, and God’s moving of his people, how can we divide over the matter? To be sure, when someone tells me that Jesus Christ is not our means of acceptance with God, I believe we should part. But I do not believe we should part company over minor issues, nor do I believe we should ever fight about issues. Debate, reason, discussion, disagreement—yes; fight, war, provoke—no.
At Galatia there was tremendous strife among the people because the Galatians had surrendered their lives to the flesh in the name of freedom. They had begun to devour one another personally in their desire for power and control. The flesh was given the upper hand. Paul entered into this terrible battle and bequeathed to them a message and letter that still has its impact to this very day. Its message is that when God’s people live in the free Spirit, they do not war with one another, rather, they bring glory to God, who wants them to enjoy the fellowship he promises. This comes from the Spirit.