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Listen for God’s word to you from Galatians 5:16-26…
So, I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Paul makes two major points in this section of his letter to the Galatians. His first point has to do with the simple fact of Christian conflict. The second point has to do with the way out of the conflict, what I call the way of Christian victory. Let’s examine these two points in order…
The Fact of Christian Conflict
When I speak here of Christian conflict, I mean not so much conflict between Christians (though that too is a fact). Rather, what I think Paul addresses in this passage is primarily the conflict we all experience as Christians within our own souls.
Carl Sandberg once wrote, “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.” That is a very picturesque and appropriate way to describe the conflict in our souls.
I was reminded of this conflict in a clear-cut fashion many years ago when I served as a youth pastor. There was a young man named Stephen who was brought by his friends to a Bible study I was leading. After our very first meeting, Stephen prayed to receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. After that, Stephen consistently attended our Bible study and really seemed to be growing in his faith. After a few months, Stephen pulled me aside at Bible study for a private chat. He confessed to me how he had recently given into a battle with temptation. I told him that God not only could but would forgive him through Christ if he confessed his sins in prayer. We also talked about some ways he might avoid giving into the same temptation in the future. We prayed together, and afterwards, Stephen seemed both relieved and comforted. But what really stood out to me from that conversation was Stephen’s surprise that he could experience that kind of temptation at all. For some reason, it had not yet occurred to him that the Christian life might involve spiritual battle.
That is the very point Paul makes in this passage: the Christian life does involve spiritual warfare. The moment you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you are engaged in a battle between the flesh and the Spirit.
Paul indicates that the Spirit (by whom he means The Holy Spirit of God) and the flesh don’t mix. Spirit and flesh are like oil and water. So, if you walk by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
As we have seen already in our study of Galatians, Paul uses the word “flesh” to refer to our human sin nature. Flesh is not the same as body. Body is good. Flesh is weak and essentially evil.
The desires of the flesh are completely contrary to the desires of the Spirit, and vice versa. Spirit and flesh are so much in conflict with each other that we, even as Christians, cannot do what we want. In other words, the battle between the flesh and the Spirit prevents us from doing what is right, at least at certain times and on certain occasions. Paul puts it this way in Romans 7:15… “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
The Acts of the Flesh
So, what do the acts of the flesh look like? Paul gives us no less than fifteen examples of the acts of the flesh.
The first one he mentions is sexual immorality. The word in Greek is one we have talked about before: πορνεία. The root word is pornos, which is the Greek word for prostitute.
Then there is the word impurity. The word in Greek is ἀκαθαρσία. From this we get our English word catharsis which literally means cleansing. Sometimes when watching a film or a play the experience can produce catharsis in the viewer, which has a cleansing effect. A-catharsis is the opposite of this and means unclean. The word was used by the Jewish people to refer to ritual or ceremonial impurity regarding worship in their temple.
Then there is the word which is translated as debauchery by the NIV. The word in Greek is ἀσέλγεια, and more literally means sensuality. It refers to the state of mind of the person who totally gives themselves over to the sensual side of life, so that their whole life is guided and controlled by the physical senses. The person giving into this act of the flesh lives by the slogan: “if it feels good, do it!”
The next act of the flesh Paul mentions is idolatry. When we hear this word nowadays, we think of primitive people who worship idols made of wood, gold, or silver. But these are not the only kind of idols that there are in the world. Whenever we put anything in our lives before the one true God, we are committing idolatry. Some people worship money, sex, power, family, work, or a million other things. In Paul’s day, idolatry and sexual immorality were often connected because many temples in the ancient world had temple prostitutes.
The next word in Paul’s list of vices is sorcery. In Greek the word is φαρμακεία from which we get our English word pharmacy and pharmaceutical.
One of my best friends in seminary decided after graduation that he was not going to enter full time ministry. Instead, he went to work for one of the big pharmaceutical companies. Was he committing an “act of the flesh”? Do we engage in “acts of the flesh” when we buy drugs from CVS? No. But in the world of Paul’s time certain substances were, no doubt, used in acts of sorcery and witchcraft.
I have no doubt that there are people in our world today who also engage in sorcery and witchcraft. That is an “act of the flesh” according to Paul. It involves trusting in ourselves or in some spiritual power other than God to bring about certain ends that we desire.
This word φαρμακεία might also apply to the problem of drug addiction in our time. How many people have their lives turned upside down by substance abuse and addiction?
The rest of Paul’s list of vices is all too familiar to us: hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies. Isn’t it interesting how Paul’s lists of vices, which we have encountered in other places in his letters, always have certain vices we think horrible right next to ones we think acceptable? For example, we laud “ambition” in our society, and so often it is “selfish ambition”. Of course, it is always good to have ambition to do good to others and to honor God. But so often our ambitions are not like that.
Or what about factions? That was a problem in the churches of Galatia. There were these different factions among the Jewish and Gentile believers in the churches. Are we any better today? Not in my experience. I have encountered factions of one kind or another in almost every church that I have ever served.
So, what is the antidote to all these vices that Paul mentions? How do we overcome the acts of the flesh? Paul makes it clear that the antidote to the flesh is not obedience to the law but rather life in the Spirit.
The Fruit of the Spirit
Paul says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Notice: the acts of the flesh are plural, but the fruit of the Spirit is one fruit with many aspects to it. We might think of the fruit of the Spirit being like an orange. Love, joy, peace, etc., are like the individual sections of the orange.
I don’t know about you, but it seems strange to me that Paul mentions fifteen acts of the flesh but only nine parts of the fruit of the Spirit. But we must remember that the acts of the flesh Paul mentions are merely examples. He probably could have cited more examples or fewer. Presumably, Paul could have mentioned other aspects of the fruit of the Spirit as well—other virtues that the Holy Spirit produces in our lives. Perhaps the difference in number, fifteen acts of the flesh versus nine parts of the fruit of the Spirit is an indication that it only takes one fruit of the Spirit to knock out all the acts of the flesh. The fruit of the Spirit is that powerful.
And isn’t it fascinating that Paul talks about the acts of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. The acts of the flesh are vices that we commit on our own human power. But the fruit of the Spirit are virtues that the Holy Spirit produces in us by his power.
I know that when some of us look at the list of virtues that form the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we probably see some of these virtues in our lives but not others. We might consider ourselves strong on one virtue but weak on another. That’s when we need to remember that there is only one fruit of the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will produce all these virtues in us in his own good time. Perhaps that is why forbearance may be the part of the fruit we need most.
I think we know what many of these aspects of the fruit of the Spirit are, so I don’t need to go over them in detail. But perhaps we should spend some time talking about that word forbearance. The Greek word is μακροθυμία. The word is sometimes translated into English as patience or long-suffering. The latter sometimes sounds to us like being a doormat. But that is not what μακροθυμία means. The word conveys the idea of staying power. We could all probably use a bit more staying power in life.
μακροθυμία is made up of two shorter words. One is the word macro which we still use in English. We might translate this word as long. The other word in Greek is thymos and refers to anger or passion. In English we talk about someone having a short fuse or being short-tempered. It’s too bad we don’t have the word long-tempered in English because that would be the perfect translation of μακροθυμία. We all need μακροθυμία if we are going to patiently wait on God to produce all aspects of the fruit of the Spirit in us.
C. S. Lewis met weekly, for many years, with a spiritual director. Lewis’s spiritual director, Father Walter Adams, always impressed upon Lewis the need for the three patiences: patience with God, patience with others, and patience with oneself. I think we all need all three patiences all the time.
Robert C. Roberts once wrote…
The fruits of the Holy Spirit are, it seems to me, largely fruits of sustainedinteraction with God. Just as a child picks up traits more or less simply by dwelling in the presence of her parent, so the Christian develops tenderheartedness, compassion, humility, forgiveness, joy, and hope through “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit”—that is, by dwelling in the presence of God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son. And this means, to a very large extent, living in a community of serious believers.[1]
The Way of Christian Victory
So, Paul’s first big point in this passage is that the Christian life is a battle. The moment we put our trust in Jesus Christ, we are engaged in a battle between the flesh and the Spirit. Paul’s second point has to do with the way of Christian victory. Thankfully, Paul doesn’t just say that we are in a battle and leave it at that. He tells us how to win the battle. And Paul indicates that there are two steps to winning the battle between the flesh and the Spirit.
We have crucified the flesh.
The first step is something that sounds rather painful: we must crucify the flesh. We must put to death our sinful nature. Paul says, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Paul indicates that this is something that has happened at one point in time, in the past, for all who belong to Jesus.
Do you remember Paul’s dramatic statement back in Galatians 2:20? Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
When did this crucifixion of the flesh happen? There is a sense in which it happened when Jesus died on the cross. There is also a sense in which it happened the moment we put our faith in Christ for the first time.
My friend, Tim Hansel, once asked one of his mentors, “If my sin nature has been crucified with Christ, then why is it still wiggling?” Tim’s mentor answered, “Tim, you have to remember, crucifixion is a slow death.”
That is so true. So, what do we do whenever our old sin nature starts wiggling? Paul tells us what to do in Romans 6:11… “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
We walk by the Spirit.
Did you notice the two parts of that statement: dead to sin, but alive to God? That’s how we need to view ourselves. Paul uses a little bit different language in Galatians to say the same thing. He writes, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
Paul makes it clear that we do not overcome the power of sin by obeying the law. We overcome the power of the flesh, the power of our sin nature, by the greater power of the Holy Spirit.
J. I. Packer explains, “Walk [in verse 25] is not peripateo, as in verse 16, signifying literally the walker’s moving of his limbs and metaphorically the activity of living, but stoicheo, which carries the thought of walking in line, holding to a rule, and thus proceeding under another’s control.”[2]
I love the way Paul puts things in this passage. Not only do we need to walk in the Spirit, not only do we need to live in the Spirit, but we also need to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.
Isn’t it the truth that sometimes we lag behind where God wants us to be? And at other times don’t we try to get ahead of the Spirit of God, thinking we know the way? The challenge of the Christian life is to keep in step with the Spirit, neither lagging behind nor trying to get ahead.
I love the way Stuart Briscoe illustrates the battle between the flesh and the Spirit and how we win the battle. Briscoe once wrote…
The cuckoo is a common bird in England. The first sign of spring is that bird’s call. The cuckoo never builds its own nest. When it feels an egg coming on, it finds another nest with eggs and no parent bird. The cuckoo lands, hurriedly lays its egg, and takes off again. That’s all the cuckoo does in terms of parenting. (We have a lot of cuckoos in our society today!)
The thrush, whose nest has now been invaded, comes back, circles, and comes into the nest to land. Not being very good at arithmetic, it can’t imagine why it immediately begins to list to starboard. It gets to work hatching the eggs. Four little thrushes and one large cuckoo eventually hatch. The cuckoo is two or three times the size of the thrushes.
Mrs. Thrush, having hatched the five little birds, goes off early in the morning to get the worm. She comes back, circles the nest to see four petite thrush mouths and one cavernous cuckoo mouth. Who gets the worm? The cuckoo.
Guess what happens. The cuckoo gets bigger and bigger; the little thrushes get smaller and smaller.
To find a baby cuckoo in a nest, simply walk along a hedge row until you find little dead thrushes. The cuckoo throws them out one at a time. Here’s an adult thrush feeding a baby cuckoo that is three times as big as the thrush.
And the moral of the story is this: you have two natures in one nest and the nature you go on feeding will grow, and the nature you go on starving will diminish.[3]
Which nature are you going to feed this day and this week and for the rest of your life? Flesh or Spirit, that’s the choice. Let’s pray and ask for God’s help to feed the Spirit nature we have in us through the indwelling Christ…
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