Galatians 5:1, 13-25 Commentary

Our three sons are taller than my relatively tall wife and me. They range in height from about 6’2 to 6’6. So it can be challenging for us to walk with them. When our sons are walking with purpose, they walk far faster than my wife and I do. They, in fact, must often slow down to allow us to keep up with them.

This morning’s Epistolary Lesson is a veritable goldmine of grace. Earlier commentaries on this website have explored the themes of law and Christian freedom. Preachers who feel the Holy Spirit perhaps prodding us in a slightly different yet still biblical direction might, however, explore the theme of walking against, with and behind the Spirit. Just a month after our celebration of the Church’s birthday on Pentecost, that may feel like a particularly appropriate theme.

Over the past years I’ve noticed a trend among people who walk for exercise. It seems that at least some of them like to walk with partners. They appear to find encouragement and community in walking with at least one other person. So preachers might consider letting the Spirit help us to develop a sermon around the question of, “Who’s your walking partner?”

Paul doesn’t explicitly talk about walking against the Holy Spirit. But he does speak a great deal about acting in ways that are “contrary to” [kata*] the Spirit. The apostle explores that contradiction by basically setting two mighty forces alongside and against each other.

In verses 16-18 he use some form of pneuma (“the Spirit”) four times. This is a clear reference to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. While Christians often concentrate on the gifts the Spirit gives, Galatians 5 emphasizes the will of the Spirit – though its verses 22-24 famously explores some of the gifts the Spirit gives.

In verse 17 Paul begins his discussion of the Spirit’s enemy by telling Galatia’s Christians, “the flesh [he sarx] desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.” He sarx is in other places translated as “the sinful nature.” It’s essentially our human nature that is completely controlled not by God, but by the evil one and his allies.

Most Christians profess that we are born with a sinful nature that dictates our words, actions and thoughts. In verse 1 the apostle even refers to that nature or “the flesh” as “slavery” [douleias]. It’s, in fact, so powerful that he insists that even people whom the Spirit has freed from it must “stand firm” [stekete] (1) because we’re constantly tempted to return to it.

Paul, of course, devotes verses a large part of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson to describing the outcomes (dare we say “fruits”?) of the flesh’s control. In verse 15 he at least implies that includes the “biting [daknete] and devouring [katesthiete]” of our neighbor. This suggests that “the flesh” longs for those it controls to act not like image-bearers of God, but wild animals toward each other. People whom our sinful nature enslaves hate rather than love our neighbors.

In verses 19-21a the apostle is explicit in both his language and the link between the sinful nature and failure to love our neighbor. “The acts [erga] of the flesh are obvious [Phanera],” he writes there, “sexual immorality [porneia], impurity [akatharsia] and debauchery [aselgeia]; idolatry [eidololatria] and witchcraft [pharmakeia]; hatred [ekthrai], discord [eris], jealousy [zelos], fits of rage [thymoi], selfish ambition [eritheiai], dissensions [dichostasiai], factions [haireseis] and envy [phthonoi]; drunkenness [methai], orgies [komoi] and the like.”

Preachers will want to listen for the Spirit’s leading about how to preach about this list. But we might summarize it by noting at least some things about the “fruits” of the flesh. The Church spends a great deal of time talking and arguing about sexual sins. Paul too devotes some of his time in Galatians 5 mentioning what The Message paraphrases as “repetitive, loveless, cheap sex.”

Yet it’s tempting for the Church to pay less attention to the other kinds of “fruits” of the sinful nature on which this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson proportionately spends more time. The Message paraphrases them as “frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trinket gods … cutthroat competition … a brutal temper … … uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions.”

Preachers might also note that Paul emphasizes how those the flesh controls fail to love, in fact effectively hate our neighbors. While the sinful nature obviously harms those whom it controls, the apostle almost seems to suggest that it even more deeply harms the people God places near us. While Paul calls us to love our neighbors, those whose words and actions the flesh dictates deeply harm those God calls us to love.

Preachers might, what’s more, note that much of this list is devoted to the kinds of divisions that especially seem to thrive even within Christ’s Church in the 21^st century. It seems that Paul insists that the sinful nature thrives on disunity. Its acts include, after all, what The Message paraphrases as “divided homes and divided lives … a vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival [and] ugly parodies of community.” Such divisions as well as other “fruits” of the flesh, the apostle warns in verse 21b, have no place in God’s “kingdom” [basileian], either now or in its full implementation in the new earth and heaven.

The lives of people in whom the Spirit lives and controls are radically different from those the flesh enslaves. They reflect not what our sinful nature desires, but what the Spirit “desires” [epithemei] (17). Those desires are, in fact, in direct “conflict” [antikeitai] (17b) with each other.

Paul calls the Christians in Galatia to cultivate a close relationship with the Spirit so that their lives may reflect the Spirit’s desires for us. In verse 16 he summons Jesus’ friends to “walk [perpateite] by the Spirit [Pneumati].” While this may sound like spatial imagery, it’s actually relational imagery. The Message paraphrases the apostle’s call as, “Live … animated and motivated by God’s Spirit.”

In verse 18 Paul goes on to refer to Jesus’ friends as those who are “led by [agesthe] the Spirit.” While we naturally want to follow the desires of ourselves or others, the apostle summons us to a different way. He invites God’s adopted children to let the Spirit lead us in the ways God wants us to go. The life of the Christian is, in some ways, a variation on the old children’s games of “Follow the Leader” and “Simon Says.”

In verse 25 Paul uses a third walking image. There he invites God’s dearly beloved people to “keep in step [stoichomen] with the Spirit.” We let the Spirit determine not just how we walk, but also the pace and direction of our walking. Christians might even say that we try not to get ahead or lag too far behind the Spirit. We instead let the Spirit control our tempo, direction, and goal.

In verses 22-23 Paul famously describes the shape of a life that’s in lockstep with the Holy Spirit. He vividly describes the kind of character for which the Spirit longs for in Jesus’ followers. The apostle insists “the fruit [karpos] of the Spirit is love [agape], joy [chara], peace [eirene], forbearance [makromythia], kindness [chrestotes], goodness [agathosyne], faithfulness [pistis], gentleness [prautes] and self-control [enkrateia].”

While there are a number of ways to address this second “list,” preachers might choose to note a few things about it. Things like true love, joy and peace are not virtues that even the godliest Christians muster on our own. While we may cultivate such Christlikeness, it is always first of all a fruit of the Spirit. Things like forbearance, kindness and goodness are gifts that the Spirit implants deeply within Jesus’ friends.

What’s more, preachers can be honest in noting that while some Christians may be gifted with, for instance, greater goodness and faithfulness than others have, the Spirit has graced all of us with each of those gifts. While Christian virtues such as gentleness and self-control may be less or more developed in some of us than others, all of Jesus’ friends have all of those graces. No friend of Jesus can claim that the Spirit has not gifted us with love, joy and peace.

On top of all that, preachers might point out how again these gifts are given to benefit not just, or in some cases primarily, their receivers. God graces God’s dearly beloved people with these fruits in order to bless the neighbors God calls us to love. Some of those virtues are obviously outwardly focused: love, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness.

But attitudes such as the joy and self-control with which the Spirit graces us also help Jesus’ followers to live in the freedom God gives us by loving our neighbor in concrete ways. They aren’t just integral parts of our walk with the Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit are also vital to our walk with our neighbors.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

The old television program, “Gomer Pyle, USMC” portrayed a bumbling but lovable Marine from rural North Carolina. Its opening featured Pyle’s struggles to keep in parade step with other Marines. What struck me as I prepared this commentary was the look on Gomer’s face.

When he struggled to march in cadence with his fellow Marines, he had a kind of embarrassed, frustrated smile. But when Gomer finally figured out how to keep in step with those fellow Marines, a big, happy smile broke out across his face. No matter how much Gomer struggled to march in formation with Marines at the show’s start, he’d be keeping in step with them by its end — at least until the next show’s opening.

Even Jesus’ closest friends naturally find it easier to keep in step with a culture that promotes anger and division. We may even feel embarrassed as we try to keep cadence with the Spirit in that culture. Yet God’s adopted children find joy as we let the Spirit who frees us to lovingly serve God and each other call out our cadence.