Galatians 5 v 19 – 21 - The working energies of the flesh

 ‘And the energies and workings of the flesh are clear. Whatever is selling off sexual purity, uncleanness, brutal rejection of restraint, 20 idol worship and service, drug-related enchantments, hostility, contentions, passionate jealousy, outbursts of hot passion, mercenary self-seeking, division and standing apart, strong personal opinions, 21 jealous grudges, intoxications, revelries and similar to these, which I am forewarning you, just as I warned before, that the doing of such things will not acquire the Kingdom of God’, (Galatians 5 v 19 – 21). 

The energies of the flesh and what the flesh labours to produce in terms of our speech and behaviour is, says Paul, obvious and clear. But if we are in any doubt, he lists what the flesh leads us to construct. Briefly, since they are mostly self-explicit, there is ‘selling off sexual purity’ – by which he means prostitution, adultery, sexual permissiveness, sodomy and lesbianism. ‘Uncleanness’, which covers a wider range of sensual behaviour, as well as impure motivations. The kind of behaviour that leads us to call someone ‘dirty’. ‘Brutal rejection of restraint’. A strong rejection of the idea of thoughtful self-moderation, such that instead, the preference is for following instincts, emotions, ‘gut feelings’, lusts and desires. Acting like wild animals. ‘Idol worship and service’, compliance with idolatrous customs, taking part in idol feasts, or eating food offered to idols. Worshipping and serving other gods, or carved or moulded images. ‘Drug-related enchantments’. Using drugs to create ecstatic or mystical religious experiences. ‘Hostility, contentions, passionate jealousy, outbursts of hot passion’. Quarrelling, being contradictory or displaying angry emotional outbursts. ‘Mercenary self-seeking, division and standing apart, strong personal opinions’. Acting out of personal ambition, working for personal gain, being divisive, schisms, partisanship, cliques, elite groups, having intolerant strong opinions. ‘Jealous grudges, intoxications, revelries and similar to these’. Being governed by envy, ‘marking other people’s cards’, seeking revenge, drunkenness, partying, night time drinking, dancing, singing, sexual permissiveness, wantonness and excessive behaviour. 

Concerning these kinds of behaviours, Paul says, ‘I am forewarning you just as I warned before, that the doing of such things will not acquire the Kingdom of God’. These are the kinds of behaviours that God disapproves of and that oppose God. They are not the behaviours that admit entry into the Kingdom of God or lead to an allotted share in the divine inheritance. Those who happily and unconcernedly regularly engage in these kinds of behaviours will not inherit the Kingdom. For Christians to behave in these kinds of ways without worry or concern is quite inconsistent with their calling by God, and certainly not examples of being led to by the Breath of God. Rather, such behaviours risk ruination, loss and death.

Galatians 5 v 16 – 18 - The path of godliness - walking around within the Breath

 ‘But I am saying, Be walking around Breath, and absolutely do not bring flesh-desire to end completion, 17 because the flesh is set upon passionate desire and lust, down opposite the Breath, and the Breath down opposite the flesh. For these are lying opposite one another in order that if you are desiring or intending these things, you are not constructing., 18 And if you are being led by Breath, you are absolutely not under law’, (Galatians 5 v 16 – 18).

How do Christians live a godly life? That is the fundamental question that is being asked in Galatians. Christian and Jewish legalists would have Christians turning backwards. They turn things upside down by directing Christians to the external written codes of Covenant law. ‘Are you stealing? What do the Ten Commandments say? You shall not steal!’. That is what they say. But what does the Apostle say? ‘Be walking around Breath’. The phrase ‘walking around’ refers to how we speak and behave moment-by-moment in our daily lives. ‘Walking’ signifies the direction of our speech and behaviour day-by-day. Walking also denotes activity. The metaphor is very common in the writings of both Paul and John - walking in truth, in darkness, according to the flesh and so on are familiar examples. 

The grammar used in reference to ‘Breath’ – ‘in’ or ‘by’ Breath, refers to 

The sphere or realm of Breath, and/or 

The governing principle of the Breath, along with 

The enabling power of the Breath 

Paul exhorts Christians to conduct their daily lives, moment-by-moment, ‘breathfully’ if you like. The meaning is, Walk around within the current, movement and disposition of the Breath deep within as your guide, and the free gift of the Breath as your strength, moment-by-moment in the course of your life. Paul later expresses this as being ‘led by the Breath’, (verse 18), and as an ‘orderly walking by means of the Breath’, (verse 25).

The exhortation implies two things. First, that Christians have received the gift of the set-apart Breath. Second, that the Breath alone will not succeed in the actual setting apart of their life in cleanliness and godliness without diligent endeavours on the Christian’s own part as they co-work with God ‘and absolutely do not bring flesh-desire to end completion’. The idea is that it is impossible for someone who is walking within the sphere of the Breath to carry into full effect any desire or raw passion within their flesh. Why? ‘Because the flesh is set upon passionate desire and lust, down opposite the Breath, and the Breath down opposite the flesh’, (verse 17). These are two opposing currents, movements or impulses existing within Christians. Unbelievers do not possess the opposing movement of the set-apart Breath within their deep inner core.

These opposing movements exist within Christians ‘in order that….’ Paul gives two reasons why Christians possess the gift of the set-apart Breath when it comes to living a godly life.

First, ‘if you are desiring or intending these things, you are not constructing’. Christians still retain their ‘vessel of clay’, their ‘earthy, fleshly body’ at this present time, a fleshly body that has impulses, energies and raw-passions that are opposed to God. So Christians sometimes find these passions and desires coming down from the fabric of their flesh, inclining them to intend to speak and/or behave in ways that God disapproves of. 

But if a Christian is walking around within the sphere or realm of set-apart Breath, they find an opposing current and energy within them that opposes these fleshly impulses. By co-working with God and paying attention to the set-apart Breath dwelling within their deep inner core, they absolutely do not bring flesh-desire to end completion

Second, ‘if you are being led by Breath, you are absolutely not under law’, (verse 18). 

The phrase ‘being led’ is a primary verb that indicates a dynamic process. 

Christians are being brought, guided or inclined down from the set-apart Breath dwelling in their deep inner core or heart, at the ground or foundation of their thoughts, emotions and intentions. This movement is in opposition to the impulses and energies of their fleshly constitution

That is the dynamic process by which Christians live a godly life moment-by-moment. And if they are ‘walking around within the sphere of the Breath’ in this way then they ‘are absolutely not under law’, (verse 18). ‘Flesh’ and ‘law’ are correlated: to be free from one is to be free from the other. Flesh is human nature, and law is the standard to which human nature has to strive to observe to obtain divine approval. But if Christians are led by and walk around moment-by-moment within the sphere of the set-apart Breath, then they are not under the ruling authority of the external written codes of Sinai Covenant law. They are under a different Covenant, the New Covenant of the blood of the Messiah, and are engaged in a different dynamic process. They are free from enslavement to flesh as well as Sinai Covenant law, and are under the influence of the set-apart Breath of God and His Messiah. The movement and activity of the Breath of Life, dwelling within their heart, enables them to perceive and know the will of God, and through their co-working with God, to walk within divine approval and bring to completion the fundamental principles of the law, (II Corinthians 3 v 6 - 11).

Galatians 5 v 13 – 15 - The boundaries of Christian freedom

 ‘For you were summoned and called on the basis of freedom, brothers, but not the freedom to penetrate into a starting point of the flesh. On the contrary, we are serving one another by means of practical beneficial love. 14 For the whole law is made full and complete within one saying, within this: ‘You will beneficially love those close by in the manner of yourself’. 15 But if you are biting and eating up one another, look, in case you are consumed under one another’, (Galatians 5 v 13 – 15).

Paul says that the Judaizers are undoing the whole object for which Christians were called. Christians are not called to legal bondage, or enslavement to the Sinai Covenant with its written codes of law, but to freedom. ‘We are not like Moses putting a veil over his face, toward the sons of Israel not intently looking towards the completion of that which is being rendered idle. 14 But their minds were hardened. For up until the present day, the same veil remains on the basis of the reading of the old Covenant - unless uncovered, for it is rendered idle within the Messiah. 15 But up until today, when Moses is being read a veil lies over their heart. 16 But whenever, if turning back toward the Lord, the veil is completely removed’, (II Corinthians 3 v 13 – 16). 

Now we come to one of the usual opposing arguments presented by Jewish and Christian legalists. If Christians are freed away from the written codes of law, then this will penetrate into a starting point of the flesh. The desires, impulses, energies and raw passions inherent in our fleshly constitution will be unleashed and unrestrained if the law is removed. If Christians are free, away from the written codes of law, then what is being introduced is lawlessness, permissiveness, a licence to speak and behave in any way that they please. And so legalists argue that Christians need Covenant law so as to avoid falling into wayward behaviour, and they direct Christians back to being governed and ruled by the written codes of Sinai Covenant law. 

‘On the contrary’, says Paul. ‘We are serving one another by means of practical beneficial love’. There is the principle of living a godly life. This is not a rosy, ‘Barbie Doll’ sentimentalised view of love. This principle arises from out of spiritual considerations that Christians are able to comprehend by means of the set-apart Breath. It is beyond the ability of unbelievers. It is the primary fruit of the Breath that indwells the Christian’s heart or deep inner core. It is directed at Christians serving one another.   

In response to legalists, Paul says, ‘For the whole law is made full and complete within one saying, within this: ‘You will beneficially love those close by in the manner of yourself’.

There it is, the primary principle of Christians living a godly life – 

The whole law is made full and complete within this: ‘You will beneficially love those close by in the manner of yourself

This is contrasted with Christians ‘biting and eating up one another’ – criticising and picking fault with one another. The allusion is to beasts of prey falling upon and devouring one another. For wolves or dogs to worry sheep is not a strange event, but for sheep to distress one another is unnatural. Paul does not say, ‘if grievous wolves should enter in among you and not spare the flock’, but warns against Christians themselves acting the part of wolves in relation to one another, devouring one another like wild beasts. Such attacks would consist of abuse, slander, sarcasm, invective or innuendo. The result can only be mutual destruction - the ruin of both parties because in due course there is an utter end to what constitutes the Christian community, the organic life of which is mutually destroyed by its own members.

Galatians 5 v 7 – 12 - Divine condemnation of those leading the Galatian Christians astray

 ‘You were running well. Who cut into you, not being persuaded of the truth, 8 the self-produced persuasion absolutely not from out of your summons and calling? 9 A little yeast is fermenting the whole lump. 10 I, on my part, am convinced towards you within the Lord that you will have no other mindset. But the one disturbing, troubling and agitating you will carry the judicial decision, whoever he is. 11 Now brothers if I still, even now, am proclaiming circumcision, why am I still pursued and persecuted, since the cause of stumbling, the cross, has been rendered entirely idle? 12 Oh that those turning you upside down will also ‘cut themselves off’, (Galatians 5 v 7 - 12).

Paul is very abrupt in style in verses 7 – 12. His thought jumps from subject to subject, not stopping to insert links of connection. He says that the Galatian Christians were ‘running well’ – elsewhere he likens the Christian life to athletes running a race in order to win the prize and he says that they were doing well, but then he asks, ‘Who, not being persuaded of the truth, cut in?’ Who, as it were, knocked them sideways so as to lead them to take another route? In turning back to the written codes of the Sinai Covenant, the Galatian Christians have persuaded themselves. What they are holding to is not from out of their calling by God. The belief that it is necessary to obey the laws of Moses and blend the observance of Jewish law with Christian teaching in order to be delivered and maintain a godly life, cannot be traced to God, even though those who are teaching it pretended to be commissioned by Him. Those who are wayward in the fellowship may be few, but they will soon ruin the whole assembly, because a small portion of legalism, if mixed with the Gospel, corrupts its purity and undermines the whole. Though they had been led astray and had embraced many false opinions, yet, on the whole, Paul had confidence in them and believed they would yet return and embrace the truth, as Paul had taught it. 

‘But the one disturbing, troubling and agitating you…’. Paul seems to have a particular individual in mind, perhaps the leader of the false teachers who was causing the most mischief among them. This agitator had unsettled the minds of the Galatian Christians and caused them to halt between two mutually exclusive Covenants, Moses and the Messiah, law and Gospel, and divine approval attained by working to observe the law or by means of the atoning sacrifice of the Messiah. Paul says that this individual ‘will carry the judicial decision, whoever he is’. Whoever endeavoured to lead them astray, whatever their status, God will reward them according to their behaviour. They will carry the consequences of God’s judicial decision. 

‘Now brothers…’. Another abrupt transition by Paul. It may well be that Paul had at one time seemed to preach, or at least permit, circumcision. This may have arisen from the fact that he had circumcised Timothy, (Acts 16 v 3) ‘on account of the Jews in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek’. This would have been so that the Jews did not immediately reject Timothy as he and Paul sought to announce the gospel to them. It was done to avoid the opposition and reproaches of the Jews. But Paul did not want any misunderstanding. He was not teaching that male Gentile Christians had to be circumcised. Paul had never complied with Jewish customs where there was danger that his behaviour would be understood. He did not want people to think that he regarded such customs and laws indispensable, or as furnishing a basis for divine approval. The fact that Jews are still persecuting me, he says, is full demonstration that I am not regarded as teaching the necessity to be circumcised. Circumcision is the special badge of Jewish religion; it implies all the rest, and if I preach the necessity of it, then this would satisfy the Jews and save me from persecution. But if I teach the necessity of circumcision, as alleged, then the cause of stumbling for Jews, the cross, is removed - ‘If you let yourselves be circumcised, the Messiah will be of no value to you at all’, (Galatians 5 v 2). It is because I preach the Messiah crucified, and not Mosaic law as the sole basis of divine approval that they persecute me.

Paul says, ‘I am so far from agreeing with them, so far from preaching the necessity to be circumcised, that I sincerely wish that they were excluded from the assembly, as being unworthy of having a place among the children of God’.

Galatians 5 v 1b – 6 - The Messiah frees Christians from the Sinai Covenant and its written codes of law

 ‘The anointed has set us free, therefore, stand firm, not holding yourselves within the yoke of slavery once more. 2 Look, I Paul am saying to you that if you become circumcised, the anointed will benefit you nothing 3 and I call to witness once more, that every man being circumcised is indebted to continue constructing the whole of the law. 4 Whosoever being judicially approved and right-wise within law, you are idle and inactive away from the anointed one, you have dropped away from the freely extended favour, 5 for we are eagerly awaiting judicial approval and being made right wise with confident expectation from out of Breathful [Pneuma] persuasion. 6 For within Jesus the anointed one, neither circumcision nor foreskin has any power, strength or ability, on the contrary, persuasion to the point of obedience, effectively working by means of practical beneficial love’, (Galatians 5 v 1b - 6).

What is the practical application and result of this allegory of Sarah and Hagar? It is that God’s anointed, Jesus, has set us Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, free. Jewish Christians in particular have been set free from being enslaved to the Sinai Covenant with its written codes of law. Therefore – stand firm within this freedom. Persevere within it. Maintain it. Hold on to it. Don’t turn back to the Sinai Covenant and its written codes of law so as to be enslaved again. 

Then in verse 2 Paul addresses a wider audience. He turns his attention to those male Gentile Christians who were being pressured by these visiting Jews to be circumcised according to Covenant law. Paul says, ‘Look, it’s me, Paul, an Apostle, who is speaking to you’. He sets out his own delegated authority in opposition to these Judaizers. 

First of all he says to these Gentile Christians, ‘If you submit to circumcision then the Messiah will benefit you nothing at all. You are entering into a completely different Covenant or set arrangement that negates or bypasses the Messiah’. 

Second, he reminds them of what he has told them before. ‘Every man being circumcised is indebted to begin and continue constructing the whole of the law’. Failure to observe just one aspect of divine law results in self-forfeiture and loss. When it comes to combating legalism it is important that the law is correctly perceived as an integrated unified whole containing both moral and ceremonial aspects. 

Third, whoever is seeking ongoing and final divine judicial approval within the sphere of Covenant law is ‘idle and inactive away from the anointed one’. These two set arrangements cannot be mixed or blended together. Within the Messiah, an individual is rendered idle and inactive away from the external written codes of Covenant law. If an individual turns to seeking ongoing divine judicial approval by means of obedience to Covenant law, then they are rendered idle and inactive away from the Messiah, [they] have dropped away from the freely extended favour’. These two Covenants are mutually exclusive. They are two different orders of priesthood. 

By contrast, we Christians ‘are eagerly awaiting judicial approval with confident expectation from out of Breathful persuasion’…NOT by seeking to observe all of the written codes of Covenant law. Thus we come back to Paul’s earlier statement, that ‘within Jesus the anointed one, neither circumcision nor foreskin has any power, strength or ability’  - there is no difference, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Where is the power, strength or ability? It is found in ‘persuasion to the point of obedience, effectively working by means of practical beneficial love’ – persuasion carried across into the primary fruit of the set apart Breath of God – practical beneficial love.