Galatians

Life in the Spirit and Love. Freedom from the law does not lead to libertinism, for believers by the power of the Spirit live a new life characterized by love.

Judgment for Those Who Turn from the Gospel. Those who turn to the law for salvation will cut themselves off from salvation. Hence Paul warns and encourages his readers not to defect.

Christ has set us free from Jewish ceremonial laws and regulations (see note on 2:11–12) but not from obedience to God’s moral standards (5:14–6:1).

The Galatians may have thought that requiring circumcision would not make much difference, but Paul knows that if they require obedience to any one part of the Mosaic law for justification, then they are committed to obeying all of it perfectly for their justification (v. 3), something none of them can do (cf. 3:10–11, 21). Therefore he says, if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

severed from Christ … fallen away from grace. Paul is not discussing here the question of whether a genuine believer can lose his or her salvation. He is only saying that people who may once have made a profession of faith, if they now are truly seeking to be justified by the law, must not really have a relationship with Christ and have fallen away from the grace that was offered and available to them.

We … wait for the hope of righteousness means that Christians do not attempt to produce perfect righteousness in their lives by their own efforts (as Paul’s opponents were futilely trying to do), for their hope is not in themselves; instead, they wait for God to complete righteousness in them—either when they die and are with the Lord (Heb. 12:23) or at Christ’s return (1 Cor. 15:49; cf. Rev. 21:27). An alternative explanation is that “the hope of righteousness” refers to the believer’s hope and expectation that God will declare that the believer is in fact going to be judged righteous at the final judgment.

Paul is not opposed to circumcision in and of itself but only if it is required for salvation. True faith is a living and active thing and produces love.

If Paul was still preaching that people had to be circumcised, then the offense of the cross would be removed because human pride in human effort would return. In other words, there would be no “offense” to humble us by declaring that no work of ours can make us righteous before God.

The Law of Love. Serving one another in love fulfills the law.

Far from the Christian life being enslaving, it is the only way to resist the various slaveries offered by the world. But this does not mean that Christians can do whatever they feel like doing (which itself is just another form of slavery). Rather, serving and loving others is the route to escaping bondage and fulfilling the ultimate content of the law.

freedom. From Mosaic laws, as represented by circumcision. Opportunity for the flesh means “opportunity to follow your fallen, sinful desires and act contrary to God’s moral laws.”

When Paul says the whole law is fulfilled in the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and when he uses that command as the reason why the Galatians are to “serve one another” (v. 13), he implies that Christians still have a moral obligation to follow the moral standards found in God’s “law” in Scripture. Obedience is not a means of justification, but it is a crucial component of the Christian life.

The Desires of the Flesh vs. the Fruit of the Spirit. Life under the law expresses itself in the works of the flesh, but those who live by the Spirit bear fruit pleasing to God.

Having contrasted the flesh with love (vv. 13–14), Paul now sets it against the Spirit. The only way to conquer the flesh is to yield to the Spirit. Walk by the Spirit implies both direction and empowerment; that is, making decisions and choices according to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and acting with the spiritual power that the Spirit supplies. To “walk” in Scripture regularly represents the pattern of conduct of all of one’s life. The desires of the flesh would mean not just bodily cravings but all of the ordinary desires of fallen human nature (see examples in vv. 19–21).

to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Paul acknowledges that the Christian life is a struggle—a war between the flesh and the Spirit (see also Eph. 6:10–18).

led by the Spirit. The verb (Gk. agō) implies an active, personal involvement by the Holy Spirit in guiding Christians, and the present tense (“if you are being led …”) indicates his ongoing activity. you are not under the law. The Spirit’s active presence in believers’ lives shows that they are no longer under the pre-Christian system (cf. 3:2, 5, 14; 4:6).

Works of the flesh means actions flowing out of fallen human nature and its desires. Apart from the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, these are the actions toward which sinful humans instinctively gravitate.

idolatry, sorcery. These are evidences of a desire to be in touch with the spiritual realm through humanly invented means: they supposedly have God as their ultimate object, but they reject the revealed way in which he should be worshiped. Because Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), all other ways to God are false. enmity, strife, etc. When people reject God, they turn in on themselves, and so relationships between human beings are destroyed as well.

Envy comes about when people are not content with what God has given them, longing instead for what he has given others. Drunkenness and orgies are examples of how people misuse God’s good gifts in destructive and sinful ways, in rebellion against God as the gracious giver of all good things. In the OT, wine was associated with joy and celebration (e.g., Neh. 8:10; Ps. 104:15; see note on John 2:3) but when abused was seen as being highly destructive (Prov. 20:1; 21:17; 23:29–35), and drunkenness is consistently condemned throughout Scripture (e.g., Eph. 5:18). Sex is a precious gift for husband and wife, but when abused it also has highly destructive consequences for all involved (1 Cor. 6:18). those who do such things. The present participle (Gk. prassontes, translated here as “do”) refers to those who “make a practice of doing” such things, as a pattern of life. Their outward conduct indicates their inward spiritual status: that they are not born of God, do not have the Holy Spirit within, and are not God’s true children.

The Spirit fights against sin not merely in defense but also in attack by producing in Christians the positive attributes of godly character, all of which are evident in Jesus in the Gospels. Love appears first because it is the greatest quality (1 Cor. 13:1–13; 2 Pet. 1:5–7) in that it most clearly reflects the character of God. Joy comes in at a close second, for in rejoicing in God’s salvation Christians show that their affections are rightly placed in God’s will and his purpose (see John 15:11; 16:24; Rom. 15:13; 1 Pet. 1:8; Jude 24; etc.). Peace is the product of God having reconciled sinners to himself, so that they are no longer his enemies, which should result in confidence and freedom in approaching God (Rom. 5:1–2; Heb. 4:16). Patience shows that Christians are following God’s plan and timetable rather than their own and that they have abandoned their own ideas about how the world should work. Kindness means showing goodness, generosity, and sympathy toward others, which likewise is an attribute of God (Rom. 2:4). Goodness means working for the benefit of others, not oneself; Paul mentions it again in Gal. 6:10. Faithfulness is another divine characteristic; it means consistently doing what one says one will do. Gentleness is a quality Jesus attributes to himself in Matt. 11:29; it enables people to find rest in him and to encourage and strengthen others. Self-control is the discipline given by the Holy Spirit that allows Christians to resist the power of the flesh (cf. Gal. 5:17). Against such things there is no law, and therefore those who manifest them are fulfilling the law—more than those who insist on Jewish ceremonies, and likewise more than those who follow the works of the flesh surveyed in vv. 19–21.

Again, Christ and the Spirit (v. 25) come together as the source of the believer’s life. Christians have crucified the flesh, or died with Christ to sin (see 6:14; Rom. 6:4–6). Now that the old order of things has passed away for believers, their old sinful selves that belonged to that order have crumbled as well—so they should pay no attention to them. “Flesh” here should not be understood to mean physical bodies but rather fallen, sinful human nature with all its desires.

keep in step with the Spirit. A different verb than in v. 16, meaning “walk in line behind a leader” (Gk. stoicheō).

Paul is probably referring specifically to attitudes that seem to have become a problem in the Galatian churches (see v. 15). But these sinful attitudes and actions obviously extend beyond one Roman province: Paul has just mentioned enmity, strife, jealousy, and envy as “works of the flesh” in general (vv. 19–21).