Galatians 5:22-23, consider the other side of the room, another danger is forming, someone hears the word freedom and uses it like a permission slip, if the old boundaries do not define you, then maybe desire can, maybe liberty means nobody can tell you what to do, maybe grace means your body, your anger, your appetite and your pride are now untouchable. The church table starts to split, a Jewish believer who loves the scriptures may fear that Paul is dishonoring Moses, a Gentile believer may fear that his conversion was incomplete, a careless person may hear the debate and decide that freedom means nobody can correct him anymore. The community is being pulled apart by two different misunderstandings of the same gospel.
One group is anxious that grace is not enough, another group is tempted to act like grace asks for nothing and in the middle, people start biting and devouring one another, which is exactly the language Paul uses in Galatians 5:15. Paul hears what is happening and the letter to the Galatians comes out like a fire, this is not a minor disagreement about religious customs. If these teachers are making circumcision necessary for full acceptance before God, then grace has been quietly replaced by performance, Christ is being treated as necessary, but not sufficient. But is freedom becomes an excuse for the flesh, then the gospel is being distorted in the other direction, Galatians 5:13, that is the battlefield.
Legalism says, you are accepted, because you perform. License says, because you are accepted, obedience does not matter. Paul rejects both, then he gives the command that frames the whole passage, Galatians 5:16, the word flesh here does not mean the physical body is evil. Paul is not teaching hatred of the body, he is describing fallen human nature turned away from God, the old self-directed life that bends even good things inward until they become idols. Right before Galatians 5:22-23, Paul lists what that old life produces, sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, hatred, strife, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, envy, drunkenness and more. You can almost hear a church coming apart in this list, arguments at tables, rival groups forming in corners, people measuring each other’s spirituality, freedom becoming self-protection, desire becoming law. Then Paul says, but the fruit of the Spirit is, not the decoration of the Spirit, not the personality of the Spirit, fruit, the old life fractures a community into rival desires.
One group is anxious that grace is not enough, another group is tempted to act like grace asks for nothing and in the middle, people start biting and devouring one another, which is exactly the language Paul uses in Galatians 5:15. Paul hears what is happening and the letter to the Galatians comes out like a fire, this is not a minor disagreement about religious customs. If these teachers are making circumcision necessary for full acceptance before God, then grace has been quietly replaced by performance, Christ is being treated as necessary, but not sufficient. But is freedom becomes an excuse for the flesh, then the gospel is being distorted in the other direction, Galatians 5:13, that is the battlefield.
Legalism says, you are accepted, because you perform. License says, because you are accepted, obedience does not matter. Paul rejects both, then he gives the command that frames the whole passage, Galatians 5:16, the word flesh here does not mean the physical body is evil. Paul is not teaching hatred of the body, he is describing fallen human nature turned away from God, the old self-directed life that bends even good things inward until they become idols. Right before Galatians 5:22-23, Paul lists what that old life produces, sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, hatred, strife, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, envy, drunkenness and more. You can almost hear a church coming apart in this list, arguments at tables, rival groups forming in corners, people measuring each other’s spirituality, freedom becoming self-protection, desire becoming law. Then Paul says, but the fruit of the Spirit is, not the decoration of the Spirit, not the personality of the Spirit, fruit, the old life fractures a community into rival desires.
