Galatians 5

Galatians 5:1-12

Chapter 25 The Blessed Liberty of Grace “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from graceGal_5:1-12 In this chapter the Apostle Paul urges every believer to stand firm in the blessed liberty of the gospel, the liberty of grace, and urges us never to abuse that liberty. We must stand fast in, hold to, defend, and maintain “the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” The liberty we have in Christ is too precious to lose or take for granted. It is the liberty of grace, salvation, and life in him.

Every believer, every saved sinner, every heaven born soul is free in Christ. Because “we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free” (Galatians 4:31), because Christ has made us free, we must continually stand fast in the blessed liberty of grace. Paul’s exhortation in Galatians 5:1 could not be urged with more pressing arguments than those given in Galatians 5:2-4. All who attempt to make themselves holy before God by the works of the law have made Christ and his redemptive work meaningless to themselves and have fallen from grace altogether (Galatians 5:2-4). Works salvation is not simply a doctrinal error; it is an utter denial of the gospel of Christ. To embrace it is to embrace “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6-9). Made Free “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” (Galatians 5:1). It is Christ who has made us free, and Christ who keeps us free. He has made us free by his obedience unto death as our Substitute and by the gift of his grace in the new birth. He keeps us in the blessed liberty of grace as he keeps us looking to him alone for righteousness, acceptance with God, assurance, and peace. Yet, it is our responsibility to continually look to him, to continually trust him, and refuse to be entangled with the oppressive yoke of legal bondage. What is this “liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free”? It is liberty from the law’s bondage. Believer’s are not under the law. This fact cannot be stated more emphatically, or more constantly than it is throughout the New Testament. Every reference to the law of God as it relates to believers declares that we are dead to it and it to us, because Christ has fulfilled it for us (Romans 6:14-15; Romans 7:1-4; Romans 8:1-4; Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:24-25; Colossians 2:8-17; 1 Timothy 1:8-10). There is not a single passage to be found in the New Testament in which believers are motivated by law to do anything. “Christ is the end of the law.” No, he did not destroy the law. He fulfilled it, finished it, and brought it to an end. He was made under the law, that he might fulfill it for us.

Now, he is free from the law. And we are free from the law in him, in exactly the same sense and to exactly the same degree. We are free from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13-14), the condemnation of the law (Romans 8:1), and from the covenant of the law (Galatians 4:24-31). Martin Luther wrote, “In the stead of sin and death, he giveth unto us righteousness and everlasting life; and by this means he changeth the bondage and terrors of the law into liberty of conscience and consolation of the gospel.” Almost all who profess to believe that salvation is by grace agree that we are free from the ceremonial law, that we are free from circumcision, feast days, sacrifices, and all the burdensome, carnal rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation. But many try to impose upon us the rules of the moral law (the ten commandments), vainly attempting to divide the moral law from the ceremonial law. Such a division does not exist in the Word of God. Those who would teach us to live by the moral law, were they consistent, must also demand that we observe and keep all the carnal ordinances of the ceremonial law. It is impossible to keep a sabbath day without a sacrifice! (Read what the law says, and see — Numbers 28:9-10.) I do not suggest or imply that believers are free to violate God’s law. The Word of God does not teach that and believers do not live in rebellion to the law. However, the Word of God does teach, and I do assert, that all who are born of God are free from the yoke, bondage, curse, and rule of the law. “Free from the law — O happy condition! Jesus hath bled, and there is remission. Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall, Christ hath redeemed us once for all. Now are we free — there’s no condemnation! Jesus provides a perfect salvation. ‘Come unto Me’ — O hear His sweet call! Come — and He saves us once for all. Children of God — O glorious calling! Surely His grace will keep us from falling. Passing from death to life at His call, Blessed salvation — once for all!” Philip Bliss The liberty of grace is liberty from sin. We are not free from the being of it, nor from the indwelling of it, nor from the temptation to it, but from the dominion and damning power of it (Romans 6:11; Romans 6:18; 1 John 3:5). The Lord God imputed all our sins (past, present, and future) to Christ and punished him for them to the full satisfaction of justice. Christ, by his one offering for sin, has purged our sins and put them away forever. That means that God will never impute sin to any for whom Christ was made to be sin. Therefore, we say with David, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:8). This liberty is the liberty of life. Spiritual, eternal life is ours in Christ (Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:5-6; 1 Peter 1:23-25; Revelation 20:6). Being made partakers of the first resurrection, we shall be made partakers of resurrection glory when Christ comes again. That is to say, as surely as Christ has given us spiritual life, he will raise our bodies to life and immortality at the last day (1 Corinthians 15:53-58; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). We “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). With this liberty of life in Christ comes freedom from the fear of death. Christ has destroyed the power of death by dying in our place and rising again. Since all of God’s elect were partakers of flesh and blood, under the dominion of death, Christ became a man to suffer and die for us. It was not possible for our Representative to satisfy the claims of divine justice against us unless he lived and died in our nature. By his substitutionary death on the cursed tree and his triumphant resurrection, the Son of God destroyed the power of Satan and the power of the grave over us. We are now more than conquerors in him. Why then should we fear death? The Lord Jesus delivers us from the fear of death by removing our sin. “The sting of death is sin.” It is sin that causes men torment in death. But in Christ we have no sin. In him we are fully forgiven. By his blood our sins are washed away. If we are born of God, we are in Christ; “and in him is no sin” (1 John 3:1-5). Be sure you have the forgiveness of sin by faith in Christ, and fear death no more. To die forgiven, “accepted in the Beloved,” is not really to die at all. It is simply the departure out of this world into the Father’s house. The Son of God declares, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:26). The law of God held us in bondage to the sentence of death and condemnation; but “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Romans 10:4). He is the end of the law’s power to condemn. In the book of God’s holy law there is no legal claim of condemnation upon any believer. Christ satisfied that claim for us. Why then should we fear? If I am in Christ, I am dead to the law (Romans 7:4; Romans 8:1-4). The Lord Jesus Christ delivers us from the fear of death by changing the character of death. For the unbeliever death is a horrible thing. For the unbeliever, anything short of death is mercy. But, for the believer death is a great blessing. John Trapp wrote, “To those that are in Christ death is but the day-break of eternal brightness; not the punishment of sin, but the period of sin. It is but a sturdy porter opening the door of eternity, a rough passage to eternal pleasure.” Why should Israel be afraid to cross the swelling Jordan into the land of promise with the ark of God before them? The fact is, believers do not die in the sense that others do (John 11:25-26). To the ungodly, death is the penalty of sin; but to the believer, it is just a change of location. Death to the wicked is the execution of justice, but to the believer it is a deliverance from sin. To the worldling, death is the beginning of sorrows, but to the believer, it is admission into glory. To the rebel, death is imprisonment, but to the believer, it is freedom The liberty of grace is the liberty of sonship. Moreover, the Lord Jesus has given us free access to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), free use of the gospel ordinances, freedom to use all things for his glory, and freedom from the fear of death and of judgment. This is Paul’s admonition — Do not allow anyone to entangle you with any system of works religion. We are free in Christ, because we are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:9-10). Stand Fast “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” Paul here uses a term borrowed from the battlefield. He says, “Hold your ground. Stand fast.” Your freedom in Christ is under constant assault. As those who have been set free from the shame, drudgery, shackles and misery of slavery, we must never allow anyone to bring us back under the yoke of bondage. “Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” The yoke of bondage is the yoke of legal slavery (Galatians 2:4). Those who are under the yoke of slavery to the law are under an unbearable yoke (Acts 15:10), and are condemned to the futile pursuit of righteousness by their own obedience. They can never find rest. The Lord Jesus calls for sinners to come to him and take upon them his easy yoke and light burden, assuring all who come that they shall find rest for their souls in him (Matthew 11:28-30). Here is Christ’s word to lost, ruined, guilty sinners. — “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” There is no salvation to be had, but by coming to Christ. There can never be any true, peaceful, satisfying rest for our souls, except we come to Christ, trusting him alone as our Lord and Savior, — trusting his blood as our only atonement and his obedience as our only righteousness. Only Christ can give weary sinners rest. Here is the Master’s word to us all, both to the unbeliever and the believer. — “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls.” In all circumstances of life we find rest unto our souls only as we voluntarily submit to the rule and dominion of the Son of God as our Lord and King. The only way to find rest is to willingly slip our necks under his yoke. When we do and only when we do, we will find that his yoke really is easy and his burden really is light. I bid you now, whatever your circumstances, take the Master’s yoke upon you, and find rest unto your soul. Take upon you the yoke of his grace, bowing to him as your Lord (Luke 14:25-33). Take upon you the yoke of his doctrine, his gospel, bowing to him as your Prophet (Jeremiah 6:16).

Take upon you his yoke of providence, trusting him as your God and Savior (Psalms 31:1; Psalms 31:5; Psalms 31:7; Psalms 31:15). Only in this way do we find rest for our souls. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The call of the gospel is a call to rest, the blessed rest of faith in Christ. It is this rest that the Old Testament sabbath day pointed to and typified. All things relating to sabbath law in the Old Testament pointed to the necessity and blessedness of that rest of faith which believers enjoy in Christ (Hebrews 4:9-10). “It is,” wrote Edgar Andrews, “to die with him, to rise with him, to walk with him and to reign with him. It is to be cleansed by his blood, led by his Spirit, taught by his Word, strengthened by his power, filled with his love… A bird, released from captivity, is free to soar above the mountains, rove the land and cross the oceans.

There are no limits to its odyssey. So also there is no limit to the liberated soul. It is free to explore the ‘width and length and depth and height – and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge;’ free to be ‘filled with all the fulness of God’ (Ephesians 3:18-19).” “If ye be circumcised” “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing” (Galatians 5:2). Christ must be trusted as our only, all-sufficient Savior. True faith looks to Christ alone. If we add anything, even the most solemn religious duties, to the obedience and blood of Christ to obtain God’s favor, to improve our standing in God’s favor, or to keep God’s favor, whether it be circumcision, baptism, Bible reading, praying, church attendance, or doing good for others, we do not fully trust Christ alone as our Redeemer and Savior. Such proud self-righteousness is an utter contempt of Christ. He profits us nothing because we are, rather than submitting to the righteousness of God in Christ, going about to establish our own righteousness (Romans 10:3). A Debtor “For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law” (Galatians 5:3). That person who seeks righteousness to any degree by his own works and religious exercises does not trust Christ alone and, therefore, is a debtor to keep the whole law perfectly. “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” (Galatians 4:21). The law demands perfect, complete obedience. “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). Fallen from Grace “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4). Keep this verse in its context. Remember to whom it is written and for what reason. Paul is addressing himself to those people, whoever and wherever they may be, who try to merit God’s favor by something they do, who have one eye on Christ and one eye on their own works. Such people, while professing to believe in salvation by grace, have departed from it altogether. You have fallen from the gospel of the grace of God and embraced another gospel. Christ is become of no effect to you. Paul is not suggesting that such people once were saved, but now are lost again. Those who are saved by grace, those to whom Christ gives eternal life “shall never perish.” These people never truly had he grace of God. They only claimed to have it. They never truly walked in grace. They merely professed to walk in grace. Those who depart from the faith never had faith. Works and grace are mutually exclusive (Romans 11:6). “Nothing, either great or small; Nothing, sinner, no; Jesus did it, did it all, Long, long ago! When He, from His lofty throne, Stooped to do and die, Everything was fully done; Hearken to His cry - ‘It is finished!’ Yes indeed, Finished every jot. Sinner, this is all you need. Tell me, Is it not? Weary, working, plodding one, Why toil you so? Cease your doing, all was done, Long, long ago! Till to Jesus’ work you cling By a simple faith, Doing is a deadly thing. Doing ends in death! Cast your deadly ‘doing’ down, Down at Jesus’ feet. Stand in Him, in Him alone, Gloriously complete!” James Procter

Galatians 5:5-6

Chapter 26 The Hope of Righteousness “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” Galatians 5:5-6 Paul has fully demonstrated the fact that the justification of God’s elect is free and complete, that it is entirely detached from and is in no way connected with our own obedience to the law, and is received by faith alone. In the opening verses of this chapter he calls for all who know this righteousness, for all who trust the Lord Jesus Christ, to stand fast in the blessed liberty of grace. That liberty is the perfect and complete freedom Christ has, by himself alone, obtained for us by his obedience and death as our sin-atoning Substitute. He has, as the great Head and Surety of his church, redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Free in Christ Therefore, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). We are free in Christ. Let us cherish and stand fast in that blessed liberty our Savior has obtained for us. He has, as our Surety and Representative, answered every demand of God’s holy law and justice. He has paid our debt for every sin, suffered our penalty for every breach of God’s law, and thereby completely satisfied divine justice for us. As our Surety, he has magnified the law and made it honorable (Isaiah 42:21). Upon the basis of his finished work of righteousness and redemption, he says “to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that sit in darkness, Show yourselves” (Isaiah 49:9). “We are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:15). “The whole church of God, therefore, and every individual soul of that church, is delivered from the curse of the law: from guilt, from sin, from the accusations of Satan, the alarms of conscience, unbelief, and all the whole train of evils of a fallen state. And it is the privilege of all the church of God to behold themselves in Christ, perfectly holy in him. For Christ and his church being one, what Christ is in God’s sight so must the church be. And, as God hath declared himself well pleased in him, the church is included in this view, and is ‘holy and without blame before him in love.’” (Robert Hawker) Sinners Still Every child of God is freely, fully, completely holy in Christ before God. We are eternally “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). “He was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin” (1 John 3:5). Yet, we are (in ourselves) sinners still. We still carry within us the body of sin and death. In the new birth God the Holy Spirit created a new nature within us, but our old, Adamic nature is unchanged. That old nature is altogether unholy.

All that is evil in the world is in us by nature. We feel the assaults of sin. We groan and mourn under the weight of inward corruption. We are ever at war within ourselves. As Paul stated it, we delight in the law of God after the inward man; but we constantly find that when we would do good evil is present with us, and we cannot do the things we would (Romans 7:14-23). Christ has freed us from all the condemnation due to sin, but not yet from its inward corruption. He has freed us from the penalty due to our sins, but not yet from the sorrow of sin. Christ has conquered sin, death, hell, and the grave for us, and has made us more than conquerors in him. Yet, so long as we are in the world, we must struggle against sin in our members. We know, by constant, painful experience the horrible evil that is within us. Yet, in the teeth of all the wickedness that is in us and that which is done by us the Spirit of God calls for us to “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” The terrors of the law have nothing to do with the sinner who is justified by God’s free grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. It is written, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2). “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus “ (Romans 8:1). This “liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” is unspeakable, blessed liberty. It is written, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17). It is this liberty given by Christ through the indwelling of his blessed Spirit that causes God’s saints in this world to “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Knowing that we are freely, fully, completely justified by Christ, by faith in him we have peace with God and confidently anticipate the glory that awaits us (Romans 4:25 to Romans 5:5). Through the Spirit “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Galatians 5:5). — We who believe in Christ by the gift, grace, power, and operations of God the Holy Spirit do not look for and expect heaven and eternal happiness through any law-work performed by us, but through the righteousness of Christ received by faith, under the influence and testimony of the Spirit of God. It is God the Holy Spirit whose office and work it is to convince chosen, redeemed sinners of the righteousness of God brought in for sinners by the obedience and death of our all-glorious Christ (John 16:8-11). When he reveals Christ, he works faith in the heart by convincing God’s elect of their own sin, of righteousness established, brought in for them and imputed to them by Christ’s obedience in life, and of judgment (condemnation) finished by his obedience unto death. Until God the Holy Spirit has revealed Christ in us and convinced us of his righteousness, causing us to cast aside all our own imaginary righteousness, being satisfied and delighted with Christ and his righteousness, we can never know this blessed liberty. But when the Spirit of God comes in saving power and grace and reveals Christ in the heart, the chosen, redeemed sinner is delighted to cast off all his carnal hopes and trust Christ alone as “THE LORD OUR .” Then, ceasing from all our works, we rest with full assurance of faith and “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This is the meaning of our Savior’s words in John 16:14 — “He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” The Hope of Righteousness “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith”. — When Paul speaks here of “the hope of righteousness,” he is not referring to the righteousness of Christ imputed to us by which we are justified, as if our justification and righteousness before God is something yet to be hoped for, or as if to imply that we are not yet complete in Christ (Colossians 2:9-10). Not at all. Our righteousness before God was established, wrought out, and brought in by Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness. It is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, being revealed and applied to God’s elect by the Holy Spirit. It is put upon us and imputed to us by the Father. This righteousness is something that is the present possession of all who believe on the Son of God.

It is written, “Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Christ is made of God unto us righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). Righteousness before God is not something we have in hope, but in hand. The righteousness of faith is not something we hope to have in the future, but something we have already received. It is called “the righteousness of faith,” not because faith performed it, or established it, but because faith receives it from God (Romans 5:1-10). This is that righteousness in which we stand and in which we shall ever be found. “The hope of righteousness” is the confident, eager, assured hope and expectation of eternal glory with Christ, secured to us by that perfect righteousness that is ours in Christ. Because the righteousness of Christ is ours, because we are assured of that fact by the indwelling Spirit of God by whom the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, we are assured of our inheritance of eternal glory with Christ as the children of God. In fact, the Holy Spirit is himself the seal and pledge of that inheritance (2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Ephesians 1:13-14; Ephesians 4:30). The only basis, foundation, and assurance of our hope is the righteousness of Christ. We know that none but those who are perfectly righteous shall enter into heaven (Revelation 21:27). Because Christ is our righteousness and we are made the righteousness of God in him, we eagerly wait for our eternal inheritance upon the ground of justice as well as grace. John Gill wrote… “Waiting for it supposes it to be certain, real, solid, substantial, valuable, and worth waiting for; which, when possessed, will be with the utmost pleasure, and be abundantly satisfying; and that the persons that wait for it have knowledge, and at least hope of interest in it; and do highly value and esteem it, having their hearts set on it, and looking with contempt on the things of time and sense, in comparison of it.” Faith and Love “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6). — In Christ law-work means nothing. Everything Paul says about “circumcision” is equally applicable to everything men attempt to join with Christ for righteousness. Though circumcision was the solemn ordinance of God in the Old Testament, those who observe that rite or do anything else to obtain righteousness before God are saying that Christ is not enough, that he has not fulfilled all righteousness, and that his obedience and death were meaningless. They do, in effect, make Christ to be of no effect. They have totally departed from the gospel of the grace of God. Like the Jews of old, they, being ignorant of the righteousness of God in Christ, go about to establish their own righteousness and refuse to submit to Christ alone for righteousness.

They have not yet learned the sweet meaning of that blessed assertion of the gospel — “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Romans 10:3-4).In the church and kingdom of God the only thing that matters is faith in Christ, that faith that God the Holy Spirit has wrought in and given to every believer, that faith that constantly works and operates upon the basis of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. “The love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). This is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Faith in Christ shows its existence by love to God and to men. Faith is not a mere intellectual assent to revealed truth. It is that which reaches the heart and controls the affections. Faith is not dead, but operative. It is manifest in kindness and affection. Religion without Christ, all law based (works based) religion, leaves the heart cold and hard, judgmental and harsh, constantly stirring up strife and division, causing its adherents to look down their noses at others and say, “Stand by thyself, come not near to me: for I am holier than thou” (Isaiah 65:5).

Faith in Christ causes men to know themselves, and that makes them esteem their brethren better than themselves in love. Faith causes saved men and women to be gracious, kind, long-suffering, forbearing, forgiving, and charitable in attitude and in deed. As James puts it, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). The love of God shed abroad in our hearts in Christ, not the law given at Sinai, is the believer’s rule of life. We “have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” We no longer require the rule of fear. We “have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). The Holy Spirit working teaches us to love our God and one another. Nothing inspires devotion like liberty. Find a child who is thoroughly happy, and you will see a child who seeks to please his parents, one who looks upon his duties as light, easy, and delightful things.

Find one who is miserable, and you will see one whose every duty is like an iron chain upon him. Law is bondage and death. Grace is liberty and life. “Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). If you attempt to live by the law, you cannot do otherwise. “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18).

Galatians 5:7-12

Chapter 27 Troublers of Israel “Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off which trouble you.” (Galatians 5:7-12) The church of our Lord Jesus Christ is “a habitation of God, through the Spirit.” It is His kingdom of righteousness and peace. Yet, there have always been those who would do everything in their power to destroy the peace and joy of God’s people by taking their hearts and minds away from the true worship of God in Spirit and truth, and fixing them upon some external object or ceremony. They are troublers of Israel, who impede the progress and worship of the church of God by their corrupting influence. The church of the Old Testament had many such troublers. The one who stands out most conspicuously in my mind is that wicked King Ahab. You will remember how that Ahab kept Israel in constant turmoil by his childish peevishness and constant sin. He hindered the worship of Israel, and turned them aside from worshipping Jehovah, the God of grace and mercy, to worship the works of their own hands. But in those dark days God had his prophet, whom he had reserved for the comfort, protection, instruction, and preservation of his church. That godly old prophet was Elijah. Elijah was a marvelous man. He was as bold as a lion in the cause of God. He was a man of righteousness and great faith. Are you not surprised when you read of the meeting of Elijah and Ahab face to face, and that ungodly king charged the prophet of God with being the one “that troubleth Israel?” Indeed, we would all be surprised, were it not for the fact that this has always been the case. Those who trouble God’s people with their wicked ways are always the ones who turn upon God’s servants, who uphold the way of truth, and charge them with disturbing the peace of the saints. Thus, Ahab so charged Elijah. Israel so charged Moses. Hananiah so charged Jeremiah. Haman so charged Mordecai. And Zedekiah so charged Micaiah. But this was not only true throughout the history of the Old Testament church. It was also true of the church in the New Testament. There are several examples of this in the New Testament; but we will limit our thoughts in this study to the ones exhibited in our text. The apostle Paul was the most zealous, self-sacrificing, and successful of all the apostles of Christ. Yet, he was incessantly charged by false teachers with inconsistency and troubling the church. This was exactly what had happened in the church at Galatia. These troublers of Israel had come to Galatia after Paul left that region, and began to pervert the gospel of Christ. They were not teaching anything directly contrary to the facts of the gospel. They were, in fact, teaching the very same thing that Paul taught— that Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day. They taught that salvation is by the grace of God in Christ. But, along with the message of grace, these false teachers were saying that it was also necessary for a man to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to truly be a Christian. Thus, they perverted the gospel. In doing this they had taken away the peace, joy, and comfort the Galatians had enjoyed in the grace of God. Instead of worshipping God in Spirit and in truth as free sons, they had been brought to “observe the days, and months, and times, and years” of the Jewish calendar as slaves in bondage to the law. And in order to buttress their weak, legalistic position, and deceive many into their persuasion, they said that Paul himself had taught this doctrine. In the passage before us this evening Paul takes these troublers of Israel and their legalistic doctrines to task. Up to this point he has been addressing the saints at Galatia, and has expressed his confidence that they would recover from their error (Galatians 5:10). But here he condemns those false teachers who had led them astray from “the simplicity that is in Christ.” Those who, by their false teachings and corrupt practices, defile the church of God shall most assuredly bear the judgment of God (Galatians 5:10). Hindered in the Race The Apostle goes back in his mind for the fourth time (Galatians 1:8-9; Galatians 3:2-3; Galatians 4:9; Galatians 4:12-15) to the time when the Galatians had heard the gospel from his lips and had accepted Christ as their Savior and Lord. But someone had hindered them in their race. He says, in Galatians 5:7, “Ye did run well.” Then he asks, “Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” Paul characteristically compares the Christian life to the famous Isthmian races (1 Corinthians 9:24; Philippians 3:13-14; 2 Timothy 4:7-8; Hebrews 12:1-4). There is a cloud of witnesses in heaven urging us on in the race (Hebrews 12:10). These are the saints of God who have gone before us. There is a course of work set before us. It is the course of faith in Christ. The race must be run patiently and perseveringly. Christ our Savior has run the race before us, leaving us an example to follow; and he will carry us through to the end and crown us in the end. Let us ever look to and focus our hearts on him. “He that endureth to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22). “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” (Hebrews 12:1-4) When the Galatians first professed faith in Christ, they ran well. They were steadfast in the gospel and zealous for the glory of God. They were devoted to Christ and increasing in the knowledge of Christ. They ran cheerfully after him, and ran in the old paths of gospel truth (Jeremiah 6:16). But they had been “hindered,” checked in their course, and beat back. “Who did hinder you?” — Paul and his fellow laborers in the gospel encouraged them to go forward, and did everything in their power to assist them. Those who hindered them were the false teachers who did all they could to turn them to another gospel, to turn them away from the truth. “Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” — Paul is talking about the truth that is in Christ, the truth of the gospel. Specifically, he is talking about the righteousness of God, the righteousness of complete, free justification in and by Christ. The question is really rhetorical. He is speaking with indignation against the work-mongers who had been the means of hindering the Galatians in the pursuit of Christ, in the pursuit of that holiness that is found only in Christ, “without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). His purpose is to both condemn the legalists and to recover God’s saints from their error. “This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you” (Galatians 5:8). — The Galatian believers had come to Christ as poor, needy, helpless sinners, finding all in him (1 Corinthians 1:30). They had been turned back to the law, looking for righteousness in their own obedience to the commands of the law. Who persuaded them to make such a blunder? It was not God who called them by his grace. It was not Christ who fulfilled all righteousness for them. And it was not the Holy Spirit who had revealed the gospel to them, convincing them of the righteousness of God in Christ.

Those who had hindered them were false apostles, the messengers of Satan who transform themselves into angels of light and preachers of righteousness attained by human effort (2 Corinthians 11:2-3; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15). The Galatians had been encumbered by those legalists who bound them with the fetters of the law, so that they could not run with liberty in the course of the gospel. “This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you” (Galatians 5:8). — Edgar Andrews writes, “What persuasion? Clearly, the Judaizers’ idea that to follow Christ one must submit to the law of Moses. This doctrine, avers the apostle, does not come from God (the one who calls them). He only calls men ‘in the grace of Christ’ (Galatians 1:6), never by the works or religious observances of men.” Professor Andrews continues… “Here is a most valuable test, which can be applied to all or any teaching purporting to be Christian. Any belief or ‘persuasion’ which does not testify to ‘the grace of Christ,’ is not from God. Here are twin pillars of the truth, namely the person and work of Christ, and the grace of God in Christ. They support and underpin all truly Christian teaching. No matter how attractive or pious a doctrine may appear, it is not to be received as coming from God unless it passes this double test namely:

1. Does it make Christ central, and glorify him?
2. Does it exalt the grace of God, over against the activity of man? Whether it be instruction in salvation, in worship, in service, or in living for God, its precepts are only to be received if they flow from the grace of Christ. Had the Galatians applied this test to the teachings of the Judaizers, they would soon have realized that they detracted from Christ’s perfect, finished and sufficient work of atonement.” The Lord Christ has called us to liberty. He brought us out from the bondage of the law. He gave us freedom. He continues calling us to liberty. The law bogs us down with doubts and fears. Christ urges us to serve with liberty. Legalistic teachings are inconsistent with the grace of God. Heed not their calls, but that of Christ. “Day by day His sweet voice soundeth, Saying, Christian, follow Me.” A Little Leaven “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9). — The work-mongers might reply by saying, “We do not teach that believers are to obey the whole law, and we certainly do not teach that salvation comes by our obedience to the law. We are simply saying that there is still a sense in which believers are to live under the rule of the law; and that all who would live in true righteousness are to keep the commandments, observe the sabbath day, and certain of the Mosaic rituals, like circumcision. Surely, anyone who opposes that must be a promoter of licentiousness.” To such Paul says that a little error, especially regarding salvation by grace alone and righteousness in Christ alone, is like leaven in a lump of dough. It soon runs through everything, corrupts the whole gospel, and nullifies the work of Christ. It must be stamped out immediately and completely. Our Lord said to his disciples, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16:6). Paul is talking about the same thing. A few corrupt principles corrupt the whole body of truth. The leaven of legalism had already begun to work among the Galatians, and Paul was afraid that they might become attached to it and abandon the truth (Galatians 4:10-11). A few corrupt people can corrupt the whole body of a congregation (1 Corinthians 5:6). Therefore, they must be avoided (Romans 16:17). These false teachers must not be tolerated. Confidence in You What Paul says in Galatians 5:10 regarding the saints at Galatia can be said with regard to all who truly trust the Lord Jesus Christ. — “I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded.” He had spoken to them sharply; but he was confident that, once they saw how utterly inconsistent legalism is with the grace of God, they would abandon it and those who taught it altogether. He was confident that God who had begun the good work of grace in them would perform it to the end. God will not allow his elect to perish in the error of the wicked. He will not allow the believer to abandon Christ and his gospel. Sure Judgment As sure as Paul was of the certain preservation of God’s elect from the damning influence of the wicked Judaizers at Galatia, he was equally emphatic in declaring that those who preached another gospel, a gospel of works, must bear the wrath and judgment of God. — “But he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be “ (Galatians 5:10). Those who corrupt the churches of Christ shall bear the judgment of God in this world and in that which is to come (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The Offense of the Cross “And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased” (Galatians 5:11). — The false teachers at Galatia charged Paul with duplicity. They said in one place Paul preaches circumcision (on one occasion he had Timothy circumcised as a matter of expediency), and in another place he opposes it. Paul had Timothy circumcised (Acts 16:3) in hopes of being conciliatory to the Jews (It didn’t work.), not to make Timothy righteous or more spiritual. The fact is, those who oppose the gospel of God’s free, sovereign, absolute grace in Christ, claiming to be promoters of righteousness, never hesitate to slander any who preach free grace, hurling accusations against them that they know are not true. Paul’s response is simple and pointed. He asks, “If I preach circumcision (law obedience) why do your legalistic teachers relentlessly oppose me?” They opposed him because the cross of Christ is now, ever has been, and ever will be an offense to work-mongers. Lost religious people do not object to the teaching that Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of sinners, the Lord our Righteousness, and our sin-atoning Substitute. They only object to that which offends their own self-righteousness — the plain revelation of the gospel that Christ is our Savior alone — that he is our complete Savior — that all who believe are complete in him who of God is made unto us “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Cut Off “I would they were even cut off which trouble you” (Galatians 5:12). — The Apostle desired that the Judaizers would cut themselves off. It is as though he said, “I wish these agitators, these troublers of your souls, obsessive as they are about circumcision, would go all the way and castrate themselves! Since the Judaizers, who were upsetting the Galatians, believe a little physical mutilation is of spiritual value, then, let them cut even more radically. Let them be like the pagan priests of Cybele and make eunuchs of themselves.” He wanted the Judaizers cut off from the Galatian church altogether. This may seem severe to some; but it was most truly an act of love. Paul would rather have a few corrupt false teachers suffer the wrath and judgment of God, than see the entire assembly be destroyed by their doctrine. John Gill wrote… “These words are a solemn wish of the apostle’s with respect to the false teachers, or an imprecation of the judgment of God upon them; that they might be cut off out of the land of the living by the immediate hand of God, that they might do no more mischief to the churches of Christ: this he said not out of hatred to their persons, but from a concern for the glory of God, and the good of his people.”

Galatians 5:13-15

Chapter 28 “A More Excellent Way” “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” (Galatians 5:13-15) These verses begin a very important passage that extends into the opening verses of chapter 6. In this section of Galatians Paul gives us much needed, clear, and practical instruction about walking in the Spirit in the blessed liberty of faith in Christ. Here he tells us that this liberty is the liberty of love. The life into which believers have been delivered is a life of love. There are two great evils to which our fallen human nature is constantly drawn, evils that must be consciously avoided. The one is the horrid evil of legalism. The other is the equally horrid evil of licentiousness. Both are evil products of the flesh. Paul has devoted the larger part of this epistle to the Galatians to the task of exposing and denouncing the legalistic, self-righteousness, and arrogance of the Judaizers who ever attempt to bring God’s saints under the oppressive yoke of legal bondage. Now he turns to the subject of licentiousness. It may appear to be a strange paradox to many that legalism, when it is most prominent, produces licentiousness; paradoxical perhaps, but it is not a self-contradiction. Legalism is the mother of malice, strife, heresy, and slander. Who was ever more legalistic than the Pharisee? He prayed three times a day. He fasted twice in a week. He gave tithes of all that he had.

He kept the sabbath. He ate no unclean thing. He was a legalistic moralist! But who was ever more licentious than the Pharisee? He slandered the Son of God. He tried to trick the Savior into speaking against the law of Moses and against Caesar.

It was a band of religious legalists who took a woman in the act of adultery to be condemned, but left their fellow Pharisee in his tent unaccused. Religious legalists took up stones to slay the Lord Jesus. They crucified the Lord of glory to satisfy their own lusts. It is not at all surprising therefore that Paul brings in a solemn warning against licentiousness right upon the heels of such strong condemnations of legality. We are free in Christ; but our freedom in Christ is not a license to sin. Rather, our freedom in Christ is the blessed liberty of love. A Better Way Paul has shown the excellence of the gospel. He has thoroughly denounced all possibility that sinners can be justified by works. He has shown us that once a person is justified by the free grace of God in Christ, he is not then sanctified and made perfect by his own efforts. He asks in chapter 3, “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” Paul has shown us that our entire standing before God is the result of his free-grace and not the result of human merit. Now, lest anyone should say, “Shall we then continue in sin that grace may abound?” (See Romans 6:1-22) Paul gives a solemn warning against licentiousness. He tells us that our liberty in Christ is not licentiousness, but love. We are free from the bondage of the Mosaic law. And, being made free from the law, we are now free to live by the law of Christ. Believers are not antinomians, though legalists love to hurl that slanderous accusation against us. We do not live by the carnal rule of the Mosaic law, but by the law of love to Christ.

In all things, “the love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Legalistic duties can never fulfill the law, but love does. We have been brought under the law to Christ. What is the law of Christ? It is the law of love. Love not only fulfills the law, as legalism never can, but it also prevents the bitter strife that legalism produces. This is what Paul has called, “a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31 to 1 Corinthians 13:13). Love is the law of Christianity. The commandment of Christ is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Faith works by love. The joy of heaven is love. Peace on earth is love. That which sanctifies our every deed is love. Tongues are nothing without love. Prophecy is nothing without love. Understanding is nothing without love. Faith is nothing without love. Self-sacrifice is nothing without love. The charter, the continuance, and the consummation of Christ’s kingdom is love. “God is love.” And God’s people reflect that love. Wherever God is there is love. Wherever love is absent, God is absent. “How sweet, how heavenly is the sight, When those that love the Lord In one another’s peace delight, And so fulfill His Word. When each can feel his brother’s sigh, And with him bear a part; When sorrow flows from eye to eye, And joy from heart to heart. When free from envy, scorn, and pride, Our wishes all above, Each can his brother’s failings hide, And show a brother’s love. When love, in one delightful stream, Through every bosom flows; And union sweet, and dear esteem, In every action glows. Love is the golden chain that binds The happy souls above; And he’s an heir of heaven who finds His bosom glow with love.” “Called unto Liberty” “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). Whenever religious legalists hear or read about the blessed liberty God’s saints have in Christ from the law of Moses, red flags immediately arise in their minds. When we assert, in Bible language, that “Christ is the end of the law,” that “we are not under the law, but under grace,” and “ye are dead to the law,” they are terrified that such gospel declarations will lead people professing godliness to live in licentiousness. Because they know that they are ruled and motivated by legal threats and rewards, because their religion is nothing more than mercenary duty, they presume the same is true of God’s children. Shall we, therefore, refuse to assure God’s saints of their liberty in Christ? Perish the thought! Instead of that, Paul asserts, “Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty.” Then he gives us this admonition, “only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh.” We must take care that we do not use (or abuse) our liberty in Christ to indulge the lusts of the flesh. Paul again calls the Galatian saints “brethren.” He does so to express his own affection for them and to remind them (and us) of their relationship to one another in Christ, a loving family relationship. Then he reminds us that we have been called to liberty by the effectual grace and power of God the Holy Spirit. The work-mongers at Galatia were frustrating the grace of God by their doctrine (Galatians 3:21). They taught that the rule of the Mosaic law was still in effect, that men and women make themselves righteous by their obedience to the law, and, thereby, taught that the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of God were meaningless (Galatians 5:1-4). Paul here reminds us that Christ has given all who trust him freedom from the law, calling us to liberty. — “Ye have been called unto liberty.” Our liberty in Christ includes freedom from condemnation by the law and from the consciousness of guilt because of sin (Romans 8:1). Christ has freed us from the carnal ordinances and ceremonies of the law (Colossians 2:16-23). He has freed us from the oppressive rule of the law (Romans 6:14-15; Romans 7:4; Romans 10:4). And he has given us the liberty of access to and assured acceptance with God as his own dear children (Galatians 4:6-7; Hebrews 10:19-22). “An Occasion to the Flesh” “Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh.” — The corrupt, depraved nature of fallen, unregenerate men is so base and vile that it finds encouragement to licentiousness in the goodness, mercy and grace of God in Christ to licentiousness. The sweet, blessed doctrines of grace revealed in the gospel (unconditional election, everlasting love, free justification, the non-imputation of sin, immutable grace, absolute security in Christ, etc.), though the very source and inspiration for all true godliness, are perverted and abused by ungodly religionists and made to be a covering and excuse for evil. This was the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which our holy Savior hates (Revelation 2:14-15). Paul’s comments here are not addressed to lost religionists. They are addressed to the saints of God. Believers are no longer in the flesh (Romans 8:9), and do not live after the flesh (Romans 8:12-13). Yet the flesh, the old nature of the flesh, is in us and is constantly at war against us. That old nature that is in us is prone to the same evils that the unregenerate practice. That makes Paul’s admonition needful.

We must not give in to the flesh. We must take care that we do not indulge the flesh, abusing the liberty that is ours in Christ to gratify the lusts of the flesh. Christ’s free men must not give way to such evil lusts. To do so is both to bring reproach upon our Savior and upon the gospel of the grace of God. Let us, rather, “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things” (Titus 2:10). Our liberty in Christ is abused, or used as an occasion to the flesh whenever we begin to live for the gratification of our fleshly lust. In this context Paul is particularly telling us that we must not excuse, or attempt to justify any conduct that injures our brethren. “To use this liberty as an excuse to indulge the old nature is,” wrote Edgar Andrews, “a contradiction in terms. Any who do so have not understood the meaning of Christian liberty, for liberty and lawlessness are bitter enemies, not companions.” Christian liberty is not a spring board, or incentive for the sinful human nature to assert itself. The doctrine of Christ is a “doctrine according to godliness” (1 Timothy 6:3). It is freedom to walk with and serve our God. We are free to use all things lawfully, but we are not to be in bondage to any (1 Corinthians 6:12). And our liberty must never be so pressed as to become a stumbling block to a weaker brother (1 Corinthians 8:9; 1 Corinthians 8:13). We are to use this liberty for the good of men and the glory of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:12; 1 Corinthians 9:22; 1 Corinthians 10:23-24; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Corinthians 11:1), not to gratify ourselves. “By Love Serve” “But by love serve one another.” — Gospel liberty and the service of the saints go hand in hand. Faith works by love. Our Savior commands us to love one another. Our profession of faith in Christ and our family relation to one another in Christ, the grace of God that we have experienced, and the love of God revealed to us in the sacrifice of his own dear Son for us all teach us to devote ourselves to and serve one another in love. Throughout the New Testament good works are set before us, not as deeds by which we attempt to show how good, devoted, and holy we are (That is ever the practice of Pharisees.), but by acts of kindness, love, and mercy: visiting the fatherless and the afflicted, giving a cup of cold water, bearing one another’s burdens, etc. Let every child of God make it his goal in life to help his brothers and sisters in Christ in their pilgrimage through this world. That is what it is to serve one another by love. Believers ought always to pray for one another, sympathize with one another’s needs, and provide for one another’s needs. We ought to be forgiving, forbearing, and long-suffering with one another, patient, kind, and gentle toward one another. We are to think well of and speak well of one another, each esteeming his brother and sister in Christ better than himself (Philippians 2:1-4). Love is a debt we owe to one another (Romans 13:8). If we were more concerned about loving and less concerned about being loved, that would put an end to resentment, strife and division, envy, malice, and feuds in the church of God. Our Example The love Paul is speaking of here is not mere human affection. It is the love of God revealed to us in Christ and shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The great example of serving one another by love that is held before us in the Book of God is Christ himself (John 13:13-15; Ephesians 4:32 to Ephesians 5:1; 1 John 3:16-17). He said, “I am among you as he that serveth.” He came into the world in the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7). When he arose from supper, he put a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin, and washed his disciples feet (John 13:4-5). The Prophet called the Messiah a Servant (Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 50:4-11; Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12). What is this love? It is a deep affection, but more than affection. Love is devotion, self-sacrificing tenderness, genuine care, and a readiness to help. It is free, spontaneous giving and forgiving. William Hendriksen tells us that, “When Paul warns the Galatians not to turn freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love to be serving one another, he is placing service over against selfishness…Vice can only be conquered by virtue, which is the Spirit’s gift, man’s responsibility.”Savior, give me grace that I may Love Your people as I ought, Ever serve them, and defend them, And with care offend them not. May the grace You have imparted, In releiving me of woe, Make me kind and tenderhearted; Give me grace Your grace to show. As You laid down Your life, Savior, For the people that You love, Help me to my own life lay down For my brethren, whom I love. The Law Fulfilled by Love “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14). — Paul, by divine inspiration, reduces the whole Mosaic system to one commandment. — “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Legalists take great offense at this, saying that such a view of the law makes every man a law unto himself and gives no real direction for life. Nothing could be further from the truth. The law of love is the new commandment of the gospel (Ephesians 5:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; James 2:8, 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:23; 1 John 4:21). This love is not natural to men. It is the fruit of the indwelling Spirit making manifest the fact that Christ dwells in us (Galatians 5:22; 1 John 3:9-24). Pastor Henry Mahan wrote… “When I consider what I can do, should do and am required to do in word, thought and deed toward others, it is all fulfilled in the word ’love’ (Matthew 7:12). My love for the Lord will control my personal conduct and behavior, and my love for others will control my public conduct where others are concerned. As far as a man loves aright, so far he fulfils the law.” “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” What more needs to be said? If I want to know how I ought to love my neighbor, I need only to ask, “How do I love myself?” When I am in trouble, or danger, or need of any kind, I welcome the help of others who are able to help. We do not need a book of instructions to teach us how to love our neighbor. All we need to do is look to our own enlightened hearts. If any ask, as the lawyer in Luke 10, “Who is my neighbor?” the answer is given in the parable that followed his question. My neighbor is anyone who needs my help (Luke 10:25-37).

Let us so love our neighbors, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. But our responsibility (our great privilege of love) reaches beyond the household of faith. We are to love all men, even those who despise and abuse us (Galatians 6:10). My neighbor is anyone with whom God in his providence brings me into contact, anyone I can help in anyway, even though he hates me and is my enemy (Matthew 5:43-48). My neighbor is especially my brother in Christ. Most people talk glibly about love and boast that they practice it, but love is a rare, very rare, thing in this world. Love is more than a feeling, a sentiment, or an emotion. To love my neighbor is to serve him. We are to “by love serve one another.” Love is not merely putting up with people, or refraining from injuring them. It is doing them good (Galatians 6:10). To serve one another in love is to instruct the erring, comfort the afflicted, raise the fallen, and help one another in every possible way.

If I love my neighbor, I bear his burdens, and forgive his offenses. I am patient with his infirmities, weaknesses, and ignorance, and am long-suffering with him in all things. Love forgives the unforgiving, is patient with the impatient, merciful to the unmerciful, and kind to the mean-spirited. Love makes children honor their parents and parents to be patient with unruly children, causes husbands to be patient with nagging wives and wives to be patient with obstinate husbands. If I love my neighbor as myself, I will not defraud him, betray his trust, lie to him, cheat him, slander him, or reveal his faults, weaknesses, and failures to others. These things are not regarded as good works by most people; but they are the very things our God speaks of as good works. They are such excellent things that the unregenerate cannot possibly estimate them at their true value. Religious legalist vainly imagine that good works are the observance of rituals, ceremonies, holy days, dress codes, dietary laws, fastings, and countless other things seen, approved of, and applauded by men. Their religion is street corner and market place religion. Nothing more. While they strenuously observe the outward duties of religious laws and customs, they are filled with violence and hatred. What greater example of this horrid spirit of legalism could be found than in the fact that those very men who crucified the Lord of glory because of their envy and hatred insisted that his body be taken down from the cross (John 19:31), lest their sabbath day be polluted? The Old Testament as well as the New is replete with examples that show how highly our God values love. When David and his men had no food they ate the showbread, though the law forbade them to eat it. Our Savior’s disciples broke the legal sabbath law when they plucked ears of corn and ate it as they followed the Master, resting in him who is our Sabbath. The Lord Jesus himself broke the sabbath day, as far as the Jews could see, by healing the sick on the sabbath day. In all these things, we are taught that the holy Lord God calls for mercy, not sacrifice.

The law itself was designed to teach us this blessed doctrine — “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Therefore, Paul urges us to serve one another by love. He says to them and to us, “If you want to do good works and honor God’s holy law, ‘by love serve one another.’ The world is full of people who need your help.” Yet, those who teach that righteousness comes by works never mention such things. A Needed Warning “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another” (Galatians 5:15). — Here Paul is saying, “If you are critical, unforgiving, unkind, and filled with bitterness and strife, you will destroy the unity and peace of God’s church. Love is the cement that binds us together and enables us to live and labor together in peace” (Ephesians 4:1-7; Colossians 3:12-14). In the church at Galatia, as in countless churches today, there was much strife and division, backbiting and slander, bitterness, and jealousy. The fact that Paul gives us the warning in Galatians 5:15 in the context of Galatians 5 tells us that the root cause of these evils is the carnal, fleshly spirit of legalism and self-righteousness. One of the problems with living by law is the fact that once the explicit duties of the law have been fulfilled in the mind of the legalist, he vainly imagines that he is “holier” than other people and sets himself up as a judge over them. Those who walk in the Spirit (That is to say, those who live by faith in Christ) do not fulfill such lusts of the flesh. They know themselves to be sinners in constant need of mercy, whose only hope before God is the blood and righteousness of Christ. If we truly know that, if truly we have experienced the grace of God and know something of the evil of our own hearts, we will esteem our brothers and sisters better than ourselves, and “by love serve one another.” Let us hear and heed Paul’s warning. — “If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” Here people, church members at that, are pictured in the act of rushing upon one another as wild beasts.

Strife and divisions are always carnal and ungodly (1 Corinthians 3:3). It is not strange to see dogs and wolves biting and devouring sheep; but it is unthinkable that sheep should bite and devour one another. “He that soweth discord among brethren” is an abomination to the Lord. Strife and division destroy the peace of churches (1 Corinthians 3:17). It is by these things that we quench the Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:30) and destroy our usefulness in the cause of Christ. Here are quotations taken from the writings of four men on this 15th verse. Each is tremendously insightful. “Christian churches cannot be ruined but by their own hands; but if Christians, should be helps to one another and a joy to one another, be as brute beasts, biting and devouring each other, what can be expected but that the God of love should deny his grace to them, and the Spirit of love should depart from them, and that the evil spirit that seeks the destruction of them all should prevail?” (Matthew Henry) Strife, contention, bickering, detraction, and the biting of hard, unjust words will rend a church in pieces quicker than all the assaults of men and devils from outside.” (G. S. Bishop). “How distressing, how mad it is that we, who are members of the same body, should be leagued together, of our own accord, for mutual destruction!” (John Calvin)“When faith in Christ is overthrown peace and unity come to an end in the church. Diverse opinions and dissensions about doctrine and life spring up, and one member bites and devours the other, i.e., they condemn each other until they are consumed. To this the Scriptures and the experience of all times bear witness. The many sects at present have come into being because one sect condemns the other. When the unity of the spirit has been lost there can be no agreement in doctrine or life. New errors must appear without measure and without end.

For the avoidance of discord Paul lays down the principle: “Let every person do his duty in the station of life into which God has called him. No person is to vaunt himself above others or find fault with the efforts of others while lauding his own. Let everybody serve in love.” (Martin Luther) For the glory of God our Savior, for the furtherance of the gospel, and for the sake of our brethren, let us endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace by our conduct toward one another (Ephesians 4:2-3). Let us ever take care that we do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by treating the objects of God’s love with contempt (Ephesians 4:30 to Ephesians 5:2). May God give us grace to love and serve one another, taking no offense at anything done to us by others. If another person will not walk in peace, but insists upon stirring up strife and division in the family of God, for the sake of Christ and his kingdom and the gospel of his grace, we must simply avoid them (Romans 16:17; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15). Read Paul’s words of wise instruction one more time and ask God the Holy Spirit who inspired them to graciously apply them to your heart, for Christ’s sake. — “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”

Galatians 5:16-17

Chapter 29 My Soul’s Greatest Trouble “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” (Galatians 5:16-17) Believers are men and women with two distinct, separate, warring natures: the flesh and the spirit. When God saves a sinner he does not renovate, repair, and renew the old nature. He creates a new nature in his elect. Our old, Adamic, fallen, sinful nature is not changed. The flesh is subdued by the spirit; but it will never surrender to the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh; but it will never conquer or improve the flesh. The flesh is sinful. The flesh is cursed. Thank God, the flesh must die! But it will never be improved. This dual nature of the believer is plainly taught in the Word of God. It is utterly impossible to honestly interpret this portion of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, the 7th chapter of Romans, and 1 John 3 without concluding that both Paul and John teach that there is within every believer, so long as he lives in this world, both an old Adamic nature that can do nothing but sin and a new righteous nature, that which is born of God, that cannot sin, that can only do righteousness. The Holy Spirit’s work in sanctification is not the improvement of our old nature, but the maturing of the new, steadily causing the believer to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ and bring forth fruit unto God. Every believer knows the duality of his nature by painful, bitterly painful experience. Ask any child of God what he desires above all things and he will quickly reply, “That I may live without sin in perfect conformity to Christ, perfectly obeying the will of God in all things.” But that which he most greatly desires is an utter impossibility in this life. Is it not so with you? Though you delight in the law of God after the inward man, there is another law of evil in your members, warring against you. You would do good; but evil is always present with you, so that you cannot do the things that you would. Even your best, noblest, most sincere acts of good, when honestly evaluated, are so marred by sin in motive and in execution that you must confess, “All my righteousnesses are filthy rags!” It is this warfare between the flesh and the spirit more than anything else that keeps the believer from being satisfied with life in this world. Blessed be God, we shall soon be free! When we have dropped this robe of flesh we shall be perfectly conformed to the image of him who loved us and gave himself for us! Faith in Christ “This I say then.” — If we would overcome the horrible propensity of our flesh to evil, if we would avoid biting and devouring one another like mad dogs, we must live not by the carnal rule of the law, which only stirs up sin, but by the gracious rule of the Holy Spirit. “Walk in the Spirit.” — The believer’s life in this world is often compared to a journey. The word “walk” is used in Holy Scripture as a synonym for “live” (Mark 7:5; Romans 4:12; Romans 6:4; Romans 8:1). Paul is talking here about God the Holy Spirit. To walk in the Spirit is to live by faith in Christ. Those who walk in the Spirit walk with God, as Enoch did, trusting Christ alone for acceptance with the Holy Lord God. All who walk in the Spirit, all who trust Christ, have the witness and testimony of God within them that they please God, being accepted of God in Christ (Hebrews 11:5-6; 1 John 5:10-13; Ephesians 1:3-6). This is what Paul declares in Romans 8:1-4. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” “And ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” — Paul does not say that the flesh shall not be in us, or that the lust of the flesh will no longer burn within us. He says that living by faith in Christ, as we walk “in the Spirit,” we “shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” This is not stated as a possibility, but as a certainty. Believers do not live by the evil dictates of the flesh, but by the gracious rule of the Spirit. This is stated as a matter of fact. Paul is not here telling us that we might not fulfill the lust of the flesh if we can manage, by self-discipline and self-denial, to yield ourselves to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Rather, he is telling us that if we live by faith in Christ, if our lives are ruled by the Spirit of God, we “shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Paul’s subject has not changed.

He is talking about God’s ongoing work of grace in the believer. He is telling us, as Edgar Andrews states, “that the law and the flesh are co-conspirators against grace and the Spirit.” Flesh and Spirit “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” — As he uses it here, the word “flesh” does not refer to the physical body in which we live in this world, but to our fallen, corrupt, Adamic nature, the old man that still exists in saved sinners. It is that internal principle of corruption, “the carnal mind,” that is ever “enmity against God” (Romans 8:7). The flesh is flesh, nothing else, just sinful flesh. It can do nothing but evil. “The Spirit” is the internal principle of grace in regenerate men and women. It refers to the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. This is “Christ in you, the Hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). This is that holy thing born of God that cannot sin (1 John 3:9). “These are contrary the one to the other.” — They are enemies. “The flesh, or the old man, the carnal I, in regenerate persons, wills, chooses, desires, and loves carnal things, which are contrary to the Spirit or principle of grace in the soul…The Spirit or the new man, the spiritual I, wills, chooses, desires, approves, and loves spiritual things, such as are contrary to corrupt nature.” (John Gill). They are as contrary to one another as light and darkness or fire and water. They continually war against one another. Because the flesh ever lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, “ye cannot do the things that ye would.” The believer would do perfectly good. That is our desire. Yet, we cannot do that which is good, because sin dwells within us. Our old nature of flesh would do nothing but sin, that which we hate. But the Spirit of Christ reigning within keeps the flesh from having its way (Romans 7:15-17; Romans 7:22-23.) Two Armies This is the lamentation expressed by God’s church in the Song of Solomon (Galatians 6:13). — “What will ye see in Solyma? As it were the company of two armies.” She is saying, “There is nothing in me but conflict and confusion. In my heart two armies are at war. If you look upon me, you will see a raging battle, good fighting evil, light contending with darkness. I am a house divided against itself.” This is a true and accurate description of the people of God. All of God’s elect experience constant warfare within, constant conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, so long as we live in this body of flesh. This conflict, this warfare causes us so much pain and trouble. These inward conflicts are facts in every believer’s life. The believer’s life is not all sweets. It is not all joy and peace. Faith in Christ brings some bitter conflicts, which cause God’s child much pain, much toil, and many tears. The struggles between the flesh and the Spirit are evident enough to all who are born of God. To the unbelieving, unregenerate religionist, true Christians are confusing paradoxes. We are the happiest and the most mournful people in the world. We are the richest and the poorest people on earth. We are men and women who possess perfect peace; yet, we are always at war. We see traces of this conflict throughout the Song of Solomon (Galatians 1:5; Galatians 3:1; Galatians 5:2). We see these inward conflicts throughout the Psalms of David (Psalms 42; Psalms 43; Psalms 73). We see them dealt with and explained in Romans 7:14-25, and here in Galatians 5:16-18. And we see these terrible inward conflicts in our own daily experience of grace. The people of God throughout the centuries have had the same struggles that we now have. John Bunyan wrote a book about his conflicts of heart and soul, which he titled, “The Holy War.” Richard Sibbes wrote a similar book called, “The Soul’s Conflict.” Though we are born of God, God’s saints in this world have a corrupt nature within, which would drive us to sin. Yet, we have within us a righteous nature, which would draw us into perfect conformity and union with Christ. Between these two forces of good and evil there is no peace (1 John 3:7-9). Two Natures This conflict is caused by and begins in regeneration. C. H. Spurgeon said, “The reigning power of sin falls dead the moment a man is converted, but the struggling power of sin does not die until the man dies.” A new nature has been planted within us; but the old nature is not eradicated. Do not think for a moment that the old nature dies in regeneration, or even that it gets better. Flesh is flesh, and will never be anything but flesh. Noah, Lot, Moses, David, and Peter, like all other believers, had to struggle with this fact. We need no proof of the fact that God’s people in this world have two warring natures within beyond an honest examination of our own hearts and lives. Our best thoughts are corrupted with sin. Our most fervent prayers are defiled by lusts of the flesh.

Our reading of Holy Scripture is corrupted by carnal passions. Our most spiritual worship is marred by the blackness within. Our most holy aspirations are vile. Our purest love for our Savior is so corrupted by our love of self and love for this world that we can hardly call our love for Christ love. From time to time we have all found, by bitter experience, the truthfulness of the hymn… “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it! Prone to leave the God I love: Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.” My Hope I am reasonably confident that I am loved and chosen of God (Jeremiah 1:5; Jeremiah 31:3), redeemed by the precious blood of Christ (Galatians 2:20; 2 Corinthians 5:21), and born again by the power and grace of God the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:1-4). These things give me great joy, peace, and comfort. I have a good hope through grace regarding these things. I have some measure of confidence and assurance before God that these things are so, and that I am a child of God and an heir of eternal salvation. And I base that assurance upon the fact that I trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone as my Savior (1 John 5:1; 1 John 5:12-13; Hebrews 11:1). “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” Yet, there is a terrible struggle within my soul, a tormenting trial in my spirit, a heavy burden upon my heart. I have a new heart and a new will, a new, heaven-bent nature, created in me by the grace of God, a nature that longs for and seeks after righteousness and conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ. But I cannot do the things I would. I find a law in my members that when I would do good evil is present with me. I find in my soul iniquity, transgression, and sin far more hideous and ignominious than the most profane acts of ungodly men. I want to pray; but there is too much selfish lust in my prayers to call them prayer.

I want to worship God; but there is too much pride in my worship to call it worship. I want to be completely free of earthly care, trusting God in all things, but there is too much unbelief and selfish resentment toward God’s providence to call my faith, faith, or my submission, submission. The envy that is in me is enmity against God. My lack of contentment is the despising of God’s providence. My worry is questioning God’s wisdom and goodness. My fears are the denial of God’s power.

My covetousness is proud rebellion against God. “Progressive Holiness” I hear men talk of becoming less and less sinful and progressively holier today than they were yesterday. I hear men talking about what they call “progressive sanctification.” Their doctrine is that God’s children grow in righteousness and holiness until they are ripe for heaven. They teach that glorification is the end result of their own progressive attainments in personal holiness. If their doctrine is true, then, it is possible for men, by diligent self-denial and personal holiness, to eventually attain sinless perfection in this life. Such doctrine, of course, is contrary to Holy Scripture (1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:10). Honesty compels me to acknowledge that such doctrine is totally contrary to all personal experience. I have, I believe, over these past 37 years grown in grace. My love, faith, commitment to Christ, and joy in the Lord have grown, increased, and matured by the grace of God. But, my sin has not diminished. My outward acts of sin are more restricted and controlled.

But the inward evil of my flesh has not diminished. If anything, it is worse now than ever. Reader, Is it not so with you? With aching heart, I confess my sin. Though I am redeemed, justified, and sanctified in Christ, I am still a man in the flesh, full of sin. Do you not experience the same thing?

Paul did (Romans 7:14-24). This is my soul’s greatest trouble. I wish it were not so, but it is. The fact is, we who believe God, we who walk in the Spirit, trusting Christ as our Savior, are people with two natures, two principles, warring against one another continually; and those two natures are the flesh and the Spirit (1 John 3:9). David’s Struggle The thing Paul is talking about in Galatians 5:16-17 is clearly displayed in the life of David, the man after God’s own heart. In Psalms 73 David describes before God the warfare and struggle of his own soul between the flesh and the spirit. When he looked over his own household, with all its troubles, and thought about the propriety and peace of the wicked around him, he said, “My feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked… Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning” (Psalms 73:2-3; Psalms 73:13-14). Then, he went into the house of God and understood their end.

Then, he said, “Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee” (Psalms 73:21-22). Sinner Still Taking David’s words as my own, I make the painful confession of my sin before God and before you who read these lines. It is my hope that by writing as I do in the first person, you can and will identify with what you are reading. Though I am saved by the grace of God, I am a terribly foul and sinful man. — “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee” (Galatians 5:22). I have had a few trials in my life. But the most painful, most difficult trial I have ever had to endure is one that I must endure so long as I live in this world. It is the ever-increasing realization and awareness of my sin. David uses three words to describe his sin before God: “foolish,” “ignorant,” “beastly.” He says, “I have behaved as a fool before God.” This is a very strong word. It is the same word he uses to describe the atheist in Psalms 14:1. It means “one who forgets God and loves evil.” Yet, David uses this word to describe himself. He even intensifies his foolishness – “So foolish was I.” Then he says, “I have been ignorant.” My speech, my thoughts, and my actions betray my ignorance. How often we act like ignorant men and women! And David goes on to say, “I have behaved like a brute beast before God.” This word “beast” speaks of some hideous, monstrous, astonishingly wild creature. This is an accurate description of our flesh. The old man is a sinful, beastly, monstrous creature. “I would disclose my whole complaint, But where shall I begin? No words of mine can fully paint A picture of my sin.” Like David, I most truly describe myself when I describe myself “as a beast before” God. Like the brute beasts of the earth, I am too much attached to this world. The hog, grubbing in the mud for its roots, cares nothing for the stars. The wild ass’s colt, roaming the hills, cares nothing for the angels of God. The ravenous wolf has no regard for eternity. Educate the beast, train it as well as you can, but it will have no regard for anything, but its natural appetite. How much like beasts I am! ¯ Is it not so with you? Are we not too fondly attached to the things of this world? Let us never be content with our beastly attachment to this world. But do not be so proud and foolish as to deny it. I am like the wild beasts in this regard, too. I seem to have so little emotion and passion for heavenly things. “Look how we grovel here below, Fond of these trifling toys; Our souls can neither fly nor go To reach eternal joys. In vain we tune our formal songs, In vain we strive to rise; Hosannahs languish on our tongues, And our devotion dies. Dear Lord, and shall we ever live At this poor, dying rate? Our love so faint, so cold to Thee, And Thine to us so great?” There is a beastly deadness, coldness of heart, and apathetic indifference about everything I do. My preaching, my repentance, my Bible reading, my praying, my singing, my worship, everything is so dead! Like brute beasts, we are terribly short-sighted. Our hearts and minds are too much concerned for the things of time, and too little concerned for the things of eternity. And we may well compare ourselves to brute beasts because of our animal like passions. I will not go far into this dark path of our painful experience. I will say only enough to make you understand that this is the common experience of God’s elect. C. H. Spurgeon said, “He that hath fellowship with God will sometimes feel the devil within him till he thinketh himself a devil.” When we honestly look within, we will find that there is nothing lovely to be seen. We are as brute beasts before God. There is no evil of which this sinful flesh is not capable. We are evil, only evil, and that continually. Were it not for the free grace and sovereign love of God for us, we could not live with ourselves. The characteristics of beasts rage within each of us. In my flesh there still remains the pride of a lion, the lust of the horseleech, the raging anger of a bull, the envy of a wolf, and the stubbornness of a jackass. Old Nature Unchanged Again, let us understand that the grace of God does not change our old nature. Grace gives us a new nature. But flesh is still flesh, undiluted evil, just as evil as it was before the Lord saved us. Old Adam is still old Adam, even though Christ is in the heart. Grace conquers Adam and grace rules Adam, but grace does not change Adam. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.” This warfare and struggle within each of us is constant and perpetual. It will continue, until at last grace wins the victory, the flesh returns to the earth, and we are received up into glory. This is my painful, but honest confession of sin. “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.” This one thing I must acknowledge, “I am carnal, sold under sin…I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” A Believer Still Though I am a vile, sinful man, I still trust the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a believer still. I still sing with David, “Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory” (Galatians 5:23-24). I am sinful, shamefully sinful; but God is faithful, gloriously faithful. Therefore, trusting the Lord my God, I can say with joy and confidence, “Nevertheless I am continually with thee.” Notwithstanding all my sin, God is faithful! This is a glorious fact. If you are a believer, if you are in Christ, your sins shall never be charged to you, be they ever so great, ever so many, and ever so constant! And they will never separate you from the Lord your God (Romans 4:8; Romans 8:1; 1 John 2:1-2). Four Pillars Here are four blessed pillars for your faith and mine. First, the Psalmists asserts God’s perseverance. — “Nevertheless I am continually with thee.”God perseveres in his grace toward us. We are one with Christ. Not until the Lord God forsakes his own dear Son will he forsake us who are in his Son. “Near, so very near to God, Nearer I cannot be; For in the Person of His Son, I am as near as He. Dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I cannot be, For in the Person of His Son, I am as dear as He!” Our position and relationship with the eternal God is as immutable as God himself. We are continually upon his mind, before his eye, in his hand, on his heart, and in is favor. We are accepted in the Beloved. “With His spotless garments on, I am as holy as God’s own Son!” It takes very little faith, when you think you have many graces and many virtues, to say, “I am accepted in Christ.” But when a vile, wretched man, who knows his own evil heart and tastes the bitterness of his utter depravity, can look to God and say, “Though I am a sinful beast before You, I trust Christ alone as my Lord and Savior,” that is faith. Only as sinners do we need a Substitute! Our security does not depend upon our faithfulness, but upon God’s faithfulness (Malachi 3:6). It does not depend upon our perseverance, but upon our God’s. I want you to get this. May God help you to understand it and rejoice in it. I made this statement in a Bible conference more than 20 years ago. What an uproar I stirred!

But I cannot tell you how this blessed fact comforts my soul! ¯ My relationship with the eternal God does in great measure determine what I do. But what I do in no way determine my relationship with God. It is good, wonderfully good, for me to look up to my Father, my God, my Savior and say, “Nevertheless, I am continually with thee.” But here is something even better. I could be mistaken. But when God beholds my sin and says, “Nevertheless,” he is not mistaken. Read Psalms 89:27-37. “Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.

Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.” Second, David speaks of God’s unfailing help. – “Thou hast holden me by my right hand.” The right hand signifies strength. For God to hold me by my right hand implies that the hand of my strength is only weakness. He holds me by omnipotent grace. He has held me. He is holding me. He will not let me go! He may, in his wise and good providence, allow me to fall; but even when I fall, he is holding me still. Third, the Psalmists sings confidently of divine guidance for the future. – “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel.” According to his wise decree, God orders my steps. By his written Word, God directs my path. By his Holy Spirit, God leads me in his way (Proverbs 3:5-6). Then, fourth, he speaks with assurance of everlasting acceptance in glory. — “And afterward receive me up to glory.” Yes, old Adam shall soon be sent to the grave to rot because of sin; but God will receive his own up into glory (Ephesians 5:25-27; Jude 1:24-25; Jeremiah 50:20; Psalms 17:15). Did you ever notice what our Lord Jesus said to Peter immediately after telling his faithful disciple that before the rising of the morning sun he would deny his Savior three times? Here is the Master’s very next word to that disciple… “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-3). My Only Hope My soul’s only hope of eternal glory is God my Savior. — “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever” (Galatians 5:25-26). I have no hope in myself. ¯ “My heart and my flesh faileth.” There is nothing in me, nothing done by me, and nothing felt in my heart that gives me hope or commendation before God. My only hope of salvation and acceptance with God is God himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. In simple faith, because I can do nothing else, this sinful man turns to Christ Jesus the Lord and casts himself upon a Substitute. Christ is my only Hope. And Christ is Hope enough. Christ is all the hope I have and Christ is all the hope I desire. ¯ “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” No one. “And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” “Christ is all” for cleansing, for pardon, for righteousness, for peace, for holiness, for sanctification, for acceptance.

Jesus Christ alone is the Rock of my salvation and the Strength of my heart. He is the Rock upon which I am built. And he is the Strength, the Support, Comfort, and Assurance of my heart. God, as he is revealed in Christ, is my portion forever. Therefore, I will hope in him (Lamentations 3:21-26). Do not ever expect to be free from sin in this world. Do not ever expect your brethren to be free from sin in this world. In the midst of your sin go on trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. He will not cast you off (1 John 2:1-2). Give praise, honor, and glory to God your Savior. His blood is effectual. His grace is unchangeable. His love is unfailing. “His mercy endureth forever!”Good Effect Without question, our heavenly Father could remove all this evil from us, but he chooses not to do so. Why? — The fact is, these inward conflicts do have some good effect. Hard as they are to bear now, in heaven’s glory we will look back upon these days of great evil with gratitude, and see the wisdom and goodness of God in all of our struggles with sin. Our struggles with sin help humble us and curb our pride. Our struggles with sin force us to lean upon Christ alone for all our salvation (1 Corinthians 1:30), and confess with Jonah, “Salvation is of the Lord.” Struggling hard with sin, we find that “Christ is all” indeed. Our struggles with sin cause us to prize the faithfulness of our God (Lamentations 3:1-27).

Our struggles with sin upon this earth will make the glorious victory of heaven sweeter. And our struggles with sin make us rejoice in the fact that “salvation is of the Lord.” I do not doubt that in eternity we will be made to see that God wisely and graciously allowed us to fall into one evil to keep us from a greater evil, or to make us more useful in his hands. Certainly, an honest acknowledgement of the sin that is in us, and of the fact that we are never without sin (1 John 1:8-10) ought to make us gracious, kind, forgiving, and patient with one another. Soon Over Blessed be God, these inward conflicts will soon be over (Philippians 1:6; Jude 1:24-25). We shall soon drop this earthly tabernacle and shall be completely free from sin. We shall be perfect, personally perfect, at last. We shall be triumphant in the end. In that day when our God shall make all things new, the former things shall not only pass away, they shall be remembered no more! All the evil consequences of sin shall be forever removed. We shall be forever “faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” Yet, so long as we live in this world we will be “as the company of two armies.” So I give you this word of admonition — “Keep thy heart with all diligence: for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Keep your heart tender. Keep your heart in the fellowship of Christ. Keep you heart full of the Word. Keep your heart in prayer. Keep your heart full of the cross. Keep your heart full of Christ and rest your soul upon Christ. — “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”

Galatians 5:18-21

Chapter 30 “But If Ye Be Led of the Spirit” “But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:18-21) What a horrid warfare rages in our souls, a warfare between the flesh and the Spirit! “But,” how good it is to read that word here, “But.” That means the Apostle has more instruction to give us about this matter. — “But if ye be led of the Spirit” — That is to say, if we are led by God the Holy Spirit, as children are led by the hand, and taught to live by faith in Christ, we “are not under the law.” Life Implied The fact that we are led by the Spirit of God implies that he has given us life in Christ, that we are born of God. A dead person cannot be led. “It also supposes some strength,” John Gill wrote, “though a good deal of weakness. Were there no spiritual strength derived from Christ, they could not be led. And if there was no weakness, there would be no need of leading.” All who are led of the Spirit are led by him out of the paths of bondage and sin and ruin and destruction to Christ. They are led away from Sinai’s fiery mount to Christ. They are led away from all creature trust in legal works and personal righteousness to Christ. We are led to him for shelter, safety, and salvation. The Spirit of God leads us to Christ’s sin-atoning blood for pardon and cleansing, to his righteousness for justification and sanctification, and to his fulness for every supply of grace. He guides us into all truth and causes believing sinners to walk in the ways of faith and truth, in the paths of righteousness and holiness, looking to Christ alone as our hope before God. He leads through all the days of our pilgrimage in grace and leads at last to glory. “Not Under Law” Being led by the Spirit, living by faith in Christ, we have nothing to fear from the law. It is written, “Ye are not under the law.” This is not an obscure statement, but one that is repeated numerous times in the New Testament (Romans 6:14-15; Romans 7:4; Romans 10:4). God’s saints in this world are not under the law. Those who are born of God, those who live by faith in Christ are not under the law. Read it again — “Ye are not under the law.” Being led by the Spirit of God to Christ alone for righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, we are completely delivered from and free from the law, both in fact and in our own consciences. Trusting Christ, we possess the comfortable knowledge and experience of freedom from the law, freedom from all possibility of condemnation, because we are assured of our indestructible acceptance with God by the merits of our Redeemer. Believers do not need the law (as religious hypocrites do) to force them to the performance of legal duties and religious activity. Believers delight in the law of God after the inward man and cheerfully serve God their Savior and one another, being constrained by the love of Christ. God’s saints are not mercenaries, but volunteers. We are not motivated by fear of punishment, reward, or loss of reward. When Paul says, “If ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law,” this, too, is implied. — If you are led by the law, you are not led by the Spirit. Life in the Spirit What is this life that Paul is describing? Is it a “deeper” life? Is it a “higher” life? Is it a life that some believers enjoy, while others live as mere “carnal Christians?” Is Paul here promoting the idea that there are class distinctions in the church and kingdom of Christ? The answer to those questions is an emphatic “No!” The life Paul is describing in this passage is the life of faith in Christ. It is written, “The just shall live by faith.” We do not make ourselves alive by faith in Christ.

God the Holy Spirit creates life in us by his omnipotent grace. And the life he gives us in Christ is a life of faith. Just as the natural man lives by breathing, the children of God live believing Christ. Life in the Spirit is a life of faith in Christ. Those who do not live in the Spirit but in the flesh, those who are not led of the Spirit but by the lusts of the flesh, those who live after the carnal mind and not after the Spirit are yet dead in sin (Romans 8:1-14). To “walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16) is to be “led of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18). And those who walk in and are led of the Spirit of God bear fruit by the Spirit, having “crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:22-25). Paul’s whole emphasis here is the work of God the Holy Spirit in us, not a work we do for God. Paul is telling us that his admonition to use our liberty in Christ to “by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13), and asserts that “all the law is fulfilled in this one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Galatians 5:14), he is not urging us to go back to the law. Rather, he is telling us that the grace of God in us writes the law of God upon our hearts (Hebrews 8:10), causing us to love one another. “Ye Shall Not” Remember, Paul did not say, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye may not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” He said, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Galatians 5:18 is another way of saying the same thing. — “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” Then, in Galatians 5:19-21 he tells us what the works of the flesh are. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” We do not need to look very far to see the horrible evils Paul here speaks of as “the works of the flesh.” We find them in our own hearts. This we must confess if we are honest before God. Remember, as Paul uses this term “flesh” he does not have reference to the physical body, but to the fallen nature of man. It is the word from which we have the word carnal. The carnal man is all that man is by nature and all that he brings with him into the world. Our thoughts, our affections, our consciences, and our wills are all governed by sin as natural men.

The flesh is the carnal mind, which is enmity against God. It will not and cannot please God (Romans 8:6-7). This carnal mind (the flesh) asserts itself in works, which are clearly opposed to the Spirit of God. They are manifestly the works of the flesh. They are manifest before God. They are manifest in the law.

And they are manifest in the consciences of men. “Works of the Flesh” Paul says these things are works of the flesh, whereas that produced in us by grace is the fruit of the Spirit. Paul specifically mentions seventeen different, manifest works of the flesh. These sins of humanity are common in all human beings in all ages. That which Paul describes here are evils flowing in a constant stream of vileness from the depraved hearts of depraved men. These are not things learned by bad company, but evils arising from the corrupt hearts of fallen men (Mark 7:20-23). Sins of Passion Paul first mentions sins of passion. Passion is a disease of the heart that betrays itself in constant restlessness. It is never satisfied with what it possesses. They include, but are not limited to, what we commonly think of as “sexual sins.” The sins of passion Paul names are “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lasciviousness.” — “Adultery” is the defilement of the marriage bed (Proverbs 5:18-19). — “Fornication” is a word used to describe any illicit sexual behavior between unmarried people. The word here translated “fornication” is the word from which we get our English word “pornography.” It includes incest, homosexuality, and all other forms of deviant sexual behavior. — “Uncleanness” is a word generally used to portray any lack of chastity in thought, word, or action. Like fornication, it commonly has reference to sodomy and other perversions. — “Lasciviousness” speaks of all lustful, sensual desires and those things that lead to acts of uncleanness, such as impure words and filthy gestures.

Lasciviousness is the lack of self-control that characterizes the person who gives way to his lusts. Society and, often, even the religious world tolerates and even promotes these evils. But they are things in direct opposition to both the law of God and the gospel of the grace of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Sins of Profanity Next, the Apostle speaks of sins of profanity: idolatry and witchcraft. — “Idolatry” certainly includes covetousness (Colossians 3:5). However, in this place it has specific reference to the worship of false gods and images. Idolatry is participating in such worship. Any representations of the divine being are idolatrous, including religious pictures, images, icons, etc. The substitution of anything, or any person, for the love, adoration, and desire of the true God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ is idolatry. — “Witchcraft” is the use of magic to accomplish real or supposed superhuman acts. The carnal mind turns to the basest absurdities of witchcraft (fortune tellers, horoscopes, etc.), and rejects the Revelation of God in Holy Scripture. Sins of Pride Next, Paul names a long list of what might be called sins of pride. — “Hatred” is murder. G. S. Bishop wrote, “The two extremes of nature are sensuality and murder. The pendulum swings between these. The worship of the beautiful ends in an orgy! Shechem admires Dinah and defiles her. Amnon ruins Tamar and drives her from his house in anger.” “Variance” is fighting and quarreling with one another. — “Emulations” are a boiling, a rising of temper because of the honor or happiness enjoyed by someone else. — “Wrath” is the violent passion that seeks revenge. “Strife” is the disruption of peace and harmony, causing discord (James 3:14-16). “A wrathful man stirreth up strife.” Believers appease it (Proverbs 15:18). Strife always occurs when men are moved by selfish motives, each craving honor for himself. “He loveth transgression that loveth strife: and he that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction” (Proverbs 17:19). Strife is always the result of pride. “He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife” (Proverbs 28:25). “Seditions” are schisms, factions, and divisions. Whether social, domestic, or religious, “seditions” (schisms) are always the evil result of pride and strife. — “Heresies” are bad principles of doctrine, things that subvert the gospel. Heresy is the result of that miserable pride which sets itself up as the critic and judge of God’s Word. “Envyings” are those uneasy, grieving vexations of the mind that arise because of the good others enjoy. Envy is aroused by pride when we see someone else advancing before us. Envy destroys the soul (Proverbs 14:30). Envy caused Cain to murder Abel. Envy caused Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery. Envy caused Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to rise up in rebellion against Moses. Envy kept the prodigal’s brother out of the Father’s house. Love is not envious (Galatians 5:13; 1 Corinthians 13:4). “Murders” are acts by which one man takes the life of another deliberately, merely to gratify his own hatred and wrath. — “Drunkenness” is intoxication of the mind and body with drugs, alcoholic drinks, or any other means. — “Revelings” are the uncontrolled riotousness of drunks. Then, Paul says, “and such like.” With those words, John Gill tells us “He shuts up the account, it being too tedious to give an enumeration of all the works of the flesh; nor was it necessary, judgment may be made of the rest by these; nor might it be so proper, since the carnal heart is but the more pleased with, and irritated by, the mention of evil things.” The law of God was given to restrain and condemn all such behavior among men (1 Timothy 1:9-10). Unregenerate People At the end of Gal 5:21 the Apostle tells us plainly that all such people are utterly without grace and life in Christ. They are unregenerate, unbelieving people. — “Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Henry Mahan wrote… “Understand that these sinful practices are characteristics of the flesh, and though we have done these things and the potential to do them is still present in our flesh (as evidenced by Abraham, David, Lot, and Peter), yet this is not our pattern of life This is not the practice of the believer! Our tenor of life and the bent of our wills is holiness, righteousness and peace. Those who would still live by these principles and practices of the flesh are not redeemed and shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” The flesh is the proud root of depravity and God hating rebellion in every human heart. It always exalts itself, either with great subtly in proud self-righteousness or in blatant, God defying immorality. It is written, “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die” (Romans 8:13).

Galatians 5:22-23

Chapter 31 “The Fruit of the Spirit is…” “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 Here is a blessed contrast to what we saw in Galatians 5:19-21. There the Apostle set before us seventeen works of the flesh, products of the carnal mind that hates God, works produced by the efforts of hearts at enmity against the holy Lord God. All who continue in such works must be forever damned. Here he shows us that which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, that which is produced in (not wrought by, but produced in) the heaven born soul by the almighty grace of God the Holy Spirit. Paul does not deal with the fruit of the Spirit as many things, but as one. He is describing the fruit (singular) not the fruits (plural) of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is a cluster of fruit, like a cluster of grapes, brought forth in all who are born of God in the new creation of grace. This fruit of the Spirit is not spoken of as that which ought to be in the believer, but as that which is produced in the believer. Paul is not setting before us that which is given to some as an extra-ordinary gift of God, but the common, constant fruit of God the Holy Spirit in all who are born again. In this cluster Paul specifically names nine things as the fruit of the Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.” With reference to God, all believers have created in them love, joy, and peace. With reference to one another, all are given long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness. With reference to themselves, all who know God are people of faith, meekness, and temperance. Love, Joy, Peace “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” — Man by nature loves himself and really only himself. He “loves” all other things (family, friends, possessions, etc.) only for what they add to himself. Though many who do not even profess faith in Christ claim to love God, they only love their own concept of what God ought to be. All men by nature vainly imagine that God exists only to benefit men. This is a condition that never changes. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Love is the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of the flesh.

It is like faith, indeed, along with faith, the gift of God. When a person is born again, he gains the capacity to love God, to love God as he is revealed in the Scriptures, as he is revealed in Christ, to love God as he really is in his true character. He not only gains the capacity to love God, he truly does love God (1 Corinthians 16:22; 1 John 4:19). All who are born of God love and seek his glory. This is part of the miracle of the new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Because the believer truly loves God, all other loves are never the same. He no longer loves only that which gratifies and exalts the flesh. He always has an eye to that which honors God his Savior. All other loves are made subservient to this love. And when our love for family and friends, yes, even for men in common, is subservient to love for God, then we truly love others and seek to serve their best interests in all things. No, this love is far from perfect. It is nothing about which we have reason to boast. Yet, this is the true testimony of every heaven born soul. — “We love him because he first loved us.” We do not love him as we desire. We do not love him as we know we should. We do not love him as we soon shall. But we do really love him.

It is not possible for a man to experience the grace of God in salvation and not love the God of all grace. It is not possible for a man to know the efficacy of Christ’s blood in his own soul and not love his gracious Redeemer. It is not possible for a man to have his heart renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit and not love the Spirit of life. In spite of our many weaknesses, sins and failures, we do honestly and sincerely confess, “Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.” We know also that we would never have loved him if he had not loved us first. The love of God for us precedes our love for him. “He first loved us.” He loved us before we had any desire to be loved by him. He loved us before we sought his grace. He loved us before we had any repentance or faith. He loved us before we had any being. He loved us eternally. Does he not say, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I called thee”? He chose us, redeemed us, and called us because he loved us. Not only does God’s love for us precede our love for God; but God’s love for us is the cause of our love for him. “We love him, because he first loved us.” Our hearts are so hard and our wills so stubborn that we would never have loved the Lord, if he had not intervened to conquer us with his love. In the midst of our sin and corruption, he passed by, and behold it was “the time of love.” He revealed his great love for us in Christ. As we beheld the crucified Christ, dying in the place of sinners, the love of God conquered our rebel hearts. Trusting Christ as our only Savior, we are compelled to love him, “because he first loved us.” “The fruit of the Spirit is joy.” — Believers possess and enjoy a gladness of heart, a joy, of which the world knows nothing. Unregenerate men enjoy the pleasures of sin for brief seasons; but theirs is misspent and transient happiness that comes and goes with the empty bubbles they chase. The believer’s joy is based on something more substancial. We rejoice in the Lord (Philippians 4:4). With Habakkuk, we sing, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Having no confidence in the flesh, we “rejoice in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:3). When Job lost everything, he yet blessed the name of the Lord because the object of his love and joy was God his Savior, not what God had given him, but God himself. It was only when he feared that the Lord had turned his back that horror and despair cast their ominous shadow over his soul. This is not natural to man, but is the gift and fruit of the Spirit. Believers do not fake joy. They possess it. We do not walk like giddy air-heads, oblivious to real sorrow and grief, as some many do. We do, however, possess real and enduring joy, rejoicing in him by whom and in whom we are so monumentally and eternally blessed, being assured of his unfailing goodness and grace (Romans 8:28). Pastor Chris Cunningham wrote, “Our joy is irrepressible because the object of our delight is infinitely and invariably delightful.” When others despise us, as Michael despised David, we rejoice in God’s electing love as David did. When men and Satan hurl accusations against us, as Shemei did against David, we rejoice in the knowledge that our God sends them for our good, to drive us to Christ our Redemption and Righteousness. When our weakness is manifest, we rejoice in Christ, whose strength is made perfect in weakness. When we see our utter insufficiency, we rejoice to know that “our sufficiency is of God.” When it is obvious that things are out of control, as far as we are concerned and as far as all other creatures are concerned, we rejoice to see God our Savior, the Lamb upon his throne. When our bodies are dying, we rejoice in Christ who is our Life. “The fruit of the Spirit is peace.” — We have peace with God being reconciled to him by the death of his Son, and peace from God being ruled in our hearts by the Prince of peace, and the peace of God because the Spirit of God has spoken peace to our hearts giving us faith in Christ. Though we are, by nature, “like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt” (Isaiah 57:20), by the gift and grace of God the Spirit, we are as lambs under the ever-watchful eye and omnipotent care of the Good Shepherd. Though our sin is ever before us, we have peace in our consciences, knowing that all our sin and guilt is forever put away by the sin-atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though, at times, the weight of the world and its care crushes our souls, we have peace of mind, casting all our care upon him who cares for us. And God gives us peace in our hearts, causing us to be fully satisfied and delighted with him, knowing that he is fully and forever satisfied and delighted with us in his Son, who has washed away our sins in his blood and robed us with his perfect righteousness. And when our time on earth is finished, we shall, like Simeon of old, depart this body of flesh in peace, having our eyes fixed upon our Salvation. In that day, we will lay down in peace and sleep, “for thou, Lord, only makest us to dwell in safety” (Psalms 4:8). Long-suffering, Gentleness, Goodness With reference to God, all believers have created in them love, joy and peace. With reference to one another, all are given long-suffering, gentleness and goodness. “The fruit of the Spirit is long-suffering.” — God the Holy Spirit, when he creates life and faith in our souls, gives us long-suffering, and teaches us to be long-suffering. He gives us patience to endure trials from our heavenly Father and troublesome, irksome things in and done by others. Grace experienced in the soul makes saved sinners slow to anger and ready to forgive. Grace causes people who are, by nature, easily offended and quick to retaliate to patiently bear affronts and be forbearing with those who offend. Our Lord Jesus is more than an example for us to follow. Everything he did in life, he did in obedience to the Father as our Mediator and Representative, working out perfect righteousness for us. And everything he endured in death, he endured as our Substitute to satisfy the justice of God for us. But we must never forget that in all his life and death, our blessed Savior is also our example (1 Peter 2:21-25). Should any ask, “What is long-suffering?” I say, “Look to Christ. He is the very embodiment of long-suffering.” When his disciples displayed an utter ignorance of the things he taught, he patiently taught the same truths again and again. When they were filled with unbelief and fear, he showed them their folly, not by belittling them, but by removing the cause of their fear. Even when they forsook him (and they all did), he did not abandon them. Rather, like the Good Shepherd he is, as soon as he was risen from the dead, he began seeking his scattered sheep. When Peter was ashamed to come to him, he sent his messengers to Peter to tell him that he would meet him in Galilee. How great is his long-suffering toward us! Throughout the days of our rebellion, with every breath and deed, we spewed out our hatred against him; but his long-suffering was our salvation. We scoffed him; but he was long-suffering to us. We blasphemed him; but he was long-suffering to us. We despised his blood and righteousness; but he was long-suffering to us. And in all the days of our lives, since he snatched us as brands from the burning out of the very jaws of hell by his omnipotent mercy, how we have sinned and continue to sin against him. Yet, he knows our frame and remembers that we are dust, and refuses to deal with us after our sins and reward us according to our iniquities. That is what Paul means by this term, “long-suffering.” God the Holy Spirit makes chosen, redeemed, called sinners long-suffering. Yet, as with our love, joy, and peace toward God, our long-suffering with one another in this world is such horrid short-temperedness that it must be bathed in the blood of Christ, robed in his righteousness, and forgiven by his grace. Yet, God’s saints are a people patient and long-suffering with one another. “The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness.” — Long-suffering is accompanied with gentleness, kindness, and courtesy. This gentleness is seen in our attitudes toward others, our speech to and about others, and our treatment of others. This, too, is exemplified in “the gentleness of Christ.” Gentleness is a mild, peaceful, moderate spirit, bestowed upon those who are “made partakers of the divine nature.” It is the spirit of Christ our Savior (1 Corinthians 10:1) and the spirit he gives by his grace, by which fallen men are made to be great men and wise (2 Samuel 22:36; Psalms 18:35). “The wisdom that is from above is gentle” (James 3:17). This gentleness is not a passive spirit of compromise and cowardice that destroys manhood and usefulness. That is a vice rather than a virtue, a display of depravity rather than of grace. Our Lord Jesus was the most gentle man who ever lived, and the boldest and most courageous. Charles Buck very accurately says of gentleness, “It renounces no just right from fear; it gives up no important truth from flattery: it is, indeed, not only consistent with a firm mind, but it necessarily requires a manly spirit and a fixed principle, in order to give it any real value.” Yet, gentleness is the very opposite of harshness and severity, of pride and arrogance, and of violence and oppression. It is charitable spirit of brotherly love and kindness that causes God’s saints in this world to take great care neither to offend nor hurt another. It causes the believer to seek to relieve the needs and burdens of others, be patient and forbearing with the offenses of others, and prevents severe judgment and retaliation. Gentleness is that spirit of meekness and humility that causes believers to restore one another when fallen (Galatians 6:1-2), weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. Believers are not bitter but benevolent, not harsh but helpful, not mean but merciful. Truly, gentleness is both greatness and wisdom! “The fruit of the Spirit is goodness.” — Goodness is a readiness to do good, particularly a readiness to do good to and for one another. Yet, the Apostle Paul, writing as a believer, said “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). Goodness is not in us by nature. “There is none good, but God,” our Master declares. God alone is good, infinitely good, immutably good, and perfectly good. Fallen man is not good, but bad; and there is no possibility of any man doing that which is good. “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Still, when God the Holy Spirit performs his mighty operations of grace in chosen, redeemed sinners, he makes them to be a people whose lives are marked by goodness. Any goodness found in us or performed by us is God’s work in us, the fruit of the Spirit. What is this goodness that is the fruit of the Spirit? How is it manifest? Is there ever an act performed by, or even a thought in the heart of a believer that is truly and absolutely good and pure, perfect and righteous, worthy of God’s acceptance? The answer, of course, is, “No.” Both the Scriptures and an honest consideration of our own life experience compel us to acknowledge these things (1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:10). The Spirit that is in us is good, perfectly good. That which is born of God cannot sin (1 John 3:9); but our old nature is nothing but sin. How, then, can the fruit of the Spirit in us be called “goodness”? “Goodness” is that indwelling grace of God the Holy Spirit, that attribute of the divine nature of which we are made partakers in the new birth, which disposes believers to acts of goodness to others. There is much talk in the religious world about “good works”. As defined by men, good works are measured by the observance of various rules of conduct relating to dress codes, diet, and outward appearance. But in the Word of God good works are always connected with acts of brotherly love, kindness, self-denial, and sacrifice: visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, helping the needy, etc. (Matthew 25:31-46; James 1:26-27). Good works, works acceptable and well pleasing to God, are works of faith, works by which faith is shown (James 2:14-26). Good works are never spoken of in Scripture except as manifestations of faith. If faith without works is dead, then what are works without faith? A good work is a work of faith, arising from and connected with faith in Christ, without which it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Our good works are acceptable and well-pleasing to God only in Christ, only because we are one with Christ, who alone is our Righteousness (Ephesians 4:32 to Ephesians 5:2; 1 Peter 2:5). Faith, Meekness, Temperance With reference to God, all believers have created in them love, joy, and peace. With reference to one another, all are given long-suffering, gentleness and goodness. And with reference to themselves, all who know God are people of faith, meekness and temperance. “The fruit of the Spirit is faith.” — As Paul uses the word “faith” here, it refers not so much to our faith in Christ (though that is included) as it does to our faithfulness as believers in all things. In other words, Paul is saying, “The fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness.” The one thing God requires of all who serve him as stewards in his house and kingdom is faithfulness. And when God the Holy Spirit makes sinners the willing servants of Christ, he makes them faithful. There is nothing more admirable in our God and Savior than the fact that “he abideth faithful.” And there is nothing more admirable in his children than faithfulness. Believers are people who are faithful: faithful to God, faithful to his Word, faithful to his glory, faithful to one another, and faithful in their lives. This faithfulness certainly includes dependability; but many are dependable in their responsibilities who have no knowledge of the eternal God at all. This faithfulness is more than that. This is an inward principle of grace, an inward, heart fidelity to Christ, by which the lives of God’s saints are regulated in this world. “The fruit of the Spirit is meekness.” — With regard to meekness (as with all other spiritual matters), it must be stated and clearly understood that the opinions of unregenerate men are exactly opposite to the teachings of Holy Scripture. Meekness is not a weakness of character that makes men useless wimps. We read in the Book of God that, “The man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). But I am pretty confident that had anyone who asked Pharaoh for an example of meekness, Moses would have been the very last man to come to his mind. Meekness is a spirit that is not easily provoked, a tamed spirit (James 3:7-8). It is that attitude of heart, created in God’s elect by the Holy Spirit in the gift of faith, that causes believing souls to be at ease in the world. Where the Prince of Peace reigns meekness reigns. Meekness is that frame of mind, that disposition of soul in believing men and women that arises from a recognition of the fact that we are sinners forgiven and accepted of God in Christ and that we belong to God our Savior. We are his property, his children, and his servants. This meekness makes believers humble before God and men. We know that we are nothing but sinners saved by grace. That knowledge causes us to walk humbly with our God and to be gracious to one another. At the same time, meekness (true meekness) gives people backbone. It causes men and women as the children and servants of God to be bold, courageous, and faithful, knowing that he who is God indeed is our God and Father. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalms 27:1). Most everyone thinks of the man Christ Jesus as a man of weakness, which they call “meekness”. But our Lord Jesus was truly meek. In meekness he voluntarily bowed to his Father’s will and became “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” In meekness he drove the money-changers out of the temple. In meekness he set his face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem. In meekness he denounced as pretentious hypocrites the most highly respected religious leaders of the day. In meekness he called idolaters idolaters, adulterers adulterers, and self-serving politicians foxes. In meekness he cast out the prince of this world and triumphantly conquered death, hell, and the grave in his sin-atoning death. “The fruit of the Spirit is temperance.” — Temperance is self-control, continence, or control from within. Without question, it is seen in the control of our appetites, in moderation in eating and drinking; but there is much more to temperance than self-discipline. When God the Holy Spirit comes in saving power, Christ sits up his throne in the hearts of saved sinners and makes them kings (1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10; Revelation 20:6). Kings are men who reign. The Lord Jesus reigns within the hearts of his people, giving them dominion over their passions, over the world around them, and even over death, so that all who are born of God live in this world in temperance, being controlled not by the things around them but by Christ who reigns within them. This fruit of the Spirit is altogether contrary to nature. It is not something produced by us, but something produced in us by God the Holy Spirit. It is the result of the new birth, the gift of faith in Christ, and the indwelling Spirit of God. If it is ours, it is ours only by grace (1 Corinthians 4:7). It is fruit found in every believer. In some it is but newly planted seed in the heart. In others it is mature fruit. In none is it perfect. But in all it is present. Of this fruit, John Gill wrote… “It may be observed, that these fruits of the Spirit are opposed to the works of the flesh. So love is opposed to hatred; joy to emulations and envying; peace to variance, strife, and seditions; longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, and meekness, to wrath and murders; faith to idolatry, witchcraft, and heresies; and temperance to adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, drunkenness, and revellings.” “Against such there is no law.” — Obviously, these things are in full agreement with God’s holy law. To practice such things is to “by love serve one another.” But Paul’s declaration here refers not to the fruit of the Spirit, but to those in whom this fruit is found, to those who walk in the Spirit, to those who are born of God, to those who live by faith in Christ. He is saying, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The works of the flesh and those who live after the flesh are under the curse and condemnation of the law. “But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”

Galatians 5:24-26

Chapter 32 Walk in the Spirit“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one anotherGal_5:24-26 Paul is continuing with his exhortation to us to “walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16). We recognize that the believer’s life of faith in Christ is a life lived by grace, sustained by grace, and worked in us by grace. The fruit of the Spirit within us, and manifest in our outward behavior is altogether the work of God’s unceasing grace and goodness. However, the life of faith in Christ is not a life of spiritual passivity.

Rather, it is a life of relentless, determined resolve for the glory of God. While we are made willing by God our Savior to be his servants, all true believers are willing servants. A Deliberate Crucifixion “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” — Those who are Christ’s are those who are united to him by faith; and they have nailed their flesh to his cross. Believers are people who have deliberately, purposefully, and willingly crucified the flesh. They are a people who belong to Christ. We were his secretly from eternity, given to him in the covenant of grace from eternity by the Father who chose us in him before the foundations of the earth were laid (John 6:39). We were given to him as his sheep and his people, made to be one with him and accepted in him as our Mediator before the world began (Ephesians 1:3-6). And we are his by purchase. The Lord Jesus Christ bought us with his precious blood. We are not our own; we have been bought with the price of Christ’s life’s blood poured out for us at Calvary. And we are Christ’s by the effectual, irresistible call of his Spirit in omnipotent grace. He has saved us by his grace. But there is more. We belong to Christ by willful, deliberate faith. In our baptism, the believer’s public profession of faith in Christ, we were symbolically buried with Christ in the watery grave, declaring to Christ, his church, and the world that we were crucified with Christ, that we have been raised from death to life by his grace, and that we are his forever to walk with him in the newness of life, that we have deliberately given ourselves up to him (Romans 6:3-10). Faith in Christ is the voluntary, willful surrender of ourselves to him. It is the deliberate denial of self, the surrender of our lives to Christ as Lord (Matthew 16:24-25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 14:26-33). This is what Paul refers to when he speaks of us having crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. Confessing Christ as our Savior and Lord, we have declared (and continually declare) that our old man has no right to live, “mortifying the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13). Chosen in eternal love By my God, Who reigns above, All I am and own I bring Under rule to Christ my King: I submit to Christ my God.” Chosen and redeemed and called, Let no fear my heart intrude: Christ will feed and clothe His own, And protect me by His throne: I will trust Him, Christ my God. Savior, let me live on earth To proclaim Your matchless worth: In body and spirit, Lord, I would glorify my God: I will live for Christ my God. Though my sinful flesh rebel, Force me, Lord, to do Your will: When my work on earth is done, Bring me safely to Your throne: I will see my Christ, my God! A Determined Consecration The interpretation I have given of Gal 5:24 is confirmed by Galatians 5:25. — “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Those who are Christ’s “live in the Spirit.” God the Holy Spirit has given us eternal life, and that life is life we have by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Still, this is not a life of spiritual passiveness, but a life of determined consecration to Christ our Savior. To walk in the Spirit is to live by the rule of his Word, under his influence and direction, constantly surrendering our will to our Savior’s will, ever seeking his glory. Yes, this is something we must continually do. It involves the continual, deliberate renunciation of self, the continual, deliberate surrender of self to Christ. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Some might ask, “Is such total, constant surrender to Christ reasonable?” Indeed, it is. It is the most reasonable thing in the world. — “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). How much owest thou unto my Lord?” (Luke 16:5) — Were this question, which the unjust steward put to his lord’s debtors, put to me concerning that immense debt which has made me forever insolvent, how could it be answered? It is an indescribable debt I cannot calculate, much less pay. I am a debtor to God’s infinite, free, and sovereign grace. When I think of my being, I realize that no human ledger is sufficient to calculate even the gifts of creation and providence with which I have been boundlessly blessed all the days of my life. Looking back over all my days, I am compelled to declare to the praise of my God, “Surely goodness and mercy have pursued me all the days of my life.” But when I think of my well-being in Christ, of the boundless riches of God’s free grace bestowed upon my soul in Christ, I am humbled with gratitude and overawed with wonder and praise. The calculation of my debt is infinite. Before God’s holy law, I was utterly bankrupt, condemned by the righteous justice of God and under the dreadful penalty of everlasting death in hell. The terrors and alarms of a guilty, screaming conscience held me in fear of death. The accusations of Satan tormented me day and night. What an oppressive load of guilt and sin I carried in my dark soul! My heart sank within me. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,” stepped in, gave me life and faith in Christ, spoke peace to my soul by the blood and righteousness of his darling Son, revealing Christ in me as my all-glorious, almighty Savior, and my burden fell from my soul! — “How much owest thou,” O my soul? When I think of my Savior, the Lord Jesus, and remember that he has restored all that I owed, fed my hungry soul, and clothed my nakedness with his own righteous garments, I bow before him in amazement. He has made me to be a man who has done that which is lawful and right before God, as one who has walked in his statutes and kept his judgments. All the bounty of his grace he has given to this sinful man freely, not “upon usury,” but freely, taking no increase from me. Yes, he has ransomed me from the power of death by his death in my stead. He is for me the plague of death and the destruction of the grave (Ezekiel 18:5-13; Hosea 13:14). My ever-blessed Savior has cancelled all my debts.

He has fulfilled all the demands of God’s holy law for me. He has silenced Satan, my accuser. He has redeemed me out of the hands of everlasting bondage, misery, and eternal death. He has brought me into his everlasting kingdom of freedom, joy, and glory. He has made me an heir of God and joint-heir with himself! — “How much owest thou,” O my soul? When I consider the love of God my Father in giving his dear Son to be my Savior, when I meditate upon my great Redeemer’s love in coming to save me, when I think about the love of God the Holy Spirit made known to my soul in effectual grace, my heart cries out, “How much owest thou,” O my soul! Oh precious debt! It is ever increasing. Yet, owing it makes me blessed forever! “Here, Lord, I give myself away, ‘Tis all that I can do.” A Denied Exaltation In Galatians 5:26 Paul again shows us that this matter of walking in the Spirit, this matter of living in this world for the glory of God is directly connected with brotherly love. If we would walk in the Spirit, “Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” We must make it a matter of constant determination not to desire and seek honor, esteem, and applause from men. What we are in Christ, we are by the grace of God. He and he alone has made us to differ from others. We must ever abase ourselves and prefer one another. We who know ourselves to be the chief of sinners must take care not to despise and provoke one another by a show of pretentious superiority. And we must not envy the gifts and abilities God has bestowed upon others, but rejoice in them. “As” and “So” The Apostle Paul makes a statement in Colossians 2:6 that goes to the very heart of this matter of walking in the Spirit. There he says, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” How did you receive Christ? We did not receive Christ by the works of the flesh, or by the hearing of the law, but by faith (Galatians 3:1-3). That is how we must live, if we would honor God. We honor God, fulfill the law, and magnify our Savior, only by faith in him (Romans 3:31; Hebrews 11:4-6). How did you receive Christ? If you have received him, you received him by faith. You came to him as a sinner, trusting him as your Savior (1 Corinthians 1:30-31). You bowed to him as a servant, receiving him as your Lord. You became the willing servant of Jesus Christ (Exodus 21:1-6). You came to him as a bride, like Gomer, conquered by his love, embracing him as your husband. As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, trusting Christ’s goodness, grace, love, and providence in all things (Psalms 23:1; Proverbs 3:5-6). Walk in faith, following Christ. Worship Him. In everything give thanks to him. Sing praise to him. Ever follow his example (John 13:15; 1 Peter 2:20-24; Ephesians 4:32 to Ephesians 5:2). If we would live in this world for the glory of God our Savior, if we would walk in the Spirit, we must seek the will and glory of God in all things and above all things. I do not mean that we should endeavor to show people that we love the Lord (Matthew 6:1-17). But I do mean that we ought to be consumed with love for Christ, utterly consumed with love for Christ. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” The secret to satisfaction in this world is serving God, doing his will (John 4:31-34). Daily surrender all things to Christ. Call everything but dung in comparison to him (Philippians 3:7-10). Take up your cross daily, and follow him. Lose your life to Christ, and you will save it. “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.”I cannot think of a better way of summarizing Paul’s message in Galatians 5 than by quoting a statement I heard a preacher make when I was just a very young man. — “Don’t ever lose your sweetheart love for Christ.”