Sep. 04, 2024

Sorry for the late notice, but ChristLife study will be online only tonight. I apologize for any inconvenience--and and I will miss seeing you!

God bless you!

Wayne

Join us tonight for Bible study, as we continue in Paul's letter to the Galatians. The Scripture is Galatians 5:14-18. Notes are attached.

LIVING THE CHRISTLIFE

WAYNE BARRETT

HILLTOP LAKES CHAPEL

SEPTEMBER 4, 2024

Galatians 5:14-18

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if

you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.16 But I

say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the

flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are

opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by

the Spirit, you are not under the law.

__________

v 14 – “For the whole law…”

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And [Jesus] said to him, “You

shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all

your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You

shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend [hang] all

the Law and the Prophets.”—Matthew 22:36-40, cf. Leviticus 19:18

This is still hard for us to accept, but we should both accept it and ponder it. It is certainly

necessary to our understanding that we recognize that Biblical “love” is not an

emotional state. In other words, as we ponder this teaching, the effect is not to erase

our morality or to reduce our sense of duties unto God and to one another but to better

understand what “love” is.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born

of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God

is love.—1 John 4:7-8

v 15 – “But if you bite…”

The Galatians were not cannibals, so what is Paul writing about?

Some of the sins that can destroy a fellowship are not the more notorious ones, but the

ones we tend to just accept as “people being people.”

Snippy, critical, back-biting words will ruin the spirit of a congregation or the wider

fellowship of God’s people

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building

up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”—Ephesians 4:29

Our goal should be to build one another up, not tear one another down. And this is our

goal as given to us by God.

And what we are building up is the body of Christ—so the goal is not the exaltation of

the individual, but the glory of Christ. We are to build one another up in and for him!

v 16 – “But I say…”

Now Paul has transitioned from writing about our saved condition under grace (as

opposed to the law) to what our new lives should be like and look like.

And this is the “umbrella” teaching: “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the

desires of the flesh.”

This is the teaching for every Christian. There is no alternate teaching. And every

Christian should know this.

“walk by the Spirit”

Not: walk by this new set of rules

Not: walk by your powerful determination

Not: walk by your wisdom

Not ever: walk by your knowledge of the Bible

Walk by the presence and power and leading of the Spirit

He is the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Christ, the Comforter, who will be with us forever

We must learn to be taught by him, to be led by him, to depend upon him, to be shaped

into the image of Christ by him

If we do this, “we shall not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Paul uses a double negative for emphasis: we shall no not gratify …!

“gratify” – teleó, to finish, to conclude, to accomplish; “gratify” may suggest a sense of

emotional satisfaction, which is not really the point being made.

Also, “desires” (epithumeó, intense desire, lust) is singular, not plural; so “desire of the

flesh”

Paul means that if we walk by the Spirit we will not accomplish the purposes of the

“desire of the flesh”—considered as one thing (that leads us in many wrong

direction—but it is the same, one thing doing so). One disease can have different

symptoms.

v 17 – “For the desires of the flesh…”

The sentence construction is a little different here in Gk. It reads more lit.:

“For the flesh strongly desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh…”

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight

in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging

war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells

in my members.”—Romans 7:21-23

The conflict within is well-acknowledged, but we are able if we so choose to “walk by

the Spirit.” This is a different thing that knowing what is right to do and seeking to do

it. We do not have the wisdom to always know what is right and we certainly do not

have the power to accomplish the purposes of God.

If we could do it all ourselves, if we were self-sufficient, we would not need the Spirit.

“to keep you from doing the things you want to do”

Somewhat more lit. “in order that what you might desire, these things you should not do.”

It can be read two ways, from both perspectives. Does it mean that the flesh strives to

prevent us from doing the good that we desire (as in Romans 7 above). Or does it

mean that the Spirit strives to restrain us from following our fleshly desire?

Both things are true.

v 18 – “But if you are led by the Spirit…”

This is an important “reminder” from Paul

The presence of this inner struggle does not mean we are not saved—and it does not

mean that our salvation is at stake

This is the ongoing condition of a person who is being sanctified in Christ, a person who

is “under construction.”

Even as we are led by the Spirit, we experience this conflict

But we experience this as the freed-from-the-law children of God.