Galatians 5:13-23 – “The Battle”

Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³For brothers you were called upon freedom. Only [do not use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh, but be serving one another through the love; ¹⁴for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵But beware, if you are biting and devouring each other, lest you are consumed by one another.

¹⁶But, I say, be walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely will not fulfill the lust of [the] flesh, ¹⁷for the flesh is lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other, so that you cannot be doing the things you might be wishing; ¹⁸but if you are being led [by the] Spirit, you are not under law.

…²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

I was thinking I was ready to move on but as I look at the passage, there’s still so much to ponder. As I read it this morning, I particularly notice the battle. In a sense “the battle” is what legalism is all about – the battle going on inside of every person, believer or not – the battle of living with “right and wrong.” I personally think in part it (the battle) comes from the fact we were made in the image of God, morally responsible and accountable (which image even unbelievers still bear) and part of it is the sense of law which I think God implanted in us as fallen people (to keep us at least from being as bad as we could be).  There simply is a battle going on inside every one of us. Legalism once again proposes the answer has something to do with law, more rules, less rules, new and better rules, restoring old-fashioned rules, etc., etc. As we learn from Galatians, God’s answer is not law but grace: blood-bought forgiveness and the indwelling Holy Spirit. But, from the passage before us (and from hard experience) we see that even the very Holy Spirit’s indwelling doesn’t end the battle inside us.

Somehow, way down deep in my heart, I think I have to come to grips with this myself. Even the Holy Spirit’s indwelling doesn’t end the battle. It only equips us to fight the battle. Everyone, regenerate or not, fights this battle within themselves. The whole point of Jesus’ outpouring the gift of Holy Spirit indwelling was to give us His power to fight the battle – not, in the short run, to win it but to empower us to fight it. Martin Luther struggled with this but told himself, “Martin, you will never be without sin, for you have flesh. Despair not, but resist the flesh.”  His advice to us was: “Do not despair if you feel the flesh battling against the Spirit or if you cannot make it behave. For you to follow the guidance of the Spirit in all things without interference on the part of the flesh is impossible. You are doing all you can if you resist the flesh and do not fulfill its demands.”

The fight. We are free; but we must guard lest that freedom become a beachhead for our rottenness. We must love others; if we don’t we’ll bite and devour each other. We must choose to be walking in the Spirit; but we have to beware of instead fulfilling the lusts of our flesh. We must let ourselves be led by the Spirit; but we are in danger of instead resorting to law.

It’s the battle. “… the flesh is lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other, so that you cannot be doing the things you might be wishing…”   Eadie observed, “They maintain this reflex warfare, and they cannot coalesce, for they are contrary the one to the other … The phrase “opposed to each other” describes not only actual antagonism, but undecided result.”   

Perhaps it’s the “undecided result” my heart doesn’t like. As I have learned these things and have been trying to apply them, I don’t necessarily feel like I’m doing any better. I’m still just as impatient and rotten. I wish I could feel like my realization of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, my sense of His presence, my determination to in fact draw on His power could mean some kind of significant and measurable improvement. But I can’t say it has. I think I am more aware of my rottenness, more aware that I am being impatient or unloving. I just don’t know that I’m winning the battle to change it. But then I read, “… so that you cannot be doing the things you might be wishing…” Even Paul’s “victory” in Romans 7 doesn’t actually conclude with his success. He’s still bemoaning his failures, “O, wretched man that I am!” when he asserts, “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” And to make himself clear that the battle isn’t over, he actually concludes that chapter with “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my flesh a slave to the law of sin.”  

Hmmmm. Not sure what to do with this. I wish I did feel like it was all making more of a difference, that I was doing a better job of putting off the old self and putting on Christ. Perhaps there is more to understand. Perhaps it is possible to do “better;” I just don’t see it yet. Or perhaps it’s just “the battle.” In this fractal universe, I’ve often noticed Exodus 23:28-30: “I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.  But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.” “Little by little I will drive them out before you …”   The Lord could have just nuked the Promised Land, cleared out the Canaanites, and handed it all to the Israelites with a bow on top. But He didn’t. He made them fight for it. And even their fight, He told them ahead of time, wouldn’t be successful in a year. It would take time. It would be a process. They’d have to stay at it. That’s the same pattern, it would seem to me, that we face in this battle of sanctification.

Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I’m hoping for too much. I wish there could be a quantum leap of improvement. If there is a way, as I said above, I still don’t see it. So … I will keep studying to understand better and keep at least trying to fight. “You are doing all you can if you resist the flesh and do not fulfill its demands,” said Martin Luther. I guess if that is where I feel I am, at least I’m in good company!

“Carry on, my wayward son. There’ll be peace when you are done.” (Kansas)

Galatians 5:16 – The Little Engine That Couldn’t

Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

“ …be serving one another through the love; ¹⁴for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself … ¹⁶But, I say, be walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely will not fulfill the lust of [the] flesh, …”

Before I leave these verses, there’s one more thing I’d like to get down on paper.

The last few years, I have been enjoying the realization that God has made it so simple for us: “Love God; Love people.”  “… all the law is fulfilled in [this] one word.”  Life really isn’t that complicated after all. Even the 66 books of the Bible can be reduced to this simple command. Love.

But there is a problem. I can’t even do that(!). Even the simple aspiration to genuinely love leaves me realizing how much I don’t. I’m very glad for the command. I like that life is really about relationships. I like knowing that. It makes even work far more enjoyable when I see that it’s the relationships that really matter. And I hope I do a better job because I realize that.

But. My “loving” is still inextricably bound up with getting what I want. I love to be loving … as long as I get what I want. Don’t give me what I want and watch me turn instantly into an impatient, angry, childish buffoon.

Guess my point is this: As simple (and as noble) as God’s command is, it really leaves me in no better condition than the most pompous legalism. Make it complicated (OT Law) and I can’t do it. Make it unbelievably simple (“Love God; Love people”) and I still can’t do it. Once again, it seems to all of us totally logical and reasonable, if I can’t seem to get it together, I must need new and better (or simpler) laws. But none of it works. None of it frees me from myself. None of it enables me to rise above this awful selfish beast that lurks in my heart (and shows his ugly face every little time I don’t get what I want). The answer is patently NOT law. Not more law. Not less law. Not complicated law. Not simplified law. NOT law.

I loved to read to my kids the story, “The Little Engine That Could.” I certainly wanted my children to grow up unafraid to try, determined to succeed at whatever they did. “I think I can, I think I can.” It really is a nice little book and some good thoughts to put in children’s minds. But. In the real world, sometimes you have to simply accept, “I can’t.” And when it comes to becoming a person of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, I need to simply run up the white flag. I can try. I will try. But I’ve lived long enough now to really realize “I can’t.”

There is a very interesting interchange in the OT that is worth recording. I noted years ago how the Israelites totally missed the whole point of it all when God gave them the Ten Commandments and they responded to Moses, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do.” Of course about 12 verses later they were worshipping a golden calf. They didn’t get it. Both Moses and God, on separate occasions, said something like, “Oh that they had such a heart in them.” But they didn’t and they didn’t see it.

After forty years in the wilderness and all of their failures, they still didn’t see it. In Joshua 24, Joshua issued his famous challenge: “…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” Then the people answered him, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! …We too will serve the Lord, because He is our God.” Joshua replied, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.”  But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord …We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

Hmmmm. Promises. Promises. They totally did not get it. Joshua told them point blank, “You can’t do it.” Their own history from the previous 40 years should have clued them in that somehow he was right. He even brought up this issue of forgiveness which they totally blew off. They just didn’t get it. Clear back at Mt. Sinai, their response to the Law should have been, “This is a good law, a very reasonable law. The Lord has every right to expect it of us. But we know our hearts, that we will not do it. We will fail. Is there not some other way for us to be the Lord’s people? We need to be saved from ourselves!” 

And it wasn’t as if there was not “another way.” Clear back in the Garden, the Lord promised to send the Seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent. About 500 years before the Exodus, Job had said, “I know that my Redeemer lives!” The people of Israel knew there was a Messiah. They simply had never come to a point where they stood face to face with the enormity of their own failure, and so they apparently only saw the Messiah as a nice appendage to their own righteousness. Just like today, their legalism eclipsed the face of God in their hearts. They really did think it was about the rules and they really did think somehow they could keep them.

They just didn’t get it.

But do we?

I would ask again of us professing believers, do we embrace grace as the way of forgiveness, then live under law? I needed a Savior because of my sins and sinfulness. Do I now somehow only need Him as an appendage to my own righteousness? Or is He my righteousness? Paul asked this very question of the Galatians in 3:2,3: “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?” 

Grace is the answer. The way of salvation is grace but not with an asterisk. It’s not grace to be saved and law to live by. It is grace, all grace. Grace is the air that true believers breathe; it is the blood that flows in their veins. “Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.”

But when it comes to living out grace, the agent of grace is the Spirit. Paul’s solution to our failure is not, here are new and better rules (legalism), or no rules at all (antinomianism). His solution is very clearly, “… be walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely will not fulfill the lust of [the] flesh.”

“When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, and because you are His sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

Once again, it seems to all of us totally logical and reasonable, if I can’t seem to get it together, I must need new and better (or simpler) laws. But none of it works. None of it frees me from myself. None of it enables me to rise above this awful selfish beast that lurks in my heart (and shows his ugly face every little time I don’t get what I want). The answer is patently NOT law. Not more law. Not less law. Not complicated law. Not simplified law. NOT law.

The answer is grace, embraced as the way of forgiveness and enjoyed daily through the power and enlightenment of indwelling Holy Spirit. The people of Israel totally didn’t get it. God help us not to miss it.

I want to live grace. I want to be a person like Jesus who adds to this world love and joy and peace and patience. God help me to practice the presence of His Spirit in my heart, to allow Him to be my spirit, to inform my thoughts and to be my attitude. God help me to read and study the Word such that I might truly know the mind of the Spirit. May my failure to love only drive me to depend on Him more. And because of grace, may I live out His heart, not because I’m enamored with the rules, but really, honestly, truly, sincerely because I love Him.

The little engine that couldn’t still wants to.

Galatians 5:13-23 – My Patient Guide/My Patience Guide

Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³For brothers you were called upon freedom. Only [do not use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh, but be serving one another through the love; ¹⁴for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵But beware, if you are biting and devouring each other, lest you are consumed by one another.

¹⁶But, I say, be walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely will not fulfill the lust of [the] flesh, ¹⁷for the flesh is lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other, so that you cannot be doing the things you might be wishing; ¹⁸but if you are being led [by the] Spirit, you are not under law.

…²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Hendriksen offers an insightful illustration of what it means to be Holy Spirit led. He says it is not like a guide who points to the mountain pass and says, “The road is through there.” Rather, the Holy Spirit is like the person leading the blind man to Jesus. The blind man had to want to get to Jesus. The blind man had to walk on his own feet; no one carried him. But he needed a sighted person to walk beside him. He couldn’t get there himself. He wanted to get there but he needed someone who could see the way and he needed that person to stay right beside him the entire way.

I like that. I think, prior to this study, I saw the Holy Spirit’s guidance like the mountain guide. Even though I believed in the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, still I think I saw myself as largely “on my own.” Through the Word He showed me the path, but the help was definitely a distant thing, something outside of myself. I think I was missing the point of the indwelling. When God says, “I am with you” He means it! He means right here with me. He means that although I must make the choices and although I have to do the walking, yet He is right here at my elbow guiding me by that gentle pressure. He can see the goal. He can see the right path. He can see the tripping hazards along the path. What I must do is walk with Him. I need to learn to yield to that gentle pressure at my elbow. He knows where He’s going. I don’t have to. I just need to trust Him.

This is so encouraging and makes so much sense. Of course I do a terrible job of trusting Him. I do a terrible job of yielding to that gentle pressure. Hmmmm. I’m not so sure I’m even very good at recognizing it. I think what I do is get it in my head, “I don’t want to go that way” and try to wander off. Of course I don’t know the way. Of course I don’t see the tripping hazards. But I’m a stubborn sinner and do it anyway. There’s something I want “over there,” or there’s something I fear. I think if I wander over this way, I’ll be safe. The whole adventure is of course ludicrous, but I literally can’t see it.

The awesomely good news is that my Guide never leaves me(!). All the time I am stubbornly stumbling around, He is still right there at my elbow. He still sees the goal. He still sees the path to get there, even from whatever wrong place I’ve wandered into. And, if I’ll only want to feel it, that gentle pressure is still there at my elbow, nudging me in the right direction.

I’m sitting here marveling at His patience. It has taken me a lifetime to cover a distance that should have taken only a few days. I have stubbornly wandered far and wide my whole life just to get to where I am today. Yet all that time He stayed with me. All that time He could see the path. All that time He knew where I needed to go. All that time He could see how foolishly I was wandering hither and yon. Yet, He has stayed with me; always there ready to lead me if only I would trust Him and let Him lead. Wow is that love. Wow is that patience.

How often have I wanted to “guide” someone, but the second they got stubborn, I would just wash my hands of them and give up. Where was the love? Where was the patience? Where was the Spirit? Wow have I got a lot to learn!

“…if you are being led [by the] Spirit, you are not under law …But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

No “law” could give me that kind of love, that kind of patience. That is what He means by, “…be serving one another through the love; for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But even something that simple I cannot do on my own. I need my Guide. I need His power. I need His patience! I need His patience so I can learn patience!!

Hmmm. Once again, I find my heart wanting to sing, “I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it; when it’s all about You, it’s all about You. I’m coming back to the heart of worship; ‘cause it’s all about You, it’s all about You, Jesus.

Galatians 5:13-23 – True Believers’ Manifesto

Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³For brothers you were called upon freedom. Only [do not use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh, but be serving one another through the love; ¹⁴for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵But beware, if you are biting and devouring each other, lest you are consumed by one another.

¹⁶But, I say, be walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely will not fulfill the lust of [the] flesh, ¹⁷for the flesh is lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other, so that you cannot be doing the things you might be wishing; ¹⁸but if you are being led [by the] Spirit, you are not under law.

…²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

I have taken the liberty to include above all of verses 13-18, then shot ahead and included vv 22,23. I am doing this because, as I am studying this book and learning, it seems to me these verses almost express the very essence of a Christ-follower’s life, our “manifesto” if you will. Let me try to sum up what I think I am understanding and then I’ll probably have to elaborate on it for several posts. There’s just so much going on here. I for one have never really understood all of this.

To summarize, as a fallen human being, I find myself in this awful battle of endless self-destruction. The natural and apparently logical solution is to place me under law, to give me “rules” to live by that make me better. This has been the “solution” offered by all religions and apparently even the secular Classical writers of old. I would venture to suggest, the vast majority of professing Christians still think that living out their salvation must be accomplished by the governance of law, a vast and varying mixture of actual Bible mandates, embellished with “principles” or “standards” (actually rules) we make up and teach to each other.

I guess it just makes sense to us, if I can’t seem to order my life, I must need new or “better” rules to live by.

But this doesn’t work. As Paul bemoans in Romans 7, rules only make it worse, even if they are “new and better,” because I still don’t keep them and, after a while, I realize somehow I cannot.

Who shall deliver me from this body of death?

I thank God, through Jesus Christ – who has provided a better solution … the only solution: blood-bought forgiveness and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

God’s solution. First of all there must be blood-bought forgiveness. The wages of sin is death. Jesus’ death was mine but He rose again, He lives, and so I can too. As I noted years ago, resurrection is really what Christianity is all about – life from the dead, a new beginning. However, while receiving by faith what Jesus did for me purchases the very forgiveness I need, it logically leaves a problem: I’m still rotten. Until I actually physically die I am and will be naturally a child of Adam, a fallen, self-destructive rebel driven by my own “wants” and fears. Once again, the answer is found in Jesus. As the victorious Messiah, one of His royal prerogatives was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This was prophesied repeatedly in the OT and of course, for the church age, it came to pass on that first Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

Since that day, when we accept Jesus we not only get the blood-bought forgiveness which purchases new life for us, we also get the indwelling Holy Spirit to empower us to live out that new life.

This glorious gift of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling is God’s solution to the problem of our rottenness. Above, I noted that our natural and seemingly totally logical assumption is that the “answer” to our rottenness is rules that will make us better – law. And if the rules I’ve followed don’t make me better, I must need better rules. The whole human race thinks like this, and as I said above, I’m afraid the vast majority of even born-again Christians, though saved by faith, try to be “better” by keeping the rules. After all, they now have Bible rules. How could it get better than that? But, again, it does.not.work. They’re still rotten. God’s way is not new or better rules. His solution is the indwelling Holy Spirit. Hear Him again:

 “…be walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely will not fulfill the lust of [the] flesh, … but if you are being led [by the] Spirit, you are not under law…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, ... Against such things there is no law.

The indwelling Holy Spirit does not just add new and better rules to my rotten self. He gives me a new nature. I am now a body indwelt by two spirits: my spirit – the rotten one I was born with, and the Holy Spirit. In my spirit, I am a child of Adam, but indwelt by the Holy Spirit I am a child of God. Indwelt by the Holy Spirit, I now have a new nature that actually wants to do right, that can understand God’s heart, that actually embraces holiness as a desirable way of life.

Now rather than “keeping the rules,” I would “walk in the Spirit,” which from my study I believe means to choose to be aware of His indwelling, of His presence, and to allow Him to actually be my spirit. The Word itself doesn’t give me “rules” to follow, it informs me of God’s heart, helps me see what really is right and wrong, what really is important and what is not. It is “the mind of the Spirit.” As I allow Him to be my spirit, informed by the Word, to help me see myself and my life and my choices through God’s eyes, I find myself choosing, valuing, and actually enjoying “love and joy and peace …” “Against such things there is no law”. I find myself enjoying the freedom to rise above my wants and fears and actually experience real love for God and the people around me.

But. It is a battle. It is a battle because my own rotten spirit is unfortunately alive and well and absolutely bent on ruling me. I still want things. I still fear I may not get them. My wants and fears seem to overpower whatever resolve I may have had to walk in the Spirit. And not only is my old nature seemingly powerful, it is also very deceptive. It will actually embrace holiness, choose to act in loving, kind, virtuous ways, to be a “good Christian” … as long as it thinks those choices will get what it wants – so that I can actually think I am “walking in the Spirit,” doing right, following God, etc., even though the truth is I am walking in the flesh – as evidenced by how quickly I can turn rotten when in fact I don’t get “what I want.” It is a battle. “The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. The two are opposed to each other.”

But this is the battle. The battle is not a matter of keeping new and better rules. The battle is between my flesh and the Holy Spirit over who will control my life. It is not enough to resolve to “keep the rules.” I will pursue that goal in my flesh, still very much driven by my “wanter.” I may do a lot of things “right” but through it all, I’ll still be rotten. It will fail. Instead I must resolve to allow the Holy Spirit to be my spirit, to enable me to embrace God’s heart, to see the world through His eyes, to allow the Word to inform me how in fact He does see the world, and then to live out God’s heart not because I have to (flesh) but because I truly want to (Spirit).

One last thing I want to inject: By faith I have to believe that the Holy Spirit is far more powerful than my spirit. It doesn’t feel that way. Perhaps it is because I’m new to this, but the voice of my flesh seems to utterly drown out the Spirit’s. My “wanter” seems to completely overpower any resolve I might have to walk in the Spirit. But that cannot be true. For crying out loud, the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity! I am indwelt by the very power that spoke the universe into being. The “power” of my flesh must be another of its devious deceptions which I must conquer by faith. It is powerful. That is indisputable. As the passage says, as the flesh and the Spirit vie for control, I “cannot do what I wish.” which I take to mean that both get in each other’s way – that I succeed in neither to the extent I’d like to. My flesh is in fact powerful. But it is powerful the same way the devil is powerful. That power only conquers me if I let it. I have an infinite Divine power available to conquer it. I have to believe that and step out.

It is my Manifesto: Enjoy my blood-bought forgiveness and live out the gift Jesus provides – the ability to live out the life God intends for me – a life of real freedom, a life of love and joy and peace. Not because I “have to” but because I want to.