Galatians 5:24-26 – “Putting It Together”

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

²⁴Now, those of Christ crucify the flesh together with its passions and lusts. ²⁵If we are living by [the] Spirit, by [the] Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives]. ²⁶Let us not be becoming conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.

As I look at these three verses, I think I have to understand them together, as a logical progression of thoughts. That might not be the case, I suppose. One could maintain that they’re three independent (though intimately related) assertions; but it makes sense to me to take them together. In verse 24 we’re dying; in verse 25 we’re living. In verse 24 it’s our passions and lusts that drive us; in verse 25, it’s the Spirit. Then verse 26 would be like a practical outcome of it all(?). Makes sense to me, so that is how I’ll proceed. (Just trying to be honest with myself and acknowledge the exegetical choices I’m making).

As I noted in the last post, in verse 24, it is true of Christ-followers that they characteristically “crucify the flesh” – they realize their real problem is their own rotten heart and the evil passions and desires it produces. In a very real sense I must constantly kill me. v25 then addresses the natural question, “But then how am I to live?” If me dies, what is left? As Paul said earlier, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me” (2:20). As Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die …” (John 11:25). This is one of the cool paradoxes of faith – in dying, we live. God literally warned Adam of sin, “In dying you shall die,” yet now in Christ, in dying we live.

I kill me, yet I live. And though me dies, notice that it is clearly me that lives. It is true that “Christ lives in me” and it is true here in verse 25 that I live “by the Spirit,” yet it is still me. I live. This is totally a God-thing. In dying to me, what I lose is my evil heart. What God gives back to me is me, only with the Holy Spirit present, not to somehow suppress me, but rather to allow me to be the me I was made to be – a me, with all my same aptitudes, same talents and abilities, the same me I saw in the mirror yesterday – yet now with the freedom to be all of those things without self-destructing and ruining everything that matters to me. Is this not the very hope of Heaven itself? I want to live. Yet I cannot go on living the way I am. Something is horribly wrong. In Heaven it will all be fixed. My evil heart will be gone forever. I will get to live, to enjoy God and all my friends without that evil me always ruining everything!

But the good news here in these verses is that it doesn’t wait until Heaven; it starts now. Oh, it works imperfectly here; it has to be a faith thing here, a learning thing here; but it does start here. We actually can “crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts” (kill our rotten selves) and we can “live by the Spirit” (live, in our relationships, love and joy and peace). Is that hope or what?? To keep this all in context, I need to insert here once again that this is not a law thing. That is the whole point of this whole book. The believer’s hope is not new and better rules, it is a new heart. For now, it is my same old rotten heart, but the third Person of the Trinity has taken up residence there and offers to be my spirit, to be in me a holy spirit, to make my desires and passions the right ones – to effectively give me a new heart!

That is all the hope of it all. Back to our passage, Paul then says to us, “If we are living by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives].” It is all possible. It can happen. But it is something we must be constantly choosing. Because the Spirit indwells us, we are living. Yet we must consciously be allowing Him to guide us, by Him to be “ordering [our lives].”

(I acknowledge here that the “ordering [our lives]” is an awkward translation but this is another place where I don’t quite know how to express the Greek. All there is here is a verb. It has no object, which is why the “our lives” is in brackets – I’m inserting the “our lives” just to try to make it make sense. The Greek verb itself means properly “to advance in a line” or metaphorically, “to frame one’s conduct.” It basically refers to the business of ordering our lives, so that is what I’m trying to bring out. I get the point; I just don’t know how to say that in English without adding a lot of words).

An exegetical note, for whatever it’s worth, is that the structure of verse 25 is chiastic. The “by the Spirit” is in fact, in the Greek repeated right next to each other. I tried to retain that structure in my translation, “If we are living by [the] Spirit, by [the] Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives].

He concludes with the practical implications of these choices. If I don’t order my life by the Spirit, what will happen? Interesting there are two basic consequences, pride and broken relationships: “Let us not be becoming conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.” “Conceited” probably isn’t the best translation, but once again, I’m at a loss for a better English word. The word literally means “empty glory ones.” I think the old English word was “vainglorious.” That is actually a very good literal translation, but we don’t use that term in modern English. You could also go with “boastful,” but my problem with conceited or boastful is that when you use those words there is the implication there may be truth to it. A guy might be boasting about something he really did do. The word here again is literally “empty glory ones” so I rather suspect it has more to do with our delusions of grandeur, our imagining ourselves better than others. Either way, what it comes down to is pride. It is us, like the devil, always trying to “exalt our throne above the stars of God.” It is the ridiculous childish fetish of always wanting others to like us, to be impressed with us, to realize that I truly am God’s gift to humanity.

I have lamented for years that the sin of pride seems to me like my skin. It’s so much a part of the very fabric of who I am, I almost cannot escape from it. It is really hopeful to me to realize that the indwelling Holy Spirit is actually there to deliver me from it. That is what it’s going to take – the third Person of the Trinity!

And so, as we would “by the Spirit order our lives” He will first of all be helping us not to be falling in pride. Then He will help us not to be self-destructing our relationships, not to be “provoking one another and envying one another.” Pride is such an evil monster. When it is controlling me (unfortunately my natural bent), I say things that provoke or goad other people, though I may not even realize it. I think it is true of each of us that we are all too aware when someone thinks they’re better than us, when what they’re saying is “putting us down,” when they’re being boastful or conceited, and we don’t like it. It wounds our pride to sense their pride. And so, when we’re doing that, even as we speak we are self-destructing the relationship. Also, as we interact with those people, because we’re proud, it really goads us if we think they have more than us. That is the “envying” part. I understand that, in the Greek word translated “envying,” there is even an aggressive sense. It is apparently not just that it goads us that they have more than us, but there is some kind of determination to “get it” from them! Very ugly stuff. But unfortunately that is the very evil that destroys our lives.

No doubt, if the Galatians were embracing legalism, that is exactly what would have been happening in their church. Where there had been love and joy and peace, suddenly there is strife. Suddenly it would seem that everything anyone says provokes and irritates others and animosity hangs in the air. When that is true, everyone may wonder, “What’s wrong? What’s gone wrong?” Paul is here succinctly diagnosing the problem. It is none of the things you might think. It is a plain, simple problem of flesh vs. Spirit. When animosity hangs in the air, it is a sure sign we are not crucifying our flesh and “by the Spirit” ordering our lives. Whatever we may think the problem is, we as believers need to go one step deeper and realize the real problem is going on in the throne room of my heart. “Desires and passions” have usurped the throne. The only “answer” that will really work is to crucify them and let the Holy Spirit resume His rightful reign. Only then will we once again enjoy in our relationships love and joy and peace. Only when we are in fact “putting it together” God’s way can we hope for the life our hearts so deeply desire.

Love. Real relationships. I hope I never get over the wonder that this is what the Lord desires for us. People think religion is about rules. That so absolutely totally completely misses the whole point of it all. “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” The closer I get to God, the more I understand the heart of Jesus, the more I allow His blessed Holy Spirit to reign in my heart, the more he helps me to treasure other people. The OT closes with the words, “…and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and children to their fathers.” Real religion means real relationships, “that it might go well with you and with your children forever.”

What an awesome God He is. Oh that we could see all day every day that all He wants for us is to bless us. If only my heart could live uninterrupted singing, “Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way. Hold o’er my being absolute sway.” Love and joy and peace await us!

This brings me to the end of Galatians chapter 5. I am so looking forward to studying chapter 6. Right now, as I read it, it almost seems like an arbitrary bunch of verses all thrown together. It will be really fun to study it and see how much that is not true. I rather expect to find it a very natural, logical, and enormously helpful application of everything Paul has taught in the first five chapters. However, I think it will have to wait a bit. I feel like I have been too long away from my Hebrew, so I need to go back and study for a while in the Old Testament. Not sure what I will do, just know that whatever it is, I will meet an awesome God. “For this is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou has sent.”

²⁴Now, those of Christ crucify the flesh together with its passions and lusts. ²⁵If we are living by [the] Spirit, by [the] Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives]. ²⁶Let us not be becoming conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.