The Spiritual Life (Gal 5:16-26)

“What I mean is this: if you make the Spirit your guide, you will not live the sensual life. For, in the Divine plan, the spirit and the flesh are ever in opposition within your minds; and in so far as you walk by the Spirit you are freed from Law. You can see for yourselves what are the results of the two opposing principles. Around you in the Galatian cities you see1 the vices that are the works of the flesh; and they who are guilty of those vices shall never be the heirs of God, I warned you against those evils, when I was last among you,2 and I warn you now again.

“The life of the Spirit matures in love and the kindred virtues: where they rule, Law ceases. If you are of Jesus Christ, you have nailed on the cross the flesh with its passions and lust, and died to the life of sensuality. Therefore, if you make the Spirit your guide, this must be seen in your daily life. To take a special example of the general rule, if you are jealous and censorious of your neighbours, you are not living the spiritual life.”

The prominent faults of South Galatian society are set before the readers in Gal 5:19-21. These are the faults that they saw everywhere round them, and these are the faults to which they were themselves liable. Paul had seen this on his second journey, and had already cautioned them. His first journey was the period of conversion, followed by organisation: on his second journey the dangers that beset the young Churches were brought painfully home to him, and he warned them against reproducing under a disguise of Christianity the faults of their age and surroundings. Now, once more he strives against them. He must strengthen their whole nature and character, and then the Judaistic evil will be corrected with their growing strength.

[1] Φανερά is in an emphatic position as first word of the sentence, and must be pressed in translation.

[2] See the last paragraph of this section.