Galatians 5:13

In the latter part of this chapter the apostle comes to exhort these Christians to serious practical godliness, as the best antidote against the snares of the false teachers. Two things especially he presses upon them: -

I. That they should not strive with one another, but love one another. He tells them (Gal 5:13) that they had been called unto liberty, and he would have them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free; but yet he would have them be very careful that they did not use this liberty as an occasion to the flesh - that they did not thence take occasion to indulge themselves in any corrupt affections and practices, and particularly such as might create distance and disaffection, and be the ground of quarrels and contentions among them: but, on the contrary, he would have them by love to serve one another, to maintain that mutual love and affection which, notwithstanding any minor differences there might be among them, would dispose them to all those offices of respect and kindness to each other which the Christian religion obliged them to. Note, 1. The liberty we enjoy as Christians is not a licentious liberty: though Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, yet he has not freed us from the obligation of it; the gospel is a doctrine according to godliness (Ti1 6:3), and is so far from giving the least countenance to sin that it lays us under the strongest obligations to avoid and subdue it. 2. Though we ought to stand fast in our Christian liberty, yet we should not insist upon it to the breach of Christian charity; we should not use it as an occasion of strife and contention with our fellow Christians, who may be differently minded from us, but should always maintain such a temper towards each other as may dispose us by love to serve one another. To this the apostle endeavours to persuade these Christians, and there are two considerations which he sets before them for this purpose: - (1.) That all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, Gal 5:14. Love is the sum of the whole law; as love to God comprises the duties of the first table, so love to our neighbour those of the second. The apostle takes notice of the latter here, because he is speaking of their behaviour towards one another; and, when he makes use of this as an argument to persuade them to mutual love, he intimates both that this would be a good evidence of their sincerity in religion and also the most likely means of rooting out those dissensions and divisions that were among them. It will appear that we are the disciples of Christ indeed when we have love one to another (Joh 13:35); and, where this temper is kept up, if it do not wholly extinguish those unhappy discords that are among Christians, yet at least it will so far accommodate them that the fatal consequences of them will be prevented. (2.) The sad and dangerous tendency of a contrary behaviour (Gal 5:15): But, says he, if instead of serving one another in love, and therein fulfilling the law of God, you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. If, instead of acting like men and Christians, they would behave themselves more like brute beasts, in tearing and rending one another, they could expect nothing as the consequence of it, but that they would be consumed one of another; and therefore they had the greatest reason not to indulge themselves in such quarrels and animosities. Note, Mutual strifes among brethren, if persisted in, are likely to prove a common ruin; those that devour one another are in a fair way to be consumed one of another. Christian churches cannot be ruined but by their own hands; but if Christians, who should be helps to one another and a joy one to 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, who seeks the destruction of them all, should prevail?

II. That they should all strive against sin; and happy would it be for the church if Christians would let all their quarrels be swallowed up of this, even a quarrel against sin-if, instead of biting and devouring one another on account of their different opinions, they would all set themselves against sin in themselves and the places where they live. This is what we are chiefly concerned to fight against, and that which above every thing else we should make it our business to oppose and suppress. To excite Christians hereunto, and to assist them herein, the apostle shows,

1. That there is in every one a struggle between the flesh and the spirit (Gal 5:17): The flesh (the corrupt and carnal part of us) lusts (strives and struggles with strength and vigour) against the spirit: it opposes all the motions of the Spirit, and resists every thing that is spiritual. On the other hand, the spirit (the renewed part of us) strives against the flesh, and opposes the will and desire of it: and hence it comes to pass that we cannot do the things that we would. As the principle of grace in us will not suffer us to do all the evil which our corrupt nature would prompt us to, so neither can we do all the good that we would, by reason of the oppositions we meet with from that corrupt and carnal principle. Even as in a natural man there is something of this struggle (the convictions of his conscience and the corruption of his own heart strive with one another; his convictions would suppress his corruptions, and his corruptions silence his convictions), so in a renewed man, where there is something of a good principle, there is a struggle between the old nature and the new nature, the remainders of sin and the beginnings of grace; and this Christians must expect will be their exercise as long as they continue in this world.

2. That it is our duty and interest in this struggle to side with the better part, to side with our convictions against our corruptions and with our graces against our lusts. This the apostle represents as our duty, and directs us to the most effectual means of success in it. If it should be asked, What course must we take that the better interest may get the better? he gives us this one general rule, which, if duly observed, would be the most sovereign remedy against the prevalence of corruption; and that is to walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:16): This I say, then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. By the Spirit here may be meant either the Holy Spirit himself, who condescends to dwell in the hearts of those whom he has renewed and sanctified, to guide and assist them in the way of their duty, or that gracious principle which he implants in the souls of his people and which lusts against the flesh, as that corrupt principle which still remains in them does against it. Accordingly the duty here recommended to us is that we set ourselves to act under the guidance and influence of the blessed Spirit, and agreeably to the motions and tendency of the new nature in us; and, if this be our care in the ordinary course and tenour of our lives, we may depend upon it that, though we may not be freed from the stirrings and oppositions of our corrupt nature, we shall be kept from fulfilling it in the lusts thereof; so that though it remain in us, yet it shall not obtain a dominion over us. Note, The best antidote against the poison of sin is to walk in the Spirit, to be much in conversing with spiritual things, to mind the things of the soul, which is the spiritual part of man, more than those of the body, which is his carnal part, to commit ourselves to the guidance of the word, wherein the Holy Spirit makes known the will of God concerning us, and in the way of our duty to act in a dependence on his aids and influences. And, as this would be the best means of preserving them from fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, so it would be a good evidence that they were Christians indeed; for, says the apostle (Gal 5:18), If you be led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. As if he had said, "You must expect a struggle between flesh and spirit as long as you are in the world, that the flesh will be lusting against the spirit as well as the spirit against the flesh; but if, in the prevailing bent and tenour of your lives, you be led by the Spirit, - if you act under the guidance and government of the Holy Spirit and of that spiritual nature and disposition he has wrought in you, - if you make the word of God your rule and the grace of God your principle, - it will hence appear that you are not under the law, not under the condemning, though you are still under the commanding, power of it; for there is now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God," Rom 8:1-14.

3. The apostle specifies the works of the flesh, which must be watched against and mortified, and the fruits of the Spirit, which must be cherished and brought forth (Gal 5:19, etc.); and by specifying particulars he further illustrates what he is here upon. (1.) He begins with the works of the flesh, which, as they are many, so they are manifest. It is past dispute that the things he here speaks of are the works of the flesh, or the product of corrupt and depraved nature; most of them are condemned by the light of nature itself, and all of them by the light of scripture. The particulars he specifies are of various sorts; some are sins against the seventh commandment, such as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, by which are meant not only the gross acts of these sins, but all such thoughts, and words, and actions, as have a tendency towards the great transgression. Some are sins against the first and second commandments, as idolatry and witchcraft. Others are sins against our neighbour, and contrary to the royal law of brotherly love, such as hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, which too often occasion seditions, heresies, envyings, and sometimes break out into murders, not only of the names and reputation, but even of the very lives, of our fellow-creatures. Others are sins against ourselves, such as drunkenness and revellings; and he concludes the catalogue with an et cetera, and gives fair warning to all to take care of them, as they hope to see the face of God with comfort. Of these and such like, says he, I tell you before, as I have also told you in times past, that those who do such things, how much soever they may flatter themselves with vain hopes, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. These are sins which will undoubtedly shut men out of heaven. The world of spirits can never be comfortable to those who plunge themselves in the filth of the flesh; nor will the righteous and holy God ever admit such into his favour and presence, unless they be first washed and sanctified, and justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God, Co1 6:11. (2.) He specifies the fruits of the Spirit, or the renewed nature, which as Christians we are concerned to bring forth, Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23. And here we may observe that as sin is called the work of the flesh, because the flesh, or corrupt nature, is the principle that moves and excites men to it, so grace is said to be the fruit of the Spirit, because it wholly proceeds from the Spirit, as the fruit does from the root: and whereas before the apostle had chiefly specified those works of the flesh which were not only hurtful to men themselves but tended to make them so to one another, so here he chiefly takes notice of those fruits of the Spirit which had a tendency to make Christians agreeable one to another, as well as easy to themselves; and this was very suitable to the caution or exhortation he had before given (Gal 5:13), that they should not use their liberty as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. He particularly recommends to us, love, to God especially, and to one another for his sake, - joy, by which may be understood cheerfulness in conversation with our friends, or rather a constant delight in God, - peace, with God and conscience, or a peaceableness of temper and behaviour towards others, - long-suffering, patience to defer anger, and a contentedness to bear injuries, - gentleness, such a sweetness of temper, and especially towards our inferiors, as disposes us to be affable and courteous, and easy to be entreated when any have wronged us, - goodness (kindness, beneficence), which shows itself in a readiness to do good to all as we have opportunity, - faith, fidelity, justice, and honesty, in what we profess and promise to others, - meekness, wherewith to govern our passions and resentments, so as not to be easily provoked, and, when we are so, to be soon pacified, - and temperance, in meat and drink, and other enjoyments of life, so as not to be excessive and immoderate in the use of them. Concerning these things, or those in whom these fruits of the Spirit are found, the apostle says, There is no law against them, to condemn and punish them. Yea, hence it appears that they are not under the law, but under grace; for these fruits of the Spirit, in whomsoever they are found, plainly show that such are led by the Spirit, and consequently that they are not under the law, as Gal 5:18. And as, by specifying these works of the flesh and fruits of the Spirit, the apostle directs us both what we are to avoid and oppose and what we are to cherish and cultivate, so (Gal 5:24) he informs us that this is the sincere care and endeavour of all real Christians: And those that are Christ's, says he (those who are Christians indeed, not only in show and profession, but in sincerity and truth), have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. As in their baptism they were obliged hereunto (for, being baptized into Christ, they were baptized into his death, Rom 6:3), so they are now sincerely employing themselves herein, and, in conformity to their Lord and head, are endeavouring to die unto sin, as he had died for it. They have not yet obtained a complete victory over it; they have still flesh as well as Spirit in them, and that has its affections and lusts, which continue to give them no little disturbance, but as it does not now reign in their mortal bodies, so as that they obey it in the lusts thereof (Rom 6:12), so they are seeking the utter ruin and destruction of it, and to put it to the same shameful and ignominious, though lingering death, which our Lord Jesus underwent for our sakes. Note, If we should approve ourselves to be Christ's, such as are united to him and interested in him, we must make it our constant care and business to crucify the flesh with its corrupt affections and lusts. Christ will never own those as his who yield themselves the servants of sin. But though the apostle here only mentions the crucifying of the flesh with the affections and lusts, as the care and character of real Christians, yet, no doubt, it is also implied that, on the other hand, we should show forth those fruits of the Spirit which he had just before been specifying; this is no less our duty than that, nor is it less necessary to evidence our sincerity in religion. It is not enough that we cease to do evil, but we must learn to do well. Our Christianity obliges us not only to die unto sin, but to live unto righteousness; not only to oppose the works of the flesh, but to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit too. If therefore we would make it appear that we do indeed belong to Christ, this must be our sincere care and endeavour as well as the other; and that it was the design of the apostle to represent both the one and the other of these as our duty, and as necessary to support our character as Christians, may be gathered from what follows (Gal 5:25), where he adds, If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit; that is, "If we profess to have received the Spirit of Christ, or that we are renewed in the Spirit of Christ, or that we are renewed in the spirit of our minds, and endued with a principle of spiritual life, let us make it appear by the proper fruits of the Spirit in our lives." He had before told us that the Spirit of Christ is a privilege bestowed on all the children of God, Gal 4:6. "Now," says he, "if we profess to be of this number, and as such to have obtained this privilege, let us show it by a temper and behaviour agreeable hereunto; let us evidence our good principles by good practices." Our conversation will always be answerable to the principle which we are under the guidance and government of: as those that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, so those that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit, Rom 8:5. If therefore we would have it appear that we are Christ's, and that we are partakers of his Spirit, it must be by our walking not after the flesh, but after the spirit. We must set ourselves in good earnest both to mortify the deeds of the body, and to walk in newness of life.

4. The apostle concludes this chapter with a caution against pride and envy, Gal 5:26. He had before been exhorting these Christians by love to serve one another (Gal 5:13), and had put them in mind of what would be the consequence if, instead of that, they did bite and devour one another, Gal 5:15. Now, as a means of engaging them to the one and preserving them from the other of these, he here cautions them against being desirous of vain-glory, or giving way to an undue affectation of the esteem and applause of men, because this, if it were indulged, would certainly lead them to provoke one another and to envy one another. As far as this temper prevails among Christians, they will be ready to slight and despise those whom they look upon as inferior to them, and to be put out of humour if they are denied that respect which they think is their due from them, and they will also be apt to envy those by whom their reputation is in any danger of being lessened: and thus a foundation is laid for those quarrels and contentions which, as they are inconsistent with that love which Christians ought to maintain towards each other, so they are greatly prejudicial to the honour and interest of religion itself. This therefore the apostle would have us by all means to watch against. Note, (1.) The glory which comes from men is vain-glory, which, instead of being desirous of, we should be dead to. (2.) An undue regard to the approbation and applause of men is one great ground of the unhappy strifes and contentions that exist among Christians.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gal_5:13

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Christian liberty

I. The nature of that liberty of which the apostle here speaks. There is a charm in the very sound of liberty; it awakens many grateful recollections. But the word is employed in various acceptations. Civil liberty is that freedom which is our birthright as men. Spiritual liberty is that freedom, which belongs to us, not as men, but as Christians.

II. The great value of that spiritual liberty to which all believers of gospel truth are called. Political freedom, important as it is, may be overrated. It is highly advantageous to a nation, but not essential to the happiness of individuals. Good men have been happy in exile or in prison, and bad men cannot be so under any circumstances however favourable; the cause of the difference is to be referred to the state of the mind.

1. The measure of spiritual liberty, which a Christian even now attains, removes or alleviates some of the keenest and heaviest sorrows to which man is subject.

2. The measure of spiritual liberty, which a Christian now possesses, greatly heightens and refines all his enjoyments. Countermanding the original curse, it brings back some of the productions of paradise. It opens the noblest faculties and animates the best feelings of the mind.

3. It is but the beginning and pledge of that complete deliverance from all sin and sorrow, to which he is looking with lively hope. The best state on earth bears the marks of imperfection. Even where grace reigns, sin, like a rebel dethroned but not destroyed, is too near to leave any long interval of peace. In that kingdom to which we are hastening, no tumults or temptations will rise; no sickness or sighing, death or danger, will be known. No law in the members will be found warring against the law of the mind, or bringing us into captivity to sin. Even creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Rom_8:21).

III. The way in which the liberty to which the believer is called may be duly improved. All the principles of our holy religion have a practical bearing. We see a beautiful harmony in its doctrines and precepts. This is one of the great excellencies of Christianity. Paul was a wise master-builder, equally concerned to lay a good foundation, and to carry up the superstructure.

1. He gives a word of salutary warning--Use not liberty, etc. There is hardly any good but is liable to abuse. Every sacred privilege has been and may be perverted. We must be on our guard against this. To use Christian liberty for an occasion to indulge the flesh is the best thing in the world turned to the worst purpose.

2. The apostle, in our text, gives a suitable word of direction--By love serve one another. Love is the first and best of all the Christian graces. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc. Love finds out many means of serving our brethren. It prompts and animates the mind-it makes us cheerful, active, tender, kind, forbearing. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

By love serve one another--Christianity a system of love

Look at the operations of charity, or the love of benevolence. It was this which existed in the mind of Deity from eternity, and in the exercise of which He so loved our guilty world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It was on the wings of charity that the Son of God flew from heaven to earth, on an errand of mercy to our lost world; it was charity that moved in the minds and hearts of the apostles, and urged them with the glad tidings of salvation, from country to country. The whole missionary enterprise is founded, not of course on the basis of brotherly kindness, but on that of charity. All those splendid instances that have been presented to us of the exercise of philanthropy are the operations of this Divine charity. See Howard, leaving the seclusion of a country gentleman, giving up his elegant retreat and all its luxurious gratifications, pacing to and fro through Europe, plunging into dungeons, battling with pestilence, weighing the fetters of the prisoner, gauging the disease of the pest-house--all under the influence of heavenly charity. See Wilberforce, through twenty years of his eventful life, lifting up his unwearied voice, and employing his fascinating eloquence against the biggest outrage that ever trampled on the rights of humanity. What formed his character, sketched his plan, inspired his zeal, but charity? See that illustrious woman, lately departed, so ripe for glory and so richly invested with it, who interested herself amidst the prisoners of Newgate--to chain their passions, to reclaim their vices, and to render them more meet for society, which had condemned them as its outcasts. What was it that gave to Mrs. Fry her principle of action, what indeed was the principle itself, but charity? (J. Angell James.)

One another

I. What is a Christian Church?

1. Not a club, an association of persons belonging to the same rank in life, but a Divine society embracing all classes.

2. Not a republic where majorities rule, but a society where the will of the Divine Head is the governing power.

3. Two or three, met in Christs name, and loyal to His will, are sufficient to constitute a Christian Church.

II. What are the conditions of happy Church life?

1. The root of all is obedience to the law. Love one another.

2. Love gives rise to mutuality in everything.

3. Mutual feeling branches out in various ways.

(1) Where help is wanted--Bear ye one anothers burdens, Edify one another, Admonish one another.

(2) Where wounded feelings prevail--Confess to one another, Pray for one another, Forbearing one another, Forgiving one another.

4. From the whole proceeds the Christian law of courtesy and etiquette--Be subject to one another, In honour prefering one another, In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than himself. (E. Johnson, M. A.)

Law and liberty

There is a great mistake about liberty from law. Some religious persons think it means free, so that though you sin, the law will not punish. This is the liberty of devils: free to do as much evil as you will, and yet not suffer. True Christian liberty is this, self-command; to have been brought to Christ; to do right and to love right without a law of compulsion to school you into doing it. If we have not got so far, the law has all its power hanging over us still. (F. W. Robertson.)

To preach justification by the law as a covenant is legal, and makes void the death and merits of Jesus Christ. But to preach obedience to the law as a rule is evangelical; and it savours as much of a New Testament spirit to urge the commands of the law as to display the promises of the gospel. (Bishop Hopkins.)

True liberty is only realized in obedience. The abuse of freedom is bondage, from which there is no self-deliverance. (T. T. Lynch.)

The joy of liberty

Dr. Fletcher was passing the Old Bailey one day, and saw a couple of boys turning somersaults, standing on their heads, making wheels of themselves, and all sorts of things; and he stopped, and said, Why, boys, whatever are you at? You seem to be delighted; to which one of them replied, Ah! and you would be delighted, too, if you had been locked up in that jail three months. You would jump when you came out. And the good old doctor said he thought it was very likely he should. And the man who has been called unto liberty by Christ, knows the sweets of freedom, because aforetime the iron had entered his soul. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Loving service

A train from the Far West of America was once passing through Saratoga, having among other passengers a man with an infant child. The mans garments showed him to be poor, and the crape on his hat showed the child to be motherless. The infant was restless, and the father handled it clumsily; with all his efforts he could not quiet it. He wiped the tears from its eyes, and then from his own. All who saw him pitied him. At length a richly-dressed lady, whose infant lay in the arms of its nurse, said, with motherly tenderness in her tone, Give me the child. The poor man gave her his boy, whose coarse and soiled robes rested for once on costly silk; his head disappeared under her shawl, and all was still. She held him mile after mile, and did not relinquish him until her own child required attention. (Biblical Treasury.)

Liberty through love

I. The nature of this liberty.

1. This liberty is freedom from the burden of a religion of ordinances.

2. It is liberty from the moral law as the awakener of sin, and from the fear of its punishment, which is death.

II. To keep this liberty pure, we should know its dangers, and avoid them.

1. It may be so used as, to allow the lower nature to rule--as an occasion to the flesh.

(1) We are freed from ceremonies, but we cannot live without some forms. Spiritual life, left to silence, unsymbolized, unused, fades away.

(2) We err if we use liberty to despise those who love ceremonial; or if we bind ourselves never to use it.

2. Our liberty from coercive law is produced in us by a love which obeys the law. If we do not love to obey, we are not in Christian liberty at all. St. Paul calls such despisers of law the servants of sin.

3. The use of freedom must be in subordination to love. It is the habit of many to placard their freedom; to violate the scruples of others. What sort of Christianity is that which uses the freedom of Christ to do violence to the love of Christ? The rule is--Use your liberty, not for your own gratification, but for the good of others. Liberty is not a principle of action; it is a mode of action. Love is its principle, and love is the test which tells whether we are free or enslaved. (S. A. Brooke, M. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 5:13-15. Ye have been called — By the gospel; into liberty — From the bondage of the Mosaic ceremonies, as well as of sin and misery: only use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh — So as to nourish or gratify any corrupt principle in yourselves or others. But by love serve one another — Use your liberty as may best manifest your love to your neighbour, seeking his edification, or at least doing nothing contrary thereto, Rom 14:13; Rom 14:15. And hereby show that Christ has made you free indeed. For all the law — With which we believers in Christ have any concern; is fulfilled in one word — Or precept; even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself — Inasmuch as none can do this without loving God, (1Jn 4:12,) and the love of God and man includes all perfection. But if — On the contrary, from your zeal for, or your zeal against, the Mosaic ceremonies, and in consequence of the divisions which those troublers have occasioned among you; ye bite and devour one another — By evil speaking, railing, and clamour; take heed that ye be not consumed one of another — That your divisions do not end in the total destruction of religion among you, and the entire ruin of your church: for it is certain, by these mutual contentions, you take the readiest way to produce these effects. By bitterness, strife, and contention, men’s health and strength, both of body and soul, are consumed, as well as their substance and reputation.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. But this freedom from circumcision, legalism, and ritualism must not pass into license, Gal_5:13-26.

Now follows a beautiful section on Christian morals. Absolved from old stereotype forms, let your Christian holiness be based on pure and simple right. Yet not natural and economic rectitude merely, but love, under aid of the divine Spirit, will lift you into the region of a divine purity. And then St. Paul draws us, under the contrast of spirit and flesh, two opposing pictures. The one is the summation of Christian virtues, the other of fleshly vices. Look first on this picture and then on that, and see how a true Christian morality in the midst of heathenism is shaped, and how a true Christian life may be lived. Ages may progress, civilization may advance, the same virtues may be variously modified, but the virtues themselves are eternal, and the character formed by them is truly immortal.

13. Called unto liberty—From the burdensome artificialities of the old system ye are emancipated into a pure and simple heart-deep religion.

Use not liberty… to the flesh—St. Paul’s liberty offers no man an exemption from the law of right. Let no man say, that under Paul’s gospel I am lawless, and nothing I do is sin. Such make their liberty an occasion, that is, means, or chance, or pretext, for indulging the flesh. By flesh here is meant, all opposed to the spirit; all that is unholy in man, whether of mind or body. It does not imply that all evil lies in matter or in the body. But as flesh is the transitory element of man, so the word is used for all that is low, earthly, or unholy.

By love serve—As faith works by love, so actions produced by love have a true freedom in them. If we serve another from love we feel that in that service we are free.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Gal_5:13. Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh.—Do not give the flesh the handle or pretext for its indulgence, which it eagerly seeks for. By love serve one another.—If ye must be in bondage, be servants to one another in love.

Gal_5:15. If ye bite and devour one another, … consumed.—Figures taken from the rage of beasts of prey. The biting of controversy naturally runs into the devouring of controversial mood waxing fierce with indulgence. And the controversialists, each snapping at and gnawing his antagonist, forget the tendency is to consume the Christian cause. Strength of soul, health of body, character, and resources are all consumed by broils.

Gal_5:18. If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.—Under no irksome restraint. To him who loves, law is not irksome bondage but delightful direction. Active spiritual life is a safeguard against lawless affection.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gal_5:13-18

Love the Highest Law of Christian Liberty.

I. Love preserves liberty from degenerating into licence.—“Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh” (Gal_5:13). Christian liberty is a great boon, but it is also a solemn responsibility. It is hard to win, and is worth the most gigantic struggle; but the moment it is abused it is lost. Men clamour for liberty when they mean licence—licence to indulge their unholy passions, unchecked by the restraints of law. Christian liberty is not the liberty of the flesh, but of the Spirit, and love is the master-principle that governs and defines all its exercises.

“He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,

And all are slaves besides.”

We know no truth, no privilege, no power, no blessing, no right, which is not abused. But is liberty to be denied to men because they often turn it into licentiousness? There are two freedoms—the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought. Love is the safeguard of the highest liberty.

II. Love is obedience to the highest law.—“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Gal_5:14). “By love serve one another” (Gal_5:13). We may be as orthodox as Athanasius and as scrupulous as Jerome, we may be daily and ostentatiously building to God seven altars and offering a bullock and a ram on every altar, and yet be as sounding brass and as a clanging cymbal, if our life shows only the leaves of profession without the golden fruit of action. If love shows not itself by deeds of love, then let us not deceive ourselves. God is not mocked; our Christianity is heathenism, and our religion a delusion and a sham. Love makes obedience delightful, esteems it bondage to be prevented, liberty to be allowed to serve.

“Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.”

Wordsworth.

III. Love prevents the mutual destructiveness of a contentious spirit.—“But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another” (Gal_5:15). The condition of the Galatians at this time was very different from the ideal Paul set before them. The quick, warm temperament of the Gauls was roused by the Judaistic controversy, and their natural combativeness was excited. It was easy to pick a quarrel with them at any time, and they were eloquent in vituperation and invective. The “biting” describes the wounding and exasperating effect of the manner in which their contentions were carried on; “devour” warns them of its destructiveness. If this state of things continued, the Churches of Galatia would cease to exist. Their liberty would end in complete disintegration. Love is the remedy propounded for all ills—the love of Christ, leading to the love of each other. Love not only cures quarrels, but prevents them.

IV. Love by obeying the law of the Spirit gains the victory in the fend between the flesh and the Spirit.—“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh: … these are contrary the one to the other” (Gal_5:16-17). The flesh and the Spirit are rivals, and by their natures must be opposed to and strive with each other. The strong man is dispossessed by a stronger than he—the Spirit. The master must rule the slave. “This soul of mine must rule this body of mine,” said John Foster, “or quit it.” The life of a Christian is lived in a higher sphere, and governed by a higher law—walking in the Spirit. Christianity says, Be a man, not a brute. Not do as many fleshly things as you can, but do as many spiritual things as you can. All prohibitions are negative. You can’t kill an appetite by starvation. You may kill the flesh by living in the higher region of the Spirit; not merely by ceasing to live in sin, but by loving Christ. The more we live the spiritual life, the more sin becomes impossible. Conquest over the sensual is gained, not by repression, but by the freer, purer life of love.

V. Love emancipates from the trammels of the law.—“If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal_5:18). The Spirit of love does not abolish the law, but renders it harmless by fulfilling all its requirements, without being compelled to it by its stern commands. Law does not help the soul to obey its behests, but it has nothing to say, nothing to threaten, when those behests are obeyed. To be under the law is to be under sin; but yielding to the influence of the Spirit, and living according to His law, the soul is free from sin and from the condemnation of the law. Freedom from sin, and freedom from the trammels of the Mosaic law—these two liberties are virtually one. Love is the great emancipator from all moral tyrannies.

Lessons.—

1. Love is in harmony with the holiest law.

2. Love silences all contention.

3. Love honours law by obeying it.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Gal_5:13-14. The Service of Love—

I. Is the noblest exercise of Christian liberty (Gal_5:13).

II. Preserves Christian liberty from degenerating into selfish indulgence (Gal_5:13).

III. Is the fulfilment of the highest law (Gal_5:14).

Gal_5:13. The Abuse of Christian Liberty.

I. To use it as an occasion of fleshly and carnal liberty.—When men make more things indifferent than God ever made. Thus all abuses of meat, drink, apparel, rioting, gaming, dicing, and carding are excused by the names of things indifferent.

II. Our liberty is abused by an immoderate use of the gifts of God.—

1. Many gentlemen and others offend when they turn recreation into an occupation.

2. When men exceed in eating and drinking.

3. They offend who, being mean persons and living by trades, yet for diet and apparel are as great gentlemen and gentlewomen.

III. Liberty is abused when the blessings of God are made instruments and flags and banners to display our riot, vanity, ostentation, and pride.—It is the fashion of men to take unto themselves a toleration of sinning. Some presume on the patience of God, others on the election of grace, and others on the mercy of God. A certain dweller in Cambridge made away with himself. In his bosom was found a writing to this effect: that God did show mercy on great and desperate sinners, and therefore he hoped for mercy though he hanged himself. Of this mind are many ignorant persons, who persevere in their sins, yet persuade themselves of mercy.—Perkins.

The Right Use of Christian Liberty.

I. We ourselves must be renewed and sanctified.—The person must first please God before the action can please Him.

II. Besides the lawful use of the creatures we must have a spiritual and holy use of them.—

1. The creatures of God must be sanctified by the word and prayer.

2. We must be circumspect lest we sin in the use of the creatures. In these days there is no feasting or rejoicing unless all memory of God be buried, for that is said to breed melancholy.

3. We must use the gifts of God with thanksgiving.

4. We must suffer ourselves to be limited and moderate in the use of our liberty.

5. Our liberty must be used for right ends—the glory of God, the preservation of nature, and the good of our neighbour.

III. We must give no occasion of sinning by means of Christian liberty.—Ibid.

Gal_5:14. The Law fulfilled in Love to Others.

I. The end of man’s life is to serve God in serving others.

II. True godliness is to love and serve God in serving man.—To live out of all society of men, though it be in prayer and fasting in monkish fashion, is no state of perfection, but mere superstition. That is true and perfect love of God that is showed in duties of love and in the edification of our neighbour. It is not enough for thee to be holy in church; thou mayest be a saint in church and a devil at home.—Ibid.

Regard for a Neighbour’s Rights.—Speaking of the early American prairie settlements a modern historian says: “Theft was almost unknown. The pioneers brought with them the same rigid notions of honesty which they had previously maintained. A man in Mancoupin county left his waggon loaded with corn stuck in the prairie mud for two weeks near a frequented road. When he returned he found some of his corn gone, but there was money enough tied in the sacks to pay for what was taken.”

Gal_5:15. Church Quarrels.—

1. When schism in a Church is not only maintained on the one hand with passion, strife, reproaches, and real injuries, but also impugned on the other hand, not so much with the sword of the Spirit as with the same fleshly means, then is it the forerunner and procuring cause of desolation and ruin to both parties and to the whole Church. 2. As it is a matter of great difficulty to make men of credit and parts, being once engaged in contentious debates, to foresee the consequence of their doing so further than the hoped-for victory against the contrary party, so it were no small wisdom, before folk meddle with strife, seriously to consider what woeful effects may follow to the Church of God.—Fergusson.

Gal_5:16. The Positiveness of the Divine Life.

I. There are two ways of dealing with every vice.—One is to set to work directly to destroy the vice; that is the negative way. The other is to bring in as overwhelmingly as possible the opposite virtue, and so to crowd and stifle and drown out the vice; that is the positive way. Everywhere the negative and positive methods of treatment stand over against each other, and men choose between them. A Church is full of errors and foolish practices. It is possible to attack those follies outright, showing conclusively how foolish they are; or it is possible, and it is surely better, to wake up the true spiritual life in that Church which shall itself shed those follies and cast them out, or at least rob them of their worst harmfulness. The application of the same principle is seen in matters of taste, matters of reform, and in matters of opinion.

II. In St. Paul and in all the New Testament there is nothing more beautiful than the clear, open, broad way in which the positive culture of human character is adopted and employed.—We can conceive of a God standing over His moral creatures, and, whenever they did anything wrong, putting a heavy hand on the malignant manifestation and stifling it, and so at last bringing them to a tight, narrow, timid goodness—the God of repression. The God of the New Testament is not that. We can conceive of another God who shall lavish and pour upon His children the chances and temptations to be good; in every way shall make them see the beauty of goodness; shall so make life identical with goodness that every moment spent in wickedness shall seem a waste, almost a death; shall so open His Fatherhood and make it real to them that the spontaneousness of the Father’s holiness is re-echoed in the child; not the God of restraint, but the God whose symbols are the sun, the light, the friend, the fire—everything that is stimulating, everything that fosters, encourages, and helps. When we read in the New Testament, lo, that is the God whose story is written there, the God whose glory we see in the face of Jesus Christ. The distinction is everywhere. Not merely by trying not to sin, but by entering further and further into the new life in which, when it is completed, sin becomes impossible; not by merely weeding out wickedness, but by a new and supernatural cultivation of holiness, does the saint of the New Testament walk on the ever-ascending pathway of growing Christliness and come at last perfectly to Christ.

III. This character of the New Testament must be at bottom in conformity with human nature.—The Bible and its Christianity are not in contradiction against the nature of the man they try to save. They are at war with his corruptions, and, in his own interest, they are for ever labouring to assert and re-establish his true self. Man’s heart is always rebelling against repression as a continuous and regular thing. There is a great human sense that not suppression but expression is the true life. It is the self-indulgence of the highest and not the self-surrender of the lowest that is the great end of the gospel. The self-sacrifice of the Christian is always an echo of the self-sacrifice of Christ. Nothing can be more unlike the repressive theories of virtue in their methods and results than the way in which Christ lived His positive life, full of force and salvation. The way to get out of self-love is to love God. “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”—Phillips Brooks.

The Flesh and the Spirit.

I. When St. Paul talks of man’s flesh he means by it man’s body, man’s heart and brain, and all his bodily appetites and powers—what we call a man’s constitution, the animal part of man. Man is an animal with an immortal spirit in it, and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and pain; it can feel trust, hope, peace, love, purity, nobleness, independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong. There is the infinite difference between an animal and man, between our flesh and our spirit; an animal has no sense of right and wrong.

II. There has been many a man in this life who had every fleshly enjoyment which this world can give, and yet whose spirit was in hell all the while, and who knew it; hating and despising himself for a mean, selfish villain, while all the world round was bowing down to him and envying him as the luckiest of men. A man’s flesh can take no pleasure in spiritual things, while man’s spirit of itself can take no pleasure in fleshly things. Wickedness, like righteousness, is a spiritual thing. If a man sins, his body is not in fault; it is his spirit, his weak, perverse will, which will sooner listen to what his flesh tells him is pleasant than to what God tells him is right. This is the secret of the battle of life.

III. Because you are all fallen creatures there must go on in you this sore lifelong battle between your spirit and your flesh—your spirit trying to be master and guide, and your flesh rebelling and trying to conquer your spirit and make you a mere animal, like a fox in cunning, a peacock in vanity, or a hog in greedy sloth. It is your sin and your shame if your spirit does not conquer your flesh, for God has promised to help your spirit. Ask Him, and His Spirit will fill you with pure, noble hopes, with calm, clear thoughts, and with deep, unselfish love to God and man; and instead of being the miserable slave of your own passions, and of the opinions of your neighbours, you will find that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, true freedom, not only from your neighbours’ sins, but, what is far better, freedom from your own.—C. Kingsley.

Walking in the Spirit.

I. The Spirit is a divine nature, quality, or condition whereby we are made conformable to Christ.—

1. It is a rich and liberal grace of God. It contains the seeds of all virtues.

2. Its largeness. The Spirit is in all the powers of them who are regenerate in mind, conscience, will, affections, and in the sensual appetite.

3. Its sincerity. The grace of God is without falsehood or guile.

4. Its excellency. The spirit of grace in Christians is more excellent than the grace of creation, in respect of the beginning thereof, and in respect of constancy.

5. Its liveliness, whereby the Spirit is effectual in operation.

(1) The Spirit works in and by the word of God.

(2) Works by degrees, to make us feel our need of Christ, and to kindle in us a desire for reconciliation with God.

(3) Works to write the law in our hearts.

II. Walking in the Spirit is to order our lives according to the direction and motion of the Spirit.—

1. The Spirit renews our nature.

(1) Makes us put a further beginning to our actions than nature can, causing us to do them in faith.

(2) To do our actions in a new manner, in obedience to the word.

(3) Makes us put a new end to our actions—to intend and desire to honour God.

2. We must become spiritual men. Must do things lawful in a spiritual manner.

3. We must not judge any man’s estate before God by any one or some few actions, good or bad, but by his walking, by the course of his life.—Perkins.

Gal_5:17. The Strife of the Flesh and Spirit.

I. Man, under the influence of corruption, is called flesh.—He may be said to be a spiritual being because he is possessed of an immortal spirit; but the term flesh seems to be awfully appropriate, because he is wholly and exclusively under the dominion of matter. In the text it implies the evil principle that inhabits the bosom of man. It is the mighty autocrat of humanity in the wreck of the Fall. Sin is such a mighty monster that none can bind him in fetters of iron and imprison Him but God Himself. In the operation of weaving, different materials cross each other in the warp and woof in order to make one whole, and this is the case with the family of heaven here below. Sin and grace are perpetually crossing each other.

II. The spiritual offspring which is born of God is called the new man.—It is the junior offspring, the junior disposition, the offspring of the second Adam. Corruption has its root only in humanity. Not so with grace. This springs alone from God. The new man lives in him; his head is above the skies, his feet lower than hell; and the reason why he is destined to be conqueror is that he fights in and under the inspiration of Heaven.

III. These two principles are in a state of ceaseless warfare, ever opposed to each other.—They are like two armies, sometimes encamped, at others engaged in terrible conflict; but, whether apparently engaged or not, each seeks the destruction of the other perpetually. They are and must be ever opposed, till one fall; one must perish and the other live eternally. Where there is no conflict there can be no grace.

IV. Consider the wisdom and valour evinced by this new principle.—It is illumined by the Spirit and by the truth of God. The sun does not give me an eye. God alone can confer this organ; yet it is equally true my eye must attain its full vigour in the light of the sun: so the external means are necessary to teach us what God is, and to develop all the principles of the new man, to clothe it with the panoply of Deity, and to lead it on from battle to battle, and from victory to victory, till the last battle is eventually fought, the last victory won, and the fruits of triumph enjoyed for ever.—William Howels.

Gal_5:18. The Leading of the Spirit.—

1. The new man performs the office of guide to the godly in all actions truly spiritual.

(1) As it is ruled by the word, which is the external light and lantern to direct our steps.

(2) The work of grace itself is the internal light whereby the regenerate man spiritually understands the things of God.

(3) The same work of grace being actuated by the continual supply of exciting grace from the Spirit is a strengthening guide to all spiritual actions.

2. The natural man is so much a slave to his sinful lusts that the things appointed by God to curb and make them weaker are so far from bringing this about that his lusts are thereby enraged and made more violent. The rigidity of the law, which tends to restrain sin, is turned by the unregenerate man into an occasion for fulfilling his lusts.—Fergusson.

The Guidance of the Spirit.

I. Preservation, whereby the Holy Ghost maintains the gift of regeneration in them that are regenerate.

II. Co-operation, whereby the will of God, as the first cause, works together with the regenerate will of man, as the second cause. Without this co-operation man’s will brings forth no good action; no more than the tree which is apt to bring forth fruit yields fruit indeed till it have the co-operation of the sun, and that in the proper season of the year.

III. Direction, whereby the Spirit of God ordereth and establisheth the mind, will, and affections in good duties.

IV. Excitation, whereby the Spirit stirs and still moves the will and mind after they are regenerate, because the grace of God is hindered and oppressed by the flesh.

V. Privilege of believers not to be subject to the ceremonial law.—“Ye are not under the law.” Not under the law respecting its curse and condemnation, though we are all under law, as it is the rule of good life.—Perkins.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

G. Extended exhortation to the Qalatians, instead of turning back from Faith to works of the Law, to give activity to their Faith (in a right understanding of Christian freedom) by ministering Love, as the best fulfilment of the Law

Gal_5:13 to Gal_6:10

1. More general—reverting to the principle of ethical opposition between Spirit and Flesh, in a discussion, partly didactic

(Gal_5:13-24)

(Gal_5:16-24.—Epistle for 14th Sunday after Trinity)

13For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty [ye were called unto liberty, brethren];14 only use not liberty [or your liberty] for an occasion to the flesh, but by [or by means of your] love serve one another. 14For all the [the whole] law is fulfilled15 in one word,16 even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.17 15But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. 16 This I say then [Now I say], Walk in [by]18 the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and [for]19 these are contrary [opposed] the one to the other; so that 18ye cannot do the things that ye would [that20 ye may not do what things ye would]. But if ye be led of [by] the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these [of which kind are],21 adultery [omit adultery],22 20fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness [wantonness], idolatry, witchcraft [sorcery], hatred [hatreds], variance [strife],23 emulations [jealousy], wrath, strife, seditions, 21heresies [caballings, dissensions, factions], envyings, murders,24 drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past [I forewarn you as I did forewarn you], that they which do such things [as these]25 shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 23longsuffering, gentleness [benignity], goodness, faith [or trustfulness], Meekness, 24temperance: against such [as these] there is no law. And [Now]26 they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the [its] affections and lusts.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Gal_5:13. For ye were called unto liberty, brethren.—“For”: Paul justifies the strong expression, he has used in Gal_5:12, against the false teachers. They deserved this rebuke, for—they seek to deprive you of your freedom, and yet—ye are called to that (by God through your conversion to Christ); therefore they strive against the counsel and will of God Himself.—To this thought: “ye were called unto liberty,” Paul however now adds a restriction, a warning against misunderstanding and misuse of this liberty (which in all that precedes he had vindicated with such decision for Christians, and which he had made it their duty not to surrender): only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, μόνον μὴ κ. τ. λ. We must supply, say τρέπετε=Turn not, use not liberty as a pretext for the flesh=let not the flesh (your sinful human nature) obtain in this freedom (from the law) an occasion to pretend that it is therefore now allowed to man to do what he will, and therefore it also may claim indulgence with its sinful lusts. This of course would be an entire perversion of Christian freedom, were the flesh thus allowed to take advantage of it. The antithesis shows distinctly, what Paul regards as the essence of the sarcical state; not by any means the corporeal nature, properly so called, but the selfish Egoism. For he exhorts: but by your love serve one another; love being conceived as the means of serving.—Δουλεύειν in happy antithesis to the ἐλευθερία of Christians. Christians are not to be servants to the law; in this sense they are free; but on the other hand this freedom does not exclude but includes δουλεύειν in the sense of “serving one another. [Lightfoot: “Both ἀλάπης and δουλεύετε are emphatic. St. Paul’s meaning may be expressed by a paraphrase thus; ‘you desire to be in bondage: I too recommend to you a bondage, the subservience of mutual love. Temper your liberty with this bondage, and it will not degenerate into license’.”—R.]

With this verse a new section, of course, begins, but it is incorrect to begin here, as is variously done, a second or third main division. Above all it is not to be supposed that the Apostle henceforth addresses himself to those Galatian Christians who had held fast the principle of evangelical freedom; on the contrary he has throughout the whole Epistle the same individuals in mind, namely, those led astray by Judaism, and his present exhortation also is immediately connected with the leading thought of the Epistle. How nearly? This he, himself, plainly sets forth in the first place with μόνον μή: the energetic admonition to the maintenance of freedom receives its needful complement in the warning against misuse of the same, by the reference to its ethical character.—But this is unquestionably only one side, hardly more than the mere point of attachment. Paul gives his exhortation to serviceable love not merely as a precaution in case the Galatians, perceiving the inadmissibleness of the legal position, should desire to return to the freer one, but this also belongs, together with the entire explication which it receives in the following verses, to the polemics against their present erroneous view. To that legalism, which he combatted, as slighting faith, and surrendering Itself into false bondage, he opposes as the truth, “the fulfilling of the law” by the activity of faith in love (comp. Gal_5:6), where we make ourselves servants, more generally in a walk by the Spirit, in which one is free from the law in the very “fulfilling” of it (Gal_5:14; Gal_5:18; Gal_5:23). He is the more earnest in holding this up to them, because the Galatians especially, in spite of (or on account of) their legal zeal, were wanting in this fulfilment of the law through a walk by the Spirit, a fulfilment which obliges Christians also (comp., especially Gal_5:15). The same persons who wanted to impose the law upon themselves, were content to be lacking in that which is the heart of the law; those who wished to make themselves servants to the law, would not be servants to one another. It was therefore of moment, to exclaim to these: Behold, what you need, is not in any way to turn yourselves away from faith, as if this were too little, to the law, but simply to make faith active through a walk in the Spirit, in love. Comp. Gal_5:6, and also chap. 6, where the more detailed exhortations follow. We thus see plainly how impossible it is to disconnect this section from the preceding one, how on the other hand it concurs with the entire polemics of the Apostle, nay, how these find in it their true, convincing culmination.—It is of course incorrect to oppose this section, as hortatory, to the preceding part of the Epistle, as didactic, for this reason that the preceding part also includes exhortation (especially ver.1); this however was dogmatic, and now comes ethical exhortation. Unquestionably therefore this section might with some propriety be called the Ethical part, in distinction from the Doctrinal; but if by this were meant, as commonly, that Paul now leaves the controversy concerning the relation of the Law to Faith, and, having no longer in mind the defection of the Galatian churches, merely proceeds to exhort to a walk of Christian morality, with reference to ethical short-comings, this too must be deemed incorrect according to what has been remarked. Moreover, even if such a distinction into a dogmatic and an ethical part is not unwarranted in fact, it is at all events not exact in form; this section cannot be formally contrasted with all that precedes. For certainly the discourse proceeds without interruption; Paul is speaking hortatively to the Galatians (especially from ver.1 on), but on the ground of the doctrinal exposition, and now he merely gives a sudden ethical turn to this exhortation, bringing, as has been remarked, the whole to an appropriate conclusion.27

Gal_5:14. For the whole law is fulfilled.—It is not easy to determine either the meaning of this clause, or its connection with what precedes. The first explanation, which offers itself on account of ἐν ἑνὶ λόγῳ, taken πληροῦται as= ἀνακεφαλαιοῦται, comprehenditur, as Rom_8:9. [So Luther, Calvin, Olshausen, et al.—R.] But this must be rejected as lexically untenable. Besides with the reading [now generally adopted], πεπλήρωται it becomes at once incorrect.—As little does νόμον πληρ. have here the same sense as in Mat_5:17=to bring out, to make evident the deeper sense, the ideal substance in distinction from the literal form. Doubtless it is not a πληροῦν in the doctrine that is here in question, and in reality, if πληρ. were taken in this sense, the explanation would come back again to the one already disapproved, namely, that the commandment of love to our neighbor is the substance of ὁ πᾶς νόμος, since that which is substance, in another aspect, is also foundation. Πληροῦν is to be understood of fulfilment by deed, conformity, satisfacere legi. [Ellicott: “The perfect πεπλήρωται suitably points to the completed and permanent act.”—R.] It is peculiar then, no doubt, that this is said to be in one word, ἐν ἑνὶ λόλῳ, and this to be regarded as an abbreviated expression for; By conformity to the one word, precept (from Lev_19:18), immediately follows: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.—[Meyer: “Neighbor is for the Christian, who rightly (Mat_5:17) applies this Mosaic command to himself, his fellow-Christian (comp. Gal_5:13, ἀλλήλοις), as for the Jew it was fellow-Jew; but how little this is to be taken as excluding any one whatever, is shown by the whole spirit of Christianity, which finds its most beautiful expression in the case of the Samaritan (Luke 10); Paul himself was such a Samaritan toward Jew and Gentile.”—R.] But how far does Paul declare obedience to the one commandment of love to our neighbor, an obedience to the whole law? Not in the sense in which Love is styled πλήρωμα νόμου (Rom_13:8-10). Nearly related as the two passages appear to be, they must by no means be confounded. For in Romans 13 it is expressly stated what is to be understood by νόμος, namely, the individual commandments of the Decalogue which respect conduct towards our neighbor, and love is called the πλήρωμα of those, because, whoever has the dispositions of love, and in truth only such a one, will of course fulfil also the duties of love commanded by the law. But that “the whole law” in this passage is not to be arbitrarily turned into “second table of the Decalogue,” nor even interpreted generally = Moral law, is plain; on the contrary, it doubtless signifies nothing else than: the whole Mosaic law. But in the second place it is also clear, that Paul cannot mean to say, that in love to our neighbor is found the pledge of the fulfilment of the whole law. For this latter Paul has not at all in mind, it is precisely the opposite that he is aiming at; his meaning is, that on him who does this there is no future requirement made in respect to observance of the law, that from this he is free. The sense of πεπλήρωται can therefore only be: He is to be regarded as if he had fulfilled the law, and therefore the law can exact nothing further of him. By no means therefore is the commandment of love to our neighbor regarded by Paul as the summary of the whole law; this would be entirely incorrect. He will rather say this, that if any one fulfils this, all the rest comes no more into account; of course, with reference to his emphatic demonstration in what precedes, that the law has lost its binding force for the believer. If the believer now does not take this faith to be a dead one, but quickens it through love, he has done all; there can be of further claims of the law upon him no mention, but he ought on the other side to have and exercise love, for only then can he regard himself as free from the claims of the whole land besides, only then, in fact, is he a believer.—If it is asked how Paul could view the whole law as fulfilled in love to our neighbor, especially without even mentioning love to God, this question is mostly raised with the understanding that he means to designate the commandment of love to our neighbor as the summary, or the fulfilment of it as the condition and principle of the fulfilment of the whole law; and if he meant it so, his assertion must unquestionably be declared unwarranted.28 (Where the former is in question, Jesus in Mat_21:34 sq. places the two commandments together; and where the latter, Paul, Romans 13., restricts the law to the second table.) But this understanding of his proposition has been already designated as incorrect. He doubtless means to say: Of him who has love to his neighbor the law can exact nothing more. The question, rightly stated, is therefore only this: How could Paul attribute to love towards our neighbor so eminent a position, that he designates him who should fulfil it as free from all else? Must he not also, nay, above all, demand of the believer a fulfilling of the commandment of love to God, and could he, except on condition that both were found in a man, esteem it equivalent to a fulfilment of the whole law? As to this it is simply to be remarked, that (1) he conceives Faith as essentially comprehending love to God, and (2) cannot conceive love to our neighbor without love to God, and therefore in demanding the former from Christians, he of course does not mean to release them from the latter. He does not, however, mention love to God, for his exhortation has not respect to a merely inward fulfilling of the law, belonging to the disposition, but to that fulfilling of the law which comes into manifestation, and shows itself forth in the walk, to the true ethical conduct of the life, and especially of the common life, and this rests upon love to our neighbor. Therefore this only is made the subject of discourse.—If now the Apostle uses this proposition to establish the preceding exhortation (γάρ), this is not in the sense that he means thereby to represent the “serving by love” (Gal_5:13), as a divine duty because commanded by the law; after he has previously denied so decidedly that Christians are under the law, he cannot make the fact that it is commanded in the law a motive for the exercise of love. The principal emphasis lies rather upon πᾶς and πεπλήρ., on the circumstance that through serving love the whole law is fulfilled, in the sense given=enough has been done for the law, i. e., negatively, they are therewith absolved from the rest of the law. Therefore nearly=Love one another: for therewith the whole ground of controversy, respecting the observance of the law, whether this or that precept is to be observed, is taken away. The whole sentence, therefore, serves rather to strengthen his exhortation than to give, strictly speaking, a reason for it. The commandment of love to our neighbor, although expressed by a citation from the law (Leviticus): ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλ. κ. τ. λ, does not therefore come into consideration as a particular commandment of the law, as if Paul from the other commandments, as being abrogated, excepts this one as remaining in force; only the commandment to exercise love towards our neighbor remains in fact valid for the Christian (and if it is done, the law has no further claim upon him); but to him it is a commandment not on account of the law, but because he is a Christian, on account of his faith in Christ, or because (Gal_5:6) “in Christ” alone “faith working through love” “availeth anything.” Into the question how far the faith in Christ obliges to love, Paul does not enter, but he then goes on to show that this love is the operation of the Spirit, which faith brings.—While the proposition serves primarily to commend the exhortation, and while such an argument must have had the more weight for this end with those zealous for the law, yet of course at the same time it deals a blow against this zeal for the law, and exhibits its emptiness; for all the rest, the many observances are, according to it, purely superfluous; with the one thing. Love to our neighbor, all is done. [Meyer “Paul looked down from a lofty spiritual level, and saw all other commands of the law subordinated to the law of love, that whoever had fulfilled this command, must be treated as having fulfilled the whole.” The fact that Paul chose this particular expression, “the whole law is fulfilled,” places his teaching in opposition to antinomian tendencies, just as the Sermon on the Mount shows Christ’s position to the law, viewed as a purely ethical rule of life. “The whole law,” i. e., the Mosaic law, regarded in this light, was fulfilled in the case of the believer by this love to his neighbor; for the whole law of Moses had an ethical purpose, which purpose is now fulfilled to its full extent only when the believer, because he as a believer, is living “by the Spirit.” has that temper of heart to God, which enables him to obey this “one word.”—Schmoller insists too strongly on the idea that “all the rest are superfluous.” It is doubtful whether this is implied even in Gal_5:18. The Doctrinal Notes show his meaning more clearly.—R.]

Gal_5:15. But if ye bite and devour one another.—This is = if ye intend of serving one another through love, do just the opposite: bear ill will towards and hate one another, and let this come into act, plot mischief against one another, yea, seek to destroy one another; something like this is the sense of these strong expressions borrowed from ravening beasts. Then take heed, adds Paul with incisive words, that the result be not the opposite of what you intend, that ye be not consumed of one another.—Each might be disposed to supplant the other, but in the end it will come to this, all will be wasted away. The sentence thus coöperates per contrarium to the establishment of Gal_5:12. The explanation: “your Christian community will go to pieces,” I am inclined to regard as too special. It is not improbable, indeed, that this influence of the Judaizers occasioned divisions among the Galatians, and threw them into controversies upon the question of the law; yet I should not be disposed to refer this δάκνειν καὶ κατεσθίειν so definitely to that, as is commonly done. For this is at least intimated nowhere else in the Epistle.

Gal_5:16. Now I say, walk by the Spirit.—With λέγω δέ Paul conducts his exhortation to serve one another by love (agreeably to the warning already given in the first half of Gal_5:13.) back to a more general, fundamental exhortation to walk by the Spirit (for in the Spirit he sees the Agent that leads to love), and then designates Spirit and Flesh as the two ethical principles opposite to one another, expressing themselves in opposite workings.—Πνεύματιπεριπ. Dative of instrument; properly: walk through the Spirit, so that He is (not the path in which—Wieseler, but) the power, through which they walk=πνεύματι ἀγόμενοι, Gal_5:18. [The dative may be instrumental, as in Gal_5:18, but it is better, perhaps, with Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, to consider it a normal dative, that by which, according to which they are to walk (almost =κατὰ πνεῦμα), for the reason that “Spirit” is contrasted in this passage not merely with “flesh,” but also with “law,” and the double contrast is best brought out thus, since under the idea of the normal dative, that of rule or direction is included. Wieseler brings out the same meaning, but takes the dative as instrumental.—R.] Πνεῦμα is here also doubtless =The Holy Ghost; it is this, that overcomes the σάρξ. He enters, it is true, into the hearts of believers, and works only by impelling and determining the walk, as He who dwells in the believers. But yet πνεῦμα is not on this account=the new disposition of the believer himself, sanctified by the Spirit, but remains ever distinct from the individual human spirit as Divine, transcending it. [Meyer adopts this view, and remarks that the absence of the article is not against it. “The distinction affirmed by Harless, that τὸ πνεῦμα means the objective Holy Ghost, πνεῦμα without the article the subjective, cannot be justified, since πνεῦμα has the nature of a proper name, and always, even when it dwells and reigns in the human spirit, remains objective, as the Divine πνεῦμα specifically distinct from the human (Rom_7:16).”—R.]

And ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.—We are led to construe this clause, as one of result, both by grammatical considerations (καί with οὐ μή and the subjunctive or future after an imperative has this force commonly) and by the context. In “walk by the Spirit” he indicates the means of victory over “the lust of the flesh.” [On the grammatical point urged above, see the note of Ellicott in loco. He claims that the clause might be imperative, but “as there is no distinct instance of such a construction in the New Testament, and still more as the next verses seem more naturally to supply the reasons for the assertion than for the command, it seems best to adopt the future translation.” (So E. V., Meyer also in 4th ed., and above.) This future with οὐ μή is strong: “shall in no wise” (Lightfoot).—On the word “flesh,” see Doctrinal Note 4.—R.]

Gal_5:17. For.—This introduces, in the first place, simply the proof of a “lust of the flesh” (Gal_5:16)=of such an one I speak, for the flesh lusteth. Paul does not stop, however, but is led further to the antagonistic idea ἐπιθυμεῖν Πνεῦμα.—Against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.—Each principle combats the other, and seeks to wrest the dominion from it, and on the other hand to place itself in the possession of this. [It is scarcely proper to supply the verb ἐπιθυμεῖν with Πνεῦμα, but the Apostle’s meaning is obvious. Lightfoot suggests “strives,” “fights against.”—R.] This is explained by what follows: these are opposed the one to the other, that ἴνα=with the design, that ye may not do what things ye would, bring into effect precisely the desire which you have admitted into your will. Ἃἂνθέλητε is neither to be restricted to the good nor to the evil will. The inquiry whether the two powers in the cases in question, attain the object desired by them or not, is not proposed here, since the only purpose is to bring vividly to view the irreconcilable antagonism of their tendencies. Wieseler. Ἵνα is therefore not at all to be understood in an ecbatic sense. [Alford: “The necessity of supposing an ecbatic meaning for ἵνα in theology is obviated by remembering, that with God results are all purposed.—R.] The contest moreover is by no means to be conceived as an interminable one. The context shows that on the contrary there is expected of the Christian a complete surrendering of himself in order to be actuated by the one principle, the Spirit, and a refusal to give way to the lust of the flesh, whose motions, it is true, must still be experienced. The passage therefore, is entirely different from Rom_7:17 sq. [The reference is to “the free-will in its ordinary acceptation, subject only to this necessary and obvious limitation, that this conflict must be only predicated in its full extent, of the earlier and more imperfect stages of a Christian course. The state of the true believer is conflict, but with final victory.” Ellicott.—R.]

Gal_5:18 then speaks of the victoy of this principle: But if ye be led by the Spirit=if the combat becomes a victory, and that on the right side; if the ἐπιθ. of the πν. becomes an ἄγειν. [Bengel: ubi vero spiritus vincit, acie res decernitur. The dative here is instrumental.—R.]—Ye are not under the law.—This is according to Gal_5:14; there it was only stated specially of love, here generally of the “being led by the Spirit,” which correspondence makes evident, how Paul regards its relation to the exercise of love; the two are to him essentially one, that is, the former is the principle of the latter. What in Gal_5:14 is called somewhat enigmatically a fulfilling of the whole law, is here simply and literally described as “a not being under the law.” The latter is essentially identical with the former; the sense is: The law then can exact nothing more of you; implying naturally: for you are then in the right ethical condition beseeming the Christian, even though not carrying out every detail prescribed in the law. But if you—is the thought implied—are not led by the Spirit, you are then still under obligation to the law; for you are then in fact not yet all in Christ. [Meyer: “Through the impelling power of the Spirit you find yourselves in such a moral condition of life (‘newness of life,’ Rom_6:4) that the law has no power to find fault with you, to condemn and punish you. This explanation is the only correct one according to Gal_5:23 : and this freedom is the true moral freedom from the law.” So Ellicott, who remarks: “The more obvious conclusion might have seemed, ‘ye are not under the influence of the flesh,’ but as the law was confessedly the principle which was ordained the influences and works of the flesh, the Apostle (in accordance with the general direction of his argument) draws his conclusion relatively rather to the principle, than to the mere state and influences against which that principle was ordained.” It must be borne in mind that Paul’s use of the phrase “under the law” usually regards the law as a judge and pedagogue; here the Christian is viewed as one led by the Spirit, and thus taken from “under the law,” but so led according to the law, as a guide to our new life of gratitude, that of the fruit of the Spirit it is ever true “against such there is no law” (Gal_5:23).—R.]

Gal_5:19-21. Now the works of the flesh are manifest.—Φανερά, evident=plainly conspicuous and therefore of course undeniable. This φανερά is the main point, and therefore placed first. For Paul wishes to furnish the Galatians inducement for being “led by the Spirit,” and therefore he not only calls the works of the flesh “evident,” but moreover carefully enumerates them, portrays them before their eyes (puts them in the pillory); so that every one may know, what conversely belongs to being led by the Spirit, that one may not practice such things, if he will be one led by the Spirit and not under the law. The positive side is then given Gal_5:22 sq.—That Paul does not mean to say that all of these things are found among the Galatians, is easily understood.—“Works of the flesh”=“that which is brought to pass when the flesh, i. e., the sinful human nature, and not the Holy Ghost, is the actuating principle.” Meyer. Therefore naturally many sins are here enumerated, which are by no means carnal sins in the common acceptation, but rather in a very special sense sins against love, agreeably to the context. There are four classes: 1. Lust (πορν.—ἀσελγ.) 2. Idolatry (εἰδωλολ., φαρμ.), 3. Contentiousness (ἔχθραι—φόνοι). 4. Intemperance (μέθαι—κῶμοι). The third class is treated the most in detail. [While we must not regard this specification as a charge against the Galatians in particular, it is extremely improbable that the Apostle would not choose such sins as most “easily beset” his readers. Lightfoot very properly observes: “From early habit and constant association a Gentile church would be exposed to sins of the first two classes. The third would be a probable consequence of their religious dissensions, inflaming the excitable temperament of a Celtic people. The fourth seems to be thrown in to give a sort of completeness to the list, though not unfitly addressed, to a nation whose Gallic descent perhaps disposed them too easily to these excesses.”—R.]—Uncleanliness, ἀκαθ., lustful impurity in general after the special fornication, πορνεία; wantonness, ἀσελγ., lustful wantonness. [Lightfoot: “The same three words occur together in a different order, 2Co_12:21. The order here is perhaps the more natural: πορνεία a special form of impurity;29 ἀκαθαρσία uncleanness in whatever guise, ἀσέλγεια an open reckless contempt of propriety. A man may be ἀκάθαρτος and hide his sin; he does not become ἀσελγής until he shocks public decency.” As the reference in the New Testament is usually to sensuality, “wantonness” is the best rendering, “standing as it does, by the double meaning which it has, in remarkable ethical connexion with this word” ἀσέλγεια. See Trench, Syn. New Testament § xvi.—R.]—The transition from the first class to the second is easily found in the fact that with idolatrous worship many forms of unchastity were connected; but idolatry is not on that account to be considered as a species of lustful indulgence. [Yet the two forms of sin are so frequently joined together in the New Testament and the latter is so common a metaphor for the former in the Old Testament, as to suggest a more intimate connection than the simple fact that sensual excesses usually accompanied idolatrous worship. This fact must be regarded as an indication of some underlying affinity.—R.]—Φαρμακεία, here apparently, in juxtaposition with idolatry=Sorcery, not poisoning, [Lightfoot: “ ‘Idolatry,’ the open recognition of false gods, ‘sorcery,’ the secret tampering with the powers of evil. It is a striking coincidence, if nothing more, that φαρμακεῖαι were condemned by a very stringent canon of the council held at Ancyra, the capital of Galatia, about A. D. 314.”—R.]—Third class: the substantives up to αἱρέσεις have reference to dissension, the first four as shown in individual conduct, among which however, jealousy, ζῆλος and wrath, θυμοί, refer to the inner aspect, the source. [The latter is rendered “displays of wrath” by Ellicott, and thus referred to outward manifestations, which seems preferable, since the plural is used, serving to denote the concrete form of the abstract sin (so too the plurals which follow); were the reference to the source the singular were more appropriate. See Trench, Syn. New Testament, § xxvii., on the precise meaning of the word.—R.] The three following, caballings, dissensions, factions refer to the dissension of bodies of men.—Envyings, murders follow these, evidently named together mainly on account of the paronomasia, since φθόνος would otherwise belong with ζῆλος; “murders,” however, fittingly closes the list as the culmination of discord. Besides, the two are perhaps put in juxtaposition with reference to the concurrence of envy and murder in the first murder, comp. 1Jn_3:12. [Lightfoot: “A principle of order may be observed in the enumeration: 1. ἔχθραι, a general expression opposed to άγἀπη, breaches of charity in feeling or in act; from this point onward the terms are in an ascending scale: 2. ἔρις ‘strife,’ not necessarily implying self-interest; 3. ζῆλος ‘rivalry’ in which the idea of self-assertion is prominent: 4. θυμοὶ ‘wraths,’ a more passionate form of ἔρις; 5. ἐριθεῖαι30 ‘factious cabals,’ a stronger development of ζῆλος: 6, 7. hostility has reached the point where the contending parties separate; such separation is either temporary (διχοστασίαι ‘divisions’), or permanent (αἱρέσεις ‘sects, heresies’): 8. φθόνοι, a grosser breach of charity than any hitherto mentioned, the wish to deprive another of what he has; 9. φόνοι, the extreme form which hatred can take, the deprivation of life.”—On drunkenness, revellings, Ellicott remarks: “the latter is the more generic and inclusive, to which the former was the usual accompaniment.”—R.]—In order to brand still further “the works of the flesh,” and to restrain from them, he points moreover to the punishment decreed against them, in words which are meant to express: that however often one might come to speak of them, he would always have to render the same judgment, and to express moreover that this judgment might be rendered in advance with perfect distinctness.—Προ in προλέγω and προεῖπον=before it comes; the preterite in προεῖπον=during my presence among you.—Shall not inherit the kingdom of God.—Just as in 1Co_6:9 sq.; Eph_5:5, of course with the pre-supposition: If no conversion intervenes.

Gal_5:22-23. After the negative exposition, Paul now states explicitly in what the being led by the Spirit consists, or, more particularly, reveals itself.—The fruit of the Spirit.—Καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματος, essentially the same as ἔργα, “works,” Gal_5:19 : That which comes to pass, which is brought into effect, when the Holy Ghost is the impelling principle. But in what follows it is only qualities that are mentioned, and not works, and so of course ἔργα was not appropriate. And certainly it is not unintentional, that Paul in the first place names only the inward “fruit of the Spirit,” consisting in the disposition of the soul, for the reason that the Spirit primarily and principally changes and must change the inward disposition. When this is done, there is a genuine leading by the Spirit, living by the Spirit, which then finds external manifestation also in a walking by the Spirit.—The singular καρπός also is significant, “proceeding from the conception of the inward unity and ethical continuity of all that the Spirit works.” As “Spirit” in this connection is conceived as the principle from which serving love proceeds, the enumeration of precisely these virtues is easily explicable. That many things besides are effected by the Spirit, does not need to be said. At the head stands Love, as the most general, and at the same time the chief virtue of Christians (comp. Gal_5:13-14). Gal 10: Χαρά, one is inclined to take as Joy with the brethren, opposed to ζῆλοι, φθόυοι. It is no objection that this incidental idea is not contained in the word itself; the connection might easily indicate in what particular sense χαρά is here to be taken. Yet the explanation of it as the inward joyfulness of the Christian in the consciousness of the love of God may also be justified, as this too stands in close connection with his conduct towards his brethren, and is incompatible with an unloving behavior. At all events the following words from εἰρήνη to πραΰτης belong together, as designating the fruits of “love,” unselfish love; εἰρήνη therefore denotes peace with others, μακροθυμία patience under injuries, χρηστ. gracious, friendly character, ἀγαθ. is nearly related to this: Benevolence (Luther); not so generally as, good dispositions (the special meaning is quite frequent in the Septuagint): πίστις here of course not=justifying faith, but either trustfulness, as opposed to mistrust, or faithfulness.—Finally, temperance, ἐγκράτεια, is added in antithesis particularly to the sins of lust and intemperance (Gal_5:19-21).—[Here again Lightfoot is excellent: “The difficulty of classification in this list is still greater than in the case of the works of the flesh. Nevertheless some sort of order may be observed. The catalogue falls into three groups of three each. The first of these comprises Christian habits of mind in their more general aspect, ‘love, joy, peace.’ (The fabric is built up story upon story. Love is the foundation, joy the superstructure, peace the crown of all.) The second gives special qualities affecting a man’s intercourse with his neighbor, ‘long-suffering, kindness, beneficence.’ (This triad is again arranged in an ascending scale; μακροθυμία is passive, ‘patient endurance under injuries inflicted by others;’ Χρηστότης, neutral, ‘a kindly disposition towards one’s neighbors’ not necessarily taking a practical form;31 ἀγαθωσύνη, active, ‘goodness, beneficence’ as an energetic principle.) The third, again general in character like the first, exhibits the principles which guide a Christian’s conduct.”—Ellicott: “Ἐγκράτεια, ‘temperance,’ is distinguished by Diog. Laert, from σωφροσύνη as implying a control over the stronger passions, whereas the latter implies a self-restraint in what is less vehement.”—R.]—Against such as these there Is no law.—Τοιούτων is neuter, as in Gal_5:21, and the sense is: Such virtues the law condemns not. This, however, implies of course: Against those that possess such qualities the law is not, and this is the same thought, only more specially conceived, as in Gal_5:14; Gal_5:18. The law requires nothing more of them, and therefore also it can bring no accusations against them. [Or rather, because the law can find nothing to oppose or restrain in such things (which fulfil its ethical purpose), the law has no power over those who bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Schmoller presses too strongly the implied thought. Beza and others make a meiosis here: these are pleasing to God, but as Meyer remarks: Paul wishes to explain only what he has said in Gal_5:18 of those led by the Spirit. He sets forth the fruit of the Spirit and says: against virtues and states such as these the law is not, and he thus makes clear, how those led by the Spirit by virtue of their moral condition are not subject to the Mosaic law. For whoever is so circumstanced, that a law is not against him, over him it has no power.—R.]

Gal_5:24. And they that are Christ’s.—Another proposition weighty in itself, and especially also in the connection. It joins on well to what precedes, with which it is probably better to connect it, although on the other hand what follows naturally connects itself with this. That is, as Paul went back from the exhortation to the exercise of love towards our neighbor to the exhortation to a walk in the Spirit, as the principle of love, so now he goes back beyond that again, and shows how this walk in the Spirit is itself grounded in fellowship with Christ. As thus, in the first place he spoke of the fruit of the Spirit, and then says: Now it is those that are Christ’s, who have crucified their flesh, etc.; who therefore have crucified the very disposition opposed to the aforesaid fruit of the Spirit, the disposition from which the works of the flesh proceed, so that the opposite disposition, the fruit of the Spirit, can find a place. [Ellicott: “The connection of the whole paragraph appears to be as follows:—‘The Spirit and the flesh are contrary to each other; if the flesh prevail, man is given over to all sin, and excluded from the kingdom of God: if the Spirit be the leading principle, man brings forth good fruits, and is free from the curse of the law. Now the distinguishing feature of the true Christian is the crucifixion of the flesh; consequently, it must be obvious from what has been said, the living in and being led by the Spirit’.”—R.]—Have crucified, ἐσταύρωσαν.—This is conceived as something accomplished, and is therefore apparently to be referred to an individual act, the act of becoming a Christian through faith and baptism. The meaning, to be sure, is not, that now the flesh, with its affections and lusts, is not any longer present at all with those that have become Christians. But yet at least a walk in the flesh should not any longer exist in the case of Christians; we may declare to these that such a walk is in contradiction to their essential character as Christians, and that a walk in the Spirit may rightly be expected of them; yet this is only possible because we may urge this upon them: You now have crucified the flesh. It is to be noted also, that the language is not: slain, but, crucified. The former could not so well be said, as it is conceived rather as a task of the Christian to be accomplished only by continual effort (Col_3:5). In “crucified,” however, the simple slaying is not the main idea, but the condemning, giving sentence, surrendering to infamous death; and this has necessarily taken place in becoming Christ’s. [Ellicott: “Though this ethical crucifixion is here designated as an act past, it really is and must be a continuing act as well. This however the aorist, with its usual and proper force, leaves unnoticed; it simply specifies, in the form of a general truth, the act as belonging to the past, without affirming or denying any reference to the present. In all such cases the regular reference of the tense to the past may be felt in the kind of summary way in which the action is stated,—the sort of implied dismissal of the subject, and procedure to something fresh.”—R.]—Ἐσταύρ. naturally alludes to the cross of Christ, and the fellowship with Christ involves a crucifixion of the flesh for the very reason that it is fellowship with Christ’s death on the cross; for through this the fact that men’s σάρξ deserves condemnation and is obnoxious to death, is demonstrated and set forth in a way of irresistible force; for Christ indeed has only suffered what men have deserved on account of their sinful “flesh,” and therefore what this itself has deserved. Whoever therefore appropriates to himself in faith Christ’s death upon the cross, regards the “flesh” in himself no longer; for him in Christ’s death this has been crucified. (Comp. Rom_6:6.) [Meyer: “ ‘Have crucified the flesh,’ expresses: to have divested themselves of all vital fellowship with sin, whose seat the σάρξ is, so that, as Christ was objectively crucified, we, by means of the entrance into the fellowship of this death on the cross, crucify the σάρξ subjectively, moral consciousness of faith, i.e., have made it entirely lifeless and inoperative through faith as the new vital element, to which we have passed over. To Christians considered ideally as here, this ethical slaying of the flesh is something which has taken place, in reality however, it is also something taking place and continuing.”—R.] Παθήματα are passions, aroused by the σάρξ in the sensibility; these then show themselves active in definite sinful lusts, ἐπιθυμίαι. In the παθ. the man is, as is implied in the word passive; but this passivity becomes activity in the ἐπιθυμίαι. [Comp. Col_3:5, and see Trench, Syn. New Testament, 2d series, § xxxvii.—R.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Men are pointed away from the law and to faith, first and above all, because only faith in Christ and not the keeping of the precepts of the law, or the doing of works of the law, is the way to the attaining of justification and of the divine inheritance (subjectively: to the attaining of the comfort of the forgiveness of sins, of the adoption of children and the hope of the eternal inheritance). For him who has this faith, the law loses its importance, for the reason that a usus justificatorius it has not, while it has already fulfilled its usus pædagogicus, of impelling to faith, in the case of such a one.—But nevertheless the Apostle is the farthest possible from meaning that the believer on Christ is dispensed from giving a truly moral (ethico-religious) character to his inward disposition and his life (from the doing of “good works”), and is entitled to persevere in sin, that is, to indulge the “flesh.” So far is this from being true that this, despite his faith and despite the fact that faith is the condition of salvation, nevertheless excludes him from the kingdom of God and from eternal life (Gal_5:21; Gal_6:8). And, indeed, this cannot be the opinion of the Christian, for this his faith in Christ involves not merely an impulse and power to the avoidance of sin, to the willing and doing of good, but because it is a coming into fellowship with Christ’s death, it immediately involves also the arising of a hatred against sin, a condemning of the flesh (Gal_5:21), and because it is a receiving of Christ, it involves also the beginning of a life for God (comp. Gal_2:19 sq. and the Doctrinal Notes on that section). The latter fact, the new life, which arises or is given with faith on Christ, receives in this section its exact expression; there begins in man a working of the Spirit (πνεῦμα), who, overcoming the flesh (Gal_5:16), brings forth fruit in an ethically good, God-pleasing disposition of heart and life (Gal_5:22 sq.). Nay, it is only this faith in Christ which leads to this goal, as it is only this which leads to the other goal of justification. The law cannot effect this second, and quite as little can it effect the first. On the contrary, it arouses the σάρξ (and the ἁμαρτία dwelling therein), but does not assist to the receiving of the Spirit (comp. Gal_2:2, and Rom_7:8). So little therefore does faith in Christ dispense from a disposition and course of action pleasing to God, that it is just this, nay more, only this which leads thereto. If any one is disposed to call this disposition and activity to the Christian, thus conformed to God’s will, a “fulfilling of the law,” he does not name it wrongly; only in doing it he is to keep in mind (1) that it is not to be understood in a formal, but only in a material relation: a doing of that which the law commands, yet not because the law commands it, but in the strength and on the impulse of faith, or more properly, of the Spirit, something therefore entirely different from what Paul calls “works of the law;” it is that which he so often names ἔργα ἀγαθά, works of the Spirit, rather than of the law; (2) that in this appellation law is taken in a quite restricted sense, of the properly ethical commandments (see Rom_13:8 sq., where it plainly appears what Paul means by the νόμος; when he speaks generally, he uses the expression ἐντολαὶ θεοῦ, 1Co_7:19). “Fulfilling of the law” will therefore always be an only partially adequate expression for a Christian life, a conformity of the life to God’s will. Entirely abandoning the Old Testament point of view therefore, Paul speaks directly of an ἀναπληροῦν τὸν νόμον Χριστοῦ (Gal_6:2).32

2. But it is true that the “doing of good works” the making faith active in a walk and mind pleasing to God, does not come to pass, as it were, of itself (as might appear from what precedes), even with the believer (even though, as of course is pre-supposed, his faith is an actual one of inward persuasion, and not merely nominal, is actually equivalent to a τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἶναι, and therefore bears within it the energy perfectly adequate to a moral renewal of the life). Even with the believer the σάρξ has not disappeared. Therefore, although abstractly we must say: the believer cannot dispense himself from a genuine ethical renewal of his life, yet in concreto we are rather to say: He ought not. The “thou oughtest” comes back even to him who stands on the foundation of faith. This appears in the case of the believer, in a twofold manner. In the first place and chiefly on the side of the πνεὺμα, which he receives in faith; for this works not merely as it were physically, in the form of an energy of nature, converting the will of man into agreement with the mind of God (and the figure of the καρπός must be understood cum grano salis: a bare growing up it certainly is not); the result is brought about ethically and not physically; the πνεῦμα also approaches the will with requirements, which it is true are far more intensive, which have as it were a quite different power of bending the will from the requirements of the law or of the conscience (the law of the letter or of the conscience); for they are strengthened by the persuasion which is received along with faith into the heart, of the condemnation of sin as well as the forgiveness of it, of the holiness as well as the compassion inhering in the grace of God in Christ. But it is with an “ought,” however intensive, that the πνεῦμα in the believer approaches the will of man, and seeks to determine it to let itself be guided by him, to determine it to the ἄγεσθαι and then also to the πνεύματι περιπατεῖν: and in doing this he meets with many hindrances on the side of the σάρξ (Gal_5:17).—This is the immediate, inward “ought” that has place and is needful even with the believer. But to this inward monition and impulse of the Spirit, there must be added, in order to keep it ever alive and guard it against all impure admixture, one coming from without. Of this we have in this very section the speaking proof. The Apostle sees occasion given him to admonish the Galatian Christians with earnest words to a disposition and course of life answerable to their faith; he approaches them with an “Ought:” “So ought it to be with Christians = because you believe in Christ!” And his admonition here and elsewhere holds good also for us; it is the testimony of the Spirit conveyed through the word—testimonium externum (in distinction from internum)—the comprehensive exposition of which is the function of New Testament ethics.

3. That even the believer is not and cannot be spared the earnestly admonishing and impelling “ought” because even with him there is not found a steady will (on account of the old Adam), is the meaning of the church doctrine of the tertius legis usus, the usus legis with the renatus (the us. didact. or normal.), and understood in this sense it is correct. But as it is expressed it is distorted and incorrect, and is in conflict with the indisputable Pauline doctrine, that the believer is not ὑπὸ νόμον, that he may not be placed nor place himself under it. He is indeed under a law of the Spirit, so far as the Spirit admonishes, requires, rebukes, yet the Spirit does by no means merely this, but far more; this is the very least that he does. But especially is the believer in no sense whatever under the law of the letter, the Old Testament law, the proper lex, and with all its generalizing of the conception of lex, the Formula Concordiæ, nevertheless, in the section touching this matter does not really go beyond the Mosaic law. It does not arrive at the conception of the law of the Spirit (the law of faith), whether this is entirely inward, or expressed also in the word of Scripture (in the New Testament word of Scripture, which for the fulfilment of the ethical requirement presupposes the faith in Christ with what it has and gives). The law of the letter (the proper lex), has, it is true, its great significance for the believer but it has its place not, so to speak, after Faith, but only before the same, as pædagogus (see above on Gal_3:19 sq.); and in this sense it permanently retains its importance, and is indispensable for faith. That is, the sinfulness and imperfection of the new life even in the believer, make it needful that the law should not once only, but ever afresh, awaken in him the knowledge of sin and the impossibility of himself attaining salvation and eternal life, and by that very means drive him to assure himself of it in. faith in Christ; and so ever impel him anew to faith. So far, therefore, as a usus of the lex, strictly so called, can be predicated even as to the renatus, it falls under the usus pædagogicus, as usus secundus. But in this pedagogy its function is continually exhausting itself again; this function only does Paul ascribe to it, and another, the function docere, ut in vera pietate vivemus et ambu-lemus, we have no right to attribute to it, especially as we thereby come into conflict with the definite assurance that the law only stirs up sin and the σάρξ, and of itself continually hinders anew the Spirit’s gaining dominion and therewith the attainment of the vera pietas. The law contributes directly neither to justification nor to the new life, and cannot therefore be directly the means of maintaining the latter. What it can and should do, was and is, to open the way for that which does lead to justification and to the new life, namely, Faith. As this is its work at first, so is it ever after. The accomplishment of these two things it must then leave to faith, first as that which lays hold of God’s grace—for justification, then as that which has laid hold of it and therewith receives the Spirit. This Holy Ghost now, and not the νόμος, is alone in condition as the spirit of faith to assist to ever renewed victory over the σάρξ, partly through His teaching, partly through His monition, partly through His persuasion and drawing. For if the believer did right because admonished by the law, he would only attain again to ἔργα νόμου, but not to veritable ἔργα ἀγαθά.—Only so much is true, that in concreto very many a Christian, because faith has been with him from the beginning or has become only a name, allows himself to be guided merely by the law of the letter, at least if he has moral earnestness of temper, and thereby accomplishes nothing more than ἔργα νόμου, as to which he simply deceives himself, in accounting them perhaps for ἔργα τοῦ πνεύματος. More or less, moreover, does he seek in these ἔργα νόμου his justification also, and his hope; half-way at least, reckoning as the other half the merit of Christ, yet more in name than in reality. [It is only necessary to remark here, that Paul uses the word νόμος as covering the whole Mosaic law. That this whole Mosaic law has not the third use, of “teaching us how we may live and walk in true piety,” is very evident. So also, that the new life of the believer is only a new life, in so far as it is through the teaching, monition, persuasion and drawing of the Spirit, must be believed and felt by the Christian. Still what does that Spirit teach and admonish us to do? To “walk even as he walked,” all will agree. And how did He walk, that Master whom we follow?—He fulfilled all righteousness, He obeyed the law for us. Clearly then the Spirit, which receives of the things of Christ and shows them unto us, will show us as our duty, what Christ did, the complete obedience to God’s requirements, and this will include all of permanent ethical value in the Mosaic law.—That may be but a part, yet it is a part, for what was in itself right at Sinai’s foot is right at the foot of the cross. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, Holiness is opposed to sin, Sin is opposition to God, it expresses itself in disobedience to His moral law,—the Holy Spirit must teach, admonish, persuade and draw us to the observance of whatever has been at any time an expression of God’s moral law. The law cannot have a usus pædagogicus still, did it not convict us of sin; it cannot convict us of sin, unless its requirements are holy, and just and good; and as such the Spirit of Holiness must teach us the moral law still.—The controversy about the third use of the law, between the Lutherans and Reformed, seems to be one of terms. The only practical question that can arise out of it, is one respecting the obligation to observe the Fourth Commandment.—R.]

4. Spirit and Flesh. Πνεῦμα and σάρξ are the two polar antithesis, as the Apostle most vividly shows in this section, Gal_5:17. Πνεῦμα is the Holy Ghost, the Divine principle, that enters along with faith in Christ into the man, generating in him a divine temper and divine life, and that in conflict with the σάρξ and its παθήματα and ἐπιθυμίαι. Σάρξ is in itself simply (in antithesis to the Divine principle), human nature, of course the whole because the living nature, and embraces therefore body and soul. But it is not human nature on the side of its relation to God, but on the side of its alienation from God, on which side man with relation to God draws himself back upon himself, seeks himself and takes honor to himself, withdrawing it from God; in short human nature as sinful.—The use of “flesh” to denote human nature in general, is grounded in the Hebrew idiom, according to which בָשָׂר is used by synecdoche for the whole man, and this idiom itself is in its turn, without doubt, grounded in the experience and Scriptural doctrine of the frailty of man, which induced the sacred writers to derive the designation for man generally’, from that part of man in which his frailty is most conspicuous. As this frailty again has its ground, according to Biblical teaching, in man’s alienation from God, there became connected with σάρξ, the established designation of human nature, the accessory idea of alienation from God=sinfulness. This took place in the proportion in which this view into man’s alienation from God even from birth, as the deepest ground of his frailty, became clear, and in the New Testament, therefore, more than in the Old.—The expression σάρξ, therefore gives us no right whatever, to think of the bodily organism more than of the soul, and (with reference to the accessory notion of sinfulness,) to find intimated in the expression either the view of the derivation of sin from the body, or an especial reference to so-called fleshly sins more than others. (Comp. Wieseler’s thorough exposition of this conception.)—The essential element in the idea of the σάρξ is the turning away from God and referring ourselves to ourselves, the self-seeking, egoistic element. This is primarily in respect to God, but immediately connected with it is the fact that a man in reference to other men also seeks himself, his enjoyment or his gain. It is easily explicable therefore why love appears as the first effect of the πνεῦμα, being the temper and act opposed to selfishness. In this section the Apostle has, it is true, special occasion to exhort to the love of our neighbor, but his speaking of love is not on this account merely casual. [Comp. on σάρξ, J. Müller, Christian doctrine of sin.—R.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Gal_5:13. Luther:—The natural man understands nothing of the doctrine of grace; therefore comes it, when he hears this doctrine, that he straightway draws it down to his own lust and lewdness, and concludes on this wise; If the law concerns us not and has no right to us, then will we live as we list.—How we at this time have seen in all ranks that all will fain be evangelical and enjoy the Christian liberty, and yet nevertheless the great crowd goes its own way; this one follows his avarice, the other his lewdness, the third his pride and haughtiness, etc.—Rieger:—The liberty to which we are called by the gospel, is not so intended that we may tear ourselves loose from the law at our own will and please the flesh.—Into such a freedom the law can with honor dismiss man; for through Christ and the curse borne on the cross the law has its highest honor, and sin or the flesh wins thereby no advantage. For precisely that which was impossible to the law, namely, to bring to pass an inward enduring hatred against evil and an inward cleaving to good, from a willing heart, is accomplished by faith in Christ, and therefore the liberty of faith is not against the law.—Heubner:—By the side of the highest good stands the highest evil, by the side of freedom, lawlessness. No word has been so abused and desecrated, as Freedom.

Luther:—“By love serve one another.” We must diligently teach in religion both sorts of doctrine, of Faith and Works; yet so that we carry neither too far. Else, where one teaches Works alone, he loses Faith, but if one teaches concerning Faith alone, forthwith gross, carnal men begin to dream that works are not necessary. Yet must the doctrine of Faith be planted first, or it cannot be understood what good works really are.—Although we have been justified, yet have we still sin in us, which rhymes as ill with good works as with faith, but draws us away from both. Besides flesh and reason is so disposed that it has by nature all its delight and pleasure in Pharisaic and superstitious works, and does those works with far greater earnestness which itself has chosen, than those which God has commanded. Therefore have rightminded preachers as much to do, in admonishing the people to genuine love and really good works, as in teaching genuine faith.—Christians must consider thus, that in their conscience they are indeed free from the curse of the law, sin and death, but as to the body they are servants, for therein should one serve another by love.

Gal_5:14. It is needless for any one to trouble you with circumcision and Moses’ ceremonies; see to this before all things, that you remain steadfast in the doctrine of faith. Will you after that do good works, as indeed you should, I will with a single word point out to you the noblest and greatest of all works, which ye should do, that ye may fulfil all laws: Love one another! Therefore the true, perfect doctrine and Christian theology of Faith and Love is in long and in short this: Believe on Christ, love thy neighbor as thyself! It is most short, to look upon the words, but if it is to be practical, it is broader, higher and deeper than heaven and earth.—The reason imagines it a very low thing, to say nothing of its being an act of God’s service, for one to help the other by love, i. e., for one to instruct and set aright a wanderer, comfort a mourner and afflicted, support the weak, for every one to help his neighbor, as he can, and make up for that which he lacks; item, for one to be obedient to government, hold his parents in honor, to have patience at home and bear with a whimsical, strange-tempered yoke-fellow, with ill-mannered servants, etc.; all which amounts to this: By love serve one another. But believe me, they are not contemptible and mean, but excellent and precious works, because God has commanded them and they please Him. It is of no concern therefore, whether the world looks upon them as mean and contemptible or not.—It is a short word, but excellently and powerfully spoken: Love thy neighbor as thyself! We cannot give any one a better, more certain and more exact example, how he should love his neighbor, than if we say to him that he should love him so as he loves himself. Nor can one have a better, nor nobler virtue than Love, and this high virtue can be directed towards nothing better than towards our neighbor.—If thou wouldst know how thou shouldst love thy neighbor, consider diligently how dear thou art to thyself, that thou wouldst gladly have help and counsel given thee, if thou wert in distress and necessity, as much as all creatures could. Therefore needest thou no book, out of which to learn how thou shouldst love thy neighbor.—Rieger:—The call of the gospel to Christ and the grace which has come by Him, the sense of being one Spirit with Christ, brings us under the law of Christ, where in love we have all at once, and assumes also the willingness to serve one another through love. The warding off the claims of faith in the gospel with the pretext of love to man, is a critical sign of our times.

Gal_5:15. Starke:—Hatred, envy and reviling are as the teeth of snakes and lions. What shame, that among Christians there is such an evil kind of people!—What mean these wearisome, and mischievous lawsuits?—Lange:—Each vice brings in time some punishment with it, as every virtue has in advance some recompense. For even as love does him good that cherishes it, so does hatred and contention bring nothing but disquiet and ill-content, and indeed injures the body also in health.—Rieger:—The biting begins on good pretexts; but men easily go further, to do mischief to the property, to disparage the merits, etc.—Roos:—To bite and devour one another, is not only the wont of the populace, but also the way of many learned men, whereof their learned journals, reviews, etc., bear witness. And so do they devour one another mutually, i. e., they destroy altogether one another’s credit and the usefulness which each yet had, perhaps also a part of their life. Their esprit is flesh, what may then the rest be?

Gal_5:16-17. Luther:—Paul means by lust of the flesh not alone unchastity, but also all other sinful cravings, whereby the saints are tempted.—It is impossible that you can follow the Spirit in all things whatever and not also feel the flesh, and that you should remain unhindered by it; yea, it will hinder you and so hinder you that you will not be able to do what you gladly would do. In this all that you can do is to withstand the flesh, which quickly becomes inflamed with anger, impatience, etc.; murmurs, hates, bites, becomes angry against God, falls into doubting; and to follow the Spirit, which admonishes you to peace, patience, hope, faith. To know this is for believers most profitable and comforting. When I was yet a monk, I often thought that I must be lost, when I felt an evil temptation. Then undertook I many kinds of discipline, confessed every day, and yet it all helped me nothing. For the same temptations evermore recurred; therefore tormented I myself perpetually with such thoughts: See, there you have committed such and such a sin, etc., therefore there is no help for you, all your good works are come to nothing. Had I then rightly understood St. Paul’s words, I would not have tormented myself so severely, but would have considered with myself, as I am now wont to do: Dear Martin, it amounts to nothing, your leading an angelical life here on earth; so long as you live in the flesh, it will not give over its way. Yet do not therefore despond, but withstand it through the Spirit, that thou mayest not fulfil its lust, and it cannot hurt thee, because thou art in Jesus Christ.—Whoever thinks that a Christian must have no fault at all in him, and yet feels that in himself there are many and manifold shortcomings, such a one must at the last be consumed of melancholy. But whoever understands it, him must such temptation of the flesh, i. e., evil, serve for his best good. For when the flesh will tempt to sin, he is led with earnestness to pray, to seek forgiveness of sins through Christ, to lay hold of the righteousness of the law, after which perhaps he would never have so greatly longed.—It is to Christians profitable and good that they feel such troublesomeness of the flesh, that they may not become proud over the supposed righteousness of their works, as if they were in favor with God on account of the same.

Starke:—The contest of the flesh and the Spirit exists alone in the regenerate. The conflict which exists in an unregenerate man, so that he does not fulfil all evil lusts that stir in him, is only a conflict of the reason with its natural impulses and gross sensual desires. This is to be carefully distinguished from the former, that one may not, because he feels within himself a struggle against sin, immediately reckon himself regenerate.—The strife of the Spirit against the flesh is an infallible token of regeneration and a state of grace, and is distinguished from the strife which is waged by the mere powers of reason in this, that the former always wins the victory.—These words are misused by the children of the world to this effect, that it is vain to strive after a holy character, because we cannot, after all, do what we would. But mark, what the regenerate, who are spoken of here, will according to the Spirit, and what according to the flesh. They are not aiming first to obtain the dominion over sin, for this they have already, but they would fain quench and be rid of everything sinful; but this, on account of the flesh cleaving to them, they cannot do. According to the flesh they would fain let sin come to dominion again, but that they do not, because the Spirit strives against it and overcomes the flesh. Therefore it follows from this, that a believer can by all means live holy, but here can arrive at no perfection.

Rieger:—The flesh and the sin which cleaves to the same, lust and its allurements and enticements we indeed experience, nay more, there may also occur cases where it is not as plain as we could wish that the lust hats not been admitted and treacherously taken the will with it. But by renewal in the spirit of tile mind one may always count himself to be no debtor to the flesh, to fulfil its lusts, but may take the curse from Christ’s cross and hang it upon the flesh, and from Christ’s Spirit may gain the willingness to separate therefrom. Between the strivings of the Spirit and of the flesh against each other it must become evident, which way the man, after receiving sufficient strength, is bending his will, and on which side he takes his stand. If the Spirit’s impulses and leadings continue with a man and if he is honestly minded to obey the Spirit and its holy opposition to the flesh, he does not indeed deny the law the right to show him his imperfections, but he is not under it, and is not at the last judged by it. Christ has taken the believer under His atoning shield against the curse of the law, and has moreover bestowed on him His spirit, which impels him as to all other good, so also to combat for this faith, although there is many a conflict and many a doubt before he can without ceasing so believe and act.

Gal_5:19. Luther:—It is a very different thing to be tempted by the flesh, and yet not to follow its lusts, but to Walk in the Spirit and strive against them, from what it is to consent to the lust of the flesh and abide therein and nevertheless to make great boast of the Spirit, and to make as though one lived Christianly. The former St. Paul comforts, in that he says: Because they are ruled by the Spirit they are not under the law; but the others he threatens with everlasting damnation, in that he declares: They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.—Spener:—By works of the flesh, Paul, it is true, understands principally actual outward, out-breaking deeds, but he does not thereby exclude inward vices, which are also rightly called works of the flesh. Nay, as respects the outward sins themselves, their sinfulness consists not merely in the outward deed itself, but in the evil and prevailing inclination thereto. Therefore is one guilty of adultery, fornication, gluttony, drunkenness, quarrelsomeness, etc., who allows such vices to gain the upper hand in his soul, even though from want of opportunity, or fear of infamy or trouble he restrains himself from the outward act; for God looks on the heart and its longings.

“Drunkenness, revellings.” In Starke:—The Apostle is not speaking merely of the habit and custom of drinking; therefore it is a false excuse if any one thinks that a debauch is no sin if only one does not make a business of it. The devil invented this excuse. When any one so overfills himself that he is unfit for prayer and the business of his calling, that is drunkenness; what then are we to think of the respectable world with its sinful and damnable Christian drinking bouts? and what too of this continual drinking of healths, than as of a temptation to swill down liquor?—“They which do such things.” It is not said: They that do such things daily; for even though one does any such thing only now and then, on certain occasions, yea even only once, but voluntarily, he forfeits the kingdom of God, so long as he remains under the dominion of this work of the flesh. Nor is it said: They that do all this. It is not needful for a man to do all these sins or many such, to fall under the penalty, but it is enough, if a man lets one single sin rule over him, let it be what it will. Now it rules over him, not only while he is committing it, but so long as the purpose never to commit it again, is not yet fully fixed.—They shall not only not procure eternal life by their works of the flesh (as may well be supposed), but, if they set their hopes, not upon earning eternal life by their works, but receiving it as a gift to be received by faith, they will not, leading a dissolute life, inherit it any more than earn it.—He inherits not the kingdom of grace, still less the kingdom of glory, even though his funeral sermon extols him as blessed, surely, very, or even most blessed.

Gal_5:22. It is not enough to flee the manifest works of the flesh, but we must bring true virtues to take their place. The Spirit of Christ must water and warm the hearts of men with His heavenly consolation, if they are to be fruitful to good works.—“Works of the flesh,” said Paul, as being what comes into view and can be apprehended by reason alone, as to what they are, and that they are evil; but he does not use this term of the fruits of the Spirit as being for the most part internal, and although they express themselves in outward works, yet they cannot be comprehended and judged by the mere reason; nay, reason, should she pronounce a judgment, would be more apt to pronounce a judgment against them. Indeed, the fruits of the Spirit often exist in good measure in those, who yet in true poverty of Spirit complain of the lack of them.—Roos:—All these fruits are found in every spiritual man, although in one this, in another that fruit is more richly possessed.

Luther:—Joy. This means the loving discourse of the bridegroom and his bride, i. e., the joyful, loving thoughts, which a believing heart has concerning Christ, the wholesome admonitions, the joyful hymns, thanksgiving psalms and songs of praise, with which Christians admonish and cheer one another. The Scripture testifieth once and again, that God had no pleasure in the sadness of the spirit, but wills, that we be joyful in Him. Therefore also He sent His Son, not to make us perturbed and mournful, but joyful. Therefore do the Prophets, Apostles and Christ Himself admonish, yea, command us, that we be glad and joyful. Where this spiritual joy is, there does the heart inwardly rejoice through faith in Christ, and moreover shows forth such joy outwardly with words and gestures; yea, it can be joyful even in the midst of affliction and death. Such joy is to the world unknown.—Patience. This is a virtue of such sort, that one does not alone endure and suffer waywardness, ill-luck, wrong, etc., but also bears long with those that do him such evil, and waits if perchance they may at some time amend themselves. The devil has this way, that when he cannot in tempting us overcome by main force and might, he watches nevertheless with wearisome continuance, and worries us out if he can, for he knows well what weak, earthen vessels we are, that cannot at the last endure violence and repeated hard strokes; therefore he oft gains great advantage, in that he perseveres so long and diligently.—Gentleness.—This is: that one is so disposed, that every one gets on well with him and loves to deal with him. For Christians should not be unfriendly and cross-tempered people, but mild, courteous, friendly, such as every one loves to consort with, who bear with others’ faults, are easy to give way to others, and can put up with the whim of others. Such a courteous friendly man was our Lord Jesus Christ, as we see in the Gospel from beginning to end.

In Starke:—Goodness—All nature is to us a mirror of kindness. For where is there a creature that does not serve and do good to man? For us the sun shines, for us the earth bears fruit, us does the heaven cover, to us does the air minister breath, everything stands at our command; should we then be the only ones not to practice kindness?—Luther:—Faith.—He that has this faith, such an one suspects no evil of other people, but has a loving, simple heart towards every man; and although he be deceived, he yet remains long-suffering and kind, and forbears with him that hath deceived him. In summa, he believes every man and yet puts his confidence in no man but alone in God.—Roos:—Against spiritual men the law is not, for although they are not without fault yet they are wholly under grace (Rom_6:14), and are partakers of the blessing in Christ Jesus (Gal_3:13-14). There are people, who imagine themselves to have preached the gospel, when they encourage others, by a human persuasion, to let go the Jewish way of thinking, not anxiously to count this or that for a sin, and to entertain no scruple about permitted things. But although such persuasions, addressed to a natural man, may bring about a show of freedom, and such a man may then imagine that he is no longer under the law, though he really is, yet the great question remains, whether the law is not against him. The right of the law to curse him, is not an usurpation, but a well-founded, sacred right, to which there is nothing to oppose but Christ’s death on the cross. Has then every one who boasts of freedom become a believer in this crucified Saviour? And has he also, by means of this faith, become spiritual, so that he exhibits the fruit of the Spirit within him? It is only against such that the law is not.

Gal_5:24. “Have crucified the flesh.”—Starke:—This word well expresses how sin must, little by little, be disabled and slain, for the crucified man did not die at once; he was first made fast with nails to the cross and then kept there, till through the loss of blood and through hunger and thirst he became weaker and weaker, and finally died. In the beginning of repentance the old man is nailed to the cross, and then in conversion he is fastened to it anew, when he gets a hand or a foot free; the soul carefully avoiding all occasions whereby evil lusts can be aroused, until indwelling sin is more and more disabled by all manner of acts of repentance and devotion, which are contrary to corrupt nature, which acts must extend through the whole life. But now all power to crucify the flesh is to be derived from Christ’s death on the cross.

Rieger:—They that have ceased from the law and all endeavors to obtain life and righteousness therefrom, and on the other hand belong to Christ and accept Him as the source of their life and holiness, such keep their flesh crucified. They are and live yet in the flesh, to be sure, and so experience how close sin cleaves and how heavy it weighs; they experience the enticements of inward lust, but they have learned from the gospel the meaning of God in the cross of Christ, and have believed it, and can believe the judgment executed on the body of their Redeemer as in God’s eyes in force also against their own flesh. And indeed they desire no rest for the flesh, but impose on it the curse, which through Christ’s cross is imposed thereon, and behold this wearisome and painful dying with a hope gathered out of the gospel.

On Gal_5:13-15. Christianity and Freedom: (1) How little we have occasion, on behalf of freedom, to repent of being Christians and becoming Christians more and more; (2) how deeply we must rue that freedom which we do not establish and confirm by the power of Christ.—The Christian is free and yet a servant of all.—The right union of Freedom and Love (1) needful (2) difficult.—By love serve one another! (1) An actual (2) but also a blessed service.

On Gal_5:16-24 : Walk in the Spirit, etc., ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh: (1) the lust of the flesh, (2) the resisting of it in the Spirit.—The walk in the Spirit; (1) is not accomplished without conflict (Gal_5:17) (2) but saves from destruction (Gal_5:19-21), (3) leads to a glorious goal (Gal_5:22).—With his exhortations to walk in the Spirit (1) the Apostle places us upon a fearful battle-field (Gal_5:17), (2) gives us the view into a frightful abyss (Gal_5:19 sq.), (3) leads us into a lovely garden (Gal_5:22 sq.). The conflict of the flesh and the Spirit: (1) in what does it consist? (2) to what should it impel?—Temptations through the flesh must come: despond not!—but must be combatted and overcome through the Spirit: be not careless!—There is no believer so holy or strong that he does not feel his flesh, but also none so weak that he cannot withstand it.—The motions of the flesh a damper to pride, a testimony against self-devised spiritualism.—Three times three fruits of the Spirit; a lovely garland.—To have crucified the flesh a token that one is Christ’s.—Who can crucify his flesh? Only he who is Christ’s.—The crucifying of the flesh (1) takes place indeed, when one is Christ’s, but (2) does not of itself make certain that one is Christ’s.

Kapff:—Under what law is the believer? (1) Not under that of the flesh, (2) not under that of Moses, but (3) under that of the Spirit.—Rautenberg:—The crucifixion of the flesh: a token of true Christianity, a work of the Holy Ghost, a victory of Christian freedom, a progress to inward peace.—In Lisco:—The conflict of the Spirit with the flesh: (1) Where does it arise? Only where a life in the Spirit is begun. (2) Why is it necessary? a) On account of the inward incompatibility of flesh and Spirit, b) on account of the consequences, which proceed therefrom, good or evil fruits. (3) How should it end? By the Spirit’s overcoming the flesh.—The walk in the Spirit: (1) It kills the works of the flesh, (2) it brings in its place the fruits of the Spirit.—Flesh or Spirit? Choose! (1) The flesh is thy destruction; (2) the Spirit creates divine life; (3) as Christians we are bound to the life of the Spirit.—(Fast-day Sermon): The call on Fast-day: the works of the flesh are manifest. (1) What works are works of the flesh: (2) what those have to expect, who do such works.—(Whit-Sunday Sermon): We are partakers of the Holy Spirit only when we do the works of the Spirit.—Genzken:—What do we yet lack of a walk in the Spirit? (1) The beginning is, that the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and many have not even advanced so far; (2) the next step is, that we no more fulfil the lusts of the flesh, and many are not even ashamed of the manifest works of the flesh; (3) the consummation is, that we bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, and from that we are all yet far distant.—Greiner:—Flesh and Spirit: (1) they are contrary one to the other; (2) their ways lead asunder in time and eternity.—Engelhard:—The life of that man, who is ruled by the Spirit of God: (1) He breaks with sin and mortifies daily the old man; (2) he is filled with the fruits of righteousness, which do not conflict with the law, but which can never be accomplished under the dominion of the law; (3) and receives accordingly the most excellent of all rewards, the inheritance of the kingdom of God.

Gal_5:13-24. Frantz:—Beware that ye do not, through freedom, give a handle to the flesh, for (1) freedom in Christ is not without law; it has its law, only not in the members, but in Christ, which law is love. (2) It is not without control; but its control is exercised not by the flesh, but by the Spirit.

Footnotes:

[14]Gal_5:13.—[It seems better to retain the Greek order, which places ἀδελφοί at the end of the clause. The aorist ἐκλήθητε may be rendered by the English perfect, but Ellicott gives the simple past tense as above.—R.]

[15]Gal_5:14.—Rec: πληροῦται. The correct reading is that of Lachmann,Tischendorf: πεπλήρωται. So א. [A.B.C. and modern editors.—R.]

[16]Gal_5:14.—Ἐν ὑμῖν before ἐν ἐνὶ λόγω is not sufficiently supported.

[17]Gal_5:14.—[Lightfoot: “The received text has ἑαυτόν which some would retain against the authority of the best MSS., on the ground that it was altered by scribes ignorant of this usage of ἑαυτοῦ for the first and second persons. The case however with respect to the New Testament seems to stand thus; that whereas (1) in the plural we always find ἑαυτῶν. etc., never ἡμῶν αὐτῶν, ὑμῶν αὐτῶν etc., as mere reflexives, yet (2) in the singular there is not one decisive instance of ἑαυτοῦ in the first or second persons; the authority of the best MSS. being mostly against it. See A. Buttmann, p. 99.”—R.]

[18]Gal_5:16.—[Πνεύματι. The normal dative (Meyer); the instrumental dative (Schmoller). In either case “by” not “in.”—R.]

[19]Gal_5:17.—Ταῦτα γά ρ is to be preferred to ταῦτα δέ, as better attested. [The latter which is the reading of the Rec., and Lachmann is probably a correction, to avoid the repetition of γάρ. The Rec. and Lachmann also read ἀντίκ. ἀλλήλους, on insufficient authority; א. K. L.: the order is reversed in most MSS. and by the best modern editors.—R.]

[20]Gal_5:17.—[Ἴνα is considered telic here as usually, by the best commentators. “So that” must be rejected. See Exeg. Notes.—R.]

[21]Gal_5:19.—[Ἄτινα has here a classifying force (Ellicott).—R.]

[22]Gal_5:19.—Μοιχεία of the Rec. is to be rejected with Iachmann, Tischendorf. [So א. A.B.C. Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth, Lightfoot.—R.]

[23]Gal_5:20.—Rec: ἔρεις, ζήλοι; the singular changed into the plural, apparently on account of the neighboring plurals. א. has ἔρις, ζήλοι. [The variations are great; the best editors now adopt the singular in both these cases. On the meaning of the words in these lists ot vices and virtues, see Exeg. Notes.—R.]

[24]Gal_5:21.—Φόνοι is to be retained, the preponderance of authority is in its favor. [Omitted in א. B. by Tischendorf, bracketted by Lachmann, Alford and Lightfoot. Retained by Meyer and Ellicott, on the authority of A. C. D. E. F. G. K., most cursives and versions. The similarity in souud to the preceding word is quite as much an argument for retaining as for rejecting it.—R.]

[25]Gal_5:21.—[Τὰ τοιαῦτα. “Such things as these,” “all such things.” “The article with τοιοῦτος denotes a known person or thing, or the whole class of such, but not an undefined individual out of the class; as in that case τοιοῦτος is anarthrous” (Ellicott). So in Gal_5:23.—R.

[26]Gal_5:21.—[Δέ must be rendered “now” or “but”, not “and.” The two classes of deeds have been set forth, and this verse is a practical application.—R.]

[27][On the division of the Epistle, see Introd. § 4. While we must guard agaunst too formal division of the Epistle, we may distinguish it into parts without separating them or breaking the current of thought. The memory is much assisted by the convenlent division of Lightfoot: personal, doctrinal and practical. Whether the last named part begins with Gal_5:1, or here, is perhaps immaterial, since such distinction into parts involves neither the supposition that the Apostle made such formal distinction, nor an arbitrary view of the Epistle as a whole. We may mar the unity quite as much by insisting on too strict sub-division into sections.—R.]

[28][Schmoller probably means to make an argument ab impossibili here, but the form of it is not pleasing. Certainly it were better to say: Paul could not mean this, for it is contrary to the teachings of his Master and inconsistent with his own statements elsewhere. Meyer remarks: “That, by citing only the command of love to our neighbour, Paul does not exclude the command of love to God, is self-evident to the Christian consciousness from the necessary connection of love to God and to our neighbor (comp. 1Jn_4:20; 1Co_8:1-3); the context (Gal_5:13-15) led Paul to speak of the latter only.”—R.]

[29][“Observe the prominence always given to condemnations of this deadly sin, it being one of the things which the old pagen world deemed as merely ἀδιάφορα.”—Ellicott.—R.]

[30][Wordsworth:—“The word ἐρίθεια is from ἔριθος, a laborer for hire, 1. a mercenary; and 2. one who hires him self to a cabal for party purpose; and therefore signifies 3. a venal partisan; such as the factions of gladiators, and other ruffians hired by rival candidates at elections to intimidate the voters in the Roman forum. Hence ἐρίθεια signifies venal partisanship.”—R.]

[31][Hence well expressed by “benignity.” So Jerome, who renders this and the following word respectively: benignitas, bonitas. See Trench, Synon. 2d series.—The remarks of Lightfoot are collated; the parts included in parenthesis are taken from his comments on the separate triads.—R.]

[32][Whether theologians agree about terms or not, they all must recognize the fact that in so far as any law of God has a directly ethical purpose, it must continue to be binding on those who are Christ’s, not binding as a law, with condemnatory power, so as to bring us again into bondage, after Christ has made us free, nor even binding on the conscience, so far as its punitive functions are concerned, but binding us with the cords of love, the bands of a man, a rule for the loving children of a Father, a guide for the glad gratitude of those whom Christ has made free. Thus far all that was of those whom Christ has made free. Thus far all that was of permanent ethical purpose in the Old Testament law must remain “the law of Christ;” to admit a change in God’s ethics is repugnant to our souls. How much this includes is the practical questions, which the New Testament itself answers in the life of Christ and the teachings of His Apostles. That it includes the Decalogue, that each and all of those Commandments are still in force, as a law, in the sense indicated above, there can be no reasonable doubt.—R.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 22

THE PERILS OF LIBERTY.

Gal_5:13-15

OUR analysis has drawn a strong line across the middle of this chapter. At Gal_5:13 the Apostle turns his mind in the ethical direction. He has dismissed "the troublers" with contempt in Gal_5:12; and until the close of the Epistle does not mention them again; he addresses his readers on topics in which they are left out of view. But this third, ethical section of the letter is still continuous with its polemical and doctrinal argument.

It applies the maxim of Gal_5:6, "Faith works through love"; it reminds the Galatians how they had "received the Spirit of God". {Gal_3:2-3; Gal_4:6} The rancours and jealousies opposed to love, the carnal mind that resists the Spirit-these are the objects of Pauls dehortations. The moral disorders which the Apostle seeks to correct arose largely out of the mischief caused by the Judaisers. And his exhortations to love and good works are themselves indirectly polemical. They vindicate Pauls gospel from the charge of antinomianism, while they guard Christians from giving occasion to the charge. They protect from exaggeration and abuse the liberty already defended from legalistic encroachments. The more precious and sacred is the freedom of Gentile believers, the more on the one hand do those deserve punishment who would defraud them of it; and the more earnestly must they on their part guard this treasure from misuse and dishonour. In this sense Gal_5:13 a stands between the sentence against the Circumcisionists in Gal_5:12 and the appeal to the Galatians that follows. It repeats the proclamation of freedom made in ver. I, making it the ground at once of the judgment pronounced against the foes of freedom and the admonition addressed to its possessors. "For you were called (summoned by God to enter the kingdom of His Son) with a view to liberty- not to legal bondage; nor, on the other hand, that you might run into license and give the reins to self-will and appetite-not liberty for an occasion to the flesh."

1. Here lies the danger of liberty, especially when conferred on a young, untrained nature, and in a newly emancipated community.

Freedom is a priceless boon; but it is a grave responsibility. It has its temptations, as well as its joys and dignities. The Apostle has spoken at length of the latter: it is the former that he has now to urge. Keep your liberties, he seems to say; for Christs sake and for truths sake hold them fast, guard them well. You are Gods regenerated sons. Never forego your high calling. God is on your side, and those who assail you shall feel the weight of His displeasure. Yes, "stand fast" in. the liberty wherewith "Christ made you free." But take care how you employ your freedom; "only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh." This significant only turns the other side of the medal, and bids us read the legend on its reverse front. On the obverse we have found it written, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." {2Ti_2:19; comp. Gal_4:6; Gal_4:9} This is the side of privilege and of grace, the spiritual side of the Christian life. On the reverse it bears the motto, "Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." This is the second, the ethical side of our calling, the side of duty, to which we have now to turn.

The man, or the nation that has won its freedom, has won but half the battle. It has conquered external foes; it has still to prevail over itself. And this is the harder task. Men clamour for liberty, when they mean license; what they seek is the liberty of the flesh, not of the Spirit, freedom to indulge their lusts and to trample on the rights of others, the freedom of outlaws and brigands. The natural man defines freedom as the power to do as he likes; not the right of self-regulation, but the absence of regulation is what he desires. And this is just what the Spirit of God will never allow (Gal_5:17). When such a man has thrown off outward constraint and the dread of punishment, there is no inward law to take its place. It is his greed, his passion, his pride and ambition that call for freedom; not his conscience. And to all such libertarians our Saviour says, "He that committeth sin is the slave of sin." No tyrant is so vile, so insatiable as our own self-indulged sin. A pitiable triumph, for a man to have secured his religious liberty only to become the thrall of his vices!

It is possible that some men accepted the gospel under the delusion that it afforded a shelter for sin. The sensualist, deterred from his indulgences by fear of the Law, joined in Pauls campaign against it, imagining that Grace would give him larger freedom. If "where sin abounded grace did super abound," he would say in his heart, Why not sin the more, so that grace might have a greater victory? This is no fanciful inference. Hypocrisy has learned to wear the garb of evangelical zeal; and teachers of the gospel have not always guarded sufficiently against this shocking perversion. Even the man whose heart has been truly touched and changed by Divine grace, when the freshness of his first love to Christ has passed away and temptation renews its assaults, is liable to this deception. He may begin to think that sin is less perilous, since forgiveness was so easily obtained. He may presume that as a son of God, sealed by the Spirit of adoption, he will not be allowed to fall, even though he stumble. He is one of "Gods elect"; what "shall separate him" from the Divine love in Christ? In this assurance he holds a talisman that secures his safety. What need to "watch and pray lest he enter into temptation," when the Lord is his keeper? He is Gods enfranchised son; "all things are lawful" to him; "things present" as well as "things to come" are his in Christ. By such reasonings his liberty is turned into an occasion to the flesh. And men who before they boasted themselves sons of God were restrained by the spirit of bondage and fear, have found in this assurance the occasion, the "starting-point" (αφορμη) for a more shameless course of evil.

In the view of Legalism, this is the natural outcome of Pauline teaching. From the first it has been charged with fostering lawlessness. In the Lutheran Reformation Rome pointed to the Antinomians, and moralists of our own day speak of "canting Evangelicals," just as the Judaists alleged the existence of immoral Paulinists, whose conduct, they declared, was the proper fruit of the preaching of emancipation from the Law. These, they would say to the Apostle, are your spiritual children; they do but carry your doctrine to its legitimate issue. This reproach the gospel has always had to bear; there have been those, alas! amongst its professors whose behaviour has given it plausibility. Sensualists will "turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness"; swine will trample under their feet the pure pearls of the gospel. But they are pure and precious none the less.

This possibility is, however, a reason for the utmost watchfulness in those who are stewards in the administration of the gospel. They must be careful, like Paul, to make it abundantly clear that they "establish" and do not "make void law through faith". {Rom_3:31} There is an evangelical Ethics, as well as an evangelical Dogmatics. The ethics of the Gospel have been too little studied and applied. Hence much of the confessed failure of evangelical Churches in preserving and building up the converts that they win.

2. Faith in Christ gives in truth a new efficacy to the moral law. For it works through love; and love fulfils all laws in one (Gal_5:13-14). Where faith has this operation, liberty is safe; not otherwise. Loves slaves are the true freemen.

The legalist practically takes the same view of human nature as the sensualist. He knows nothing of "the desire of the Spirit" arrayed against that of the flesh (Gal_5:17) nothing of the mastery over the heart that belongs to the love of Christ. In his analysis the soul consists of so many desires, each blindly seeking its own gratification, which must be drilled into order under external pressure, by an intelligent application of law. Modern Utilitarians agree with the ancient Judaists in their ethical philosophy. Fear of punishment, hope of reward, the influence of the social environment-these are, as they hold, the factors which create character and shape our moral being. "Pain and pleasure," they tell us, "are the masters of human life." Without the faith that man is the child of God, formed in His image, we are practically shut up to this suicidal theory of morals. Suicidal we say, for it robs our spiritual being of everything distinctive in it, of all that raises the moral above the natural; it makes duty and personality illusions.

Judaism is a proof that this scheme of life is impracticable. For the Pharisaic system which produced such deplorable moral results was an experiment in external ethics. It was in fact the application of a highly developed and elaborate traditional code of law, enforced by the strongest outward sanctions, without personal loyalty to the Divine Lawgiver. In the national conscience of the Jews this was wanting. Their faith in God, as the Epistle of James declares, was a "dead" faith, a bundle of abstract notions. Loyalty is true law-keeping. And loyalty springs from the personal relationship of the subject and the law-making power. This nexus Christian sonship supplies, in its purest and most exalted form. When I see in the Lawgiver my Almighty Father, when the law has become incarnate in the person of my Saviour, my hearts King and, Lord, it wears a changed aspect. "His commandments are not grievous." Duty, required by Him, is honour and delight. No abstract law, no "stream of tendency" can command the homage or awaken the moral energy that is inspired by "the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Here the Apostle traverses antinomian deductions from his doctrine of liberty. In the Epistle to the Romans (6) he deals at length with the theoretical objection to his teaching on this subject. He shows there that salvation by faith, rightly understood and experienced, renders continuance in sin impossible. For faith in Christ is in effect the union of the soul with Christ, first in His death, and then consequently in His risen life, wherein He lives only "to God." Nay, Christ Himself lives in the believing man. {Gal_2:20} Instead of our sinning "because we are not under the law, but under grace," this is precisely the reason why we need not and must not sin. Faith joins us to the risen Christ, whose life we share-so Paul argues-and we should not sin any more than He. Here, from the practical standpoint, he lays it down that faith works by love; and love casts out sin, for it unites all laws in itself. Faith links us to Christ in heaven (Romans); faith fills us with His love on earth (Galatians). So love, marked out in Gal_5:6 as the energy of faith, now serves as the guard of liberty. Neither legalist nor lawbreaker understands the meaning of faith in Christ.

At this point Paul throws in one of his bold paradoxes. He has been contending all through the Epistle for freedom, bidding his readers scorn the legal yoke, breathing into them his own contempt for the pettiness of Judaistic ceremonial. But now he turns round suddenly and bids them be slaves: "but let love," be says, "make you bondmen to each other" (Gal_5:13). Instead of breaking bonds, he seeks to create stronger bonds, stronger because dearer, Paul preaches no gospel of individualism, of egotistic salvation seeking. The self-sacrifice of Christ becomes in turn a principle of sacrifice in those who receive it. Pauls own ideal is, to be "conformed to His death". {Php_3:10} There is nothing anarchic or self-asserting in his plea for freedom. He opposes the law of Pharisaic externalism in the interests of the law of Christian love. The yoke of Judaism must be broken, its bonds east aside, in order to give free play to "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Faith transfers authority from flesh to spirit, giving it a surer seat, a more effective, and in reality more lawful command over mans nature. It restores the normal equipoise of the soul. Now the Divine law is written on "the tablets of the heart"; and this makes it far more sovereign than when engraved on the stone slabs of Sinai. Love and law for the believer in Christ are fused into one. In this union law loses nothing of its holy severity; and love nothing of its tenderness. United they constitute the Christian sense of duty, whose sternest exactions are enforced by gratitude and devotion.

And love is ever conqueror. To it toil and endurance that mock the achievement of other powers, are a light thing. Needing neither bribe nor threat, love labours, waits, braves a thousand dangers, keeps the hands busy, the eye keen and watchful, the feet running to and fro un-tired through the longest day. There is no industry, no ingenuity like that of love. Love makes the mother the slave of the babe at her breast, and wins from the friend for his friend service that no compulsion could exact, rendered in pure gladness and free-will. Its power alone calls forth what is best and strongest in us all. Love is mightier than death. In Jesus Christ love has "laid down life for its friends"; the fulness of life has encountered and overcome the uttermost of death. Love esteems it bondage to be prevented, liberty only to be allowed to serve.

Without love freedom is an empty boon. It brings no ease, no joy of heart. It is objectless and listless. Bereft of faith and love, though possessing the most perfect independence, the soul drifts along like a ship rudderless and masterless, with neither haven nor horizon. Wordsworth, in his "Ode to Duty" has finely expressed the weariness that comes of such liberty, unguided by an inward law and a Divine ideal:

"Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires; My hopes no more must change their name; I long for a repose that ever is the same."

But on the other hand,

"Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light And joy its own security."

This "royal law" {Jam_2:8} blends with its sovereignty of power the charm of simplicity. "The whole law," says the Apostle, "hath been fulfilled in one word-Love" (Gal_5:14). The Master said, "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil." The key to His fulfilment was given in the declaration of the twofold command of love to God and to our neighbour. "On these two hang all the law and the prophets." Hence the Apostles phrase, "hath been fulfilled." This unification of the moral code is accomplished. Christs life and death have given to this truth full expression and universal currency. Loves fulfilment of law stands before us a positive attainment, an incontestable fact. Paul does not speak here as Rom_13:9, of the comprehending, the "summing up" of all laws in one; but of the bringing of law to its completion, its realisation and consummation in the love of Christ. "O how I love Thy law," said the purer spirit of the Old Testament. "Thy love is my law," says the true spirit of the New.

It is remarkable that this supreme principle of Christian ethics is first enunciated in the most legal part of the Old Testament. Leviticus is the Book of the Priestly Legislation. It is chiefly occupied with ceremonial and civil regulations. Yet in the midst of the legal minutiae is set this sublime and simple rule, than which Jesus Christ could prescribe nothing more Divine: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. {Lev_19:18} This sentence is the conclusion of a series of directions (Lev_19:9-18) forbidding unneighbourly conduct, each of them sealed with the declaration, "I am Jehovah." This brief code of brotherly love breathes a truly Christian spirit; it is a beautiful expression of "the law of kindness" that is on the lips and in the heart of the child of God. We find in the lawbook of Mosaism, side by side with elaborate rules of sacrificial ritual and the homeliest details touching the life Of a rude agricultural people, conceptions of God and of duty of surpassing loftiness and purity, such as meet us in the religion of no other ancient nation.

The law, therefore, opposed and cast out in the name of faith, is brought in again under the shield of love. "If ye love Me," said Jesus, "keep my commandments." Love reconciles law and faith. Law by itself can but prohibit this and that injury to ones neighbour, when they are likely to arise. Love excludes the doing of any injury; it "worketh no ill to its neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law". {Rom_13:10} That which law restrains or condemns after the fact, love renders impossible beforehand. It is not content with the negative prevention of wrong; it "overcomes" and displaces "evil with good."

"What law could not do," with all its multiplied enactments and redoubled threats, faith "working by love" has accomplished at a stroke. "The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit". {Rom_8:3-4} Gentile Christians have been raised to the level of a righteousness "exceeding that of scribes and pharisees". {Mat_5:20} The flesh, which defied laws terrors and evaded its control, is subdued by the love of Christ. Law created the need of salvation; it defined its conditions and the direction which it must take. But there its power ceased. It could not change the sinful heart. It supplied no motive adequate to secure obedience. The moralist errs in substituting duty for love, works for faith. He would make the rule furnish the motive, the path supply strength to walk in it. The distinction of the gospel is that it is "the power of God unto salvation," while the law is "weak through the flesh."

Paul does not therefore override the law in the interest of faith. Quite the contrary, he establishes, he magnifies it. His theology rests on the idea of Righteousness, which is strictly a legal conception. But he puts the law in its proper place. He secures for it the alliance of love. The legalist, desiring to exalt law, in reality stultifies it. Striving to make it omnipotent, he makes it impotent. In the Apostles teaching, law is the rule, faith the spring of action. Law makes the path, love gives the will and power to follow it. Who then are the truest friends of law-Legalists or Paulinists, moralists or evangelicals?

3. Alas, the Galatians at the present moment afford a spectacle far different from the ideal which Paul has drawn. Instead of "serving each other in love," they are "biting and devouring one another." The Church is in danger of being "consumed" by their jealousies and quarrels (Gal_5:15).

These Asiatic Gauls were men of a warm temperament, quick to resent wrong and prone to imagine it. The dissensions excited by the Judaic controversy had excited their combative temper to an unusual degree. "Biting" describes the wounding and exasperating effect of the manner in which their contentions were carried on; "devour" warns them of its destructiveness. Taunts were hurled across the field of debate; vituperation supplied the lack of argument. Differences of opinion engendered private feuds and rankling injuries. In Corinth the spirit of discord had taken a factious form. It arrayed men in conflicting parties, with their distinctive watchwords and badges and sectional platforms. In these Churches it bore fruit in personal affronts and quarrels, in an angry, vindictive temper, which spreads through the Galatian societies and broke Out in every possible form of contention. {Gal_5:20}

If this state of things continued, the Churches of Galatia would cease to exist. Their liberty would end in complete disintegration.

Like some other communities, the Galatian Christians were oscillating between despotism and anarchy; they had not attained the equilibrium of a sober, ordered liberty, the freedom of a manly self-control. They had not sufficient respect either for their own or for each others rights. Some men must be bridled or they will "bite"; they must wear the yoke or they run wild. They are incapable of being a law unto themselves. They had not faith enough to make them stedfast, nor love enough to be an inward guide, nor the Spirit of God in measure sufficient to overcome the vanity and self-indulgence of the flesh. But the Apostle still hopes to see his Galatian disciples worthy of their calling as sons of God. He points out to them the narrow but sure path that leads between the desert of legalism on the one hand, and the gulf of anarchy and license on the other.

The problem of the nature and conditions of Christian liberty occupies the Apostles mind in different ways in all the letters of this period. The young Churches of the Gentiles were in the gravest peril. They had come out of Egypt to enter the Promised Land, the heritage of the sons of God. The Judaists sought to turn them aside into the Sinaitic wilderness of Mosaism; while their old habits and associations powerfully tended to draw them back into heathen immorality. Legalism and license were the Scylla and Charybdis on either hand, between which it needed the most firm and skilful pilotage to steer the bark of the Church. The helm of the vessel is in Pauls hands. And, through the grace of God, he did not fail in his task. It is in the love of Christ that the Apostle found his guiding light. "Love," he has written, "never faileth."

Love is the handmaid of faith, and the firstborn fruit of the Spirit of Christ (Gal_5:6; Gal_5:22). Blending with the law, love refashions it, changing it into its own image. Thus moulded and transfigured, law is no longer an exterior yoke, a system of restraint and penalty; it becomes an inner, sweet constraint. Upon the child of God it acts as an organic and formative energy, the principle of his regenerated being, which charges with its renovating influence all the springs of life. Evil is met no longer by a merely outward opposition, but by a repugnance proceeding from within. "The Spirit lusteth against the flesh". {Gal_5:17} The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus becomes the law of the mans new nature. God known and loved in Christ is the central object of his life. Within the Divine kingdom so created, the realm of love and of the Spirit, the soul henceforth dwells; and under that kingdom it places for itself all other souls, loved like itself in Christ.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

5:13–6:10 Having shown that justification comes by faith alone, Paul now addresses the question, “If we don’t keep the law, then what will guide our conduct?” His answer is that righteousness comes from the Spirit. The Judaizers probably warned that Paul’s message of freedom (5:1) would put believers on a slippery slope to moral ruin. Paul argues that freedom is not a license to sin, because love guides Christians. Liberty should be used to serve one another in love (cp. 2:20; 2 Cor 5:14-15).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gal 5:13. Ὑμεῖς, ye) So far am I from preaching circumcision, that I would rather show you liberty.—ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ, [unto] concerning[50] liberty) that you might rejoice in liberty. Your calling is not to πεισμονὴν, self-imposed restraints, but to liberty.—μόνον μὴ) An ellipsis of the imperative, having the εὐλὰβειαν, pious precaution, subjoined, μόνον μὴ ἐλεύθεροι ἦτε τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, κ.τ.λ., only ye were not made free with this freedom, etc. [for an occasion to the flesh]: or else the accusative, τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, is put absolutely.—ἀφορμὴν, an occasion) for which the flesh is eager.—τῇ σαρκὶ, to the flesh) Gal 5:16-17.—διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης, by love) Gal 5:14; Gal 5:22.—δουλεύετε, serve) A beautiful antithesis.[51]

[50] “Super libertate.” With respect to, with a view to a state of liberty.—ED.

[51] If you will have the bondage of service, then serve one another: in antithesis to ἐλευθερίαν.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal_5:13. It is with justice that I speak so indignantly against those men; for ye, who are being worked upon by them to bring you under the bondage of the law, have received Gods call to the Messianic kingdom for an object entirely different,in order that ye may be free. Thus the apostle again reminds his readers of the great benefit already indicated in Gal_5:1, but now with the view of inculcating its single necessary moral limitation.

ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ] that ye should be free; ἐπί used of the ethical aim of the καλεῖν. Comp. 1Th_4:7; Eph_2:10; Soph. Oed. C. 1459: τἀξίωμʼ ἐφʼ ᾧ καλεῖς.

μόνον μὴ κ.τ.λ.] Limiting exhortation. But the verb, which is obvious of itself (τρέπετε, perhaps, or even ἔχετε), is omitted, the omission rendering the address more compact and precise. Comp. Mat_26:5; Buttmann, neut. Gr. 338. This also corresponds (in opposition to Hofmanns groundless doubt) to the usage of the Greeks after the prohibitory μή. See Heindorf, ad Plat. Prot. p. 315 B; Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 153; Klotz ad Devar. p. 669; Winer, p. 554 f. [E. T. 745].

εἰς ἀφορμὴν τῇ σαρκί] for an occasion to the flesh; do not use your liberty so that it may serve as an occasion for the nonspiritual, psychico-corporeal part of your nature to assert its desires which are contrary to God. Comp. Rom_7:8. As to σάρξ in the ethical sense, see Rom_4:1; Rom_6:19; Rom_7:14; Joh_3:6.

ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης δουλ. ἀλλήλ.] but let love (through which your faith must work, Gal_5:6) be that by means of which ye stand in a relation of mutually rendered service. An ingenious juxtaposition of freedom and brotherly serviceableness in that freedom. Comp. Rom_6:18; Rom_6:22; 1Co_9:19; 1Pe_2:16; 2Pe_2:19. The special contrast, however, which is here opposed to the general category of the σάρξ, has its ground in the circumstances of the Galatians, and its warrant in what is about to be said of love in Gal_5:14.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 5:13-15 . FREEDOM IS AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF CHRISTIAN LIFE, TO BE USED NOT FOR SELF-INDULGENCE, BUT FOR WILLING SERVICE TO THE LAW OF LOVE.

Gal 5:13 . ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ . Our versions render this unto ( for R.V.) freedom , as though it were the design of the Gospel to lead to freedom. But the Greek text affirms rather that God’s call was based upon freedom, and so makes it an essential element in spiritual life and the inalienable right of every true Christian. μόνον μὴ . A warning is added that freedom, essential as it is to spiritual life, is open to abuse by carnal men, and that it is subject to the demands of the higher Law of mutual love. “Only do not treat it as an opening for carnal self-indulgence, but for loving service to each other.” μόνον is used in the same elliptical way in Gal 2:10 and 2Th 2:7 ; and the ellipsis of the verb after μή is common in rhetorical passages. ἀφορμήν . This term was applied in military language to a base of operations, and generally to any starting-point for action. In Rom 7:8 ; Rom 7:11 , 2Co 11:12 it denotes an opening for sin, as it does here. δουλεύετε . This injunction contains an instructive paradox. Christians are freed from the trammels of outward Law, not that they may please themselves, but that they may become slaves to the Law of mutual love. The true ideal of the Christian is not freedom, but unfettered service to the love of God and man, which annihilates self, and subordinates all selfish desires to perfect love. A similar paradox is found in 1Co 7:22 , he that was called, being free, is the bondservant of Christ .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13–6:10. PRACTICAL. LIBERTY IS NOT LICENSE BUT SERVICE; NOT THE FLESH BUT THE SPIRIT MUST BE THE AIM OF THE BELIEVER

13–15. I say, you were called for freedom. But do not forget that true freedom implies service to others

(Gal 5:13) I speak so strongly about those that are confounding you, for you were called on the basis of freedom, my brothers. Only do not hold your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but by your love be slaves to one another. (Gal 5:14) For the whole Law (which you desire to be under) has found its completion in one saying, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Gal 5:15) But if you forget this and fight each other like wild beasts, beware lest the whole community of you perish.

13. ὑμεῖς γὰρ. St Paul takes up the ὑμᾶς of Gal 5:12 and defends his wish that the false teachers would so act that their real character would be seen. For you (emphatic) were not meant to do as they desire. You were called on the footing of freedom. He thus returns to Gal 5:1, but, in accordance with his custom, finds his point d’appui in the immediately preceding verse.

It is probable that in this and the succeeding verses, besides St Paul’s primary desire to remind his readers of their practical duty, he intended also to enter a caveat against the hostile interpretation of his teaching of grace, that it meant freedom from the restrictions of the Law and therefore license to sin (Rom 6:1 sqq.).

ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἐκλήθητε (Gal 1:6; Gal 1:15, Gal 5:8), καλ. with ἐπί[140]. For ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ compare the note on ἐξαγοράσῃ, Gal 4:5. Ramsay (Gal., pp. 442 sqq.) calls attention to the numerical preponderance of ἐλεύθερ-ος-ἱα-ὁω in this Epistle, and suggests that this is due to St Paul’s desire to stir up the idea of individual freedom, which was weak in South Galatia (Phrygia) though strong in Asia and Achaia. Yet if St Paul was writing to the N. Galatians, with whom the idea of political and personal freedom was, presumably, strong, he might well appeal to this feeling, from the sense that liberty in Christ is at once the germ and the crowning fruit of all.

[140] Is affixed to a word it means that all the passages are mentioned where that word occurs in the New Testament.

μόνον μὴ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν. The accusative is due to a verb being understood after μή, e.g. τρέπετε or, better, ἔχετε. Cf. Mat 26:5. For the thought compare Aristides quoted by Wetstein, λυσιτελέστερον μὲν εἶναι δουλεύειν, ἤ κακῶν ἐφόδιον τὴν ἐλευθερίαν ἔχειν. The article may be generic, but is probably personal, “your liberty.” Similarly in διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης, infra.

εἰς ἀφορμήν (1Ti 5:14), properly a base of operations in war, thence a pretext, occasion. διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης δουλεύετε, Col 3:24; cf. 1Pe 2:16. Here not without reference to its usage already in this Epistle: you had experience of wrong service (Gal 4:8) to which you are wishing to go back (Gal 4:9), although Jerusalem (your would-be standard in religion) is in bondage (Gal 4:25); now be in what is true service, to one another and thus (Gal 5:14) to the Law.

ἀλλήλοις. After touching on this here and in the two following verses he returns to it at greater length in Gal 5:26 to Gal 6:6.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The third part of this Epistle, showing that the right use of Christian liberty consisteth in this, that being delivered from the slavery of sin and the flesh, and being obedient to the Spirit, we should serve unto one another’s salvation through love.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The "ye" is emphatical, from its position in the Greek, "Ye brethren"; as opposed to those legalists "who trouble you."

unto liberty--The Greek expresses, "on a footing of liberty." The state or condition in which ye have been called to salvation, is one of liberty. Gospel liberty consists in three things, freedom from the Mosaic yoke, from sin, and from slavish fear.

only, &c.--Translate, "Only turn not your liberty into an occasion for the flesh." Do not give the flesh the handle or pretext (Rom 7:8, "occasion") for its indulgence which it eagerly seeks for; do not let it make Christian "liberty" its pretext for indulgence (Gal 5:16-17; Pe1 2:16; Pe2 2:19; Jde 1:4).

but by love serve one another--Greek, "Be servants (be in bondage) to one another." If ye must be servants, then be servants to one another in love. While free as to legalism, be bound by Love (the article in the Greek personifies love in the abstract) to serve one another (Co1 9:19). Here he hints at their unloving strifes springing out of lust of power. "For the lust of power is the mother of heresies" [CHRYSOSTOM].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 13. Ye have been called unto liberty] A total freedom from all the burthensome rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Only use not that liberty for an occasion to the flesh. By flesh, here, we may understand all the unrenewed desires and propensities of the mind; whatsoever is not under the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. Your liberty is from that which would oppress the spirit; not from that which would lay restraints on the flesh. The Gospel proclaims liberty from the ceremonial law: but binds you still faster under the moral law. To be freed from the ceremonial law is the Gospel liberty; to pretend freedom from the moral law is Antinomianism.

By love serve one another.] Having that faith which worketh by love, serve each other to the uttermost of your power: δουλευετε, serve each other, when necessary, as slaves serve their masters. Several excellent MSS. and versions, instead of δια της αγαπης, by love, have τῃ αγαπῃ του Πνευματος, in the love of the Spirit serve one another.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. Ye have been called to liberty. He now proceeds to show in what way liberty must be used. In the course of expounding the First Epistle to the Corinthians, we have pointed out that liberty is one thing, and that the use of it is another thing. Liberty lies in the conscience, and looks to God; the use of it lies in outward matters, and deals not with God only, but with men. Having exhorted the Galatians to suffer no diminution of their liberty, he now enjoins them to be moderate in the use of it, and lays down as a rule for the lawful use, that it shall not be turned into pretext or occasion for licentiousness. Liberty is not granted to the flesh, which ought rather to be held captive under the yoke, but is a spiritual benefit, which none but pious minds are capable of enjoying.

But by love. The method here explained of restraining liberty from breaking out into wide and licentious abuse is, to have it regulated by love. Let us always remember that the present question is not, in what manner we are free before God, but in what manner we may use our liberty in our intercourse with men. A good conscience submits to no slavery; but to practice outward slavery, or to abstain from the use of liberty, is attended by no danger. In a word, if “by love we serve one another,” we shall always have regard to edification, so that we shall not grow wanton, but use the grace of God for his honor and the salvation of our neighbors.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(13) For.—This connecting particle supplies the reason for the Apostle’s severe treatment of the Judaisers.

An occasion to the flesh.—Do not, under the name “liberty,” give way to sensual excesses. This was the especial danger of the Gentile churches, such as Corinth, from which, as we have seen, the Apostle may have been writing. Galatia, too, was a Gentile church; and though it was for the present subject rather to Judaising influences, the character of the people was fickle, and St. Paul may have thought it well to hint a caution in this direction.

Serve.—There is a stress upon this word. The Apostle had been dissuading the Galatians from submitting to other forms of servitude. This one he will permit them.

(13-15) The Judaisers would deserve such a fate; for they are undoing the whole object with which you were called. You were called, not to legal bondage, but to freedom. This caution only is needed: Do not make freedom a pretext for self-indulgence. One servitude you may submit to—the service of love. So doing, you will fulfil the Law without being legalists. He who loves his neighbour as himself will need no other rule. On the other hand, dissensions will be fatal, not to one party only, but to all who take part in them.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13–15. Liberty must not be abused

13. St Paul seems to be recurring to what he had said in Gal_5:7, the intermediate verses being a sort of parenthesis in which he wanders from the main line of thought. ‘This submission cometh not from Him that calleth you—a little leaven, &c.—for ye were called unto freedom brethren’.

unto liberty] lit. ‘on condition of freedom.’ The terms (and so the object) of your calling were freedom.

an occasion to the flesh] By the word ‘flesh’ we must understand not merely sensual indulgence, but that natural selfishness which finds expression in the disregard of other people’s rights and interests, ‘hatred, variance, emulations’, and the like. Patristic expositors take occasion to point out that ‘the flesh’ does not mean ‘the material body’, for many of the sins enumerated below as ‘works of the flesh’ have their seat in the soul. The effects of the Fall have extended to the whole man, that unrenewed nature which ‘is become corrupt in accordance with the lusts of deceit’ (Eph_4:22) and ‘which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be’, see Rom_8:5-7.

by love serve one another] The service of God, and of man for His sake, is alone perfect freedom. Too much stress cannot be laid on the expression, ‘serve one another’. Act as the slaves of your fellow-men. This is true Christian liberty.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For all the law is fulfilled in one word,.... Not the ceremonial law, to which acts of mercy, kindness, and love are opposed, and from which they are distinguished; but the law of the decalogue given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and by him to the people of the Jews; and intends either only the second table of it, since only love to the neighbour is mentioned; or else the whole of it, both tables, since it is said, "all the law"; which by Christ is reduced to two heads, love to God, and love to the neighbour; and though the former is not here expressed, it is implied as a cause in the effect, for the love of God is the cause, and so the evidence of love to the neighbour; nor can there be the one without the other. The two tables of the law consist of , "ten words"; as the (s) Jews commonly call them, and we the decalogue, and yet they are fulfilled in one; that is, they are to be brought into such a compendium, reduced to such an head; or as the apostle in a parallel place says, they may briefly be comprehended in this saying, Rom 13:9. The Jews make the commandments of the law to be a very large number indeed, but at last reduce them to one, as the apostle here does,

"six hundred and thirteen commandments (they say (t)) were given to Moses----David came and reduced them to eleven, Psalm xv, Isaiah came and reduced them to six, Isa 33:15 Micah came and reduced them to three, Mic 6:8 Isaiah came and reduced them to two, Isa 56:1, Amos came and reduced them to one, Amo 5:4 but this being objected to, it is observed that Habakkuk came, , "and reduced them to one", Hab 2:4 that is faith, as here the apostle reduces them to love:''

even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: these words are taken out of Lev 19:18 and which R. Akiba says (u), agreeably with the apostle, whose contemporary he was, is , "the grand general rule in the law"; or the grand comprehensive of the law: the object of love, the "neighbour", signifies not only, as there the Jews explain it, those of their own people, or proselytes to their religion; but all sorts of men, whether in a natural, civil, or spiritual relation; and whether those that do us good or do us ill, friends or enemies: the measure or rule of love is, "as thyself"; and designs not an equality of affection, but a likeness of effects; that is, to do the same kind acts of love to others, one would choose to have done to ourselves: and this is the fulfilling of the law; that is, so far as a man loves aright, so far he fulfils the law; not that he does it perfectly, for man in his fallen state is unable to do that, for the law is exceeding broad, and reaches to thoughts, desires, and inclinations, as well as to words and deeds; and besides, love said to be the fulfilling of it, is imperfect; hence then there can be no justification by works of charity, nor by any services of men, which at best are imperfect; nor are they done in their own strength, and without the grace of God; nor is there any that can be said to have fulfilled the law perfectly but Christ, and to him must we look for a justifying righteousness. These words contain a reason engaging to love one another, and to do all kind of offices of love to each other; since it is a main and principal thing contained in the law, and to which that may be reduced.

(s) Exod. xxxiv. 28. Vid. Targum Onk. & Jon. in ib. (t) T. Bab. Maccot, fol. 23. 2. & 24. 1. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 151. 1. (u) In Jarchi in Lev. xix. 18.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Ver. 13. Only use not your liberty] In maxima libertate, minima licentia. In the greatest freedom is the least amount of licence. Therefore αναστατουντες, are men the worse, because they should be better. Christ came to call sinners, not to licentiousness, but to repentance, Mar 2:17, to take his yoke upon them, Mat 11:29, to hire out their members servants to righteousness, Rom 6:16. Hence it is, that as St Paul’s Epistles largely prove free election and justification by Christ; so the Epistles of James, Peter, and John, press to love and new obedience, lest any should argue from mercy to liberty. Nemo sit liber in fraudem fisci, Let no one be free in mishandling the treasury, saith the civil law. (Valer. Max. ii. 1.) It was enacted among the Athenians, that whosoever, having been a bondman, was convicted of ingratitude for his manumission, should lose his liberty: the Romans made such slaves again; which punishment they term Maximam capitis diminutionem, The greatest demotion of a person. (Justin Instit. i. 16.)

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty - Freedom from Jewish rites and ceremonies; see the notes at Gal 3:28; Gal 4:9, note, Gal 4:21-31, note. The meaning here is, that Paul wished the false teachers removed because true Christians had been called unto liberty, and they were abridging and destroying that liberty. They were not in subjection to the Law of Moses, or to anything else that savored of bondage. They were free; free from the servitude of sin, and free from subjection to expensive and burdensome rites and customs. They were to remember this as a great and settled principle; and so vital a truth was this, and so important that it should be maintained, and so great the evil of forgetting it, that Paul says he earnestly wishes Gal 5:12 that all who would reduce them to that state of servitude were cut off from the Christian church.

Only use not liberty ... - The word use here introduced by our translators, obscures the sense. The idea is, “You are called to liberty, but it is not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. It is not freedom from virtuous restraints, and from the laws of God. It is liberty from the servitude of sin, and religious rites and ceremonies, not freedom from the necessary restraints of virtue.” It was necessary to give this caution, because:

(1) There was a strong tendency in all converts from paganism to relapse again into their former habits. Licentiousness abounded, and where they had been addicted to it before their conversion, and where they were surrounded by it on every hand, they were in constant danger of falling into it again. A bare and naked declaration, therefore, that they had been called to liberty, to freedom from restraint, might have been misunderstood, and some might have supposed that they were free from all restraints.

(2) It is needful to guard the doctrine from abuse at all times. There has been a strong tendency, as the history of the church has shown, to abuse the doctrine of grace. The doctrine that Christians are “free;” that there is liberty to them from restraint, has been perverted always by Antinomians, and been made the occasion of their indulging freely in sin. And the result has shown that nothing was more important than to guard the doctrine of Christian liberty, and to show exactly what Christians are freed from, and what laws are still binding on them. Paul is, therefore, at great pains to show that the doctrines which he had maintained did not lead to licentiousness, and did not allow the indulgence of sinful and corrupt passions.

An occasion - As allowing indulgence to the flesh, or as a furtherance or help to corrupt passions; see the word explained in the notes at Rom 7:8.

To the flesh - The word flesh is often used in the writings of Paul to denote corrupt and gross passions and affections; see the notes at Rom 7:18; Rom 8:1, note.

But by love serve one another - By the proper manifestation of love one to another strive to promote each other’s welfare. To do this will not be inconsistent with the freedom of the gospel. When there is love there is no servitude. Duty is pleasant, and offices of kindness agreeable. Paul does not consider them as freed from all law and all restraint; but they are to be governed by the law of love. They were not to feel that they were so free that they might lawfully give indulgence to the desires of the flesh, but they were to regard themselves as under the law to love one another; and thus they would fulfil the law of Christian freedom.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

An occasion to the flesh; i.e. that you abuse not, by a vicious life, that Christian liberty which Christ hath purchased for you, but be united in the spirit of charity. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Ye have been called unto liberty; a liberty from the covenant of the law, and the curse of the law, as Gal 3:13; from servile fear, as Luk 1:74; and from sin, Rom 6:7.

Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh; but you must take heed that you do not abuse this liberty by making it an occasion for sin, so as from thence to conclude, that you may give your flesh more liberty in obeying the lusts of it: you must not think, that the gospel hath set you at liberty from the obedience of the law; the gospel liberty to which you are called, doth not set you free from the duty of love, either to God or men. Therefore

by love serve one another. Our Christian liberty neither freeth us from the serving of God, nor from our mutual serving each other by love, according to Rom 8:8; Owe no man any thing, but to love one another.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty (uJmeiv gaa ejklhqhte ajdelfoi); for ye, brethren, were called unto (Greek, for) freedom. The "for" points back to the closing words of the preceding verse, which implied a settled state of well-being from which those troublers were driving his readers; that happy state (the apostle says) was the very glory and essence of their "calling." This, of course, was that condition of free men described at the end of the foregoing chapter, and summarized in the first verse of this chapter. This is again, even more briefly, recapitulated in the first clause of the present verse. As the summary in the first verse supplied a starting-point for the warnings against the Judaizers which have taken up the foregoing twelve verses, so this new summary furnishes the starting-point for exhortations designed to guard the evangelical doctrine against antinomian perversion, by insisting upon the moral behaviour required of those who enjoy the freedom which Christ gives. These exhortations occupy the remainder of this chapter and a part of the next. "Ye," being what ye are, believers baptized into Christ. The verb "were called" expresses a complete idea, meaning of itself without any adjunct, "called by God to be people of his own" (cf. "calleth," ver. 8, and the passages there cited). The words, "unto," or "for, freedom," supply an adjunct notion; as in Eph_4:4, the clause, "in one hope of your calling," does to the same verb. So again 1Th_4:7," For God called us, not unto or, "for" uncleanness, but in sanctification." "The preposition ejpi, both in the passage last cited and in the present verse, denotes the condition or understanding upon which God had called them: they were "called" upon the understanding that they should be in a state of liberty. So Eph_2:10, "Created in Christ Jesus unto "Greek," for good works." God calls us in Christ to be free in these three respects:

(1) free from condemnation and conscience of guiltiness;

(2) free from pupil-age to a ceremonial institute of positive, carnal ordinances, and from bondage to a letter-Law;

(3) free, as consciously his children, knit to him by his adopting Spirit, which makes us partakers of his nature. Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh (monon mh than eijv ajformhv); only, no freedom which shall be an occasion to the flesh! or, only, make not your freedom into an occasion for the flesh. The noun ejleuqerian, being in the accusative, cannot be taken as simply a resumption of the ejleuqeria immediately before. In his eagerness to at once bar the antinomian"s abuse of the gospel, the apostle omits the verb which should account for this accusative; and the result is a sentence which may be taken as grouping with various passages in classical Greek authors, being in fact quite a natural way of speaking in any language; such as in Demosthenes, "Philippians," 1. p. 45, "No ten thousand mercenaries for me! (mh moi muriouv... xenouv);" Sophocles, "Ant.," 573, "No more loiterings! but (mh triba); Aristo phanes, Ach. ," 326, "No false pretences for me, but... (mh moi profasin ajlla... )." In such cases it simply weakens the vivacity of the style, if we supply any verb. The alternative rendering supplies dwte, which is in fact found in two uncial manuscripts, F, G, or ajpocrhshsqe, proposed by OEcumenius. In the former way of construing we have in thought to supply a second thn after ejleuqerian, as inpete 1Co_10:18, Ble ton jIsrahl katarka: 2Co_7:7; Col_1:8; Eph_2:15. The preposition eijv is need as Rom_11:9; 1Co_14:22, etc. The sense of the noun ajformh starting-point, is well illustrated by its use, in the military language of Greece, for a "basis of operations" (cf. Rom_7:8, Rom_7:11; 2Co_5:12; 1Ti_5:14) Reflection at once shows us that a freedom" which allows a man to obey the behests of his lower nature is only by a false use of the term capable of being grouped with that freedom wherewith Christ makes us free. It adopts out of the latter the single element of emancipation from ceremonial law and letter-Law, and lets go altogether the concomitant notions of spiritual emancipation which are of its very essence. Such an emancipation hands its victim clean over to the thraldom of sin (Joh_8:34; 2Pe_2:18, 2Pe_2:19) St. Peter, in his First Epistle, addressed to a large group of Churches founded by St. Paul, including those of Galatia, has a number of passages which apparently take up sentiments and even expressions found in St. Paul"s writings, (see 1Pe_5:12) as it were, ratifying them; and possibly he has an eye to the present verse when he writes, (1Pe_2:16) "as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bond-servants of God." "The flesh" is not to have its own way, but is to own the mastery of the Spirit. But by love serve one another (ajlla diaphv douleuete ajllhloiv); but through love be in bondage to one another; i.e. let love make you bondservants to one another. The verb douleuw also means "do acts of bond-service," as Eph_6:7 and 1Ti_6:2. This sense is included in the "being in bondage" here spoken of. In the present posture of affairs in these Churches, the apostle sees occasion for selecting just here one particular branch of Christian goodness to enforce upon their observance. Presently after (vers. 16-20) he enlarges the field of view; though even there still giving much prominence to the vices of malignity and to the benignant virtues. Just now he has his eye especially on the evils of contentiousness (ver. 15), and upon love as their corrective. We may suppose such evils were now especially rife amongst the Galatians, whose natural character, commonly described as quarrelsome, was apparently evincing itself in connection with the disputes which the teaching and yet more the outward action of the Judaizers were giving rise to. In fact, a loving temper of mind, along with other benefits, is recommended also by this, that it guards Churches from corrupting innovations in doctrine and Church practice; checking our self-will and our obtrusive vanity, it leads us to avoid giving uneasiness to others by thrusting upon them new notions or new modes of conduct, and makes it our ambition to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The pattern set by our Lord, (Joh_13:15) both in washing his disciples" feet and indeed in his whole incarnate life, (Php_2:7) was grandly imitated by the apostle himself, (1Co_9:19-22) who in outward things habitually sacrificed the pride of independence and self-assertion, and the pride of apparent self-consistency, in his devotion to the spiritual welfare of men. He here preaches just what he himself practised.

The meaning of Christian liberty.

The false teachers deserve this severity of treatment, for they would deprive you of your liberty.

I THE CHRISTIAN CALLING IS TO LIBERTY. He had already counselled them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free (ver. 1) a liberty which lifted them out of legal bondage, and, above all, destroyed the yoke of ancient ceremonialism; and now these Judaizers were attempting to strike at the root of their calling.

II THE DEEP AND UNCHANGEABLE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LIBERTY AND LICENTIOUSNESS. "Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh." This counsel was specially needed for a Celtic people emerging out of the old immoral paganism, It shows:

1. That duty is not destroyed by liberty. Their escape from legal bondage did not involve the annihilation of all moral restraints or the abrogation of the moral Law. In fact, the gospel brings believers under a weightier obligation to duty than the Law possibly can do, for it brings upon the believer the mighty constraint of Divine love. (2Co_5:14) They were no longer justified by the Law, but the Law was still a rule of life. The Antinomians of Germany and England held that believers were under Law in no sense; that they were under no obligations to obedience; and therefore were ready enough to use their liberty under the gospel "for an occasion to the flesh." It is still very necessary to emphasize the obligations of Christian people under the gospel, for gross immoralities have been committed by men with an extravagant view of gospel liberty. Christ came to call sinners to repentance, not to licentiousness; to take his yoke upon them, and yield their members instruments of righteousness unto holiness.

2. Christian people ought to use their liberty wisely. There is a margin left for human discretion in the application of gospel principles. Perhaps a too free use of our Christian liberty has often become an occasion of sin. Therefore a Christian divine suggests that in matters of duty we ought to do too much rather than too little, but in matters of indifference we should rather take too little of our liberty than too much.

III THE ONLY BONDAGE ALLOWABLE IN CHRISTIANITY IS MUTUAL LOVE. "But by love serve one another." There is an antithetic force in the original, which is not so obvious in the translation: If you must have bondage, let it be the bondage of mutual love. Love is to be the means by which the mutual bondage is to be manifested.

1. This bondage is not degrading. Though they were servants of each other, they were not masters of each other. "All ye are brethren." Christ himself is our example in this service: "1 am among you as one that serveth." This one tact lifts this duty to an incomparable height of dignity and impressiveness.

2. It is this which will keep your liberty from degenerating into licentiousness. Their love for one another, grounded in their love for God, would set them upon all opportune ways of benefiting each other. Thus love is the one debt always to be discharged and always due. "Owe no man anything, but to love one another". (Rom_13:8) The counsel of the apostle seems to suggest the existence in Galatia of factious quarrels and unchristian isolations.

Vers. 13-15.

The liberty of love.

Having shown the magnificence of the gospel system, Paul now proceeds to define that freedom which it secures. It is not licence, but love, which it induces; and love not only fulfils the Law, as legalism does not, but also prevents the bitter strife which legalism ensures. We have the following points suggested:

I THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LICENCE AND LIBERTY. (Ver. 13.) The grace which has freed us from the legal spirit has not endowed us with a liberty to live licentiously. The liberty it gives is totally distinct from licence. Licence is liberty to please ourselves, to humour the flesh, to regard liberty as an end and not a means. But God in his gospel gives no such liberty. His liberty is a means and not an end; it is liberty to live as he pleases, liberty to love him and love men, liberty to serve one another by love. We must guard ourselves, then, from the confusion of mistaking licence for liberty.

II LOVE IS THE REAL LIBERTY. (Ver. 13.) As a matter of experience we never feel free until we have learned to love. When our hearts are going out to God in Christ, when we have at his cross learned the lesson of philanthropy, when we have felt our obligation to God above and to man below, then we are free as air and rejoice in freedom. Then we refuse licence as only freedom"s counterfeit, for we have learned a more excellent way. We cannot imagine a loveless spirit to be free. He may achieve an outlawry, but he is not, cannot be, free.

III LOVE IS THE REAL FULFILMENT OF THE LAW. (Ver. 14.) The legalists in their little system of self-righteousness spent their strength upon the mint, the anise, and the cummin; while the weightier matters of the Law righteousness, judgment, and faith were neglected. Ceremonies and not morality became their concern. The tithing of pot-herbs would entitle them to Paradise. In contrast to all this, Paul shows that Christian love, which is another name for liberty, fulfils the demands of Law. The meaning of the commandments published from Sinai was love. Their essence is love to God and love to our neighbour, as well as to our "better self." Hence the gospel throws no slight on Law, but really secures its observance, The whole system turns on love as the duty and the privilege of existence. While the Law is, therefore, rejected as a way of life, it is accepted as a rule. Saved through the merits and grace of Christ, we betake ourselves to Law-keeping con amore. We recognize in God the supreme object of grateful love; we recognize in our neighbour the object of our love for God"s sake and for his own sake; and we honour the Law of God as "holy and just and good." The whole difference between the legal spirit and the gospel spirit is that in the one case Law is kept in hope of establishing a claim; in the other it is kept in token of our gratitude. The motive in the one case, being selfish, destroys the high standard of Law. It fancies it can be kept with considerable completeness, whereas it is kept by the best with constant and manifold shortcoming. The motive in the other case, being disinterested, secures such attachment to the Law, because it has been translated into love, that it is kept with increasing ardour and success. Slaves will never honour Law so much as freemen.

IV LOVE IS THE TRUE ANTIDOTE TO STRIFE AND DIVISION. (Ver. 15.) The ritualistic or legal spirit into which the Galatians had temporally fallen manifested itself in strife and bickerings. This is, in fact, its natural outcome. For if men arc straining every nerve to save themselves by punctilious observance of ceremonies, they will come of necessity into collision. It is an emulation of a selfish character. It cannot be conducted with mutual consideration. As a matter of fact, organizations pervaded by the legal spirit are but the battle-ground of conflicting parties. But love comes to set all right again. Its genial breath makes summer in society and takes wintry isolation and self-seeking all away. Mutual consideration secures harmony and social progress. Instead of religious people becoming then the butt of the world"s scorn by reason of their strife and divisions, they become the world"s wonder by reason of their unity and peace. It is, love, therefore, we are bound to cultivate. Then shall concord and all its myriad blessings come into the Church of God and the world be subdued before it. R.M.E.

Vers. 13-26.

Freedom sustained by the Spirit.

I USE OF CHRISTIAN FREEDOM. "For ye, brethren, were called for freedom." Paul, having wished the Judaizing teachers off Galatian soil, justifies the strength of his wish. They would have led the Galatians into bondage, but God had called them for freedom. He makes a distinction between the possession of freedom and the use of freedom. He had been under the necessity of making prominent their possession of freedom in contending against the Judaists; he would, however, remind them, as brethren, that there was responsibility connected with t heir use of freedom. It is thus that he slides into the more practical part of the Epistle.

1. Dangers of freedom. "Only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh." By the flesh, which here becomes a leading word with the apostle, we are not to understand our corporeal nature. Nor are we to understand by it depraved tendency in connection with our corporeal nature. But we are to understand by it depraved tendency as a whole, extending to our higher nature as well as to our lower nature. It is true that in this depraved tendency our lower nature has the preponderance. And that is the reason why the whole goes by the name of flesh. But the constant element in depravity is not sense, but it is self as opposed to God and to the good of others. The admonition of the apostle, then, is, not that we abstain from all bodily gratification, as though sin were seated in the body, nor simply that we abstain from all fleshly sin, but that we abstain from all selfish gratification. The Galatians had been called for freedom, i.e. for ultimate and complete freedom; they were not, with their first experiences of freed-m, or with their strong realization of it as against Judaistic error, to imagine that they were free to indulge the flesh. That is what, as free, we must be on our guard against, if we would not fall back into bondage, if we would come to the goal of our freedom in Christ. Let us not turn our liberty into licentiousness.

2. The binding of freedom.

(1) Love binds the free. "But through love be servants one to another." As it is self in the flesh that leads to abuse el freedom, so it is love that determines the right use of freedom. Love is going out beyond self. It is that which binds us in service to another. The Galatians were free from Jewish bonds only to put on the bonds of Christian love. So it is true that we are free from the bonds of guilt only to bind ourselves in service one to another. Thus to balance our freedom there is the bondage of love.

(2) The whole Law is fulfilled in love to our neighbour. "For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The one word here is the summary of the second table of the Law. The quotation is from Lev_19:18. It appears, from "neighbour" there following upon "children of thy people," that the neighbour of the Jew was his fellow-Jew. Christ has taught us to regard as our neighbour every one who is in need, temporal or spiritual. When we are commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves, it is implied that it is a right thing to love ourselves. There is a true self-love. We are to love ourselves intensely. It does not appear that we can be too much in earnest about our own well-being. We are to love ourselves rationally. We are not to seek only a section of our interest, but we are to seek our true interest as a whole. In these respects our love to our neighbour is to resemble our love to ourselves. We are to love our neighbour in the same intense manner. His good is as much to God as is our own good. And in all ways in which we can advance his good we are to be as much in earnest about it as though we were advancing our own. We are to love our neighbour in the same rational manner. We may love intensely and yet be guided by reason. We are not to seek only part of our neighbour"s good. To give as much time and attention to our neighbour"s business as to our own would not ordinarily be for his good, nor would it be fair to one in comparison with another. Circumstances may arise in which duty may point to sacrifice for another, even to the extent of life. Let us, then, love our neighbour as we love ourselves, both intensely and rationally. The teaching of the apostle is that he who has observed the second table of the Law (as summarized) has fulfilled the whole Law. Surprise has been expressed why there should be no reference to the first table of the Law. But the reason is obvious. He who has only gone the length of the first table has not fulfilled the whole Law. Our love to God must be carried to completion, in our loving our neighbour as ourselves. According to the thought of the Apostle John, we only properly love our Father-God, whom we do not see, when we love our brother-man whom we see.

(3) There is disaster at the opposite pole from love. "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." The language is taken from wild beasts. The fact of the Galatians being thus warned may be explained partly by their excitable Celtic temperament. They are warned of what they might expect the consequences to be. None would come off victors, but they would be consumed one of another. In such biting and devouring there is a large consumption of time. There is distraction from useful work. There is sometimes the consumption of means in litigation. There may be the consumption of life in brawls. There is always the consumption of good feeling, and, along with that, there is the consumption of the richer elements of the spiritual life.

II THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT.

1. The Christian rule is walking by the Spirit. "But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." The apostle calls attention to a point to which he advances in the subject he has in hand. This is laying down the Christian rule as between the flesh and the Spirit. In the flesh, or our depraved nature, there is lust or desire for sinful gratification in some form or another. How are we to be delivered from this, so that it shall not be fulfilled? The way is positively to follow the leading of the Spirit. The idea is not that we are to follow the tendencies of our renewed nature. That is missing the personal aspect of the leading. The Spirit, indeed, renews the nature, and excites within it holy desires which seek for gratification. But the Spirit gives personal guiding, especially in and by the reason and conscience in connection with the Word. And as a Guide he is all-sufficient. He is an internal Guide. He throws all the light that we need upon the character of desires and actions, upon the path of duty. And he affords timeous guidance. For whenever we are disposed to turn from the straight path to the right hand or to the left, it is then that we hear his voice behind us, saying," This is the way, walk ye in it.

2. The Christian rule is founded on a contrariety between the flesh and the Spirit. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would." The lust excited within the flesh is against the desire excited by the Spirit; the desire excited by the Spirit is against the lust excited within the flesh. This conflict of desires is necessary. For the flesh and the Spirit are contraries. They represent depraved self and God. They are as far apart as light and darkness. What is true of the one, then, cannot be true of the other. What the one moves toward in desire, the other necessarily moves against. Of this conflict of desires we are conscious in our own experience. When the Spirit impels to good, the flesh opposes; when the flesh impels to evil, the Spirit opposes. Thus in two ways we cannot do the things that we would. And we have in this conflict of desires, as free beings, to determine whether the Spirit or the flesh shall have the dominion of our hearts.

3. The Christian rule excludes regulation by the Law. "But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the Law." The Spirit is an nil-sufficient Guide. His regulation renders unnecessary all other regulation. He regulates within, and that is better than outward regulation. He regulates in connection with all circumstances that arise, and that is better than having the rule to apply for ourselves. He is a timeous monitor, warning when the danger arises, and that is better than being dependent on memory.

4. There is contrast in the manifestations of the flesh and the Spirit.

(1) The works of the flesh. We are to understand manifestations of depravity, and concrete manifestations as distinguished from abstract qualities. Even when the abstract word is used, it is in the plural, with the effect of giving it a concrete character; not the feeling of wrath, but separate exhibitions of wrath; not the feeling of jealousy, but acts or workings of jealousy.

(a) What they are. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these." Before enumerating them the apostle describes them as manifest, i.e. easily distinguishable or glaring. It may be pointed to as a proof of depravity that vocabularies have more words descriptive of forms of sin than words descriptive of forms of holiness. Under the fruit of the Spirit he gives a list of nine. But under the works of the flesh his list extends to fifteen, properly sixteen. And the word translated "which" implies that he did not profess to give an exhaustive list it would have been easy for him to have added other instances. This comparison is confirmed by the relative number of words for sins and graces employed in Scripture.

(a) Sins of uncleanness. "Fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness." The second is the generic word; the first describes a special form; the third describes a special aggravation, namely, open disregard of propriety. There is a sad prevalence of these sins still; it can only be said that they have been made more to hide their head.

(b) Illicit intercourse with the unseen world. "Idolatry, sorcery." What is illicit in idolatry is the use of images to represent the unseen powers. What is illicit in sorcery (literally, "pharmacy") is the use of drugs, potions, and other things, with the idea that they can influence the unseen powers to produce love or hatred, prosperity or adversity. It can be said that this class of sins has almost disappeared with the diffusion of Christianity.

(c) Breaches of charity. "Enmities." This is the generic word; including not only the graver, but all breaches of charity. "Strife, jealousies." In strife the variance may be slight; in acts of jealousy there is more deep-seated variance. "Wraths, factions." The former describes outbursts of anger. The latter describes deliberate and concerted compassings of selfish ends, especially by means of intrigue. "Caballings" some translate it, "cabal" being made up of the initials of an English ministry in the reign of Charles II, who were credited with sacrificing principle to place. "Divisions, heresies." The former may only be of a temporary nature. Heresies, by which we are to understand not heretical opinions, but rather their embodiments in heretical sects, are divisions of a decisive nature. There is conveyed the idea of complete separation from the Church of Christ. Hence what is said of the heretic that he is condemned of himself, i.e. in cutting himself off he has carried out the extreme sentence on himself. "Envyings, murders." The latter is omitted in the Revised translation, against the manuscripts, and against the form of classification followed by the apostle under this head. The former is want of love to our neighbour in his property; the latter is want of love in that which is most precious to him.

(d) Sins of intemperance. "Drunkenness, revellings." The first is the generic word; the second brings in a special association, viz. joviality. The special point of view is to be noticed here. There are some who lay the blame of intemperance on the manufacture of drink, on facilities for its sale, on the customs of society. And it does bear a relation to these things. But the apostle goes to the root of the matter, in tracing it to the depravity of the human heart. Drunkenness and revellings are works of the flesh, manifestations of alienation from God. The advantage of this point of view is that it points to what can be the only effective remedy, viz. a change of heart through the operation of the Spirit. "And such like." He could have mentioned others. We may suppose that those are named which it was important for the Galatians to note. We can see that some of them would be connected with their temperament, which was neither melancholic nor phlegmatic, and also with their surroundings. We are not all inclined to sin in the same form or forms. That has a dependence on idiosyncrasies and surroundings. But we have all the same depraved heart for which to be humbled before God, and against which to pray.

(b) What they entail. "Of the which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they which practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." He is very emphatic in his warning of the Galatians. He had forewarned them when with them. Again he forewarns them. He acted on the principles enunciated in Ezekiel: "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore, hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul." What the apostle, in the spirit of these words, says, is that they which are in the habit of doing such things shall certainly be punished. Their very characters unfit them for the kingdom of God. Moreover, they are rebels against the government of God; and as such they must be dealt with. Their punishment is represented as exclusion from the inheritance which otherwise they would have gained.

(2) The fruit of the Spirit. We are to understand the result of the workings of the Spirit. Fruit is applied here not to concrete manifestations or works, but to abstract qualities from which works proceed. It is not said that the fruit of the Spirit is manifest. Qualities are not so conspicuous as works, and especially spiritual qualities. The apostle refers us to qualities in the spiritual, not because he regards works as unimportant, but because qualities must so much be taken into account in estimating their works, Fruit paints to organic unity. The works of the flesh are confused and conflicting. One lust contends with another for the mastery. But the fruit of the Spirit is like well-formed fruit. All is consistent. And one grace by its growth does not take from another grace, but contributes to the richness and beauty of the whole.

(a) What it is. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love." This stands at the head of the list as comprehending or carrying with it all the rest. This is a characteristic result of the Spirit"s working. The apostle beseeches by the love of the Spirit. And we are told of the love of God, i.e. apparently the love which constitutes the very essence of God, being shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost given unto us. Therefore we need not be surprised at the apostle connecting the Spirit, first, with the imbuing, dyeing deep of our nature with love. "Joy, peace." These two go together, not as good dispositions, but as feelings which always accompany good dispositions. With the former we associate movements, thrills; with the latter we associate repose. God is infinite Love, and therefore he is infinite Joy and Peace. And our being, through the Spirit, pulsating with his, now he sends a thrill of joy through us, and now he introduces his own calm. Oh what a joy in what God is! What a height of ecstasy does it admit of! And what a calm too in what God is! It takes away all the feverishness of sins and quiets us to the very depths of our being. And ever, as love animates us as it animates God, does the thrill pass through us, and the calm come into us, expelling doubt and fear and all restlessness of spirit. "Long-suffering, kindness, goodness." These three go together. The first is bearing with others for their good. It is that which marks the outgoing of the Divine love toward us as sinners. And therefore it is fitting that it should be reflected in us. Love (not only in God, but in all beings), suffereth long," and, it is added, "is kind." The word translated "kindness" seems to point to delight in men as our fellow-beings. God delights in us as beings whom he has made. He feels kindly disposed toward us, as a father does toward his children. And so are we to delight in others for what they are, especially as having come from God, wearing a noble nature. And we are to feel kindly disposed toward them, wishing especially that, as they have a noble nature, they may not fail of having a noble character. The word translated "goodness" seems to point to a disposition to benefit others, extending to all forms in which they can be benefited. The highest form of goodness is when we are impelled to help others to live well. "Faithfulness, meekness, temperance." The first is having such a love for our neighbour that we would not injure him by breaking our promise to him. God is a Rock, while infinite tenderness, and there should be something of the rock in us, that dependence may be placed on us in the various relations of life. Meekness is required when wrong has been inflicted on us. It especially points to us having the command of our feelings under wrong. Temperance is self-command. It has come to have a special reference to our having the command of our appetites. When temperance is born of worldly prudence or of self-reliance it is not what it should be. It is only real and beautiful and everlasting when it is produced by the Spirit, when it is the outcome of a changed heart.

(b) What it does not entail. "Against such there is no Law." The apostle might have extended his list. He would have us think not of these only, but of all such, and think this regarding all such, that against them there is no Law. If these things are in us, then the Law can never be adverse to us. We shall be removed beyond the condemnation of all Law. That is his way of saying that we shall be blessed. We shall be blessed in the very possession of these dispositions and feelings. We shall be blessed in our enjoying the smile of God.

1. Christians are being delivered from the flesh. "And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof." At a past period, in idea, they crucified the flesh. That idea is now being carried out into fact. There is a deadening, a slow and painful crucifying going on in the flesh. Its passions are being depleted of their heat; its lusts are being depleted of their force. The conflict is still going on; but the Spirit is gaining triumphs over the flesh, and there is promise of the Spirit gaining a complete triumph, of the flesh with all its inclinations to sin being annihilated.

2. The Christian rule re-enforced. "If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk." If the life of the Galatians had depended on the Law, then their first and imperative duty would have been to have submitted to circumcision; and their duty after that would have been to have subjected themselves to the whole discipline of the Mosaic ordinances. But, as they were in the better position of depending entirely for their life on the Spirit, it was their duty to take the rule of their life simply from him.

3. The Christian rule is applied to vain-glory. "Let us not be vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another." Vain-glory is glorying in what we do not have, or in what we have in a way that is not real or according to a false standard. The spirit of the practice is sufficiently brought out in the language hero. There is a provoking, literally a calling forth, to the field of contest. As the result of the trial, some are filled with a sense of their importance as superior in strength or in agility, in birth or in wealth, in culture or in honour. And others are filled with envy of those who are thus superior. Jut as we are not to glory in fancied possessions, so we are not to glory in possessions as though we had bestowed them on ourselves, or with an exaggerated idea of their importance. That would be glorying in what had not foundation in reality. "But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." Let us glory in what God is, and let us glory also in what God has bestowed upon us. Let us glory especially in having a covenant standing before God, and in covenant grace which has passed into our characters. That is having a foundation of reality for our glorying. R.F.

Vers. 13-15.

Liberty and not licence.

I THE DANGER. St. Paul was no antinomian. No Hebrew prophet ever insisted more strenuously on the necessity of righteousness than did the champion of justification by faith. With him freedom from the bondage of Law is not release from the obligations of duty. If tedious ceremonial observances are discarded, eternal principles of morality are only exalted into the higher supremacy. If we are not required to shape our conduct according to rigid rules, we are thrown back on principles of wider bearing and more absolute necessity. But there was danger that this should not be fully recognized. New-fledged liberty is tempted to take strange flights. This is an inevitable peril accompanying an undoubted boon. For fear of it many have dreaded to grant the liberty. But such policy is shortsighted and cowardly. The danger is itself the condemnation of the old bondage. The worst indictment against slavery is that it makes men servile. Unwise parents, who impose needlessly irksome home restraints, are preparing for their children a terrible peril when the coveted liberty is at length necessarily attained. The compressed spring is sure to open with violent energy.

II THE CAUTION. How shall the danger be avoided? St. Paul points out the means.

1. Admonition. Let men see clearly the two sides of life. While some dwell exclusively on Law, others confine themselves too much to the mere fact of liberty. Much gospel preaching is dangerous from its one-sidedness. In preaching "liberty to the captives," let us not forget to preach also that" the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" in offering the blessings conferred by Christ as the Saviour, let us not neglect to set forth claims made by him as the King.

2. Instruction. Liberty requires light. The captive may be led in darkness; the freeman must see where to turn his footsteps. Ignorance may be the mother of the devotion of spiritual slaves, but knowledge is necessary for the devotion of free men.

3. High principle. It is only the spiritually minded who are fit for spiritual liberty. We are only able safely to use our release from the servitude of Law when we willingly put on the yoke of service one towards another. The unselfish man is the one man who can use without abusing the privilege of the free man. He who has Christian charity joined to his Christian liberty will fulfil the essential principles of the Law while exulting in deliverance from its crushing constraints. W.F.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye have been called to liberty - From sin and misery, as well as from the ceremonial law. Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh - Take not occasion from hence to gratify corrupt nature. But by love serve one another - And hereby show that Christ has made you free.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

VERSE 13. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

In other words: "You have gained liberty through Christ, i.e., You are above all laws as far as conscience is concerned. You are saved. Christ is your liberty and life. Therefore law, sin, and death may not hurt you or drive you to despair. This is the constitution of your priceless liberty. Now take care that you do not use your wonderful liberty for an occasion of the flesh."

Satan likes to turn this liberty which Christ has gotten for us into licentiousness. Already the Apostle Jude complained in his day: "There are certain men crept in unawares. . .turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness." (Jud 1:4.) The flesh reasons: "If we are without the law, we may as well indulge ourselves. Why do good, why give alms, why suffer evil when there is no law to force us to do so?"

This attitude is common enough. People talk about Christian liberty and then go and cater to the desires of covetousness, pleasure, pride, envy, and other vices. Nobody wants to fulfill his duties. Nobody wants to help out a brother in distress. This sort of thing makes me so impatient at times that I wish the swine who trampled precious pearls under foot were back once again under the tyranny of the Pope. You cannot wake up the people of Gomorrah with the gospel of peace.

Even we creatures of the world do not perform our duties as zealously in the light of the Gospel as we did before in the darkness of ignorance, because the surer we are of the liberty purchased for us by Christ, the more we neglect the Word, prayer, well-doing, and suffering. If Satan were not continually molesting us with trials, with the persecution of our enemies, and the ingratitude of our brethren, we would become so careless and indifferent to all good works that in time we would lose our faith in Christ, resign the ministry of the Word, and look for an easier life. Many of our ministers are beginning to do that very thing. They complain about the ministry, they maintain they cannot live on their salaries, they whimper about the miserable treatment they receive at the hand of those whom they delivered from the servitude of the law by the preaching of the Gospel. These ministers desert our poor and maligned Christ, involve themselves in the affairs of the world, seek advantages for themselves and not for Christ. With what results they shall presently find out.

Since the devil lies in ambush for those in particular who hate the world, and seeks to deprive us of our liberty of the spirit or to brutalize it into the liberty of the flesh, we plead with our brethren after the manner of Paul, that they may never use this liberty of the spirit purchased for us by Christ as an excuse for carnal living, or as Peter expresses it, 1Pe 2:16, "for a cloak of maliciousness."

In order that Christians may not abuse their liberty the Apostle encumbers them with the rule of mutual love that they should serve each other in love. Let everybody perform the duties of his station and vocation diligently and help his neighbor to the limit of his capacity.

Christians are glad to hear and obey this teaching of love. When others hear about this Christian liberty of ours they at once infer, "If I am free, I may do what I like. If salvation is not a matter of doing why should we do anything for the poor?" In this crude manner they turn the liberty of the spirit into wantonness and licentiousness. We want them to know, however, that if they use their lives and possessions after their own pleasure, if they do not help the poor, if they cheat their fellow-men in business and snatch and scrape by hook and by crook everything they can lay their hands on, we want to tell them that they are not free, no matter how much they think they are, but they are the dirty slaves of the devil, and are seven times worse than they ever were as the slaves of the Pope.

As for us, we are obliged to preach the Gospel which offers to all men liberty from the Law, sin, death, and God’s wrath. We have no right to conceal or revoke this liberty proclaimed by the Gospel. And so we cannot do anything with the swine who dive headlong into the filth of licentiousness. We do what we can, we diligently admonish them to love and to help their fellow-men. If our admonitions bear no fruit, we leave them to God, who will in His own good time take care of these disrespecters of His goodness. In the meanwhile we comfort ourselves with the thought that our labors are not lost upon the true believers. They appreciate this spiritual liberty and stand ready to serve others in love and, though their number is small, the satisfaction they give us far outweighs the discouragement which we receive at the hands of the large number of those who misuse this liberty.

Paul cannot possibly be misunderstood for he says: "Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty." In order that nobody might mistake the liberty of which he speaks for the liberty of the flesh, the Apostle adds the explanatory note, "only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." Paul now explains at the hand of the Ten Commandments what it means to serve one another in love.

Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our apostle having finished the former part of the chapter, which contains an exhortation to stand fast in that liberty which Christ had purchased for them; he now enters upon the second part of it, namely, to caution them against abusing of their Christian liberty, and by no means to apprehend or suppose as if they were thereby freed from all obligation to serve God or man, in the duties particularly required of them.

"Brethren, says he, ye are called unto liberty, that is, to the enjoyment of evangelical liberty, which consists in a freedom from the obligation of the ceremonial law, and the curse of the moral law: use it then so as not to abuse it; use it neither to sin nor scandal; not to sin, to allow yourselves the least liberty in indulging any carnal lust, or sinful affection, nor yet to scandalize the weak, who at present scruple the forsaking of circumcision, and the rest of the ceremonial rites; Use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but in love serve one another."

Learn hence, 1. That our liberty and freedom, purchased for us by Christ, doth not dissolve any tie or obligation which we lie under either to God or man; the yoke of duty is very consistent with our Christian liberty.

Learn, 2. That one of the great occasions of the sins we commit in the course of our lives, is the too free use of our Christian liberty: the using our liberty to the utmost pitch and extent of that which we call lawful, is the occasion of our running into that which is certainly sinful. Religion most certainly allows us all reasonable liberty in the gratification of our natural appetites and passions; but all excesses and immoderate liberties are forbidden by religion. And accordingly one good rule for securing ourselves from falling into sin, in the using our Christian liberty, is this, namely, that in matters of duty, we should rather take too little of our liberty than too much.

For instance, prayer and almsgiving are indispensible duties; but how oft we should pray, and how much we should give, is not positively declared; in this case to pray very frequently, and to give alms very liberally and largely, is our wisdom and duty; no damage will come by doing too much, but both damage and danger will accrue by doing too little.

Learn, 3. That it is not sufficient, in order to the right use of our Christian liberty, that we do not from thence take occasion to sin ourselves;: but we ought to take care, lest by any indiscreet use of our own liberty, we give offence, and minister occasion of sin and stumbling unto others. This truth is implied in the second injunction, By love serve one another.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another.

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13–15. Ye have been called to liberty. The liberty of children of God. Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. Do not think that because you are free, you are free to do evil. Let not liberty becomes license. But by love serve, etc. But love each other so well that there will be mutual service and helpfulness.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

For

Paul is giving the reason for his words in Galatians 5:12.

you were called to freedom

This can be expressed in an active form. AT: "Christ has called you to freedom" (See: Active or Passive)

you were called to freedom

It is implied that Christ has set believers free from the old covenant. Here freedom from the old covenant is a metaphor for not being obligated to obey it. AT: "You were called to freedom from the old covenant" or "Christ has chosen you to not be obligated to the old covenant" (See: Metaphor)

brothers

See how you translated this in Galatians 1:2.

an opportunity for the sinful nature

The relationship between the opportunity and the sinful nature can be stated more clearly. AT: "an opportunity for you to behave according to your sinful nature" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

the whole law is fulfilled in one command

Possible meanings are 1) "you can state the whole law in just one commandment, which is this" or 2) "by obeying one commandment, you obey all the commandments, and that one commandment is this."

You must love your neighbor as yourself

The words "you," "your," and "yourself" are all singular. (See: Forms of You)

translationWords

call

brother

free

flesh

love

servant

law

command

neighbor

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

13-15.] Though free, be one another’s servants in love.

γάρ gives the reason why the Apostle was so fervent in his denunciation of these disturbers; because they were striking at the very root of their Christian calling, which was for (on condition of; hardly, for the purpose of; see reff.) freedom. Only (make not) (so μή with the verb omitted and an accusative in μή ʼμοιγε μύθους, Aristoph. Vesp. 1179; μὴ τριβὰς ἔτι, Soph. Antig. 577; μή μοι μυρίους μηδὲ δισμυρίους ξένους, Demosth. Php_1. § 19. See more examples in Hartung, ii. 153) your liberty into (or, use it not for) an occasion (opportunity) for the flesh (for giving way to carnal passions), but by means of (your) love, be in bondage (opposition to ἐλευθερία) to one another. Chrys. remarks, πάλιν ἐνταῦθα αἰνίττεται, ὅτι φιλονεικία κ. στάσις κ. φιλαρχία κ. ἀπόνοια ταύτης αἰτία τῆς πλάνης αὐτοῖς ἐγένετο· ἡ γὰρ τῶν αἱρέσεων μήτηρ ἡ τῆς φιλαρχίας ἐστὶν ἐπιθυμία.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. Ὑμεῖς γὰρ ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἐκλήθητε, ἀδελφοί· “For ye were called for freedom, brethren.” Like v. 1 this sentence is transitional. It belongs with what precedes in that it gives a reason (γάρ is causal) for v. 12, but even more significantly in that it is an epitome of the whole preceding argument of the epistle in behalf of the freedom of the Gentile. But it belongs with what follows in that it serves to introduce a wholly new aspect of the matter, the exposition of which begins with μόνον. ὑμεῖς, immediately following ὑμᾶς of v. 12, is emphatic. “Ye, whom they are disturbing, for freedom were called.”

On ἐπί, expressing destination, see Th. B. 2 a ζ; 1Th 4:7, Php 4:10. ἐλευθερίᾳ manifestly refers to the same freedom that is spoken of in v. 1, but being without the article is qualitative. On ἐκλήθητε, cf. on τοῦ καλοῦντος v. 8 and more fully on 1:6. On ἀδελφοί, see on 1:11.

μόνον μὴ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν εἰς ἀφορμὴν τῇ σαρκί, “Only convert not your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh.” μόνον, used also in 1:23, 2:10, Php 1:27, to call attention not to an exception to a preceding statement, but to an important addition to it, here introduces a most significant element of the apostle’s teaching concerning freedom, which has not been previously mentioned, and which occupies his thought throughout the remainder of this chapter. On this word, as on a hinge, the thought of the epistle turns from freedom to a sharply contrasted aspect of the matter, the danger of abusing freedom. So far he has strenuously defended the view that the Gentile is not under obligation to keep the statutes of the law, and though he has not referred specifically to any statute except those that pertain to circumcision, food, and the observance of days and seasons, he has constantly spoken simply of law, or the law, without indicating that his thought was limited to any portion or aspect of it. To men who have been accustomed to think of law as the only obstacle to free self-indulgence, or to those who, on the other hand, have not been accustomed to high ethical standards, such language is (despite the contrary teaching of vv. 5, 6) easily taken to mean that for the Christian there is nothing to stand in the way of the unrestrained indulgence of his own impulses. Of this danger Paul is well aware (cf. Rom 6:1ff. Php 3:17ff. Col 3:1ff.), and beginning with this v. addresses himself vigorously to meeting and averting it. The word σάρξ, previously in this epistle a purely physical term, is used here and throughout this chapter (see vv. 16, 17, 20, 24) in a definitely ethical sense, “that element of man’s nature which is opposed to goodness, and makes for evil,” in which it appears also in Rom., chap. 8; see detached note on Πνεῦμα and Σάρξ II 7, p. 493, and the discussion following 7. For fuller treatment, see Burton, Spirit, Soul, and Flesh, chap. VI, pp. 186, 191 ff. Of any physical association with this ethical sense of the term there is no trace in this passage.

The article before ἐλευθερίαν is demonstrative, referring to ἐλευθερία of the preceding clause, and through it to that of 5:1 and the implication of the whole context. On the omission of the verb with μή, cf. μὴ ʼμοίγε μύθους, Aristoph. Vesp. 1179; μὴ τριβὰς ἔτι, Soph. Antig. 575; μή μοι μυρίους, Dem. 45:13 (cited by Alf.); Hartung, Partikeln II 153; Devarius, De Particulis, Ed. Klotz, II 669; W. LXIV 6; Mar 14:2. Note also the omission of the verb after μόνον, in 2:10. What verb is to be supplied, whether ἔχετε, ποιεῖτε, τρέπετε (cf. Sief. Ell. et al.), στρέφετε or μεταστρέφετε (Rev 11:6, Act 2:19, Act 2:20), or some other, is not wholly clear. The thought is probably not “use not this freedom for, in the interest of,” but “convert not this freedom into.” On the use of είς, cf. Joh 16:20: ἡ λυπὴ ὑμῶν εἰς χαρὰν γενήσεται, and Act 2:19, Act 2:20. ἀφορμή, properly the place from which an attack is made (Thucydides, Polybius), is used also figuratively by Xenophon, et al., with the meaning, “incentive,” “opportunity,” “occasion.” In N. T. it occurs in the Pauline letters only (Rom 7:8, 2Co 5:12, 2Co 5:11:12, 1Ti 5:14) always in this latter meaning, and in the same phrases as in Isocrates and Demosthenes: ἀφορμὴν λαβεῖν, Isoc. 53 A; Rom 7:8, Rom 7:11; ἀφορμὴν διδόναι, Dem. 546:19; 2Co 5:12 (cf. L. and S.). It is best taken here in the sense of “opportunity.” τῆ σαρκί is a dative of advantage limiting ἀφορμήν. The article is probably generic, as clearly in v. 17, and the term is at least semi-personified.

ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης δουλεύετε ἀλλήλοις· “but through love be servants one of another.” This is the apostle’s antidote alike to the harmful restrictions of legalism and the dangers of freedom from law: love, expressed in mutual service. On what he means by ἀγάπη, see on v. 6 and detached note on Ἀγάπη, p. 519. The phase of love here emphasised is clearly that of benevolence, desire for the well-being of others, leading to efforts on their behalf. δουλεύω, generally meaning “to yield obedience to,” “to be in subjection to” (see 4:8, 9), is evidently here employed in a sense corresponding to that which δοῦλος sometimes has (cf. on 1:10), and meaning “to render service to,” “to do that which is for the advantage of.” Having urgently dissuaded the Galatians who were formerly enslaved to gods that are not really gods from becoming enslaved to law (4:9, 5:1), he now, perhaps with intentional paradox, bids them serve one another, yet clearly not in the sense of subjection to the will, but of voluntary devotion to the welfare, of one another. Cf. Rom 12:14-21, Rom 12:14:15, 1Co 11:25-33. See also Mar 9:35, Mar 10:43, where, however, διάκονος, not δοῦλος, is used. The present tense of δουλεύετε reflects the fact that what Paul enjoins is not a single act of service, nor an entrance into service, but a continuous attitude and activity.

Ἀλλά as often (cf. Rom 1:21, Rom 2:13, etc.) introduces the positive correlative of a preceding negative statement or command (German, sondern). The article before ἀγάπης is demonstrative, either referring to v. 6, or, perhaps, in view of the distance of this v., to that love which is characteristic of the Christian life. Cf. 1Co 13:3, 1Co 14:1, Rom 12:9. διά, as in διὰ χάριτος, 1:15, marks its object as the conditioning cause, that the possession of which makes possible the action of the verb, rather than as instrument in the strict sense. Cf. note on διά in 1:1.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For [γαρ] . Well may I speak thus strongly of those who thus overthrow your whole polity and enslave you, for ye are called for freedom.

Unto liberty [επ ελευθερια] . Better, for freedom. See on unto uncleanness, 1Th 4:7. Epi marks the intention.

Only [μονον] . For a similar use of the word, qualifying or limiting a general statement, comp. 1Co 7:39; Gal 2:10; Phi 1:27; 2Th 2:7.

Brethren. Rev. rightly puts the word at the end of the verse. The position is unusual. It would seem as if Paul intended to close this severs letter with an assurance that the "foolish Galatians" were still his brethren : They are addressed as "brethren," chapter Gal 4:12; Gal 5:11; Gal 6:1. Comp. 1Co 16:24.

Use not liberty [την ελευθεριαν] . Use is not in the Greek. We may supply hold or make or turn.

Occasion [αφορμην] . See on Rom 7:8. Almost exclusively in Paul. To the flesh [τη σαρκι] . See on Rom 7:5. The flesh here represents lovelessness and selfishness. Christian freedom is not to be abused for selfish ends. Paul treats this subject at length in 1Co 8; Rom 12:25, 26. Individual liberty is subject to the law of love and mutual service. Comp. 1Pe 2:16.

By love [δια της αγαπης] . Or through love, through which faith works (ver. 6).

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.