New Testament
Galatians
Galatians is Paul's passionate defence of grace against the idea that we must earn God's acceptance. Its message is freedom: you are put right with God by faith in Christ, not by your own performance, so live like the loved child you now are.
Galatians 5
The Flesh And The Spirit
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
Galatians 5:22-23The Fruit of the Spirit
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
More about Galatians
Galatians is Paul with the gloves off. It is the most heated of his letters, written quickly and urgently to churches in the region of Galatia that he himself had founded. After he left, other teachers had arrived insisting that to be truly accepted by God, these new believers must also take on the full weight of the Jewish law, beginning with circumcision. Paul saw this as nothing less than an attack on the gospel, and he says so in the strongest terms. He does not even open with his usual warm thanksgiving. He gets straight to the point, astonished that they are deserting the message of grace so soon.
The heart of his argument is simple and life-changing: we are put right with God by trusting in Christ, not by earning it through our performance. If we could be made acceptable by keeping rules, Paul says, then Christ died for nothing. This matters because it cuts at one of the deepest instincts of the human heart, the urge to prove ourselves, to deserve our place. Paul will not allow it. He insists that the Christian life begins and continues by faith and grace, and that adding our achievements to the cross does not strengthen the gospel but destroys it. Freedom, he argues, is the whole point.
And yet this is not freedom to do as we please. Paul knew that argument would come, so he heads it off. The freedom of grace, he says, is freedom to walk by the Spirit (5:16), and when we do, the Spirit grows something in us that no rule-keeping could ever produce. He lists it like fruit on a tree: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (5:22-23). These are not achievements we manufacture by trying harder. They are what naturally grows in a life surrendered to God's Spirit, which is a very different thing from gritted-teeth religion.
At the centre of it all is one of the most personal sentences Paul ever wrote. He says he has been crucified with Christ, and yet he lives, no longer himself but Christ living in him, and the life he now lives he lives by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him (2:20). That is the secret of the whole letter. The Christian life is not us straining to be good enough for God, but Christ living his life through us. If you have ever felt the exhausting pressure to earn your acceptance, Galatians is freedom on a page. You are loved already. Now live from that, not for it.
Questions about Galatians
- What is the main message of Galatians?
- Galatians is Paul's passionate defence of grace. The churches in Galatia were being told that faith in Christ was not enough and that they must also keep the Jewish law to be fully accepted by God. Paul answers with a resounding no. We are put right with God through trusting Jesus, not through our own performance or rule-keeping. The letter's great word is freedom: freedom from the impossible burden of earning God's approval. It is one of the most liberating books in the Bible, especially for anyone who has felt that they must somehow be good enough before God will love them.
- What is the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5?
- In Galatians 5:22-23 Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The word 'fruit' is deliberate. These qualities are not things we manufacture by sheer willpower; they grow naturally in a life that is yielded to God's Spirit, the way fruit grows on a healthy tree. Paul sets this against the works of the flesh, the destructive patterns that come from going our own way. The contrast is the whole point. The Spirit produces in us what religion by effort never can, and the result is a changed character, grown rather than forced.
- What does 'I have been crucified with Christ' mean in Galatians 2:20?
- In Galatians 2:20 Paul says he has been crucified with Christ, and yet he lives, but it is no longer he who lives, but Christ who lives in him. He is describing what happened to him when he came to faith. His old self-reliant life came to an end, and a new life began, one powered not by his own efforts but by Christ living within him. The life he now lives, he says, he lives by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him. It captures the whole message of the letter: the Christian life is Christ living through us, received by trust, not achieved by striving.
Topics in Galatians
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