Paul’s Direct Warning: To Become Circumcised Is to Be Divorced from Christ

5:2 Now Paul turns up the heat with a direct address—Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you. No longer using Scripture, Paul states forthrightly: if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. The options are clearly laid out: either circumcision without Christ or Christ without circumcision. While Paul has referred to the “circumcision group” (2:12) as those who are opposed to the “truth of the gospel” and has particularly through the references to Abraham alluded to circumcision as a divisive concern in the Galatian congregation, this is the first time he has named the issue and tackled it.

Paul’s warning not to be circumcised reads in the Greek as something that the Galatians are tempted to do but have not yet done. The sign of circumcision was equated with being a Jew (cf. 2:7–8). Therefore Paul considers that in the context of belief in Christ, circumcision bears a different meaning depending on whether or not one came into the faith already circumcised. If one was already a Jew, then circumcision counted for nothing (cf. 5:6). It should be the same for Gentiles. Paul clearly accepted that circumcised Jews were part of the faith (2:7–8), but he would not accept that a Gentile believer could receive circumcision and remain in Christ. To become circumcised after faith in Christ is to accord significance to circumcision and so to deny Christ.

5:3 Paul testifies again … to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. To be circumcised after conversion to Christ was to add the law and deny the sufficiency of Christ (cf. 2:21). Paul is confident that if Gentile believers enter Judaism through circumcision they will discover that they have lost the unfurled life that is now theirs in Christ. They will find themselves operating within a different and less satisfactory worldview.

It is noteworthy that Paul does not say to his readers that he left law observance because he found it ineffective. He asserts that already he and they have through Christ all that could ever be hoped for. To add law is to change the focus of their life and so lose.

5:4 Paul reduces the situation to its essentials. Charging that the intention of those contemplating circumcision is that they are trying to be justified by law, Paul says that this means they no longer have Christ. By turning to law, they are attempting to receive from the law what they already have in Christ—righteousness—and so they effectively cut themselves off from Christ (cf. 4:19). The choice is the Galatians’ to make. They are in Christ and in God’s grace as they are. They will not lose the benefit of Christ through remaining as Gentiles, as the agitators are asserting. But if they choose to adopt law they will fall from grace, for they will have chosen to refuse God’s gift of Christ’s self-offering (cf. 2:21, “if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing”). In the face of the Galatians’ fascination with the law Paul has repeatedly argued that justification comes through Christ and faith, not law (2:16, 21; 3:6, 8, 11, 21, 24).

The parallelism in which Paul places Christ and grace resonates with the opening of the letter, where Paul spoke of his gospel as “the grace of Christ” (1:6). Grace is a central way to explain God’s response to and relationship with humanity. God gives freely and Paul’s gospel is a witness to the grace (gift) of God in Christ’s death (Gal. 2:21).

5:5 Paul distinguishes the path the Galatians are considering from the one they are on. As believers they live in hope of righteousness, a hope that is theirs by faith … through the Spirit. Paul brings together several strands of his argument: the Spirit, which is the evidence that the promise made to Abraham is given to Gentiles (3:14), is the means by which righteousness is given; righteousness is given to those of faith (2:16; 3:6–9), who are those who have received the Spirit (3:2). But, perhaps in recognition of the Galatians’ legitimate and realistic recognition that they do not yet display the traits of righteous people, Paul also nuances his case. He speaks of the righteousness for which we hope, in contrast to his earlier statement that believers are justified through the faith of Christ (2:16). In this he possibly demonstrates respect for the Galatians’ concern that their faith in Christ has not yet made them righteous. After all, the Galatian Christians would not have been attracted to law observance unless they had felt some deficiency in their Christian lives. In response Paul declares that his converts can expect righteousness only through his gospel, which is why they and he may now wait eagerly. The outcome is assured for those “in Christ.”

The phrase “the righteousness for which we hope” can be taken to mean either hope that has righteousness as its object or hope that righteousness produces. Commentators are divided over this matter, depending on whether or not they want to harmonize this phrase with statements in the letter that present righteousness as a present state for believers. For those who think Paul is consistent on this issue the second option is chosen (so Matera, Galatians, p. 182). The first option is the choice of those who think that since righteousness refers both to behavior and standing before God, there is an “already—not yet” aspect to Paul’s view of righteousness for believers (e.g., Burton, Galatians, p. 278). It is also possible that even in those places where Paul is usually interpreted as saying that righteousness is a present reality (2:16 and 3:21), he may be speaking of righteousness as a dynamic state that has begun and will continue to grow. Paul’s subsequent advice about the character of living by the Spirit (5:16) would suggest that he understands righteousness as the new reality into which believers have been transferred and by which they now are being shaped.

5:6 In Christ … neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The shape of the believer’s life is defined by being in Christ, which is what Paul affirmed earlier in 3:28. The power the believer has is the power of faith, which is effective through love. Paul sets in semantic parallelism being “in Christ” and “faith working through love.” This is another way of saying that it is the faith of Christ that justifies (2:16; see Introduction). As believers share in Christ’s faith, so they share in his love (cf. 2:20). Believers put on Christ (3:27) and so become as Christ, the one who is the epitome of faith working through love.

The phrase “faith expressing itself through love” can also be translated “faith made effective through love,” depending on whether the Greek verb “expressing” (energoumenē) is read as a middle or a passive; “made effective” is the middle form. Since Paul has used this word with the middle sense in Galatians 2:8 and 3:5, it is likely that here it also has that meaning. The verse would then mean that faith comes to expression by means of love. This points to what Paul has said elsewhere: Christ is the one who loves (2:20), and believers in Christ become as Christ (3:27) through participating in the faith of Christ (2:16). For Galatian believers concerned about righteousness and willing to turn to the law as a guarantee this statement hits the mark. Paul states that faith is not abstract but a way of life that is made effective, visibly and daily, through love. Paul has in view the love of Christ in which believers participate through being “in Christ.” This love will be manifest in love of neighbor (5:13).

Additional Notes

5:2 It is rare for Paul to use his name within a letter. Usually his name occurs only in the opening and sometimes at the closing of his letters.

5:3 The word declare, marturomai, could also be translated “protest.”

Both the rabbis and later Christians regarded circumcision as the step that obliged one to obey the entire law. The rabbis say: “A proselyte who accepts all commandments of the Tora except for one is not accepted; R. Yose son of Rabbi Yehuda says: even (if it concerns) a detail of the niceties of the Scribes.” (t. Demai 2.5; quoted from P. J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990], pp. 88–89). Justin Martyr continues Paul’s understanding that circumcision entails obeying the whole law (Dial. 8 [ANF 1.198–99]).

5:4 The words alienated (katērgēthēte) and have fallen away (exepesate) appear in the Greek in the aorist tense. Some scholars read this as a statement of what has already happened in the Galatian congregation (e.g., Burton, Galatians, p. 276; Betz, Galatians, p. 261; Longenecker, Galatians, p. 228). Others take the aorist in a proleptic sense (so Matera, Galatians, p. 182; Bruce, Galatians, p. 230); M. Zerwick writes: “the relative clause has a conditional sense ‘if you seek justification in the law’ and the aorist as it were dramatically represents the consequence as a historical fact, so as to insist the more on the imminence of the danger run by those who are being warned” (Biblical Greek [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1990], para. 257). Perhaps Paul’s aorist usage has both a past and a proleptic sense. Paul charges that his readers have already discounted grace through their temptation to follow the law, but the fact that he still feels it is worth his while to try to dissuade them means that hope remains.

5:5 In Greek the word righteousness is the same as the word “justified” in v. 4—dikaiosynē.

5:6 The Greek phrase ti ischuei oute translated neither … has any value conveys the sense “there is no strength.”

Paul, Not the Rival Evangelists, Is on the Galatians’ Side

5:7 Paul now changes his tactic somewhat and begins to use an approach common to persuasive speech—friendship through shared antipathy. Paul places himself and the Galatians in one camp against an opposition seeking to separate the Galatians from their goal. Paul affirms that in the past his readers were heading toward the goal in exemplary fashion—you were running a good race. They had been obeying the truth. The sense conveyed by the word “obey” is of having accepted a way of life and been willing to be shaped by it. But someone has stepped into their path and driven them off course—who cut in on you? Paul uses both singular (5:10) and plural (5:12; cf. 1:7) to refer to his opponents and never names them.

Paul uses the athletic imagery of running for living the Christian life (see also Gal. 2:2; Rom. 9:16; 1 Cor. 9:24–27; Phil. 2:16; 3:14; 2 Thess. 3:1). Athletic imagery was used frequently also in the ancient philosophers and expressed the idea of intense focus on the goal of the philosophical life. Philo speaks of “athletes of virtue” (Good Person 13.88 [Colson, LCL]). The image continues in Christian discourse. John Chrysostom speaks of raising Christian children as “rearing … athletes for [God]” (On Vainglory and the Upbringing of Children 90; quoted from M. Wiles and M. Santer, eds., Documents in Early Christian Thought [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975], p. 223).

The tense of the verb “cut in” (enekopsen) is aorist, which expresses a past action. As he indicated in 4:19, so here Paul considers that the Galatians have lost ground with Christ. Burton writes: “That Paul uses the aorist (resultative) rather than the present (conative) indicates that he is thinking of what his opponents have already accomplished in their obstructive work” (Galatians, p. 282).

This is the first time Paul has spoken of the truth as something to be obeyed, although he has elsewhere equated the gospel with the truth (2:5, 14) and his preaching as truth telling (4:16). Paul has presented himself as one who obeys God (in 1:10a the NIV translates “obey” as “win … approval”).

5:8 Contrasting their previous obedience to the truth with the persuasion by which they are now being affected, Paul clarifies that God, the one who calls (cf. 1:6), is not the source of the influence the Galatians are experiencing. With the image of the race in the background, Paul is saying that his converts are now off course, following the wrong call.

5:9 The saying “a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” is found also at 1 Corinthians 5:6. It appears to have been common in the ancient Greek-speaking world to use yeast as a symbol for evil’s powerful corrupting capacity (cf. Mark 8:15). In this case Paul is warning that even though there may be only a few advocating circumcision their influence could damage the nature of the Galatian churches.

5:10 Even though throughout most of the letter it is clear that Paul doubts his Galatian readers’ good sense, here he appeals to it in an attempt to encourage them to trust him and his gospel. Paul writes that he is confident in the Lord that they take no other view than the one he is presenting. Continuing to place himself alongside his readers, Paul depicts them as under the influence of a confuser (cf. 1:7).

The phrase in the Lord occurs frequently in Paul’s letters, along with the phrase “in Christ.” Paul sees himself as living in the Lord, in Christ. He reminds the Galatians that this is the basis of his confidence. The inference is that those who are contending for the Galatians’ confidence are not in the Lord (cf. 5:8).

With the same confidence, Paul declares that the one confusing them will pay the penalty. This is another way for him to assert that he and his gospel are on God’s side. Those who present an alternate gospel stand under the judgment of God. Paul assures his converts that if they do as he suggests everything will work out well and the troubles will pass.

5:11 After implicitly asking his readers to trust him because he trusts them, Paul must clear up any grounds for their mistrust of him. He responds to rumor—probably stemming from the “confusers”—that he has been preaching circumcision—by pointing out the ludicrousness of such a rumor. If he were preaching circumcision he would not be being persecuted. Identifying his gospel here, as elsewhere, with the cross, Paul argues that his difficult position arises from the fact that he does not preach circumcision but the offense of the cross. Paul’s message was that a human named Jesus, who was humble, obedient, and accepting of death on a cross, had been raised by God and now was the one before whom “every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11). Such a message was absurd to people in general (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18) and was scandalous to Jews. Yet the cross was the defining moment in God’s salvific dealings with humanity. Paul says this another way in 2:21: “if justification could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.” If he were to advocate circumcision for Gentiles he would be nullifying the death of Christ. Paul asks the Galatians, his brothers, to consider how preposterous such a thought is.

As he does elsewhere, Paul takes opportunity to defend himself against any lurking accusations about his credibility and to express boldly the radical position in which he stands. He is one whose proclamation brings him persecution. Paul’s uncomfortable position in the world is confirmation of the truth of his message and the integrity of his life.

Acts states that the Jews persecuted Paul (e.g., Acts 26:21). Paul himself mentions the Jews as his persecutors (2 Cor. 11:24). The gospel would have been abhorrent to Jews, as it had been to Paul (Gal. 1:13; Phil. 3:6). Paul also includes other “servants of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:23) among his adversaries. On account of his law-free gospel for Gentiles, he experienced active opposition from some Jewish Christians. It behooved Jewish Christians to advocate circumcision so that they could interact with Gentile Christians without risk of being persecuted themselves (6:12; see notes on 4:17 and cf. Phil. 3:2–3). Paul may be including in his reference to persecution the fact that his cherished Galatian churches are being negatively influenced by the rival evangelists.

Paul regarded the cross as the pivotal point of his message and so as synonymous with the gospel (cf. 1 Cor. 1:17). The “message of the cross” is the saving power of God (1 Cor. 1:18), and thus those who oppose the gospel are “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18). This identification of his gospel with the cross was a scandalous move, for the cross signified for the ancients the punishment due to the worst of society’s offenders. Even the modern symbol of the electric chair does not match what Justin Martyr calls the “despised and shameful mystery of the cross” (Dial. 131 [ANF 1.265]).

5:12 Confident that he has his readers on his side at last, Paul expresses the outrageous wish that the rival evangelists would let the knife slip on themselves. It is a darkly brilliant sentiment, showing that just as the result of his gospel is freedom, the result of his opponents’ is the worst form of impotence. Paul plays with a concept similar to the one he used in 4:9, where he describes the life to which the Galatians were being attracted as akin to their former life of slavery to impotent and grasping masters. According to Deuteronomy 23:1 any male whose penis is cut off shall not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. Paul’s wish that the rival evangelists emasculate themselves may then also include a wish for a graphic demonstration that their message is alienated from God’s plan.

Paul’s use of the designation agitators for his rivals betrays more of his negative regard for them. This term is used elsewhere in the NT to signify political agitation (Acts 17:6; 21:38). Paul may be tarring his opponents with the same brush with which they tarred him, that of lacking integrity and agitating for some sort of political advantage.

Additional Notes

5:7 See V. C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif (NovTSup 16; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967), esp. pp. 136–38.

5:8 The Greek word for persuasion (peismonē) occurs only here in the NT, and outside the NT it occurs rarely. Longenecker notes that later extrabiblical writings use the word with negative connotations to mean “empty rhetoric” (Galatians, p. 231). Paul may be using the word with this nuance, thereby denigrating his rivals’ message as empty in distinction from his, which is “the truth.”

5:10 In the Greek the word krima, here translated “penalty,” is lit. “judgment.” The word translated “pay” (bastasei) has the sense of “bearing” or “enduring.”

5:11 Given that Paul states that his coming to faith in Christ was also a call to preach to Gentiles as Gentiles (1:16), it is doubtful that by still preaching circumcision Paul means that in his early Christian days he preached circumcision. The Acts account of Paul circumcising Timothy (16:3) is problematic. As mentioned in the Introduction, many scholars now tend to deal with discrepancies between Paul’s self-presentation and the account in Acts by giving priority to Paul’s own words. Even if the incident in Acts 16 did occur, it is to be noted that since he was the son of a Jewish mother, Timothy was effectively a Jew and not a Gentile.

Donaldson suggests that Paul is speaking of his former life as an advocate for Judaism to the Gentiles; the sense is: “In my former life in Judaism I admit that I preached circumcision to the Gentiles; but then God called me to preach Christ crucified, and I preach circumcision no longer” (Paul and the Gentiles, pp. 282–83).

Paul’s Gospel Offers Freedom and Right Living through the Spirit

5:13 Completing the wish of the previous verse, Paul declares that rather than listening to the “agitators,” the Galatians should recognize their true call. Paul has earlier described the Galatians’ Christian life as the result of a call (1:6; 5:8). Now he says they were called to be free. Freedom is one of the chief ways Paul has described the life in Christ that he preaches (2:4), and it provides a rich descriptive concept for his understanding of the gospel (4:22–31). To his Galatian readers it should be more than plain by now that, from Paul’s perspective, freedom is synonymous with the message he preaches (5:1).

But Paul recognizes that his understanding of freedom may differ from that of others. For him it is clear that the freedom of the gospel is not the freedom of self-indulgence but the freedom to serve one another. For those with philosophical or religious sensibilities, then as now, Paul’s statement is a truism. Self-indulgence is slavery of a sort, and the capacity and opportunity to love is freedom.

The command to be slaves to each other is, however, a strikingly dramatic way of expressing the nature of the love believers are freed to demonstrate. Paul may refer to slaves as a contrasting metaphor to freedom, but the concept also resonates with his self-understanding (1:10; 2 Cor. 4:5), in which he imitates his Lord, who took the form of a slave (Phil. 2:7). The life of believers is focused on emulating the life of Christ—the one who, as Paul puts it earlier in the letter, “loved me and gave himself” (2:20). In this way, not through circumcision, believers’ freedom is correctly embodied.

A discussion of the practical possibilities of the religious disposition for which Paul has been arguing now follows. Most of Paul’s letters contain a similar section, often called the “paraenetic” or ethical section of the letter. In this segment of Galatians Paul turns from his negative attack on the advocates of circumcision to a positive presentation of the life in Christ. This section also responds to any concern the Galatian believers would have about how to know what is ethically right. Since this concern helped make them open to the influence of the rival evangelists, it is important for Paul to articulate the ethical benefits of life in Christ.

The desire for personal and political freedom was as strong in the ancient Mediterranean world as it is now. Philo wrote: “freedom is the noblest of human blessings” (Good Person 139 [Colson, LCL]). Plato understands freedom as one of the virtues of the soul along with self-restraint, justice, courage, and truth (Phaedo 115a). The philosophers thought much about how one could be free, especially about how one could be free of the internal passions and impulses that enslave each human being. Philosophies promised happiness and freedom through conversion to different approaches to life. Philo wrote: “slavery then is applied in one sense to bodies, in another to souls; bodies have men for their masters, souls their vices and passions. The same is true of freedom; one freedom produces a security of the body from men of superior strength, the other sets the mind at liberty from the domination of the passions” (Good Person 17 [Colson, LCL]). Epictetus said:

I can show you a free man.… Diogenes was free. How did that come? It was not because he was born of free parents, for he was not, but because he himself was free, because he had cast off all the handles of slavery, and there was no way in which a person could get close and lay hold of him to enslave him. Everything he had was easily loosed.… If you had laid hold of his property, he would have let it go rather than followed you for its sake; if you had laid hold of his leg, he would have let his leg go. (Arrian’s Discourses 4.1.152–55 [Oldfather, LCL])

In identifying his message with freedom Paul was appealing to an aspiration prevalent in his culture, at least among those of a philosophical nature or blessed with the time to reflect.

From what the extant texts tell us, the ancient world sought freedom within the law rather than freedom as the opposite of law. Judaism thought of law abiding as the road to freedom, as did Jewish Christianity (cf. Jas. 1:25; 2:8–13). This was also true of non-Jewish ancients. Aristotle wrote: “it is preferable for the law to rule than any one of the citizens” (Pol. 3.11.2 [Rackham, LCL]); and “the law is wisdom without desire” (Pol. 3.11.5; ibid.). Freedom was to be found in the context of law. Dio Chrysostom defined freedom “as the knowledge of what is allowable [by law and custom] and what is forbidden, and slavery as ignorance of what is allowed and what is not” (Fourteenth Discourse: Slavery 1.18 [Cohoon, LCL]).

This general attitude toward law may go some way to explaining why Paul is comfortable speaking of law in the same context as freedom (5:14). The freedom in Christ is not a freedom from orderliness or communal life or concern for others. Rather, Paul’s vision of the Christian life is one that includes the highest interpersonal standard, that of serving others. His argument is specifically against the Mosaic law as a necessary requirement for Gentile believers. The freedom Paul extols is not anarchic but anti-Torah.

5:14 Paul seeks to co-opt the power that the concept of law has with his readers, saying that he can sum up the law in a single command. He wishes to assure the Galatians that his gospel incorporates the entire law as far as it concerns ethics. But his gospel has incorporated the law in simplified form—a “single command”—for the law is fulfilled not through works but faith. And the faith through which the law is fulfilled works through love (5:6), that is, through being “in Christ.” Therefore the law is not an addition to faith but is completed through faith.

It seems paradoxical that after spending so much time arguing for freedom from the law, Paul should be concerned to explain how the law could be fulfilled. Yet, for two reasons it may have been important for Paul to make this statement. First, if it is the case that the Galatians were concerned with how to fulfill the demands of justice in their new law-free religious context, Paul may consider it prudent to frame a response in which he addresses this concern. Second, his statement gains the upper hand over the troublemakers’ claim to be the ones to have correctly contextualized belief in Christ. The rival evangelists considered that believers in Christ had to become law-observant Jews. Paul’s conviction is that to be a believer in Christ is to be a recipient of the promises given by God to the Jewish people but now extended to all. Having the law written on the heart was one of the promises (Jer. 31:33), and Paul may be claiming that believers in his gospel know the fulfillment of this promise.

The words summed up are a translation of the Greek word peplērōmati, often rendered “fulfilled” (see Rom. 8:4; 13:8, where it speaks of fulfilling the law). There is no precedent in Jewish texts for using the word “fulfill” or “complete” in relation to the law (so Barclay, Obeying the Truth, p. 138). In this statement, then, Paul expresses his unique vision that in Christ God’s purposes are realized, even the purposes previously articulated in the law.

Love for others is defined as the same as love for self: love your neighbor as yourself. Just as there is no escaping the necessity and wholesomeness of loving oneself, so in the Christian community there is no escaping the necessity and wholesomeness of loving others.

Paul’s directive to “serve one another in love” can also be translated “become slaves of one another.” The place of the slave was a position to be eschewed in the ancient world. Rare indeed was the philosopher or religious writer who would use the image of slave in a positive light, even metaphorically. Aristotle wrote: “one who is a human being belonging by nature not to himself but to another is by nature a slave” (Pol. 1.2.7 [Rackham, LCL]). Paul describes the kind of love that can fulfill the law as producing the kind of life required of a slave—a life lived entirely for others.

5:15 Paul then approaches the nature of Christian freedom from the negative point of view, saying that if the Galatians keep on biting and devouring each other they will be destroyed by each other. This image works on the basis of understanding believers as indentured to other believers (having become slaves to each other) by all being in Christ. The ethical life based on being “in Christ” works because of the organic nature of Christian community: if they bite and devour one another, they too will be destroyed.

5:16 Paul directs his readers to live by the Spirit. The Greek word translated “live” (peripateite) is literally “walk.” Paul uses this word elsewhere when speaking of living the new life in Christ (Rom. 6:4), a life that is conducted by means of the Spirit (Rom. 8:4). The word suggests continuance, progress, and daily attention. Paul commands his readers to avoid gratifying the desires of the sinful nature by means not of law observance but of living by the Spirit.

The Greek for “sinful nature” is literally “flesh” (sarx). As Paul invests this term with all that is against the Spirit, the translation “sinful nature” largely hits the mark. The word “desires” is singular in the Greek, expressing the sense that existence in the flesh is an existence characterized by desire. Philosophical and religious thinkers in the ancient world understood that desire was intrinsic to human nature and that it was a trap from which it was necessary to be freed. Desire means one makes one’s happiness or peace hostage to achieving or receiving what one desires, whether it be money, position, or another person. Epictetus said: “For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire” (Arrian’s Discourses 4.1.175 [Oldfather, LCL]). Xenophon has Socrates say:

Some are ruled by gluttony, some by fornication, some by drunkenness, and some by foolish and expensive ambitions which rule cruelly over any men they get into their power, as long as they see that they are in their prime and able to work; so cruelly indeed, that they force them to bring whatever they have earned by working and to spend it on their desires. But when they perceive that they are unable to work because of age, they abandon them to a wreched old age and they try to use others as their slaves.” (Economics 1.23; trans. Pomeroy, p. 111)

The Jewish thinker Philo advocated circumcision for “the excision of pleasure and all passions” (On the Migration of Abraham 92 [Colson and Whitaker, LCL]). A Christian thinker subsequent to Paul expresses a similar understanding of the goal of the Christian life: “One must live without city or home; one must have nothing of one’s own—no friends, no possessions, no livelihood, no business, no company; one must renounce human learning and prepare the heart to receive the impressions of divine instructions” (Basil, Letter 2; quoted from Wiles and Santer, Documents in Early Christian Thought, p. 212).

In distinction from Greco-Roman philosophical and Jewish approaches to the problem of desire, Paul understands that freedom from enslavement to desire comes through living by the Spirit. Life “in Christ” involves the will of the believer: a conscious and continual turning away from that which is opposed to the Spirit. Even after faith in Christ believers must combat the desire to be self-serving, to live for their own comfort rather than to open themselves to the expansive love required of and available to those in Christ.

5:17 Paul portrays the human dilemma as one in which even the best of intentions are thwarted by the limitations of human nature. Paul’s description of the problem is that people do not do what they want. Unlike philosophical and religious systems that advocate a rule of life that might gradually free people from enslavement to desire, Paul advocates human will (v. 16) in cooperation with the transforming work of the Spirit.

Paul’s advice is an acknowledgment that there are daily struggles for those “in Christ”; that ethical dilemmas and failures remain part of believers’ lives. Paul does not promise immediate transformation or sanctification, but he does offer hope that while the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, so the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.

5:18 Earlier in the letter Paul affirmed the Galatians’ experience of the Spirit (3:2–5), which, along with his connecting of the promise to Abraham with the promise of the Spirit (3:14), suggests that the Galatians’ self-understanding was as those who were led by the Spirit. The sentence structure in verse 18 also suggests that the Galatians regarded themselves as those who knew the Spirit. The consequence of this fact is that they are then not under law. The subtext is Paul’s assertion that they do not need to accept the rival evangelists’ offer of law in order to live well. The plain sense is that there are two contrasting and mutually exclusive ways of approaching the ethical choices in life: through the guidance of the Spirit or through the guidance of the law.

Additional Notes

5:13 In the Greek the term translated sinful nature is “flesh” (sarx). “Flesh” is not always a term laden with negative theological connotations. It can mean “body” (e.g., 4:13, where Paul speaks of his “illness” [NIV] or “weakness of the flesh”). The Christian life is lived “in the body/flesh” (2:20). Yet the term is also used to indicate that which is opposed to the Spirit ([“human effort”] 3:3; [“ordinary way”] 4:29). The latter sense is the one Paul intends in this verse, making the NIV’s translation “sinful nature” appropriate.

For a good overview of the position of slaves in the ancient Mediterranean world, see D. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 1–49.

5:14 The statement that the entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not unique to Paul. This command from Lev. 19:18 is found both on the lips of Jesus (Matt. 22:40) and Rabbi Akiba: “R. Aqiba said, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself … is the encompassing principle of the Torah’ ” (Genesis Rabbah 24.7 on Genesis 5:1, quoted from J. Neusner, Genesis Rabbah, vol. 1 [Atlanta: Scholars, 1985], p. 270). Paul shared this understanding and cites it here and in Rom. 13:9.

5:18 Paul used the phrase “under law” previously as a way to describe life without Christ (3:23; 4:5). Elsewhere he equates being led by the Spirit with being children of God (Rom. 8:14).

Vices from Which the Spirit Can Provide Freedom

5:19 So as to concretize the contrast between the flesh (sinful nature) and the Spirit, Paul says that the flesh results in certain acts. The phrase “acts of sinful nature” has a counterpart in 5:22—“fruit of the Spirit.” Vice and virtue lists such as the one Paul provides in 5:19–26 were a common feature of philosophical and religious writings in ancient times, and Paul has chosen to list obvious actions that indicate what he calls a sinful nature—actions that result in damage to self and to relationships. As Sanders notes, “proper behaviour is self-evident” (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 513). Several of the actions Paul lists are ones that Jews typically characterized as Gentile vices (see these listed in 1 Pet. 4:3). Perhaps in response to the “agitators’ ” presentation of the need for law so as to avoid such Gentile vices, Paul declares that the remedy is life in the Spirit.

The first three actions concern sexuality. Sexual immorality refers to illicit sexual relations. This was an issue in Paul’s churches, for on several occasions he warns against this (1 Thess. 4:3; 1 Cor. 6:18). Impurity appears also to refer to sexual immorality, perhaps in reference to violence in connection with sexual activity. Paul connects it with “sexual immorality” and “debauchery” in 2 Corinthians 12:21. Debauchery means “wantonness” or “licentiousness.” In this context it suggests sexual licentiousness or abandon.

5:20 Although Paul wants to separate his converts from law keeping, he maintains the characteristic Jewish antipathy toward idolatry (cf. 1 Cor. 10:14). Paul knows there to be one God (Gal. 3:20) who cannot be worshiped in idols. Witchcraft has the sense of “magic” and the use of drugs for magical purposes, which might be called black magic. This practice was regarded as offensive and dangerous by Jews (see Isa. 47:9; also Exod. 7:11, 22) and others in the Greco-Roman world. Plato writes about the dangers of “sorcery and magic” and prescribes punishments for wizards who injure others by means of sorcery (Laws 11.933). Plato warns also against “that class of monstrous natures who … in contempt of mankind conjure the souls of the living and say that they can conjure the dead and promise to charm the Gods with sacrifices and prayer” (Laws 909b; trans. Jowett). Under the Roman emperors sorcery became a punishable offense. Hatred indicates “hostile feelings and actions” (so BAGD, p. 331). The vices listed in the rest of the verse identify manifestations of hatred. Discord has also the meaning of strife or contention; jealousy or envy (cf. Rom. 13:13) suggests, as Burton puts so well, “the eager desire for possession created by the spectacle of another’s possession” (Galatians, p. 307); the word for fits of rage connotes intense anger. Selfish ambition is a difficult word to translate but bears the sense of self-seeking, strife, and contentiousness. Dissensions refer to divisiveness in a group (cf. Rom. 16:17); and factions (cf. 1 Cor. 11:19) to groups who hold to their opinions aggressively and divisively.

5:21 The list continues by identifying envy, which is similar to “jealousy” and carries the sense of malice. Drunkenness can also be read as “drinking bouts” (cf. Rom. 13:13). In connection with orgies the word suggests the drunken abandon that was a feature of ancient life at certain festivals.

Paul ends with a warning, as I did before. His current warning is consonant with what he said previously and would undercut any criticism from the rival evangelists that Paul’s law-free gospel was a license for vice or that he had not adequately taught his converts about ethical behavior. Paul states emphatically his conviction that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul’s choice of the word “inherit” resonates with the theme of inheritance, the understanding of which has been a battleground between himself and his opponents. Until this point Paul has stressed that his converts can be assured of inheriting the promise to Abraham by virtue of being in Christ. Now he reshapes the theme somewhat. Inheritance can be lost through acting in accordance with the flesh (the “sinful nature”), which is another way of saying that it is necessary to remain “in Christ” to share in the inheritance. The flesh is that which is opposed to the Spirit (5:17), and the Spirit is the promise to Abraham realized among Gentile believers in Christ (3:14). To live in accordance with the “sinful nature” is to exclude oneself from the inheritance.

Additional Notes

5:19 The Greek word translated “acts” is lit. “works” (erga), a word that Paul used in the phrase “works of law” (2:16) and contrasted to the Spirit (3:2) and faith (3:5). The word has a negative connotation for him. This is the only occurrence of the phrase “works of flesh” (acts of the sinful nature) in Paul’s writings. We should not be too quick to understand it as equivalent to “works of law,” particularly since the works listed are largely prohibited by the law. Paul’s later understanding that the law provided an opportunity for sin (Rom. 7:7–25) is not in view here.

5:21 The word live is a rendering of a Greek present participle (prassontes) that means “those who are given to practice.” The warning is directed at those who consciously and repeatedly indulge in these vices.

Unlike the gospel writers, Paul does not often use the phrase the kingdom of God. On occasion he uses it in ethical contexts (1 Cor. 6:9–10; Rom. 14:17) but also in other settings (1 Cor. 4:20; 15:24, 50; 1 Thess. 2:12). This is the only use of the phrase in Galatians. Perhaps Paul is reminding his readers of his original preaching or responding to the “confusers” by using a term they had introduced into the Galatian churches.

The Fruit of the Spirit

5:22 Paul now turns to the fruit of the Spirit. The designation of the manifestations of the Spirit as “fruit” speaks volumes about Paul’s understanding of the ways of life he has been contrasting throughout the letter. Life lived in the flesh (“sinful nature”) is a life of work (“acts”), a life that strives and strains for the protection of self and often consequently for the domination of others. Life in the Spirit, on the other hand, blossoms, and the word “fruit” gives the sense that the characteristics Paul lists in verses 22 and 23 are the result of a healthy rooted state such as comes from living in Christ. Note that “fruit” is in the singular, and so the following qualities are various aspects of the generative power of the Spirit. Most of these aspects of the fruit of the Spirit are characteristics Paul elsewhere attributes to God. For Paul the fruit of the Spirit generates godly characteristics in the believer.

The first characteristic is love, which Paul has identified with Christ (2:20) and with the life of those in Christ (5:6, 14). The next is joy, which is not the same as happiness. Joy is not a state in which most of the circumstances of one’s life are satisfactory, but rather is life rooted in the Spirit (Rom. 14:17) and in God (Rom. 15:13). Peace, like joy, stems not from the external circumstances of one’s life but from the God of peace (Rom. 15:33; 16:20; Phil. 4:9). Patience has the sense of forbearance and is a characteristic of God (Rom. 2:4; 9:22) in which believers share (cf. 2 Cor. 6:6). Kindness is another feature of God’s character (Rom. 2:4; 11:22) that should characterize the people of God (2 Cor. 6:6). Goodness has the sense of “generosity” or “uprightness.” Paul uses it as a high compliment (Rom. 15:14) and recognizes that only through God’s power can believers exhibit such a virtue (2 Thess. 1:11). Faithfulness is another feature of God’s character (1 Cor. 1:9; 10:13; 2 Cor. 1:18; 1 Thess. 5:24; 2 Thess. 3:3). It is also one of the chief characteristics of Christ (2:16; 3:22).

5:23 Gentleness has the meaning of “humility,” “courtesy,” or “considerateness.” It is the most appropriate and constructive attitude to have in relating to others (cf. Gal. 6:1). Paul speaks of Christ as having this quality (2 Cor. 10:1). Self-control—the mastery of one’s own desires, or, as Plato puts it “a man being his own master” (Republic 430e; trans. Jowett; cf. Republic 390b)—was a major ethical goal in the philosophies of the ancient Mediterranean world. Xenophon defends Socrates as a man of self-control in word and deed and extols self-control as “the foundation of all virtue” (Memorabilia 1.5.4 [Marchant, LCL]). Paul also recognizes it as a worthy goal (cf. 1 Cor. 7:9; 9:25).

The fruit of the Spirit cannot be produced or prohibited by law. Life in Christ will result in character that fulfills the law apart from the law (cf. 5:14).

5:24–26 This is so because those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Such belonging is the means by which believers can live righteously. Earlier Paul said that he understood himself to “have been crucified with Christ” so that it was no longer he who lived but Christ who lived in him (2:19–20). This sharing in Christ’s death results in justification (2:21). Justification results in a new status in God’s sight and a new way of behaving. Through belonging to Christ (cf. 3:29) believers participate in the death of Christ and so, as Paul puts it in Romans, “we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we might no longer be slaves to sin” (Rom. 6:6).

Paul now ties together what he has been saying: since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Paul has directed believers to “live by the Spirit” (cf. 5:16) and claimed that they are “led by the Spirit” (5:18). Now he shifts the emphasis by stating that the basis of their life is that they are those who “live by the Spirit.” On this basis he calls them to be guided by the Spirit. By means of the Spirit the Galatian believers are to enact the life they already have in the Spirit. The NEB translates it this way: “If the Spirit is the source of our life, let the Spirit also direct our course.”

Finally, Paul warns his readers not to become conceited, provoking and envying each other. At first this exhortation appears to belong more properly with 5:19–21. It may be, however, that Paul emphasizes these vices after his exhortation to keep in step with the Spirit because they are the most detrimental to a Spirit-led life. Conceit can be detrimental to participation in the Spirit (cf. Paul’s warning against conceit, Phil. 2:3). Provocation is contrary to an essential feature of life in the Spirit—unity (cf. 1 Cor. 12:4–13). Envy can also be the basis of disruptive, aggressive, and destructive behavior. These three traits may be particular problems for people who are contending for recognition of their spiritual gifts and for the upper hand in spirituality (cf. 1 Cor. 12–14). Paul includes himself in his exhortation to keep in step with the Spirit and in the following exhortation (v. 26).

Additional Notes

5:23 The statement against such things there is no law has a parallel in Aristotle. In Politics he writes of those who are exceptionally virtuous that “against such people there is no law” (3.13.2 [1284a]; my translation). Longenecker suggests that this sentiment may have had a proverbial status in the ancient world to express “actions that surpass all legal prescriptions and are therefore beyond any legal accounting” (Galatians, p. 264).

5:24 Dying to passions was a goal of the ancient philosophies. We find it also in writings of Philo. For instance, Philo commends “the light of Isaac—the generic form of happiness, of the joy and gladness which belongs to those who have ceased from the manner of women [Gen. 18:11] and died to the passions” (On the Cherubim 8 [Colson and Whitaker, LCL]). See also Philo, On Husbandry 17. Plato writes:

This then is why a man should be of good cheer about his soul, who in his life has rejected the pleasures and ornaments of the body, thinking they are alien to him and more likely to do him harm than good, and … after adorning his soul with no alien ornaments, but with its own proper adornment of self-restraint and justice and courage and freedom and truth, awaits his departure to the other world, ready to go when fate calls him. (Phaedo 114–115a [Fowler, LCL])

The goal Paul presents is not peculiar to him, although the means—dying with Christ—is uniquely Christian.

5:25 Unlike the word translated “live” in v. 16 (lit. “walk”), the Greek word zōmen translated live in this verse lit. is “live.” The nuance is somewhat different in each case: in v. 16 the word gives the sense of continual active participation in the Spirit; in v. 25 it indicates the basis of one’s life.

The phrase keep in step with the Spirit contains the verbal form of the word “elements” (stoichōmen) encountered in 4:3 and 4:9. In its verbal form it has the sense of walking in a straight line and so of conducting oneself appropriately. The same verb occurs in Gal. 6:16, being translated as “follow.” Here it means walking, by means of the Spirit, in the path set by the Spirit.