Trinity 14
Gal
5:16-24
9/6/26
During my second year as a pastor at
Zion Lutheran in Lyons, IL, a man showed up for Bible class one Sunday. I was,
of course, happy to have a visitor with us. But it soon became clear that this
individual had come with an agenda. He was looking to contradict what I was
saying, and in the conversation that ensued he asserted that as a Christian he
no longer sinned.
Now I knew all about how at the time
of the Reformation, various Anabaptist groups made this claim. I knew about
John Wesley’s theology of “entire sanctification” and how this had generated
the Holiness movement seen in the Nazarene and Pentecostal traditions where
people make the claim that they no longer sin. But never in my life had I met a
person who stood before me and actually said this about himself. And he didn’t
just say it. He obviously believed it.
Now in the discussion that ensued I
used various biblical texts to make the theological argument that this is just
not possible. I probed his claims as I tried to show him how he was often
simply redefining things in order to avoid calling them sin. Eventually Bible
class ended and the man left. It was now time for the Divine Service.
We were using what is now Setting
One in the hymnal – the order of service that we use in the first half of the
church year. After the invocation, I spoke the words of 1 John, “If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And in that
moment I realized that I had been so taken aback by the man’s claim – so thrown
off my game - that I had been unable to think of the most direct and obvious
biblical answer – a verse that I said every Sunday morning!
In our text this morning, the
apostle Paul addresses the reality that sin presents an ongoing struggle in our
life. We have not yet been completely freed from its power. And as John reminds
us, we are fools to say that don’t sin.
But Paul also urges us to recognize the power of the Spirit in our lives
as we live in Christ. We are not helpless against sin. Instead, the Spirit leads and enables us to
live in the ways of the Lord.
Two verses before our text, Paul had
just said, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your
freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one
another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.’” This
language about freedom and law calls to mind what Paul had been dealing with in
the first four chapters of the letter.
In fact, the apostle had just used the word freedom
as he concluded that discussion with a final stark exhortation. He wrote “For freedom
Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again
to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you
accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify
again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep
the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be
justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”
The problem at Galatia was very simple. Paul had
proclaimed the Gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ there
during his first missionary journey. The Gentiles – those who were not Jews –
had believed in Christ. But then other teachers had come to Galatia. These men
were Jews like Paul. They said they too proclaimed the Gospel. But they told
the Galatians that Paul had not given them the whole story.
Yes, they needed to believe in Jesus Christ. But if
they wanted to be part of God’s people, they needed to do what God’s people the
Jews had always done. They needed to do the law of Moses – the Torah. They
needed to be circumcised and keep the law. That meant observing the food laws
of Leviticus, keeping the Sabbath, and the festivals of Judaism such as the
Passover.
When Paul learned about what was happening, he could
hardly believe it. Instead of his usual statement of thanksgiving at the
beginning of a letter, he launched into the matter by saying, “I am astonished
that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of
Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another
one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of
Christ.”
The apostle recognized that to say that salvation was
by faith in Christ plus doing the law of Moses meant that Christ was not
enough. This was a denial of the Gospel. As he had told Peter at Antioch, “yet
we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but
through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in
order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the
law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
The law was not a means to justification before God.
As Paul said in chapter two, “for if righteousness were through the
law, then Christ died for no purpose.” Instead, Paul warned that all who
thought doing the law was part of being saved would find themselves under God’s
curse. He said, “For all who rely on
works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be
everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law,
and do them.’”
The law can only bring a curse because we can’t do
it. And Paul left no doubt about why this is the case. He wrote, “But the
Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by
faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” As fallen
people, sin is a power from which we can’t free ourselves. It prevents us from
living and doing in holy ways.
But Paul announces in Galatians that God has redeemed
us from sin and the curse. He has freed us through his Son, Jesus Christ. In
the previous chapter the apostle described what God has done as he said,
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his
Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were
under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” This redemption
occurred on the cross. For as Paul explained, “Christ redeemed us from the
curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is
everyone who is hanged on a tree’”
Now, Jesus Christ who rose from the dead has called
you to faith through the work of his Spirit. The Spirit has made you a new
creation in Christ. Through faith in Christ you are justified before God. And
the life of faith in Christ is one that sets you into motion. Paul says just
before our text, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”
You’ve been freed from sin in your standing before
God. But this doesn’t mean you’ve been completely freed altogether from the
power of sin. This is the reality the
prompts Paul to say, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do
not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through
love serve one another.”
You live in the now of what God has done for you in
Christ. But you also live in the not yet of the continuing presence of the
fallen nature – the old Adam. Paul says in our text, “For the desires of
the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the
flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the
things you want to do.” “The flesh” in our text is not our created body. Rather
when set in opposition to the Spirit, it indicates the continuing presence of
sin’s power within us. As Paul told the Romans, “For I do not do the good I
want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do
not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
Paul acknowledges this reality in our text. But he
does so in order to explain what he has just said: “But I say, walk by the
Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” The apostles
says that when we walk by the Spirit we will certainly not gratify the
desires of the flesh – he employs the strongest negative possible in Greek in
order to say this. Why is it necessary to walk by the Spirit? Because the flesh
– the sinful nature – presents an ongoing challenge.
Now let’s be very clear on this point. Paul is no
defeatist. He thinks the Spirit of Christ really does give us the ability to
live according to God’s will. But he also knows that this is not something that
just happens automatically. Instead, it is something that we must make our
goal. It is something to which we must apply ourselves. As he says in our text,
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”
Being called to faith, and living in the faith are
very different. You had nothing that you could contribute in coming to faith.
As the Small Catechism says, “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in
Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.” It was God’s gracious act by his Spirit
that gave you the ability to believe in Christ.
But now that you are in Christ, the life of faith is
something which involves you. When speaking about this, the Lutheran
Confessions have no problem using the word “cooperate.” To be sure, it is the
Spirit who leads and supplies the power that makes life in Christ possible. But
as new man you are able to – in fact you must – apply yourself to living in
God’s ways.
The apostle states in our text that it’s not hard to
tell who is running the show. He writes, “Now the works of the flesh are
evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity,
strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,
envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.”
For the most part, these sins fall into two broad
categories. Paul emphasizes the importance of sexual conduct in the Christian
life. It’s not hard to understand why. The sexual union is foundational to
marriage for which man and woman were created. It has the power to create life
and families. And because it is central to all these things the devil seeks to
use sex to pervert and destroy. The other large grouping involves how sin
creates division, strife, and anger. Sin harms relationships and poisons the
life we share together.
Paul tells us that these sins are a dire threat. He
writes, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things
will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Now he is not talking about particular
instances of these sins. After all, we can all find a number of things in this
list of which we have been guilty. But more literally we can translate this as
“those who are doing such things.”
Paul describes a pattern of regular behavior. He refers to those who
give themselves over to living in these sins. Such a life drives out the Holy
Spirit and leads to damnation.
You will find things in this list that appear at
times in your life. But because you are in Christ you recognize these things as
being sinful. And so, you repent. You confess them as sin and return to the
Means of Grace through which Christ gives you forgiveness and strengthens
faith. In doing so, you are also going to the source which alone can enable you
to bring forth those things in the second list in our text.
Paul goes on to say, “But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is
no law.” The Spirit of Christ causes us to live in ways that were true of
Jesus. Our life in Christ is one that acts in love toward the neighbor. It
knows the joy of sins forgiven and of being a child of God. It is patient
waiting for God’s timing, and patient with others. It acts in kindness and
gentleness towards those in need. It is self controlled as it refuses the
temptations of sin.
The metaphor of fruit describes something which is
naturally produced. And this is because only the Spirit can prompt and cause
these things in us. But at the same time because you are in Christ the Spirit’s
work means that you are new man. You are able to recognize these things as the
goal of your behavior. They become things that you are seeking to do. Or as
Paul says at the end of our text, “And those who belong to Christ
Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
No, you will never completely cease to sin. Until you
die or Christ returns “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the
desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each
other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” Because we face
this challenge Paul tells us, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will
not gratify the desires of the flesh.” In Christ you are a new man through
the work of the Spirit. The Spirit of Christ brings forth the fruits of the
Spirit, and helps us as we seek to live in ways that please God.
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