Bible Studies

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INTRODUCTION. Galatians 5:16-25 is one of the most important passages in the Bible, along with Romans chapter 6 and Romans 8:1-14, which shows that Christians are called, enabled, and required to walk with the victory over all sin. This is good news, very good news! No true Christian wants to sin against God. We will be forgiven if we should sin when we repent, but God has called us to walk with the victory over all sin through new-covenant salvation through the all-important atoning death of His Son and the all-important pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

My goal for this present article is to discuss these verses in a rather thorough verse-by-verse manner, but to minimize the details and make this a rather short article. I discussed these verses on pages 195-200 in my book "Holiness and Victory Over Sin: Full Salvation Through the Atoning Death of the Lord Jesus Christ" and in Article #s 1-3 in my "Twenty-Eight Articles on Holiness and Victory Over Sin" on my internet site (Google to Karl Kemp Teaching); these articles are available individually on this Christian article site (click on my name for a listing of my articles on this site).

I am using the New American Standard Bible, 1995 edition. Sometimes I make comments in the middle of quotations using brackets [ ] or double brackets [[ ]] to make them more obvious.

GALATIANS 5:16. "But I say, walk by [or "in," or "after"] the [Holy] Spirit, and you [most certainly] will not carry out the [sinful] desire of the flesh [of the old man who still wants to live in sin]." I'll quote the Amplified Bible: "But I say, walk and live habitually in the (Holy) Spirit - responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit; then you certainly will not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh - of human nature without God." The words "most certainly" or "certainly" are justified by the intensive negative that the apostle Paul used in the Greek.

Paul exhorts his Christian readers to walk by the Holy Spirit on a continuous basis, which we are called, enabled, and required to do, so that we will walk with the victory over all sin. No true Christian wants to leave any room for any sin, knowing, for one thing, that God hates sin. We are dependent on the Word of God and on the indwelling Spirit of God to have the victory over sin. A big part of the way we walk by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in all born-again Christians (Romans 8:9, for example), is to walk in agreement with the Word of God (especially the gospel) by faith.

We will never understand this verse very well if we think (like many Christians do) that "the flesh" equals the physical body here. The Amplified Bible defines the flesh as "human nature without God" here in verse 16. The NIV translated "sinful nature" instead of the flesh here in verses 16, 17, 19, 24, and often. The flesh is frequently contrasted with the Spirit of God in the New Testament (see John 6:63; Romans 7:5, 6; 8:1-14; and Galatians 6:8, for example). To be in the flesh is to be in spiritual death, separate from the Holy Spirit of life.

Born again Christians have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, and we are not in the flesh, but a continuous walk by/in the Spirit is far from being automatic. Even though we have been called, enabled, and required to walk by the Spirit on a continuous basis, we still have the potential to walk in the flesh and do the sinful works of the flesh. Note that the sinful "deeds [works] of the flesh" of Galatians 5:19-21 are not at all limited to sins especially associated with the physical body. The works of the flesh include all sins, and all sin involves the heart/inner man (see Mark 7:15). The sinful "desire of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16) is to do the sinful "works of the flesh."

For born-again Christians to walk in/by "the flesh," which is the equivalent of walking in/by the old man, ought not be; we are called, enabled, and required to walk in/by the Spirit on a continuous basis. In Galatians 5:24 the apostle said, "Now those who belong to Christ have crucified THE FLESH with its passions and desires." In Romans 6:6 he said "our OLD MAN was crucified with [Christ]...that we would no longer be slaves to sin." The Amplified Bible explained "the flesh" to be "Godless human nature" in Galatians 5:24, and the NIV translated "the sinful nature."

The flesh when it is used in a full sense includes the work of demon spirits. We could undoubtedly do all of the sinful works of the flesh that Paul listed in Galatians 5:19-21 without the involvement of demon spirits, but evil spirits can be involved, intensifying the sin problem. This is another reason we must make it a top priority to always walk by the Holy Spirit and not leave any room for sinful works of the flesh. In Ephesians 4:27 the apostle said (in a context of exhorting Christians to walk with the victory over all sin), "do not give the devil an opportunity [literally, "place"]

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