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Thoughts of a saint and slave
by Sam Isaacson
If you did not read the introduction in last week's article I would really encourage you to read it, but otherwise let's read this well-known Galatians passage together:
'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. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.' (Galatians 5:19-24)
Flesh, the Spirit, and the law
Paul's ideas we encountered last week are revisited here; he expands on the effects of living in the flesh before moving back to the Spirit and finally linking it to the law. While there are many truths we could uncover from this text I would like us to begin with only one. Paul felt the need to point out something which may seem redundant: 'against such things there is no law'. I believe that Paul felt it necessary to point out the foolishness of religious neatnicks by ridiculing an important part of their logic. I have a Jewish colleague, and I talk to him about Jesus most days. It is his religious opinion that Jesus cannot have been the Messiah because it is documented that Jesus made a paste on the Sabbath, and it is clearly written in something known as the 'oral law' that making a paste is one of the activities which is banned on the Sabbath - the true Messiah would not break so simple a law! The teachers of the law at the time had exactly the same problem; in John 9 we see that the Pharisees were so angry at the suggestion that the Messiah would do such a thing they kicked a homeless, blind man out of the temple grounds! Becoming so stuck into rules, regulations, laws, timetables and so on leads us to become those who not only would miss who Jesus is, but would make us judge him too - it was the studious teachers of the law who condemned God to death on the cross. Let us not become like them.
Works vs. fruit
The second thing I would like us to look at is one interesting difference between 'the works of the flesh' and 'the fruit of the Spirit'; 'fruit' is singular! This might seem like the most elementary of conclusions to draw but I think it is important. The works of the flesh may work themselves out in all manner of different ways; the child molesterer and the angry guy are both displaying works of the flesh, the guy who goes out getting drunk every weekend and the girl who does a bit of gossiping in the staff room are both exhibiting works of the flesh. The tendency in today's society is always to compare ourselves to others who are perceived as 'not as good' as us, but the truth is that pretty much all of us, at some time, exhibit works of the flesh, however that might look with us. In contrast to this there is only one fruit of the one Holy Spirit of the one God. In being 'born again' of the Spirit we begin to take on the family likeness, the wonderful imago Dei, as anyone would do when they are born. God's family likeness happens to be one of 'love, joy, peace,' etc...which works itself out in a very encouraging way. It can sometimes feel that we look down the list of the fruit of the Spirit and think, 'well, I'm doing ok with my joy, and my gentleness is doing ok, but my self-control is really slipping at the moment...' but this is not biblical! if we are seeing evidence of love, joy, peace in our lives then the other aspects of that singular fruit are there present - but we are willingly ignoring them! Let's be encouraged to have the faith that God is working in every aspect of our lives, even (no, particularly!) when He does not appear to be.
The flesh has been crucified
Now this truth here is truly awesome. Paul tells us that the passions of the desires of the flesh have been crucified along with Christ, which brings up an important Old Testament concept. As our first point reprimanded the foolish law-keeping Jews for missing the whole point of the law, Paul concluded this short section by returning to a central Jewish theme - the Passover. We read in Exodus 12 that God allowed the Israelites to take the blood of a lamb and paint it around their doorposts rather than allow their children to die, and this was the final act that enabled their release from slavery, from captivity, in Israel. The substitutionary sacrifice of a lamb meant that the Israelites' slavery was bought at a price that was not their own. Jesus, we are told in John 1:29 and elsewhere, bears the name 'the Lamb of God'; Jesus is our spotless, righteous lamb, who died 'once for all' (Hebrews 10:10) took all our temptation, sin and slavery with him when he died on the cross. Now we are free! Any form of addiction or habitual sin that we are committed to no longer needs to hold us down - all addiction was crucified along with Christ! Let us embrace Jesus' sacrifice, welcome the Holy Spirit and, through demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit together as the body of Christ, receive that redemption from our slavery just as the Israelites did.
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