You are not to do whatever you want
Galatians 5:17 - Let the Spirit of God train you with the Word of God to sin less and obey more.
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“For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”
Galatians 5:17 NIV
Way back in October of 2022 (on Barb’s birthday, coincidentally…) I took a look at the verse just before this one — Galatians 5:16. It’s comforting to know that we’re still writing our daily devotionals over 1,100 days later!
That previous verse was all about walking in the Spirit rather than fulfilling the “lust of the flesh”. Today’s verse explains that “the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh”.
There’s always a conflict going on between the flesh and the Spirit. Our very human fallen humanity desires things that aren’t always good for us, physically or spiritually. As Christians, we should want to live our lives in a way that is pleasing to God. However, the flesh sometimes wins out, and we don’t do the things that we really want to! That’s when we hear that internal voice telling us “You shouldn’t be doing this”, while the flesh is saying “But this feels good!”
This is “living under the flesh” rather than “under the Spirit.” Paul isn’t, however, referring to our human bodies. Our bodies are not the fallen humanity we inherited from Adam. Recall Romans 6:6:
“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—”
Our “old self” was crucified with Jesus and is gone completely. Paul is instead referring to the “inner man”, which has been conditioned to rebel against God by the world, the old nature of living, and the enemy. The influence of the “inner man” will continue to battle with the Spirit until we receive our resurrection bodies!
Paul used the Greek word σάρξ (sarx) for “flesh” in this verse. Sarx has several interesting definitions that may clarify its use in this verse:
the sensuous nature of man, “the animal nature”
without any suggestion of depravity
the animal nature with cravings which incite to sin
the physical nature of man as subject to suffering
the flesh, denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man apart from divine influence, and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God
Both James Montgomery Boice and Martin Luther provide commentary on sarx in this excerpt from Enduring Word:
iii. Boice on flesh, and sarx, the Greek word translated flesh: “When Paul speaks of sarx he means all that man is and is capable of as a sinful human being apart from the unmerited intervention of God’s Spirit in his life… It came to mean man as a fallen being whose desires even at best originate from sin and are stained by it. Thus sarx came to mean all the evil that man is and is capable of apart from the intervention of God’s grace in his life.”
iv. “When the flesh begins to cut up the only remedy is to take the sword of the Spirit, the word of salvation, and fight against the flesh. If you set the Word out of sight, you are helpless against the flesh. I know this to be a fact. I have been assailed by many violent passions, but as soon as I took hold of some Scripture passage, my temptations left me. Without the Word I could not have helped myself against the flesh.” (Luther)
And Charles H. Spurgeon provides us with his usual insightful prose cited in Precept Austin:
THE worst enemy we have is the flesh. Augustine used frequently to pray, “Lord, deliver me from that evil man, myself.” All the fire which the devil can bring from hell could do us little harm if we had no so much fuel in our nature. It is the powder in the magazine of the old man which is our perpetual danger. When we are guarding against foes without, we must not forget to be continually on our watch-tower against the foe of foes within. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” On the other hand, our best friend, who loves us better than we love ourselves, is the Holy Spirit. We are shockingly forgetful of the Holy Ghost, and therein it is to be feared that we greatly grieve Him; yet we are immeasurably indebted to Him: in fact, we owe our spiritual existence to His divine power. It would not be proper to compare the love of the Spirit with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so as even by implication to set up a scale of degrees in love; for the love of the regenerating Spirit is infinite, even as is the love of the redeeming Son. But yet for a moment we will set these two displays of love side by side.
Paul ends this verse with the phrase “so that you are not to do whatever you want.” It is the Holy Spirit at work in us that tries to keep us from doing harm (in the eternal sense) to ourselves, through that constant conflict. John MacArthur writes in Precept Austin about the role of the Holy Spirit:
As John MacArthur says “The Holy Spirit is in every believer (Ro 8:9+) as the Restrainer. The Holy Spirit’s role, yes, to empower you in the direction of righteousness, but also to restrain you from just doing the things that you please. That’s how you lived your life before you were a believer. You did whatever you pleased, and you were going down a path of damnation, because the things that pleased you were sinful things, because they had no recognition of the glory and honor of God. So the Holy Spirit is given to you to restrain those natural desires. God understands that there is fallen flesh, and it has its desires for what it pleases. And God has given us His Holy Spirit to restrain that, so that our lives are changed. It doesn’t mean that we never sin. What it does mean is we don’t always sin. And as you grow spiritually and become more and more like Christ, sin decreases and righteousness increases. The Spirit of God trains you with the Word of God, so that you sin less and you obey more; and that’s spiritual growth. That is the basic diagnosis of the heart and soul of a Christian. There is a war going on there between your fallen sinful flesh that wants what it wants, and the restraining power of the Holy Spirit stopping you from going in that direction.
The lesson? Let the Spirit of God train you with the Word of God to sin less and obey more.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Heartlight had a wonderful prayer from Eldon Degge’s Praying Daily with Paul about walking by the Spirit that is a perfect accompaniment to this verse:
Dear Father, giver of your Spirit,
Help me to walk by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of my flesh. For the desires of my flesh are opposed to the desires of my spirit and to the desires of your Spirit for me. These things set up an opposition within me to keep me from doing what I want. But thank you for letting me know that if I live by the Spirit I do something different than just live by the rules of the law, that in fact I am not under law.
In the name of Jesus I ask you to perfect us, whatever that may take, and give us the grace to endure your renovation process. Amen.