01 Introduction to the Fruit of the Spirit: Understanding Galatians

by Krisan Marotta | Mar 6, 2024 | 01 Podcasts, Galatians

The famous list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23 doesn’t appear in a vacuum. Paul wrote the letter to churches in Galatia who were being pressured by Judaizers, teachers who said Gentile believers must keep the Old Testament law to be fully accepted by God.

In Galatians, Paul argues that we are justified by faith in Christ alone, that the cross solves both our guilt and our deep corruption, and that true moral transformation comes through the Holy Spirit, not through rule-keeping. This introduction explains that background so we can understand what the “fruit of the Spirit” really is and why it stands opposite the “works of the flesh.”

Key Points

Paul wrote to churches he established during his first missionary journey in the region of modern-day Turkey.
His primary purpose in the letter is to correct the teachings of the Judaizers who insisted that Gentile converts must adhere to Jewish law to be saved.
Paul spends most of the letter defending his apostolic authority and arguing that salvation is through faith in Jesus alone.
Paul’s argument unfolds in two parts. We human beings have two big problems that the gospel solves. First, we are guilty before God and one day we will face Him in judgment. Second, we are guilty because by nature we are sinners.
The gospel is incredibly good news because it solves both those problems.
The Judaizers distorted both parts of the gospel message by claiming Jesus alone does not solve our problems, we must also keep the Law.
In Galatians 5 where we find the fruit of the Spirit, Paul refutes the idea that freedom from the law promotes sin.
The Law only changes our external behavior and does not to improve our characters or free us from sin.
However, God gives His Spirit to those who trust Jesus. The Spirit teaches us truth and changes us from the inside out, which is true moral transformation.
In Galatians 5, Paul gives both the negative list of the results of legalism and following our own unredeemed moral choices. And, he gives us the positive list of the kinds of things the Spirit produces in us.

Galatians Overview

The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the churches of Galatia. These are churches in what’s now modern Turkey. Paul founded these churches during his first missionary journey.
When he returned to Antioch, three crisis events occurred:

Jews from Jerusalem arrived teaching that Gentile believers must keep the law in order to be saved. We call this group the Judaizers.
Paul rebuked Peter for no longer eating with Gentiles.
Paul received troubling news from the recently formed churches of Galatia that they had also been troubled by the Judaizers. He wrote this letter of Galatians in response.

In Galatians 1-2, Paul defends his authority as an apostle. He is one of the select few to whom Jesus revealed the gospel. The gospel he preaches is true and it is the authentic gospel of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3-4 form the main body of the letter. In these chapters, Paul makes a series of five arguments for the fact that everyone is saved by faith alone. No one will receive eternal life because they kept the law. Only those who have faith in Jesus will receive eternal life.
In Galatians 5-6, where find this list of the fruit of the Spirit, Paul gives a series of exhortations concerning how they are to live. The first is freedom from the law is not an excuse to pursue a lifestyle of sin. Then he exhorts them to be humble and love others. He exhorts them to invest in the truth. Finally, he exhorts them to pursue doing what is good.

Background on Galatians & Judaizers

The apostle Paul wrote this letter. I will not take time here to explain Paul’s history. You can find that information in my introduction to Galatians podcast. I also have many text resources about Paul on my website.

Paul wrote this letter to the churches of Galatia. These are churches in what is now modern Turkey. Paul founded those churches during his first missionary journey.

When Paul entered each city, he went first to the synagogue and taught the gospel. Usually a few of the Jews responded, but most did not. After a couple of weeks, the Jews typically drove him out of the synagogue. Then he would preach to the Gentiles, who typically responded in larger numbers. He stayed as long as he could in each city before he was driven out by the angry Jews.

On his first missionary journey, he went as far as a city called Lystra. At Lystra the crowds turned against Paul, stoned him, and dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead. Probably as a result of these injuries, Paul turned around and headed toward home. He backtracked the way he came, revisiting the Christian communities he had just founded before returning to his home base in Antioch in Syria.

When he reached Antioch, Paul reported on his journey. He stayed in Antioch for a long time.

During this stay, three crisis events occurred:

Jews from Jerusalem arrived teaching that Gentile believers must keep the law in order to be saved. We call this group the Judaizers.
Paul rebuked Peter for no longer eating with Gentiles.
Paul received troubling news from the recently formed churches of Galatia and wrote the letter to the Galatians in response.

In Jerusalem, the Christian church was being persecuted. Many believing Jews fled this persecution, and some of them ended up in Antioch. Some of these believing Jews started a dispute in the community over whether the Gentile believers needed to live like Jews.

At the same time, other Jewish believers from Jerusalem traveled to the region of Galatia and began teaching that Gentile believers must live like Jews. Word got back to Paul that many Gentiles among the churches he had just founded were being confused, and that prompted him to write this letter.

I think he wrote this letter before the Council of Jerusalem, but probably in the same year as the council, around AD 49.

Who Were the Judaizers?

Who were the Judaizers? The Judaizers were Jewish believers. They claimed to believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, but they had a different perspective on what that meant.

They taught that while believing in Jesus is necessary, it was not enough. They thought Paul got the gospel wrong, and they tried to set the Galatian churches straight.

The Judaizers embraced Jesus as the Messiah, but what they did not believe is that Jesus is fully and completely the means to salvation. They thought no Gentile could be saved just by believing in Jesus alone. They thought the Gentiles must also learn to live like Jews. The Judaizers taught the Galatians that to be fully Christian they must keep the law.

Their message would have sounded something like this:
“It is great that Paul taught you about Jesus and all. We are Jews from Jerusalem, and we believe in Jesus too. But Paul left something out. We are not sure why he did this, but you know it is hard to win converts and build churches. Maybe he just did not want to scare you off, so he forgot to mention this.

“You need to be circumcised and keep the law and live like Jews. Most Gentiles do not want to join a church that says you have to become Jews, so Paul neglected to tell you that.

“But the fact is, God gave this law to Israel, his chosen people. If you want to be acceptable to God, you have to keep this law. I am sorry Paul told you that it was enough to believe in Jesus. That is a great start, but that is not enough. You need to join us in being obedient to the law God gave to Moses.”

The Judaizers believed that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, but they thought believing in him was not enough to please God. Gentiles must also keep the law.

This letter is addressed to churches who have heard the message of the Judaizers. Some of the people in the church have been swayed by the Judaizers and some have not. There seems to be a battle going on within the churches over who is keeping the law and who is not. Paul wrote to straighten this out.

Paul argues that the Judaizers are wrong. Belief in Jesus is enough to save both Gentiles and Jews.

Structure and Message of Galatians

In chapters 1 and 2, Paul defends his authority as an apostle.

He argues that he is an apostle chosen by God. He received his calling through an encounter with the risen Lord and learned the gospel directly from Jesus. He did not make up his gospel, nor did he earn his calling in any way.

Even though he learned the gospel independently from the other apostles, when he had a chance to compare with them, they added nothing to his gospel, nor did they take anything away. Paul and the other apostles teach the exact same gospel.

They can trust him because he is one of a select few to whom Jesus revealed the gospel. His gospel is the true and authentic gospel of Jesus Christ.

Chapters 3 and 4 form the main body of the letter. In these chapters, Paul makes a series of five arguments for the fact that we are justified by faith alone.

All five arguments make the point that everyone who receives eternal life will do so because they have faith in Jesus the Messiah. No one will receive eternal life because they kept the law. Only those who have faith in Jesus will receive eternal life.

In the final section, from about the middle of chapter 5 through chapter 6, Paul gives a series of exhortations concerning how they are to live out the gospel.

5:13-24 – do not use freedom as an excuse to indulge in sin
5:25-6:5 – he exhorts them to humility and loving others
6:6-8 – he exhorts them to invest in the truth
6:9-10 – he exhorts them to pursue doing what is good

Two Big Problems: Guilt and Corruption

Paul’s argument unfolds in two parts. We human beings have two big problems that the gospel solves.

First, we are guilty before God, and one day we will face him in judgment. The results will not be pretty. We really are under the wrath of God as sinful human beings, and that fact is going to cost us everything. Judgment is coming, and we will be found guilty. The penalty for our guilt is death.

Second, the other problem is the reason we are guilty.

We are guilty because by nature we are sinners. Not only are we guilty because we broke God’s laws, we have a built-in tendency toward evil. That is just who we are. We are broken and selfish. Sin destroys life. Human relationships break apart because of selfishness.

We cannot solve either one of these problems. We can do nothing to change the fact that we are guilty. And we can do nothing to change the fact that we are sinful creatures.

The Cross and the Spirit: God’s Two-Part Solution

The gospel is incredibly good news because it solves both those problems.

Jesus solves the problem of our guilt by dying in our place on the cross. Jesus solves the problem of our corruption by reconciling us with God so that God can pour out his Spirit on us and free us from sin.

The first part of Paul’s argument against the Judaizers is that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ solve our two big problems.

The way we overcome our guilt is through the cross, not through law-keeping. The cross offers us true forgiveness in spite of the fact that we are rebels against God. The cross alone solves the problem of God’s wrath and puts us in God’s favor.

The law does not do that. The law was never meant to atone for our sins or remove our guilt. Paul argues that God put us under the law as a kind of protective custody, like a child is under the rule of his governess. The law teaches us right from wrong and shows us we have a problem with sin, but it cannot solve that problem.

Instead, the law is like a thermometer. A thermometer can tell you that you are sick and that you have a problem, but it cannot make you well.

The cross of Christ, on the other hand, is like the medicine that makes us well. Jesus paid the price for our sin. Jesus took the punishment we deserve, such that God can forgive us on judgment day. That solves the problem of our guilt.

The second part of the solution solves the problem of our corruption. The forgiveness Christ brings on the cross is the doorway to our restoration.

Not only do we need forgiveness from our guilt, we need God to make us holy, clean, and morally perfect. We need God to save us from our own sinful selves.

How do we overcome the problem of ourselves? We cannot change ourselves by ourselves. No amount of law-keeping will change who we are inside. Trying to keep the law shows us how far short we are of being the kind of morally good people the law describes, but it does nothing to make us better people.

We need help. But the only one who can help, God, is justifiably mad at us.

Until the cross.

By paying the price for our guilt, Jesus’s death solves the problem of God’s wrath. That makes it possible for God to free us from our own corruption.

Because the problem of our guilt is solved, we are now reconciled to God. God can give us his Spirit to change us from the inside out. The Spirit not only teaches us right from wrong and which choices are wise. The Spirit makes us the kind of people who want to choose what is good and right and wise.

This concept is hugely important. The cross of Christ itself contains the solution to our two main problems. God has reconciled us to himself through the cross in order that he might then bless us with life, goodness, and holiness.

Why the Law Can’t Produce the Fruit of the Spirit

Where do the Judaizers go wrong? Paul argues that they have distorted both parts of the gospel message.

The idea that we must keep the law of God in order to find forgiveness and life is such a perversion that it is another gospel. They argue it is not enough to believe in the cross to gain forgiveness. They say we must also keep the law to be acceptable to God.

Paul says that is such a serious perversion of the gospel that they should be accursed for preaching it. This is not a minor dispute between theological experts. This is an entirely different gospel.

The major part of Galatians addresses this issue: Why is it such a serious error to think we will be acceptable by keeping the law? Paul spends most of his time in the letter on that issue.

The second issue he addresses is how we gain freedom from our sin.

How do we find life and blessing and freedom from corruption? Again, Paul argues those blessings do not come through law-keeping.

Paul argues that is the role of the Holy Spirit. We will become different people because the Spirit is at work to change us, not because we keep the law properly.

The Judaizers think God has graciously given us this set of rules to follow. As we follow the rules, we will find life and blessing. But Paul argues the solution to our corruption is the incredible gift of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s opponents say, “Paul, your gospel cannot be true because the freedom involved in it will lead to evil.” Paul faces that charge a lot.

If you tell people all they have to do is believe and they do not have to keep the law, then that is going to lead to all kinds of evil. Which of these promotes order and goodness: telling people to keep the law, here are the rules and you need to keep them, or telling people God forgives you no matter what you do? Which of those messages promotes order, righteousness, and goodness? Is not the message that says “keep the rules or you are in trouble” the one that promotes order and goodness?

Well, yes, if you are speaking to unredeemed humanity.

But the cross of Christ does something new. The cross of Christ makes it possible for God to forgive us and give us his Spirit.

Paul argues true moral transformation results only from justification through faith in Christ. Only the Spirit causes that true moral transformation. We only receive the Spirit because of the cross.

The cross is the doorway to forgiveness, which allows God to give us his Spirit, which will lead to moral transformation. Thus Paul’s gospel leads not to the pursuit of sin, but to true moral transformation.

The gospel does not say, “Here is a free pass, go sin as much as you want.” The gospel says God has forgiven you in order that he might restore you. He is restoring you through the work of the Spirit. The Spirit is making you the kind of person who no longer wants to sin. As the Spirit works in you to make you the kind of person who no longer loves sin, you will not pursue sin; you will pursue the things of God.

This is why the gospel is such good news. It solves both the problem of our guilt and the problem of our sinfulness.

The section on the fruit of the Spirit is in the part where he argues against the idea that freedom from the law promotes sin. But Paul leads up to this argument throughout the letter.

Key Galatians Passages on the Cross and the Spirit

Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I have agreed that all sin deserves God’s wrath and that the appropriate judgment and penalty for sin is death on the cross. I have accepted that Christ died on the cross in my place, and therefore I no longer try to please God by keeping the law on my own.

Now I trust that Christ produces life in me, that Christ will change me from the inside out. Having been justified by his death, I count on the fact that he will make me righteous by his life.

Any law-keeping or obedience or acts of righteousness I do now are a result of having faith in the Son of God who loved me so much that he paid the penalty I deserved for my sin by dying on the cross on my behalf.

What he does not say in 2:20, but will say later, is that this works because now I have the gift of God’s Spirit.

Galatians 3:14: so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Paul sees the promise of the Spirit as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that a blessing would come to the Gentiles through him.

What blessing are we talking about? Not money or land. The blessing is the Spirit of God at work in the lives of God’s people. That is the blessing God had been promising all along.

Paul argues moral transformation comes about by the work of the Holy Spirit.

And who has the Spirit working in them? Those who are under the grace of God. Who is under the grace of God? Those who have accepted by faith the mercy God offered through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

True moral transformation comes about in the lives of those who have found forgiveness through the cross.

That is the positive part of Paul’s answer. There is also a negative part.

The Failure of Legalism

The Judaizers claim that the law will promote this moral transformation by giving us rules to follow. Paul says, let us look around and see how this law-keeping works out.

What do we see in those under the law? We see strife, envy, jealousy, rivalries, divisions, anger, and people fighting over who is keeping the law properly and who is not. We see human evil running riot in your self-righteousness. That is not moral transformation.

The positive part of Paul’s answer is that true moral transformation comes to those who have been accepted by God through the cross of Christ. The negative part of his answer is that your claim that legalism and law-keeping produce moral transformation is false.

The fruit of the flesh, the fruit of people trying to keep the law with their own resources apart from any work of God, is all manner of evil.

But the fruit of those in whom the Spirit of God is at work is true moral transformation.

That is where we find the list of the fruit of the Spirit. It is in this section where Paul explains how real moral transformation comes about.

He gives us both the negative list of the results of legalism and following our own unredeemed moral choices, and the positive list of the kinds of things the Spirit produces in us.

Let me walk you quickly through the immediate context so we have a framework for our deep dive into the list.

Flesh vs Spirit: Freedom, Conflict, and Change

Galatians 5:13-14: 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.’

First, let us talk about what he means by “flesh.”

The “flesh” literally means “meat.” Paul tends to use this word in one of three ways.

Sometimes he means the literal human body. For example, in Romans 2:28 he speaks of physical circumcision in the flesh.

Sometimes he uses the phrase “according to the flesh” to mean “from a human point of view.” So he says in Romans that Jesus is a descendant of David according to the flesh, or from a human standpoint.

But most often Paul uses this word in a moral or ethical sense. I think that is what we see here in Galatians.

Most often when Paul speaks of the flesh he means everything we are apart from God. He means unredeemed humanity. The flesh is the moral condition of fallen people apart from any work of God. It is the natural state of all humanity. Flesh is the entire fallen human being everything we are, body, soul, spirit, mind apart from God.

To walk by the flesh, as Paul uses it, means pursuing holiness with my own resources and self-effort, or to pursue holiness through self-reliance without grace and without divine intervention. That fails.

Legalism, being under the law, is to pursue holiness through self-reliance.

By contrast, the person who walks by the Spirit realizes there is nothing inside to dredge up; there are no resources of holiness inside, and therefore we need to look outside ourselves and place our trust in God. We do not have what it takes to be holy.

Works of the Flesh vs Fruit of the Spirit

Paul’s first exhortation is: Do not use freedom from the law as an excuse to pursue evil. Do not let it be an excuse to pursue what your broken chooser wants to choose.

This gospel gives you freedom from the law in the sense that you are not required to keep the Old Testament law. But there is a deeper freedom. It is the freedom of those who have been accepted by God even though we are moral failures. We can honestly see our sin and know that Christ has solved the problem of our guilt. We are free of guilt.

But freedom in Christ is not the kind of freedom that says “here is a free pass, go sin as much as you want.” Just because I do not face the threat of the law anymore, I do not have any excuse to indulge in evil.

The Judaizers are not taking the position “great, I am free, so I can go sin as much as I want.” Paul does face that argument from some of his other critics. They try to discredit his gospel by saying it leads to sin. Paul has to defend himself, and he makes statements like this one in Galatians.

But the Judaizers present a different problem. The Judaizers have said Paul is wrong because his gospel is incomplete.

Remove the law, and freedom from law-keeping leads to sin. More than that, they say you have to be under the law to be pleasing to God. The only way to bring about goodness is to keep the law. You are not free from the law; it is still part of the deal. Jesus has secured your forgiveness, but he has not made you righteous; you have to do that by keeping the law.

Paul argues not only that the law does not bring about this moral transformation, it was never intended to. Only the Spirit of God at work in you brings that about.

In 5:13-14 he says, do not use your freedom as an excuse for pursuing sin; instead, serve one another through love. That is what I should do instead.

If you could truly love your neighbor as yourself and apply that in every situation, you would go a long way toward fulfilling the requirements of the law.

In any given situation, I can go a long way toward figuring out the right thing to do by asking myself, “If the situation were reversed, how would I want to be treated?” and then doing that.

I do not love my neighbor as myself because I have to, because I am under the law. I love my neighbor as myself because it is the right thing to do. God created me to be the kind of creature who loves generously and sacrificially like he does.

He is making a contrast in attitude. I could take my freedom from the law as an opportunity to be a selfish jerk and live my life putting myself first in every situation, indulging my selfish nature. That would be wrong. That is not the kind of person God wants me to be, and I would not be honoring God.

Or I can take my freedom from the law and seek to treat my neighbor as I would want to be treated because now I love goodness and holiness.

Galatians 5:15-16: But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

“Bite and devour one another” is a vivid picture of our sinful natures, but it is also speaking to their specific situation. The image he uses is of animals snapping and biting. What is the result of that process? We hurt and destroy each other. In their zeal to be right about law-keeping, they are treating each other badly. They fight over who keeps the law properly and who does not.

Before the coming of the Messiah, the Jews thought that if you lived under the Old Testament law, that would keep you from indulging in selfish behavior. The covenant spelled out for you: do this and this and this, but do not do that and that and that. It puts a curb and guardrail on your natural selfish inclinations.

Paul is saying there is something else that will curb your natural evil inclinations, and that is the Spirit. Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of your selfish nature.

What It Means to Walk by the Spirit

When we see a phrase like “walk by the Spirit,” we are inclined to start thinking we need to channel the Spirit in some way. We are to use the Spirit the way Luke Skywalker used the Force. We just have to figure out how and learn the secret of tapping into that power.

I would argue that is not how it works. It is not that kind of mystical experience.

I have a series of talks called “Who Is the Holy Spirit?” where I go into this in more detail. But Jesus says this in explaining to Nicodemus that he must be born again:

John 3:7-8: “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Think about your experience with wind. You sit outside. There is no sound or movement. Everything is still and quiet. All of a sudden you hear a rushing sound, and all the tree branches begin to sway and dance. You cannot see the wind, but you can see the branches swaying. You cannot see what is making the sound, but you hear it. You cannot see what is making the branches move. You cannot control it. You cannot stop it or make it go where you want.

We do not know when the next gust is coming. We do not know where it is coming from or why it comes. We cannot analyze or quantify or control the wind.

But we experience the changes it makes, and we see the results.

You know that the wind is there because you experience the effects of it. You see the branches moving. You feel it on your face and you feel it in your hair.

That is what is essential to his analogy. The wind is invisible to us and out of our control, but we experience its effects, and that is how we know it is there.

His analogy is between the wind and the Spirit, which are the same Greek word. The Spirit of God at work in a person is like the wind. You cannot control the activity of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit will do what he wishes. You cannot see the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, by his very nature, is invisible.

But you can see his effects. As you observe the life of the person born of the Spirit, you can see the metaphorical branches moving and the leaves swaying. That is, you can see the effects of the spiritual rebirth through the changes in the person’s life.

Our job is to be faithful and leave the results to God and his Spirit.

We do not get to control the Spirit. We cannot manipulate him into transforming us. It is not as if his hands are tied and he cannot help us until we pray the right prayer. He is like the wind that will blow when and where he wants to bring about the changes he wants in order to implement the plans and purposes of God.

To walk by the Spirit is simply to live my life trusting that God is in control, counting on God and not my own resources, trusting in the blood of Christ and not my own self-effort. It is not a technique I learn. It is a fundamental heart attitude and worldview.

Spirit versus Flesh (Galatians 5:17-18)

Galatians 5:17-18: 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. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Paul explains: The natural inclination of our broken choosers and the direction of the Spirit are opposites. They are opposed to each other.

If the Spirit is truly at work in you, changing you and replacing your broken chooser with a chooser that loves God, holiness, and goodness, then your life will look different. You will not continue to pursue selfishness and all the things he is about to list.

When you do fall into those things, eventually you regret it and repent, because the Spirit, like the wind, is blowing through your life, teaching you and instructing you, making you the kind of person who wants to pursue the things of God.

You are not pursuing good because the threat of the law is hanging over your head. You are not pursuing good because you fear punishment or the consequences of the law. You pursue good because the Spirit is now your guardian. The Spirit is teaching you and making you the kind of person who wants to do good.

The Spirit gives us a whole new vision of the kind of person we can be. The vision shows us who we were meant to be and who we can be under the Spirit’s guidance. We can be clean, worthy, loving, and all the things he is going to go on and list.

But that list does not come naturally. It comes from the Spirit. What comes naturally is the first list. If we seek to follow God, we will go 180 degrees opposite of where we would go if we follow our broken choosers. The teachings of the Spirit and the desires of the flesh are polar opposites.

If we are taking the work of the Spirit of God seriously, we are not free to just do whatever we want to do. We do not have a license to sin. We are fleeing from sin; we are running 180 degrees in the opposite direction because we are seeking the things of God.

It is a different motivation than being under the law.

Works of the Flesh (Galatians 5:19-21)

Galatians 5:19-21: 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.

Sadly, that is not an exhaustive list. That is why Paul adds “and things like these.” If we sat down and thought about it, we could add many, many things to that list.

At its root, each of the items on the list comes from putting ourselves at the center of the universe either making our needs more important than our neighbors’ or making what we want more important than what God wants.

In terms of the context here, what we really need to understand is the last half of verse 21:
“I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Paul says the list above that we just read are deal breakers in a sense. If those things characterize your life, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

We want to keep this in the context of the argument he has been making.

The question on the table is: If I am free from the law, will that give me a license to pursue all the sin I want? Paul has been arguing that being free from the law is not an excuse to sin, because we have a different motivation now to avoid sin. We have the teaching and guidance of the Spirit, who is giving us a heart that loves God.

Now he is giving examples of the kinds of things the Spirit teaches us to leave behind and to flee from. Why are these behaviors on the list? Because they make us guilty before God. These are the kinds of behaviors we would gleefully pursue apart from the work of the Spirit of God in our lives. If we pursue those kinds of behaviors, we are guilty before a holy God, and we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

He is not saying “one strike and you are out.” He is not saying if you ever once got angry or jealous, you are out of the kingdom. He is not saying these things put you beyond the mercy of God.

What he is saying is these are the kinds of behaviors that define a broken chooser. You want to know what kinds of things your broken chooser chooses left to itself? This is it. These kinds of things are symptoms of the total depravity of a broken chooser. If this is the trend of your life, wake up and smell the coffee. You need to repent.

All of us are guilty of something on this list. What should I do when I realize I am guilty? Repent. Throw myself on the mercy of God and accept the blood of Jesus as payment for sins. These behaviors do not put you beyond the mercy of God, but they ought to make you seriously evaluate the direction you are heading. Stop, turn around, and repent.

Paul is essentially saying: You want to know what I see in you legalists? I see infighting. I see self-centeredness that leads to strife and factions. It is obvious in your lives. You legalists are people who are acting on your broken choosers. It is self-interest and self-righteousness, and it is leading to all kinds of selfish behaviors. You legalists are not living like people in whom God is at work. You are living like people who are intent on their own self-centered view of life, and let me warn you, only those who abandon that kind of self-centeredness will enter the kingdom of God. You need to repent.

Those things are the fruit, the result, of our broken choosers. On the other hand, here is the fruit of the Spirit.

Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-24)

Galatians 5:22-24: 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.

If I am a person who has saving faith and a person to whom God has given his Spirit, what will be the result? What kinds of changes will I see when I repent and begin listening to the teaching of the Spirit?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

The point he is making in this context is that this person is entirely different than the person described above. These lists are polar opposites. These two people are heading in entirely different directions.

For our purposes now, I want to focus on what he says next: “Against such things there is no law.” What does he mean by that? I think the idea is, with regard to such things, there is no law. The law cannot produce this kind of fruit.

This list is a much deeper level of righteousness than the Old Testament law. We can find laws that tell us how to treat our neighbors and what justice requires and so forth, but following those laws will not make us joyful, peaceful, patient, or self-controlled. Following the laws on the outside does nothing to change who we are on the inside. The law cannot change us.

The law teaches us who we are, but it cannot change us. Trying to follow the law reveals to me that I have a problem, but it will not make me the kind of person described on this list.

Only the Spirit of God can do that. “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

When you decided to become a disciple of Jesus, you metaphorically crucified your broken chooser and all the things it desired. Part of repentance is crying out to God, I do not want to be this kind of person anymore. I agree with you that I am sinful and worthy of condemnation. I agree with you that my choices are wrong and I am guilty. I am not the person I want to be.

Instead, I want to be holy, worthy, and good like you. I recognize I can never fix that problem of myself by myself. I recognize you do not owe me anything. I am asking for your mercy and grace because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Please, Lord, let it cover me. I realize Jesus died the death I deserve. Please put my broken chooser to death and give me a new chooser, one that chooses to love you and my neighbor.

To be crucified with Christ is a metaphor for repenting and making that about-face.

Thanks be to God, he forgives us and gives us his Spirit, and the wonderful, amazing result is this new vision of humanity, this deeper level of righteousness. It will be ours.

So of course those who belong to Jesus will not use their freedom as an excuse to sin. They have crucified those desires, metaphorically speaking. They have abandoned that lifestyle and are seeking the things of God. What keeps you on the straight and narrow? Not the law. Faith in Jesus keeps you on the straight and narrow.

When we came to faith, we abandoned the desires of our broken choosers and began seeking the fruit of the Spirit. That is a crucial part of what it means to come to faith in Jesus. If you did not do that, then you did not really believe, and you do not belong to Jesus.

Now we are going to spend a whole series on that list in Galatians 5:22-23.

Before you panic, we are going to spend a lot of our time outside the book of Galatians. I want to explore the question: How did Paul know these things should be on the list? When Paul talks about love or peace or joy, what does he mean? What kinds of ideas does he associate with that idea? That is going to require us to spend a lot of time elsewhere in Scripture.

Keeping in Step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25-26)

Galatians 5:25-26: If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

This is an important part of his argument. As we will see, this work of the Spirit is not instantaneous. It is not that we come to faith in Jesus and the Spirit zaps all these qualities into us.

The work of the Spirit is a process that works itself out in my choices over a lifetime of struggles, trials, and tribulations.

Legalism is a fake moral transformation, which ultimately only leads to divisions, rivalries, jealousy, envy, and those kinds of things.

True moral transformation is the result of the Spirit of God at work in our lives, and it looks like love, joy, peace, gentleness, and such.

Therefore we should set our hearts, our goals, and our hope on those things. If we see ourselves consistently choosing other things, we should be warned.

These are fruits that God is producing in the lives of believers, and we can see the reality of them in others and in ourselves.

Yet at the same time, each of them represents a goal or a challenge to us. It represents the question: Do I want these fruits of the Spirit? When life throws me a challenge, am I going to respond in accordance with these things I say I want, or am I going to indulge my self-centeredness? What am I really interested in?

I think this list is both a promise and a challenge. I will try to bring that out as we go through it.