Galatians 5:17, commentary and pictures

The flesh and the Spirit lust against each other as contrary powers, so that a person cannot simply do the things he would. The flesh is the sensual appetites, natural impulses, unregenerate nature and lower attributes warring against the higher and spiritual nature, showing itself in manifest works such as impurity, hatred, strife, envy, drunkenness and the like that bar from the kingdom of God. The opposite life is to walk and live and be led by the Spirit, having crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts and bearing love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. The Christian life therefore remains a daily and constant inward warfare between good and evil for mastery of the will, growing fiercer toward the close of earth's history and deciding whether the soul serves Christ or self-indulgence. Victory comes only by vital connection with Christ and yielding wholly to the Holy Spirit, mortifying the deeds of the body, denying every hurtful lust of appetite and passion, and partaking of the divine nature.

Meaning of Opposing Powers

The flesh desires what opposes the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what opposes the flesh, for the two are contrary to one another, so that a person in this conflict cannot simply do whatever he would. This is an inspired warning against self-indulgence sounding down to the present time, and the charge given with it is to walk in the Spirit in order not to fulfill the lust of the flesh. Walking in the Spirit is the way to resist the desires of the flesh, and being led by the Spirit frees from bondage to the law. To live after the flesh is to allow sensual appetites to rule the being, walking in the lusts of the flesh and fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, while when natural appetites and passions control the heart spiritual growth ceases and the soul is as it were paralyzed.

The flesh means sensual appetites, natural impulses and tendencies, the unregenerate nature, and the lower attributes of man set in war against the higher and spiritual nature. Natural tendencies left uncorrected by the Holy Spirit contain the seeds of moral death, because they oppose the Spirit's work of raising people to God's holy standard. Unless fleshly lusts are abstained from, the physical nature is brought into conflict with the spiritual nature, and the quarrel is kept up as warfare instituted between the higher and the lower attributes. Every indulged appetite at enmity with the laws of the being becomes a warring lust, old habits and inherited tendencies seek mastery, and the world and unholy influences work to weaken conscience and draw people downward unless higher, holier qualities are cultivated.

The works of the flesh are manifest, and they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. They include adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. Fleshly lusts include such forms as idolatry and drunkenness and such like.

The opposite life is to walk and live in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit, which keeps from fulfilling the lust of the flesh. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, and if they live in the Spirit they also walk in the Spirit. That life bears the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against which there is no law. Being a Christian means being Christlike, not merely holding church membership, with justice and purity and truth abiding in the heart and proved by fruit, forbidding desiring vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another, and cherishing prejudice, and requiring restoring one overtaken in a fault in the spirit of meekness while considering oneself, and bearing one another's burdens and so fulfilling the law of Christ.

The verse describes a struggle for mastery over every soul and the human will between vice and virtue, good and evil, right and wrong, God and the devil. Life now is a battlefield where two great forces are ever fighting for mastery over each person, the fallen nature pulling against the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit pulling against the fallen nature. Within are two spirits striving for mastery, the Holy Spirit working on reason and conscience with holy angels seeking to imbue the mind with kindly, uplifting thoughts leading under holiness and charity to commendation and love, against the satanic will of the evil heart of suspicion seeking victory by evil thoughts. This calls every professed child of God to decide in which army he serves, whether under the blood-stained banner of Prince Immanuel, Christ, or under the black banner of the prince of darkness, Satan, for Satan tempts each person through appetite and believers must stand for righteousness and truth. The struggle ceases when truth enters the heart and seat of the affections and the Holy Spirit plants it there, so that the whole person including the thoughts is brought under Christ's rule as the human will submits to God's will.

Course of Inner Warfare

The Christian life is not smooth, but involves stern conflict and severe temptation through the contrary workings of fallen nature and the Spirit. Christians still feel sin's promptings and sinful impulses because the flesh and the Spirit oppose one another in constant inner conflict. The Spirit strives against the flesh and against sin, and Christ's help is needed in this warfare, with human weakness joined to divine strength receiving victory through Him.

The warfare is daily and constant and must be met with daily resistance, overcoming, renewed consecration, and battling of evil. Being once in grace does not remove this daily work of resisting temptation and overcoming each day, for polluting desires in the soul oppose pure, sanctifying truth. Old habits and inherited tendencies seek mastery and the desires of the unregenerate nature oppose the Spirit, so Christians must remain on guard, renew consecration, and strive for victory in Christ's strength. The work of battling objectionable traits of character, both inherited and cultivated, of putting away all evil and overcoming defects of character, manners, and habits, must be a daily and hourly work to reach perfection in the human sphere. That daily warfare is tested in whom a person walks with, whether Christ is companion and theme of thought and hope of eternal life or the god of this world is the object of thought, and it is advanced one step at a time in Christ's footsteps in little things and repeated simple acts.

That warfare grows more delusive, ensnaring, fierce, and frequent the nearer the close of this earth's history comes, as the enemy intensifies his attacks. The struggle belongs to Satan's work since his rebellion and expulsion from heaven to wrest souls away from Christ, a determined, incessant warfare between good and evil, right and wrong, God and the devil waged ever since the angels rebelled in heaven. Life now is a battlefield where two great forces are ever fighting for mastery over each person, the fallen nature pulling against the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit pulling against the fallen nature.

In children who inherit diseased organs and evil passions from parents and ancestors, this conflict makes conversion a hard battle, and becoming vessels unto honor depends on the grace of Christ. In all who face inherited tendencies to do wrong and objectionable traits of character, the flesh resists the Spirit and makes progress toward the higher life and clearer views of heavenly things slow and often discouraging in spite of all effort. That inward conflict keeps the mind from rising to full assurance of hope and lets common, cheap things engross the mind until the presence of Jesus is withdrawn. The flesh wars against the Spirit through the inclinations, vanity, and pride of the heart, requiring crucifixion of self and preparation to meet hardships and the assaults of Satan and to fight with principalities and powers.

Which power will triumph is left to human choice, for the flesh and the Spirit oppose one another so that a person cannot follow both desires at once and one must conquer. The carnal heart by itself will not submit to God's will but refuses to obey, so those who will overcome at last must fight battles. Without vital connection with Christ the flesh overcomes and the warfare ends in defeat to the Spirit in self-indulgence and self-gratification. With Christ's strength taken hold of, every temptation resisted gives power to sow to the Spirit in the next trial, enabling self-denial and peace with Him in the path of suffering.

Temptation stirs the sinful elements that remain in the unrenewed nature, and the suggestions of Satan stir those elements of depravity still remaining, so that temptation can exert a powerful hold and often holds a person like a charm or spell. Being tempted is distinct from entering into temptation. The test of life must be met during probationary time, for failing the test and trial now means failing forever and leads to final failure.

Victory Through Christ's Spirit

The remedy for the contrary pull of flesh and Spirit is to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit, and in that way the lust of the flesh is not fulfilled. The flesh lusting against the Spirit means sensual appetites ruling the being, walking in lusts of the flesh and fulfilling desires of flesh and mind, with manifest works including adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like, and those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit and purifying the mind by obedience to the truth belongs to this walk, while being led by the Spirit frees from bondage to the law. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, and living and walking in the Spirit bears its fruit, among which is temperance. Walking in the Spirit in this sense is practical godliness.

Victory comes by vital connection with Christ in which human weakness is joined to divine strength, for Christians still feel sin's promptings because flesh and Spirit are in constant conflict and the Spirit strives against the flesh. Without that connection the flesh overcomes and the warfare ends in defeat to the Spirit in self-indulgence and self-gratification, but taking hold of Christ's strength makes every resisted temptation give power to sow to the Spirit in the next trial, enabling self-denial and peace with Him in the path of suffering from the manger to Calvary. Which power will triumph is left to human choice and must be met with daily resistance, overcoming, renewed consecration, and battling of evil while remaining on guard against old habits and inherited tendencies seeking mastery. Believers must flee to Christ as the Mighty Helper in trial who never leaves anyone to fight alone, who kept His Father's commandments as the example in all things, who came to fight the prince of darkness and finished His work, who was tempted in all points like human beings yet without sin, and who hears those who come to Him as a child comes to its parents trusting to be heard and helped.

Nothing but the life-giving power of the gospel and all the quickening, life-giving power of the Holy Spirit can remedy souls enfeebled by selfish, degrading passions and restore the moral image of God in man. Natural tendencies left uncorrected by the Holy Spirit contain the seeds of moral death because they oppose the Spirit's work of raising people to God's holy standard, while the world and unholy influences work to weaken conscience and draw people downward. Those who trust in Christ need not remain enslaved to inherited or cultivated tendencies to sin, for God gives power to overcome them, and the conflict calls for cultivating higher, holier qualities and resisting deception and falsehood. Without His transforming power people will not become overcomers.

When truth enters the heart and seat of the affections and the Holy Spirit plants it there, the whole person including the thoughts is brought under Christ's rule as the human will submits to God's will. Bible truth sanctifies the soul when it changes habits and practices, and then sin is hated and shunned. Accepting Christ leaves no place for a divided heart because Christ and sin cannot share it, and one of the two opposing powers must conquer. The sincere receiver of truth cooperates with the Holy Spirit, and the truth changes how that person lives.

A person must yield wholly to the Holy Spirit rather than follow natural impulses, for what may seem harmless or even virtuous can offend God. When the heart is surrendered and the will agrees with God's will its fruit is good, and grace through Christ enables purity and holiness. The pain, unrest, and absolute distraction felt when conscience is aroused and convinced but the heart does not immediately surrender comes from the war between fallen nature and the Spirit, and the struggle ends only when the soul surrenders to God. Without that surrender religion has not taken control of the life and truth does not rule the soul, so a person cannot be a blessing to others but has an injurious influence.

Victory requires greater striving to overcome every failure and sin and to stand right before God on the platform of eternal truth. The life must preach love to God and keeping His commandments as necessary to enter heaven, because no taint of sin will enter there. People belong as servants to the one they obey, and when His Spirit cleanses the soul temple Christ comes in to dwell there. To escape the corruption that is in the world through lust a person must be a partaker of the divine nature, keep the soul in the atmosphere of heaven, refuse corrupting association with the earthly, sensual, profligate, licentious and ungodly, and watch and pray, Lead us not into temptation, that the Lord will not suffer him to be overcome when assailed by temptation. Being tempted is different from entering into temptation, for in the unrenewed nature elements of depravity still remain and Satan's suggestions stir them so that temptation often holds like a charm, but failing the test in probationary time now means failing forever.

The Spirit is given to help human weakness, for the natural carnal heart has no love for Christian graces, as shown by rejection of Christ despite His condescension in clothing divinity with humanity and His yearning love. Divine power enables believers to obtain the knowledge of Christ that gives strength to overcome and brings happiness and rest to those who come to Him. The Lord helps everyone who diligently seeks Him, and goodness and mercy and righteousness are the attributes of His throne. He not only pardons sins but gives victory over the power of sin, and love to Christ makes a person hate what He hates and love what He loves, creating a new, pure, elevated, holy, moral taste that holds a person in the constant and unceasing warfare within against inward corruptions.

Christ, who gave His life, calls unto holiness and not unto uncleanness, requiring repentance and conversion from unholy practices and from leading youth into them, which destroy all influence to uplift them. Doing what is right is contrary to human inclination because the spirit wars against the flesh. This contrariety does not prevent repentance and restitution, for when God directs the work people make things right as far as they are able.

Appetite Health and Temperance

The warring lust is every hurtful, health-enfeebling, life-destroying lust of the flesh, including appetite and passion and every evil desire and unhealthful practice, even what is in the least degree detrimental to brain and nerve energy, and every indulged appetite at enmity with the laws of the being becomes such a warring lust. It must be denied, mortified, suppressed, mastered, and brought into complete subjection, with constant watchcare over the heart, victories gained over self, purification of the soul temple from every defilement, and prompt correction of every deviation from the laws of life and health and the laws of God. The flesh wars against the spirit through these appetites and passions, as inner evil tendencies league with outer evil influences stirred by constant tempting of appetite, while the spirit wars back successfully only when aroused and receiving power from God. Lustful eating wars against health and peace, the highest interests of the soul are imperiled by indulgence of appetites heaven has not sanctioned, and the lower propensities strong and active oppress the soul.

Eating meat feeds the flesh side of the war because people become composed of what they eat. It stimulates lustful desires and propensities into intense activity, strengthens animalism and the lower and carnal powers, diminishes intellectual activity, and weakens and enfeebles the moral and spiritual nature. Discarding meat and denying self-indulgent appetite for eating and drinking weakens the flesh that fights the Spirit and helps gain and maintain a religious life with pure, chaste thoughts and strong moral powers. Faintness is not a reason to eat meat but an argument for eating less of it.

Intemperance in eating makes the stomach do double work, taxes brain and nerve power, affects the mind, beclouds perception, and unfits a person to take in and comprehend eternal realities. Those who indulge appetite in this way will not and cannot receive the messages the Lord gives, the spiritual bread from heaven which is the Word of God. Wrong habits of eating and drinking affect both physical and moral life, degrading virtue, distorting thought and action, and strengthening bodily desires until they gain ascendancy over mental and spiritual powers, and even excessive eating of good food harms moral feeling while unhealthy food causes greater harm. An improper and gross diet, especially largely of meat, dulls comprehension, sets animal passions into activity, strengthens the animal powers and weakens the spiritual ones, making children care less for heavenly things and leaving people less able to control themselves and act morally. For this reason the principles of health reform, including enlightened obedience in eating and drinking and discarding tea and coffee, should be practiced above all in a college boarding house or sanitarium so health does not suffer and the lower nature is not given power over mind and morals, with habits and customs changed for the better for strength in this conflict.

When natural appetites and passions control the heart, spiritual growth ceases and the soul is, as it were, paralyzed and works against spiritual interests. Fleshly inclinations opposing the Spirit and the will of God must therefore be subdued and crucified, the body brought under control, and every affection and impulse contrary to God uprooted, and what is eaten can help or hinder this struggle. The conflict is especially fierce when habits of self-indulgence oppose a resolve to practice temperance, and inherited tendencies must be watched and resisted. Indulged fleshly lust spoils the whole man until each day he becomes less susceptible to the Spirit and conscience is deadened, while denying lust leaves the body more healthful for continuing the warfare with stronger faith and clearer perception, and failure to subdue appetite leaves a person finally overcome, for the most difficult warfare is the warfare against self.

Daily Practical Godliness

Walking in the Spirit is practical godliness, resisting what the flesh desires, for the two desires oppose each other so that a person cannot simply do whatever he wishes. To disregard that opposition leads to conduct contrary to God's holy ways. The appeal therefore is to yield the heart to God and be guided by His Spirit rather than follow wrongdoing. The warfare is tested daily in whom a person walks with, whether Christ is companion and theme of thought and hope of eternal life, or the god of this world is the object of thought, amid poisonous influences and fascinations and ambitions filling the air to induce disobedience, which lies at the foundation of all sin. It is advanced one step at a time in Christ's footsteps, in little things and repeated simple acts, as those who love and fear God aim constantly to keep His requirements and live by every word from His mouth, and the character shown in daily practical life testifies in heaven and decides destiny for eternity.

Separation from Christ produces division and discord, while union with Christ produces unity. Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts, and if they live in the Spirit they also walk in the Spirit. Being a Christian means being Christlike, not merely holding church membership, with justice and purity and truth abiding in the heart and proved by fruit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against which there is no law. That walk forbids desiring vain glory, provoking and envying one another, and cherishing prejudice against a brother. It requires restoring one overtaken in a fault in a spirit of meekness while considering oneself, and bearing one another's burdens and so fulfilling the law of Christ.

After being taken out of the quarry of the world to be fitted as living stones for the heavenly temple, there still remains an inward war between flesh and Spirit that each must meet for himself. No one is already all right, and no one is given the work of tinkering with and criticizing brothers and sisters. Each has a work to do for his own soul to gain solidity of character. Victory requires humility before God, a low estimate of self and esteeming others better than self. It requires keeping the soul uplifted to God every moment for help for fear of falling, instead of neglecting the soul while watching others.

Two spirits strive for mastery within those becoming new men and women in Christ. The Holy Spirit works on reason and conscience, with holy angels seeking to imbue the mind with kindly, uplifting, encouraging thoughts, leading under holiness and charity to expressions of commendation and love with no evil seed dropped in the words. Against this stands the satanic, evil will of the evil heart of suspicion seeking victory by giving expression to evil thoughts. The battle is fought by being guarded in speech, by going alone to pray instead of speaking evil words, and by putting on the new man, which is peace, grace, and righteousness. Workers who shut out the Holy Spirit vacillate between serving the Lord and serving evil.

The natural traits of the human heart are always warring against the Spirit. The old man, when not dead, revives and gains power to do mischief that sinks souls in ruin. This appears when a man builds up again what he once destroyed and put aside. He permits himself to increase and Christ to decrease, exalts his own planning and devising as very wise, and leaves Christ out of his counsel.

The desire and love of gain wars against the Spirit of Christ and cannot abide in the heart where love of the truth is an abiding principle. Long-practiced habits impress character and can deform it and make a person unfit for God's work. A strong drive for business, if sanctified for God's service, becomes earnest, persistent labor for Him. When abused for selfish gain it endangers the soul and may put others at risk through that influence. The conflict is felt when reason and conscience remonstrate against a wrong course, when the longings of the soul go out for holiness and heaven and pause to listen to the majestic and authoritative utterances of the Spirit, while desires still harmonize with the attractions of the enemy, calling for preparing the soul to resist sinful inclinations firmly.

When fleshly desire controls and carnal passions are allowed to rule, they oppose the Spirit's influence and God's purposes, tempting away from Christ toward forbidden paths. That rule of the flesh encourages skepticism about Christian truth and makes doubt seem a virtue. It leads to resistance to correction and refusal of the light God gives, so that people work against His will and produce evil fruit.

Amid the corruption of the last days God's people are called to purity. They must resist defilement and let the Spirit have perfect control, influencing every action. So they grow in grace and prepare to receive immortality.

Even those earnestly struggling after the higher life and clearer views of heavenly things make slow progress and are often discouraged in spite of all effort, because the flesh wars against the Spirit. That inward conflict keeps the mind from rising to full assurance of hope that makes not ashamed. Common, cheap things engross the mind until the presence of Jesus is withdrawn, and must not be allowed to do so. Victory comes by working in harmony with the life-giving power communicated from Christ, losing sight of self and seeking to build one another up in the most holy faith.

Lustful desire wars against the Spirit and puts the soul in danger. Cherishing lust gives it room to oppose the Spirit, while strength in Jesus and the righteousness of Christ enable resistance to sin. A person must act on the light God has given and resist Satan's snare rather than yield the conflict. When the Spirit has little influence, breaking free requires determined effort, otherwise a person may become an agent of harm to others.

The verse shows the conflict between natural ways and habits and the Spirit of God ruling in the heart. People need the grace of God to change their own natural ways and let the Spirit rule. This change heals alienation in close family ties such as between a mother and daughter-in-law.