Study of Galatians Part 20 - Galatians 5:26-6:4

Last week, we completed a look at the nine-fold “fruit of the Spirit,” through which the Holy Spirit keeps us in faith and enables us to live with greater faithfulness toward the Lord and greater “meekness” (gentleness) and “self-control” in our relationships with the people placed around us (Galatians 5:22-25). This is all in contrast to the sinful “works of the flesh” described in Galatians 5:19-21. What does this mean for our everyday lives?

Paul began with a negative example of what should not be happening (Galatians 5:26). “Let us not become conceited,” he said. Note that when he said, “Let us not,” he is including himself, as well as everyone else to whom he is writing, including us who still read his word, the Word of God, today.

Paul describes temptations that threaten us all. The word “conceited” was sometimes translated very literally as “vainglorious.” That meant that we should not be glorying in ourselves, when there is only false vanity and empty pride in us. A “conceited” person is one who thinks too highly of himself and is very self-centered, at the expense of others. Such a person wants to compare himself with others and always come out on top, as better than and superior to others.

That attitude can lead to “provoking one another” and “envying one another,” Paul warned. If we compare ourselves with others and think they might be doing better than us, that can lead to envy and jealousy toward others. It can also lead us to want to “provoke” them, challenging them and criticizing them and tearing them down, so that we can feel higher and better than they are. Remember Paul’s earlier words in Galatians 5:15, “If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

One commentator (Kretzmann) says that such negative attitudes and actions can be so hurtful and have caused “untold misery” even in churches. Some think that the new rules and regulations imposed upon the Galatian churches by the false teachers were causing rivalry among people and some feeling superior because they had been circumcised and were following old Jewish laws of “days and months and seasons and years” (Galatians 4:10), even though none of these rules and dietary rules, etc., were part of the New Covenant in Christ or the freedom from such things that Christ brought to believers. (See Paul’s comments in Colossians 2:20-23. Such humanly devised rules and laws may give “an appearance of wisdom” and of being holier than others, but are ultimately “of no value” in battling the real sins and works “of the flesh.”)

In contrast, as Galatians 6 begins, Paul spoke to his “brothers” (Galatians 6:1) in the faith and of the need for them “to fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). “Brothers” in this case seems to refer to all the fellow believers in Galatia, who were “of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). “The law of Christ” is “the law of love.” See John 13:34-35 and 15:12. James called it “the royal law… the law of liberty”(James 2:8,12).

Jesus put it very simply: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another” (John 13:34-35). Jesus fulfilled that law perfectly in our place, as He died for us to forgive all our sins (John 15:12-13 and Galatians 1:4 and 2:20, and 1 John 4:7-10). John therefore said, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

That is what we now seek to do, as we live by faith in Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit and the fruit He gives us. We are never alone, as the Lord is with us always, and we have fellow believers who try to help us, too, even if imperfectly. We are called to “bear one another’s burdens,” in the love of Christ (Galatians 6:2).

Paul was speaking particularly to the Galatian churches, as they saw people influenced by the false teachers or caught in any transgression. (The idea here is that someone has strayed from walking by the Spirit and has gotten into trouble - as when a vehicle goes off the road and ends up in a ditch and the driver needs help.) Those who are “spiritual” should seek to “restore” the person. The word “restore” is used for setting bones, mending nets, bringing factions together, etc., and we get our English word for an “artisan” (a skilled worker) from this word. Ultimately, the Lord is the “Mender” and “Healer,” but he can do His work through the Galatians and through us today.

Paul called upon the Galatians and us to know our limitations and weaknesses, though, as we try to help others. Never is this to be done with a self-centered attitude of superiority, as if we were so much better than others. Paul warned, “If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing (as we all are, apart from Christ) he is deceiving himself” (Galatians 6:3). Rather we are to help “in a spirit of gentleness” with meekness and humility, as given by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 6:1).

Likewise, we are constantly to be “watching ourselves,” lest we, too, are tempted. (I once heard of a man who sincerely, I think, wanted to do a “bar ministry," talking with people in drinking establishments. Over time, he supposedly became an alcoholic himself.) Instead, we are to be “testing ourselves and our own work and lives, also (Galatians 6:4). Then we realize that we, too, need repentance and forgiveness and have nothing to boast about, in ourselves. (See 1 Corinthians 1:27-31 and Jesus’ reminder about “specks” and “logs” in Matthew 7:3-5.)

Paul has more to tell the Galatians and us next week. Join us then.