The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.
The Collect.
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle. Gal. 5. 16-24.
I SAY then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
16 λεγω δε πνευματι περιπατειτε και επιθυμιαν σαρκος ου μη τελεσητε
17 η γαρ σαρξ επιθυμει κατα του πνευματος το δε πνευμα κατα της σαρκος ταυτα γαρ αλληλοις αντικειται ινα μη α εαν θελητε ταυτα ποιητε
18 ει δε πνευματι αγεσθε ουκ εστε υπο νομον
19 φανερα δε εστιν τα εργα της σαρκος ατινα εστιν πορνεια ακαθαρσια ασελγεια
20 ειδωλολατρια φαρμακεια εχθραι ερις ζηλος θυμοι εριθειαι διχοστασιαι αιρεσεις
21 φθονοι μεθαι κωμοι και τα ομοια τουτοις α προλεγω υμιν καθως προειπον οτι οι τα τοιαυτα πρασσοντες βασιλειαν θεου ου κληρονομησουσιν
22 ο δε καρπος του πνευματος εστιν αγαπη χαρα ειρηνη μακροθυμια χρηστοτης αγαθωσυνη πιστις
23 πραυτης εγκρατεια κατα των τοιουτων ουκ εστιν νομος
24 οι δε του χριστου ιησου την σαρκα εσταυρωσαν συν τοις παθημασιν και ταις επιθυμιαις
The Epistle lection of Galatians 5.16-24 for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity is not for shrinking violets.
It is a calls to arms and resistance along several fronts in the war with the flesh, the devil and the world. The same war is our's. The Galatians are called to life in the Spirit, under the reign of Christ and His Gospel. They are called as justified saints to wage war with their own flesh, as well as war with the false teachers. These false teachers didn't disappear but reappear in different garb in our own time.
By way of background, the Galatians were, on the scribe’s view, inhabitants of southern and middle Turkey or Asia Minor. Christ’s true churches were faced with agitators and opponents of St. Paul’s person and message. The false teachers brought a false gospel, disputings, contentions, ungodly zealotry, and religious supremacism…the seed plot of heresy. The Galatians yielded and were in the process of abandoning the Gospel and God Himself (1.6-7). They had fallen prey to the message that justification and communion with Christ was not by faith alone.
They, the false teachers asserted, needed “something more.” In yielding to the arrogance, they had become fellow-adulterers and corrupters of the Gospel.
This sounds a lot like the enthusiasts and charismatics today. “We’ll take you higher…Never mind doctrine, we've got the Spirit."
Faith alone is the key to the Gospel alone because of Christ alone and Christ’s all availing work. That central message booms throughout this Epistle. This small epistle stands like an Atlas over grace and Christ’s Word, although we fear this Sunday’s lection will be missed. This is a very large battlefront today.
This very message of the five solas[1] would be the storm-center of the Reformation, to wit, that Christ alone bore the curse of the law in our behalf, pardons sinners in a forensic “act” not “work”, and accepts them as righteous for Christ’s sake alone. While Romanists often allege this as a legal fiction, justifying bona fide sinners, it misses the point that Christ is righteous, acts as our Representative and that He accepted the legal indictments against us by death on the cross, and is the sovereign, solitary, and meritorious ground of our salvation. He bore the curse of us criminals, guilty of cosmic insolence. He clothed us in “His” righteousness (3.26,27; Phil.3.9,10). He is our sure Hope (5.5). We are adopted children. Romanism, like the false teachers, have a half-Christ and half-Gospel.[2] There is one message to Rome: unconditional surrender to the Law and Gospel.
Against all human boasting which the false teachers exhibited, Paul will boast of the cross of Christ alone (6.14) for it is the basis of all else.
The falsifiers promoted a Gospel of the “flesh,” as all heresies are. This Epistle lection, again, is not for shrinking violets. Paul calls the Galatians to change their direction, theology, and behaviours.
There had been disputings, slanders and backbitings in the Churches. Paul was the victim of it, as was the Gospel, God and the Gospel. Paul calls them to walk by the Spirit, not the flesh. As we’ll note momentarily, the false gospel is included as a work of the flesh.
Paul delineates the antithesis of flesh and Spirit. Paul commands them to walk in the Spirit. λεγω δε πνευματι περιπατειτε.
Paul gives an extensive, but not exhaustive, list of the works of the flesh and the Spirit.
The present corruption of the Galatian Churches occurs when the reign of the flesh obtains; conversely, the health of the Churches occurs when the Reign of the Spirit and the true Gospel prevails. It is Holy Spirit with correct doctrine, both, not one without the other.
Paul is implying that the Galatians had been carnal, fleshly, destitute of wisdom, easily bewitched, and that their lives and their thinking had been unworthy of Christian Churchmen. It’s not flattering. It’s a broadside. The Epistle still is a broadside since false churches still teaches this stuff.
The evidence against the Galatians is strewn throughout the Epistle—they have not been walking according to the Holy Spirit and His Gospel.
The flesh lusts against the Spirit. η γαρ σαρξ επιθυμει κατα του πνευματος το δε πνευμα κατα της σαρκος. For justified believers, this is the remaining opposition to his/her own renewed nature. It is the “old man.” (Rom.6.6; Eph.4.22; Col.3.9) Paul calls the Galatians to war, to combat, to resistance, to a manful fight against the flesh under the aegis of the Saviour and His Word.
Again, this Lection is not for shrinking violets. Our Collect for the Day is one of earnest importunity for faith, hope and love. We pray with earnestness and biblicality: that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord
The saint never obtains fully what he desires. That emerges from the instruction from Romans 7.14-25. But it does form the very basis of our prayer for this Sunday.
“Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Self-denial is essential in the fight. Even though we are imperfect, there is a better way…opposition to the flesh. Our duties are not to be rejected in view of our weaknesses, but we are strengthened as adopted sons who cry “Abba, Abba.” As those who obey the Spirit, the Word and resist the flesh.
Paul gives some marks or note of the flesh and of the Spirit in this antithesis.
The flesh. Here’s some from the list.
Adulteries, fornication, uncleanness and the manifold implications of the seventh commandment. This entails issues of thought, word, pictures, pornographies, musical lyrics, lewd dancings, pregnancies born out of wedlock, unlawful divorces and other lawlessnesses. This must also include clergy who do not preach the Law and Gospel, such as liberal Episcopal seminary professors and most of their feckless clergy.
Idolatry and the gross superstitions, notably manifest in the Greek classical cultures.
Anger, short and hot. Unlawful hatred as the habituation of anger, but longer lasting.
Emulations and envying. That grief that someone excels oneself leading to variations, strivings and seditions. These matters were already surfacing in the Galatian congregations.
“Witchcraft” in the English version, on our view, is somewhat misleading, but φαρμακεια, more at drugs used to alter mental states, leading to other sins, including chants and incantations in the ancient world. We also favour the translation “drug uses,” so well known in the ancient world: hashish, marijuana, and opiates in general.[3] This includes alcoholism.
“Drunkenness” with the drunknesses, but other things not far off: licentious singing, dance, and lawless spectacles.
Of note, “heresies,” αιρεσεις, is comprehended under the term “flesh.” This refers to sins of the mind and affections. Ambition and pride is the mother of heresies and it proceeds from the highest, often extremely refined and sophisticated, faculties of the mind. Paul knew something of that noting that his zeal and ambition, pre-conversion, which led to persecuting Christians and false doctrines about Christ.
It is here that the Galatians could not have failed to understand St. Paul, to wit, this new, false Gospel was a heresy and a work of the flesh.
The Galatians themselves had been the victims of a very proud and ambitious breed attempting to distort the Gospel and them. What else is Romanism, Anglo-Romanism, Arminianism, Wealth and Prosperity Teachings, and Mega-Churchism but other adulteries and distortions of the Gospel? What else is it but human pride, works of the flesh?
Again, this Epistle lection is not for shrinking violets.
While addressing the Galatians, St. Paul continually casts a side-glance to the false teachers stealing valuable time by disputations about the necessity of circumcision and, most likely, other legalisms.
Isaiah 58.1: Cry aloud, spare not; proclaim to my people their sins.
The false teachers had denied the all-sufficiency of Christ’s atonement, the all-sufficiency of His grace, the fullness of justification, adoption, and communion with Christ. The saints at Galatia had submitted to the proud, fleshly heresy of justification by human merit.
Paul draws an antithesis here to the Spirit and His fruits.
It is clear that human nature produces nothing but evil, even in the realm of common grace, such as temperance, kindness, generosity and other civic virtues. While laudable as civic virtues, they still do not pass the divine muster, the Law, not being done according to biblical motive, biblical goals (God’s glory), or biblical guidance (God’s Word).
The fruits of the Spirit:
Faith which receives and rests in Christ alone, that embraces the divine promises, that discerns sins and that trembles at the threatenings.
Joy which arises from settled assurance as an adopted son or daughter of God.
Peace, or the absence of contentions and disputing, so recently experienced by the Galatians.
Longsuffering, or patience and forbearance that does not yield easily to offense.
fruits, but will do so by mortifying the works of the flesh. Having been planted in the likeness of Christ’s, we live to Christ.
Those of Christ, those walking in the Spirit, will evince this mortification and combat, for the believer lives to Christ as a servant of Christ.
The flesh and lusts are denoted by the tree and its fruits.
By way of antithesis, St. Paul instructs them further in the war with the flesh, the devil and the world. They’d had enough fleshliness, themselves, but also with the false teachers. They’d seen the demonic distortion of the Gospel. Without a change of rudders’ orders, the world, the flesh and the devil will dominate the church.
The entire battlefront is envisaged, including the pure Gospel of God. Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh .16λεγω δε πνευματι περιπατειτε και επιθυμιαν σαρκος ου μη τελεσητε.
With this in mind, we rightly and biblically pray:
“Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
We also are compelled to pray for the True Churches of Christ:
Almighty and everliving God, who alone workest great marvels; Send down upon all true and godly ministers and the congregations committed to their charge, the healthful spirit of Thy Law and Gospel; and that they may truly please Thee, pour upon them anew the continual dew of Thy blessing. Grant this, O LORD, for the honour of our Advocate and Mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Footnotes:
[1] Enunciated by us elsewhere, the five solas of the Reformation.
[2] As an aside, Romanism fuses justification and sanctification. Faith contributes to one’s justification, but not alone. Beyond faith alone, additional works of satisfaction and merit must accompany faith. Penance allows supplementary merits in securing justification. It’s still standing system of indulgences is one expression of this merit-based system apart from Christ. This is the sophisticated and amplified version of agitators at Galatia. It wasn’t just Christ alone by faith alone by grace alone, but “something more” was needed for justification…circumcision was necessary for salvation.
[3] The ancient world had used these variously for recreation, orgies, as well as medicinal purposes. Galen, the Greek physician (c.150 A.D.), noted that it may be more suitable to risk pain than opiate-addiction as a temporary palliative. Alexander the Great had opium administered to the injured, but often to those with foot complaints, enabling them to march longer but also incurring addictions. Alexander himself was no stranger to fleshly debaucheries.
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