6. The cross and holiness (5:24)
6. The cross and holiness (5:24)
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
It is essential to see this text (as indeed every text) in its context. Paul in Galatians 5 is concerned with the meaning of moral freedom. He declares that it is not self-indulgence but self-control, not serving ourselves but serving each other in love (v. 13). Behind this alternative is the inner conflict of which all Christian people are conscious. The apostle calls the protagonists ‘the flesh’ (our fallen nature with which we are born) and ‘the Spirit’ (the Holy Spirit himself who indwells us when we are born again). In verses 16–18 he describes the contest between the two, because the desires of the flesh and of the Spirit are contrary to each other.
The acts of the flesh (vv. 19–21) include sexual immorality, religious apostasy (idolatry and witchcraft), social breakdown (hatred, discord, jealousy, temper, selfish ambition and factions) and uncontrolled physical appetites (drunkenness and orgies). The fruit of the Spirit (vv. 22–23), however, the graces which he causes to ripen in the people he fills, include love, joy and peace (specially in relation to God), patience, kindness and goodness (in relation to each other), and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (in relation to ourselves).
How then can we ensure that the desires of the Spirit predominate over the desires of the flesh? Paul replies that it depends on the attitude which we adopt to each. According to verse 24 we are to ‘crucify’ the flesh, with its evil passions and desires. According to verse 25 we are to ‘live by’ and ‘keep in step with’ the Spirit.
My concern in this chapter is with verse 24, because of its assertion that those who belong to Christ have ‘crucified’ their flesh or sinful nature. It is an astonishing metaphor. For crucifixion was a horrible, brutal form of execution. Yet it illustrates graphically what our attitude to our fallen nature is to be. We are not to coddle or cuddle it, not to pamper or spoil it, not to give it any encouragement or even toleration. Instead, we are to be ruthlessly fierce in rejecting it, together with its desires. Paul is elaborating the teaching of Jesus about ‘taking up the cross’ and following him. He is telling us what happens when we reach the place of execution: the actual crucifixion takes place. Luther writes that Christ’s people nail their flesh to the cross, ‘so that although the flesh be yet alive, yet can it not perform that which it would do, forasmuch as it is bound both hand and foot, and fast nailed to the cross’.6 And if we are not ready to crucify ourselves in this decisive manner, we shall soon find that instead we are ‘crucifying the Son of God all over again’. The essence of apostasy is ‘changing sides from that of the Crucified to that of the crucifiers’.7
The crucifixions of Galatians 2:20 and 5:24 refer to two quite different things, as mentioned in an earlier chapter. The first says that we have been crucified with Christ (it has happened to us as a result of our union with Christ), and the second that the people of Christ have themselves taken action to crucify their old nature. The first speaks of our freedom from the condemnation of the law by sharing in Christ’s crucifixion, the second of our freedom from the power of the flesh by ensuring its crucifixion. These two, namely to have been crucified with Christ (passive) and to have crucified the flesh (active), must not be confused.