The scriptures are a constant source of encouragement to believers in their lives. Scripture comforts them with the truth of their gracious salvation. So in the epistle to the Galatians, the apostle Paul is teaching the doctrine of justification by faith alone, a justification that is without works. That justification is our salvation. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because God freely and fully forgives our sins, we are brought into fellowship with the living God in our consciences.

It is true that elect infants have the same salvation that elect adults have, and adults have salvation in the same way as infants do. As children grow up and their ministers, teachers, and parents teach the children about their gracious salvation, they mature and grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enter into the experience of that gracious salvation. That experience is nothing less than that we are saved as little children who do nothing for our salvation and who as sinners have peace with the living God. Nothing more glorious and lovely can be said to sinners than, “You as sinners have peace with God.” By that truth we have hope in God and in eternal life.

Note well that the gospel does not say that to good people. If you have your own righteousness and good works, you do not need the gospel. You do not need Jesus Christ or his righteousness. You do not need salvation. It is also true then that Jesus Christ does not call you because he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. But to sinners who have no righteousness of themselves and who have no good works or obedience with which to stand before God, the gospel is glorious news, for it declares to sinners that Jesus Christ is their righteousness.

That truth the apostle was commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ to carry into all the world and to defend against all who would corrupt that truth. Among the Galatian churches the apostle had to teach that truth over against the false apostles who were corrupting that truth by the false gospel of works. Since they were corrupting the church in more ways than in doctrine, the apostle probably had these men in view in the last verse of chapter 5 when he wrote, “Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” When wrong doctrine is brought into the church, then all the thinking, behavior, and life of the church are wrong, for life follows doctrine. The false apostles were bringing into the churches a proud doctrine that men are righteous before God by their works. Yes, that is in essence what they were teaching. The works of the law were essential to the false apostles’ teaching of salvation.

That gospel of the false apostles is very common today, and many who come as Christian teachers are no different than the false apostles of Paul’s day. Their doctrine was no different than the doctrine that we left in the Protestant Reformed Churches. If Paul were alive today, he would write the book of Galatians against that doctrine. We are all very familiar with the sound of that doctrine, which says that we are saved by grace, through faith, and in the way of our obedience and that good works are necessary for salvation in the last day.

The false apostles of Paul’s day could never stop talking about the law as the way to blessings and as a safe refuge for the church in times of trouble. Thus they never freed the church from bondage to the law, but they exposed the law as a cruel taskmaster that brings the knowledge of sin and wrath. Their false theology was that the church is saved in the way of obedience to the law. They could never say to the people, “By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast!” The false apostles always added obedience. They added obedience to faith; they added obedience to Christ; and they added obedience to the way of salvation. So they were teaching men to appear before God trusting in all kinds of things instead of in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. The false apostles were teaching men to trust in their own acts of obedience, their acts of repentance, and even their acts of faith. Thereby the false apostles were robbing the church of all hope and comfort.

That doctrine is also a proud doctrine, and it feeds the worst impulses and desires of men. And so the Galatian churches had become full of ambition and vainglory. The false apostles had turned the whole Christian life into a damning drudgery to obtain favor and forgiveness from God. It was a terrible task. Those who engaged in it filled themselves with pride, heaped wrath to themselves, and seared their own consciences. The Galatian churches that the apostle had to address were a disgusting mess, and they were as such because they had forsaken the gospel.

So the apostle labored among the Galatian churches and called the members to repentance from their wicked folly of turning away from the truth and giving ear to those crafty and ambitious false teachers. He brought again to the churches the gospel of the full and free pardon of sins for Jesus Christ’s sake as the only hope, joy, and comfort of believers. The apostle comforted the church with Christ, the cross of Christ, and the gift of righteousness by faith only.

The false apostles of Paul’s day, as the false teachers of our day, were also attacking the gospel of justification by faith alone with slander. “Such a gospel will make careless and profane members of the church who will not have any interest in good works.” The false apostles were trying to make the apostle’s doctrine appear to be a wicked doctrine that would lead the church members to live carelessly and to continue in sin. So the apostle comforted the church with Christ in Galatians 5:24–25 and taught that a careless and profane Christian is impossible. The apostle’s doctrine is the only doctrine that leads to a truly Christian life.

In verse 25 the apostle exhorts us to walk in the Spirit. We have the Spirit, so, of course, we must walk in the Spirit. In the previous verses the apostle laid out for us the violent conflict between the Spirit and the flesh and enumerated the evil works of the flesh and the lovely fruits of the Spirit. The apostle comforts us with the Spirit himself. The gift of the crucified and risen Christ is his Spirit. The Spirit wars against the flesh, and the Spirit himself bears all kinds of fruit in us. We live in the Spirit, are led of the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit.

Now the apostle turns to tell us something else about the flesh of those who have the Spirit. The apostle’s doctrine is a comforting truth about the flesh that explains why the sin-life, walking in sin and continuing in sin, is impossible for justified Christians. By contrast his doctrine also explains why they walk in the Spirit. Their flesh is crucified. Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh!

A crucified flesh!

That is the lovely gospel of verse 24.

We could understand the apostle’s word as pointing out that justified and Spirit-indwelt believers have crucified their flesh, for such is the power of the Spirit in them. Those who are Christ’s have the Spirit, and by the power of the Spirit they crucify their flesh with the affections and the lusts of the flesh. With that understanding the apostle would be pointing out that Christians are not hypocrites, but they really hate sin and love righteousness.

However, I am not at all convinced that this is the meaning of the verse. Rather, the apostle states a fact, a truth, about believers who are justified and have the Spirit. This is true only of those who are justified by faith alone. This is true of them because through the righteousness of Christ they have received the Spirit of life in Christ. What is true of them is that in Christ their flesh is crucified. They have flesh. Their flesh is crucified. That is a fact. That is an accomplished reality. That is not of them. That is because they belong to Christ. That is a great comfort to them. In their lives their flesh surrounds them and torments them. Their flesh leads them astray into terrible sins. They sin; they sin every day; they sin terrible sins; and they sin the same sins. That is all out of their flesh.

That flesh is crucified.

Glorious news!

The flesh in man is his original nature as fallen in Adam, what in Romans 6:6 is called “the body of sin.” The flesh is called “the body of sin” because the body is the means or instrument by which sin becomes manifest in us. There are very deep and old ruts of sin in our flesh that extend all the way back to our first father, Adam. The human race has long traveled in these well-worn paths of sin, and these paths extend into us too. We sin with our bodies, and our bodies are the instruments to carry out the lusts of the flesh.

Flesh is a dirty word. It is a pornography studio, a marriage bed defiled with another woman, a gory murder scene, a rebellious teenager’s forsaking the truth for the world, the destruction of a defenseless child by his classmates, a man who destroys himself and his family with his drinking, and many other disgusting scenes. The very word reeks of the insatiable desires of man sold under sin. The flesh is totally depraved. This means that man is corrupt in all his parts and that in all his parts he is totally corrupt. He is prone by nature to hate God and the neighbor. He is dead in trespasses and sins. He is a slave of unrighteousness and the servant of sin.

The total depravity of his nature is the essence of man’s misery. The essence of his misery is not that he has no access to education or to economic opportunity. This is all that the world can say about the misery of man. Even the vast majority of the church world says not much more about man’s misery. Missions have become world relief. For the carnal churches that send these missionaries of capitalism, blessing is success in the world. When men succeed in this life, then they immediately begin to crow about the blessings of God, and they teach others the same carnal Christianity. But the church’s treasure is not silver and gold; the church’s treasure is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That gospel addresses the misery of man at its root. The misery of man at its root is his nature. Because the misery of man is his nature, even though a man never would commit one sin in this life, to speak foolishly, he would be a wretched and damnable person. The fact is that out of his miserable nature, he also fills his life with more misery by his actual sins.

Man’s nature is wholly contrary to God. Man’s nature is totally depraved; there is no good thing in it; it is inclined to all wickedness; and that nature has no inclination to God, goodness, or virtue at all. And so man is damnworthy and without hope.

The flesh is full of affections and lusts. These words can have a good meaning. Affections are passions. Lusts are desires. A man without passions and desires is no man. With the heart man is deeply moved in the whole of his being with his passions and desires. The Spirit has desires. The Spirit loves the glory of God; salvation; searching the deep things of God; and all that is righteous, good, and lovely. The flesh has its affections and lusts. They may be affections and lusts of the more sophisticated kind of the man of refined taste, or they may be the crasser variety of the man of the street. But the condemnation of the affections and lusts is the same. They are lusts—the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life. The flesh loves evil. The flesh pants after wickedness, plans iniquity, and seeks out transgression. Lust and evil affections are the roots of sin in man. Out of them come all the deeds of the flesh. What man lusts after, he carries out if he is able.

And you have to understand what man’s relationship with the flesh is. The flesh is not like a backpack that man can throw off at his will. He is his flesh, and he is ruled and dominated by the flesh. The flesh takes man to hell. In the language of the apostle in Galatians 5:16, the natural man fulfills the lusts of the flesh. All man can do is fulfill the lusts of the flesh. To fulfill the lusts of the flesh means that man must sin and sin and sin until he fills up his cup of iniquity and God kills him and he enters eternal damnation.

Man’s legal relationship with the flesh is one in which the flesh—that is, who he is—controls and dominates him. He is controlled by sin. That is what happened to the natural man in Adam. He became a slave to sin as that sin is in his nature. He sinned against the most high majesty of God and became liable to temporal and eternal woe. Man is not free; he is a slave. He is a slave to all his passions and lusts.

And man likes that. He is not troubled by that relationship with the flesh. His personal relationship with the flesh and all its affections and lusts is love for them. He sees sin in himself, and he rejoices in iniquity and does not rejoice in the truth and righteousness. He does not hate sin. The natural man loves sin.

They who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts!

Salvation!

“Crucified the flesh” means that the flesh has been tried, found guilty, nailed to the cross as accursed of God, and sent to hell. If you understand that the flesh is you, then you have been crucified. You have been tried and condemned and nailed to the cross as accursed of God.

The flesh is not dead. The flesh is crucified. It is like the malefactors who were hung with Christ and who in their own condemnation blasphemed and railed on Christ and joined the mob in its mockery of the dying Christ. That is the flesh. The flesh hangs nailed to the cross, judged, condemned, and dying; and the flesh is terrible in its sin.

We died in Christ, and we live as those who have been raised from the dead.

The flesh has been crucified.

That is a statement of doctrine, a fact, and a reality.

The flesh is crucified!

This means, first, that our legal relationship with the flesh has been broken. The flesh does not and may not have dominion over believers. Oh, to be sure, we sin. But we do not fulfill sin. The natural man must sin and sin until he has filled his cup of iniquity. We are free from sin. We died to sin. Sin did not die. Though the flesh has been crucified, sin is yet alive, blaspheming from its cross. We died. Because we died, the legal right of sin to rule and dominate us is broken.

Second, that the flesh is crucified means that we have a new relationship with sin. We hate sin. We sin. We sin the same sins every day. We sin in all that we do. We can sin terrible sins. David did. Peter did. Peter denied Christ. David committed adultery and murder. But we hate our sins. If someone were to point out the believer’s sin to him, he would say, “I do not want sin. I hate sin. I loathe my sin. I loathe even myself! I loathe my flesh and all that comes from it, and I long to be delivered from my flesh.”

The good that we would, we do not; the evil that we would not, that we do.

If someone were to ask the believer, “Shall we continue in sin?” he would respond with horror, “God forbid! No, I cannot.” That is because his flesh is crucified.

The flesh, with its affections and lusts, is crucified!

The lovely gospel of the text!

The flesh cannot rule us. The flesh cannot bring us to hell. We have a new view of sin. We hate sin and do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

The flesh has been crucified!

Because we are Christ’s!

That is the reason the flesh is crucified.

We are Christ’s first by election. In election a legal relationship was established between us and Christ, such that he is the head, and we are his body and one corporation with Christ. Christ is responsible for that entire corporation. We are Christ’s in such a way that Christ may stand in our place, and Christ may represent us. The election of God created that corporation.

When Christ went to the cross, he nailed our flesh to his tree. He suffered the penalty and punishment that we deserved. He underwent death there on the tree. He made himself the object of the curse of God. He paid our sin-debt, so that we are no longer liable to punishment. And we died with him. We went down into God’s wrath, his curse, and the agonies of hell. We died to the flesh, so that the flesh cannot have dominion over us.

We also were raised with Christ. He lives, and we must live with him. Thus our attitude toward sin is hatred. We crucify the flesh. We do that because we are Christ’s.

I said that Christians sin; they sin every day; they sin repeatedly; and they sin terribly. But there is one thing that you can say about Christians: They cannot continue in sin. They do not love sin. They hate their sins. That is because they are Christ’s, and they died at the cross with Christ and were raised to newness of life. When their flesh rises against them, they crucify that flesh. They condemn their flesh, damn it, and testify against it. They do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Because they live by the Spirit!

It is the Spirit in them who hates sin and loves righteousness. Those are the Spirit’s affections and desires! Those who are Christ’s have the Spirit. They are made one organic body with Christ. They are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He is their head, and they are ruled by his Spirit.

Led of the Spirit, we are not under the law. We have that Spirit for no other reason than that we are not under the law. We have been freed from the law because we are Christ’s. Apart from Christ, we would be in bondage to the law. The law could bring us into court. The law could condemn us to misery and to death because we did not keep the law. But in Christ it is all different. The law cannot say to us, “You must do this, or you cannot have God’s favor and blessing.” The law cannot say that because Christ did all that the law demanded, and so we are free. The word of the law to us can never again be that we must keep the law to live. Whoever is not under the law is also free from the law’s condemnation and thus is free from the sentence of death that is in the law. Because we are not under the law, we are led of the Spirit. Led by the Spirit, we hate sin and love righteousness because that is the desire of the Spirit within us.

Walking in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Do not say that this means that you will not sin, that you will be perfect, or even that mainly you will not sin in your lives. That is not true. Fulfilling the lust of the flesh is to bring lust to its conclusion. According to other parts of scripture, this means living in sin, continuing in sin, and doing that to condemnation. Not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh means that sin cannot dominate and control believers who are alive in the Spirit, who walk in the Spirit, and who are led of the Spirit. They cannot sin unto death.

So when the apostle says “if we live in the Spirit,” he is not calling our lives in the Spirit into question—that is, if we are Christ’s by faith, then we live in the Spirit. Rather, the apostle is giving the secret power of our new life in Christ.

First, “we live in the Spirit.” We could understand this as to live by the Spirit. That would mean that the Spirit is the power of our lives. But the word “in” is the Spirit’s word, and by using it here the Spirit means to teach us that Christ does not give us our new life as you might give someone a package. Rather, we have this new life because the Spirit himself is in us, and he is our mysterious bond and union with Jesus Christ. We live in the Spirit. That must surely and certainly be because we are Christ’s.

Then let us walk in the Spirit!

Here the apostle says that there is no other life that can result from the crucifixion of the flesh than a walk in the Spirit. It is impossible for Christians not to bring forth fruits of thankfulness in their whole lives—chief among which is that they crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts. They hate their sins and are sorry for them daily. That is the walk in the Spirit. That is because the flesh has been crucified.