NOTES for Gal 5:11-21

For Paul the expression 'spiritual life' has a very concrete meaning. From the beginning, the human being was intended by God for spiritual life. The pledge of this purpose was the 'breath of life' that God 'breathed' into the human being at creation. In every other respect, the human being is the same kind of nature as any other; his physiology and psyche do not differ in principle from those of higher animals, for example from those of primates. But the 'breath of life' changes everything: it is nothing other than God's presence opened to the human being.

And through Christ something still much greater can be opened to the human being: the Kingdom and its breath, which can unite with the 'breath of life.' All this is spiritual life in the proper sense of the word: the action in a person of God's breath and the breath of the Kingdom. But how far the 'breath of life' will determine human life, and whether and how far the breath of the Kingdom will be present in it, depends on the person himself. According to God's plan, all this was meant to prevail in human life, determining its quality, the quality of that stream of existence which in the Bible is called the 'soul.' After the fall, however, the situation changed; in the stream of human life, nature prevailed over spirit.

The main task of all who sought spiritual life after the fall became returning to the state in which God's breath would again determine the course of human life. For a Christian the issue must be not only God's 'breath of life,' but also the breath of the Kingdom, by which every Christian lives, if, of course, he is a Christian not only in name. The Torah serves precisely the attainment of this goal, above all, of course, as the inner Torah, as the spiritual and moral imperative determining human life from within, not as a system of prescriptions regulating it from outside.

That same imperative prompts a person to build relationships with God and with neighbors, relationships of love, the only ones compatible with genuine spiritual life. Then sin becomes simply unthinkable; it can have no place in a person's life if that life is determined by the breath of the Kingdom. Then no religious prescriptions, no external rules, are needed by the person anymore. Otherwise they will not help anyway, because even keeping the most correct prescriptions changes nothing in itself if the person does not change inwardly. This is what the apostle reminds his readers.

Liberty- One of the keywords of our world. People are thirsty of liberty, people hate liberty. People die and kill because of liberty. Only, the ideas on what liberty is, are very different. The apostle Paul offers his own approach to this notion. For him, unlike very many, the purport is not from what we are freed, but for what. If the purpose consists of widening the possibilities "to satisfy oneself needs ", then it is not liberty, but the continuation of sin slavery. The exit from slavery is the refusal of egoism, the service of another. So liberty is the realization and the enlargement of the possibility to love, just as God loves us.

Continuing the theme of the Torah, Paul writes to the Galatian Christians that refusing circumcision does not mean refusing the Torah at all. He reminds them of a well-known rabbinic saying, which the Savior Himself quoted more than once: love your neighbor as yourself, and you may consider that you have fulfilled the Torah (v. 14). Freedom in our world, not yet transformed, is only a potential; it can be used for good or for evil. In the Kingdom, however, freedom is not only a possibility but its realization, the embodiment of love that every relationship in the Kingdom becomes, if it truly belongs to the Kingdom. It is no accident that the apostle speaks of love as the only right use of freedom and, for Christians, the only possible use of freedom (v. 13). He calls the Galatian Christians to the simplest and at the same time most difficult thing: to life in the Kingdom, to walking by the Spirit (vv. 16-17).

The apostle reminds the Galatian church of the same thing he had said more than once to other churches: in love is the whole fullness of the Torah. Love is the very foundation of the Kingdom, the substance that permeates everything there, including all the relationships that bind its inhabitants to God and to one another. The Torah ceases to be a fence protecting from sin; its protective function is no longer needed in the Kingdom. Instead another function appears, one almost unused in our world, which has not yet been fully transformed: it becomes the form that allows the love permeating the Kingdom to take shape and quality. Paul does not list the works of the spirit and the works of the flesh in such detail by accident, setting them against each other (vv. 19-28). He wants to remind his readers that the system of relationships among people forms a definite environment, and that environment can be formed either according to the laws of our world, not yet transformed, or according to the laws of the Kingdom. He calls the Galatian Christians to make the formation of an environment living by the laws of the Kingdom their chief task. This, and not playing religious games, is truly spiritual work, work worthy of the inhabitants of the Kingdom.

The list of the “works of the flesh” is striking. The Apostle Paul lists without distinction sins that we call grave—adultery and murder—and so-called “everyday” sins—enmity, quarrels, and disagreements. And yet, it would seem, how can we imagine our life without any quarrels or disagreements at all? Perhaps we can imagine it, and perhaps we would even like the picture... but putting it into practice... We would so much like to say that if we have not killed anyone, then everything is more or less all right with us, while small shortcomings... everyone has them. And yet the Apostle Paul speaks clearly: “Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” So should we despair and give up? Is there no chance? Paul tells us that what matters most is what leads us. If we are led by the Spirit, we pass beyond the confines of the law of the flesh. The fruits of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives are the direct opposite of enmity and disagreement: love, joy, and patience. This is not about cultivating patience in ourselves. It is precisely about the Spirit acting in the heart, when patience and love are born from within. Virtue cannot be artificial.

The division between spirit and flesh is a theme that occupied the minds of many ancient philosophers, but the apostle Paul speaks of an entirely new understanding of this question. What Christ offers does not fit within the framework of even the most coherent philosophical system. The spirit and human nature are directed in opposite directions, and reconciling them is practically impossible. This can be seen clearly in the absolutely incompatible fruits they bear. This is the law to which everything must be subject. Acting according to the flesh, a person must inevitably begin committing murders, adulteries, idol worship...

Only by living in the Holy Spirit is a person able to break this circle. If we are "led by the Spirit," then little by little He transforms us so that no laws have power over us any longer. For together with Christ we "crucify" our flesh "with its passions and desires," and we begin to live in the fullness of our whole being in such a way that our deeds can be called "fruits of the spirit."

Do you know what happens to someone who falls into a bog? They slowly sink into the liquid mud, and the more vigorously they try to get out, the faster the mire sucks them in. This closely resembles the existence of a sinful person: a slow death, a complete inability to cope with the situation, and an utter lack of freedom. For the apostle Paul, it is obvious that humanity is enslaved to sin and needs the liberation that only God can give and that Christ brings into this world. He has already brought it and has already given it to those who believe in Him! A new life has begun, no longer in the bog; movement is no longer impeded and no longer brings us closer to destruction. And then Paul sees with grief how people begin once more to bind themselves hand and foot, lest they make one movement too many, “in case something goes wrong” and they later have to answer for it. Once again, people pile commandment upon commandment; once again, they place the traditions of the elders above the Word of God. O foolish Galatians! Do you remember the film called “That Sweet Word: Freedom”? Sweet? Perhaps... Difficult—yes, but anything else is unworthy of a human being created in the image and likeness of God.

Speaking about circumcision, Paul compares it with slavery, urging his readers to remain free people (v. 1). He tells the Galatian Christians directly that if they are circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to them (v. 2). At first glance, such a statement contradicts the apostle's own words, spoken, however, at another time and on another occasion, that circumcision prevents neither salvation nor abiding in the Kingdom. The key to understanding such a stern statement by Paul is the apostle's demand that the one being circumcised fulfill the whole Torah completely (v. 3). Paul, as can be seen, is not against circumcision. He is not against religion as such, as long as it does not hinder entrance into the Kingdom, and he is certainly not against the Torah. But he is firmly against the game of religion into which, as can be seen, the Christians of Galatia had been drawn. He reminds the Galatians that in Christ the question of circumcision loses all meaning, that it has no relation at all to the Kingdom (v. 6). One cannot be justified by the Torah, and the Galatian Christians ought to know this (vv. 4-5).

But that is not the only point. The point is that they do not treat circumcision at all as the Torah prescribes. For a believing Jew who observes the Torah, the question of circumcision sometimes became a matter of life and death, as it did, for example, during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, when circumcision was performed secretly and was punishable by death. In such a situation circumcision became the consequence of a deep spiritual choice, and not everyone resolved to take it. But in the present case the situation was different: circumcision was being used precisely in order to avoid problems, problems that Paul himself clearly did not try to avoid in this way (v. 11). For the apostle, as can be seen, circumcision is too serious a thing to be used as a cover. And he calls the Christians of Galatia to treat it just as seriously. He reminds them that by agreeing to circumcision they are choosing another path, not the one to which Paul had testified to them and on which they had walked before (vv. 7-8). This is no trifle; betrayal begins with something small (v. 9). And if someone among those who preach circumcision in the Galatian church does not understand the full seriousness of the situation, so much the worse for him (v. 10).

Circumcision, like religion in general, is neither good nor bad in itself. Everything depends on what it is for a person: a choice of path or a game that is played partly in order to avoid unpleasantness. In the first case, it is possible that the chosen path will still lead a person to the threshold of the Kingdom, as happened with Paul himself. After all, before the meeting on the Damascus road, he himself did not dare to think that circumcision could be spiritually useless. The second path leads nowhere, because it goes nowhere. It most of all resembles a circle around a playground, around which one can run endlessly. And the apostle certainly does not want running in circles to become the main occupation of his Galatian brothers.