Galatians 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul tells the Galatians to stand firm in the freedom Christ won for them and warns that anyone who accepts circumcision is obligated to keep the whole law, and that those seeking to be made right by the law are cut off from Christ. He argues that in Christ what counts is faith working through love, and that the whole law is summed up in loving your neighbor as yourself. He then contrasts freedom used for self-indulgence with freedom used to serve others, listing the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, and says those who practice the former will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • Christ has set us free.
   • The freedom Christ gave is the purpose for which he freed us.
   • The readers are commanded to stand firm.
   • The readers are commanded not to be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
2. 5:2
   • Paul identifies himself by name as the one speaking.
   • Paul calls the readers to take notice.
   • Paul says that if they get circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to them.
3. 5:3
   • Paul testifies again to every man who gets circumcised.
   • A man who gets circumcised is obligated to keep the whole law.
4. 5:4
   • Those who are seeking to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ.
   • Those who are seeking to be justified by the law have fallen away from grace.
5. 5:5
   • We wait eagerly for the hope of righteousness.
   • This waiting is by the Spirit.
   • This waiting is out of faith.
6. 5:6
   • In Christ Jesus circumcision has no power or value.
   • In Christ Jesus uncircumcision has no power or value.
   • What counts is faith working through love.
7. 5:7
   • The readers were running well.
   • Paul asks who cut in on them so that they would not obey the truth.
8. 5:8
   • The persuasion that has come over them is not from the one who calls them.
9. 5:9
   • A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
10. 5:10
    • Paul is confident about the readers in the Lord.
    • Paul is confident that they will think no other way.
    • The one who is troubling them will bear the judgment.
    • This holds whoever that troubler may be.
11. 5:11
    • Paul addresses the readers as brothers.
    • Paul poses the case that he still preaches circumcision.
    • If that were so, Paul asks why he is still being persecuted.
    • If that were so, the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished.
12. 5:12
    • Paul wishes that those who are unsettling the readers would cut themselves off, that is, mutilate themselves.
13. 5:13
    • Paul addresses the readers as brothers.
    • The readers were called to freedom.
    • They are told not to use that freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.
    • They are told to serve one another through love.
14. 5:14
    • The whole law is fulfilled in a single word.
    • That word is: love your neighbor as yourself.
15. 5:15
    • Paul poses the case that they bite and devour one another.
    • He warns them to watch out lest they be consumed by one another.
16. 5:16
    • Paul states what he is saying.
    • He commands them to walk by the Spirit.
    • He says they will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh.
17. 5:17
    • The flesh desires against the Spirit.
    • The Spirit desires against the flesh.
    • These two are opposed to each other.
    • The result is that they do not do the things they want to do.
18. 5:18
    • If they are led by the Spirit, they are not under law.
19. 5:19
    • The works of the flesh are obvious.
    • Adultery is a work of the flesh.
    • Sexual immorality is a work of the flesh.
    • Impurity is a work of the flesh.
    • Debauchery is a work of the flesh.
20. 5:20
    • Idolatry is a work of the flesh.
    • Sorcery, involving drugs and potions, is a work of the flesh.
    • Hostilities are a work of the flesh.
    • Quarreling is a work of the flesh.
    • Jealousy is a work of the flesh.
    • Outbursts of rage are a work of the flesh.
    • Selfish rivalries are a work of the flesh.
    • Dissensions are a work of the flesh.
    • Factions are a work of the flesh.
21. 5:21
    • Envyings are a work of the flesh.
    • Murders are a work of the flesh.
    • Drunkenness is a work of the flesh.
    • Carousing is a work of the flesh.
    • Things like these are also works of the flesh.
    • Paul tells them this in advance.
    • Paul has told them this before.
    • Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22. 5:22
    • The fruit of the Spirit is love.
    • The fruit of the Spirit is joy.
    • The fruit of the Spirit is peace.
    • The fruit of the Spirit is patience.
    • The fruit of the Spirit is kindness.
    • The fruit of the Spirit is goodness.
    • The fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness.
23. 5:23
    • The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness.
    • The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
    • There is no law against such things.
24. 5:24
    • Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.
    • They crucified it together with its passions.
    • They crucified it together with its desires.
25. 5:25
    • Paul states the case that we live by the Spirit.
    • He urges that we also keep in step with the Spirit.
26. 5:26
    • We are urged not to become conceited.
    • We are urged not to provoke one another.
    • We are urged not to envy one another.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

5:1

A yoke is the heavy wooden bar laid across the necks of a pair of oxen to harness them to a plow or cart. In the ancient world it was a standard image for being owned and driven by someone else, and 'the yoke of bondage' means the harness of a slave. Jewish teachers could speak approvingly of taking up 'the yoke of the law'; Paul is using the same picture the other way around.

5:2

Circumcision is the cutting away of the foreskin, performed on Jewish boys on the eighth day after birth. It was the physical mark of belonging to the people descended from Abraham. For a grown Gentile man in Galatia, submitting to it was the decisive step in converting to Judaism, so what Paul is arguing about is not a minor procedure but a change of whole allegiance.

5:3

'The law' means the law of Moses, the entire body of commands in the first five books of the Bible, ritual and civil as well as moral. Circumcision was the entry point into that system, and Paul's argument is that a man who steps through the door takes on everything inside it. 'Debtor' is the language of owing a debt: he is now under obligation to pay the whole of it.

5:4

'Justified' is a courtroom word. It means declared to be in the right, acquitted, rather than gradually improved. 'Grace' means a gift given freely to someone who has not earned it and cannot repay it. The Greek verb behind 'Christ is become of no effect unto you' means to be severed or cut loose from something.

5:5

'Righteousness' translates a word that covers both being put in the right with God and the standing that results from it. The sentence can be read as waiting for that verdict itself or waiting for what the verdict leads to, and the Greek does not separate the two.

5:6

KJV "availeth any thing" means counts for anything or carries any weight.

5:7

Paul switches to the footrace, a familiar sight in any Greek city with its athletic games. The verb behind 'hinder' was used of breaking up a road or barricading a path to stop an advancing army, and of cutting in front of a runner.

5:9

Leaven is a lump of dough held back from an earlier batch and left to ferment, then kneaded into fresh dough to raise it. A very small piece changes the whole mass. The line is a proverb, quoted here without Paul saying outright what the 'little' stands for.

5:10

The King James says the man will "bear his judgment." That means God will decide about what he did.

5:11

'Offence' translates skandalon, the trigger stick of a trap or a stone that trips a walker: something that brings you down, not something that hurts your feelings. Crucifixion was the Roman execution reserved for slaves and rebels, so announcing a crucified man as God's chosen one was a public outrage. The last clause is a conditional: if Paul really were requiring circumcision, that outrage would have been removed, and with it the reason anyone persecutes him.

5:12

The Greek verb means to cut off completely, and in this context it plainly means castration. Paul is playing on circumcision: if cutting is what these teachers are so eager for, let them go the whole way. Two things sharpen it for his readers. Galatia was a center of the worship of the mother goddess Cybele, whose priests castrated themselves; and the law of Moses barred a castrated man from the assembly (Deuteronomy 23:1). The remark is meant to shock.

5:13

'The flesh' is Paul's term for human nature running on its own and set on getting what it wants. It does not mean the body as opposed to the soul, and it is not only about sex: his list in verses 19 to 21 includes rivalry, rage and faction, which are not bodily appetites at all. 'An occasion' translates a military word for a base of operations, the foothold from which an attack is launched.

5:14

The quoted command is from Leviticus 19:18. 'Neighbour' there means the person beside you, the member of your own community whom you actually have to deal with.

5:15

The verbs are the ones used of animals tearing at each other, and 'consumed' is the word for being eaten up or finished off entirely.

5:16

"Walk" is a Jewish way of talking about the whole way a person conducts their life, not literal walking. "Lust" in 1611 English meant any strong craving of any kind, not only a sexual one.

5:17

The last clause is genuinely ambiguous in Greek and has been read both ways: that the conflict keeps you from doing the good you intend, or that it keeps you from simply doing whatever you please.

5:18

'Under the law' means under the law of Moses as the authority you live by and are judged by, not subject to rules in general.

5:19

The King James lists four items here; the earliest surviving manuscripts have three, without 'adultery'. 'Fornication' translates porneia, a broad term covering sexual activity outside marriage of every kind. 'Uncleanness' is impurity, moral dirtiness. 'Lasciviousness' is aselgeia, unrestrained indecency: behavior with no sense of shame about being seen.

5:20

Several of these words have narrowed or shifted since 1611. 'Witchcraft' is pharmakeia, literally the handling of drugs and potions, which in the ancient world meant spells, charms and magic. 'Variance' is quarreling. 'Emulations' is jealous rivalry, wanting what another has. 'Wrath' here is plural, meaning outbursts of temper rather than a settled attitude. 'Strife' is self-seeking partisanship, originally the spirit of a hired politician working a crowd. 'Seditions' is splitting into opposing camps. 'Heresies' is the ordinary Greek word for parties or schools of thought; in Paul's day it meant a group you chose to belong to, not false doctrine.

5:21

Some early manuscripts do not include 'murders'; in Greek the words for envy (phthonoi) and murders (phonoi) differ by a single letter, and a copyist could easily add or drop it. 'Revellings' translates komoi, the drunken night processions that wound through the streets in honor of the wine god, and by Paul's time any rowdy carousing. 'The kingdom of God' means God's rule and the coming life under it, and 'inherit' is the language of receiving a promised estate as an heir.

5:22

'Fruit' is singular in Greek: one crop with several aspects, not a list of separate items to be collected one at a time. 'Longsuffering' is patience that holds out under provocation and delay. 'Gentleness' here translates chrestotes, which means kindness, the quality of being good to deal with. 'Faith' in this list means faithfulness, being reliable and keeping your word, rather than belief.

5:23

'Meekness' translates prautes, which does not mean timidity or weakness. It is a settled gentleness, strength that feels no need to assert itself. 'Temperance' means self-control, mastery over one's own appetites, not abstinence from alcohol, which is the sense the word later acquired in English. The closing phrase is deliberate understatement: no legal code anywhere forbids such things.

5:24

'Affections and lusts' is 1611 English for passions and desires. 'Lust' then covered any strong craving of any kind, not specifically sexual desire.

5:25

The verb rendered 'walk' here is not the same one used in verse 16. This one means to stand in line or keep in step, as soldiers do in rank or as a row of things set in order, so the sense is keeping pace with the Spirit rather than simply going in the same general direction.

5:26

'Vain glory' is kenodoxia, literally empty reputation: being hungry for other people's good opinion and puffed up by it.