Galatians 5:22-25
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
The apostle proceeds now to exhort the Galatians to prove the reality of their religion by producing its fruits. The exhortation, we should have naturally expected, would have been, — ‘If, then, ye are Christ’s, crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts.’ To be “in Christ,” and to be “in the Spirit,” are descriptive of the same persons. Not to “walk after the flesh,” and to “walk after the Spirit,” are but different views of the same kind of character and conduct; so that, to a person who is familiar with the apostle’s mode of thought and expression, there is nothing unnatural in the phraseology of the exhortation that follows. “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Gal. 5:25)
To “live,” in the phraseology of the apostle, is often equivalent to ‘be happy.’ “Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.” (1 Thess. 3:8) “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Rom. 8:13) It is plain, however, that the word is not used in this sense in the passage before us. To “live in the Spirit” is just ‘to be spiritually alive’ — to be animated and actuated by the Spirit.
“The Spirit,” as I have endeavoured to show, is, in the whole of this context, that new mode of thinking and feeling to which a man is formed by the Holy Spirit, by the instrumentality of the faith of the truth as it is in Jesus; and to “live in the Spirit” is just to possess this mode of thinking and feeling.
To “walk” is, in Scripture language, descriptive of a course of conduct. To “walk in the Spirit”* is habitually to act spiritually — to behave like spiritual men — like men who think and feel in that new and better way to which the Holy Spirit forms all who are under his influence.
The force of the exhortation is obviously this, — ‘If we are Christians, let us prove ourselves to be so, by acting like Christians. If we are spiritually alive, let us show that we are so by being spiritually active. If we really think and feel as all do who are believers of the truth, under the influence of the Spirit, let us make this evident by embodying our convictions and feelings in our behaviour.’**
There are two important general principles obviously implied in this exhortation, — the one, that we must “live in the Spirit,” in order to our “walking in the Spirit;” and the other, that “walking in the Spirit” is the natural result, and the only satisfactory evidence, of “living in the Spirit.” “Living in the Spirit” is necessary in order to “walking in the Spirit.” A man must be a Christian before he can act Christianly. The tree must be good in order to the fruit being good; the fountain must be cleared that the streams may be pure. Christian conduct can spring only from Christian principle. Are we anxious to get to heaven, and, for this purpose, to obtain that “holiness, without which no man can see the Lord”? The only way of obtaining it, is to be thus “transformed by the renewing of our mind;” and this can only be brought about by the operation of the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of Christian truth understood and believed.
The other principle is equally important, — ‘Walking in the Spirit is the natural result and only satisfactory evidence of living in the Spirit.’ The state of the mind and heart is closely connected with that of the conduct. Whatever a man’s profession be — however ingeniously he may speculate, and however plausibly and fluently he may talk about Christianity, — if, in his temper and conduct, he does not exhibit the native results of Christian principle and feeling, he makes it evident that he is not a Christian. “By their fruits,” says our Lord, “ye shall know them.” The Spirit is not there when his fruits are not there.
— John Brown of Edinburgh (1784-1858)
* στοιχεῖν, equivalent to περιπατεῖν, verse 16. — Acts 21:24; Rom. 4:12; Phil. 3:16. “στοιχεῖν significat ordinate incedere et intra limites suos continere.” — Estius.
** Bauer’s paraphrase is good (Rhet. Paul. ii. 672): — “Si vivimus (interne qua sensum et conditionem) spiritu; spiritu et agamus, incedamus more externo: vitam internam probemus factis externis.”
