by Kent Leslie ✉️
Walk by the Spirit [Ga 5.16] is actually an Old Testament concept. Comes from Ezekiel.
Ek 36.27: “I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.”
Because God put his Spirit in us, we’re meant to follow him, not the desires of our flesh. Paul uses the word σὰρξ/sarx, “meat, body” to describe those instinctive animal tendencies.
We Christians like to say we’re not animals; God made us greater than the animals ’cause he put a living spirit in us. [Ge 2.7] And that’s true. But he put this living spirit in an animal body. And—apart from our spirits—this animal body physically isn’t all that different from other animals. You realize we’re only genetically 1.2 percent different from chimpanzees? (That sounds like a really small percentage, but it represents millions of base pairs; there’s a whole lot of code in our DNA.) And when we see humans act like a bunch of ranging chimps and attack one another, or only focus on what makes us happy and comfortable and to heck with everyone else, that’s why. It’s all the same selfish instincts we find in animals; all the same desires of the flesh. And God calls us to be better than animals, because he made us better than animals.
The flesh desires what is against the Spirit. [Ga 5.17] Paul’s now making it clear flesh and spirit are opposites when it comes to morals. They’re not opposites in everything; sometimes both God and our flesh want us to rest. But they’re gonna want it for different moral reasons. God doesn’t want us to burn out; the flesh just wants to be lazy.
So that you don’t do what you want. [Ga 5.17] I’d translate this, “Lest you do whatever you want.” Too many people think freedom in Christ means we can do whatever we want. No; we’re meant to follow the Spirit. Jesus frees us from sin so we can follow the Spirit; so we don’t have to be creatures of instinct and vice; we don’t have to be nothing more than apes who wear clothes. We can be like Jesus.