Like any good vampire slayer, Paul drives a stake into the heart of the enemy in verse 24. That ghoul is the flesh. More specifically, MY flesh.
It's the sinful, unredeemed part of me that I have yet to turn over to Jesus. The apostle pounds away one final time to insure me know that this monster is no longer a threat.
Actually what he does is simply let us know what Jesus has done for me on the cross. Christ died for me so that I would no longer be haunted by my flesh.
The man from Tarsus reminds his readers of the ongoing implications of what happened that Friday outside of Jerusalem.
When Jesus died, we died. When we died, our flesh died. He hammers a stake through the heart of my sinful flesh one final time.
This is necessary because of what’s going on in Galatia. False teachers have infiltrated the churches there and sabotaged what God had done through Paul.
Proclaiming the Gospel he got straight from the lips of Jesus (Gal 1:12), he and Barnabas made two trips through the region on his first missionary journey (Acts 13:13-14:23).
He announced that as Messiah, Jesus has thrown open the doors of salvation to the entire world. He completely fulfilled the requirements of the Mosaic law so that everyone, not just Jews, could know and worship God.
And because Christ lived the perfect life that we could never live, we are free! Free from the law (Gal 5:18)! Free from legalism (Gal 5:1)! Free from our own sinful flesh (v24)! Free to live for Jesus (Gal 2:20)!
Paul has just contrasted walking by the Spirit and the works of the flesh. After describing both the symptoms of the flesh’s work and the Spirit’s fruit in our lives, he let’s us know that those who have placed their faith in Jesus no longer have to answer to those sinful whispers and urges.
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (v24). That nasty list we read in Galatians 5:18-21 no longer has any real power over us.
The temptation might be there (and will be as long as we’re on this side of the grave). But temptation is not sin.
It’s only sin when we give in to those tantalizing opportunities. And because of what Jesus did for us, our flesh and its works hold no authority over us an longer.
We shouldn’t fly past the phrase “those who belong to Christ Jesus.” What a glorious reality it is to belong to Him! I’ve been “bought with a price” (1Cor 6:20; 7:23). I am not my own.
He paid the price with His own blood and bought me out of the slave market of sin (Gal 4:4-5). If I belong to Christ, I am a true spiritual descendant of Abraham. I’m God’s property. I am His. And He will not let me go.
If we belong to Jesus then something very powerful has occurred. We “have crucified the flesh” (v24). This is the Greek verb σταυροω/stauro’o. It means to crucify.
This was that bloody and brutal form of execution used by the Romans. They perfected crucifixion from the Phoenicians who simply impaled their victims on stakes.
The Greek term actually means to drive down on a stake or to impale. I love the idea that in Christ I’ve driven a stake through my sin, my lust and my perversion.
The idea here is the flip side of what Paul wrote in chapter 2. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
On one side, when I died it’s now Jesus living in and through me. On the other side, when I died so did my flesh.
When we drove a stake through our flesh we killed “its passions and desires” (v24). Passion is the Greek noun παθημα/pathema. It describes a strong inward emotion or impulse.
Paul uses this term to describe uncontrolled sexual desires or “shameful passions” (Rom 1:26). Desire is the Greek term επιθυμια/epithumia.
In a neutral sense, it is the desire or craving for anything. But in a negative context like this, it’s that burning desire for what is forbidden.
It’s an unrestrained lust for something we know to be wrong. It’s the very word Jesus uses when warning against undressing a woman with our eyes.
“Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28).
The combination of these two definitions with the sexual nature of the “works of the flesh” lets me know the danger found in my flesh.
I must remember that when I died with Jesus, I drove a stake through lust.
©2012
Jay Jennings
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