Freedom and the Spirit
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:24 · Berean Standard Bible
When you give your life to Christ, something real happens—your old way of living (driven by selfish desires and impulses) loses its power over you. It's like you've already died to that old self.
Paul uses a shocking image here—crucifixion. For his readers, that was the most brutal, shameful death imaginable. But he's saying that when you commit to Jesus, you're choosing to let your old patterns of selfishness die. You're not just trying harder; something fundamental shifts. This would have been both comforting (you're not alone in the struggle) and challenging (it requires real commitment).
Paul, describing what happens when you truly belong to Christ
This connects directly to Jesus's own death and resurrection. Just as Jesus died and rose again, so followers of Jesus experience a kind of death to their old selves and a rising to new life. It's not metaphorical in the sense of being unreal—it's a genuine spiritual reality that changes everything about how you live.
Participation in Christ necessarily involves the crucifixion of the flesh—the old, self-oriented way of being—along with its destructive impulses and desires.
Paul employs the crucifixion metaphor with forensic precision: 'crucified' (estaurōsan, perfect tense) indicates completed action with ongoing consequences. For believers at baptism, this wasn't theological abstraction but enacted narrative participation—they'd identified with Christ's death, mortifying the old self (Romans 6:1-11). The 'flesh' (sarx) here means not physical embodiment per se but what theologians call the unredeemed orientation toward self-gratification and autonomy from God—what John Calvin termed 'cupiditas,' disordered desire. The Galatians, having been baptized into Christ, had already enacted this death; Paul's rhetorical move is to remind them of what they'd already done, summoning them to live consistently with their baptismal identity.
The Apostle Paul
This doctrine emerged from Paul's mystical participation theology—'it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me' (2:20)—which itself reinterprets the Suffering Servant motif (Isaiah 53) through the lens of individual believers' identification with Christ. Medieval mystical theology, particularly in Meister Eckhart and the devotio moderna tradition, developed this crucifixio of the self into a comprehensive spirituality.
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25Since we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit.
26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying one another.
Read all of Galatians 5 — You were called to freedom — but not freedom to indulge. Walk by the Spirit and the fruit that grows will be love, joy, peace, and self-control.
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