Galatians 5:24 Commentary and Bible Study

Paul has told us that the Christian has two contrary natures within him both striving to express themselves, but he does not mean to give the impression that both natures are equally balanced in the regenerate heart, or that we can be indifferent to the outcome of this battle. No Christian can say, ‘I have two natures within me, I can do little to influence the outcome of this battle one way or the other; both are equally likely to express themselves so I will stand back and let the battle play itself out.’ No, the Lord has begun a work in us which not only gives us a new spiritual nature but which ensures that the new nature will be victorious over the old, and this is the norm for all believers. If a man or woman is in Christ, they ‘have crucified the flesh’. The use of the word crucified, as Calvin says, links our sanctification to the cross of Christ. The word crucified indicates something completed in the past. This is true of every believer and therefore it must be something which happened right at the start of the Christian life. The two contestants, the flesh and the new spiritual nature, have not been given to fight with all their powers intact. One of them, the flesh, has received a mortal blow at the start of the contest which decides the outcome of the battle. More importantly, the mortal blow was struck not by some outside agent, but by the repenting sinner himself in full recognition that these two contestants were both part of himself. In doing this he declares plainly who he wants to win the battle, and he takes sides from the start and turn against his former nature in a way that assigns it to death, and openly aligns with the new nature in which all hope is placed. The means of death of the old nature is that it is crucified, and this comes about because Christ was crucified. Christ was crucified not only to experience that death which was necessary to make an atonement for sin, but the manner of his death provided a graphic picture of how sin must be defeated. Not only did the Father ordain crucifixion for his Son so that the pains of death would be prolonged and therefore visible to the whole world (though this was only a tiny part of what he suffered), but he ordained crucifixion so that his people should see that they are called to deny all possibility of sin in becoming his disciples. He died to sin, for his people. This is true even though he was the spotless Lamb of God and without sin, for the death he died, he died not only on account of sin, but ‘to sin’ (Romans 6:10), to the possibility of sin and to the realm of sin. He chose such a way out of the world that it could become a pathway for the believer to escape sin’s dominion. He had never experienced sin but nevertheless he turned his back on it in the most decisive way possible, so that no one could come to him who was not willing to similarly die to sin. The Spirit of Christ who knows the mind of Christ, gives every believer a true taste of what it meant to Christ to die to sin, so that no one who is born again begins to follow him without knowing what it will cost them and what will be the end of this road.