August 25, 2023

Galatians 5:24

Written by:
Rev (Dr) Prabhudas Koshy

READ:

Galatians 5:24

24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.


EXHORTATION:

Here we have a description that can only fit genuine Christians. Firstly, they are described as “they that are Christ’s”. Christians are chosen by God even before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Christ has shed His blood for their redemption (Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:18, 19; Revelation 5:9); they are His people now and forever. So Paul said to the Corinthian believers, “ye are Christ’s” (1 Corinthians 3:23). Again in 2 Corinthians 10:7, Paul said, “If any man trust to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s.

Oh, what a privilege it is that we belong to Christ! Oh, what unspeakable mercy we have received! As Paul said in Colossians 1:21, we “were sometime alienated and enemies in … mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled”. Now we can say with all assurance like Paul, “whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). Oh, what a glorious assurance that we are Christ’s!

The second description that Paul makes here about genuine Christians is that they “have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts”. Crucifixion of the flesh is every true believer’s deliberate and decisive action in life. By uniting with Christ by faith, they have put all their sinful desires to death. This is what Paul said in Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Christians live as servants of Christ, and not as servants of the sinful cravings of their body.

Fleshly lusts constantly wage war against the souls of Christians (cf. 1 Peter 2:11). Yet they must remember they are servants of Christ, and yield to His Spirit rather than to the impulses of the flesh (cf. Galatians 5:16, 17). If they have yielded to the flesh, they must repent and yield themselves to Christ. No assurance is given to those who live after the flesh. When the Spirit prompts us to godly disciplines of prayer, fasting, repentance, self-control, separation from worldly activities and godly exercise, we must yield to Him at once. This way, the flesh will not have control over us. As Romans 6:11-12 says, “reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

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Gethsemane Bible-Presbyterian Church adheres to the system of faith commonly known as the “Reformed Faith” as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.
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