(Gal 5) I’m sure many of you know the story of
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. But are you aware of these
important words which that story contains and which touch on the paradox of
human nature?:
'Man is not truly one, but truly two'. We all know what it’s like to
feel that moral struggle within, don’t we?
Like a tug of war between two people - wanting to do what’s right and
yet at the same time being drawn towards what’s wrong. That’s what this story illustrates.
Dr
Jekyll is a respectable
Now
what we have here is a serious attempt by Stevenson to get to grips with the
inner conflict that’s common to the whole human race. You see, no matter how
respectable, or religious or charitable we may appear on the outside
there seems to be a beast hidden away on the inside. I guess we’d all agree
with that.
At
this point, let’s have a look at what Paul is saying in Galatians ch 5. In v. 17 he
writes: The sinful nature (lit the flesh) desires what is contrary to
the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in
conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. So, what is the sinful nature, what is the
flesh that he speaks of? We use flesh,
of course to mean the soft stuff between our skin and bones. Sometimes, too, we
speak of ‘our own flesh and blood’ meaning our children or our close relatives.
But Paul doesn’t mean either of those things here. The most helpful way of explaining ‘flesh’
that I ever heard is that you should cross out the last letter and then reverse
the order of what you’re left with.
Flesh becomes ‘self’. Anything
that is self-centred comes from the flesh, from our sinful nature. So is this
passage in Galatians Paul's version of the story of Jekyll and Hyde? Well not quite. Stevenson is describing the inner struggle
experienced by the non-Christian which can lead to despair, for at the
end of the day the monster destroys him, Hyde triumphs over Jekyll. But what
Paul is describing is something rather different – he’s depicting the battle
which rages in the life of the Christian. And the reason it’s different is that only
Christians have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them; it’s good that he’s called the Holy
Spirit, a reminder that he calls us to live a life of holiness, which means
literally a life which is set apart - called to be holy just as God is
holy. But, we’re not naturally like
that, and that’s why Christians sometimes experience the battle more intensely
than they did before they came to faith in Christ. Non-Christian get used to losing the battle
against temptation and soon learn to live with their bad habits, but the Holy
Spirit in the life of the Christian never allows them to give up or settle down
into an uneasy truce with sin. He’s
always spurring us on, encouraging us to live a life that’s more like Jesus’s.
To
help us see what’s going on in this battle that rages in the life of every
Christian, I would like to spend a few moments looking at each of the two
protagonists who are at war with each other, who are creating this conflict
between good and evil in the heart of each of us. So, first of all, the
flesh or the sinful nature.
If you’ve ever played Bowls or watched it on television, you’ll know
that the balls they use have a bias, which means they are unevenly weighted and
as they roll along the grass they swing over to one side. Human beings are like that – we have a bias
towards sin, and we naturally gravitate towards sin unless the Spirit is
working in our lives. Vaughan Roberts in
his book that this series is based on, tells a story
of a strike by the rubbish collectors in NY a few years ago. One man came up with an ingenious way of
getting rid of his rubbish. Every
evening he went to his cupboard where he had a store of boxes from Macy’s – a
sort of NY version of Harrods. He put
the rubbish in the Macy’s box and left it outside. Every night for weeks, the box was stolen and
it’s fun to imagine the thief, getting home, opening the box and finding a
stinking mass of rubbish inside! We are
rather like those boxes, aren’t we – attractive on the outside, especially when
we’ve made an effort, and people are often taken in,
but on the inside we are rotten. Paul
makes the same point in this passage by describing four types of sinful
activity in verses 19 – 21. He begins
with warped sexual behaviour – sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery. We thought about these things 3 weeks
ago. The temptations that come from
books, films, magazines and the internet are very strong, and which of us can
claim to be blameless in this area? It’s
obvious, isn’t it, why we need a supernatural person within us to help in
overcoming this sort of thing. Then Paul
moves on to idolatry and witchcraft – false religion, if you like. There were many in
So
the first of our two natures is the flesh, and pretty ugly it is too. How can we overturn the power of our sinful
nature and begin to live lives which are truly pleasing to God? Isn’t there a self-help programme that will
help us back towards victorious Christian living? I hope that that what I’ve said already about
the flesh has made the point that there is no such programme – we don’t have
the power to overcome our sinful nature.
The good news, though, is that God has a remedy for this natural bias
towards sin that we all have. His remedy
is known only to Christians – it’s the work of the Spirit which produces
the fruit of the Spirit, and what a contrast that is to what we’ve just been
thinking about. Look at v. 22 The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such there is no law. These are all inner qualities of the heart
and are evidence that the Spirit is at work within us. They are not produced by a lot of positive
thinking but by the glorious Spirit of Christ.
Isn’t it interesting that each of the fruits of the Spirit that I’ve
just read out can be seen in the life of Jesus himself? The gospel stories are full of occasions when
he demonstrated them. Can you think of
anyone who was more full of love than Jesus? Or as full of joy and peace
as he was? His life overflowed
with goodness and faithfulness. He was
gentle, too, and self-controlled in the face of extreme provocation. Can we believe that the same qualities that
were present in the divine Son of God will be produced in us by the same
Spirit?
It may be helpful to think for a moment
how the Spirit helps us to counter all the tendencies of the sinful nature that
we saw in verses 19 – 21. For example,
he protects us from sexual immorality, not so much by a law that says, You shall not commit adultery (though that law
still stands) but by creating within us self-restraint and faithfulness. The Spirit curbs our drunkenness not by
forbidding pleasure, but by cultivating within us a more authentic joy, which
does not require the stimulus of too much alcohol. That’s not to say that we won’t still
struggle with these things – look at v. 16 – we’re still being told that we are
not to gratify the desires of the sinful nature, so there’s clearly
still a conflict. But, however hard the
battle may seem it’s still a battle that can be won because of the Spirit of
God working in us.
Now there is a school of thought that
acknowledges that the victory in this battle to live holy lives comes from the
Holy Spirit, but then goes on to say that, if that is the case, then our role
in the conflict is entirely passive – ‘Let go, and let God’ – or as some
Americans put it, ‘Don’t wrestle, only nestle’.
I believe this is a serious misunderstanding. There’s even a song in our hymn book which
seems to perpetuate this error – It’s No. 325 ‘Let me
have my way among you, do not strive’, as if we just have to sit back and let
God hand us the victory over our sinful nature on a plate. I quoted v. 17 at the beginning of this talk,
it’s worth reading again: The sinful nature desires what is contrary to the
Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in
conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. So, how can we make real progress in this
conflict? It will not be by doing
nothing. We are not to relax and watch
the spiritual superman, the Holy Spirit, zoom in while we stand by and watch
him do all the work. It takes effort on
our part, and, as if to emphasise this, Paul mentions it at the beginning of
our passage and then again at then end. V. 16 Live by the Spirit and then in V. 25 Keep in step
with the Spirit. In other
words we are deliberately to co-operate with the Spirit’s work in our
lives. Every time I’m tempted, I have a
choice – to go the way of the sinful nature or ask the Spirit to help me
resist. The choice is ours. And that’s where our reading from John’s
gospel comes in. Remain (or abide) in
me and I will remain in you, is what Jesus said to his followers. Abiding in Christ means walking each day with
him, spending time with him, meditating on the wonderful things that he said
and did while he was on earth, and then applying them
in our own lives. And the wonderful
promise Jesus gave is that those who abide in him will bear much fruit, and we
all know what that fruit will be – we read about in Galatians – love, joy,
peace, patience and all the other things that the Spirit grows in our hearts.
Let me
finish by telling you the story of a woman who had a small house on the coast
of