Gálatas 5

Gálatas 5

William MacDonald has an interesting thought on this conflict between the Spirit and the flesh - God could have removed the fleshly nature from believers at the time of their conversion, but He did not choose to do so. Why? He wanted to keep them continually reminded of their own weakness; to keep them continually dependent on Christ, their Priest and Advocate; and to cause them to praise unceasingly the One who saved such worms. Instead of removing the old nature, God gave us His own Holy Spirit to indwell us. God’s Spirit and our flesh are perpetually at war, and will continue to be at war until we are taken home to heaven. The believer’s part in the conflict is to yield to the Spirit. (Believer's Bible Commentary: Thomas Nelson) Dan Duncan emphasizes the unceasing war between the Spirit and our flesh writing that "We cannot live above the struggle, though many have tried to do that. People down through history have thought that if they could just get away from the temptations of this world, they could gain the upper hand and be able to prevail in this ongoing battle. That's what a lot of the early monks did. They left the urban areas to live in the deserts alone in caves and on mountains, away from the attractions and distractions of society. Jerome, one of the great scholars of the early church and a contemporary of Augustine did just that. He followed the monks into the wilderness where the days are ho t and the nights are cold – a very harsh climate. And there with only the scorpions and wild animals for company, he hoped to escape the lurid temptations of the city, but he didn't. He wrote that even there, living in complete isolation, he imagined himself among the dancing girls of Rome! He wrote "My face was pale from fasting. My mind burned with passionate desires within my freezing body." A man can take himself out of the fight, but he can't take the fight out of himself, because this is an inner conflict. It is the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit. It goes wherever we go, and it is unrelenting. So the danger we face is either being complacent about it or thinking that we can manage it in our own strength by our techniques or by rules and regulations (ED: Subtle forms of legalism which blunt the word of the Spirit of grace - Heb 10:29). The flesh is too strong for us!" (Galatians 5:16-26 The Flesh And The Spirit) J C