From the “Fruits of the Spirit”… to the “Works of the Flesh”: Part III. From carnal lust to spiritual idolatry and pharmakeía to divisions (heresies) and, finally, total spiritual corruption

[Reading Time: 12 minutes]

Review

In the first installment of this series, we examined the opening 14 verses of Galatians 5 which revealed how the Spirit of God works in us to break the Law’s “yoke of bondage” that ever seeks to bind (…and re-bind…and re-bind) followers of Jesus. The Spirit desires to shatter the bondage of such slavery that becomes operative in the self-justifying mindset of works’ righteousness in order that we may “stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free.”

In short, it is a never-ending battle on this side of eternity between the flesh and the spirit. And we must, therefore,“through the Spirit eagerly wait (apekdechomai: From apó + ek + déchomai: ‘To accept fully from [God]’ that which allows us to ‘wait’) for the hope of righteousness by faith.” For the works of the law “avail nothing;” only“faith which works through love” (Gal 5:1-6).

We were then warned that “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (that it so say, a little of the leaven of This Fallen Age that hypocritically parades itself as true religion and works in us to counteract the operations of the Spirit can leaven the whole lump of our spiritual lives). And we remember the call from Paul in his letter to the Corinthians to “purge out the old leaven” (i.e. that which is puffing us up in prideful, spiritual conceit), so that we may receive the true leaven of the Holy Spirit.

For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us (I Cor 5:7).

And it is, therefore, in our co-suffering with Jesus, the Passover Lamb, that we are brought into new depths of love for God and one another.

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal 5:13-14).

In the second installment, which examined the next five verses of Galatians, we looked at other parallel passages in the NT beginning with I John 3 which closes with the directive,

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth (3:17-18).

From here we moved to James 2, which begins with the word,

My brethren, not in partiality (prosōpolēpsía: From prósōpon + lambánō: Not to ‘receive’ (lambánō) or be influenced by the ‘face’ of someone (prósōpon) are you to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory (Jam 2:1).

Giving the well-known example to the early Church community of their varying responses to a rich man and poor man coming into a service, he centers his teaching in the law of love concluding with the word,

If you really fulfill the royal (basilikós, that is ‘kingly’) law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well;

but if you show partiality (prosōpolēptéō), you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors (2:8-9).

And, finally, we returned to Gal 5:16-18 and its teaching on the life of the Spirit and the war with the flesh. There the Apostle calls us to

Walk in the Spirit

so that we do not

fulfill the lust (epithymía) of the flesh (5:16).

He goes on to write that

The flesh lusts (epithyméō [the verb form of epithymía]) against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary (antíkeimai) to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish (cf. Rom 7 as well as this)

In short, to have the inner life which produces the “fruits of the Spirit,” we must first “walk in the Spirit.” For

if [we] are led by the Spirit, [we] are not under the law (5:16-17).

Walking in the Spirit, then, means we do not live under the never-ending oppression and “bondage of the law.”

And with our lives, then, centered—not in the pharisaical externals of anxiety-ridden religion but rather—in the deep and powerful, inner-working of the Spirit, we are now at the point where Paul can introduce us to the “works of the flesh.”

This brings us to this final installment.

The three categories of the “works of the flesh”

Paul introduces these works by organizing them fluidly into three categories:

Now the works of the flesh (ta érga tēs sárkos) are evident, which are:

I. The Lusts of the Flesh: Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery

II. Idolatry: Idolatry, sorcery (pharmakeía, from which we obviously derive the word, ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmaceuticals’…which begs the question, “Is idolatry at the root our our modern, industrial pharmaceutical complex?)

IIIa. Outer Division: hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions (heresies)

IV. Inner Divion: envyings, drunkenness, orgies of riotous living, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-20).

A word on each category:

I. The Lust of the Flesh

The words Paul uses here in his description are the following:

Now the works of the flesh (ta érga tēs sárkos) are evident, which are:

sexual immorality (porneía, whose English cognate is obvious),

impurity (akatharsía: From Α [as a negative particle] and a presumed derivative of kathaírō meaning ‘cleansed’: That is to say, living a life that is ‘not cleansed’, or in the words of Jesus [cf. John 15:2], a life that has ‘not’ been ‘pruned’ by the Word),

debauchery (asélgeia: From aselgēs, which means ‘brutal’ and came to be identified in the classical world with ‘conduct shocking to public decency’, ‘wantonness’, and ‘violent spite which rejects restraint and indulges in lawless insolence.’

The next category is idolatry.

II. Idolatry
The Apostle utilizes two words here:

eidōlolatreía (From eídōlon, an ‘idol’ + latreía, ‘worship of’ or ‘service’: i.e. ‘The worship of idols’
pharmakeía (Whose English cognate is also clear, but in the ancient world and in the Scriptures meant ‘sorcery’ or ‘witchcraft’, that is to say, using something to control another person for an evil end).

It should be noted that this word is only used one other time in the NT when the Apostle John speaks of the fall of Babylon in Rev 18:

For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery (pharmakeía) all the nations were deceived.

And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth (18:23-24).

By her “pharmakeía all the nations were deceived” and that deception led to the murder of the “prophets and saints and of all who were slain on the earth.”

Wow!

This pharmakeía is more than mere pharmaceuticals.It has a power than can be understood as diabolical.

IIIa. Outer division (…heresies…)
It does not, however, end here. The next category goes much further utilizing 11 words to describe the further effects. As such, this category is often broken down into two parts, the first of which is, as noted above, outer division, and the second of which is the inner division of spiritual corruption.

In regards to the first, which we might say speaks of the division among people and communities, Paul identifies nine dimensions:

hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions (5:20).

Without going into the Greek of each word, the overall meaning is quite clear: The works of the flesh when operating in full force begin in hatred and end in division and factions.

And it should be noted here that the final word in this list translated “factions” is the word, haíresis, from which we obviously derive the term, heresy.

The word, however, in the original comes from the verb, hairéomai, meaning to ‘personally select’; or ‘choose.’ The implications are clear: What draws people into heresy is that they ‘personally choose’ a pathway that is decisively their own. That is to say, it arises out of the self life and not from the Gospel commandments that, in complete oppostion, draw one out of self into the love of God and a love of the other.

Yet heresy is not only a personal choice; it is first choosing a pathway for yourself then drawing others into that same pathway.

Church history from Arius of Alexandria (on account of whom the First Ecumenical Council was called at Nicea) to Pelagius, etc. etc., makes this point clear.

Yet to place all of this wihtin our own context, such pathways of division should bring to our minds the following question:

What spirit is operating in our families, our churches, our communities?

Is it the spirit of hostility, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions?

Or the spirit of love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, humility?

IIIb. Inner division

From the outer division that causes separation in our communities, Paul then highlights how that spirit operates within our own person. And to do this, he mentions three dimersions:

evnvyings (phthónos, which is derived from the root verb, phtheírō, meaning ‘to decay, spoil, corrupt, destroy.’ The point is that when our inner person is beginning to be divided, we start envying another…and that spirit of envy becomes a means of deeper spiritual corruption within us that can lead to our giving over to the flesh. As such, it can draw us into

drunkenness (méthē, a word that is only used two other times in the NT, first by Jesus [Lk 21:34] then Paul [Rom 13:13] and means not the mere consumption of wine but drunkenness from it that draws us into the “works of darkness…orgies (kōmos) and drunkenness…sexual immorality and debauchery…dissension and jealousy.” Thayer’s Lexicon relates this back to the Hebrew words, shekar [שֵׁכָר], which means an ‘intoxicating drink’ [cf. Prov 20:1; Is 28:7] and shikkaron [שִׁכָּרון], ‘intoxication’ and ‘drunkenness’, [cf. Jer 13:13, Ezek 23:33; and Ezek 39:19]. That is to say, something is happening to us that takes hold of our being. Not only are we drinking, but moreover, our spirits are being handed over to the darkness of the carnal self life.

orgies (kōmos, as noted above in Rom 13:13, which has the implication of ‘rioting,’ ‘wild parties’ and ‘revels held in religious ceremonies, wild, furious, and ecstatic.’ Again, this is more than simply drinking. This is the debauchery of the flesh that flows out of the corruption of our spirits.

This, then, is now the full list of the “works of the flesh,” which is all quite terrifying, especially as Paul concludes with the statement

of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:22b).

The final word

“Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” This is the final end for those who give themselves over to the “works of the flesh.”

These movements have the effect of first drawing us into the “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery” of the lusts of the flesh.

They then corrupt our spiritual lives, leading us into the “service and worship of idols” and the practice of pharmakeía whereby we become further and further deceived by our desire for control.

In our impurity and spiritual idolatry, we begin to be broken down. First within our families and communities as these works cause the outer division of “hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, and factions” that ultimately ends in heresies.

And finally, we ourselves become broken down by the spiritual corruption of envy with our inner person being given over to the intoxication and drunkenness of riotous orgies.

That is where the “works of the flesh” invariably lead us.

And the Apostle makes it very clear that

Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

To which we may only say with the publican,

God have mercy on me a sinner (Lk 18:13).