The context of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 is the battle going on within the Christian. The Galatian church listened to another gospel based upon the “working the program” of law-keeping.
Paul starts at the beginning of chapter five concerning being entangled again with a yoke of bondage: bondage to the Law to make oneself more righteous. Working the program of law-keeping (self-effort) to obtain righteousness apart from the Cross. Paul has only had one message in his ministry:
“For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2 NKJV)
Notice how Paul begins this epistle:
“Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead)” (Galatians 1:1 NKJV)
The Gospel, Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, is always in his thinking as he writes to the church. The Gospel is the foundation of Paul’s thought. And you will find some references to the Gospel with keywords in every chapter. You can read these later.
Gospel- Galatians 1:6-9,11; 2:5-7,14; 3:8; 4:4-6; 4:13
Cross- Galatians 5:11, 6:12,14
Crucified- Galatians 2:20-21; 3:1; 5:24; 6:14
Paul brings the church to where the real power lies to walk in freedom from sin. He brings them to the Cross. Here we find the power in the Gospel to walk in the Spirit.
“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. (17) For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. (18) But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law..... (22) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (23) gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:16-18, 22-23 NKJV)
And Paul brings the discussion back to the Gospel, back to the Cross:
“And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (25) If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:24-25 NKJV)
Consider for a moment what it means to be crucified: you cannot crucify yourself – impossible. You end up with a free hand. Jesus had to yield Himself to the Father’s will and allow sinful men to crucify Him. So, it is with us; we surrender ourselves and let the Lord crucify us to Himself.
1. How have you come to the place in your Christian life that you can say, “I am crucified with Christ!”
Let’s look at the eighth quality of the Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness.
We are going to look at three areas in this lesson:
We will look at the Bible and define the word gentleness.
We will look at an illustration from the Old Testament showing gentleness.
We will look at Jesus and the Cross’ demonstration of gentleness.