Sermon Tone Analysis

The Victory ()

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No Condemnation for Believer

Condemnation: Judge striking gavel

Why?

As a result, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Condemnation is the point at which the judge strikes the gavel and pronounces a person guilty along with their sentence.

That is what it means to be condemned.

That no longer happens to one who is in Messiah Jesus.

Why?

Law/Principle of Life in Jesus

Go back to

Because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set you free (aorist indicative) from the law of sin and death.

Just as there is a principle of sin and death in our members, there is a principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

This principle is Spiritual and it has to do with having life in Christ Jesus.

We know what it means to be in Christ Jesus from .

In essence, we were baptized in death with Him and resurrected in Him.

Therefore, we are now found in Him.

How does this help?

Jesus’ perfect life

How does this principle set us free from the principle of sin and death that we were just talking about?

Because God has done what the Law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.

We already spoke about why the Law cannot bring life, because it is weakened by the sinful flesh.

So, God has done what the Law could not do, weakened by the flesh.

By sending His very own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (exactly like ours) and for sin, He condemned (pronounced guilty and sentenced) sin in the flesh.

We were/are in such a desperate condition (as seen by ) that only God could do this.

Only God could fulfill this Law.

But how could He fulfill it for us?

He had to come in the same, weak flesh that we live in and condemn sin in the flesh.

It took deity in flesh to fulfill the Law and condemn sin.

Jesus did what you and I could not do in the flesh, namely, keep the Law in the flesh.

The Spirit of Christ overcame His flesh in order to condemn sin in the flesh.

The Purpose: Law fulfilled in us

What Jesus did was all for one purpose - so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Since we have been united with Christ, we take on His perfect, under-the -Law life that He lived.

So now, we delight in the Law of God in our new, inner man, and in our flesh, the righteous, perfect requirement of the Law has already been fulfilled, because of the life of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation whatsoever for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Paul now begins to use the language of walking.

What exactly does it mean to walk in this verse?

To come to a proper understanding of this, one must determine what this word would have meant to the original audience which was reading this letter.

The word in question in the original Greek is περιπατεῖτε which is the inflected form of περιπατέω meaning “to conduct one’s life, comport oneself, behave, live as habit of conduct.”[1]

It is a compound of “peri” (which means about or around) and “pateo” (which means to walk).

Now, compound words don’t always mean exactly what the individual words imply (e.g.

butterflies aren’t flies made from butter), but in this case, the formation of this word does mean to walk around, literally.

How did this come to be used as a form of speaking about the way one conducts one’s life in Paul’s time?

Per Heinrich Seesemann, the usage of περιπατέω in this manner does not occur in classical Greek outside of the LXX.

He says, “There are no parallels in classical Greek.”[2]

Furthermore, the specific word does not occur often in the LXX, but this specific idea of walking does occur in the original Hebrew OT.

For instance, says, “Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless” (emphasis mine).

says, “Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters.”

says of wisdom, “I walk in the way of righteousness, In the midst of the paths of justice.”

It is obvious, then, that the idea of walking as a way of signifying lifestyle was a use common in Hebrew literature.

Stutzman quotes the NIC and says, “‘Walking’ is a common Hebraism for ‘conducting one’s life’ and thus is synonymous with ‘living’ [NIC].”[3]

James Dunn agrees with this sentiment and says, “For the metaphor is typically Jewish (e.g. ; ; ; ; the repeated use of the metaphor in 1QS iii.18–iv.26

makes a fascinating comparison with Paul here) and untypical of Greek thought (TDNT v.941).”[4]

This makes sense as Paul is writing to a church that is being influenced by Judaizers.[5]

If they were attracted to Judaism, Paul would show them the true Judaism which pointed to Christ.

The Apostle Paul, being a man who was well educated in all the Scriptures (), would have been very familiar with this kind of language.

In fact, he is the one to look to specifically for the NT use of περιπατέω in this manner for he uses it the most.

Running a quick search of Paul’s use of this word, we see that he uses it 32x, and every single time it is used as a metaphor for the way in which one lives or conducts himself (; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; , ; ; ; , ; , ; , , ; , ; ; ; ; ; ; , ; , ).

So then, in Paul’s usage of the word, he is envisioning not just living as existing, but the whole scope of our thoughts, beliefs, desires, and actions.

He uses the word walk to envisage all the actions, both internal and external, of a person’s life.

The NAC says this of the usage: “Although this is the only place in Galatians where the word ‘walk’ is used in this sense, it is a common Pauline designation for one’s daily conduct or lifestyle.”[6]

Per Paul’s use of the verb, it can be said that a person’s faith can be seen in their walk.

In other words, one can see whether a person is a believer or non-believer by the way that that person walks.

Furthermore, Paul’s usage of walking is not just referring to spiritual life versus physical life, as he says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” ().

Although they are closely related, in Paul’s mind, life by the Spirit and walking by the Spirit are categorically distinct.

Let us further consider the concept of walking.

Walking is appropriate as a metaphor for living, because it is not just something that occurs once.

It indicates a constant movement.

And so is a lifestyle.

A lifestyle or conduct is not a one-time occurrence.

For instance, one would not say that he has a surfer’s lifestyle if he only surfed once in his life.

However, if a person surfs regularly, then that person is considered to have a surfer’s lifestyle.

In Paul’s terminology, he would say that that individual walks as a surfer.

He will now further explain what it means to walk by the Spirit.

The Mind

Paul begins to differentiate what someone who is in the flesh looks like versus someone who is in the spirit.

Why?

He just argued how there is no condemnation for those who are walking not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit because the righteous requirements of the Law have been fulfilled in them because they are in Christ Jesus.

In essence, he is going to begin to show what these two lives look like so that could be assured that they are in the Spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh (they don’t have the life of the Spirit within them) set their minds on the things of the flesh.

There is nothing else that drives their thought life other than the flesh.

Paul actually does seem to make a distinction here between the mind of man and the flesh.

Was the mind of man corrupted in the fall?

I’m not too sure.

It could be argued that it wasn’t, necessarily, or maybe to the same degree that nature was.

That is why we can still think, create, love, laugh, etc.

However, someone who is in the flesh only, who only lives according to the flesh, can only be driven by the flesh.

The flesh and sin is their master, because they have nothing else to drive them.

There is a part of them that is literally dead, namely, the spirit.

So, every bit of their reasoning revolves around the desires of the flesh.

But, those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

When it says “live” here, Paul is actually not using the word “zoe” but ὄντες, from which we get “ontology.”

Paul is talking about the very essence of a person’s being here.

We are according to the spirit.

I disagree that Spirit should be capitalized here, given the immediate context.

I don’t want to take away from the work of the Holy Spirit at all, but these verses are referring to our ontology as human beings.

Does it ultimately point to the Holy Spirit?

Absolutely, but I believe our spirit is still distinct from the Holy Spirit.

It would be strange to say that we are all just different organisms within the one organism of God.