Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Galatians 5:25 - 5:25
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gal_5:25. If the Christian has crucified his flesh, it is no longer the ruling power of his life, which, on the contrary, proceeds now from the Holy Spirit, the power opposed to the flesh; and the obligation thence arising is, that the conduct also of the Christian should correspond to this principle of life (for otherwise what a self-contradiction would he exhibit!)
εἰ ζῶμεν πνεύματι ] introduced asyndetically (without οὖν ), so as to be more vivid. The emphasis is on πνεύματι , as the contrast to the σάρξ : If after the crucifying of the flesh we owe our life to the Holy Spirit, by which is meant the life which sets in with conversion, through the παλιγγενεσία (Tit_3:5)—the life of the new creature, Gal_6:15. Comp. Rom_6:4 ff; Rom_7:5 f., Rom_8:9; 2Co_3:6; Gal_2:20.
The first πνεύματι is ablative; the second, emphatically placed at the commencement of the apodosis, is the expression of the norma (Gal_5:16). Comp. Gal_6:16; Php_3:16; Rom_4:12. στοιχεῖν (comp. also Act_21:24) is distinguished from περιπατεῖν in Gal_5:16 only as to the figure; the latter is ambulare, the former is ordine procedere (to march). But both represent the same idea, the moral conduct of life, the firm regulation of which is symbolized in στοιχεῖν .