Galatians 5 · Doctrine · Self-control
The Fruit of Self-control
Galatians 5:16 to 26 sets self-control among the fruit of the Spirit inside Paul's teaching on the war between the flesh and the Spirit.
Augustine asked God in his Confessions to give the continency He commanded, praying, "Give what Thou enjoinest, and enjoin what Thou wilt."
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.
- First taught
- Acts 24:25 “As Paul expounded on righteousness, self-control, and the…”
- Fullest statement
- Galatians 5:22 to 23 “But the fruit of the…”
Summary
Paul names self-control as fruit the Holy Spirit bears in believers (Galatians 5:22 to 23), and Peter commands believers to make every effort to add it to their faith (2 Peter 1:5 to 6). The New Testament therefore treats self-control as God's gift and as the believer's duty at once. Reformed, Wesleyan, Keswick and Lutheran teachers have joined the gift and the duty in different ways, and they differ most on what the believer contributes and on whether the flesh's resistance ends in this life.
- The Greek noun enkrateia appears four times in the New Testament: once in Acts 24:25, once in Galatians 5:23 and twice in 2 Peter 1:6.
- In Galatians 5:16 to 17 Paul promises that those who walk by the Spirit will not gratify the flesh's desires, and he says the flesh and the Spirit remain opposed to each other.
- Titus 2:11 to 12 names the grace of God as the teacher of a sensible life, one that renounces worldly passions.
- Paul spoke of self-control to a Roman governor as well as to churches, setting it beside righteousness and the coming judgment before Felix (Acts 24:25).
Self-control in Galatians 5
The question of this doctrine stands in Galatians 5 and in Paul's words to the Romans on putting to death the deeds of the body.
The fruit of self-control is the teaching that the self-control Scripture commands is produced in believers by the Holy Spirit. It is one part of self-control, the value Scripture asks of every believer. It answers a question that meets every believer who has fought a desire and lost: if self-control is the Spirit's fruit, what part does the believer's own effort play?
Some texts speak of self-control as something God gives, and others command the believer to work for it. Christian teachers from Augustine to the twentieth century have joined the two in different ways. A reader who follows the texts and those readings can see where the traditions agree and where the evidence leaves the question open.
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.Paul says believers put to death the deeds of the body and says they do it by the Spirit, so one sentence holds both the believer's act and the Spirit's power.
The study of the fruit of the Spirit sets all nine fruit side by side and weighs whether the fruit grows or is fought for. This study takes the ninth fruit alone.
The Argument in Eleven Steps
Galatians and Titus give Paul's steps, 2 Peter gives Peter's, and Acts gives Luke's account of Paul before Felix.
The New Testament's teaching runs from the command to walk by the Spirit, through the war of flesh and Spirit and the naming of the fruit, to grace that instructs and effort that adds self-control to faith.
- The Berean text
- “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16)
- The Berean text
- “For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:17)
- The Berean text
- “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18)
- The Berean text
- “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery ... drunkenness, orgies, and the like” (Galatians 5:19 to 21)
- The Berean text
- “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22 to 23)
- The Berean text
- “Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:23)
- The Berean text
- “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24)
- The Berean text
- “Since we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25)
- The Berean text
- “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to everyone. It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:11 to 12)
- The Berean text
- “make every effort to add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:5 to 7)
- The Berean text
- “As Paul expounded on righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment, Felix became frightened” (Acts 24:25)
A chain of eleven steps, each with its Berean text; the tenth gives Peter's ladder, with self-control its fourth rung.
The flesh crucified, Keep in step, Grace instructs, Effort is commanded, Preached to a ruler
What would weaken the chain is a text in which the Spirit's fruit and the believer's effort exclude each other.
What the Steps Turn On
Six of the steps turn on a word or a fact of their verses: the promise, the noun, the finished act, the teacher, the effort and the hearer.
The promise of Galatians 5:16 concerns what the believer does with desire, and verse 17 shows that the desire itself is still at work in him.
Paul sets the law aside as the means in verse 18, closes his list of the flesh's acts with drunkenness and orgies, appetites that self-control rules, and then names the fruit. In the Greek text of verse 23, enkrateia is the second word and the last of the nine.
Verse 24 speaks of an act already done to the flesh. Verse 25 then grounds the daily walk in the life the Spirit has already given.
The Berean word "sensible" in Titus 2:12 stands on the Greek adverb sophronos (G4996), which the New Testament uses in this verse alone.
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.Peter states what God's power has already given before he commands any effort, so the command of verses 5 to 7 rests on this gift.
In 2 Peter 1:6 enkrateia stands twice, once as the quality added to knowledge and once as the quality to which perseverance is added.
Felix's wife Drusilla heard Paul with him (Acts 24:24). Josephus records in his Antiquities (20.7.2, Whiston's translation) that Felix had drawn Drusilla away from her husband Azizus, king of Emesa, through a Cypriot Jew named Simon who "pretended to be a magician".
The Greek Word and the Philosophers
Plato and Aristotle wrote on the rule of desire before Paul, and Aristotle set the man who still fights his desires beside the man whose desires are already ordered.
In the Republic (book 4, 430e to 431a, Jowett's translation) Plato's Socrates defines temperance as "the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires". He calls a man "master of himself" when "the better has the worse under control".
Aristotle opens book 7 of his Ethics (Chase's translation) with three moral states to be avoided, "Vice, Imperfect Self-Control, and Brutishness", whose contraries are "Virtue" and "Self-Control". In 7.9 he sets the man of Self-Control beside the man of Perfected Self-Mastery: "the former has bad desires, the latter not", and the former "feels but does not yield".
Chase's English does not print the Greek, so the match of his Self-Control to enkrateia and of his Perfected Self-Mastery to sophrosyne is an inference from his terms.
In Galatians 5:23 Paul chose enkrateia, and Galatians 5:17 shows the contention that word implies. His letters to Timothy and Titus use the family of sophron (G4993 to G4998) for the sound and settled mind asked of overseers, older men and women, and young men. Ten of that family's sixteen New Testament uses stand in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus.
The difference in source is an inference from the texts quoted. Plato's ruler is the better part of the soul, while Paul names the Spirit and the grace of God (Galatians 5:22; Titus 2:12). What would weaken this contrast is a text in which Paul grounds self-control in the soul's own better part.
What the Evidence Does Not Settle
Scripture and the historical record leave these questions open.
The open questions concern Paul's choice of word, how long the war within lasts, Romans 7 and the reason for Felix's fear.
| The open point | What would settle it |
|---|---|
| Did Paul choose enkrateia with Aristotle's distinction from sophrosyne in view? | A text of Paul setting the two words against each other; Titus 1:8 names both in one list, "self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined", without comparing them. |
| Does the opposition of flesh and Spirit in Galatians 5:17 last as long as this life? | A text saying whether the desires of the flesh cease before death; the Lutheran and Wesleyan readings weigh Galatians 5:17 and 5:24 differently. |
| Is the struggle of Romans 7 the believer's own? | A reading of Romans 7:14 to 25 that every side accepts. |
| Why was Felix frightened? | A source that records his reason; Acts gives the subjects of Paul's speech and Josephus gives the marriage, and neither joins the two. |
Teachers on the Steps
Teachers from the fourth century to the nineteenth explained five steps of the chain.
died 407 · John Chrysostom
Homily on Galatians 5
The crucified flesh is a life whose desires rage in vain
The quotation1 quotation
“That they might not object, ‘And who is such a man as this?’ he points out by their works those who have attained to this perfection, here again giving the name of the ‘flesh’ to evil actions. He does not mean that they had destroyed their flesh, otherwise how were they going to live? for that which is crucified is dead and inoperative, but he indicates the perfect rule of life. For the desires, although they are troublesome, rage in vain. Since then such is the power of the Spirit, let us live therein and be content therewith.”
John Chrysostom · Homily on Galatians 5 · on Galatians 5:24Patristic
died 430 · Augustine of Hippo
On Continence 18
Spirit and flesh are both good, and war stands between them until salvation
The quotation1 quotation
“The fact is that both are good: the spirit is good and the flesh too is good. And the whole person who consists of both, one ruling and one obeying, is indeed good but a changeable good. Yet these changing goods could not arise were it not for the immutable good, which is the source of every created good, whether small or great. But however small might be one particular good, it is nonetheless made by the one incomparably good. Yet however great, it is in no way comparable to the greatness of its Maker. But in this human nature, good as it is in origin and constitution, there is now war, because there is not yet salvation.”
Augustine of Hippo · On Continence 18 · on Galatians 5:17Patristic
died 550 · Oecumenius
Commentary on Galatians
Whoever bears the fruit has no need of the law that instructs
The quotation1 quotation
“‘Against such things there is no law.’ For he who has achieved these things does not need the law that instructs. For it is higher than that law.”
Oecumenius · Commentary on Galatians · on Galatians 5:23Patristic
died 1107 · Theophylact of Ohrid
Commentary on Acts
Paul's words frightened even the governor
The quotation1 quotation
“‘Felix became afraid.’ Such was the power contained in Paul's words that even the governor was frightened.”
Theophylact of Ohrid · Commentary on Acts · on Acts 24:25Patristic
1802 to 1910 · Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The promise of Galatians 5:16 is that evil desires will not be fulfilled
The quotation1 quotation
“The spirit and the flesh mutually exclude one another. It is promised, not that we should have no evil lusts, but that we should ‘not fulfil’ them. If the spirit that is in us can be at ease under sin, it is not a spirit that comes from the Holy Spirit.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible · on Galatians 5:16Reformed
Oecumenius, Theophylact of Ohrid, Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
Where Readers Disagree: the Spirit's Fruit and the Believer's Effort
Reformed, Wesleyan, Keswick and Lutheran teachers each join the Spirit's work and the believer's effort in their own way.
All four readings below hold that the Spirit gives self-control and that the believer must strive for it. They differ on the believer's part and on how far the flesh is overcome in this life.
Reformed: personal exertion within graceJ. C. Ryle, Holiness (1877, enlarged 1879)
J. C. Ryle holds in the Introduction to Holiness that "the true Christian needs personal exertion and work as well as faith". He argues it from Paul's picture of himself running and fighting in 1 Corinthians 9:26.
The objection comes from the higher-life teachers, who hold that holiness sought by exertion slides back toward the law that Galatians 5:18 sets aside. Hannah Whitall Smith wrote the first chapter of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life against it.
Wesleyan: two contrary principles in the justifiedJohn Wesley, Sermon 13, On Sin in Believers
John Wesley holds in his sermon On Sin in Believers (III.1, on Galatians 5:17) that "even in the regenerate there are two principles, 'contrary the one to the other'". He says again in V.1, "There are in every person, even after he is justified, two contrary principles, nature and grace".
The objection is B. B. Warfield's. In "The Victorious Life" (Princeton Theological Review, 1918) he argues that the division of justification from sanctification grows from what he calls "Wesley's primary error".
Keswick and the higher life: the believer trusts and God worksHannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (1875)
Hannah Whitall Smith holds in chapter 1 of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life that "man's part is to trust and God's part is to work". She says, "Our part is the trusting, it is His to accomplish the results."
Warfield argues in the same 1918 article that in this teaching "justification and sanctification are divided from one another as two separate gifts of God". Sanctification, he says, is then had "by a new and separate act of faith". He says the teaching "forces from us the astonished cry, Is Christ divided?" He argues that under Griffith Thomas's word counteraction the sinful principle stays active in the believer.
Lutheran: the flesh remains and is resistedMartin Luther, Commentary on Galatians (1535)
Martin Luther holds in his Commentary on Galatians (Graebner's translation), on Galatians 5:17, "Martin, you will never be without sin, for you have flesh. Despair not, but resist the flesh." On Galatians 5:24 he says believers crucify the flesh "by fasting and exercise and, above all, by a walk in the Spirit".
This objection is drawn from the text alone and has no named holder. It rests on Galatians 5:24. The objection holds that an account in which the believer is never without sin sets the hope of victory lower than that verse does.
In the same note on Galatians 5:17 Luther reads Romans 7 as "Paul's very own complaint and the identical complaint of all believers". The other readings of Romans 7 stand in the study of the divided self.
The Fruit and the Walk
Paul places self-control in the believer's daily walk. The Spirit bears it in the one who belongs to Christ, and that believer keeps in step with the Spirit while the flesh still resists.
What would weaken this reading is a text promising believers that the flesh will stop resisting before death.
Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.Paul gives the walk a practical form, putting on Christ and making no provision for the flesh's desires.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (TAGNT), Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0, with Strong's numbers, morphology and glosses.
- STEP Bible, Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, the brief lexicon based on Abbott-Smith (1922), entries g1466, g1467, g1468 and g4993 to g4998.
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.7.2, translated by William Whiston.
- Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535 lectures), translated by Theodore Graebner, on Galatians 5:17 to 24.
- John Wesley, Sermon 13, On Sin in Believers, sections III.1 and V.1, in the 1872 Jackson edition of his works.
- Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (1875), chapter 1.
- J. C. Ryle, Holiness (1877, enlarged 1879), Introduction.
- B. B. Warfield, The Victorious Life, Princeton Theological Review 16 (1918), pages 321 to 373.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 6.11 and 10.29, translated by E. B. Pusey.
- Plato, Republic, book 4, 430e to 431a, translated by Benjamin Jowett.
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 7, chapters 1 and 9, translated by D. P. Chase.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Galatians 5:16.
- Augustine of Hippo, On Continence 18, on Galatians 5:17.
- Oecumenius, Commentary on Galatians, on Galatians 5:23.
- John Chrysostom, Homily on Galatians 5, on Galatians 5:24.
- Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on Acts, on Acts 24:25.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on Galatians 5:23.