Galatians: The Law is Flesh

The first part of the letter to the churches in Galatia speaks to the different Gospel that Christians from a jewish back ground were trying to impose on Christians from a Greek or non-jewish background… namely circumcision.

In other words the Greeks would be baptized then there would be a knife and a minor surgical procedure waiting to be performed on them.

Then there seems to be a transition to the “works of the flesh” and the “fruits of the Spirit” Is it really a transition or is it a continuation of the same subject?

Let me suggest that the “works of the flesh” actually describes the works of the judaizing Christian teachers. The purveyors of circumcision.

Note the parallel beginning in Galatians 5: 16… the desires of the Spirit vs. the desires of the Flesh and if “led by the Spirit” not “under the Law”

It shifts from Flesh to Law and then defines the works of the flesh (implied Law)

Keep in mind under the Mosaic Law all those “works of the flesh” could be solved by merely sacrificing an animal. That would not be the case under the New Law. The New Law required and requires spiritual perfection because of the superiority of God’s perfect sacrifice… Jesus Christ. It starts in the mind and the heart.

If judaizing Christian teachers could require circumcision then as the holy text explains they would be logically obligated to practice the whole of the Mosaic Law and could continue to practice the “works of the flesh” claiming that the blood of Jesus Christ allowed it just like the blood of animal sacrifices did.