04_Biblica_Aletti_Layout 1 08/07/13 12:56 Pagina 410 410 JEAN-NOËL ALETTI IV. The exhortations in Gal 5,13-15 and 16-25 The exegesis of Gal 5,17 reveals several interesting points: - the flesh does not directly threaten the believer 45 but does directly take on the Spirit; - because it is the Spirit that the flesh opposes so that the Spirit can- not guide the believer in putting into action what (in other words, the good) the believer wants. And the incidental clause of the lines (β) and (γ) opportunely recalls that the Spirit is in no way passive. - While recalling that the plan of the flesh is to render powerless the will and the liberty of believers and to prevent them from doing good, Paul implies, still in the incidental clause, that the Spirit is stronger than the flesh and that he is there precisely in order to de- fend them continually and effectively. Thus, v. 17 does not reflect a negative soteriology according to which believers cannot be freed from the mastery of the flesh. The verses that follow clarify and confirm the statements in v. 17: the believers are left neither to their own strength nor enslaved to the flesh: they are able to allow themselves to be guided by the Spirit, and since this is so 46, they have nothing to fear. This passage in Galatians and the one in Rom 8,1-17 are the only passages in Paul’s letters in which he develops the opposition of the flesh/Spirit but without saying exactly what these vocables entail, assuming that his readers know. Rather than clarifying what the vocables des- ignate 47, it is more important to determine the function of their op- position in these exhortations. There would have been a direct opposition if Paul was speaking of the 45 (human) spirit of the believer; but, as has been said above, what guides the believer and works in him is agapē, kindness, etc., and that can only be the divine Spirit. Let us recall that the conditional proposition in Gal 5,18a expresses an 46 actual condition: “if you are led by the Spirit” is the equivalent of “since you are led by the Spirit”. Let us recall that in this passage, the Greek word pneuma designates 47 the Spirit of God, which has consistently been the case since its first occur- rence in Gal 3,2. Other occurrences: Gal 3,3 (the first opposition of the flesh/Spirit); 3,5.14; 4,6.29; 5,5.16.18.22.25; 6,1.8.18. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2013 - Tutti i diritti riservati