What does “works of the flesh” have to do with being “under the law”? That’s the question with which I’m presently wrestling. I don’t have my answer worked out yet (and I’m not sure I ever will), but here are some quotes that are helping me think about it. Dunn is, of course, from the NPP, and it appears that Russell is as well (see the top of page 182 of his article).

Walter Bo Russell, III, makes some interesting points in his article, “Does the Christian Have ‘Flesh’ in Galatians 5:13-26?” for JETS 36 (1993): 179-187. The first paragraph is from pages 180-1, the rest is from page 187:

Particularly, Paul uses sarx and pneuma in antithesis in his extended discussion of the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the Church in Galatians 3-6 and Romans 7-8. In these contexts sarx is in tandem with nomos (“law”) and is associated with the era of Israel under the Mosaic law. This is why Paul connects “flesh” and “law” in passages like Gal 5:17-18; Rom 6:12-14; 8:1-4 in a manner that is disconcerting to many commentators. He is arguing against the Jewish Christians’ advocacy of the proselyte model of Gentile incorporation and against their advocacy of the use of the Mosaic law as the primary means for constraining the Christians’ behavior. Jewish Christians were advocating an anachronistic redemptive historical model, and Paul’s response is appropriately redemptive-historical in its logic. . . .

The choice that the Galatians faced was to continue to follow the true gospel that Paul had preached to them and not to desert to a nongospel (1:6-7). Therefore they must reject becoming proselytes to Judaism and being circumcised (5:1-12). Ethically this meant they must “walk according to the rule of the Spirit” and not fulfill the desires connected with those who still live according to the rule of the flesh (5:16). To be “led according to the rule of the Spirit” is not to be “under the law” (5:18). The choice to live in the Judaizers’ “law/flesh community” will manifest itself in the behavior of that community: the deeds of the flesh (5:19-21). Conversely the choice to continue to live in the “Spirit community” will manifest itself in the fruit of the Spirit (5:22-23). This is true because Christians have crucified the sarx—that is, the mode of existence of their body being under sin’s mastery and not indwelt by God’s Spirit ended (5:24). Since they live according to the rule of the Spirit they should also corporately walk according to the rule of the Spirit (5:25).

James Dunn on defining “under the law” in his commentary on Galatians (pp. 301-2):

[On 5:18] For it denoted for [Paul] the space of the nation Israel, the Jewish people under the law as their guardian angel (see on iii.23); reference to legalistic self-righteousness (as Oepke 176), or the condemnation of the law (as Borse 196), is uncalled for and excluded by iv.4 (Barclay, Obeying 116 n. 24). To put oneself thus ‘under the law’ was to look once again for an answer to ‘the desire of the flesh’ in a written code, an outward constraint; whereas in the age of fulfilment introduced by Christ, it was the circumcision of the heart, an effective inner force which was now available. To put onself [sic] ‘under the law’, in other words, was to look in the wrong direction for salvation. Worse still, to assume that only ‘under the law’ could salvation be found was to deny the reality of Gentile as Gentile having received the Spirit. No! The reality of being led by the Spirit, that is, the Spirit of Jesus (iv.6), was independent of being ‘under the law’ and should not therefore be identified with the ethnic Jewish identity which that phrase encapsulated. In short, their experience of the Spirit thus far should be enough to convince them that to take the step of becoming a proselyte (through circumcision) was unnecessary. Implicit here also is a clear distinction between being ‘under the law’ and ‘fulfilling the law’ (v.14); the law is ‘fulfilled’ by those who are led by the Spirit (Thielman 53); not by putting oneself ‘under the law’.

[On 5:19] Paul does not hesitate to press the logic of his argument strongly. By implication, to put oneself ‘under the law’, to become a proselyte, to accept circumcision, is to think and act on the level of the flesh (see on vi.13), on that level of visibility and outwardness which is the very opposite of the inward reality of the Spirit’s work (the contrast to explicit in Rom ii.28-9). And to put oneself on the level of the flesh is to put oneself on the same level as so many of the very things which Jews (and all those of goodwill) hated and despised – the works of the flesh, the outworking of the flesh, those things which express the character of the flesh and its desires; the echo of the earlier repeated phrase, ‘the works of the law’ (ii.16, iii.3, 5, 10) is no doubt intentional. The challenge to the other missionaries is as sharp as it could be, and may well have seemed to them outrageous. Judaism, after all, was more opposed to these things than others were (particularly idolatry and sorcery), and the very thought that desire for circumcision was even on the same plane as them must have seemed ridiculous. But this is precisely Paul’s challenge: to put such weight on the fleshly rite of circumcision and on ethnic identity was actually to pitch the theological principle into the same realm as these things so widely despised; to make circumcision the test-case of eligibility for a share in Abraham’s inheritance was to make the effective working of the Spirit dependent on a work of (done in) the flesh. By linking ‘under the law’ (v.18) with ‘works of the flesh’ (both in antithesis to what the Spirit produces) Paul thus presumably hoped to jolt his readers into a recognition of the level they were thinking on and of what they might lose (see also on v.22).

As far as I can tell, Galatians 5:16-26 does not afford an opportunity to deal with the foundation of the NPP‘s views on Paul. Instead it builds on conclusions that have been made based on other passages in Galatians. One of the big questions then is how well these foundational arguments, made elsewhere, fit into this passage. I’m still working on that one.

Update (same day): I added another paragraph to Dunn’s quote. Here I think that Dunn articulates one of my primary concerns about this passage, the thing that makes me dizzy to think about: “Judaism, after all, was more opposed to these things than others were (particularly idolatry and sorcery), and the very thought that desire for circumcision was even on the same plane as them must have seemed ridiculous.” How can Paul accuse them that being “under the law” is somehow associated with these “works of the flesh” when those who follow the law would be disgusted by many of these works? It is a bold and offensive statement (to his adversaries). That is what makes me wrestle with this question.