<p>5:19 <i>Now the works of the flesh- </i>The Galatian fixation with works actually led them to do the works of the flesh. The greatest barrier against grace is our own psychology of works; our belief that even what is good about us, in our character and in our deeds, is a result of our own unaided effort. Not for nothing does Paul contrast the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5:19,23). As William Barclay noted: &ldquo;A work is something which a man produces for himself; a fruit is something which is produced by a power which he does not possess. Man cannot make a fruit&rdquo;. It&rsquo;s because of this that works are so glorified in society; it&rsquo;s why the elderly and weak are somehow despised because they&rsquo;re not &lsquo;productive&rsquo; of &lsquo;works&rsquo;. Grace therefore cuts right across the way our rationalistic society, whether Marxist or capitalist, worships productivity. Our tendency to value, indeed to worship, human works leads to great frustration with ourselves. Only by realizing the extent of grace can we become free from this. So many struggle with accepting unfulfilment- coping with loss, with the fact we didn&rsquo;t make as good a job of something as we wanted, be it raising our kids or the website we work on or the book we write or the room we decorated&hellip; And as death approaches, this sense becomes stronger and more urgent. Young people tend to think that it&rsquo;s only a matter of time before they sort it out and achieve. But that time never comes. It&rsquo;s only by surrendering to grace, abandoning the trust in and glorying in our own works, that we can come to accept the uncompleted and unfulfilled in our lives, and to smile at those things and know that of course, I can never &lsquo;do&rsquo; or achieve enough.</p><p><i>Are manifest, which are these- fornication, uncleanness, sensuality</i>- The works of the flesh are already manifest- although they will be manifested again at the day of judgment (Lk. 8:17; 1 Cor. 3:13). The children of God and of the devil in the ecclesia are already manifest, in a sense (1 Jn. 3:10). See on Gal. 6:4. However it could be that Paul is saying that these works of the flesh were manifest, were now visible, amongst the Galatians since they had focused upon legal obedience rather than total faith in Christ's salvation. In chapter 3, he had argued that the Law entered in order to emphasize sin and drive sinners to a desire for participation in the promises to Abraham and the need for identification with the seed to whom those promises were made.</p>