Galatians 5:24 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And they that are Christ's Who are true believers in him, and therefore possessed of union with him, and shall be finally owned as belonging to him; have crucified the flesh Have doomed it to a certain death, like the body of one that is nailed to a cross, and left to expire upon it; with the affections and lusts All its evil passions, appetites, and inclinations. The word affections, or passions, as παθηματα should rather be rendered, as distinguished from the lusts of the flesh, are pride, self-will, discontent, anger, malice, envy, revenge. “This is a beautiful and affecting allusion to our Lord's sufferings on the cross. The restraining of our fleshly lusts may be very painful to us, as the word crucify implies. But the same word, by putting us in mind of Christ's suffering much greater pain for us, touches all the generous feelings of the heart, and excites us, from gratitude to him, to disregard the pain which so necessary a duty may occasion to us.”