THE ONE TRUE GOSPEL
Meditations in the Epistle to the Galatians
Galatians 5:16-26
LIVING BY THE SPIRIT

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LIVING BY the Holy Spirit is the practical answer to all failure to be Christlike, and to the temptation to use our freedom in Christ as a reason for carelessness in the way we live. I feel the best way to suck out what the Apostle is urging upon us in this section, is to look at each part in turn. By this means hopefully we will not miss anything Paul is saying and obtain a full understanding of living by the Holy Spirit, which is in fact living the Christian life.

REALISING OUR NEW CREATION

There is no doubt that you cannot have received salvation without knowing that new life has been created within. There is no denying the new creation that we are, because of the effect of it in our lives. Life, when it is present, reveals itself. A new born baby shows it is alive by crying, and moving, and seeking food, giving and receiving of love, and relating to the world around. When we are new born by the Spirit we have life which is from above, and life which is of the heavenly realm, and this life reveals itself in our experience. Spiritually now we perceive and experience this heavenly realm, and we know we belong to it. We find this expressed in the desire to pray, to listen to God in his Word, to be holy, and in the perception of the love of God poured out upon us and the beauty of the Lord revealed to us. We also know the desires of God and that heavenly realm expressed by the presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. We long for holiness and love which is the beauty of the Lord.

The way to live the Christian life says Paul in verse 16 is to live by the Spirit. There is no obscurity in this statement. Paul is simply saying that we need to live by paying sole attention to the new creation within us and to the Holy Spirit's influences and guidance who dwells within us, so that our lives are directed by the Spirit, and we live in the way of this new life.

This needs conscious action. It is true that the presence of the Holy Spirit can't be ignored, and his presence impinges on all we do, but it is possible to dim the experience of the Spirit's presence, even to shut it out, by the clamour of the world and our sinful nature. There is a constant need, therefore, to be always looking to the Spirit, listening to the Spirit, so that we live our lives by the Spirit. We have been given the means to do this. Firstly in the gift of God's word where God speaks to us and reveals himself to us. This is the Spirit's book, and living by the Spirit is constantly and diligently meeting with the Lord by his Spirit by reading and meditating in the Bible. Secondly, there is the privilege of prayer. Our new life has opened up to us access to the throne of God in heaven, and in prayer we enter God's presence and can speak to him. Prayer cannot be successfully carried out unless it is engaged in together with our listening to God in his Word. Prayer and the Bible go together, and in these two means of grace there is a two way communication, whereby we bring our needs to God, our praise and worship, confession and adoration, and God manifests his love and grace to us by speaking to us from his revealed Word. Thirdly, there is the meeting together with other Christians in the fellowship of the Church. In this means of grace is incorporated the gift of Sunday, when we are given one special day each week when we can spend quality time with the Lord in worship and listening, and sharing God's word with other Christians. We are living in the Spirit when we hear the Word of God preached faithfully. No true preacher dare come into the pulpit unless he comes from the presence of the Lord with God's message for each occasion for God's people.

FACING FACTS

In verses 16 and 17 the Apostle sets before us the facts about our life here on earth as Christians. Here on earth, although we are redeemed eternally, and possess eternal life, and a place in glory is reserved for us as soon as we believe; and although this redemption is permanent because it is based on the perfect work of Jesus for us, and not on our failing and weak effort, nonetheless it is not complete here on earth. We have to wait until we pass through physical death to glory for the fulness of our redemption to be realised.

The reason redemption is not complete is that we still live in this life through our physical bodies, and we still, therefore, retain our sinful natures. Our sinful nature is in no way redeemed by our salvation. It is in no way changed, so that it is just as full of sinful desires as before. It still has a bias towards evil and away from God. Our earthly body with the sinful nature is the only means that we have for existing and living in this world, so although we are new born in our spirit's and essential selves, we must retain our bodies in this life in order to live in this world.

Of course God could have made it so that as soon as we believe we are taken to glory, so that the fulness of redemption could be realised in one go, but this is really not viable because it would inhibit the preaching of the Gospel, and the gathering in of God's elect. Although we are still sinners because of our sinful natures, we are ambassadors for Christ, and it is God's means of calling in his elect that it should be done through the witness and preaching of his people.

The fact is, as Paul graphically explains in the two verses we are considering, that we have two warring factions within us. We have the new life in Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, which desires only that which is holy and good. We also retain our sinful nature which desires and lusts after evil things, and is the source of temptation, as Satan has a lever in our sinful nature with which he can attack and tempt us. These two factions within us must be at war always. We must understand this, because to understand is to be forewarned and also to have an antidote to the failure we may feel when we fail in love and holiness so often. By facing this fact we know that we will not always be able to live as the Spirit and our new nature wants. We will not be defeated or depressed when we fail because we will know the reason why, and that this does not effect our standing before God. We know that we will have the victory eventually through Jesus, when we rise again in glory. Nonetheless as we live in the Spirit there is progress as the sinful nature is starved and mortified, as we give ourselves to the Spirit's leading.

SPIRITUAL FREEDOM

Paul then states in the next verse, verse 18 "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law."

We can only be led by the Spirit if we are obedient to the Spirit as he guides and influences us in heavenly good. This is in fact surrendering our wills to the Lord, and only doing what the Lord wills. Christians are not their own for we have been bought by the precious blood of the Saviour. We now belong to the Lord. This may well seem like slavery, specially if the devil is pressing us hard. In fact the paradox is that it is freedom, freedom to be what we were created to be.

When we are living as the Spirit leads, we are free because we are living according to how God meant us to be, and we are fulfilling the desire of our creation in Christ. There is much loose thinking with regard to freedom of the will. In fact we are not free in any objective way. We don't relate to our will in a neutral sense, where there is no pressure on us one way or the other. In fact there is pressure on our will all the time. Paul has described this pressure in the previous verses 16 and 17. When we are led by the Spirit and thus are obedient to the Spirit we are free, because we relate to and experience the purpose of God for us both as created and redeemed.

Being free in this way we are not under law, and have no need to be under law. Firstly this expresses the gospel assurance that being in Christ, which is evidenced by the fact that we are led by the Spirit, we are free from the authority of the law and its condemning power. The law has been fulfilled for us by our Saviour in every way, and so we are free to serve God without fear. Secondly we are free from the necessity of the law. The law given to Moses was given because of sin. The moral precepts were given to curb the sinful propensities of the fallen human heart, and the ceremonial law was given to provide a way whereby the broken law can be atoned for. It was a provision needed until the Saviour of the world had come, and had freed his people from the dominion of sin. Being led by the Spirit we show ourselves to be in Christ in whom the law has been fulfilled and thus has passed away, and also in whom we have the heavenly influences and guidance of God himself. The moral law is still used by the Spirit in his leading to show and illustrate the heavenly way, but is no more needed as a judge or a school master.

KNOWING THE WAY OF THE FLESH

It is a fact that Satan in his temptations always makes the desires of the flesh seem desirable and acceptable. He cloaks his temptations with a cloak of reasonableness so that they seem to be harmless. Satan never tells the truth. He did not tell the truth to Adam. Satan's temptation in the garden of Eden shows how plausible he is when he comes with his seductions. It is all very well for us to say that the evil of his suggestions to Adam are plain, but we would not have found them so if we had been in Adam's place. Because of this subtilty of the evil one, Paul clearly lays before us the dangers in the flesh and its desires. By knowing exactly what the desires of the flesh lead to and are, we will see temptation for what it is, and more easily turn against it. By looking at this evil that issues out of the sinful nature, we are forewarned and can evaluate the temptations of the evil one truly, and turn away from the desires he is seeking to seduce us with. It is important to look at all the sinful desires that Paul mentions. It is easy to say that some we would never be seduced by, and so miss the ones that are our particular weakness. This would make us vulnerable to being seduced.

Then there is the warning of the Apostle as to where the desires of the flesh lead. They lead away from God and the kingdom of God. Knowing this awful truth, we will seek to run away from our sins, and avoid as far as possible all that stimulates our sinful nature.

THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

If we are to succeed in our surrender to the Spirit's leading, we shall be helped enormously by seeing the beautiful fruit that the Spirit produces in the life and character of the believer. Our whole new creation within affirms these fruits and longs after them with desperate longing. Such fruit is so blessed and rich and lovely. Where these fruits are present in reality there is no need of any law, because these express and fulfil the beauty of the holiness of God.

The more we think and meditate on these things, the more they will attract and influence us, and the more we will fulfil them. Thus we will be living by the Spirit, and showing forth the glory of God.

THE RESULT OF JUSTIFYING GRACE

The last thing Paul speaks of in his exhortation to us to live by the Spirit is a statement of fact. How bold and sweeping the statement is. He says that believers in Jesus, that is those who belong to Jesus, have crucified the sinful nature (flesh) with its passion and desires. Paul uses the past tense here. What is he expressing.

Paul has already made plain in Galatian letter and elsewhere in the New Testament that the flesh is not dead in this life and causes the Christian a great deal of trouble. How then are we to understand "having crucified the flesh". Crucifixion is to kill, how then is the flesh crucified by the believer. It seems to me that this can only be understood in relationship to our death in Christ and our resurrection to new life in him, and in the wonder of God's justifying grace in Jesus Christ.

We have been crucified with Christ. This means that the old fallen creature that we were has died, and a new regenerate person has been raised with Christ to new life. In this fact, the flesh has nothing to do with us, even though it still exerts itself during our earthly life. As far as the reality of our position as saved in Christ, the flesh is dead and is not us in our new life. Thus we considered it as crucified and dead, and refuse to consider the validity of its desires. This is our position in Christ, and so in Christ we have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Thus we understand this statement of having crucified the flesh as the attitude of mind towards to flesh which results from our dying and rising with Christ. Because of this attitude day by day we seek to live in the reality of this crucifixion of the flesh, and deny the flesh with its sinful desires continually.

When the apostle speaks of the flesh, or our sinful nature, with its passions and lusts, he is not thinking just of sinful desires that the flesh causes to rise within us, but also the general mind attitude associated with the thinking of the world. The believer, having crucified the sinful nature has renounced the philosophy of life and aims of the world. The believer now thinks according to the values of the kingdom of God.

CONCLUSION

Paul draws everything together in verses 25 and 26 by saying that because we live by the Spirit, day by day and hour by hour and minute by minute, we seek to keep in step with the Spirit and deny the flesh in every way. This is the warfare that we are in as believers on earth. There is no remission from this warfare in this life, and we dare not drop our guard, or rest on any progress or advance. Keeping in step with the Spirit is best done by spending as much time as possible in listening to the Spirit and spending time with him. Thus we live in the Bible. We are constant in prayer. We seek to improve our understanding by hearing sermons, reading Christian books, having fellowship with other believers, and so on.

It is quite proper to take seriously the business of living in our world, with work, the care of home and family, and revitalising our mind and body with recreation. The dangerous times are the times between occupations. These we need to fill with Christ. We will not do this unless we spend real quality time with the Lord, keeping in step with the Spirit. It has to be said that it is best that some quality time is given to the Lord daily.