Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these
verses:
13For brothers you were called upon freedom. Only [do not
use] that freedom into an opportunity to the flesh, but be serving one another
through the love; 14for all the law is fulfilled in one word, in
this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15But beware, if you are
biting and devouring each other, lest you are consumed by one another.
16But, I say, be walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely
will not fulfill the lust of [the] flesh, 17for the flesh is lusting
against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for they are opposed to
each other, so that you cannot be doing the things you might be wishing; 18but
if you are being led [by the] Spirit, you are not under law.
…22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and
self-control. Against such things there is no law.
I have taken the liberty to include above all of verses
13-18, then shot ahead and included vv 22,23. I am doing this because, as I am
studying this book and learning, it seems to me these verses almost express the
very essence of a Christ-follower’s life, our “manifesto” if you will. Let me
try to sum up what I think I am understanding and then I’ll probably have to
elaborate on it for several posts. There’s just so much going on here. I for
one have never really understood all of this.
To summarize, as a fallen human being, I find myself in this
awful battle of endless self-destruction. The natural and apparently logical
solution is to place me under law, to give me “rules” to live by that make me
better. This has been the “solution” offered by all religions and apparently
even the secular Classical writers of old. I would venture to suggest, the vast
majority of professing Christians still think that living out their salvation
must be accomplished by the governance of law, a vast and varying mixture of
actual Bible mandates, embellished with “principles” or “standards” (actually
rules) we make up and teach to each other.
I guess it just makes sense to us, if I can’t seem to order
my life, I must need new or “better” rules to live by.
But this doesn’t work. As Paul bemoans in Romans 7, rules
only make it worse, even if they are “new and better,” because I still don’t
keep them and, after a while, I realize somehow I cannot.
Who shall deliver me from this body of death?
I thank God, through Jesus Christ – who has provided a
better solution … the only solution: blood-bought
forgiveness and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
God’s solution. First of all there must be blood-bought
forgiveness. The wages of sin is death. Jesus’ death was mine but He rose
again, He lives, and so I can too. As I noted years ago, resurrection is really
what Christianity is all about – life from the dead, a new beginning. However,
while receiving by faith what Jesus did for me purchases the very forgiveness I
need, it logically leaves a problem: I’m still rotten. Until I actually
physically die I am and will be naturally a child of Adam, a fallen,
self-destructive rebel driven by my own “wants” and fears. Once again, the
answer is found in Jesus. As the victorious Messiah, one of His royal
prerogatives was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This was prophesied
repeatedly in the OT and of course, for the church age, it came to pass on that
first Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).
Since that day, when we accept Jesus we not only get the
blood-bought forgiveness which purchases new life for us, we also get the
indwelling Holy Spirit to empower us to live out that new life.
This glorious gift of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling is God’s
solution to the problem of our rottenness. Above, I noted that our natural and
seemingly totally logical assumption is that the “answer” to our rottenness is
rules that will make us better – law. And if the rules I’ve followed don’t make
me better, I must need better rules. The whole human race thinks like this, and
as I said above, I’m afraid the vast majority of even born-again Christians,
though saved by faith, try to be “better” by keeping the rules. After all, they
now have Bible rules. How could it
get better than that? But, again, it does.not.work. They’re still rotten. God’s
way is not new or better rules. His solution is the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Hear Him again:
“…be
walking [in the] Spirit, and you absolutely will not fulfill the lust of [the]
flesh, … but if you are being led [by the] Spirit, you are not under law…the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, ... Against such things there is no
law.
The indwelling Holy Spirit does not just
add new and better rules to my rotten self. He gives me a new nature. I am now a body indwelt by two spirits: my spirit – the rotten one
I was born with, and the Holy Spirit. In my spirit, I am a child of Adam, but
indwelt by the Holy Spirit I am a child of God. Indwelt by the Holy Spirit, I
now have a new nature that actually wants
to do right, that can understand God’s heart, that actually embraces holiness
as a desirable way of life.
Now rather than “keeping the rules,” I
would “walk in the Spirit,” which from my study I believe means to choose to be
aware of His indwelling, of His presence, and to allow Him to actually be my
spirit. The Word itself doesn’t give me “rules” to follow, it informs me of God’s
heart, helps me see what really is right and wrong, what really is important
and what is not. It is “the mind of the Spirit.” As I allow Him to be my
spirit, informed by the Word, to help me see myself and my life and my choices
through God’s eyes, I find myself choosing, valuing, and actually enjoying “love and joy and peace …” “Against such things there is no law”. I
find myself enjoying the freedom to rise above my wants and fears and actually
experience real love for God and the people around me.
But. It is a battle. It is a battle because
my own rotten spirit is unfortunately alive and well and absolutely bent on
ruling me. I still want things. I
still fear I may not get them. My wants and fears seem to overpower whatever
resolve I may have had to walk in the Spirit. And not only is my old nature
seemingly powerful, it is also very deceptive. It will actually embrace
holiness, choose to act in loving, kind, virtuous ways, to be a “good Christian”
… as long as it thinks those choices will get what it wants – so that I can
actually think I am “walking in the Spirit,” doing right, following God, etc.,
even though the truth is I am walking in the flesh – as evidenced by how
quickly I can turn rotten when in fact I don’t get “what I want.” It is a
battle. “The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.
The two are opposed to each other.”
But this is the battle. The battle is not a matter of keeping new and better
rules. The battle is between my flesh and the Holy Spirit over who will control
my life. It is not enough to resolve to “keep the rules.” I will pursue that
goal in my flesh, still very much driven by my “wanter.” I may do a lot of
things “right” but through it all, I’ll still be rotten. It will fail. Instead
I must resolve to allow the Holy Spirit to be my spirit, to enable me to
embrace God’s heart, to see the world through His eyes, to allow the Word to
inform me how in fact He does see the world, and then to live out God’s heart
not because I have to (flesh) but because I truly want to (Spirit).
One last thing I want to inject: By faith I
have to believe that the Holy Spirit is far more powerful than my spirit. It doesn’t
feel that way. Perhaps it is because I’m new to this, but the voice of my flesh
seems to utterly drown out the Spirit’s. My “wanter” seems to completely
overpower any resolve I might have to walk in the Spirit. But that cannot be
true. For crying out loud, the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity! I am indwelt by the very power that
spoke the universe into being. The “power” of my flesh must be another of its devious
deceptions which I must conquer by faith. It is powerful. That is indisputable. As the passage says, as the
flesh and the Spirit vie for control, I “cannot do what I wish.” which I take
to mean that both get in each other’s way – that I succeed in neither to the
extent I’d like to. My flesh is in fact powerful. But it is powerful the same
way the devil is powerful. That power only conquers me if I let it. I have an
infinite Divine power available to conquer it.
I have to believe that and step out.
It is my Manifesto: Enjoy my blood-bought
forgiveness and live out the gift Jesus provides – the ability to live out the
life God intends for me – a life of real freedom, a life of love and joy and
peace. Not because I “have to” but because I want to.
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