#DailyDevotion Follow The Spirit & The Law Will Be Fulfilled In You

Gal. 5:16-18 ¹⁶I say, follow the Spirit, and you will not do what the flesh wants. ¹⁷What the flesh wants is against the Spirit, and what the Spirit wants is against the flesh, because they are opposed to each other and so keep you from doing what you want to do. ¹⁸But if the Spirit leads you, you are not under the Law.

You should read this section with Romans 7 and 8, 8 in particular. So I really think in both of these letters you should be reading or rather understanding Commands=Flesh and Gospel=Spirit. I say this because of how Paul talks about the flesh here and in Romans. We know the Law was given to increase trespasses and through the Law comes a knowledge of sin. We know sin in our flesh is stirred up when we hear the Law so that it doesn’t want to do what God wants it to but rather sin rebels against the commands of God. Flesh and sin are practically synonymous here or at least flesh stands in for sin.

If you want to live a God pleasing life, hitting yourself with the Law is not the way to do it. You need to hear the Gospel. Only the Gospel gives you power to do what pleases God because faith come through hearing the Gospel, i.e. the forgiveness of sins and all other things God promises us on account of Christ Jesus. The Spirit leads us to do what God wills, moves us to do what God wills, and empowers us to do what God wills. Now the Law certainly tells us what God’s will is but it gives no power to do it. It’s helpful to us to hear it so we don’t make up stuff as to what God’s will is as the Pharisees and Roman Catholics do with their traditions. When we hear how God the Father loves us for Christ’s sake, makes us his heirs in holy baptism, gives us his Holy Spirit freely, has opened to kingdom of heaven to us promising eternal life, the Spirit is there changing our hearts and minds to conform to God’s will to will and to do. So as Paul says in Ephesians, “It is God who wills and works in us good.”

Now it is not clear whether it is the Spirit or the Law which, “keep[s] you from doing what you want to do.” I guess it depends which you is active in any given moment i.e. the old man or the new man. On the one hand the flesh keeps you from obeying God’s commands. On the other hand the Spirit gives you a will and power to do what is pleasing to God and constrains the flesh.

If the Spirit leads you, you are not under Law. Why is that? Because the Spirit is active with the Gospel which forgives our trespasses, rebellions, sins, and the like against God’s Law. The Law cannot threaten you if you are focused on the Gospel. Any sin, any not quite hitting the mark even though you tried, isn’t counted in the Spirit, with the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.

So if you want to live a more sanctified life, living by the Spirit of God, you need more Gospel not Law. You need to remember your baptism and all the promises God has attached to it. You should go to Confess and Absolution to hear your sins, which are many, have been washed away and God sees you as someone pure as snow and whose righteousness is white as wool. You should partake regularly of the LORD’ Supper which delivers to you the New Covenant, i.e. God forgetting your sin and giving you the Holy Spirit (Torah) in your heart. Be busying forgiving those who have sinned against you, have mercy on those who do not deserve it and be kind to others as God has been kind to you in Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father, overwhelm us with the Gospel so we may follow the Spirit always and walk according to your holy will. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.