The Spirit and faith.
1. Galatians 1-2 outline Paul’s defense of the supremacy of the grace of God over Law as a means of salvation and the principles by which we live for God.
a. Faith and grace are given to us as the central elements of the Christian faith. One could well think that after 2 chapters that established the principles of grace and faith that he would apply those principles in practical teaching about living by faith and appropriating more grace into the life. Instead, Paul moves to display the source of grace and faith. He opens up a detailed and encouraging exposition about the nature of the Holy Spirit and his many actions and gifts to the one who has faith in Jesus. This is the subject of Galatians 3-5: The Holy Spirit that brings grace and faith.
1.) The work of the Spirit is the antithesis of the works of the flesh, “the desires of the flesh are against the desires of the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:17)
2.) The work of the Spirit brings a manifestation and evidence of true and saving faith in the “fruit” of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23)
3.) The principle of the Spirit then impacts all of the Christian life. The worship of God, the simplest service, prayer, obedience, self-giving, humility, love, are all directed and defined by the work of the Spirit of God who brings us to faith in Jesus Christ and who forms our lives and character into his likeness. “If we live by the Spirit let us also walk by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)
b. There is an unbreakable link between the faith one has in Christ and the work of the Spirit of God within our lives.
1.) The Christian life must be lived by the power of the Spirit or it is sure to fail. Paul made it clear that we begin the Christian life by the work and power of the Spirit, and we must continue living our lives with Christ in dependence and through the provision of the Holy Spirit who dwells in our hearts.
c. The gift of the Spirit of God is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. It is the summation of the prophetic word that “the just shall live by faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4)
1.) The promises to those who believed in God through the Old Testament are fulfilled in the giving of the Holy Spirit (with all his gifts) to those who believe and in the application of every grace to the lives of those who trust in Jesus Christ. The Christian is living the fulfillment of every promise of God given before Christ came. We are the children of promise. We are those who receive in completion what what only dreamed about and hoped for in the Old Testament era.
d. The gift of the Spirit is the evidence from God, the gift of God, the proof of grace, the victory over the flesh, and he is the supply of God’s power to work the miracles and to give them the faith that makes the people who have faith. (See Galatians 3:1-9)
e. The adoption as sons and daughters is worked by the Spirit of God. God has sent “the Spirit of his Son in your hearts, crying “Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6)
The result is that you are no longer a slave (to sin) but you are the sons and daughters of God, and if “a son, then an heir through God.”
2. Overview of the work of the Spirit in Galatians.
a. 3:2 – Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing of faith?” (See also Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.”)
b. 3:3 – “Having begun by the Spirit are you now perfected by the flesh?”
c. 3:5 – “does he who supplies the Spirit to you – work miracles among you, do so by the law or by hearing of faith?”
d. 3:14 – “We might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”
e. 4:6 – “And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’”
f. 4:29 – “Children of promise …. born of the Spirit so also it is now.” The promise of faith is fulfilled by us who are born of the Spirit of God.
g. 5:5 – “through the Spirit, by faith we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.”
h. 5:16 – “walk by the Spirit.”
i. 5:17 – “desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, desires of he Spirit are against the flesh.”
j. 5:18 – “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”
k. 5:22 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
l . 6:8 – But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
3. Statements of the work of the Spirit in the believer.
a. The Spirit comes to dwell in the life (“heart”) of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ.
b. The Spirit was responsible for beginning the work of redemption in the lives of everyone who believes.
c. Believers in Jesus Christ actually receive the Spirit of God who indwells their physical bodies.
d. God has sent the Spirit of adoption to make it possible for us to become the sons and daughters of God.
e. We who have received the Spirit of God eagerly await a glorious future and the gifts that God has prepared for us there and then.
f. Those who are redeemed can live (walk) by the Spirit of God. Such words as “dwell” “begun” “supplied” “received” “born” “sent” are used actively as the experience of true and saving faith with reference to the work and Person of the Spirit of God.
g. The Spirit of God produces a fruit consisting of many components and aspects (5:22ff).
h. We are instructed to use care to sow to the Spirit of God and not to sow to the sinful nature (the flesh). Such sowing to the Spirit promises great blessing to those who do this.
| The work of the Spirit in the Person of Jesus Christ |
The work of the Spirit in the one who has faith in Jesus Christ |
| Jesus was baptized at the beginning of his earthly ministry by John the Baptist (John 1:32)The descent of the Spirit upon Jesus signaled the beginning of his ministry, the display of his glory in miracles, and the declaration of his identity as the Son of God / Son of Man. The Spirit of God descended upon him in visible form. |
We are baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19)The baptism of Jesus was both like and unlike our baptism. We are baptized as a sign of repentance, and an incorporation into the Body of Christ. We are baptized as an identification with Christ’s death and resurrection. We are baptized as a physical representation of the dying to self and living unto God. Jesus was baptized as an identification with sinners and to “fulfill all righteousness.”The Christian life begins with the gift of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:2), and with the faith and grace that are communicated through the work of the Spirit in those who believe. Christians are indwelt by the same Spirit of God who descended upon Jesus (2 Corinthians 6:16)The continuity of our baptism with Jesus’ is in the same Spirit of God who came upon him in power, comes into our lives and dwells within us physically, and he will be with us forever.The Spirit of God was first given to those in the Old Testament (like Samson or David), but he would be given for specific purposes and for limited time, then he came to indwell the lives of those who believe (Acts 2:1-4), permanently and forever. |
| Christ is driven into the wilderness by the Spirit of God (Luke 4:1)The leading of the Holy Spirit is central to the mission of Christ. |
We are led by the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:18)The leading of the Holy Spirit was the experience of the early church (see Acts 16:6, and all references to the Holy Spirit in Acts). The sovereignty of the Holy Spirit to lead us or to drive us where he wants us is established. |
| Healing miracles and casting out demons are accomplished by the power of the Spirit of God (Matthew 12:28)The healing miracles are ascribed to the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ had the power and he could do any miracle he wished – he was the Creator of every molecule and the Lord of all creation. But he appears to have deferred to the power of the Holy Spirit in specific instances of healing. It seems that he loved to accomplish the miracle by the power of the Holy Spirit working through him. |
Christians perform miracles by the Spirit of God (Galatians 3:5).We are not told the kind or scope of miracles that the Galatian Christians experienced, but the Holy Spirit was the means by which they were accomplished. The miracles must have been to effect some change in outcome, some healing of illness, some provision or providential event that could not be explained as chance or fortune. There were miracles that the Holy Spirit did in the early church; such miracles did not seem to be dependent upon apostolic gifting nor where they done as the agents of the apostles. There is nothing to suggest that. The miracles came because they were experiencing the power and might of the Holy Spirit within their church and in their lives individually. |
| The Spirit of God is sent by Jesus Christ to those who have faith in him (John 14:17, 26; 16:13) |
Those promised the Spirit actually receive the Spirit from the Father and from the Son (John 14:17, 26; 15:26; 16:13; Galatians 3:2; 4:6)Christians actually received the Spirit of God (first temporarily and after the ascension of Jesus, permanently (John 20:22) |
| The fullness of the Spirit; Jesus was physically conceived by the work of the Spirit of God in the womb of the virgin Mary. (Matthew 1:20)The Spirit of God is named as a participant in the resurrection of Christ from the dead (Romans 1:4)From the beginning of his life until his resurrection from the dead, the Holy Spirit of God was working in and through Jesus Christ. His very incarnation was a work of the Spirit of God. His ministry was empowered by the Spirit. His miracles were accomplished through the Spirit. His resurrection was associated with the outpouring of the Spirit’s power. In every way the Lord Jesus Christ is exalted, the Holy Spirit is working to extend his glory and to magnify it. |
Believers are made alive by the indwelling work of the Spirit, making alive, redeeming, and applying resurrection power in the lives of those who believe (Ephesians 1:18ff)Christians experience the very power that raised Christ from the dead working in them. The power that brought Christ from the dead is the same power that works in the believer to take him from spiritual death to becoming alive to God, a new creature, to be born again. |
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“Justification applied” is a work of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 6:11)Justification, proper, is the work of the Son of God on the Cross. The application of Christ’s finished work is the joyful work of the Spirit. The Spirit of God not only assisted Christ in his earthly ministry and miracles, (and there may be much more that we do not know about where the Spirit of God was involved in the redemption that Christ accomplished, but it is in application of that redemption in the justification of sinners, the application of the righteousness of Christ to the account of believers, and to cancel he debt and to accomplish the adoption of sons and daughters of God by faith in Jesus Christ – all are done through the work and power of the Spirit of God. |
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We gain the knowledge of God by the Spirit who was given to us by God (Ephesians 1:17)The Spirit of God mediates to us the knowledge of God. He explains, interprets, helps us to understand and explains to us the meaning of the Word of God written. He inspired the writers of Scripture so that they wrote with their own vocabulary, and illustrated the message from their own frame of experiences, but that those words became the very Word of God by the work of the Spirit of God who worked to reveal God’s nature in the Word of God.(2 Peter 1:21; cf. 2 Timothy 3:15) |
| Jesus is described as being “filled with the Spirit” (see Luke 4:1; cf. 4:14) |
Christians also are filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18)We share the inner working and ministry of the Spirit in us, just as Christ knew what it was to be filled with the Spirit of God (but his experience was not hindered by sin as ours is). He and we are filled with the same Spirit of God. Our filling if for different goals and purposes. But the Person who indwells us, God the Holy Spirit, is the same who descended up and indwelt the Son of God during his earthly walk and ministry. |
4. Application to Palm Sunday and the Triumphal Entry.
a. The coming of Christ to Jerusalem to die for the sins of his people was the fulfillment of the Father’s will to save, it would be accomplished by the Son’s love for his own and his desire to be with them forever, and that work of redemption was given the power of the Spirit, the conquering victory over evil was begun, and then the justification of God is applied to every believer by his power to save, to resurrect, to make new, and to incorporate into the Body of Jesus Christ all who have faith in him.
b. The Spirit of God is known by us more powerfully, more permanently, that the disciples experienced when they were with Christ during his early ministry. After the day of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit and his indwelling power became more influential in his people and that indwelling presence became permanent in the physical body of believers (while we live) and in us forever even in Heaven, when our new bodies are created, we will dwell with God forever by the Spirit. We will see Jesus Christ, risen and glorious, physically, and we will see the glory of the Father brilliantly. We will know God as he is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
c. The power of faith in the believer is given to us by the work of the Holy Spirit. When Paul laid out the distinction between the Law and Grace, and between Works and Faith, in the explanation of Faith he immediately turned to the make faith clear by a long and very specific set of works that the Holy Spirit accomplishes in the life of the believer. The way faith works is the way the Spirit of God works in the believer. If you believe, it is a gift of God, given to your by the inner working of the Spirit of God, that you might trust and service, love and worship Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
d. The Holy Spirit is a gift who brings fruit into your life. He inspires and he teaches the Word of God. He creates a desire for us to express the obedience that is caused by true faith. He is a comforter and helper for everyone who believes in Christ. He applies the adoption of the sons and daughters of God to our relationship with God. We are not only believers, we are now sons and daughters — adopted children of God, by the work of the Spirit within us.
e. The summary verse in Galatians is: “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25).
Glorious Savior Church 