Follow the Leader

Who are you following?  Despite what some people think, everybody follows something or someone.  

For those rebels of us out there who put there hands on our hips and declare our rugged independence, we're not as independent as we think we are.  

Here Paul tells us that we're either the Spirit is leading us or the law is leading us.  

It's a supernatural game of Follow the Leader.  But this one has eternal consequences.  And the apostle is very clear.  They are mutually exclusive.  

You've either follow the guidance of God's Spirit or the legalism of self-salvation.  Not both.  The Spirit.  The law.  Who ya got?

In the previous verses, Paul has introduced the opponents in this internal cage match (Gal 5:16-17).  It's the Spirit vs my flesh.  These are ferocious enemies which fight to the death.  

Let's be clear about one thing.  This is NOT a fair fight.  These opponents are NOT equally matched.  For the followers of Jesus, the Spirit's victory is without question.

"But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (v18).  The first thing we see is that the apostle equates walking by the Spirit, the desires of the Spirit and being led by the Spirit.  That's all the same thing.  

Using similar math, the desires of the flesh and being under the law mirror each other.  Back in chapter 3, Paul pleaded with the Galatians that the law couldn't save anything or anyone.  "No one is justified before God by the law" (Gal 3:11).  

Remember the context of this letter.  After the Galatians trusted in what Jesus had done for them, the Judaizers duped them into thinking it was up to them to keep themselves saved through religious rule keeping.  

That's when the apostle swats away at the pinata of their counterfeit gospel.  

Abraham wasn't saved by the law but by faith in God (Gal 3:8).  God didn't save us by His Spirit and then leave us swinging in the breeze (Gal 3:2-3).  

Jesus set us free from the law so that we could actually live free and not return to prison cell of self-salvation (Gal 5:1).

Back in verse 18, Paul speaks of being "led by the Spirit."  He uses the Greek term αγω/ago.  It means to lead, bring, guide or take along.  

The verb here is in the passive form.  The text tells us how God's Spirit leads us, guides us and directs us.  The Third Person of the Trinity takes us along.  

Peter used a very interesting analogy when describing the Holy Spirit's influence on the writers of the Bible: "they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2Pet 1:21).  

This is the same Greek verb (φερω/phero) used to describe how the ocean winds fill the sails and propel a ship across the water.

Paul assures us that "if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (v18).  Again, these two leaders are mutually exclusive.  It is one or the other.  

For those of us who shake our fist at the world and say "I follow no one," we're deceiving ourselves.  

We've actually made ourselves an idol.  Without even realizing it, we've feed the beast of self and pride.  The person in the mirror now sits on the throne.  

But, if we're living according to our new life in God's Spirit, we no have to answer to those cravings of our sinful selves.  We're no longer "under the law."

Paul expands on lot of the teaching in this chapter of Galatians in his letter to the Romans, especially chapters 6-8.  

He talks about the freedom from sin that we have in Jesus "since you are not under law but under grace" (Rom 6:14-15).  We're no longer prisoners to the law and now "serve in the new way of the Spirit" (Rom 7:6).

But what does that mean?  What does that have to do with me in the 21st century?  We are under grace and led by the Spirit when we place our faith in what Jesus did in our place.  

He lived the perfect life that we could never live.  He died the brutal death for sin that we should have died.  He rose to a glorious new life that we don't deserve.  

It's what eggheads like to call Penal Substitutionary Atonement.  He takes our sin.  We get His perfection.  

When God looks at us, He sees His Son, the spotless and sinless Lamb.  Jesus cried out from the cross, "It is finished!" (Jn 19:30).  

That means there is nothing left for us to do to stay saved.  NOTHING!  No religious rule keeping.  No self-salvation.  

We simply trust in what He has done for us.  We live in the reality of who we are IN HIM!

Follow the leader.  The Spirit or the law.  Is there really any choice?

©2012

Jay Jennings