Walking by the Spirit

In earlier posts on Romans 8, we have seen that one of the blessings of being in Christ is that we have freedom from the rule of sin. In Christ, God has condemned our sin, and the result or purpose of this is that believers fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. But we do not do this in our own power or strength, but in the strength of the Holy Spirit. It is those who “walk according to the Spirit” in whom the righteous requirement of the law is being fulfilled.

What is this walk according to the Spirit? What does it look like? How do I experience this? An important passage to aid our understanding is Galatians 5:

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."

Notice that Paul is dealing here with Christians fulfilling the law, and there is a strong contrast between life in the Spirit and life in the flesh. These are both present in Romans 8 as well. So this passage is a good one to help us understand a bit more about the dynamics of walking according to the Spirit.

What we see throughout the book of Galatians is that living or walking by the Spirit is a life lived by faith. Consider a few examples:

1. Love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit in 5:22, but love is the fruit of faith in 5:6, so that the way to walk by the Spirit so that the fruit of love is produced is to walk by faith.

2. Galatians 5:5 ("For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness") shows that as you trust Jesus and His promise to bring you to glory in righteousness, you are waiting through the Spirit.

3. I say "trust in Jesus" because of Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (by His Spirit, 4:6). And the life I now live in the flesh (the life that arises from the Spirit living in me) I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." The life that is produced by Christ's Spirit living in me is a life of faith in Jesus, embracing all that He is and all that He has done and all that He will yet do for me, because He loved and gave Himself for me.

4. Maybe most clearly, Galatians 3:5, "Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—" The Spirit's miracle-working power (and it will certainly take a miracle for guilty, hostile sinners like us to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law, Romans 8:4) is supplied as we hear with faith." Hear what? The Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).

I conclude from all this that the way we walk by the Spirit is by hearing a blood-bought promise of God for our situation (2 Corinthians 1:20), and by believing it; that is, receiving it and embracing it as more true and more precious than the pleasure of the temptation to our flesh that may be in front of us. And when you hear with faith, that hearing with faith is the Spirit's powerful movement in your life. That is what it means to walk by the Spirit.

They are like socket and plug. When the plug of your faith goes in the socket of God's Word, the Spirit is flowing with His miracle-working power. We become Christians by faith in Jesus, we stay Christians by faith in Jesus, and we grow as Christians by faith in Jesus. And this life of faith is what it means to walk by the Spirit.