An Inward Work – Uses of the Law: To Engage God’s Spirit (2)

An Inward Work

Uses of the Law: To Engage God’s Spirit (2)

…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

I frequently hear from others that keeping the Law of God leads to hypocrisy and self-righteousness, like the Pharisees of old. Certainly there is a measure of truth in that. But the Pharisees were hypocritical and legalistic because they were more concerned about the outward appearance of righteousness than the inward substance of it (Matt. 23:25, 26).

The Spirit of God works with the Law and Word of God primarily from within the believer. Real transformation into the image of Jesus Christ is not merely a matter of outward appearances. Nothing that we might do or show in our words or actions will be a genuine work of God’s Spirit unless it engages us in our souls first and foremost. The Spirit is at work within us to make us willing and able to do the work of obedience called for in the Law of God.

What does this mean? The human soul consists of three interacting, overlapping, and somewhat redundant components—the mind, the heart, and the conscience. The mind is the locus of information processing. It represents our thought life—what we understand, how we analyze and use information, what we think.

The heart is the seat of the affections, those strong sentiments, hopes, and aspirations that move us one way or another, depending on the object of our attention and the extent to which our affections are properly tuned and tensed.

The conscience is the seat of the will, the valuing center of the soul. In some ways the conscience is a kind of referee between the mind and the heart, helping the two work together to sort out thoughts and feelings so that these can be processed together into true spiritual practices in the life.

The Spirit of God works on all three components of the soul, renewing the mind, cleansing the heart, and making the conscience upright and good. We can engage the Spirit in this work as we meditate on the Law of God, and on all the Word of God, and allow the Spirit to search us in all aspects of our souls, so that He might correct and transform us accordingly (Ps. 139:23, 24).

We will not be hypocrites or Pharisees in our study and practice of God’s Law if we listen to the Spirit and wait for Him to speak to us mind, heart, and conscience, as we work out our salvation in a manner consistent with what He is teaching us, beginning with God’s Law (Phil. 2:12).

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Bookstore, then Church Issues.

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.