Three Texts on the Spirit

Three Texts on the Spirit

The Law of Liberty (6)

“…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”  Philippians 2.13

We want to examine briefly three passages that can help us to understand what it means to be filled with the Spirit of God.

The first passage is Philippians 2.13. Here Paul says God is at work within us to make us willing and able to do whatever pleases Him. Now we know that the Spirit of God, deposited in the hearts of all who believe in Jesus, is the power of God Who works within us to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ (Acts 1.8; 2 Cor. 3.12-18; Eph. 3.20). But what pleases God? What is the Spirit working within us to make us willing and able to do? Could it be those good works for which we have been redeemed, and which God has prepared for us in His Law (Eph. 2.10)?

Our second text is John 16.8-11. Here Jesus taught that the Spirit of God will convict and instruct us when He comes to dwell within us. This is how He begins to make us willing and able to do the good works of God. He convicts us of our sins – which Paul says He does by pointing us to the Law of God (Rom. 7.7) – and He teaches us the way of righteousness, which is the way of Christ’s Kingdom and of the Law of God (Rom. 14.17, 18; Rom. 7.12).

So by drawing us into the light of God’s Law, the Spirit of God convicts us of sin and points us down the path of right living and good works.

Finally, through the prophet Ezekiel God specifically told us that, when He gives His Spirit to His people it will be so that the Spirit will teach us His Law and enable us to walk in obedience to it (Ezek. 36.26, 27). The Spirit of God – Who is, we should recall, the Holy Spirit – is working within us through conviction and instruction to make us willing and able to understand and obey the Law of God, the law of liberty.

As we take up the holy Law of God we are liberated from the life of the flesh into the life of the Holy Spirit of God. And the more we take up that Law, the more we will be filled with the Spirit according to the teaching of God’s Word.

The psalmist says that the righteous person meditates day and night in God’s Law (Ps. 1). Would like to get started in this discipline? Order a copy of The Ground for Christian Ethics and The Law of God. The first will explain the importance3 of God’s Law, and guide you in taking up the practice of daily reading and meditation. The second provides all the statutes, precepts, and rules of God’s Law organized under their proper number of the Ten Commandments.

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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.

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