The Pain and the Gain of True Holiness

I’ve been struck again by the wonderful depth and simplicity of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, this time with respect to his treatment of the spiritual struggle in the final chapters. Justification is not a process or a reward for those who are victorious in battle. Rather, it is a completed verdict that is rendered on the sole basis of Christ’s imputed righteousness. Precisely on this basis, we have a lot of work ahead of us. It will be a battle; we’ll win some and lose some. However, the war itself has been decided. We live from Christ’s victory over sin’s guilt and power toward Christ’s victory over sin’s presence. In the meantime, it’s choppy waters.

What pain and what gain? First, it’s crucial to notice that Paul is not talking about justification but sanctification here. The pain is perpetual struggle, warfare, and battle between the Spirit and the flesh, not between justification and condemnation. All of those who are justified are in Christ and therefore are indwelt by the Spirit. In the old covenant, provision for atonement was made in the sacrificial system of the Temple that the Spirit filled with his glory. And yet, in the new covenant the law is written on our hearts, our sins are forgiven, and the Spirit indwells us as his temple. Yet this very indwelling of the Spirit arouses the flesh to arms. Paul is not saying that we walk in the Spirit in order to be justified, but that those who are justified are in the Spirit and therefore must “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16). 

Seeking to bring the church back under the old covenant, Paul’s opponents in Galatia had not even realized that the heart of the law is love. Like his gospel, Paul’s law is too simple. His critics demanded that Gentile believers be circumcised, keep kosher, and “observe days and months and seasons and years” (4:10). In the meantime, they looked down on others (especially Gentiles who didn’t act like Jews). Like Jesus in his exchanges with the Pharisees, Paul not only blames his opponents for confusing the law with the gospel but for setting aside God’s law (summarized by love) to obey their own rules, programs and ceremonies. The result of this false righteousness was disregard for God’s law under the pretense of fulfilling it. Legalism bred arrogance; instead of building each other up in the gospel and love, they were biting and devouring each other over who was “in” and who was “out.”  Continue at Michael Horton