Walk in the Spirit

The walking in the Spirit which is here enjoined consists further in maintaining a constant conflict with indwelling sin, and seeking to crucify the flesh, with its corruptions and lusts. I need not say - for your own experience must convince you - that regeneration does not destroy sin in the soul. It dethrones sin; it breaks its power; but it does not extirpate or expel it from the heart. It is still there; not as a tyrant, but as a traitor, ever ready to deceive and seduce, and then most likely to succeed when we are least sensible of its presence, and least watchful against its wiles. Even in the bosom of the child of God there is many a “root of bitterness,” which, springing up, may trouble and defile him; there is a “sin which doth so easily beset him;” there is “a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin and of death.” The whole course of his sanctification is a ceaseless warfare, which will never terminate until the body is dissolved in death. Now the steady maintenance of this arduous and protracted conflict is included in “his walking in the Spirit,” and can only be successful in this way; for, says the apostle, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”

By the flesh in this context, we are to understand all our sinful propensities and passions, whether such as belong properly to the body, or such as have their seat in the soul; for, in enumerating the works of the flesh, he mentions “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like;” and, in reference to these, he says, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” The use of the word flesh, however, seems to intimate that our evil passions derive much of their virulence and strength from our connection with these “vile bodies,” whose appetites we are so prone to indulge, and for whose comfort we are so anxious to provide: and if so, we may do well to remember the example of the apostle, who said, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest having preached the Gospel to others, I should myself be a castaway.” And the use, again, of such terms as “mortify and crucify the flesh,” implies that we are called to a very painful task, and to the exercise of much self-denial; but this is involved in our profession and inseparable from it; for our Lord thus forewarned his disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

Again, this walking in the Spirit consists in maintaining a spiritual frame of mind, by having our thoughts much engaged with spiritual truth, and our affections set on spiritual objects, and all our faculties employed in spiritual services. That this spiritual frame of mind is included in the duty appears from the statement of the apostle in another place, “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh: but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” To walk in the Spirit clearly implies that we should be spiritually minded; and this gracious habit mainly consists in our thoughts being much occupied with divine truth, and our affections and desires being set, not on the things which are seen and temporal, but on those things which are unseen and eternal. The real state of our hearts may be determined by the prevailing bent of our thoughts, affections, and desires: for if these be mainly occupied with the world, and naturally and instinctively point to some earthly good, then we have reason to fear that we are still walking after the flesh, and not after the Spirit; but if they are chiefly set on things spiritual and divine - if not only in the hour of prayer, but at other times, they recur to God, and Christ, and heaven, and dwell on these subjects with complacency and satisfaction, or at least with earnestness - then we have reason to hope that we may be of the number of those who have been quickened into spiritual life, of which the first and surest symptom is the appetite and desire for spiritual nourishment and food.

And he who is thus spiritually minded is said to “walk in the Spirit,” not only because it is the Spirit which quickened him at the first, but also because it is the Spirit which continues to sustain his spiritual life, keeping alive his appetite for spiritual food, directing his thoughts to spiritual things, and exciting his affections for spiritual objects. This he does by means of thetruth; and hence the same truth which is declared to be the germ of the new birth - by which we are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, even by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” - that same truth is also the aliment by which the Spirit nourishes his people; for, “as new born babes, they desire the sincere milk of the Word, that they may grow thereby.” And so the same Word which cleanses the sinner at first - for we read of “the washing of water by the Word” - is also the means of his growing sanctification; for “now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”

Walking in the Spirit consists further in our habitually seeking to cultivate and exercise all the graces of the Christian life, by bringing forth abundantly the peaceable fruits of righteousness. These are expressly said to be, in every believer, “the fruit of the Spirit;” for, says the apostle, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;” and again, “The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth.”

Without attempting to illustrate each of those elements of the Christian character, I may observe in general, that when combined, as they always are, although in different degrees and proportions, in the experience of believers, they are to be regarded as the first lineaments of that divine image which was lost at the fall, and which it is the great design of the Spirit to restore, while they are at the same time a source of the purest and most permanent happiness. Love to God as our Father, to Christ as our best benefactor, and to his people as brethren; joy and peace, springing from the Gospel; the joy which the world can neither give nor take away; the very peace of God which passeth all understanding; long-suffering and gentleness, springing from that love which “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things;” goodness, which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; faith, which believes God, and trusts in his faithful promise; meekness, which is not overcome of evil, but overcomes evil with good; and temperance, which restrains indulgence within the limits of duty: these are the elements of the Christian character; and they are as conducive to our true happiness as they are opposed to our natural dispositions.

But especially, let us realise the thought, that these graces are, one and all, the fruits of the Spirit; they are not the spontaneous products of our corrupted nature, nor even the forced nurslings of our own culture and industry; they are the “beauties of holiness,” with which the Spirit of God adorns “the new creature,” and by which he prepares him for the society and services of heaven. If, then, we feel ourselves deficient in any one or more of these graces, we should not depend on our own strength; but, while we are diligent in the use of every appointed means, we should pray for the SPIRIT.

It is a very serious truth, that each of us must be walking either after the flesh or after the Spirit; and that according as we pursue the one course or the other, we are proceeding, with the swiftness of time itself, towards heaven or hell. Our personal interest in all the privileges and promises of the Gospel depends on our choice betwixt these two; for, speaking of those who are interested in the Gospel, the apostle describes them in these words: “There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus; who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit;” for “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” But he adds, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.” The apostle urges this solemn truth even on the attention of those to whom he wrote, although they were professing Christians; partly because there are, in every visible church, some mere nominal professors, who need to be awakened to a sense of their real condition; and partly also, because it is salutary for believers themselves to be reminded of the wide difference which subsists betwixt the Church and the world, and of the holy jealousy with which they should watch over their own souls. “Wherefore work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

Buchanan