Free The Naked Gospel: Truth You May Never Hear in Church by Andrew Farley Page A

NIV, italics added). But substituting rules for the work of the Spirit is not a new phenomenon. Nearly two thousand years ago, Paul was outraged at believers whom he had personally taught. They were straying from the simple message of “Jesus plus nothing.” Filled with emotion, he begged them to reconsider their position:
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort?
    G ALATIANS 3:1-3
    Later in the same chapter, Paul clarifies the believer’s relationship to the law: “The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law” (Galatians 3:24-25 NIV).
    The law led us
to Christ.
    The law led us to Christ. How? By acting as a yardstick against which we measured our morality. We came up short. God’s solution was to justify us, to declare us righteous, by Christ’s work. So Paul asks us to consider the following: First, how did we receive the Spirit—through believing or through the law? Second, what should supervise our actions now?
M ULTIPLE C HOICE
    In college, I was relieved when professors chose the multiplechoice format for tests. Even without studying, I had a fighting chance of identifying the correct answer. In Galatians, the apostle is quizzing his readers on their years of learning under his teaching. He takes it easy on them by giving them multiple-choice options.
    If Paul were to rewrite this portion of his letter in test format, it might look like the following:
Question 1: How were you saved?
                • by observing the law
                • by believing what I heard
    Question 2: How do you expect to grow?
               • by my human effort
               • by the Spirit
    Using this line of questioning, Paul is urging Christians to continue in the same way they began. They started by believing and by opening themselves to the Spirit’s work. Salvation had nothing to do with the law. Likewise, maturity in Christ isn’t achieved through human effort either.
    Our daily lives are
carried out by faith in
the indwelling Christ,
not by the law.
    Paul emphasizes that the law should not act as our supervisor. Is Paul referring here to salvation or to daily living? Both. First, we’re saved by hearing with faith. Now that we’re saved, our daily lives are carried out by faith in the indwelling Christ, not by the law. The Spirit within us is more than enough to bring about a life the law never could: “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18).
T HE S ECRET F ORMULA
    So if the Scriptures say that the law has no place in the life of the believer, the most logical question is this: If the law isn’t our moral guide, then what is? As Christians, we have an inborn desire for our behavior to turn out right. In fact, the desire to please God is what drives some to embrace the error of law-based living!
    Fortunately, God hasn’t taken us out from under the law and left us with nothing. When we believe, the Holy Spirit then lives in us. The Spirit produces fruit through us as we depend on him. But it’s important to recognize the “system” that the Holy Spirit uses in place of the law. He operates through a radically different system, namely, one called grace. Recognizing the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives requires a solid understanding of grace.
    But often our idea of grace boils down to nothing more than mercy. In this case, the typical definition of grace might go something like this: “Grace is what happens when a punishment is lessened or waived after someone has done wrong.” Grace is often seen as a response to sin, much