Galatians 5:18 But if you be led of the Spirit, you are not under the law. The text has its affirmative and also its negative element. In neglecting the latter, and addressing ourselves (as is more satisfactory) only to its affirmative and constructive aspect, it needs to be accepted as our basal principle, that through whatever stages God's government passes, God's government never ceases, and that changes of dispensation are not breaks in Divine authority, but alterations simply in God's method of administering His authority. This principle is distinctly implied in the text. The Jew as such is under the law, amenable to God's authority as exercised through Moses: the Christian as a Christian is also under a kind of law, amenable to God's authority as exercised through the Son, the Holy Spirit — sovereignty, Divine sovereignty, carrying its exercise through both dispensations in one uninterrupted continuity without hint of break or interregnum. Now the conception we are likely to have of Christianity is of a system under which there is larger liberty enjoyed than under the system of Moses; and this conception, provided only we associate with the word "liberty" its true notion, is justified, and justified by the Scripture (John 8:32, 33, 36; 1 Corinthians 7:22; 2 Corinthians 3:17). But I question if we are all of us, or even most of us, quite careful or accurate in the notion we have of the thing called "freedom." Freedom is not exemption from government; rather is freedom a form of government. Anarchy, lawlessness, is the opposite of government; freedom is a special variety of government. Political freedom is civil authority vested in a particular way. Christian freedom is Divine authority vested in a particular way; so that in coming out from the bondage of a Jew into the freedom of a Christian, there is no inquiry to be had respecting the abatement of authority, but only respecting the new point at which authority is vested and the new manner in which it is exercised. (Chas. H. Parkhurst, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.WEB: But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. |
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