Galatians 5:18 But if you be led of the Spirit, you are not under the law. "If... A man may live in an age of gospel, but it does not follow from that that he lives under the administration of the gospel. Christ has come into the world, but it does not follow that He has come into my heart and set up His throne there. The Holy Spirit is abroad in society, and there are thousands and hundreds of thousands that are being led by that Spirit. It does not follow from that, that I am being led by it. If I am led by it, I am not under the law; if I am not led by it, of course I am under the law. I have not escaped the pressure of Divine authority at one point until I have first put myself under the pressure of Divine authority at another point. We read in the Book of Numbers that a man gathered sticks on the .Sabbath, and he was stoned at the Lord's command; and our thought perhaps is that God used to be very particular. We read in the book of Joshua that Achan, the son of Zerah, was guilty of embezzlement, and that at the Lord's command he and his sons and his daughters were stoned with stones and burned with fire; and our thought perhaps is that the Lord used to be very particular. He used to be particular to be obeyed. There is so much in the New Testament respecting love, liberty, and the abolition of old ordinances, that we allow ourselves sometimes to be betrayed into supposing that the old dispensation was the dispensation of man's submission to God, and that the new dispensation is the dispensation of God's submission to man; that the gospel is a kind of giving up on God's part, a sort of confession that He is not disposed to be particular about little things any more, and that it hardly avails Him to attempt to be particular about little things. Now, this conception of the gospel as an economy of Divine relaxation," Divine "letting down," Divine "giving up," is one that yields bitter fruit; it makes the gospel contemptible by making it irresolute... Calvary proves that the truth is exactly the opposite of such a notion as this — that God thinks so much of His own sovereignty that He would rather have Divine blood shed than not have you and me respect that sovereignty and come into terms of gentle allegiance to it .... The man who discards the punctilious observance of God's outward statutes because he lives in an age of gospel, without having first submitted himself to the governance of an inward Christ, and to the laws written by the Spirit upon the fleshly tables of the heart, has detached himself from God at one point, without having first attached himself to God at another point. (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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