Concerning our living as human beings there are three main kinds of teachings. First there are the various ethical teachings. People of every nationality and culture are taught to improve their behavior. They are trained in an ethical way to be nice, kind, gentle, humble, and loving. Certain teachings of this kind even encourage us to pray to God and ask Him for help to live in a proper way.
A second kind of teaching is that in order to live properly we need to be led, inspired, and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. This kind of teaching is popular among Christians today. According to this teaching, through the Holy Spirit we can be humble and loving. Although there is nothing wrong with this teaching in itself, it is possible that it can be used merely to help believers live as God’s creatures with the help of God’s Spirit. It certainly is not wrong to exhort others to trust in the Holy Spirit and to receive help from the Holy Spirit. But everything depends on what ground we have for trusting in the Holy Spirit. If we trust in the Holy Spirit on the ground of being God’s creatures, we are actually usurping the aid of the Spirit. If we would trust in the Spirit, we must stand on the ground that we are sons of God. Then we shall enjoy the Father’s Spirit.
When you trust in the Holy Spirit, on what ground are you standing? Do you stand on the ground that you are God’s creature? Is it simply your desire to be a good person? Because you know that you are weak and that God is merciful, do you ask Him to send the Holy Spirit to strengthen you to live properly as one of His creatures? If so, then you are standing on the ground of the creature to claim the help of the Holy Spirit. It is right to trust in the Spirit, but the ground of a creature is not the proper standing for trusting in Him. The proper ground on which to stand to claim the fullness of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ is the ground that we are sons of God.
According to the third kind of teaching, we have been born of God to be sons of God with the divine life and nature. Because we are God’s sons, He not only gives us the Spirit, but He Himself is now the Spirit within us to make us sons in a full way. He is not simply helping us to be more loving, humble, or powerful. Having passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Triune God is now in us as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit to be our life and life supply. His goal is to accomplish the sonship and to make us sons of God in full. In the meantime, we should simply walk according to Him.
Many Christians borrow Galatians 5:16, take it out of context, and use it to charge the believers to walk by the Spirit. They do not consider this verse in the context of the whole book of Galatians. This book reveals that we once were sinners condemned by God according to His righteous law. However, God sent His Son to accomplish redemption for us so that we may become sons of God. Now as God’s true sons, we have God’s life, God’s nature, and even the Triune God Himself as the all-inclusive Spirit dwelling within us, working, moving, acting, and anointing to make us sons of God in full. Because we are God’s sons and because the Triune God is working within us toward the goal of full sonship, we should walk by the Spirit. To understand 5:16 in this way is to understand it according to the context of the entire book of Galatians.
In the Lord’s recovery today, we are not merely exhorting the saints to walk according to the Spirit. Rather, our aim is to help the believers see that they are sons of God indwelt by the all-inclusive Spirit. We should walk according to this Spirit, according to the Triune God who dwells within us. If this is our experience, then we do not live by the first kind of teaching nor by the second kind, but by the third, the teaching according to God’s economy in His salvation.