"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
Paul’s point in this text was that we depend on the Holy Spirit to enable us to live the Christian life as defined by the “fruit of the Spirit,” not by keeping the Mosaic Law. We are not saved by legalism but by faith in Christ, who indwells us with the Holy Spirit, who guides us in living the Christian life. This takes the focus off of ourselves, and puts it on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides us into love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness and temperance.” We are given an interpretation of the statement, “against such there is no law” in 1 Timothy 1:8-9: “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully. 9. Knowing that the law is not for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners….etc.” The Mosaic Law tells us what is wrong, but the Holy Spirit leads us away from what is wrong. Living the Christian life is not a “do it yourself” project. We do not keep the law, instead we live it in our daily conduct as we follow the guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit. He leads us to love and honor God, and to love and treat people right. Look up the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1ff and notice that if we love and honor God, we will heed the first four commandments, and if we love people we will heed the last six commandments. Both Jesus and Paul said that love fulfills the law: Matthew 22:37-40 and Romans 13:10. You will note that love is the first thing mentioned in the “fruit of the Spirit.” Following the “fruit of the Spirit,” makes better people of us. It does not make us self-righteous and judgmental, but it does give us a sense of right and wrong, and defines what is right and wrong. Following the “fruit of the Spirit” will keep us from being offensive in our conduct, because this fruit will lead us to have loving attitudes towards our fellow man/woman. We will be careful about what we say to people and about how we treat people. I hope that all of this explains what “against such there is no law” means. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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