Sin, grace and freedom : Romans 7 and 8
Part 5: The Holy Spirit is our guide and strength, but is the comforter who stands by us, not the one who takes over from us
We must therefore now turn to our relationship with the Holy Spirit. There have certainly been a few times in my life when I’ve wished that the Holy Spirit would “zap” me – now I hope that he never will, though, of course, the Spirit reserves the right to do whatever he wishes. What did I have in mind? I wondered if it was possible to be so filled with the Holy Spirit that it became – in practice – impossible to sin. The bible talks about being given “a new heart and a new spirit”, and perhaps if this happened, the human will, which keeps failing (and also often succeeding, but never succeeding in everything, always) would suddenly find that it always succeeds. For this to be a good thing, it could not be an inner voice that simply commands and over-rules the voice in our mind that is ready to give in to temptation – that would be a restraining of sin, through the power of God that would be over-ruling what it is that, “I really want to do”. But would it be possible for the Holy Spirit to give me a new invincible will? When I feel closely enfolded in the presence of God, I do have the power – because I have the desire – to only do what pleases God. Yet that experience is not long-lasting; it “fades away”, so that I feel I am now relying on my own resources (even though I freely acknowledge that God is still with me, because he is always with me), and, left to my own devices, at some point my will power will crack and I will give in to the call of the divided mind.
So, what if, once you are filled with the Holy Spirit – in this special but false sense – you are now given an invincible will power? The joy, strength, clarity of purpose, good judgement and glad commitment to God’s goodness, truth and love – that you sometimes felt before – would now be your constant experience and outlook on all that you do. I do find this a very attractive possibility – but it’s never happened to me, and in my experience, I haven’t found anyone else who has it. You do occasionally meet someone who strikes you as a truly holy person, though I strongly suspect that they would never dream of describing themselves as having reached this state of perfection. The difference now is that – based on my understanding of correct theology – I hope that it never will happen to me (even if it is somehow possible). The reason is that I do not want God to do this for me; I don’t want him to make it easy for me; I don’t want God to take away my responsibility for using my faith to follow the way of Christ. Please note: I am not striving after my own righteousness. I agree entirely with Paul that this is not possible. What I want to do is rely on the grace of Christ and trust in him for my redemption. And in my response to God’s saving grace, although I long to do better (in fact, I long to be perfect), and I am genuinely trying to do better, I want to fully accept my human nature, and I would rather try and fail, and rely on God’s grace to forgive me, than for God to intervene and somehow make it easy for me to be righteous through some sort of spiritual gifts that “replace” – if this is the right word – who I am, and which take on the job of responding to God for me. As a Christian, I do want to receive spiritual gifts to help me, and I do want to do better, but I think this process only has true value if it is me who is doing it. It’s a difficult point to be clear about, and I need to beware the vanity of “wanting to do it myself” – but I have already freely admitted that I cannot do it by myself – I am, and always will be, a debtor to grace. But if the redemption achieved by Christ is to truly mean what we believe it does, and if God’s creation of us remains valid rather than being over-ruled by him as a mistake, then I think I am correct in believing that God must not give me an invincible spirit to be true to him. I must reach out to him as I am – poor wretched sinner that I am, but gloriously redeemed wretched sinner that I am – and take hold of my faith, and seek gifts of the Spirit, and rely on the grace of God, and step forward as I try to follow Christ.
Spiritual Devotion 