The Spirit and the Law

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, He it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words. And the word that you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on Me, but I do as the Father has commanded Me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here."

John 14:15-31

As modern evangelicals, we often think of law and grace as opposites. After all, Paul wrote in Romans 6, “You are not under law but under grace,” and in Galatians 5, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” We think that the whole meaning of the law is guilt, whereas in Christ, we are free from sin and shame. And it’s absolutely true that Paul wrote in Romans 8, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

How then, do we account for all of John’s writing about the necessity of obedience? “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.” “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word.” Obedience is clearly required. But what does obedience mean in the context of grace? I believe that Jesus makes it clear what obedience means when He proceeds to the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit by the word “parakletos” (in the original Greek of the New Testament) several times over the course of the next two chapters of John. This word, translated “Helper” in the ESV and in other translations rendered as “Advocate” (NIV) or “Comforter” (KJV), only occurs in John’s writings: in the Gospel of John four times, referring to the Holy Spirit, and once in his first epistle, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1), referring to Jesus. In fact, the uniqueness of this word has led many Christian traditions to refer to the Holy Spirit as “The Paraclete.” The word means “one who is called alongside” and seems to have been a term for a legal assistant – something like a defense attorney. (It’s interesting to note that Satan is sometimes called “the accuser” – see Revelation 12:10). We still use the word advocate in this way. In fact, the word advocate comes from the Latin word that has the same meaning as “parakletos” (called alongside). In this sense both Jesus (1 John 2:1) and the Holy Spirit go to the Father as our advocates. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). One connection between the Spirit and obedience then is that when we fail in obedience, the Holy Spirit, along with Christ, advocates for us, intercedes for, and strengthens us (one of the original meanings of the word “comfort”!). 

But there is another connection between the Holy Spirit and obedience, at a deeper level. In Ezekiel 36, the Lord is speaking by the Holy Spirit to the prophet Ezekiel, telling him to say to the people of Israel, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). This is very similar to what Jesus said in John 14! Here we see that new life through the Holy Spirit means that obedience is possible. If the law is our accuser, and we are freed from sin by Christ, then through the Spirit we have God’s Word living within us. God’s Word does not condemn us; in the new covenant, we have His Word within us. Hebrews 10:15-16 says the same thing, quoting Jeremiah 31:33:  

“And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,  
‘This is the covenant that I will make with them  
    after those days, declares the Lord:  
I will put My laws on their hearts,  
    and write them on their minds.’ ”  

I believe that this is what Paul is saying in Galatians 5 as well, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh…But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law…Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality...But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” We are in the Spirit; the Spirit is in us. We walk by the Spirit and so do not do the works of the flesh, but bear the fruit of the Spirit in life. 

Law and grace are not opposites. We are no longer under the law, but now to live a life of obedience means that through grace we have the laws of God written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God living through us, bearing the fruit of the Spirit.