We instinctively take control of what matters to us. The more important something feels, the harder it can be to depend on someone else. That may be one reason legalism comes so naturally in the Christian life. We want to get spiritual things right, so we reach for what we can manage. This might be a reason why the Galatians were tolerating a false gospel that added works of the law to faith in Jesus. Paul confronts them sharply:
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?”
Galatians 3:1–5
Galatians is a letter, so we are essentially reading someone else’s mail. Paul had personally evangelized these churches and instructed them in the Christian faith. You can sense his urgency when writing to them. This passage contains at least 5 rhetorical questions which were asked to provoke the Galatians to think about their reception of the Holy Spirit when they believed. He wants them to remember: spiritual transformation does not come from law-keeping.
This is also the first explicit mention of the Holy Spirit in Galatians, yet Paul doesn’t stop to introduce Him or explain what receiving Him means. He assumes the Galatians understand. His question is not whether they received the Spirit but how: “by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” This is worth slowing down over. If Paul expected ordinary Christians to understand what it meant to receive the Spirit and to begin by the Spirit, we should understand it too.
I call this The Pneumatic Lifecycle. Pneumatic comes from the Greek word pneuma, meaning spirit. Of course, adding -matic and lifecycle communicates the idea of the work of the Spirit in the Christian life. I want to present more than a dozen ways the Holy Spirit works in the Christian life. I will trace three dimensions of the Spirit’s work:
- His initial work in salvation,
- His establishing work at salvation, and
- His perfecting work after salvation.
This first part focuses on four aspects of the Spirit’s saving work. They are separated here so we can understand them, but they are not four neatly divided steps on a timeline. They belong together in God’s saving work.
The Spirit Exposes Our Sin: Conviction
Jesus describes one of the Spirit’s ministries in John 16:8, “And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” The Holy Spirit convicts. He exposes our true condition before God. Sin we once excused becomes troubling. Guilt we suppressed becomes real. The God we ignored suddenly matters.
Sin doesn’t remove our guilt. It distorts our view of it, like a carnival mirror that bends what we see. We minimize sin: “It wasn’t that serious.” We rename it: “That’s just my personality.” We justify it: “I had a good reason.” We compare ourselves to someone worse. We blame circumstances or other people. We become experts at managing guilt without facing what our sin actually is.
Romans 1:18 says fallen humanity suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, and Jesus says in John 3:19 that people loved darkness rather than light because their works were evil. That is why conviction is necessary. The Spirit makes us see what we would rather keep distorted or hidden.
Unbelievers can certainly feel guilt, shame, or regret. Romans 2 describes the conscience accusing or excusing us. Saving conviction goes deeper than regretting consequences. The Spirit brings this reality home to the conscience: I have sinned against God.
David understood that in Psalm 51. After sinning grievously against Bathsheba and Uriah, he prayed, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” David had sinned against people, but underneath every horizontal sin was vertical rebellion against God.
Conviction sees sin for what it is. God is holy. I am guilty. I need mercy. The Spirit turns on the light.
The Spirit Turns Our Heart: Repentance
Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:25 that “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.” When the church heard that Gentiles had received the gospel, Acts 11:18 records their response: “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
Repentance is a gift of God’s grace, and it is something we genuinely do. God doesn’t repent for us. We repent. Yet grace must work in us because by nature we want God’s gifts without God’s rule and forgiveness without surrender.
Conviction says, “I am guilty.” Repentance says, “I want to turn.” Biblical repentance is a change of mind that produces a change of direction. We begin seeing sin as God sees it. We stop defending it and making peace with it. We turn from sin toward God.
When a sinner begins wanting Christ more than sin, something more than human willpower is at work.
That change cannot be manufactured. Music can create a mood. Pressure can produce a moment. A person may raise a hand, walk an aisle, or repeat words. None of those things can change a heart. That is why evangelism must be prayerful. We preach, reason, persuade, explain the gospel, and call people to repent while knowing that only God can turn a heart that loves sin toward Himself.
When a sinner begins wanting Christ more than sin, something more than human willpower is at work. The Spirit turns the heart.
The Spirit Opens Our Eyes: Faith
Paul asks in Galatians 3:2, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” Their Christian life began when they heard the gospel and believed. Saving faith has an object: Jesus Christ and the good news of what He accomplished through His death and resurrection.
Paul says Christ had been “publicly portrayed as crucified” before their eyes. The gospel had been preached so clearly that the cross was placed before them. They heard about Christ, His death, grace, and the promise of salvation. They believed.
Yet Scripture tells us that more was happening than human communication. Peter speaks of those who “preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Peter 1:12). Paul tells the Thessalonians, “Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). The Spirit works through the Word, bringing the truth about Christ home to the heart.
The Spirit works through the Word, bringing the truth about Christ home to the heart.
That work is necessary because, as 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “The natural person doesn’t accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him.” A person can know gospel facts and still fail to see their glory. Jesus died. Jesus rose. Jesus saves sinners. The words can be familiar and still seem foolish, irrelevant, or unnecessary.
Then the Spirit opens our eyes. The Christ we ignored becomes beautiful. The cross becomes our hope. Grace becomes sufficient. We see our need, we see Christ, and we believe.
The Spirit doesn’t believe for us. We trust Christ. Yet our faith exists within the saving work of God, who brings Christ home to us through His Spirit. That leaves no room for boasting. As Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive?”
Maybe you remember hearing the gospel many times before you believed. The words were not necessarily new. Then one day they landed differently. You saw your need. You saw Christ. You trusted Him. The Spirit opened your eyes.
The Spirit Renews Our Life: Regeneration
Jesus explains this to Nicodemus in John 3. Nicodemus was religious, biblically knowledgeable, morally serious, and a teacher in Israel. Yet Jesus told him, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He continued, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus describes salvation as birth because our problem is deeper than bad habits or moral weakness. Paul says in Ephesians 2:1, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Dead people don’t need improvement. They need life.
That is what the Spirit gives. Titus 3:5 says God saved us “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” Regeneration is new birth. The Spirit gives spiritual life to those who were spiritually dead.
Jesus also makes the sovereignty of this work clear. In John 3:8 He says, “The wind blows where it wishes… So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The Greek word pneuma can mean wind or Spirit. We don’t command the wind or create it. We see its effects. In the same way, the Spirit moves sovereignly and gives life.
Christianity is therefore more than self-improvement. God gives life to the dead. New desires appear. New affections grow. We begin loving what we once ignored and grieving what we once celebrated. We hunger for Scripture, want fellowship with God’s people, and desire to obey Christ. We still battle sin and need to grow, but we are alive.
The Spirit renews our life.
Conclusion
Paul summarizes all of this with one phrase back in Galatians 3:3, “begun by the Spirit.” The Spirit exposed our sin, turned our heart, opened our eyes to Christ, and gave us life. The Spirit begins the Christian life.
Now we can feel the force of Paul’s question: “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” If the Spirit was necessary to expose our sin, turn our hearts, open our eyes, and give us life, it is foolish to imagine that spiritual maturity can now be produced by human strength.
Spirit-dependence doesn’t make Christians passive. We read Scripture, pray, obey, fight sin, serve, pursue holiness, and persevere. We do all of it while depending on the power God supplies. The answer to flesh-powered Christianity is Spirit-dependent Christianity.
You have always needed Him. You began by the Spirit, and the Spirit who begins the Christian life is the Spirit upon whom you must depend throughout the Christian life.
