Ch .8. Conversion – Getting - in Part 2. : The Spirit at the Entry Point.

It is not just, “I feel like a new person” but “you need to trust His Word not just your feelings.”

See Galatians 3:1-5 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Gal 3:2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Gal 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Gal 3:4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Gal 3:5 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—

Here Paul encourages the Galatians to continue the “HEARING OF FAITH” or “BELIEVING what they have HEARD”. Not being bewitched by those who say they must just trust in Law Observance.

He first appeals not to the truth of the Gospel but to their experience of the Spirit by which they started on the path of Christian Discipleship. That is – trusting the experienced reality of their conversion to Christ through the Coming of the Spirit.

This is the OBECTIVE REALITY [ The New believers relationship with God through ( Redemption, Reconciliation, Washing, propitiation, justification, adoption and New Birth)

Now for Paul – the SUBJECTIVE REALITY, that Personally experienced Dimension

Gal 3:2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Gal 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

The Spirit and Faith

The Spirit comes as a result of Faith in Jesus Christ. See Gal. 3:25 above. Compare

I Corinthians 12:8; 13:2; 2 Cor 4:13

Faith is one of the Evidences that the Spirit is at work in the heart. This is Saving Faith not just the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5:22-23.

2Co 4:13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak,

So it is equally clear from the Evidence that 'Faith' is not all there is to it.

The Crucial role of the Spirit in Conversion.

That something really does happen in Conversion is not simply the presupposition of Revivalist preachers. It is the clear understanding of Paul who wrote all His letters to new first generation Christian Believers, not children of believing parents. They were converts from paganism. Even Paul's conversion on the Damascus Road had a real experiential quality to it. This is what Paul expected when he preached.