Do Not Quench the Spirit
A sermon, or hot-take if you prefer
I think it is safe to say that in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and especially in chapter 3, we find Paul at his grumpiest. Paul writes,
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing? — if it really was for nothing. Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? (Gal 3:1–5)
Its safe to say that Paul thinks that this ancient community of believers has lost its way, and Paul is willing to speak plainly about it. This suggests that — no surprise — it is possible for Christians to lose their way, even in community. Christian communities can and do lose their way. It happens all the time. The problem is understanding what it looked like to lose the way in ancient Galatia, and to imagine what it might look like to lose our own way today.
We also have here a famous example of open conflict and disagreement between Christians. Note that Paul opposes the influence of other Christian leaders on the community in Galatia. He is up against insiders, not outsiders, even insiders in the form of an angel, or Peter, or James. Paul is deeply vexed by something important in this letter, something so important that he isn’t willing to let it go. For some reason Paul can’t agree to disagree here. He must speak.
At first glance it may seem like Paul is vexed by the question of the Jewish law, and the role that it should play in the lives of non-Jewish Christians. That is certainly the context for this particular letter. But I am convinced that there is something deeper going on, something that hits much closer to home today. If I could choose one sentence from Paul to summarize the entire letter of Galatians it would be his own phrase from First Thessalonians. When I read Galatians, all I hear is this — “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19).
Let’s begin by taking stock of Paul’s posture toward the Jewish law, the law of his own people. There’s no escaping the fact that in this letter Paul marginalizes the law in a bold way. If that doesn’t bother you, it helps to realize that Paul is marginalizing the only Scriptures available to him at the time. What we call the Old Testament other people call the Hebrew Bible, and Paul calls the Law and the Prophets. This was the only Bible Paul had, and he is going to criticize it without holding much back. Because Paul’s writing is in our own Bible (as Christians), we can easily imagine that Paul would be a big supporter of the authority of Scripture, and the importance making sure that our Christianity is biblical, in some sense. But just look at how Paul treats his own Scripture.
In Paul’s day, many people thought that the law was given to Moses by God indirectly, through the mediation of angels. You won’t find this idea by reading the Old Testament, but it was in the air for Paul and he makes use of it. In this letter Paul repeats this idea that the law “was ordained through angels by a mediator,” namely Moses. “Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one” (Gal 3:19–20). In other words, Paul tells us that it was necessary for Moses to mediate the law to Israel because he was receiving it from multiple parties, from multiple angels. Moses would have been an unnecessary mediator if the law was given by God directly, since God is one. Make what you will of this, but this is strong evidence that Paul is putting the law under strict limits, without dismissing it. The author of Hebrews makes a similar but more gentle contrast, writing instead, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1–2).
Paul also undercuts the law by putting strict time limits on it. On the one side, he appeals to Abraham at great length, a patriarch of impeccable stature who walked with God before the law existed. Paul makes Abraham, not Moses, the archetype of faith. He insists over two chapters in Galatians that Abraham received the promise of God before there was any law, and that he received it by faith. So there once existed a mode of being in relation to God apart from the law, and indeed apart from the mediation of the angel powers behind the law. On the other end, Paul bounds the law by insisting that it is undermined by the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is in contrast to other biblical writers, such as the author of Hebrews, who insists that in the Kingdom of Heaven the law is written upon the hearts of the people of God. Hebrews 8:10–12 specifically quotes and comments on Jeremiah 31:31–34: “I will put my laws in their mind, and write them on their hearts.” This is certainly a big difference from knowledge of God mediated by angel powers through a written law! In Hebrews, the law will finally come home in the hearts of the people of God. For Paul, in contrast, the law is undone by the death of Jesus. The law can only curse, not bless. It is a curse upon those who fail to obey it. As Paul writes, “for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law’.” (Gal 3:10)
But the law also curses Jesus Christ himself: “for it is written ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’.” (3:14). If I understand Paul’s logic correctly, this cursing of Christ is the undoing of the law that curses him. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:7–8). Since Jesus Christ came under the curse of the law, in virtue of being crucified, the law and the angel powers behind it are undone. To worship the crucified one is to part ways with the law that calls him cursed by God. In Paul’s worldview, Christ defeats the powers of the world, including the angel powers behind the law — who serve at God’s pleasure — by scorning the shame of the cross (Heb 12:2), to use a phrase from Hebrews. The law and the powers behind it, which claim to speak for God, abdicate their authority in the act of cursing God’s chosen one.
Hopefully this makes us a bit uncomfortable. That’s what a polemic like Galatians 3 is meant to do. Paul provokes us by attacking something we might consider sacred. That doesn’t mean he isn’t genuine, but there is always a risk of misunderstanding the polemic. When the stakes are high enough, as they are for Paul, he’s willing to take that risk. Even so, a few verses later he anticipates a misunderstanding. That’s why he writes, “Is the law then opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not!” (Gal 3:21).
In Paul’s worldview the law, even a law mediated by defeated angel powers, is part of God’s plan and not a mistake or obstacle. In Romans he writes, paradoxically, “it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous” (Rom 2:13). This is very surprising, given his stance in Galatians. Let’s keep reading in Romans: “When [the nations], who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness” (Rom 2:14–16). So there is a sense in which the law reveals the will of God to a person, but the law does not constrain or contain or exclusively mediate that will. There are other ways to encounter God’s will in experience. What matters most is the conscience, the law written upon the heart, like the one described in Hebrews. It doesn’t matter that people outside the nation of ancient Israel lack access to the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish traditions.
At the end of Galatians Paul writes “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” (Gal 5:14). How does this fit what what we’ve heard from Paul so far? When Christ defeats the powers through the cross, and their authority over humans through the law, does Christ defeat the command to love your neighbour? That wouldn’t make any sense. What is going on with Paul’s hot-then-cold posture toward the law of his people? I think that the answer is simple: a good thing can become bad for a person, depending on their posture toward it.
Paul develops a type of Christian relativism twice in his writings, that I know of — in Romans 14–15 and in First Corinthians 8–10. In First Corinthians, Paul is answering some questions about whether or not it is appropriate for Christians in Corinth to eat meat sold in the market that was previously offered to idols as part of the religious life of the city. Paul can eat meat with a clean conscience, if it were only his conscience at stake. He doesn’t care that it was prepared for idol worship and then sold at a discount in the market. That doesn’t bother him. As far as he is concerned, the idols in the temples are of no account since “for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6). Idol meat is a matter of indifference for Paul. He isn’t for it or against it.
However, there are others in the community who recently worshiped in these temples and for whom idol meat takes on a different meaning. If they were to partake, to them it would mean a return to their old gods. The principle here is captured by a verse in Romans where Paul writes, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean” (Rom 14:13). The subjective is just as real as the objective in matters of the conscience. A good thing can become bad depending on a person’s posture toward it, or rather toward God concerning it. “All things are lawful”, the Corinthians write to Paul. “But not all things are beneficial,” he replies, “not all things build up” (1 Cor 10:23).
When we use a good thing in a way that goes against our conscience, we damage our posture toward God and quench the Spirit. I think this makes sense of Paul’s concern about the law in Galatia alongside his willingness to give it a larger yet limited role in the theology he describes in Romans. For the Galatians, the law has become a stumbling block. When they became convinced by rival Christian leaders that their experience of the Spirit of God still lacked something — a proper submission to the law of the Jewish people — they began to quench the Spirit in their midst. Something that is not actually objectively dangerous, the Jewish law, becomes subjectively dangerous, dangerous for the non-Jewish Christians in Galatia.
If the non-Jewish Christians in Galatia were to agree with Paul’s rivals, and attempt as non-Jewish people to conform to the way of life of Jewish Christians, they would then ignore the fact that the Spirit of God was present among before they began to submit to the law. God poured out the Spirit of Jesus upon the community in Galatia long before they ever considered submitting to Jewish customs and norms. For Paul it is completely appropriate and understandable for Jewish people upon whom the Spirit has fallen to continue with many of their customs and norms. Remember that Acts tells us that Paul was arrested in Jerusalem while worshiping at the temple precisely for the sake of reassuring the Jewish Christians that he did not oppose their traditions. But not everything traditional is sacred for Paul — he insists that those who share the Spirit of Jesus be free to eat together, no matter what the law or tradition say. Paul is so sure of this that he’s willing to challenge Peter in public on this question.
In contrast, Paul finds it completely inappropriate for non-Jewish people upon whom the Spirit has fallen to seek the approval of Jewish Christians by mimicking their law-keeping. This Spirit of Jesus has been given without any regard to whether or not a person obeys the Jewish law. That has to mean something. In Acts, the Spirit falls upon the household of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. That fact alone is enough to convince Peter that the gospel is for the nations, and not just for the people of Israel. In Galatians when the Spirit falls upon people who have never before considered obeying the Jewish law, that means for Paul that the law is not eternal or sacred, however appropriate it remains for Jewish Christians. The Spirit is evidently no respecter of law-keeping — God has given the Spirit to both those who keep and to those who ignore the Jewish law. For non-Jewish Christians in Galatia to seek the approval of Jewish Christians by keeping foreign traditions is to ignore the incongruous gift of the Spirit, to regard themselves as second-class Christians, which is to quench the Spirit among them.
I suspect that very few of us are tempted to think that we are not real Christians because we do not observe ancient Jewish customs and traditions as we find them in our Old Testament. We know where to begin, to love your neighbour, but where does it end? Living biblically is a slippery-slope. Even so, I am convinced that we face the same threat that Paul addresses. We as a community — and Christians in Canada, North America, and around the world — are constantly being tempted to quench the Spirit. Usually this temptation comes by way of taking some gift of God and treating it as normative or necessary for all Christians. It is all too easy to come up with examples.
Suppose you are healthy, and thankful to God for your good health. What do you make of people who are sick? Do you look at the sick as those who lack the Lord’s favour? Could it be instead that those who have experienced physical hardship may have received strength and encouragement from the Spirit that the healthy among us have yet to experience?
Suppose you are wealthy, or just thankful that God has met your needs. What do you make of people who lack resources, opportunities, and connections? Do they lack the Lord’s favour? Or could it be that the Spirit of the one who said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matt 8:20) — could it be that this Spirit is with those in need?
Suppose that you are married, or belong to a nuclear family that many would describe as traditional. What do you make of those for whom family has been a disappointment, and marriage a hardship? Could it be that the Spirit of the one who declared, “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matt 12:50) — could it be that this Spirit is present among those for whom family has become a stumbling block and a hardship? Or what do you make of those who have healthy and loving relationships and marriages that happen to look much different from your own? Is not the Spirit of Jesus present wherever two or three are gathered in his name, even when it looks much different than you might expect or feel comfortable with?
Suppose that you are thankful for the church, taken very broadly, and the progress of Christianity in the world over the past two millennia. You take comfort in the fact that your faith is a global religion, perhaps even the dominant one in the society in which you were raised. Maybe you even enjoy listening to Christian music and give thanks to the Lord for the local Christian bookstore and megachurch podcasts. Maybe you yearn for the day when a Christian worldview regains some level of dominance and plausibility in our culture, where you can believe whatever you happen to believe without embarrassment or shame. Could it be that the Spirit of the one who said, “You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Matt 24:2) — could it be that this Spirit is also among those who work against the influence of the organized church and its legions of ministries and networks of power-aggregation?
Suppose, last of all, that you are thankful for the Bible. Perhaps you take it to be the very word of God to us. You join in the worship of the saints throughout the ages as you read about what the Lord has done in salvation history, a grand narrative to which you now belong. What comfort to know that God can be known by simply reading. Not that the reading is an easy task, but this book is clearly different from all others. The importance of the topic — eternal life and salvation — makes the reading all the more critical. The special character of this book suggests that it might answer all manner of questions, perhaps even any question whatsoever that we put to it, provided that we pay careful attention to the context, pray carefully, and cultivate the needed worldview. Perhaps taking the Bible seriously, more seriously than other Christians, is the distinctive feature of your spiritual life. Perhaps your confidence in your own interpretation is in proportion to you zeal for searching the scriptures. Could it be that the Spirit of the one who said, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf” (John 5:39) — could it be that this Spirit is also with those who interpret and use the Bible in different ways than you do? Perhaps the Spirit of Jesus is among those for whom the Bible plays a much different role and meets much different standards than those you take comfort in.
Maybe you noticed that this last one bothers me a bit more than it should. I was taught growing up that the Holy Spirit would never contradict the Bible, but of course that isn’t true. The Spirit of Jesus does not defer to the experts in the law, or the experts on the Bible. If anything, the Spirit of Jesus interprets us as we interpret the Bible. As we read or hear we are provoked to interpret our world and our scriptures with the same audacity that Jesus and Paul interpreted their own world and scriptures. We interpret both by the power of the Spirit. It is more true to say, as Paul does, that we are known by God than that we know biblical facts about God, even when we do. We must not — as many do and have always done — use the Bible to quench the Spirit.
If we are going to let the Spirit of Jesus be our guide, we must test the voices that we encounter in our world against the character of Jesus of Nazareth. No voice is safe or trustworthy — not even an angel from heaven, not even Paul — unless it yields to the authority and character of the Spirit of the crucified and risen Jesus. And none led by the Spirit of Jesus are to be rejected, no matter how strange it seems to us that Jesus is also present with them, perhaps without them even acknowledging him. In spite of our reservations, we must learn to recognize the same power at work in others that we find at work in ourselves, the same power made manifest in the person and actions of Jesus. The gift of God in Christ is a gift of power to act in this world in the interests of the Spirit of Jesus. We must not quench this Spirit.
