The Call to Live in the New and Living Way of the Spirit
Paul’s words regarding this in Romans 7 marks a decisive transition in redemptive history. He speaks of a people who have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that they might belong to Another—“to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4). This is a call to a new mode of life, one animated not by the letter of the code but by the life-giving Spirit. “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new living way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6).
What held humanity captive—condemnation, hostility, and division—was nailed to the cross. The law, which once stood as a barrier because of human sin, has been fulfilled and set aside as a governing covenantal authority through the death of Christ. As Paul declares elsewhere, “by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). The result is not emptiness, but newness—a new creation, a new way of being human in Christ and a way to fulfill God's righteous requitements.
To be in Christ is not merely to be forgiven; it is to be made new. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This language is deliberate. God is not repairing the old order; He is inaugurating something genuinely new. The believer’s life is no longer animated by external regulation but by internal transformation—the Spirit of God dwelling within.
This is why Ephesians speaks so powerfully of grace not only as rescue but as revelation. God’s intention is not simply to save sinners from judgment, but to display something new—to demonstrate the immeasurable riches of His grace. “So that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). Grace is not static; it is revelatory. It unfolds, it teaches, it shows.
Ephesians 1 grounds this further by declaring that believers have been blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). These blessings are not earned through obedience to the letter, nor maintained by law-keeping. They are received in Christ, because all the promises of God find their Yes in Him (2 Corinthians 1:20). The Christian life, then, is not lived in pursuit of these blessings but to understanding them which shapes our new identity and life.
At the heart of this new life is relationship. God has not called us into a system, but into fellowship. “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). It is not a call to partnership in a transactional way. Fellowship here is not mere association; it is participation—sharing in the life of the Son through the Spirit. This is the essence of the new living way: walking with God, not striving before Him.
In this fellowship, God desires to reveal Himself. Scripture repeatedly testifies that God delights in showing His people things they could not discover on their own. “Call to Me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3). This promise is not confined to creation itself, though creation declares His glory; it is ultimately embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Word of life (1 John 1:1), and His words are spirit and life (John 6:63). To know Him is to encounter eternal life itself (John 17:3). He has many great and mighty things still to show us, possibly for eternity.
Yet there is always a temptation to retreat—to return to the familiar structures of law, elemental principles (not spiritual), control, or fleshly rule. Paul warns that this movement backward is not neutral; it is a loss of freedom. “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). When believers return to the law as a governing principle, they exchange living communion for regulation, intimacy for performance. They go from the new back to the old.
God is doing new things, and He calls His people forward, not backward. The Spirit does not merely maintain what has been revealed; He leads into greater depths of truth. “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). This guidance is not abstract—it is relational, progressive, and transformative.
The call, then, is both gracious and demanding: Will you come? Will you walk in the new living way of the Spirit? This way requires something new, faith rather than human perception, spiritual attentiveness rather than fleshly effort, and communion rather than compliance. But it is in this new way that God shows His people great and marvelous things—not only who they are in Christ, but who He is in His glory.
The old has passed away. The new has come. God is faithful to complete what He has begun. And He continues to call His people into more life and glory; not more striving, but deeper fellowship in knowing him, not lesser revelation, but the unfolding riches of His grace and glory and purpose in Christ Jesus.
Deep Dive: Further Theological Development
Participation in Resurrection Life
The new and living way of the Spirit is not merely ethical transformation; it is participation in resurrection life. Paul insists that believers are not only justified by Christ’s death but united with Him in His risen life: “If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His” (Romans 6:5). The Spirit mediates this resurrection life now, making the future age present within the believer.
This participation reframes obedience itself. What the law could command but never produce, the Spirit now accomplishes from within. “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Obedience, therefore, is not conformity to an external standard but the fruit of shared life with Christ.
Revelation as the Goal of Grace
Grace does not terminate merely in forgiveness; it aims at knowing God. Paul prays not that believers would try harder, but that they would see more: “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Ephesians 1:17). Revelation is relational disclosure—God making Himself known to those who walk with Him.
This explains why stagnation so often accompanies a return to law. Law can regulate behavior, but it cannot unveil God. Only the Spirit reveals the depths of God (1 Corinthians 2:10–12). To walk in the new living way is therefore to remain open, receptive, and responsive to God’s ongoing self-disclosure in Christ.
Pressing Forward Without Rebuilding the Old
The danger Paul consistently confronts is not immorality but regression—rebuilding what Christ has dismantled. “If I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor” (Galatians 2:18). Returning to the law as a means of life is not humility; it is a denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s work.
The Spirit calls believers forward into maturity, not backward into guardianship. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son… so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts” (Galatians 4:4–6). Sonship replaces servitude; intimacy replaces fear.
Terminology Clarification: “People,” Not Institution
When this essay speaks of the church, it does so in the biblical sense of a people called into being by God, not an organization, corporation, or institutional structure. Scripture consistently uses people‑language to describe God’s redemptive aim. In the Old Testament, God’s purpose was always to have “a people” (Hebrew ʿam) who belonged to Him (Exodus 6:7). In the New Testament, this language is intensified and transformed.
Peter explicitly declares, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Peter 2:10), echoing Hosea and signaling a decisive ontological shift. Paul likewise speaks of believers as those who have been “created in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:10) and formed into “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15), language that presupposes new creation rather than institutional continuity.
The Greek term λαός (laos)—used repeatedly of God’s redeemed people—emphasizes belonging and identity, not structure or governance. Likewise, ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) denotes an assembly called out by God’s action, not a humanly organized entity. This distinction matters theologically: God does not place His Spirit within systems, but within persons who together become His people (Ezekiel 36:27; Romans 8:9–11).
Understanding the church as a Spirit‑formed people safeguards the essay’s central claim: the new and living way of the Spirit arises from who believers now are, not from what they are instructed to maintain. To revert to law, letter, or structure as defining realities is therefore not mere imbalance—it is a denial of new‑covenant ontology.
Additive Meditation: Called Into More
God’s call does not end with entry into the new creation; it unfolds into ever-deepening participation. “From glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18) is not poetic excess but spiritual reality. The Spirit leads believers into increasing conformity to Christ, increasing knowledge of God, and increasing freedom from all that once held them captive.
The invitation remains open and living: to walk with God, to know Him, and to behold great and marvelous things in Christ Jesus. This is the new and living way of the Spirit—and there is no life outside of it.
Deep Dive: Hope, Promise, and the Anchor of the Soul (Hebrews 6:9–20)
Hebrews 6:9–20 provides profound insight into the marvelous things God has done and continues to make known to those Scripture calls “the heirs of the promise.” The author writes not to unsettle believers, but to strengthen assurance by directing attention to God’s own character and unchangeable purpose. “We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end” (Hebrews 6:11).
Central to this passage is God’s deliberate act of making His purpose unmistakably clear: “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He guaranteed it with an oath” (Hebrews 6:17). The promise rests on the new covenant, even thought it was given to Abraham beforehand. It is not based not on human resolve, obedience, or performance, but on God Himself—“so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement (παράκλησις) to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18).
This strong encouragement (paraklēsis) is not emotional reassurance but covenantal certainty. It aligns with the new and living way of the Spirit already described: the believer’s confidence flows from God’s initiative, not from adherence to external regulation. The same God who promised, swore by Himself because there was no greater (Hebrews 6:13). Hope, therefore, is not tentative. It is “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain” (Hebrews 6:19).
The imagery is deliberate. Hope is anchored not in religious systems, ancestral law, or human mediators, but where Christ Himself has gone—“where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf” (Hebrews 6:20). This confirms that the new way is not experimental or unstable. It is secured in the finished work and present ministry of Christ.
This has direct bearing on the believer’s walk. Scripture defines obedience and disobedience not merely by outward behavior, but by realm and identity. Paul reminds believers that they once walked as Scripture fully describes: “in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:2–3) This condition is described as disobedience—not simply because of actions, but because of separation from God’s life. Yet the decisive change is God’s act: “But God, being rich in mercy… made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5).
Likewise, Paul declares that God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13–14). This transfer is not symbolic; it is ontological. By being brought into what is new, the believer is reclassified. Life in Christ constitutes a new standing before God, and therefore a new description: no longer children of disobedience, but those who now belong to Christ.
In this sense, obedience flows from new creation reality, not from self-effort. God made us alive; God transferred us; God redeemed us. What remains is not to become something else, but to live consistently with what has already been done. This is why Paul can exhort believers to renewal of the mind (Romans 12:2): the renewal does not create the new identity, it brings the mind into alignment with it. The Spirit bears witness to this reality—“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16).
Thus, the new and living way of the Spirit is not a probationary path back toward acceptance, but a lived expression of adoption already granted. Anchored in promise, transferred into the kingdom, and sealed by the Spirit, the believer holds fast—not to law or regulation—but to the hope grounded in God’s unchangeable purpose, which alone secures and sustains faith.
External Works, False Assurance, and the Danger of Hypocrisy
Jesus Himself warned that external works—even remarkable ones—are not proof of true fellowship with Him. He declares plainly: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21–23).
This warning exposes a fundamental danger: activity in Jesus’ name can coexist with a lack of relationship with Jesus Himself. Mighty works are not the same as knowing Christ. Where outward success becomes the measure of faithfulness—whether through legalistic rule‑keeping or prosperity‑driven metrics of blessing—the result is false assurance rather than true obedience.
In Scripture, this condition is most accurately named hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not imperfection or weakness; it is the disjunction between outward conformity and inward reality. Jesus rebuked this explicitly: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self‑indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.” (Matthew 23:25–26).
Biblically, this corresponds to obeying the letter while violating the spirit. Paul makes this distinction clear: “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6). External obedience divorced from inward renewal does not produce life; it conceals death. It may appear successful, disciplined, or even spiritually powerful, yet remain disconnected from the life of God.
This is why systems that emphasize outward performance—whether through legalism or prosperity‑centered theology that equates material gain with divine favor—are especially dangerous. They train believers to measure faith by visible outcomes rather than by participation in Christ. Scripture counters this by locating true obedience in transformation of the inner person: “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.” (Romans 6:17).
True obedience, then, flows from new creation life, not from external pressure or promised reward. It is the fruit of knowing Christ, not the substitute for it. The new and living way of the Spirit guards against hypocrisy by rooting faith in relationship, identity, and promise—rather than in appearances that cannot anchor the soul.
For this reason, Scripture repeatedly warns against voices that would draw believers back into what cannot anchor the soul. Whether identified historically as the circumcision party, Judaizers, or described today through law-based or transactional systems that substitute obligation for promise, the danger is the same: they shift hope from God’s unchangeable purpose to human performance. Such teaching does not strengthen faith; it destabilizes it.
Hebrews calls believers instead to hold fast—not to law, not to elemental principles, not to fleshly regulation—but to the hope set before them. This hope is living, sure, and immovable because it is grounded in God Himself. To walk in the new and living way of the Spirit, then, is to live anchored—to refuse teaching that shipwrecks faith, and to remain rooted in the promise God has sworn to fulfill.
Pressing On Toward the New — Philippians 3:13–14
This language is not motivational rhetoric; it is covenantal orientation. In the immediate context, Paul has just renounced his former confidence in the flesh—his law-based righteousness, religious pedigree, and covenantal credentials (Philippians 3:4–8). What lies “behind” is not merely personal failure, but an entire mode of life that once defined faithfulness but is now rendered obsolete in Christ.
To “press on” is therefore not striving toward law-keeping perfection, but movement into participation in Christ: “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death” (Philippians 3:10). The goal Paul pursues is relational, participatory, and resurrection-shaped.
This forward movement coheres precisely with the new covenant logic articulated elsewhere: the believer does not return to what exposed sin but could not heal it; rather, he moves forward into what God has inaugurated in Christ. Regression would be a denial of calling. Pressing on is fidelity to it.
The “upward call of God in Christ Jesus” thus names the same divine summons described throughout this essay: the call into new creation life, Spirit-led participation, and unveiled knowledge of God. It is upward not because it is abstract or disembodied, but because it originates in God’s action and draws the believer into the risen life of the Son.
Seen in this light, Philippians 3 does not stand apart from the call to live in the new and living way of the Spirit; it confirms it. Paul’s exhortation is not to dwell in what no longer works, nor to perfect what has been set aside, but to move forward into the fullness of what God has already begun. To press on is to live consistently with the new—to refuse to rebuild the old, and to walk faithfully into the life to which God has called His people in Christ Jesus.
“Behold, I Make All Things New” — Revelation, Renewal, and the Scope of God’s Purpose
The call to live in the new and living way of the Spirit is not limited to present moral or spiritual renewal; it is anchored in God’s eschatological promise. Revelation 21:5 declares, “Behold, I am making all things new.” This proclamation does not merely describe personal renewal, but the comprehensive transformation of reality itself—a future in which God renews heaven and earth, removes death and sorrow, and abolishes every residue of the curse.
This future declaration gives interpretive weight to the present call. The Spirit-led life is participation in advance of what God has promised to complete. God is not experimenting with renewal; He is unveiling it. In this sense, Revelation does not introduce a new theme but consummates what has been unfolding since the prophets and fulfilled in Christ.
Scripture consistently presents this renewal as something God Himself accomplishes and reveals. Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord announces, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18–19). The problem is not God’s inactivity, but human fixation on what has already passed. Perception, not effort, becomes the decisive issue.
This prophetic promise is internalized in Ezekiel’s vision of new covenant transformation: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you… And I will put My Spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26–27). Renewal begins within, but it does not end there. The giving of a new heart and Spirit establishes the conditions for a renewed people who can now walk in God’s ways from life rather than obligation.
Paul gathers these prophetic strands and locates them decisively in Christ. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). New creation is not postponed until the end of history; it has already broken into the present. Believers live between inauguration and consummation, bearing witness now to what will one day be universal.
Ephesians further clarifies that God’s renewal has a revealed purpose, not centered on an institution but on the formation of a new people of His own. God is not merely saving individuals, but creating a people constituted by His Spirit, in fulfillment of long‑standing covenantal promise. “I will take you from the nations… and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will put My Spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:24–27). This is explicitly new‑covenant action—God Himself forming a people from within, not governing them from without.
This promise stands in continuity with God’s declared covenantal aim: “I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). The new covenant does not merely forgive transgression; it creates a renewed people whose identity flows from God’s indwelling presence. Paul echoes this reality when he writes that Christ “gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession” (Titus 2:14).
The apostolic witness makes clear that this people did not exist prior to God’s decisive action in Christ. “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Peter 2:10). The church, therefore, is not an organization that displays God’s wisdom, but a people newly constituted by grace, Spirit, and calling. Through this Spirit‑formed people, God makes known “the mystery of His will… according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ” (Ephesians 1:9), and “the manifold wisdom of God” (Ephesians 3:10). This people—alive by the Spirit—becomes the living testimony that God is indeed making all things new.
In this light, the promise of Revelation 21:5 is not disconnected from present experience. It is God showing His people great and mighty things—first by revealing them, then by embodying them in Christ, and now by displaying them through a Spirit-indwelt people. Personal renewal, communal transformation, and cosmic restoration are not competing hopes; they are different horizons of the same divine act.
To walk in the new and living way of the Spirit, therefore, is to live eschatologically—to allow the future God has promised to shape present faithfulness. God is doing new things. He has done them in Christ, He is revealing them by the Spirit, and He will consummate them in glory. The call is not to preserve what is passing away, but to participate in what God Himself is making new.