What Does It Mean to “Walk by the Spirit” in Galatians 5:16?
ARTICLE • This article clarifies Paul’s command to ‘walk by the Spirit’ (Gal 5:16) through the lens of Reformed theology, offering a robust definition by integrating the cognitive, affective, and volitional dimensions of human functioning.
Read time: 25 min
Summary
To walk by the Spirit means actively living under the Spirit’s rule and powerful supply as one united to Christ. Cognitively, it means interpreting reality through the gospel of God’s free grace through the person and work of Christ, recognizing the flesh as anti-God self-rule, trusting the Spirit’s promise to interrupt desire, and interpreting experience by Scripture. Affectively, it means reordering loves toward God, depending on him in weakness, hating sin and distrusting sin’s empty promises, delighting in righteousness, and hoping toward the coming fullness of God’s kingdom. Volitionally, it means structuring daily habits and relationships for obedience, refusing temptation early, killing sin and cultivating virtue, persevering in temptation, and consciously practicing the fruit of the Spirit in thought, word, and action: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal 5:16).
Few commands in the New Testament sound more obviously spiritual—and yet more difficult to define—than Paul’s exhortation to “walk by the Spirit.” Many Christians instinctively sense that the phrase matters deeply, but when pressed to explain exactly what it means or how it is obeyed, the answers often become vague. Some associate it with inner impressions or Spirit awareness. Others treat it as a general call to moral effort, the spiritual disciplines, or simply obeying Scripture. Still others associate it primarily with charismatic experience.
Paul does not present this command as a mere devotional slogan. Galatians 5:16 functions as the hinge between gospel freedom and Christian obedience. Everything Paul has argued in chapters 1–4 (i.e., justification apart from works of the law, union with Christ, the reception of the Spirit by faith, freedom from slavery) funnels directly into this single imperative. If we misunderstand what Paul means by walking in the Spirit, we will almost certainly misunderstand how gospel freedom bears holiness—and how the flesh is genuinely resisted when it surfaces as enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, divisions, and more (Gal 5:19–21).
The Argument of Galatians 5
Christ has set believers free (Gal 5:1).
That freedom must not become an opportunity for the flesh (Gal 5:13).
The flesh and the Spirit remain in real opposition (Gal 5:17).
The works of the flesh lead toward destruction and exclusion from the kingdom (Gal 5:19–21).
The fruit of the Spirit reflects the life of the new age already breaking into the present (Gal 5:22–23).
The practical question for Paul’s readers (including us!) becomes unavoidable: How can believers live in gospel freedom from the law’s condemnation without drifting back into flesh-dominated patterns of life? Paul’s answer comes in a single command: “walk by the Spirit.” Gospel freedom is protected a Spirit-governed path that steadily produces fruit of the Spirit.
The Metaphor of “Walking”
What does Paul mean by walk? Is this primarily about sanctified moral effort, spiritual attentiveness, dependence on God, habitual choices, or something else? What does it actually mean to walk by the Spirit? Is the Spirit assisting human effort, replacing it, guiding decisions, reshaping desires, empowering obedience, or all of these together? How does this command actually function to prevent the fulfillment of fleshly desires? And how does this exhortation integrate with Paul’s wider theology of union with Christ, justification by faith, and the already–not–yet tension of Christian existence?
These questions are fitting, and it is right to wrestle with them. If the meaning of Spirit-walking remains imprecise, the Christian life easily collapses into one of two distortions. On one side lies moralistic self-effort: obedience becomes disciplined behavior management dressed in religious language. On the other side lies spiritual passivity or mysticism: obedience is replaced by waiting for impressions or emotional impulses. Both errors hollow out Paul’s gospel logic.
Paul himself expects us to reason carefully about our lived experience. He writes openly about competing desires within the believer (Gal 5:17). He names concrete moral trajectories with real consequences (Gal 5:19–21). He expects visible ethical fruit (Gal 5:22–23). He assumes that believers already “live by the Spirit” and therefore must learn to “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal 5:25). His language is not hazy, but it does require thoughtful consideration.
Galatians 5:16 in Reformed Theology
Historically, Reformed theology has treated this command with unusual seriousness precisely because it sits at the crossroads of justification, sanctification, union with Christ, and pneumatology. John Calvin famously insisted that Christ’s saving work remains outside of us and of no saving benefit to us unless it is personally applied by the Holy Spirit. He writes,
“As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.”[1]
Union with Christ, therefore, is not an abstraction but a Spirit-created reality—one that presses beyond doctrinal correctness toward a Spirit-shaped life that can actually grow into love rather than merely suppress outward conflict. John Owen pressed the same truth into the realm of daily obedience. In his work on the Holy Spirit, he argues that believers are never spiritually self-sufficient:
“We have no power of ourselves to perform any act of holiness; we stand in need of the actual aid of the Spirit for every act of obedience.”[2]
Sanctification is Spirit-empowered participation in the life of Christ. That matters because the command to walk by the Spirit is a summons to live under God’s active provision so that real change can emerge—change that looks like joy, peace, self-control, etc.
Reformed theologians have assured us that Paul’s command in Galatians 5:16 describes a concrete way of living that integrates theology, desire, and obedience under the reign of God.
Yet a key question remains: How does this actually play out in lived experience? What exactly must believers think, love, and choose if they are to walk by the Spirit rather than gratify the flesh?
To answer this question clearly, we will examine Paul’s command through three interlocking dimensions that correspond to the structure of human action: cognition, affection, and volition.
Cognitive: How We Interpret Reality
The cognitive dimension of human functioning is about the mind’s meaning-making work—how we think, perceive, and understand.
Perception: what you notice, emphasize, and filter out.
Interpretation: the meaning you assign to what’s happening (“What is this? Why is it happening? What does it imply?”).
Beliefs and assumptions: what you take to be true about the world, yourself, and other people—often without realizing it.
Judgments and evaluations: how you label something as good/bad, safe/dangerous, wise/foolish, important/unimportant.
Reasoning and discernment: how you connect evidence to conclusions and distinguish between better and worse explanations.
Mental narratives: the “story” you tell yourself that organizes your experiences and guides your expectations.
In short: cognition is how the mind frames reality and decides what is true and what it means.
Affective: What We Desire and Trust
The affective dimension of human functioning is about the heart’s pull—what we want, value, and feel.
Desires: what you’re drawn toward (comfort, approval, belonging, achievement, pleasure, security, etc.).
Loves and attachments: what you prize most and organize life around.
Fears and anxieties: what you dread losing or facing; what feels threatening.
Hopes: what you long for and expect; what future you’re leaning toward.
Emotions: your internal responses to events—joy, anger, sadness, gratitude, shame, contentment, and so on.
Trust and reliance: where you instinctively lean for stability and safety (people, control, routines, money, reputation, etc.).
Volitional: How We Actually Live
The volitional dimension of human functioning is about the will in action—how we choose, commit, and do.
Decisions: the concrete choices you make in real situations.
Intentions and commitments: what you resolve to pursue or refuse.
Actions and behaviors: what you actually do—not just what you think or feel.
Habits and patterns: repeated choices that become your normal way of living.
Self-regulation: the ability to delay, endure, resist, and follow through.
Perseverance: continuing toward a goal despite difficulty or discouragement.
The Cognitive Dimension of Walking by the Spirit
Cognition: Understanding, Believing, Interpreting, Perceiving
Paul never treats obedience as merely behavioral. In Galatians, the crisis is fundamentally theological before it is ethical. The Galatians are being tempted to reinterpret their Christian life through the lens of law, flesh, and human performance rather than promise, Spirit, and divine gift (Gal 3:1–5; 4:21–31). Their conduct problems flow from a perception problem. When the mind is misinformed, the flesh finds room to justify itself—whether that be in sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality, or in more “respectable” patterns that still oppose the Spirit’s direction. Walking by the Spirit begins, therefore, with learning to see reality truthfully—so that the Christian life is not reduced to rulekeeping anxiety, and so that joy is not confused with “doing whatever I want.”
Thus, to “walk by the Spirit” involves the following aspects of the cognitive dimension of human life.
1. Recognizing the Spirit as the Essential Agent of Spiritual Life
At the foundation of Spirit-walking stands a clear theological conviction: the Spirit is not an accessory to salvation but its living application. Paul reminds the Galatians that they received the Spirit by hearing with faith, not by works of the law (Gal 3:2). The Spirit is the defining mark of belonging to Christ (Gal 4:6; Rom 8:9). If that central reality is treated as optional, the Christian life quickly becomes either self-managed religion or spirituality-by-mood—and both leave space for the flesh to keep setting the agenda. Calvin affirms this logic with striking force:
“To share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us. For this reason, he is called ‘the Head,’ and we are his ‘members.’ Now the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself.”[3]
Union with Christ is not a mental abstraction but a Spirit-created reality. Without the Spirit’s indwelling presence, Christ’s saving work remains external to the believer. But when the Spirit is understood as essential, Spirit-walking is no longer reduced to willpower or vague impressions. It becomes the lived expression of Christ’s life in us, steadily pulling the believer away from what destroys and toward what reflects the new age. Charles Hodge further describes the epistemological and experiential force of the Spirit’s internal work:
“There is no form of conviction more intimate and irresistible than that which arises from the inward teaching of the Spirit.”[4]
Abraham Kuyper laments how often believers functionally neglect this truth:
“Even though we honor the Father and believe on the Son, how little do we live in the Holy Spirit! … The Holy Spirit is not an incidental supplement but the essential worker of salvation in us.”[5]
Herman Bavinck grounds the Christian life in the Spirit’s comprehensive activity:
“The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, regenerates, prompts the confession of Christ, assures believers of their adoption and inheritance, makes known what God has given, and produces Christian virtues and gifts.”[6]
Thus, walking by the Spirit begins with recognizing that the Spirit is already present and active as the governing reality of Christian existence. Obedience flows from the Spirit’s indwelling. And because the Spirit is personal and holy, this first cognitive step is not merely informational—it becomes the seedbed for later growth into kindness in speech and posture, for example, especially when pressure would normally provoke harshness.
2. Trusting the Promise that Walking by the Spirit Truly Weakens the Flesh
Paul’s command is framed with a promise: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” This is far more than moral optimism. It is theological realism grounded in the Spirit’s power. It is meant to be believed at the precise moment when temptation feels powerful and immediate. The flesh wants to persuade us that we must obey it, that we cannot do otherwise, that it is inevitable. Paul counters with a Spirit-grounded certainty: the flesh is not sovereign. Calvin acknowledges the persistence of temptation but insists that dominion has shifted:
“The spiritual man may be frequently assaulted by the lusts of the flesh, but he does not permit them to reign over him.”[7]
John Owen draws the connection directly to Spirit-enabled obedience:
“To walk in the Spirit is to walk in obedience unto God according to the supplies of grace which the Holy Ghost affords; this prevents fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.”[8]
The Puritan Thomas Goodwin sharpens Paul’s language by distinguishing temptation from fulfillment:
“The apostle doth not say that we shall not have lusts, but that we shall not fulfil them; that is, not bring them into act and perfection.”[9]
Cognitively, then, we must learn to trust this promise deeply. Otherwise, the Christian life becomes either cynical resignation (“this is just who I am”) or frantic self-repair (“I must fix myself”). Paul’s promise does something better: it gives a reasoned confidence that Spirit-enabled obedience has real interrupting power. And when that confidence settles in, it begins to stabilize the heart toward faithfulness.
3. Seeing the Christian Life as a Continuous Direction, Not Isolated Spiritual Moments
Paul’s metaphor of walking emphasizes continuity, trajectory, and habitual orientation rather than episodic intensity. He uses the same language throughout his letters to describe the whole shape of Christian conduct (Eph 4:1; Col 2:6). Ridderbos explains:
“The term ‘walk’ designates the total direction of life, the constant manner of existence, not isolated acts or moments.”[10]
This cognitive shift matters because the flesh often thrives in the gaps between “spiritual moments.” Many people can manage a short burst of religious seriousness while still walking in a settled pattern of corrosive habits. Paul’s language exposes the illusion: walking is not an occasional sprint; it is a sustained path. So to walk by the Spirit means learning to evaluate life not by a few intense experiences but by direction over time—what you increasingly practice, pursue, tolerate, and normalize. Spirit-walking steadily produces a different moral trajectory: not merely avoiding scandal, but moving toward a life shaped by goodness in ordinary decisions, the kind of goodness that shows up in speech, generosity, and relational steadiness.
4. Seeing Ourselves as Spirit-Indwelt Participants in New-Creation Life
Paul does not merely say that believers experience the Spirit. He says they belong to the Spirit (Rom 8:9) and Christ (Gal 5:24). If believers live by the Spirit, they must now learn to keep in step with him (Gal 5:25). Geerhardus Vos captures Paul’s eschatological rationale:
“The Spirit is the element of the future world which has entered into the present age and creates the life of the world to come within the believer.”[11]
Union with Christ means participation in Christ’s resurrection life now. As Richard Gaffin insists:
“Union with Christ is spiritual because of the activity and indwelling of the Holy Spirit; it is by the Spirit that believers participate in Christ’s resurrection life.”[12]
Cognitively, this reorients the believer’s self-understanding. You are not merely a person trying to behave better. You are a person in whom the life of the coming age is already present by the Spirit. That does not eliminate struggle (Gal 5:17), but it reframes it: conflict is not proof that the Spirit is absent; it is evidence that two realms are colliding within a new-creation person. This is why Paul can speak of a life that bears fruit in the present. The Spirit’s presence makes it plausible—not inevitable, but plausible—that joy can take root in real believers even as they fight real temptations.
5. Discerning the Flesh as an Anti-God Mindset
Paul’s term “flesh” cannot be reduced to mere bodily appetite. It describes the entire fallen human orientation bent toward autonomy and resistance to God (Gal 5:19–21). That is why the works of the flesh include both “vertical” sins and “horizontal” sins, and why the flesh can present itself in a sensual register and also in a counterfeit-spiritual register. The flesh is not only “doing bad things.” It is living from self as lord, self as measure, self as refuge.
Walking by the Spirit requires cognitive clarity about what we are actually fighting. If the flesh is diagnosed only as bodily appetite, then “victory” becomes mere restraint. But Paul forces a deeper diagnosis: the flesh is the whole self turned inward, eager to rule itself and justify itself, whether through indulgence or through counterfeit spirituality. This is why Paul’s command aims at the level of desire (Gal 5:16–17), not merely outward behavior: he wants the believer to interpret temptation as a spiritual rival, not as a harmless preference.
6. Interpreting the Spirit’s Guidance Through the Truth of Scripture
Spirit-walking never bypasses revealed truth in Scripture. The Spirit who indwells believers is the same Spirit who inspired the Word (1 Cor 2:12–13). Jonathan Edwards famously posits:
“Holy affections are not heat without light; they evermore arise from some information of the understanding.”[13]
Bavinck similarly guards against mystical detachment:
“The testimony of the Spirit is ethical in nature and bound up with faith; the Spirit works through the consciousness and the moral life of the believer.”[14]
This cognitive point protects Spirit-walking from being reduced to impulses, moods, or novel “leadings.” The Spirit’s guidance is not random; it is holy and truth-shaped. That is why Spirit-walking is not merely “feeling close to God” but learning to align your judgments, interpretations, and reactions with what God has said. Over time, that Scripture-shaped guidance expresses itself not as brittle religiosity, but as gentleness—a strength under control that increasingly replaces the harshness of the flesh.
7. Understanding Obedience as Spirit-Empowered Participation Rather Than Passive or Autonomous Effort
Paul consistently holds divine agency and human responsibility together. Believers put sin to death by the Spirit (Rom 8:13), yet they truly act. John Murray articulates the paradox well:
“God’s working in us does not suspend our working; nor does our working suspend God’s working. Because God works, therefore we work.”[15]
Ridderbos echoes the same balance:
“The Spirit does not replace human action but restores it to true freedom and obedience.”[16]
This cognitive clarity keeps Spirit-walking from collapsing into either self-reliance or passivity. Believers really obey; yet they obey by supplied strength. That balance is exactly what Galatians requires: Paul is not telling the Galatians to “try harder” under law. He is calling them to a freedom that energizes real obedience under the Spirit. And when obedience is understood as Spirit-enabled participation, it becomes realistic to pursue holiness in concrete ways without despair—and that pursuit begins to resemble peace more than panic.
8. Seeing All of Life Through a Gospel Lens
In Galatians, the presenting problem looks ethical, but Paul treats it as theological. The Galatians are being tempted to interpret spirituality through human performance rather than through promise, Spirit, and divine gift (Gal 3:1–5). When the gospel is displaced, the flesh is empowered, even when it dresses itself in religious language. Walking by the Spirit is therefore not a vague spiritual slogan; it is a gospel-saturated way of interpreting reality so that obedience is neither self-salvation nor mysticism, but Spirit-enabled life flowing from union with Christ.
Cognitively, Spirit-walking trains believers to see temptation, identity, weakness, and obedience through the lens of what God has done and promised. And that renewed perception is not an end in itself; it sets the stage for what Paul emphasizes next: the Spirit does not only reframe the mind—he reorders the heart’s desires and longings as well.
The Affective Dimension of Walking by the Spirit
Affections: Loving, Hating, Fearing, Hoping
Paul’s language in Galatians 5 makes clear that the conflict between flesh and Spirit is fundamentally a conflict of desires: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh” (Gal 5:17). Walking by the Spirit is therefore not merely intellectual assent or behavioral compliance; it is a reordering of what the heart loves, trusts, hopes for, and fears. The Spirit’s fruit is not painted on from the outside. It grows from within, as the Spirit reshapes what the believer finds beautiful, satisfying, and worth pursuing.
Thus, to “walk by the Spirit” involves the following aspects of the affective dimension of human life.
1. Experiencing a Reordering of Loves and Desire Toward God
Paul’s description of the Christian life in Galatians 5 is not merely cognitive and/or behavioral. At the center of the internal conflict between the Spirit and the flesh stands desire itself: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh” (Gal 5:17). The battleground includes the affective dimension of the heart. Not only what we cognitively know and volitionally do influences our lives, but also what we affectively treasure and fear. For this reason, Jesus emphasized that serving/obeying God—our ultimate Master—involves not only actions but affections: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. . .. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matt 6:21, 24).
Walking by the Spirit necessarily involves a deep reordering of our affections. The Spirit does not merely restrain our outward behavior; he reshapes the inward loves that drive our behavior. Augustine wrote on this copiously.
“My weight, is my love; thereby am I borne, whithersoever I am borne.”[17]
“Virtue is the order of love.”[18]
“[T]he presence of the Holy Spirit . . . [has] ‘shed abroad in our hearts the love, which is the fulfilling of the law.’”[19]
“Love, and do what thou wilt . . . let the root of love be within.”[20]
When the heart’s weight shifts toward God, the Spirit’s fruit begins to appear from the inside out. Love becomes more than a duty; it becomes the new direction of the soul. And when love is being reordered, the entire moral landscape changes: temptations lose some of their plausibility, obedience becomes less like mere suppression, and the Christian life gains coherence.
2. Living from Spirit-Renewed Affections that Energize Obedience
Jonathan Edwards provides an important theological anchor for understanding why affections matter so deeply for obedience:
“True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections; and no light in the understanding is good which does not produce holy affection in the heart.”[21]
For Edwards, affections are not opposed to reason but energized by it. The Spirit enlightens the mind, and enlightened truth reshapes and invigorates holy affections. Walking by the Spirit, therefore, is not simply doing the right things while wanting the wrong things. It is learning to want what God wants, so that obedience is carried along by renewed desire. This is why assurance, gratitude, and worship matter for sanctification: they are not decorative. They are motivational. As the Spirit renovates the heart, kindness becomes increasingly natural—especially in the ordinary moments when impatience used to govern speech and posture.
3. Depending on God Rather Than Self
One of the clearest affective marks of walking by the Spirit is dependence on God rather than confidence in our own willpower. Paul teaches that believers cry out “Abba, Father” by the Spirit (Gal 4:6) and that the Spirit himself helps believers in their weakness and intercedes for them (Rom 8:26–27). Prayer is the natural language of spiritual dependence. Walking by the Spirit is therefore not merely “trying” to obey; it is learning to lean. Dependence becomes a felt reflex: not self-protection first, not self-assertion first, but turning Godward first.
Calvin repeatedly emphasizes that believers must continually return to the Spirit for strength rather than trusting their own resources:
“We must begin with self-denial and constant warfare, and therefore we must continually betake ourselves to the grace of the Spirit, without which we shall never be able to stand.”[22]
Thomas Goodwin likewise describes walking in the Spirit in terms of relational dependence and yieldedness:
“To walk in the Spirit is to give up ourselves to the Spirit’s rule and guidance, so that he moves all the wheels in us.”[23]
This dependence is not spiritual fragility; it is faith taking the posture of need. And that posture matters for sanctification because self-reliance often drives harshness, anxiety, and reactive control. Dependence, by contrast, quietly cultivates gentleness—the ability to be steady and humane under pressure because the heart is not fighting to be its own savior.
4. Being Confident of God’s Active Work Within Us
Walking by the Spirit also cultivates emotional confidence rather than chronic insecurity. Paul links the Spirit’s work in us directly to assurance, hope, and inward strengthening (Rom 5:5; Gal 4:6; Eph 1:13–14). That confidence is not self-trust; it is trust that God is truly at work, even in the middle of conflict (Gal 5:17). When believers lack this confidence, obedience easily becomes brittle, fear-driven, or performative. But Spirit-walking steadies the heart so that the believer can keep moving forward without needing constant proof of spiritual progress.
Bavinck stresses that the Spirit strengthens believers internally by anchoring their assurance in God’s promises:
“The Holy Spirit assures believers of their adoption and inheritance and strengthens them in their confidence before God.”[24]
As confidence in God’s work takes root, it produces resilience: the believer keeps repenting, keeps obeying, keeps returning to Christ. That steadiness often expresses itself in relational consistency—what Paul elsewhere would recognize as perseverance in the same path rather than repeated cycles of collapse. In that sense, the Spirit’s inward strengthening nurtures faithfulness: not spectacular spirituality, but steady, gospel-shaped loyalty.
5. Delighting in Righteousness and Hating Sin
Paul insists that those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24). This crucifixion is not merely behavioral suppression; it is a reorientation of desire itself. Walking by the Spirit trains the heart to love righteousness and increasingly recoil from sin. That recoil is not mere moral disgust; it is a deepening sense that sin is fundamentally out of step with who we are in Christ.
Like Paul before him, Calvin describes the Christian life as active moral warfare driven by Spirit-renewed holy desire:
“The life of the believer is a perpetual warfare, for we must labor and fight against the flesh so long as we live.”[25]
We must nonetheless maintain a biblically proper realism about the ongoing war against the flesh in this life. Goodwin helpfully puts it this way:
“The apostle doth not say that lusts shall not be in us, but that we shall not fulfil them; that is, not brought to their full growth and perfection.”[26]
Affective change does not mean temptation disappears. It means temptation is increasingly resisted not only by external restraint but by internal revulsion and new preference. Over time, holiness becomes more believable and more desirable. This is where patience becomes especially important: not passive resignation, but the Spirit-grown capacity to endure the slow, often uneven progress of sanctification without giving up.
6. Distrusting the Deceptive Promises of Sin
Closely related to growing love for holiness is growing disillusionment with the promises of the flesh. The flesh advertises pleasure, autonomy, control, recognition, and security. Paul unmasks these promises as deceptive and destructive (Gal 5:19–21; Rom 6:21). Walking by the Spirit therefore includes a re-trained imagination: the believer learns to see sin not as a secret rescue but as a liar. Many sins persist because they are believed—because their promises are still granted credibility. Spirit-walking slowly breaks that credibility.
Calvin observes that believers learn to recognize the emptiness and danger of fleshly desires:
“The flesh indeed entices us with its allurements, but believers, instructed by the Spirit, learn to despise its empty promises.”[27]
This is not merely a change in outward behavior but a shift in what the heart finds plausible. As the Spirit continues to instruct, sin loses glamour and gains clarity. The believer begins to recognize that the “relief” sin offers is often simply a reshaped form of slavery. That recognition stabilizes obedience and helps keep repentance from becoming merely reactive damage control.
7. Longing for the Coming Fulness of God’s Kingdom
Paul consistently connects the Spirit’s influence with future hope. The Spirit is the down payment of the coming inheritance (Eph 1:13–14). Believers groan inwardly as they await the redemption of their bodies (Rom 8:23). The Spirit nurtures longing for consummated holiness rather than contentment with present brokenness. This longing is not escapism; it is the emotional climate in which faithful obedience can endure without requiring immediate payoff.
Vos captures this eschatological dynamic:
“The believer already lives the life of the future world through the Spirit, and yet precisely for that reason he experiences the tension of not yet possessing it in fullness.”[28]
Walking by the Spirit, therefore, produces a distinctive affective posture of hunger for the consummation of God’s purposes. That forward-looking hope matters because it keeps the present from becoming ultimate. It strengthens endurance when obedience feels costly. It keeps believers from interpreting struggle as pointless. And it gives shape to peace—not because conflict is absent, but because the heart is anchored in what God will finish.
The Volitional Dimension of Walking by the Spirit
Volition: Choosing, Practicing, Committing, Persevering
In Galatians 5, Paul’s command aims at concrete outcomes. The works of the flesh are not merely inner inclinations; they express themselves in actions, patterns, and relational trajectories with real consequences (Gal 5:19–21). Likewise, the fruit of the Spirit is not theoretical; it becomes visible in habits of love, speech, patience, and self-control (Gal 5:22–23). If walking by the Spirit renews the mind and reshapes the heart, it must also govern the will. Spirit-walking is not passive waiting for holiness to happen but Spirit-empowered participation in the life of Christ in us (Gal 2:20; Phil 3:12–14). It is precisely here that the command “walk” becomes practical: the believer chooses, refuses, perseveres, and cultivates.
Thus, to “walk by the Spirit” involves the following aspects of the volitional dimension of human life.
1. Actively Ordering Daily Choices and Practices Under God’s Rule
Paul never allows spirituality to remain abstract. In Galatians 5, Spirit-life produces visible “fruit of the Spirit” (vv.22–23), concrete resistance to sin, and sustained patterns of obedience to the demands of the gospel. The command to walk by the Spirit assumes that believers genuinely act, choose, resist, persevere, and structure their lives in accordance with the Spirit’s leading. Spirit-walking, therefore, is not merely a private spirituality; it is a practiced obedience that shows up in schedules, habits, speech, and relationships. When the will is being re-ordered under God, the Spirit’s fruit becomes concrete—especially self-control, which is not mere restraint but Spirit-enabled freedom to obey when the flesh demands gratification.
2. Deliberately Structuring Life Around Obedience to God
The metaphor of walking implies movement toward a destination. One does not accidentally walk in a direction for long. Walking involves orientation, attentiveness, and repeated choice. Paul reinforces this in Galatians 5:25: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” The language suggests alignment, rhythm, and coordinated movement. And this is exactly how the fruit matures: not as a single heroic decision, but as a steady pattern in which obedience becomes increasingly normal.
Herman Ridderbos stresses that Spirit-led life does not unfold automatically:
“The believer must let himself be ruled by the Spirit. The principle of the Spirit does not make human effort unnecessary, but arouses it and equips it to put all its forces into the service of the Spirit.”[29]
Spirit-walking thus requires intentional restructuring of our lives around obedience rather than leaving spiritual growth to chance. Habits, priorities, relationships, and time must increasingly reflect alignment with God’s Word, values, and purposes. This is one way the Spirit produces goodness: not as a vague intention, but as a reliable pattern of choices that increasingly reflect God’s moral beauty.
3. Exercising Obedience Through Spirit-Dependent Action Rather Than Self-Mastery
Walking by the Spirit involves real human action, but never autonomous action. Paul’s theology consistently binds obedience to dependence: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom 8:13). The believer acts, yet the Spirit supplies the power. John Owen writes,
“There is no act of holiness which we perform but we are enabled thereunto by the Spirit; and yet we are to act ourselves in the strength of that grace which he supplies.”[30]
Thomas Goodwin similarly emphasizes surrender rather than self-mastery:
“To walk in the Spirit is to resign the whole inward man unto his guidance, that he may sway the heart, the will, the affections, and the whole course of our obedience.”[31]
Spirit-walking, therefore, rejects both self-reliant moralism and passive quietism. Obedience is vigorous, but always prayerfully dependent. That dependence has practical shape: it means choosing obedience while consciously leaning on God for actual help, not merely offering God a report after the fact. This is one reason Spirit-walking often expresses itself in gentleness: the will is not being driven by anxious self-proving but by Spirit-supplied steadiness.
4. Decisively Interrupting Sinful Desires Before They Mature into Action
Paul does not promise that temptation will disappear. He promises that fleshly desires will not be fulfilled when believers walk by the Spirit (Gal 5:16). The battleground is not merely behavior but desire itself. The flesh seeks to move from desire to consent to act. Walking by the Spirit means learning to intervene early—at the level of imagination, consent, and rationalization—so that sinful desire is not allowed to ripen into sinful action.
Calvin observes:
“Though the believer is not free from the assaults of the flesh, yet he does not allow those lusts to reign in him.”[32]
John Owen connects this directly to Spirit-enabled mortification:
“The Holy Spirit gives strength to weaken and destroy the habits of sin, so that they shall not bring forth their cursed fruit.”[33]
Walking by the Spirit, therefore, involves decisive refusal: refusing to nurture sinful imagination, refusing to rationalize compromise, refusing to place oneself in environments that empower temptation, and refusing to allow desire to mature into action. Volitionally, Spirit-walking is not merely “wanting to change”; it is choosing concrete interruption—especially when the flesh seeks to slip into “small” indulgences that later become entrenched patterns.
5. Killing Sin and Fueling Righteousness
Paul consistently frames sanctification as both negative and positive: putting to death what belongs to the old life and cultivating the fruit of the new life (Rom 8:13; Gal 5:22–24; Col 3:5–17). In Galatians 5 specifically, Spirit-walking does not merely prune the “works of the flesh”; it cultivates the “fruit of the Spirit.” That means the Spirit does not only disrupt sin; he forms holiness.
Owen famously argues that mortification is always Spirit-enabled:
“All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the Spirit.”[34]
Bavinck further emphasizes the constructive side of sanctification:
“The Holy Spirit not only restrains sin but positively produces Christian virtues and gifts and renews the ethical life of the believer.”[35]
Spirit-walking, therefore, includes disciplined replacement: truth replaces deceit, patience replaces hostility, self-control replaces impulsiveness, and love replaces rivalry. Life in the Spirit does not merely subtract sin. It pursues holiness. As this pattern becomes established, the will increasingly chooses what accords with the Spirit’s aims, and the fruit ripens in durable forms of kindness that are tested and proven rather than merely sentimental.
6. Persevering Amidst Ongoing Spiritual Conflict
Paul is realistic about the persistence of inner conflict: “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit” (Gal 5:17). Spiritual maturity does not eliminate struggle but deepens discernment and strengthens endurance. Walking by the Spirit means we learn to keep going: continuing obedience when progress feels slow, returning to repentance after failure, resisting discouragement, and refusing to normalize compromise.
Calvin captures this tension:
“The flesh is not utterly destroyed in believers, but its dominion is broken; therefore, the conflict remains, yet the victory is secured.”[36]
Thus, Spirit-walking includes perseverance: not merely intense moments of resolve, but sustained endurance in the same gospel-shaped direction. This perseverance is one of the ordinary ways the Spirit matures patience—not as personality, but as endurance under real pressure.
7. Bearing Christlike Fruit in Relationships
Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit is relational and communal: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22–23). Spirit-walking reshapes how we speak, forgive, serve, endure, and love within ordinary relationships. That is why Paul immediately warns against conceit, rivalry, and envy (Gal 5:26). A person can be strict, intense, and “serious” in religious practice—and yet still walk in the flesh if their spirituality produces rivalry, envy, and relational destruction. Conversely, the Spirit’s presence becomes visible when love serves rather than competes, when peace holds under pressure, when joy is not fragile, and when gentleness governs strength.
Bavinck notes,
“The work of the Spirit does not terminate in private piety alone but bears fruit in the ethical and communal life of the church.”[37]
Walking by the Spirit, therefore, governs the will in sustained, observable ways. It directs choices, disciplines habits, strengthens resistance, cultivates perseverance, and reshapes relationships. It is a lived practice of Spirit-enabled obedience.
Synthesis of Reformed Thought and Resulting Definition
Paul’s command in Galatians 5:16 is brief, but it gathers together the whole architecture of Christian existence: identity in Christ, the indwelling Spirit, the ongoing conflict with the flesh, and the visible shape of obedience. When Paul exhorts believers to “walk by the Spirit,” he is not offering a pious-sounding metaphor for vague spirituality. He is naming the concrete mode in which redeemed people live out the freedom of the gospel in the midst of a fallen world.
What emerges from our preceding analysis is a pattern of life that integrates the three inseparable dimensions of human experience and operation in cognitive, affective, and volitional ways. Far from being artificial categories imposed on Paul, these three elements help us put skin on Paul’s metaphor: we act and live according to what we believe, what we love, and what we choose. Walking by the Spirit involves all three aspects at once. It is exactly this integrated path that produces fruit that is recognizably Christian rather than merely moral.
A Coherent Definition
Bringing these three dimensions together provides us with a coherent, Reformation-theology-informed, working definition of walking by the Spirit:
To walk by the Spirit means actively living under the Spirit’s rule and powerful supply as one united to Christ. Cognitively, it means interpreting reality through the gospel of God’s free grace through the person and work of Christ, recognizing the flesh as anti-God self-rule, trusting the Spirit’s promise to interrupt desire, and interpreting experience by Scripture. Affectively, it means reordering loves toward God, depending on him in weakness, hating sin and distrusting sin’s empty promises, delighting in righteousness, and hoping toward the coming fullness of God’s kingdom. Volitionally, it means structuring daily habits and relationships for obedience, refusing temptation early, killing sin and cultivating virtue, persevering in temptation, and consciously practicing the fruit of the Spirit in thought, word, and action: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
This preserves Paul’s theological depth while remaining pastorally usable. It guards against moralism and mysticism alike. It honors divine agency without diminishing human responsibility. It keeps obedience anchored in grace rather than mere human performance.
Thus, in the end, Paul’s command is both clear and compelling: walk by the Spirit by believing what God has done, loving what God loves, and choosing the path that the Spirit enables—so that the life of the new age becomes visible now in our daily lives. ❖
Quote this Article
Footnote: Timothy J. Harris, “What Does It Mean to “Walk by the Spirit” in Galatians 5:16?,” Practical Theologian, Published Date, https://www.practicaltheologian.com/blog/article-z9dtw-69b3c-xjaal.
Bibliography: Harris, Timothy J. “What Does It Mean to “Walk by the Spirit” in Galatians 5:16?.” Practical Theologian, Published Date. https://www.practicaltheologian.com/blog/article-z9dtw-69b3c-xjaal.
References
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 3.1.1.
John Owen, Pneumatologia; or, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (London, 1674), in The Works of John Owen, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 393.
Calvin, Institutes, 3.1.1.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1872), 240.
Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, trans. Henri De Vries (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900), 15–16.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 91–94.
John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, trans. John Owen (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1854), on Galatians 5:16.
Owen, Pneumatologia, in Works, 3:413–15.
Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, vol. 6 (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863), 224–25.
Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. John Richard De Witt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 283.
Geerhardus Vos, “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1980), 93–99.
Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1987), 135–36.
Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Boston, 1746), Part I, §2.
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:96–97.
John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 148.
Ridderbos, Paul, 281.
Augustine, Confessions 13.9.10, trans. Edward B. Pusey, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 1, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), 343.
Augustine, City of God 15.22, trans. Marcus Dods, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 2, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), 303.
Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter 36, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 5, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), 251.
Augustine, Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John 7.8, trans. H. Browne, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), 504.
Edwards, Religious Affections, Part I, §2.
Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, on Galatians 5:16.
Goodwin, Works, 6:235.
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:92–93.
Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, on Galatians 5:16.
Goodwin, Works, 6:224–25.
Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, on Galatians 5:16.
Vos, “Eschatological Aspect,” 95.
Ridderbos, Paul, 280–82.
Owen, Pneumatologia, in Works, 3:413–15.
Goodwin, Works, 6:235.
Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, on Galatians 5:16.
Goodwin, Works, 6:224.
John Owen, “Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers,” in The Works of John Owen, vol. 6, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967), 1–86.
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:91.
Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, on Galatians 5:16.
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:91–94.
