know whether they were saved or not; they did not know what they ought to
do, and all was confusion. It was just as when modern Judaizers come
around and get after young converts and tell them that in addition to
believing in Jesus Christ, they must keep the Mosaic Seventh Day Sabbath,
or they cannot be saved. This is simply the old controversy breaking out
at a new point. When Paul heard what had happened in Galatia, he was very
indignant and wrote the Epistle to the Galatians simply for the purpose of
exposing the utter error of these Judaizers. He showed them how Abraham
himself was justified before he was circumcised by simply believing God
(Gal. iii. 6), and how he was circumcised after he was justified as a seal
of the faith which he already had while he was in uncircumcision. But in
addition to this proof of the error of the Judaizers, Paul appeals to
their own personal experience. He says to them, "You received the Holy
Spirit, did you not?" "Yes." "How did you receive the Holy Spirit, by
keeping the law of Moses, or by the hearing of faith, the simple accepting
of God's testimony about Jesus Christ that your sins were laid upon Him,
and that you are thus justified and saved?" The Galatians had had a very
definite experience of receiving the Holy Spirit and Paul appeals to it,
and recalls to their mind how it was by the simple hearing of faith that
they had received the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is God's
seal upon the simple acceptance of God's testimony about Jesus Christ,
that our sins were laid upon Him, and thus trusting God to forgive us and
justify us. This then is the first step towards receiving the Holy Spirit.
But we must not only receive Jesus as Saviour, we must also receive Him as
Lord. Of this we shall speak further in connection with another passage in
the fourth step.

2. The second step in the path that leads into the blessing of being
baptized with the Holy Spirit is _renunciation of sin_. Repentance as we
have seen is a change of mind about sin as well as a change of mind about
Christ; a change of mind from that attitude of mind that loves sin and
indulges sin to that attitude of mind that hates sin and renounces sin.
This then is the second step--renunciation of sin. The Holy Spirit is a
_Holy_ Spirit and we cannot have both Him and sin. We must make our choice
between the Holy Spirit and unholy sin. We cannot have both. He that will
not give up sin cannot have the Holy Spirit.