Dr. Rudy Rodriguez – Page 3 – On Eagles Wings Ministries

Liberty Under Control

We shall now go beyond the life of the individual believer to consider the general life and worship of a Christian’s congregation as a whole. The questions we shall seek to answer are these:

1. What difference does the baptism in the Holy Spirit make in the life and experience of the congregation as a whole?

2. What are the main features which distinguish a congregation in which all or most of the members have received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and are free to exercise the power thus received?

3. How would such a congregation differ from one in which none of the members has received this experience?

To answer these questions, we shall examine two main ways in which a free congregation of Spirit-baptised believers differs from one in which the members have not received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Under the Spirit’s Lordship

Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor. 3:17).

Paul points out two major facts about the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit in a congregation. The first is that the Holy Spirit is Lord. In the New Testament the word Lord corresponds in use and meaning to the name Jehovah in the Old Testament. In this usage it is a title reserved for the one true God, never given to any lesser being or creature.

This title belongs by right to each of the three Persons of the Godhead. God the Father is Lord, God the Son is Lord, and God the Holy Spirit is Lord. When Paul says, “The Lord is the Spirit,” he is emphasizing the supreme sovereignty of the Holy Spirit in the church.

The second great fact pointed out by Paul is that where the lordship of the Holy Spirit in the church is acknowledged, the result in a congregation is “liberty” or “freedom.” Someone has sought to bring out the true significance of the second part of this verse by a slight change in the rendering. Instead of saying, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” we may say alternatively, “Where the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty.” True liberty comes to a congregation in measure as its members acknowledge and yield to the lordship of the Holy Spirit.

Thus we may sum up this first main distinguishing feature of a Spirit-baptised congregation by putting two words side by side. These two words are liberty and government.

At first sight it might appear inconsistent to put these two words together. Someone might feel inclined to object, “But if we have liberty, then we are not under government. And if we are under government, then we do not have liberty.” People do, in fact, often feel that liberty and government are opposite to each other. This applies not only to spiritual things but also in the political realm.

For example, in some congregations, when one member is asked to lead in prayer and to present certain prayer requests to God, there are others who speak so loud in other tongues that it becomes impossible for the rest of the congregation to hear what the appointed prayer leader is saying. This means it is impossible for the congregation to say “Amen” with understanding or faith to a prayer which they could not even hear. In this way, through this foolish misuse of tongues, the whole congregation loses the blessing and the effectiveness of united, wholehearted petition and intercession.

Or again, the preacher may be presenting a logical, scriptural message designed to show to the unsaved the need and the way of salvation. As the preacher approaches the climax of his message, someone in the congregation suddenly bursts out with a loud, ill-timed utterance in tongues. As a result, the whole congregation’s attention is distracted from the salvation message. The unbelievers present are either irritated or frightened by what seems to be a senseless and emotional outburst. The force of the carefully prepared message on salvation is lost.

If the person responsible for this kind of foolishness should afterward be reproved, it quite often happens that he makes some such answer as this: “I couldn’t help myself! The Holy Spirit made me do it. I had to obey the Holy Spirit.” However, such an answer as this cannot be accepted because it is contrary to the clear teaching of the Scriptures.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all (1 Cor. 12:7).

We may render this more freely: “The manifestation of the Spirit is always given for a useful, practical, sensible purpose.”

Thus, if the manifestation is directed to fulfilling the purpose for which it is given, it will always be in harmony with the plan and purpose of the service as a whole and will make a positive contribution to accomplishing that purpose. It will never be meaningless or distracting or out of place.

God Makes Sons, Not Slaves

And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints (1 Cor. 14:32-33).

In other words, any spiritual evidence that is directed and controlled by God will produce peace and harmony, not confusion and disorder.

Any person responsible for an evidence that leads to confusion or disorder cannot excuse himself by saying, “I couldn’t help myself! The Holy Spirit made me do it.” Paul rules out this line of defense by saying, “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” In other words, the Holy Spirit never overrides the will of the individual believer and compels him to do something against his own will.

Even when a believer is exercising a spiritual gift, his spirit and his will still remain under his control. He is free to exercise that gift or not to exercise it. The responsibility for exercising it remains with him. As we have said earlier in this study, the Holy Spirit never plays the part of a dictator in the life of a believer.

This is one of the main features which distinguish genuine manifestations of the Holy Spirit from the phenomena of spiritism or demon possession. In many phases of spiritism or demon possession the person who plays the part of the medium (or other vessel of satanic power) is obliged to yield complete control of his whole will and personality to the spirit which seeks to possess him or to operate through him. Very often such a person is then obliged to say or to do things which of his own free will he would never have agreed to say or do.

In some phases of spiritism the person who comes under the control of the spirit loses all understanding or consciousness of what he is saying or doing. At the end of such an experience, the possessed person may come to himself again in entirely strange surroundings after a lapse of many hours, without any knowledge or recollection of what has happened in the intervening period. In this way, both the will and the understanding of the demon-possessed person are entirely set aside.

God the Holy Spirit never acts in this way with the true believer in Jesus. Among the most precious of all the endowments which God has bestowed upon man are will and personality. Consequently, God never usurps the will or the personality of the believer. He will operate through them if He is permitted to do so, but He will never set them aside. Satan makes slaves; God makes sons.

We see, then, how wrong and unscriptural it is for Spirit-baptised believers to say concerning any spiritual manifestation: “I couldn’t help it! The Holy Spirit made me do it.” To speak like this is to represent the indwelling Spirit of God as some kind of despot and the believer as a slave in bondage. Believers who speak like this have not yet come to understand their privileges and responsibilities as sons of God.

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage [slavery] again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom. 8:15-16).

We are thus brought face-to-face with an important principle which holds good in all human affairs whether political or spiritual: True liberty is impossible without good government. The kind of liberty which seeks to set aside all government or control of any kind ends only in anarchy and confusion. The final result is a new form of slavery, far more severe than the previous form of government which was set aside.

We have seen this happen time after time in the political history of the human race, and the same principle applies equally in the spiritual life of the Christian’s church. True spiritual liberty is possible only where there is spiritual government. The government which God has appointed for the church is that of the Holy Spirit.

We come back then to the statement of Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:17:

Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

If we desire to enjoy the Spirit’s liberty, we must first voluntarily acknowledge the Spirit’s lordship. These two operations of the Holy Spirit can never be separated from each other.

We must also bear in mind another important fact about the Holy Spirit which we established earlier in this study. The Holy Spirit is both the author and the interpreter of the Scriptures. This means that the Holy Spirit will never direct a believer to say or do anything contrary to the Scriptures. If the Holy Spirit were ever to do this, He would be illogical and inconsistent with Himself, and this we know is impossible.

But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us – by me, Silvanus, and Timothy – was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes (2 Cor. 1:18-19).

Paul is saying that God is never inconsistent with Himself. Concerning any particular matter of doctrine or practice, God never says yes at one time and no at another. If God has ever said yes, then His answer always remains yes. He never changes to no later on. He is never changeable or inconsistent with Himself.

This applies to the relationship between the teaching of Scripture on the one hand and utterances and manifestations of the Holy Spirit on the other. The Holy Spirit, being Himself the author of Scripture, always agrees with Scripture. There is never a possibility of yes and no. Wherever the Bible says no, the Holy Spirit says no. No utterance or manifestation that is inspired and controlled by the Holy Spirit will ever be contrary to the teachings and examples of Scripture.

However, as we have already emphasized, the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is not a dictator. He does not compel the believer always to act in a scriptural way. The Holy Spirit serves as interpreter and counsellor. He interprets the Scripture; He offers direction and counsel. But the believer still remains free to accept or to reject the Holy Spirit’s counsel – to obey or to disobey.

This imposes a tremendous responsibility upon every Spirit-baptised believer. Every such believer is responsible to acquaint himself personally with the mind of the Holy Spirit as revealed in the Scriptures and then to direct his own conduct and behavior in regard to the exercise of spiritual gifts or manifestations – as in all other matters – so that these harmonize with the principles and examples of Scripture.

If through laziness, indifference or disobedience a Spirit-baptised believer fails to do this and, as a result, exercises spiritual gifts or manifestations in a foolish, unscriptural way, the responsibility for this rests solely upon the believer himself, not upon the Holy Spirit.

In this connection, a special responsibility rests upon every minister called by God to lead the worship and service of a Spirit-baptised congregation. Not only must such a man direct his own spiritual ministry in line with the teaching of Scripture, but he must also allow himself to be, in God’s hand, an instrument to direct the worship and ministry of the whole congregation in accordance with the same scriptural principles.

To do this successfully requires, in a high degree, special qualifications: first of all, a thorough, practical knowledge of the Scriptures, and then wisdom, authority and courage. Where these qualities are lacking in the leadership, a congregation that seeks to exercise spiritual gifts and manifestations will be like a ship at sea in the midst of powerful winds and treacherous shoals with an ill-trained and inexperienced captain in charge. Small wonder if the end is a wreck!

I have now been associated with full-gospel ministry for more than fifty years. During those years I have observed two things which have done more than anything else to hinder the acceptance of the testimony of the full gospel. The first is the failure to exercise proper control over the public manifestation of spiritual gifts, particularly the gift of tongues; the second is strife and division among Spirit-baptised believers, both among members of the same congregation and between one congregation and another. Each of these has its origin in one and the same error: the failure to acknowledge the effective lordship of the Holy Spirit.

We are now in a position to offer a definition of true spiritual liberty: Spiritual liberty consists in acknowledging the effective lordship of the Holy Spirit in the church. Where the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty.

Times and Seasons

So many Spirit-baptised believers have their own particular concept of liberty. Some imagine that liberty consists in shouting. If only we can shout loud enough and long enough, they seem to think, we shall work ourselves up into liberty. But the Holy Spirit is never worked up; He either comes down or He flows forth from within. In either case His manifestation is free and spontaneous, never laborious or wearisome.

Other Spirit-baptised believers lay all their emphasis on some other type of expression or manifestation, such as singing or clapping hands or dancing. In many cases the reason for this is that God once blessed them along those lines and they have come to believe that God’s blessing will always continue to come along this same line and never along any other. God blessed them once when they were shouting, so they always want to shout. Or God blessed them once when they were dancing, so they always want to dance.

They have become so limited in their outlook and concept of the Holy Spirit that they can never conceive of God’s blessing them in any other way. Quite often they even despise other believers who will not join them in their shouting or their dancing or their hand-clapping. They may suggest that these other believers are not really “free in the Spirit.”

Let us be careful to add that there is not necessarily anything unscriptural in shouting or dancing or clapping hands. The Bible provides clear examples of all these things in the worship of God’s people. But it certainly is unscriptural and also foolish to suggest that any of these forms of expression necessarily constitutes true spiritual liberty.

A person who believes he must always worship God by shouting or dancing or hand-clapping no longer enjoys true spiritual liberty; on the contrary, he has returned under a special kind of religious bondage of his own making. Such a person is as much under bondage as the Christian’s at the opposite end of the religious scale who knows of no other way to worship God than with the words and forms of a printed liturgy.

A wonderful key to true spiritual liberty is found in the words of Solomon.

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck what is planted;

A time to kill,

And a time to heal;

A time to break down,

And a time to build up;

A time to weep,

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn,

And a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones,

And a time to gather stones;

A time to embrace,

And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to gain,

And a time to lose;

A time to keep,

And a time to throw away;

A time to tear,

And a time to sew;

A time to keep silence,

And a time to speak;

A time to love,

And a time to hate;

A time of war,

And a time of peace (Eccl. 3:1-8).

Solomon here mentions twenty-eight forms of activity, set out in fourteen pairs of opposites. In each pair of opposites it is right at one time to do the one and at another time to do the other. We can never say without qualification, it is always right to do the one or always wrong to do the other. Whether each is right or wrong is decided by the time or the season.

Many of these pairs of opposites relate to the life and worship of a congregation, such as planting or plucking up; killing or healing; breaking down or building up; weeping or laughing; mourning or dancing; gathering or casting away; keeping silence or speaking.

None of these is either absolutely right or absolutely wrong. Each is right if done at the right time and wrong if done at the wrong time.

How, then, shall we know which to do, or when? The answer is, this is the sovereign office of the Holy Spirit as Lord in the church. He reveals and directs what to do, and when. A congregation that is directed by the Holy Spirit will do the right thing at the right time. This is the source of all true liberty, harmony and unity. Apart from this, there are only varying degrees of bondage, discord and disunity.

In the next chapter we shall go on to consider one further distinctive feature that marks the life and worship of a congregation where the members have been baptised in the Holy Spirit and have liberty to exercise this power.

Divine Love Outpoured

We shall devote this session to one final, supremely important result produced in the believer by the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is described by Paul in the letter to the Romans.

The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (5:5).

We need to grasp the significance of that phrase, “the love of God.” Paul is not speaking here about human love or even about love for God. He is speaking about the love of God – God’s own love – which the Holy Spirit pours out in the believer’s heart. This love of God, imparted by the Holy Spirit, is as high above any form of mere human love as heaven is above earth.

In the normal course of our lives we experience many different types of love. For instance, there is a form of love, so-called, which is mere sexual passion. Then there is the married love of husband and wife for each other. Again, within the human family, there is the love of parents for children and of children for parents. Outside the bonds of the family, there is the love of one friend for another, such as the love of David and Jonathan for each other.

The Nature of God’s Love

All these and other forms of love, in varying degree, are found in all sections of the human race, even where the gospel of Jesus has never been preached. The Greek language, which has a rich vocabulary, has various words to describe these different forms of love. There is one word, however, which is used primarily for love which is divine in its origin and nature. As a noun, this word is agape; as a verb, agapao.

Agape denotes the perfect love between the Persons of the Godhead – the Father, the Son and the Spirit. It denotes the love of God toward man – that is, the love which caused God the Father to give His Son, and Jesus the Son to give His life, that man might be redeemed from sin and its consequences. It denotes also the love God through His Holy Spirit imparts to the hearts of those who believe in Jesus.

This enables us to understand the words of the apostle in 1 John.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love (4:7-8).

The Greek words which John uses are agape and agapao. John teaches that there is a kind of love, agape, which no one can experience unless he has been born of God. Love of this kind comes only from God.

Anyone who in any measure manifests this kind of love has, in that measure, come to know God through the new birth. Conversely, a person who has never known or manifested this love in any measure has never known God; for in the measure that a person comes to know God, he is in that measure changed and transformed by the divine love, so that he himself begins to manifest it to others.

As John here indicates, this manifestation of agape – of divine love – commences in human experience with the new birth. This is in harmony with the words of Peter.

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever (1 Pet. 1:22-23).

Where Peter says, “Love one another fervently with a pure heart,” the verb for “love” which he uses is once again that for divine love – agapao. He directly connects this possibility of professing Christian’s’ manifesting the divine love with the fact that they have been born again of the incorruptible seed of God’s Word. That is to say, the potentiality of divine love is contained within the divine seed of God’s Word implanted in their hearts at the new birth.

However, God intends for this initial experience of divine love, received at the new birth, to be immeasurably increased and expanded through the baptism in the Holy Spirit. For this reason, Paul says:

The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Rom. 5:5).

Once again, it is the word for divine love – agape – which Paul uses. The verb which he joins with it – “has been poured out” – is in the perfect tense. The use of the perfect tense indicates, as usual in Greek, finality and completeness. The meaning is that in this one act of baptizing the believer in the Holy Spirit, God has emptied out into the believer’s heart all the fullness of the divine love. Nothing has been reserved or held back; all has been poured out. Thereafter the believer does not need to seek more of God’s love; he needs only to accept, to enjoy and to manifest that which he has already received within.

For the Spirit-baptised believer to ask God for more of His love is like a man who lives on the bank of the Mississippi River to seek for some other supply of water. Such a person already has at his disposal infinitely more than he can ever need to use. All that he needs is to utilize the supply already made available to him.

In like manner, Jesus says the Spirit-baptised believer already has within himself not merely one river, but “rivers of living water” – rivers of divine grace and love – infinitely in excess of any need that can ever arise in that believer’s life (see John 7:38-39).

In his letter to the Romans, Paul defines the precise nature of this divine love, poured out within the believer by the Holy Spirit.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Jesus died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us (5:6-8).

Paul points out that even natural love, apart from the grace of God, might impel a man to die for his friend, if that friend were a good and righteous man – just as natural love, in another form, might cause a mother to give her life for her child. Paul then shows that the supernatural, divine love of God is seen in the fact that Jesus died for sinners who could have had no claim upon any kind of natural love whatever.

To describe the condition of those for whom Jesus died, Paul uses three successive phrases: “without strength . . . ungodly . . . sinners.” This means that those for whom Jesus died were, at that time, utterly unable to help themselves, totally alienated from God and in open rebellion against Him. It was in dying for people such as this that Jesus manifested agape – the divine love – in its perfect fullness.

John defines the divine love in a similar way.

In this the love [agape] of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him (1 John 4:9).

The divine love does not depend upon anything worthy of love in those to whom it is directed, nor does it wait to be reciprocated before it gives all. On the contrary, it gives first and freely to those who are unlovable, unworthy and even in open rebellion. Jesus expressed this divine love in His prayer for those who were crucifying Him.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do (Luke 23:34).

The same divine love is expressed in the dying prayer of the martyr Stephen for those who were stoning him:

Lord, do not charge them with this sin (Acts 7:60).

The same love is expressed again in the words of one who was an eager witness of Stephen’s stoning – Saul of Tarsus, later the apostle Paul. Concerning his own Jewish brethren, who had consistently rejected and persecuted him, Paul says:

I tell the truth in Jesus, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Jesus for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom. 9:1-3).

So greatly did Paul yearn for the salvation of his persecuting Jewish brethren that he would have been willing to forego all the blessings of salvation for himself and return under the curse of unforgiven sin with all its consequences, if this could bring his brethren to Jesus. Paul acknowledges that the experience and realization of this love was made possible only through the presence of the Holy Spirit within, for he says, “. . . my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit.”

Love Is the Greatest

We have said that among the various purposes for which God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit, this pouring out of divine love within the believer’s heart occupies a place of unique importance. The reason for this is that, without the all-pervading influence of divine love in the believer’s heart, all the other results which may be produced by the baptism in the Holy Spirit lose their true significance and fail to accomplish their true purpose.

Paul uses a vivid series of examples to emphasize the unique importance of this agape love.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-2).

With characteristic humility, Paul puts himself in the place of a believer who exercises spiritual gifts but lacks divine love. In the previous chapter of 1 Corinthians he enumerated nine gifts of the Holy Spirit. He now imagines himself to be one who exercises various of these gifts, but who lacks love.

First he considers the possibility of exercising the gift of tongues on such a high supernatural plane that he speaks not only unknown human languages but even the language of angels. He says that if he were to do this without divine love, he would be no better than a gong or a cymbal that produces a loud noise when it is struck but is quite empty inside.

Then he considers the possibility of exercising other outstanding spiritual gifts – such as prophecy, or the word of wisdom, or the word of knowledge or faith. But he says that if he should exercise any or all of these gifts without divine love, he would be absolutely nothing.

These words of Paul provide the answer to a question which is being asked in many circles today: Is it possible to misuse the gift of tongues? The answer to this is clear: Yes, it is perfectly possible to misuse the gift of tongues. Any use of tongues apart from divine love is a misuse, because it renders the believer who exercises it no better than an empty, clanging gong or cymbal, and this was certainly never the purpose for which God bestowed the gift.

This applies equally to the other gifts which Paul mentions in the next verse – prophecy, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge and faith. To use any of these gifts apart from divine love is to miss the whole purpose of God.

However, experience proves again and again that there is a special danger in misusing the three spiritual gifts which operate through the organs of speech – that is, tongues, interpretation and prophecy. This is confirmed by the fact that Paul devotes the greater part of the next chapter – 1 Corinthians 14 – to giving rules to control and regulate the use of these three particular gifts. If there were no possibility of believers misusing these gifts, there would be no need to give rules for their control. The fact that rules are given proves that rules are needed.

However, in interpreting the teaching of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1, it is necessary to pay close attention to the exact words he uses. He says:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

Note the phrase “I have become.” These words indicate a change. The believer here pictured is not now in the same spiritual condition as he was when he was originally baptised in the Holy Spirit.

At that time, he had the assurance that his sins were forgiven and that his heart was cleansed through faith in Jesus. He was willing to yield himself, as fully as possible, to the control of the Holy Spirit. In this condition, the initial manifestation of speaking with another tongue indicated that the Holy Spirit had come to indwell the believer and take control of his life.

However, in the period that has since elapsed, the believer here pictured by Paul has retained the outward manifestation but – through carelessness or disobedience – has not retained the same inward condition of cleansing and yieldedness to the Holy Spirit. Thus the process of speaking with tongues has degenerated into a mere outward physical manifestation without any corresponding inward spiritual reality.

To see this experience in its proper perspective, we must set side by side two facts which are confirmed both by Scripture and by experience.

First, at the time of being baptised in the Holy Spirit, a believer must fulfill two conditions: His heart must be purified by faith in Jesus, and he must be willing to yield control of his physical members – in particular, his tongue – to the Holy Spirit.

Second, the fact that the believer was cleansed and yielded at the time of his baptism in the Spirit is not an automatic guarantee that he will always remain in that condition, even though he may still continue to speak in tongues.

At this point many people are likely to exclaim: “But surely if the person began to misuse God’s gift, God would withdraw the gift from him altogether!”

However, this supposition is not supported either by logic or by Scripture. From the viewpoint of logic, if a gift, once given, could thereafter be withdrawn at the will of the giver, then it was never a genuine gift in the first place. It was a loan or a conditional deposit, but not a free gift. A free gift, once given, passes out of the control of the giver and is thereafter under the sole control of the one who received it – whether to use, to abuse or not to use at all. Scripture confirms this point of logic: “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29).

This word irrevocable used here of God, and not of man, indicates that once God has given a gift, He never withdraws the gift again. Thereafter the responsibility to make the proper use of the gift rests not with God, the giver, but with man, the receiver. This important principle applies in all areas of God’s dealing with man, including that of the gifts of the Spirit.

This conclusion should be weighed with sober care by all those who are seeking or who have received the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the manifestation of speaking with other tongues. According to Scripture, it is not possible to receive this initial baptism without this outward manifestation. But it is possible, thereafter, to have the outward manifestation without retaining the inward fullness of the Spirit.

There is only one sure, scriptural test of continuing fullness of the Holy Spirit, and that is the love test. In the measure that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, in the same measure we shall be filled with divine love. We are not more filled with the Holy Spirit than we are filled with divine love. John applies this test in clear, simple terms.

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us . . . God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (1 John 4:12-13,16).

Likewise, Paul assigns to love a place of unique honor among all God’s gifts and graces.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13:13).

Of all the operations of the indwelling Spirit, the greatest and most enduring is the pouring out of divine love in the believer’s heart.

In these last four chapters we have considered eight important results which God desires to produce in the life of each individual believer through baptizing him in the Holy Spirit.

1. Power to witness.

2. The exalting and glorifying of Jesus.

3. A foretaste of heaven’s power and an entrance thereby into a supernatural life.

4. Help in prayer, lifting the believer far above his own natural strength or understanding.

5. A new understanding of the Scriptures.

6. Daily guidance in the path of God’s will.

7. Life and health for the physical body.

8. The pouring out of God’s love in the believer’s heart.

In our next section we will consider results produced by this same experience in the life and worship of a Christian’s congregation.

Continual Guidance and Overflowing Life

Let us consider two further ministries of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer: daily guidance in the path of God’s will, and the impartation of life and health to the believer’s physical body.

Daily Guidance

The first of these ministries, daily guidance, is described by Paul.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Rom. 8:14).

It is important to see that Paul here uses a continuing present tense: “as many as are [being regularly] led by the Spirit of God.” He is not talking about a few isolated experiences but about an ongoing way of life.

Many professing professing Christian’s, even among those who have been truly born again, do not attach sufficient importance to these words of Paul. They tend to place their whole emphasis on certain one-time experiences, such as the new birth or the baptism in the Holy Spirit, on which they base their claim to be considered professing Christian’s. It is certainly important to emphasise these decisive experiences, but not to the point where no mention is made of the need to walk daily in the grace of God.

In order to become a true Christian’s, a person must be born again of the Spirit of God. In order to become an effective witness for Jesus, a person must be baptised in the Holy Spirit. But the work of the Holy Spirit should never end there. In order to live daily as a Christian’s, a person must be led by the Spirit.

The new birth transforms sinners into children of God. But it requires the continual leading of the Holy Spirit to make children into mature sons.

In Romans 8:14 Paul takes for granted the two preliminary experiences of being born of the Holy Spirit and baptised in the Holy Spirit. He points out, however, that the only way to achieve spiritual maturity and success in daily Christian’s living is to depend upon the Spirit for moment-by-moment direction in every aspect of life. Only this will make it possible for the Holy Spirit to accomplish all the purposes for which He actually came to indwell the believer. This is in harmony with Paul’s comments.

For we are His workmanship, created in Jesus Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10).

As believers, Paul teaches, we are created anew by God through our faith in Jesus. Thereafter, to continue in the Christian’s life, we do not have to plan our own ways and activities. On the contrary, the same God who first foreknew us and then created us anew in Jesus also prepared from before the foundation of the world the good works which it was His will for each one of us to accomplish as professing Christian’s.

Therefore, we do not plan our own good works, but we seek to discover and then enter into the good works God has already planned for us. Here the guidance of the Holy Spirit becomes essential for each Christian’s. For it is the Holy Spirit who first reveals and then leads us into God’s plan for our lives.

Unfortunately, many professing Christian’s today have reversed this process. They first plan their own ways and their own activities, and then they say some kind of perfunctory prayer asking God to bless those activities. In reality, almighty God will never allow His approval or blessing to become a mere rubber stamp superimposed upon plans and activities concerning which His counsel has never been sincerely sought.

This error is common not only in the lives of individual professing Christian’s, but also in the activities of churches and other Christian organizations. Countless hours of labour and vast sums of money are squandered and lost, without any enduring fruit, simply because the counsel of God was never sincerely sought before these various activities were initiated.

In fact, in many Christian’s circles today, the greatest enemy of true spirituality and fruitfulness is time-consuming, sweat-producing activity labelled “Christian’s” in name but lacking the divine inbreathing and directing of the Holy Spirit.

The end products of all such activity are “wood, hay, straw” – all of which will be consumed, without residue or remainder, in the fire of God’s final judgement upon His people’s works (see 1 Cor. 3:12).

In contrast, one of the distinguishing marks of the New Testament church is the direct, continued, supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit in all its activities. Out of many possible examples of this in the book of Acts, let us consider one very characteristic incident from Paul’s second missionary journey, on which he was accompanied by Silas.

Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:6-10).

In considering this passage, we must bear in mind that Paul and Silas in their missionary undertaking were fulfilling the direct commission of Jesus to His disciples.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations (Matt. 28:19).

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15).

Notice how all-inclusive this commission is: “all the nations . . . every creature.”

In fulfillment of this commission, Paul and Silas had been preaching in Phrygia and Galatia – in the central part of what we today call Asia Minor. Their next obvious move would have been into the province of Asia, on the western edge of Asia Minor. However, the record of Acts says, “They were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.” As a result, they moved to the north of Asia, into Mysia.

From here, their next obvious move would have been northeast into Bithynia. However, at this point Acts records: “They tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them” (Acts 16:7).

Both of the obvious doors of evangelization – into Asia on the one side and into Bithynia on the other side – were closed to them by the direct, explicit decree of the Holy Spirit.

Doubtless, Paul and Silas began to wonder what God’s plan for them could be or what course they should follow next. But at this point Paul had a vision in the night of a man of Macedonia saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (v. 9). Without further question, they immediately realised that God was directing them to Macedonia – in the northern part of Greece and the southeastern corner of Europe. In this way the gospel was first brought out of Asia into Europe.

As we now look back over nineteen subsequent centuries of church history, we realise the decisive part played by the church in Europe, first in preserving the truth of the gospel and then in actively disseminating that truth throughout the rest of the world. We can understand, therefore, why, in the wisdom and foreknowledge of God, it was of the utmost urgency and importance that the gospel should, thus early, be planted in Europe by Paul himself, the chief apostle to the Gentiles.

However, Paul and Silas knew nothing of the course that history would take in the next nineteen centuries. Therefore, their taking of this epoch-making step into Europe was made possible solely through the supernatural revelation and direction of the Holy Spirit. If they had not been open to the Spirit’s guidance, they would have missed God’s plan, both for their own lives and also for the whole work of the gospel.

God’s supernatural direction of Paul through the Holy Spirit at this point is made all the more remarkable when we consider certain subsequent phases of Paul’s missionary activity.

Here in Acts 16 we read that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in the province of Asia, and therefore he journeyed past Asia and on into Europe. Yet in Acts 19 we read how Paul returned some time later to Ephesus, which was the main city of the province of Asia, and how there developed out of his preaching one of the greatest and most extensive revivals ever recorded in his whole ministry.

And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks (Acts 19:10).

Surely this is worthy of our careful consideration. Earlier Paul had not been allowed by the Holy Spirit even to enter Asia or to speak to a single soul there. Now, returning there at God’s appointed time and under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, Paul witnessed such an impact through the preaching of the gospel that every single human dwelling in the entire province came to hear the testimony of Jesus.

On the basis of these facts, we may form two conclusions:

If Paul had entered Asia on his first visit, contrary to the Spirit’s direction, he would have encountered nothing but frustration and failure.

By visiting Asia prematurely, before the Spirit led him there, Paul could easily have hindered, or even totally prevented, the subsequent mighty move of God’s Spirit which he was privileged to witness on his later visit.

What a lesson there is here for all who seek to preach the gospel or to witness for Jesus in any way! In every course of proposed activity, there are two factors of related importance which we must take into account:

the place,
the time.

In this, the revelation of Scripture anticipates the basic inclusion of the modern scientific theory of relativity: that we can never accurately specify place unless we also specify time. These two are interrelated and can never be separated.

This same truth was stated many centuries ago by Solomon.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven (Eccl. 3:1).

It is not enough merely to do the right thing or to have the right purpose. In order to enjoy success and the blessing of God, we must do the right thing at the right time, and we must carry out the right purpose at the right season. When God says, “Now,” it is vain for man to say, “Later.” And when God says, “Later,” it is vain for man to say, “Now.”

It is the God-appointed ministry of the Holy Spirit to reveal to the church not merely the right thing or the right purpose, but also the right time and the right season. Many sincere and well-meaning professing Christian’s who have not learned to make room for the guidance of the Holy Spirit encounter continual frustration in their lives simply through seeking to do the right thing at the wrong time and to carry out the right purpose at the wrong season. In this connection, the prophet Isaiah poses a very searching question.

Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counsellor has taught Him? (Is. 40:13).

Yet this is just what many professing Christian’s are doing today: They are seeking to direct the Spirit of the Lord and to act as counsellor to the Holy Spirit. They plan their own activities, conduct their own services and then tell the Holy Spirit just what, when and how they expect Him to bless. In how many congregations today is there any real room left for the Holy Spirit either to direct or to intervene?

The result of this wrong attitude toward the Holy Spirit can be summed up in one word: frustration.

Such believers may have a genuine experience of the new birth and even of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. They may be perfectly sincere in their profession of faith in Jesus. Nevertheless, in their daily lives they lack either victory or fruitfulness because they have overlooked this one cardinal rule of Christian’s living: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14).

Life for the Whole Person

The continual guidance of God in the life of the believer opens the way for yet another provision of His Spirit: overflowing life for his whole personality. The relationship between God’s guidance and this all-sufficient life is described beautifully in Isaiah.

The Lord will guide you continually,

And satisfy your soul in drought,

And strengthen your bones;

You shall be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail (Is. 58:11).

Isaiah depicts a person so continually guided by God that he has within him a spring of life which overflows throughout his whole personality, refreshing and renewing both his soul and his body.

In the New Testament Paul traces this overflowing life to its source: the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer.

[Jesus Christ was] declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4).

It was the “Spirit of holiness” – a Hebraic expression for “the Holy Spirit” – who raised up the dead body of Jesus from the grave, thus vindicating His claim to be the Son of God. The Holy Spirit will perform the same ministry for every believer whom He indwells.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Rom. 8:11).

This ministry of the Holy Spirit will receive its full and final outworking at the first resurrection, when He will raise up the righteous dead with the same kind of immortal body that Jesus already has.

He [God] who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you (2 Cor. 4:14).

However, this ministry of the Holy Spirit to the believer’s body also has an intermediate application in the present age. Even now the Spirit of God, indwelling the believer, imparts to his physical body a measure of divine life and health sufficient to arrest and exclude the satanic inroads of disease and infirmity. This is the supreme purpose for which Jesus came.

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly (John 10:10).

It has been said that the first portion of divine life comes through the new birth, but the overflowing of life more abundant comes through the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is God’s purpose, even in the present age, that this divine, overflowing, abundant life shall suffice not merely for the spiritual needs of the inward man – man’s spiritual nature – but also for the physical needs of the outer man – man’s physical body.

In this present age the believer has not yet received his resurrection body, but he already enjoys resurrection life in a mortal body.

Paul depicts this miracle of resurrection life in a mortal body against a background of tremendous pressures, both physical and spiritual.

We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:8-11).

What wonderful words! The very life of Jesus is to be manifested – its presence is to be demonstrated by the visible effects which it produces “in our body.” For the sake of emphasis Paul says this twice, but the second time he speaks of “our mortal flesh.” By this phrase he eliminates any interpretation which might seek to apply his words to a future state of the body after resurrection. He is talking about our present physical body. In the midst of all the pressures that come against it – both natural and satanic – it is sustained by an inner life which cannot be defeated.

This manifestation of the mighty, victorious, supernatural life of the risen Jesus in the believer’s body is not reserved merely for the resurrection, but it is to be effective even now while we still continue “in our mortal flesh.” The open manifestation of Jesus’s life in our body here and now is the basic, scriptural principle of divine healing and divine health.

Central to this ongoing miracle is a paradox that runs through the whole Bible: Death is the gateway to life. In each place where Paul testifies to the manifestation of Jesus’s life, he first speaks of identification with His death: “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.”

Jesus did not die a natural death; He died by crucifixion. To be identified with Him is to be crucified with Him. But out of crucifixion comes resurrection to an inner life that owes no further debt to sin or to Satan, to the flesh or to the world.

Paul presents both the negative and the positive side of this exchange.

I have been crucified with Jesus; it is no longer I who live, but Jesus lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2:20).

The same process of crucifixion that ends our frail, transient life in this world opens the way for a new life that is the life of God Himself, taking up residence in a vessel of clay. The vessel is still as frail as ever, but the new life in it is undefeatable and inexhaustible.

As long as this present world order continues, however, there will always be an ongoing tension between the frailty of the flesh and the new life in the Spirit.

Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).

The physical body is still subject to sickness and decay from without, but the resurrection life from within has power to hold them at bay until the believer’s life task is complete. After that, as Paul says, “to depart and be with Jesus . . . is far better” (Phil. 1:23).

On the Supernatural Plane

On the Supernatural Plane

In this session we shall continue to study the results which the baptism in the Holy Spirit is intended by God to produce in the life of each individual believer.

A Gateway to the Supernatural

For a third main result of this experience we may turn to the words of Hebrews 6:4-5, which speak of believers who:

. . . have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.

These words indicate that those who have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit have tasted the powers of the age to come. The baptism in the Holy Spirit gives the believer a foretaste of an altogether new kind of power – a supernatural power that belongs, in its fullness, to the next age.

For this reason Paul describes the seal of the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our inheritance.

In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:13-14).

An alternative translation for guarantee is “down payment.” The Greek word, which is borrowed from Hebrew, is arrabon. This is a very interesting word which I have encountered – with slight variations – in four different languages: Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and Swahili.

Its meaning was brought home to me in a vivid way many years ago. My wife, Carmen, and I had purchased to a new home for which we a down. I reminded the seller that I now regarded the home as already our property.

In the same way, the Lord gives us – through His Holy Spirit – a “down payment” of heavenly power and glory – a foretaste of the next age. This down payment sets us aside as His purchased property, not to be offered to any other purchaser. It is His guarantee, too, that at the appointed time He will return with the balance of payment and take us to His home, to be with Him forever. That is why Paul calls it “the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.”

Another beautiful illustration of what we receive through the baptism in the Holy Spirit is contained in the story of the healing of Naaman, the Syrian leper, recorded in 2 Kings 5. As a result of his miraculous healing Naaman came to acknowledge that the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel, was the only true God. He knew, however, that he would shortly have to return to an unclean, heathen land and be associated with the idolatrous ceremonies of a heathen temple. With this in mind, Naaman had one special request to make before leaving the land of Israel.

So Naaman said, “Then, if not, please let your servant be given two mule-loads of earth; for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord” (2 Kin. 5:17).

Why did Naaman desire to carry home soil from the land of Israel? He had realized the holiness of the Lord, and, in contrast, the uncleanness of his own land and people. He was determined, therefore, never again to offer worship from unclean earth.

The holiness of the Lord demanded that Naaman should stand and worship Him only on earth from the Lord’s own land. Since Naaman could not remain permanently in Israel, he determined to carry a portion of Israel’s earth home with him and to make there from that earth his own special place of worship.

So it is with the Spirit-baptised believer. He gains a new understanding of these words of Jesus:

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24).

Such a believer can no longer be satisfied with the mere forms and ceremonies of man-made worship. He has been in the heavenly land; he has had a glimpse of its glories and the holiness of God. He has brought back a portion of that sacred soil with him. No matter where circumstances may take him, he worships now not on an unclean land, but on holy ground. He worships in Spirit – the Holy Spirit – and in truth.

What is true in the worship of the Spirit-filled believer is equally true in every other aspect of his experience. Through the baptism in the Spirit he has entered into a new kind of supernatural life. The supernatural has become natural.

If we study the New Testament with an open mind, we are compelled to acknowledge that the whole life and experience of the early professing Christian’s was permeated by the supernatural. Supernatural experiences were not something incidental or additional; they were an integral part of their lives as professing Christian’s. Their praying was supernatural; their preaching was supernatural; they were supernaturally guided, supernaturally empowered, supernaturally transported, supernaturally protected.

Remove the supernatural from the book of Acts, and you are left with something that has no meaning or coherence. From the descent of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, it is impossible to find a single chapter in which the supernatural does not play an essential part.

In the account of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus we find a most arresting and thought-provoking expression.

Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul (Acts 19:11).

Consider the implications of that phrase “unusual miracles.” The Greek could be translated, somewhat freely, “miracles of a kind that do not happen every day.” Miracles were an everyday occurrence in the early church. Normally they would have caused no special surprise or comment. But the miracles granted here in Ephesus through the ministry of Paul were such that even the early church found them worthy of special record.

In how many churches today would we find occasion to use the phrase “miracles of a kind that do not happen every day”? In how many churches today do miracles ever happen – let alone happen every day?

The truth is, where we do not see and experience the supernatural, we have no right to speak of New Testament Christianity. These two things – the supernatural and New Testament Christianity – are inseparably interwoven.

Without the supernatural we may have New Testament doctrine, but it is bare doctrine, not experience. Such doctrine, divorced from supernatural experience, is of the kind described by Paul.

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6).

Only the Holy Spirit can give life to the letter of New Testament doctrine and make that doctrine a living, personal, supernatural way of life for each believer. One main purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is to do just this.

Spirit-empowered Prayer

A fourth main purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit concerns the prayer life of the believer.

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26-27).

Paul mentions one form of weakness which is common to all believers in their own natural condition and apart from the Holy Spirit. It is defined by Paul in the words “for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.” This weakness is not knowing how to pray in accordance with God’s will.

The only One to whom we can turn for help in this weakness is the Holy Spirit, for Paul says:

The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses . . . the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us . . . because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26-27).

Paul here speaks of the Spirit as a Person who indwells the believer and who makes the believer a vessel, or a channel, through which He offers prayer and intercession.

This is prayer of a kind which is far above the level of the believer’s own natural understanding or ability. In this kind of prayer the believer does not rely on his feelings or his understanding. He yields his body to the Holy Spirit as a temple in which the Spirit Himself conducts prayer, and he yields his members as instruments which the Spirit controls for purposes of supernatural intercession.

Concerning prayer, the New Testament sets a standard to which the believer can never attain in his own natural strength or understanding. In this way God deliberately shuts the believer up in a place where he is obliged either to fall below the divine standard or else to depend upon the supernatural assistance of the indwelling Spirit.

For example, Paul says:

. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit (Eph. 6:18).

And again:

Pray without ceasing . . . Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:17,19).

No person in his own unaided strength or understanding can fulfill these commandments. No person can “pray always” or “pray without ceasing.” But that which is impossible in the natural is made possible by the indwelling, supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, Paul is careful to emphasize the believer’s dependence upon the Holy Spirit. He says, “Praying always . . . in the Spirit,” and again, “Pray without ceasing . . . Do not quench the Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit indwelling the believer in the New Testament corresponds to the fire supernaturally kindled upon the altar of the tabernacle in the Old Testament. Concerning this fire, the Lord ordained:

A perpetual fire shall burn on the altar; it shall never go out (Lev. 6:13).

The corresponding New Testament ordinance is contained in the words of Paul: “Pray without ceasing . . . Do not quench the Spirit.” Where the Spirit-baptised believer yields full control to the Spirit within and does not by carelessness or carnality quench the Spirit’s fire, there burns within the temple of that believer’s body a fire of supernatural prayer and worship which never goes out, day or night. Few people realize the limitless potentialities of Holy Spirit prayer within the temple of a believer’s yielded body.

Some years ago when I conducted regular street meetings in Los Angeles, Ca, a young woman of Catholic background was saved and baptised in the Holy Spirit. She was working as a maid in a Los Angeles hotel, and she shared a bedroom there with another young woman of her own age and background. One day this other woman came to her and said, “Tell me, what is that strange language you speak to yourself every night in bed after you seem to have gone to sleep?”

“I can’t tell you that,” the first young woman answered, “because I never even knew that I was speaking any language.”

In this way she learned to her surprise that every night after she had gone to sleep, without the conscious exercise of her own faculties, she was speaking with other tongues as the Holy Spirit gave her utterance.

So it is to be filled with and yielded to the Holy Spirit. When we come to the end of our own natural strength and understanding, the Holy Spirit can take over our faculties and conduct His own worship and prayer through us.

This is the picture given of the bride of Jesus in the Song of Solomon.

I sleep, but my heart is awake (5:2).

The bride may sleep; she may be physically and mentally exhausted. But in the innermost depths of her being there dwells One who never slumbers or sleeps – the Holy Spirit Himself. Even through the hours of darkness there burns upon the altar of her heart a fire that never goes out – a fire of worship and prayer that is the life of the Holy Spirit within.

This is the Bible pattern for the prayer life of the church in this present age. But such a life of prayer is possible only through the supernatural, indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Revelation of the Scriptures

A fifth great purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit may become our guide and teacher in relation to the Scriptures. Jesus promises this to His disciples in two passages in John’s Gospel.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you (John 14:26).

During His earthly ministry Jesus taught His disciples much, especially concerning His death and resurrection, which they were unable either to understand or remember.

However, Jesus assured them that after the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them, He would become their personal teacher and enable them to remember and understand correctly all that Jesus had taught them during His earthly ministry. Nor would the Holy Spirit confine Himself only to interpreting the teachings of Jesus while on earth; He would also lead the disciples into a full understanding of God’s whole revelation to man.

However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth [more literally, into all the truth]; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak (John 16:13).

Here the phrase “all the truth” may be interpreted by reference to the words of Jesus: “Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

Jesus promises His disciples that the Holy Spirit will lead them into a correct understanding of the entire revelation of God to man through the Scriptures. This includes the Old Testament Scriptures, the teaching of Jesus during His earthly ministry and also the further revelation of truth given to the church after Pentecost through Paul and others of the apostles.

The Holy Spirit is given to the church to become the revelator, interpreter and teacher of the whole compass of divine revelation in the Scriptures.

The fulfillment of Jesus’s promise that the Holy Spirit would interpret the Scriptures for the disciples is dramatically illustrated in the events of the day of Pentecost. As soon as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples and they began to speak with other tongues, the question was raised: Whatever could this mean? Peter answered:

But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,

That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:16-17).

Without a moment’s hesitation, Peter quotes and interprets a prophecy concerning the last days given in the second chapter of Joel. In the sermon which follows, almost half of what Peter says is direct quotation from the Old Testament Scriptures. The teaching of these Scriptures is applied in a clear and forceful way to the events of Jesus’s death and resurrection and of the Holy Spirit’s outpouring.

It is difficult to imagine any greater contrast between the exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures here given by Peter and the lack of understanding concerning the same Scriptures displayed by Peter and all the other disciples during the earthly ministry of Jesus and up to the day of Pentecost.

It would appear that this total change in the disciples’ understanding of the Scriptures was not a gradual process but was produced instantaneously by the coming of the Holy Spirit. As soon as the Holy Spirit came to indwell them, their understanding of the Scriptures was supernaturally illuminated. Their previous doubts and confusion were immediately replaced by clear understanding and forceful application.

This same dramatic transformation continues to be a distinctive mark of Spirit-filled believers from the day of Pentecost onward.

For example, Saul of Tarsus had been trained in the knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures by Gamaliel, the most famous teacher of his day. Yet in his early years he had no light or understanding on their correct application. It was only after Ananias in Damascus laid hands on Saul and prayed that he might be filled with the Holy Spirit that the scales fell from his eyes and he was able to understand and apply those Scriptures.

Immediately he preached the Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God (Acts 9:20).

Notice that word “immediately.” There was not a slow, gradual struggle for understanding but rather an instant illumination. The moment the Holy Spirit came in, He cast an altogether new light upon Scriptures which Saul had known for many years but had never known how to apply or interpret.

What the Holy Spirit did for Peter and Saul, and for the New Testament professing Christian’s as a whole, He is still willing and able to do for all professing Christian’s today. But first each believer must, through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, personally receive this wonderful, indwelling guide, teacher and expositor.

The Spirit Filled Believer

Power and Glory

In the last session we have seen that the Holy Spirit is not a dictator. He will not do for us – or through us – more than we allow Him to. There are three main areas to which we may apply this principle:

1) the life of the individual believer;

2) the worship and service of a congregation as a whole;

3) the ministry of a preacher of the gospel.

In this section we shall consider the first of these areas. What main results is the baptism in the Holy Spirit intended to produce in the life of each individual Christian’s? We shall look at eight specific results.

Power to Witness

Jesus Himself points to the first of these results in two passages where He gives final words of direction to His disciples before His ascension into heaven.

Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49).

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

In these passages Jesus gives His outline plan for the spread of the gospel in the present age. It is extremely simple. It contains three successive stages.

1. Each believer is to be personally empowered by the Holy Spirit.

2. Each believer, thus empowered by the Spirit, is by his personal testimony to win others to Jesus.

3. These others (that are won) are in their turn to be empowered by the Spirit to win yet others.

In this way the testimony of Jesus is to be extended outward from Jerusalem in ever-widening circles of power until it has reached the end of the earth; that is, until it has reached all nations and every creature.

This plan is both simple and practical. Whenever it is applied, it will always work. It would make possible the evangelization of the entire world in any century in which the church would put the plan to work. There is no other alternative plan which can accomplish the same result.

In these passages the key word is power. The Greek word is dunamis, from which we get such English words as “dynamo,” “dynamic,” “dynamite.” The impression produced by these English derivative words is essentially that of a forceful, explosive impact.

In this respect, the New Testament observes a logical distinction between the primary results of the new birth and the primary results of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

The primary concept associated with the new birth is authority.

But as many as received Him [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12).

This passage describes the new birth, for in the next verse we are told that these people who received Jesus “were born of God.” The Greek word here translated “the right” is exousia. Exousia denotes a being or a nature which is derived from some external source. In other words, the person who receives Jesus as Savior receives, in Jesus, the being or nature of God Himself. The receiving of this new life or nature from God produces within the believer the new birth.

The English word most commonly used to translate this Greek word exousia is “authority.”

This is the distinctive mark of the born-again child of God. He is no longer a slave of sin and Satan. He is a son of God. As such, he possesses a new authority. He no longer succumbs to temptation or opposition. He meets and overcomes these things by virtue of the new life within him. He is an overcomer. He has authority.

However, authority is not at all the same as power. The first disciples already had this authority from the time of Jesus’s resurrection onward. They were already “sons of God.” They were able to lead godly, overcoming lives. They were no longer the slaves of sin. However, during the period from the resurrection to the day of Pentecost, these first disciples made very little positive impact upon the great majority of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. As a whole, during this period Jerusalem was very little changed or affected by the fact of Jesus’s resurrection.

All this was abruptly and dramatically changed, however, by the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. As soon as the 120 believers in the upper room were baptised in the Holy Spirit, the whole of Jerusalem immediately felt the impact. Within an hour or two a crowd of many thousands had gathered, and before the day closed three thousand Jesus-rejecting unbelievers had been gloriously converted, baptised and added to the church.

What produced these dramatic results? The adding of power to authority. Before the day of Pentecost the disciples already had authority. After Pentecost they had authority plus power – they had the power that was needed to make their authority fully effective.

The evidence and outworking of this new, supernatural power are conspicuous in the ensuing chapters of the book of Acts.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness (4:31).

And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus (4:33).

The high priest complained to the apostles:

And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine (5:28).

The same city-shaking impact continued to make itself felt thereafter in every place where the early professing Christian’s presented the testimony of the risen Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

For instance, we read concerning Samaria:

And there was great joy in that city (8:8).

Concerning the city of Antioch in Pisidia, it says:

And the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God (13:44).

In the city of Philippi the opponents of the gospel complained concerning Paul and Silas:

These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city (16:20).

In Thessalonica the opponents of the gospel said of Paul and Silas:

These who have turned the world upside down have come here too (17:6).

As a result of the opposition to Paul’s preaching in Ephesus:

The whole city was filled with confusion (19:29).

One common feature marked the advent of these early Christian’s witnesses in every place: a mighty spiritual impact upon the whole community. In some places there was a revival, in some there was a riot; quite often there were both together. But there were two things that could not survive this impact: ignorance and indifference.

Today, in many places, the conduct and experience of professing Christian’s are very different. This applies even to many groups of professing Christian’s who have a genuine experience of the new birth. They meet regularly in a church building for worship; they lead decent, respectable lives; they cause no trouble; they provoke no riots; they arouse no opposition. But, alas! They make no impact. In the community all around them, ignorance and indifference concerning spiritual things prevail, unchanged and unchallenged.

The vast majority of their neighbors neither know nor care what these professing Christian’s believe or why they attend church.

So what is lacking? The answer lies in one word: power. The explosive dynamite of the Holy Spirit has been left out of these professing Christian’s’ lives. And nothing else can take its place.

The Christian’s church as a whole needs to face up to the challenge of Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:20:

For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.

Once again, the Greek word which Paul here uses is dunamis – explosive power. It is not a question merely of the words we speak but of the power which makes our words effective. The key to this spiritual power is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. For this there is no substitute.

We see, then, that according to the New Testament the primary result of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a supernatural enduement with power from on high to become an effective witness for Jesus.

Glorification of Jesus

The second main result of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is indicated by Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost.

Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He [Jesus] poured out this which you now see and hear (Acts 2:33).

The baptism in the Holy Spirit, which Peter and the other disciples had just received, constituted for each of them direct, personal evidence and assurance that their risen Lord was now both exalted and glorified at the Father’s right hand.

Ten days earlier a little group of them had stood on the Mount of Olives and watched Jesus be taken up from them out of their sight.

And a cloud received Him out of their sight (Acts 1:9).

That was the last physical contact the disciples had with Jesus. Then, ten days later on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit’s coming gave to each disciple a new, direct and personal contact with Jesus. Each one now knew with a fresh assurance that their Saviour, whom the world had despised, rejected and crucified, was henceforth and forever exalted and glorified at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

Only from the Father’s presence could Jesus have received this wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit which He, in turn, imparted to His waiting disciples. Receiving this gift gave them total assurance that Jesus was actually in the glory of the Father’s presence, invested with authority and power over the entire universe.

There are many Scripture passages which emphasize the supreme exaltation of Jesus Christ.

He [God] raised Him [Jesus] from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1:20-23).

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name (Phil. 2:9).

When He had by Himself purged our sins, [He] sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they (Heb. 1:3-4).

Listen to what Peter says of Jesus after His resurrection:

. . . who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him (1 Pet. 3:22).

Through these and other scriptures every believer understands by faith that Jesus Jesus is not merely risen from the dead; He is also ascended and glorified at the Father’s right hand. However, the believer who receives the baptism in the Holy Spirit receives with it a new kind of direct, personal evidence and assurance of Jesus’s exaltation in power and glory at the Father’s throne.

Often when a loved one leaves us on a journey to some new destination, we urge him, “Be sure to send us a letter to let us know you have arrived safely.” When the letter arrives in the loved one’s own handwriting, postmarked with the name of the city of destination, we know with full assurance that he is in the very place he told us he would be.

So it is with the baptism in the Holy Spirit. For the disciples on the day of Pentecost – and for every individual believer who receives the same experience – it is like a personal letter from Jesus. The postmark on the letter is “Glory,” and the message reads: “I am here, just as I said, at the seat of all authority and power.”

I am reminded of a conversation I once had, while serving as principal of a college in East Africa, with a minister of one of the older denominations. This minister was questioning me about my personal experience of receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He designated the experience by the title “Pentecostalism,” and he obviously regarded the whole thing with some suspicion, as the product of some new and eccentric religious sect.

“Now let me see,” he said. “That started in America, I believe. It comes from the United States, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, no!” I replied. “You’re quite wrong about that! This thing started in Jerusalem, and it comes from heaven!”

So it is with every believer who has received the baptism in the Holy Spirit as the first disciples received it on the day of Pentecost. This experience gives him a new, direct contact in two directions: 1) with the glorified Jesus at the Father’s right hand in heaven; 2) with the New Testament church as it came into being in Jerusalem and as it is thereafter pictured in the book of Acts.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit gives a new meaning, a new reality, a new assurance, both concerning the exaltation of Jesus and the life and activity of the New Testament church. Things that before were historical or doctrinal facts accepted by bare faith become, for each Spirit-filled believer, thrilling realities in his own experience.

This is in line with the statement that in the days of Jesus’s earthly ministry “the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39).

We have already seen earlier that the Holy Spirit could not be given to the church before Jesus was glorified with the Father in heaven. Only the glorified Jesus was worthy to exercise the privilege, bestowed by the Father, of giving this wonderful gift. Therefore, the fact that this gift was bestowed upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost was in itself evidence that Jesus had been glorified.

Invariably, throughout the New Testament, we find perfect harmony and co-operation between the three Persons of the triune Godhead. When Jesus Jesus, the second Person of the Godhead, came to earth, He came as the personal, authoritative representative of God the Father. He never sought any kind of honour or glory for Himself. His words and His works, His wisdom and His miracles, He invariably ascribed not to Himself but to His Father, dwelling and working in Him.

Likewise, when Jesus finished His earthly ministry and returned to the Father in heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit as His personal gift and representative to His church. The Holy Spirit, coming as the representative of the second Person, the Son of God, never seeks His own glory. His whole ministry on earth and in the church is always directed to uplifting, magnifying and glorifying the

One He represents – Jesus.

Jesus Himself spoke of this aspect of the Spirit’s ministry.

He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you (John 16:14-15).

Here we see the relationship between the three Persons of the Godhead very clearly unfolded. The Father bestows all His authority, power and glory upon the Son. The Son in turn appoints the Holy Spirit as His representative to reveal and interpret to the church all that He has received from the Father.

The Holy Spirit is just as much a Person as the Father and the Son. Therefore Jesus, during the present dispensation, has one, and only one, personal and authoritative representative in the church and on earth. That representative is none other than the Holy Spirit.

This revelation of the Holy Spirit’s ministry provides a simple way to test anything that claims to be inspired by the Spirit. Does it glorify Jesus? If the answer is not a clear yes, we have every right to question whether we are dealing with a genuine operation or manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

We find, then, a kind of divine jealousy between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, the Holy Spirit is jealous of any trend or teaching that detracts from the honour of Jesus as head over the church. On the other hand, Jesus refuses to lend His authority to any ministry or movement that does not recognise the unique position of the Holy Spirit as His representative within the church.

The glory of Jesus and the ministry of the Holy Spirit are inseparably linked together.

Purposes of Pentecost

Purposes of Pentecost

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.

1 Corinthians 12:7

Introduction and Warning

In a previous session we considered the practical steps of faith and obedience by which a person may receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Leading on from that is a further practical question: Why is the baptism in the Holy Spirit given? Or, to put it another way, what results does God desire to produce in the life of the believer through baptizing him in the Holy Spirit?

Before giving a scriptural answer to this question, however, it is first necessary to clear up common misunderstandings which often trouble people who have newly received the baptism in the Spirit and which thus prevent them from receiving the full benefits and blessings God intended for them through this experience.

The Holy Spirit Is Not a Dictator

The first point which needs to be emphasized is that, in the life of the believer, the Holy Spirit never plays the role of a dictator.

When Jesus promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to His disciples, He spoke of Him in terms such as Helper, Comforter, Guide or Teacher. The Holy Spirit always keeps Himself within these limits. He never usurps the will or the personality of the believer. He never compels the believer to do anything against the believer’s own will or choice.

The Holy Spirit is also called “the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29). He is far too gracious to impose Himself upon the believer or to force His way into any area of the believer’s personality where He is not received as a welcome guest.

Paul emphasizes the freedom that proceeds from the Holy Spirit.

Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [freedom] (2 Cor. 3:17).

Paul contrasts this freedom of the Spirit-baptised Christian’s believer with the bondage of Israel to the law of Moses, and he reminds professing Christian’s:

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage [slavery] again to fear (Rom. 8:15).

It follows, therefore, that the extent to which the Holy Spirit will control and direct the believer is the extent to which the believer will voluntarily yield to the Holy Spirit and accept His control and direction. John the Baptist says:

For God does not give the Spirit by measure (John 3:34).

The measure is not in God’s giving; the measure is in our receiving. We may have as much of the Holy Spirit as we are willing to receive. But in order to receive Him, we must voluntarily yield to Him and accept His control. He will never force us to do anything against our own will.

Some believers make just this mistake when seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit. They imagine that the Holy Spirit will move them so forcefully that they will be literally compelled to speak with other tongues, without any act of their own will. However, this will never happen. Consider the experience of the first disciples on the day of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2:4.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and [they] began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The disciples first began to speak themselves, and then the Holy Spirit gave them utterance. If the disciples had never voluntarily begun to speak, the Holy Spirit would never have given them utterance. He would never have forced utterance upon them without their own voluntary co-operation. In this matter of speaking with other tongues, there must be co-operation on the part of the believer with the Holy Spirit.

Someone has summed up this two-way relationship between the Holy Spirit and the believer as follows:

The believer cannot do it without the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit will not do it without the believer.

This co-operation with the Holy Spirit continues to be just as necessary even after receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Here again some believers make a great mistake in supposing that, after they have received the initial infilling of the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking with tongues, thereafter the Holy Spirit will automatically exercise full control of their whole being without any further response or co-operation on their part. But this is far from being true.

We have already quoted Paul as saying, “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). The Holy Spirit is indeed Lord – just as fully as God the Father and God the Son. But He, like the Father and the Son, waits for the believer to acknowledge His lordship.

In order to make the lordship of the Spirit an effective reality in his daily life, the believer must continually yield to the Spirit’s control every area of his personality and every department of his life. Someone has very truly said that it requires at least as much faith, consecration and prayer to keep filled with the Spirit as it required to receive the initial infilling.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is not the final goal of the Christian’s experience; it is an initial gateway leading into a new realm of Christian’s living. After entering in through this gateway, each believer has a personal responsibility to press on with faith and determination and to explore for himself all the wonderful potentialities of this new realm into which he has entered.

The believer who fails to realize and apply this truth will experience few, if any, of the benefits or blessings which God intended for him through the baptism in the Holy Spirit. In all probability, such a believer will become a disappointment and a stumbling block, both to himself and to other professing Christian’s.

Utilizing God’s Total Provision

This leads us to another area of misunderstanding which must be cleared up. A careful study of the New Testament makes it plain that God has made full provision to meet every need of every believer, in every area of his being and in every aspect of his experience. As clear proof of this, we may cite two very powerful verses from the New Testament.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, have an abundance for every good work (2 Cor. 9:8).

His [God’s] divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue (2 Pet. 1:3).

These verses reveal that God’s grace and power combined, through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, have already made complete provision for every need of the believer. No need can ever arise for which God has not already made a perfect provision through Jesus Jesus.

If we now go on to consider the various parts of God’s total provision for the believer, we find that they are manifold and that one part of God’s provision is not a substitute for any other part. It is here that so many believers make a serious mistake: They try to make one part of God’s provision serve as a substitute for some other part. But God never intended it to be that way, and therefore it does not work.

As a practical example of God’s provision for the believer, we may consider Paul’s list of spiritual armor. Paul says: “Put on the whole amour of God” (Eph. 6:11). And again: “Therefore take up the whole armor of God” (Eph 6:13).

In both these verses Paul emphasizes that, for full protection, the Christian’s must put on the complete amour, not just a few parts of it. In the next four verses Paul enumerates the following six items of amour: the girdle of truth; the breastplate of righteousness; the shoes of the preparation of the gospel; the shield of faith; the helmet of salvation; the sword of the Spirit.

The Christian’s who puts on all six items of armour is fully protected from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. But if he omits only one part of the armour, his protection ceases to be complete.

For example, if a Christian’s puts on all the other five items but leaves off the helmet, he is likely to be wounded in the head. Once wounded there, his ability to make use of the rest of the armour will be impaired. Conversely, a Christian’s might put on the helmet and all the rest of the armour for the body, but omit the shoes.

In this case his ability to march over rough ground would be affected, and thus his total usefulness as a soldier would be impaired. Or again, a Christian’s might put on all five items of defensive armour but fail to carry the sword. In this case he would have no means of keeping his enemy at a distance or wielding an active attack against him.

We see, therefore, that for full protection a Christian’s must put on all six items of armour which God has provided. He cannot omit any one piece and expect that another piece will serve as a substitute. God does not intend it that way. He has provided a complete set of armour, and He expects the Christian’s to put it all on.

The same principle applies to the whole of God’s provision for the Christian’s. Epaphras prayed that the professing Christian’s at Colosse “may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Col. 4:12). In order to stand thus perfect and complete in the fullness of God’s will, a Christian’s must avail himself of all that God has provided for him through Jesus. He cannot omit any part of God’s total provision and then expect that some other part will serve as a substitute for that which has been omitted.

Yet it is just at this point that so many professing Christian’s go astray in their thinking. Consciously or unconsciously they reason that because they know they have availed themselves of some parts of God’s provision for them, they do not need to concern themselves about other parts which they have omitted.

For instance, some professing Christian’s lay great emphasis upon witnessing by word of mouth but are neglectful about the practical aspects of daily Christian’s living. Conversely, other professing Christian’s are careful about their conduct but fail to witness openly to their friends and neighbor’s. Each of these types of professing Christian’s tends to criticize or despise the other. Yet both alike are at fault. Good Christian’s living is no substitute for witnessing by word of mouth. On the other hand, witnessing by word of mouth is no substitute for good Christian’s living. God requires both. The believer who omits either one or the other does not stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

Many other similar instances could be quoted. For example, some believers lay great stress on spiritual gifts but neglect spiritual fruit. Others lay all their emphasis on spiritual fruit but display no zeal in seeking spiritual gifts. Paul says:

Pursue love [that is, spiritual fruit], and desire spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:1).

In other words, God requires both spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit. Gifts are no substitute for fruit, and fruit is no substitute for gifts.

Again, in presenting the gospel, there are those who stress only the facts of God’s foreknowledge and predestination; others present only those texts which deal with the free response of man’s will. Often these two different lines of approach lead to some kind of doctrinal conflict. Yet each by itself is incomplete and even misleading. The total plan of salvation contains room both for God’s predestination and for man’s free choice. It is wrong to emphasize either to the exclusion of the other.

This same general principle applies also to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. For those believers who sincerely desire to enter into all the fullness of victorious and fruitful Christian’s living, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is the greatest single help that God has provided. But even so, it is no substitute for any of the other main parts of Christian’s experience or duty.

For example, the baptism in the Spirit is no substitute for regular personal Bible study or for a daily life of consecration and self-denial or for faithful participation in a spiritually minded local church.

A believer who is faithful in all these other aspects of the Christian’s life but who has not received the baptism in the Holy Spirit will probably prove a more effective Christian’s than one who has received the baptism in the Spirit but who neglects these other aspects of the Christian’s life. On the other hand, if the believer who is already faithful in these other duties receives the baptism in the Holy Spirit, he will immediately find that the benefits and the effectiveness of all his other activities will be wonderfully enriched and increased by this new experience.

We may illustrate this point by the example of two men, Mr. A and Mr. B, each of whom has the task of watering a garden. Mr. A has the advantage of using a hose attached directly to a tap. Mr. B has only a watering can which he must fill from the tap and then carry back and forth to each place in the garden where water is needed. Obviously Mr. A starts with a great advantage. He needs only to carry the nozzle of the hose in his hand and then direct the water wherever he wishes. Mr. B has the labour of carrying the can to and fro the whole time.

Let us suppose, however, that Mr. B has a great superiority of character over Mr. A. Mr. A is by nature lazy, erratic, unreliable. Sometimes he forgets to water the garden altogether. At other times he waters some areas but omits those which need watering most urgently. At other times he takes no care to direct the hose correctly, wasting large quantities of water in places where it is not needed and can do no good.

On the other hand, Mr. B is active, diligent and reliable. He never forgets to water the garden at any time. He never overlooks any areas that urgently need water. He never wastes any of the water from his can but carefully directs each drop where it will do the utmost good.

What will be the result? Obviously Mr. B will have a much more fruitful and attractive garden than Mr. A. However, it would be quite wrong to deduce from this that, as a means of watering a garden, a watering can is superior to a hose.

The superiority is not that of the watering can over the hose, but that of Mr. B’s whole character over Mr. A’s. This is proved by the fact that if Mr. B now changes over from the watering can to the hose and continues as faithful with the hose as he was previously with the can, the results he will be able to achieve with the hose will far excel those which he previously achieved with the can. Furthermore, he will save himself a great deal of time and effort, which he will be free to devote to other useful purposes.

Let us now apply this little parable to the experience of the baptism in the Spirit. Mr. A, with the hose, represents the believer who has received the baptism in the Spirit but who is lazy, erratic and unreliable in other main aspects of Christian’s duty. Mr. B, with the watering can, represents the believer who has not received the baptism in the Spirit but who is active, diligent and reliable in other areas of Christian’s duty.

In all probability Mr. B will prove to be a more fruitful and effective Christian’s than Mr. A. However, it would be quite illogical to conclude from this that there is anything amiss with the baptism in the Spirit as Mr. A received it. The fault lies not in the experience itself but in the failure of Mr. A to make the right use of it in his daily life.

Furthermore, although Mr. B’s general faithfulness of character already makes him an effective and fruitful Christian’s, the same faithfulness, when enriched and empowered by the baptism in the Spirit, would enable him to become even more fruitful and effective than he was previously.

However much we may admire Mr. B’s faithfulness, we still cannot deny that he is foolish not to seek and receive the baptism in the Spirit. He is foolish not to exchange the watering can for the hose.

We see, then, that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is not just an unusual and isolated phenomenon which can be detached from the whole context of Christian’s experience and duty as revealed in the New Testament. On the contrary, the baptism in the Spirit will only produce the benefits and blessings which God intends when it is joined together in active Christian’s service with all the other main parts of God’s total provision for the believer. Isolated from the rest of Christian’s life and service, it loses its true significance and fails to achieve its true purpose.

In fact, to seek the baptism in the Spirit without sincerely purposing to use the power thus received in scriptural service for Jesus can be extremely dangerous.

A New Realm of Spiritual Conflict

One reason for this is that the baptism in the Spirit does not merely lead into a realm of new spiritual blessing; it leads also into a realm of new spiritual conflict. As a logical consequence, increased power from God will always bring with it increased opposition from Satan.

The Christian’s who makes sensible, scriptural use of the power received through the baptism in the Spirit will be in a position to meet and overcome the increased opposition of Satan. On the other hand, the Christian’s who receives the baptism in the Spirit but neglects the other aspects of Christian’s duty will find himself in an exceedingly dangerous position. He will discover that the baptism in the Spirit has opened up his spiritual nature to entirely new forms of satanic attack or oppression, but he will be without the God-appointed means to discern the true nature of Satan’s attack or to defend himself against it.

Quite often such a Christian’s will find his mind invaded by strange moods of doubt or fear or depression, or he will be exposed to moral or spiritual temptation which he never experienced before receiving the baptism in the Spirit. Unless he is forewarned and forearmed to meet these new forms of satanic attack, he may easily succumb to the wiles and onslaughts of the enemy and fall back to a lower spiritual level than he was on before he entered this new realm of conflict.

The life of Jesus provides a graphic example of this truth. At His baptism in the Jordan the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove and remained on Him. Immediately after this the Holy Spirit led Him to a direct personal encounter with Satan.

Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil (Luke 4:1-2).

Luke emphasizes at this point that Jesus was now “filled with the Holy Spirit.” This was the very cause of His being thrust into direct conflict with the devil at this stage in His ministry.

In the next eleven verses Luke records how Jesus met and overcame the three successive temptations of Satan. He concludes:

Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee (Luke 4:14).

Notice the new phrase Luke uses here: “in the power of the Spirit.” When Jesus went into the wilderness, He was already “filled with the Spirit.” But when He came out of the wilderness, He came “in the power of the Spirit.” This represents a higher level of spiritual experience. The full power of the Holy Spirit was now freely at His disposal for use in His God-appointed ministry. How had He entered into this higher level of experience? By meeting and overcoming Satan face-to-face.

Furthermore, in overcoming Satan, Jesus used one weapon, and only one – “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). Each time Satan tempted Him, Jesus began His answer with the phrase “It is written.” That is, He encountered Satan with the direct quotation of God’s written Word. Against this weapon Satan has no defence.

This part of the experience of Jesus is a pattern for all those who will follow Him into the Spirit-filled life and ministry. In the life of every believer it is God’s unchanging purpose that the fullness of the Holy Spirit should be joined together with the regular, effective use of God’s Word. Only by this means can the believer expect to come victorious through the new spiritual conflicts which the baptism in the Holy Spirit will inevitably bring upon him.

Since the Word of God is called “the sword of the Spirit,” it follows that the believer who does not use God’s Word automatically deprives the Holy Spirit of the main weapon which He desires to use on the believer’s behalf. As a result, the believer’s whole spiritual protection becomes inadequate. On the other hand, the believer who at this stage faithfully studies and applies God’s Word will find that this weapon is now being wielded on his behalf by a power and a wisdom far greater than his own – the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit Himself.

Old Testament Patterns for New Testament Salvation

Throughout this section we have been considering that part of Christian’s doctrine which is called “the doctrine of baptisms” (Heb. 6:2).

The New Testament actually refers to four distinct types of baptism:

1. 1. the baptism of John the Baptist,
  2. Christian’s baptism in water,
  3. the baptism of suffering and
  4. the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Of these four types of baptism, the two which are most directly related to the experience of all Christian’s believers in this dispensation are the second and the fourth – that is, Christian’s baptism in water and the baptism in the Holy Spirit. For this reason we have concentrated our attention mainly on these two forms of baptism.

The time has now come to see how they are related to each other and to the other parts of God’s plan and provision for professing Christian’s. We may put the question in this form: What part do baptism in water and baptism in the Holy Spirit play in the total plan of God for all New Testament believers?

We shall follow an approach to this question frequently employed by the writers of the New Testament. We shall view God’s deliverance of Israel out of Egypt as a type or pattern of the greater deliverance from the slavery of sin and Satan offered to the whole human race through Jesus Jesus. We will focus on three specific features of Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt and use these to illustrate three main elements in the salvation provided for all men through Jesus.

Salvation Through Blood

First of all, God sent His appointed deliverer, Moses, to Israel right where they were, in the midst of Egypt in their misery and slavery. There He saved them from wrath and from judgement through their faith in the blood of the sacrifice which He had appointed – the Passover lamb.

In the New Testament John the Baptist – the forerunner sent to prepare the way before Jesus – introduced Him with the words: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Thus he proclaimed Jesus as the appointed Savior whose sacrificial death and shed blood would accomplish all that had been foreshadowed by the Passover lamb.

Looking back on Jesus’s death and resurrection, Paul says: “Jesus, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7).

The Passover lamb provided temporary deliverance for Israel from physical slavery. The sacrifice of Jesus Jesus provided eternal salvation for all who put their faith in His shed blood as the propitiation for their sins.

It was not God’s purpose, however, for Israel to remain any longer in Egypt. The very same night that the Passover was sacrificed, Israel began their exodus, no longer a rabble of slaves but now an army in ordered ranks. There was urgency in all that they did. They took their bread before it was leavened. They marched in haste, with their loins girded and their staves in their hands.

In like manner, God meets the sinner right where he is in the world and saves him in the depths of his need and bondage. But God does not leave the sinner there. Immediately He calls him out into a totally new way of life – a life of separation and sanctification.

A Double Baptism

Paul describes the next two stages in Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt.

Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Jesus (1 Cor. 10:1-4).

Just a little further on in the same chapter Paul relates these experiences of Israel in the Old Testament to corresponding experiences of professing Christian’s in the New Testament.

Now these things became our examples (1 Cor. 10:6).

Now all these things happened to them as examples [as types or patterns of behavior], and they were written for our admonition [that is, to instruct and warn us], on whom the ends of the ages have come [that is, for us who now live in the closing dispensation of the present age] (1 Cor. 10:11).

In other words, Paul says these experiences of Israel in the Old Testament are not merely interesting historical events in the past, but they also contain an urgent and important message for us as professing Christian’s in this age. They are specially recorded, by divine direction, as patterns of behavior which God intends to be carefully followed by all Christian’s believers in this dispensation.

With this in mind, let us consider carefully just what examples or lessons Paul sets before us in the first four verses of the chapter.

First of all we notice the very short but important word all occurs no less than five times. Paul says:

All our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink (1 Cor. 10:1-4, italics added).

Clearly, Paul is emphasizing that all these examples or patterns are to be followed by all God’s believing people. God does not leave room for any exceptions. These things are for all His people.

What are the particular patterns to which Paul refers too? There are four successive experiences:

1) all were under the cloud;

2) all passed through the sea;

3) all ate the same spiritual food;

4) all drank the same spiritual drink.

These four experiences are also to be followed by God’s people today:

1) passing under the cloud;

2) passing through the sea;

3) eating the same spiritual food;

4) drinking the same spiritual drink.

Just how do these four patterns relate to the experience of believers in this dispensation? What is their lesson for us as professing Christian’s today?

We notice, first of all, that these four experiences naturally fall into two distinct pairs.

The first two – passing under the cloud and through the sea – were single experiences that occurred only once.

The second two – eating and drinking spiritual food and drink – were continuing experiences that were regularly repeated over a long period of time.

Let us begin with the first pair of experiences – those that took place only once: passing under the cloud and through the sea. The key to understanding these is provided by a distinctive phrase which Paul uses in connection with them. He says: “All were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (v. 2). Plainly, therefore, these two experiences correspond to two forms of baptism, both of which God has ordained for all professing Christian’s in this dispensation.

What are the two forms of baptism represented by these two experiences? In the light of our previous studies, it is now easy for us to supply the answer. The baptism in the cloud for Israel corresponds to the baptism in the Holy Spirit for the Christian’s. The baptism in the sea for Israel corresponds to baptism in water for the Christian’s.

If we now examine the details of these two experiences of Israel, we shall see just how appropriate each of them is as a pattern of the corresponding experience for professing Christian’s today.

The historical account of Israel passing under the cloud and through the sea is described in Exodus. After the sacrifice of the Passover lamb in Egypt, the Israelites began their exodus from Egypt the same night. When they came to the Red Sea, they miraculously passed through it, as on dry land.

Baptism in the Cloud

The first mention of their passing under the cloud is found in Exodus 13:20-21.

So they took their journey from Succoth and camped in Etham at the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night.

Paul says, “All our fathers were under the cloud” (1 Cor. 10). This leads us to understand that at a certain point on Israel’s journey out of Egypt, this unique, supernatural cloud came down over them from above and continued to rest over them.

Clearly this cloud was sensibly perceptible to Israel, and it took two different forms. By day it was a cloud, giving shadow from the heat of the sun. By night it was a pillar of fire, giving both light and warmth in the darkness and coldness of the night. By day and by night, it provided Israel with divine direction and guidance.

There are two further facts revealed about this wonderful cloud.

First, God Himself – Jehovah – was personally present within the cloud.

Second, this cloud served both to separate and to protect Israel from the Egyptians.

And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one [that is, to the Egyptians], and it gave light by night to the other [that is, to Israel], so that the one did not come near the other all that night (Ex. 14:19-20).

Now it came to pass, in the morning watch, that the Lord looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the Egyptians (Ex. 14:24).

From this account we see that the Lord Himself – Jehovah – the great Angel of God – was in the cloud and moved in the cloud. It was in the cloud that He moved over Israel from their front to their rear and in the cloud that He interposed His own presence between Israel and the Egyptians, to separate and protect His own people from their enemies.

The cloud had a very different meaning and effect for the Egyptians. For the Egyptians, “it was a cloud and darkness,” but to Israel it “gave light at night” (Ex. 19:20). This cloud was darkness to Egypt, the people of this world; but it was light to Israel, the people of God.

Furthermore, when daylight came, the cloud was even more fearful for the Egyptians. As we read earlier:

The Lord looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the Egyptians (v. 24).

We have said that this cloud is a type or picture of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Let us now set out briefly, in order, the facts which we know about this cloud and see how perfectly each one of them applies to the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

1. This cloud came down over God’s people from above, out of heaven.

2. It was not merely an invisible influence, but it was sensibly perceptible.

3. It provided shadow from the heat by day and light and warmth by night.

4. It gave God’s people divine direction and guidance throughout their journeyings.

5. Within the cloud was the presence of the Lord Jehovah Himself, and it was in the cloud that the Lord came personally to the rescue of His people from their enemies.

6. The cloud gave light to the people of God, but to their enemies the same cloud was something dark and fearful.

7. The cloud came between God’s people and their enemies, thus separating and protecting them.

Let us now see how perfectly each of these facts relates to the baptism in the Holy Spirit and what this experience means for God’s people in this dispensation.

1. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is the presence of God Himself coming down over His people from heaven, enveloping and immersing them.

2. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is sensibly perceptible, and the effects it produces can be both seen and heard.

3. The Holy Spirit, coming in this way, is the appointed Comforter of God’s people: He provides shade from heat, light and warmth in the midst of darkness and cold.

4. The Holy Spirit provides God’s people with divine direction and guidance throughout their earthly pilgrimage.

5. Within this experience is contained the actual presence of the Lord Himself, for Jesus says:

I will not leave you orphans; I [Myself personally] will come to you (John 14:18).

6. The baptism in the Holy Spirit brings a heavenly light to the people of God, but to the people of this world this supernatural experience remains something dark, incomprehensible, even fearful. As Paul says:

The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).

7. The baptism in the Holy Spirit, as a spiritual experience, marks a decisive separation between the people of God and the people of this world. It both separates and protects God’s people from the sinful, corrupting influences of this world.

Baptism in the Sea

Let us now turn to the baptism in the sea.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left (Ex. 14:21-22).

After this we read how the Egyptians attempted to follow Israel through the Red Sea.

And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and when the morning appeared, the sea returned to its full depth, while the Egyptians were fleeing into it. So the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea (Ex. 14:27).

Side by side with this account in Exodus, we should also read a New Testament comment on the event.

By faith they [that is, Israel] passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned (Heb. 11:29, italics added).

In the light of these passages we can now list the main facts revealed about the passing of Israel through the Red Sea and see how perfectly each of them applies to Christian’s baptism in water.

1. The passing of Israel through the Red Sea was made possible only through a supernatural provision of God’s power.

2. The Israelites could avail themselves of this provision only by their faith. The waters were first opened and then closed by an act of faith on the part of Moses, and Israel as a whole was able to pass through only by faith.

3. The Egyptians, attempting to do the same thing, but without faith, were not saved but destroyed.

4. Israel went down into the waters, passed through the waters and came up again out of the waters.

5. By passing through the waters, Israel was finally separated from Egypt and from the last threat of Egypt’s dominion over them.

6. Israel came up out of the waters to follow a new leader, to live by new laws and to march to a new destination.

Let us now see how perfectly each of these facts corresponds to Christian’s baptism in water and what this experience means for God’s people in this dispensation.

1. Christian’s baptism in water has been made possible for the believer only through the death and su pernatural resurrection of Jesus Jesus.

2. Christian’s baptism is effectual only through personal faith on the part of the believer:

“he who obelieves and is baptised will be saved.”

3. Those who observe this ordinance without personal faith are like the Egyptians entering the Red Sea: Their act does not save them; it destroys them.

4. In every case where baptism in water is described in the New Testament, the person being baptised went down into the water, passed through the water and came up out of the water again.

5. Baptism in water is intended by God to separate the believer from the world and from the continuing dominion of the world over him.

6. After baptism, the believer is directed by God into a new kind of life with a new leader, new laws and a new destination.

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).

The Pattern of Salvation

We have seen that in their deliverance from Egypt, God’s people under the Old Testament shared in two experiences common to them all: They all passed under the cloud and through the sea, and they were all baptised in the cloud and in the sea. Let us now consider briefly the place that these two experiences occupied in God’s total plan of salvation for His people.

God delivered His people where they were, in Egypt, through their faith in the blood of the Passover sacrifice. However, once God had saved His people in Egypt, He no longer allowed them to remain there. On the contrary, He called them to march out the very same night of their deliverance, in haste, with their loins girded, no longer a mere rabble of slaves but now an army of men prepared for war.

When the Egyptians marched after the Israelites, intent upon bringing them back into bondage again, God’s next two stages of deliverance for His people consisted in making them pass under the cloud and through the sea. By these two experiences God achieved two main purposes for His people:

He completed their deliverance out of Egypt’s bondage;
He made the necessary provision for the new life into which He was leading them.

All these things are patterns of God’s plan of deliverance or salvation for His people in this present dispensation. Immediately after the initial experience of salvation, God still today calls the sinner out from his old life, his old habits and his old associations. This call to come out and be separate is just as clear as God’s call to Israel to come out of Egypt, for Paul says to professing Christian’s:

Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:17-18).

Still today also, Satan, the god of this world, seeks to do as Pharaoh did – pursue God’s people as they move out from his dominion and bring them back under his bondage.

Because of this God has made for His believing people today a double provision corresponding to the double baptism of Israel in the cloud and in the sea. God has ordained that, after salvation, all His believing people should be baptised both in water and in the Holy Spirit.

By this double baptism it is God’s intention that His people should finally be delivered from the association and dominion of this world and that the way back into the old life should forever be closed behind them. At the same time, God also makes the provision necessary for the new life into which He intends to lead His people.

Spiritual Food and Drink

Let us now consider briefly the other two experiences which God ordained for all His people under the Old Testament – eating the same spiritual food and drinking the same spiritual drink. Unlike the double baptism, which was never repeated, the food and drink represented God’s ongoing provision, of which His people had to partake regularly every day until they had completed their pilgrimage.

Manna

The spiritual food which God ordained for Israel was the manna which came down to them every morning. Israel lived on this supernatural food throughout the forty years of their pilgrimage through the wilderness.

Speaking of this in the New Testament, Paul describes it as spiritual food. In other words, Paul indicates that for us as professing Christian’s this manna corresponds not to the natural food with which we must feed our bodies, but to the spiritual, supernatural food with which we must feed our souls.

What, then, is this spiritual, supernatural food of the Christian’s? Jesus gives us the answer: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ ” (Matt. 4:4). The spiritual food appointed by God for all believers in this dispensation is God’s Word.

As we feed by faith upon the written Word of God, we receive within ourselves the divine life of the personal Word, that is, Jesus Jesus Himself. For Jesus said of Himself:

I am the living bread which came down from heaven (John 6:51).

Thus, it is through the written Word that the personal Word, the living bread from heaven, comes down to nourish the soul of the believer.

The ordinances for the gathering of manna by Israel are stated in Exodus 16. There are three main points:

it was gathered regularly;
it was gathered individually;
it was gathered early in the day.

The same three principles apply to the believer in this dispensation. Each Christian’s needs to feed upon God’s Word regularly, individually and early in the day.

River From the Rock

Finally, there is the appointed spiritual drink of God’s people. For Israel in the Old Testament this drink was a river that flowed out of a rock, and Paul tells us “that Rock was Jesus” (1 Cor. 10:4).

For the Christian’s, the divinely appointed drink is the river of the Holy Spirit, flowing forth from within his own inner being. For Jesus says of the Holy Spirit:

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38).

For Israel this river flowed out of a smitten rock; for the Christian’s today this river flows out of the smitten side of the Savior, for it was His atoning death upon the cross that purchased for all believers the indwelling fullness of the Holy Spirit.

The initial baptism in the Holy Spirit is a once-for-all experience that never needs to be repeated. But drinking from the river of the Spirit that now flows from within is something that each believer needs to do just as regularly as Israel drank from the rock in the desert.

For this reason Paul uses a continuing tense when he says: “Be [continually] filled [and refilled] with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18).

Continual drinking of the Spirit leads to the outward expressions Paul describes in the next two verses.

Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph. 5:19-20).

Continual feeding on God’s Word and drinking of God’s Spirit are essential for a life of victory and fruitfulness. Israel would have perished in the wilderness without their daily portion of manna from heaven and living water from the rock. The believer today is no less dependent upon the daily manna of God’s Word and the daily filling, and refilling, of God’s Spirit. Let us now apply the complete pattern to the experience of the Christian’s in this dispensation.

God has ordained for each believer today five experiences, each typified by an experience of Israel in the Old Testament:

salvation through faith in the blood of Jesus Jesus;
baptism in the Holy Spirit;
baptism in water;
daily feeding upon God’s Word;
daily drinking of God’s Spirit from within.

Of these five experiences, the first three – salvation, baptism in water and baptism in the Spirit – occur only once and need not be repeated. The last two – feeding upon God’s Word and drinking of God’s Spirit – are experiences which the believer must continue to practice regularly each day throughout his earthly pilgrimage.

How to Receive the Holy Spirit

How to Receive the Holy Spirit

What are the conditions which must be fulfilled in the life of a person who desires to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit?

By Grace Through Faith

As we consider the teaching of Scripture on this subject, we shall find that there is one basic principle which applies to every provision made for man by the grace of God.

And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace (Rom. 11:6).

In this passage, as elsewhere in his epistles, Paul contrasts the expressions “grace” and “works.” By grace Paul means the free, unmerited favor and blessing of God bestowed upon the undeserving, and even upon the ill-deserving. By works Paul means anything that a man may do of his own ability to earn for himself the blessing and favor of God.

Paul states that these two ways of receiving from God are mutually exclusive; they can never be combined. Whatever a man receives from God by grace is not of works; whatever a man receives from God by works is not of grace. Wherever grace operates, works are of no avail; wherever works operate, grace is of no avail.

This leads to the further contrast between grace and law: “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Under the law of Moses men sought to earn the blessing of God by what they did for themselves. Through Jesus Jesus the free, unmerited blessing and favor of God are now offered to all men on the basis of what Jesus has done on man’s behalf. This is grace.

All we receive in this way from God through Jesus Jesus is by grace; the means by which we receive this grace is not by works but by faith.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9).

The basic principle laid down by Paul in this passage can be summed up in three successive phrases: by grace – through faith – not of works. It applies in the receiving of every provision made for man by the grace of God. Specifically, Paul applies the principle to the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law . . . that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal. 3:13-14).

Paul brings out two important and interrelated facts:

The gift of the Holy Spirit is made available to man through the redemptive work of Jesus upon the cross; it is part of the total provision made for man by the grace of God through Jesus Jesus.
This gift, like every other provision of God’s grace, is received through faith, not by works.

This question of how the gift of the Holy Spirit is received had apparently been raised among the Christian’s churches in Galatia, and Paul makes several references to it.

This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Gal. 3:2).

Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you . . . does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Gal. 3:5).

. . . that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal. 3:14).

Three times, therefore, in these few verses Paul emphasizes that the receiving of the Spirit is by faith.

In other words, the essential preparation for believers to receive the Holy Spirit is that they be instructed out of the Scriptures on the nature of God’s provision for them and how they may claim this provision through faith in the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross. If this kind of scriptural instruction is first given and received with faith by those seeking the Holy Spirit, there should be no need for great effort or delay in their receiving the gift.

Paul’s epistle to the Galatians implies that the professing Christian’s there had originally received from him with faith the message of the gospel and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and had thus entered into the fullness of God’s provision for them. Later, however, through other teachers, they had become involved in a legalistic system superimposed upon this gospel foundation and had begun to lose their first vision of the receiving of God’s gift by grace through faith.

One main purpose of Paul’s epistle is to warn them of the dangers of this and to call them back to the original simplicity of their faith.

Groups of professing Christian’s in various places today are being threatened by the same kind of error against which Paul warned the Galatians. There is in many places today a tendency to impose some kind of system or technique upon those seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The precise form of technique varies from group to group. In some places the emphasis is upon some particular posture or attitude. In other places the emphasis is rather upon some special form of words or the repetition of certain phrases.

Instruction along these lines to those seeking the Holy Spirit is not necessarily unscriptural, but the great danger is that the particular posture or form of words, instead of being merely a help to faith, may become a substitute for it. In this case the technique defeats its own ends. Instead of helping seekers to receive the Holy Spirit, it actually prevents them from doing so.

As a result of this kind of technique we often meet the chronic seekers who say, “I’ve tried everything! I’ve tried praise . . . I’ve said, ‘Hallelujah’ . . . I’ve lifted my hands in the air . . . I’ve shouted . . . I’ve done everything, but it just doesn’t work.” Without realizing it, they are making the same error that the Galatians were slipping into: They are substituting works for faith, a technique for the simple hearing of God’s Word.

What is the remedy? Just what Paul proposes to the Galatians: to return to the hearing of faith. Chronic seekers like these do not need more praise, more shouting or more lifting up of their hands. They need fresh instruction from God’s Word on the free provisions of God’s grace.

As a general principle, wherever people are seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit, a period of instruction from God’s Word should always precede any period of prayer. For my own part, if I were allotted thirty minutes to help believers seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit, I would spend at least half that time – the first fifteen minutes – giving scriptural instruction. The next fifteen minutes, devoted to prayer, would produce far more positive results than a full thirty minutes given to prayer without any instruction beforehand.

We see, then, that the basic requirement for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit is defined by Paul as the hearing of faith.

We must be careful, however, to guard against a false interpretation of what is meant by faith. Faith is not a substitute for obedience. On the contrary, true faith is always manifested in obedience. Thus obedience becomes both the test and the evidence of faith. This applies as much to the receiving of the Holy Spirit as in any other area of God’s grace.

In his defense to the Jewish council, Peter focuses upon obedience as the proper expression of faith.

And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32).

In speaking of the gift of the Holy Spirit, Paul stresses faith, while Peter stresses obedience. There is, however, no conflict between the two. True faith is always linked with obedience. Complete faith results in complete obedience. Peter says here that when our obedience is complete, the gift of the Holy Spirit is ours.

Six Steps of Faith

In seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit, how should complete obedience be expressed? We find six steps set forth in Scripture which mark the pathway of obedience leading to the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Repentance and Baptism

The first two steps are stated by Peter.

Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).

The two steps here stated by Peter are repent and be baptised.

Repentance is an inward change of heart and attitude toward God that opens the way for the sinner to be reconciled with God. Thereafter, baptism is an outward act by which the believer testifies to the inward change wrought by God’s grace in his heart.

Thirsting

The third step to the fullness of the Holy Spirit is stated by Jesus.

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38).

In the next verse John explains that this promise of Jesus refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit. This agrees with what Jesus says also:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled (Matt. 5:6).

One essential condition for receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit is to be hungry and thirsty. God does not squander His blessings on those who feel no need for them. Many professing professing Christian’s who lead good, respectable lives never receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit simply because they feel no need for it. They are satisfied without this blessing, and God leaves them that way.

From the human point of view, it sometimes happens that those who seem least deserving receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and those who seem most deserving do not. This is explained by the Scripture.

He [God] has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty (Luke 1:53).

God responds to our sincere inner longings, but He is not impressed by our religious profession.

Asking

Jesus also presents the fourth step to receiving the Holy Spirit.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! (Luke 11:13).

Here Jesus places upon God’s children an obligation to ask their heavenly Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit. We sometimes hear professing Christian’s make some such remark as this: “If God wants me to have the Holy Spirit, He will give it to me. I don’t need to ask Him for it.” This attitude is not scriptural. Jesus plainly teaches that God’s children should ask their heavenly Father for this special gift of the Holy Spirit.

Drinking

After asking, the next step is receiving. Jesus calls this drinking, for He says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37).

“Drinking” represents an active process of receiving. The infilling of the Holy Spirit cannot be received by a negative or passive attitude. No one can drink except of his own active volition, and no one can drink with a closed mouth. As it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual. The Lord says, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps. 81:10).

God cannot fill a closed mouth. Simple though it may seem, there are those who fail to receive the fullness of the Spirit simply because they fail to open their mouths.

Yielding

After drinking, the sixth and last step to receiving the Holy Spirit is yielding. Paul speaks to professing Christian’s of a twofold surrender to God.

But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God (Rom. 6:13).

Two successive stages are here set before us as professing Christian’s. The first surrender is of yourselves – the surrender of the will and the personality. However, this is not all. There is a further degree of surrender of our physical members.

To surrender our physical members requires a much greater measure of confidence in God. In yielding ourselves – our wills – we yield obedience to the revealed will of God, but we still retain the exercise of our own understanding. We are willing to do what God asks of us, provided that we first understand what is asked.

However, in yielding our physical members we go beyond this. We no longer seek even to understand intellectually what God asks of us. We merely hand over unreserved control of our physical members and allow God to use them according to His own will and purpose without demanding to understand what God is doing or why He is doing it.

It is only as we make this second surrender that we come to the place of total, unconditional yieldedness. And it is just at this very point that the Holy Spirit comes in His fullness and takes control of our members.

The particular member He takes full control of is that unruly member which no man can tame – the tongue. Thus the yielding of our tongue to the Spirit marks the climax of yieldedness, of surrender, of complete obedience. It is by this that we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We have outlined the six successive steps to receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit:

repentance;
being baptised;
being thirsty;
asking;
drinking – that is, actively receiving;
yielding – that is, surrendering control of our physical members apart from the exercise of our intellectual understanding.

The question will naturally arise: Is it necessarily true that every person who receives the gift of the Holy Spirit has completely followed through all six steps?

The answer to this question is no. God’s grace is sovereign. Wherever God sees fit, He is free to reach out in grace to needy souls beyond the conditions set forth in His Word. God’s grace is not limited by the conditions He imposes. But, on the other hand, wherever those conditions are fully met, God’s faithfulness will never withhold the blessing He has promised.

Of the steps just outlined, some are omitted by people who nevertheless do receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In particular, the gift of the Holy Spirit is at times granted to people who have not been baptised and who have never specifically asked God for this gift.

This happened in my own experience. I received the gift of the Holy Spirit before I was baptised and without ever specifically asking for it. In these two points, God reached out to me in His free and sovereign grace beyond the conditions actually imposed in His Word. I realize, however, that this now makes me just so much the more a debtor to God’s grace. It certainly opens no door to me for pride, carelessness or disobedience.

It would seem, however, that God never bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit where the other four conditions are not fulfilled. That is, God never bestows the Holy Spirit where there is not first of all repentance and then a spiritual thirst and willingness both to receive and to yield.

In concluding these studies on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, it is appropriate to emphasize once again the close connection between the fullness of the Holy Spirit and obedience. As Peter says, the gift of the Holy Spirit is for those who obey God. Even where God in His grace bestows this gift upon those who have not yet fully met the conditions of His Word, this still leaves no room for carelessness or disobedience.

As Peter preached in the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard his word (see Acts 10). However, it is clear that this demonstration of God’s grace was in no sense to be interpreted as a substitute for obedience to God’s Word, for we read:

He [Peter] commanded them to be baptised (Acts 10:48).

Even for those who have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the ordinance of baptism in water still remains a commandment of God’s Word that may not be set aside.

Above all, in this realm of spiritual gifts we need to be continually on our guard against spiritual pride. The more richly we receive of the gifts of God’s grace, the greater is our obligation to be obedient and faithful in the exercise and stewardship of those gifts.

This principle of responsibility for grace received is summed up by Jesus’ teaching on stewardship.

For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more (Luke 12:48).

The more abundantly we receive of God’s gifts and graces through Jesus Jesus, the greater becomes our obligation to humility, to consecration and to unfailing obedience.

The Promise of the Spirit

The Promise of the Spirit

In the preceding four chapters we have carefully analyzed the teaching of the New Testament concerning the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Our analysis has included the following topics: the nature of the experience; the outward evidence by which it is attested; how it differs from the gift of “kinds of tongues”; the place of emotional and physical reactions.

This leads to a practical question: What conditions must be met before a person can be baptised in the Holy Spirit? There are two possible ways to approach this question. The first is from the viewpoint of God, the giver of the gift; the second is from the viewpoint of man, the receiver. In this chapter we shall approach the question from the first viewpoint – that of God Himself. In the next chapter we shall approach it from the human viewpoint.

The question which now confronts us is awesome in its implications. On what basis can a holy and omnipotent God offer to members of a fallen, sin-cursed race the gift of His own Spirit to indwell their physical bodies? What provision could God make to bridge the measureless gulf separating man from Himself?

The answer is supplied by a plan of redemption which was conceived in the Godhead before time began. Central to the outworking of this whole plan was the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, which was followed first by His victorious resurrection and then by His triumphant ascension. Ten days later He poured out the Holy Spirit on His waiting disciples. Viewed in this light, the cross is the gate that opened the way to Pentecost.

A Personal, Permanent Indwelling

The direct connection between the ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is unfolded in John 7:37-39.

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The first two verses in this passage contain the promise of Jesus Himself, that every thirsty soul who comes to Him in faith will be filled and become a channel for rivers of living water. The last verse of the passage is an explanation of the two previous verses, added by the writer of the Gospel.

In this explanation the writer points out two things: 1) the promise of the rivers of living water refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit, 2) this gift could not be given while Jesus was still on earth in bodily form. It could only be made available to believers after Jesus had been received up to heaven again and entered into His glory at the Father’s right hand.

What precisely is meant by saying that the Holy Spirit could not be given at that time? Obviously this does not mean that the Holy Spirit could not in any way be present, or move and work in the earth, until after the ascension of Jesus into heaven. On the contrary, as early as the second verse of the Bible we already read of the Holy Spirit at work in the world.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2).

From this time onward, throughout the whole of the Old Testament and on into the days of Jesus’s earthly ministry, we read continually of the Holy Spirit moving and working in the world at large and more particularly among God’s believing people. What, then, was the difference between the way in which the Holy Spirit worked up to the time of Jesus’s ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit, which was reserved for Christian’s believers after Jesus’s ascension and was first received by the disciples in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost?

Three descriptive words sum up the distinctive features of this gift of the Holy Spirit and distinguish it from all previous operations of the Holy Spirit in the world. These three words are personal, indwelling and permanent. Let us briefly consider, in turn, the significance of each of these three features.

First, the gift of the Holy Spirit is personal.

In His farewell discourse to His disciples, Jesus indicated that there was to be an exchange of divine Persons.

Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away: for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you (John 16:7).

In effect, Jesus was saying: “In personal presence I am about to leave you and return to heaven. In My place, however, I will send you another Person – the Holy Spirit. This will be to your advantage.”

The promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit as a Person was fulfilled at Pentecost. Since then, the Holy Spirit seeks to come to each believer individually, as a Person. We can no longer speak merely of an influence or an operation or a manifestation or of some impersonal power. The Holy Spirit is just as much a Person as God the Father or God the Son; and it is in this individual and personal way that He now seeks, in this dispensation, to come to the believer.

In the experience of salvation, or the new birth, the sinner receives Jesus, the Son of God, the second Person of the Godhead. In the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the believer receives the third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. In each experience alike there is a real and direct transaction with a Person.

Second, the Holy Spirit in this dispensation comes to indwell the believer.

In the Old Testament the moving of the Holy Spirit among God’s people is described by phrases such as these: “the Spirit of God came upon them”; “the Spirit of God moved them”; “the Spirit of God spoke through them.” All these phrases indicate that some part of the believer’s being or personality came under the Holy Spirit’s control. But nowhere do we read in the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit ever came to take up His dwelling within the temple of a believer’s physical body, thus taking control of his whole personality from within.

Third, the indwelling of the Christian’s by the Holy Spirit is permanent.

Under the old covenant, believers experienced the visitation of the Holy Spirit in many different ways and at many different times. But in all these cases the Holy Spirit was always a visitor, never a permanent resident. However, Jesus promised His disciples that when the Holy Spirit came to them, He would abide with them forever.

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper [the Holy Spirit], that He may abide with you forever (John 14:16).

Thus we may characterize the gift of the Holy Spirit, as promised in the New Testament, by these three distinctive features: It is personal. It is an indwelling. It is permanent. Or, in one short phrase, it is a personal, permanent indwelling.

These distinctive features of the gift provide two reasons why it could not be given so long as Jesus remained in bodily presence on earth.

First, while Jesus was present on earth, He was the personal, authoritative representative of the Godhead. There was no need, and no place, for the Holy Spirit also to be personally present on earth at the same time. But after Jesus’s ascension into heaven, the way was then open for the Holy Spirit, in His turn, to come to earth as a Person. It is now He, the Holy Spirit, who in this present dispensation is the personal representative of the Godhead here on earth.

Second, the gift of the Holy Spirit could not be given until after Jesus’s ascension because the claim of every believer to receive it is in no way based upon his own merits, but simply and solely upon the merits of Jesus’s sacrificial death and resurrection. No one could receive the gift, therefore, until Jesus’s atoning work was complete.

The Father’s Promise

Paul links the promise of the Spirit directly to Jesus’s atonement.

Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Jesus Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal. 3:13-14).

Paul here establishes two facts of great importance concerning the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Christian’s believer.

First of all, it is only through the redemptive work of Jesus upon the cross that the believer may now receive the promise of the Spirit. In fact, this was one main purpose for which Jesus suffered on the cross. He died and shed His blood that He might purchase thereby a twofold legal right: His own right to bestow, and the believer’s right to receive, this precious gift of the Holy Spirit.

Thus, the receiving of the gift does not depend in any way upon the believer’s own merits, but solely upon the all-sufficiency of Jesus’s atonement. It is through faith, not by works.

Second, we notice that Paul uses the phrase “the promise of the Spirit,” for he says, “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” This agrees with Jesus’ final charge to His disciples just before His ascension into heaven.

Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49).

Jesus is here speaking to His disciples of the baptism in the Holy Spirit which they were to receive in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. He uses two phrases to describe this experience. He calls it an enduement “with power from on high” and also “the Promise of My Father.”

This second phrase, “the Promise of My Father,” gives us a wonderful insight into the mind and purpose of God the Father concerning the gift of the Holy Spirit. Someone has conservatively estimated that the Bible contains seven thousand distinct promises given by God to His believing people. But among all these seven thousand promises, Jesus singles out one from all the rest as being in a unique sense the Father’s special promise for each of His believing children. What is this unique and special promise? It is what Paul calls the “promise of the Spirit.”

At Pentecost – on the very day the promise was fulfilled – Peter used a similar form of speech.

Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Jesus for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call (Acts 2:38-39).

Peter here joins together the words gift and promise. To what special, promised gift does he refer? To the same as that spoken of by Jesus and by Paul – the promise of the Spirit. This is indeed the promise of the Father which He had planned and prepared through many long ages, that He might bestow it upon His believing children through Jesus Jesus in this present dispensation.

Paul also calls this promise “the blessing of Abraham” (Gal. 3:14). Thus he links it with the supreme purpose of God in choosing Abraham for Himself. When God first called Abraham out of Ur, He said:

I will bless you . . .

And you shall be a blessing . . .

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 12:2-3).

In His subsequent dealings with Abraham, God reaffirmed His purpose of blessing many times.

In blessing I will bless you . . . In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 22:17-18).

To what specific blessing did all these promises of God look forward? The words of Paul supply the answer: “the promise of the Spirit”
(Gal. 3:14). It was to purchase this blessing, promised to the seed of Abraham, that Jesus shed His blood on the cross.

Heaven’s Seal on Jesus’s Atonement

However, the final consummation of Jesus’s atoning work did not come on earth, but in heaven.

But Jesus came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption (Heb. 9:11-12).

As believers in the new covenant, we have come to:

Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel (Heb. 12:24).

These passages in Hebrews reveal that the atoning work of Jesus was not finally consummated by the shedding of His blood upon the cross on earth, but by His later entering with His blood into the presence of the Father. There He presented that blood as the one final and sufficient satisfaction and expiation for all sin. It is this blood of Jesus, now sprinkled in heaven, that speaks better things than that of Abel.

The blood of Jesus is contrasted with that of Abel in two main respects. First, Abel’s blood was left sprinkled upon the earth, while Jesus’s blood was presented and sprinkled in heaven. Second, Abel’s blood called out to God for vengeance upon his murderer, while Jesus’s blood speaks to God in heaven for mercy and pardon.

This revelation, given in Hebrews, of Jesus completing the atonement by presenting His own blood before the Father in heaven enables us to understand why the gift of the Holy Spirit could not be given until Jesus had been glorified. The Holy Spirit is given not upon the basis of the believer’s own merits but upon the basis of Jesus’s atonement.

This atonement was not consummated until the blood of Jesus had been presented in heaven and God the Father had declared His absolute satisfaction with this atoning sacrifice. Thereafter the giving of the Holy Spirit to those who believed in Jesus was the public testimony of the supreme court of heaven that the blood of Jesus was forever accepted as an all-sufficient propitiation for all sin.

This is He who came by water and blood – Jesus Jesus; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth (1 John 5:6).

We see that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the blood of Jesus. In other words, the giving of the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Jesus constitutes the united testimony of the Father and the Spirit together to the all-sufficiency of the blood of Jesus to cleanse the believer from all sin.

This harmonizes with Peter’s teaching on the day of Pentecost concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Having first spoken of Jesus’s death and resurrection, Peter continues:

Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear (Acts 2:33).

Jesus first purchased man’s redemption by His atoning death and resurrection. Then He ascended to His Father in heaven and there presented the blood which was the evidence and seal of redemption. Upon the Father’s acceptance of the blood, Jesus received from the Father the gift of the Holy Spirit to pour out upon those who believed in Him.

We may now sum up the revelation of Scripture concerning the plan of God to bestow upon all believers the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Implicit in God’s choice of Abraham was the promise of the blessing of the Holy Spirit to all nations through Jesus. By His blood shed upon the cross, Jesus purchased for all believers the legal right to this blessing. After presenting His blood in heaven, Jesus received from the Father the gift of the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit Himself, who is the gift, was poured out from heaven upon the waiting believers on earth.

Thus, Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all three concerned in planning, purchasing and providing this, the supreme promise and the greatest of all gifts, for all God’s believing people.

In the next session we will view this same gift of the Holy Spirit from the human standpoint and consider the conditions which must be met in the life of each believer who desires to receive the gift.

To Reveal Sin

The first main purpose of the law is to show men their sinful condition.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:19-20).

Notice, first of all, the very emphatic statement “by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight” (Rom. 3:20).

In other words, no human being will ever achieve righteousness in God’s sight by the observance of the law.

Side by side with this, Paul states twice, in two different phrases, the primary purpose for which the law was given. He says first that “all the world may become guilty before God.” An alternative translation is “that all the world may become subject to the judgement of God.” Second, he says, “by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

We see, therefore, that the law was not given to make men righteous but, on the contrary, to make men conscious that they were sinners and, as such, subject to the judgement of God upon their sin.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet” (Rom. 7:7).

Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful
(Rom. 7:12-13).

Paul uses three different phrases which all bring out the same truth.

I would not have known sin except through the law (Rom. 7:7).

But sin, that it might appear sin . . . (Rom. 7:13). . . . so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful (Rom. 7:13).

In other words, the purpose of the law was to bring sin out into the open – to show sin in its true colors as the subtle, destructive, deadly thing that it really is. Thereafter men were left without any excuse for being deceived as to the extreme sinfulness of their condition.

In the practice of medicine, when treating diseases of the human body, there is a certain order which is always followed: first the diagnosis, then the remedy. First of all, the doctor examines the sick man and tries to ascertain the nature and cause of his disease; only after he has done that does he attempt to prescribe a remedy.

God follows the same order in dealing with man’s spiritual need. Before prescribing the cure, God first diagnoses the condition. The basic cause of all human need and suffering lies in one condition common to all members of the human race: sin. No satisfactory remedy for human needs can be offered until this condition has been diagnosed.

The Bible is the only book in the world which correctly diagnoses the cause of all humanity’s need and suffering. For this reason alone, apart from all else it offers, the Bible is invaluable and irreplaceable.

To Prove Man’s Inability to Save Himself

The second main purpose for which the law was given was to show men that, as sinners, they are unable to make themselves righteous by their own efforts. There is a natural tendency in every human being to desire to be independent of God’s grace and mercy. This desire to be independent of God is in itself both a result and an evidence of man’s sinful condition, although most men do not recognize it as such.

Thus, whenever a man becomes convicted of his sinful condition, his first reaction is to seek some means by which he can cure himself of this condition and make himself righteous by his own efforts, without having to depend on the grace and mercy of God. For this reason, throughout all ages religious laws and observances have always made a strong appeal to the human race, regardless of differences of nationality or background. In practicing such laws and observances men have sought to silence the inward voice of their own conscience and to make themselves righteous by their own efforts.

This was precisely the reaction of many religious Israelites to the law of Moses. Paul describes this attempt of Israel to establish their own righteousness.

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10:3).

As a result of attempting to establish their own righteousness, Israel failed to submit to God and to God’s way of righteousness. Thus, the basic cause of their error was spiritual pride – a refusal to submit to God, a desire to be independent of God’s grace and mercy.

Nevertheless, whenever men are really willing to be honest with themselves, they are always obliged to admit that they can never succeed in making themselves righteous by the observing of religious or moral law. Paul describes this experience in the first person; he himself had at one time striven to make himself righteous by the observance of the law. Here is what he says, as recorded in Romans 7:18-23:

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Here Paul speaks as one who sincerely acknowledges the righteousness and desirability of living by the law. The more he struggles, however, to do what the law commands, the more he becomes conscious of another law, another power, within his own fleshly nature, continually warring against the law and frustrating his strongest efforts to make himself righteous by observing the law.

The central point of this inward conflict is expressed in verse 21.

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.

This is an apparent paradox, yet it is confirmed by all human experience. A man never knows how bad he is until he really tries to be good. Thereafter, every attempt to be good only brings out more clearly the hopeless, incurable sinfulness of his own fleshly nature, in face of which all his efforts and good intentions are entirely in vain.

The second main purpose for the law, then, was to show men that not merely are they sinful, but they are wholly unable to save themselves from sin and make themselves righteous by their own efforts.

To Foreshadow Jesus

The third main purpose for which the law was given was to foretell and to foreshadow the Savior who was to come, and through whom alone it would be possible for man to receive true salvation and righteousness. This was done through the law in two main ways: The Saviour was foretold through direct prophecy, and He was foreshadowed through the types and ceremonies of the ordinances of the law.

An example of direct prophecy, within the framework of the law, is found in Deuteronomy 18:18-19, where the Lord says to Israel through Moses:

I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.

Peter later quotes these words of Moses and applies them directly to Jesus Jesus (see Acts 3:22-26). Thus, the prophet foretold by Moses in the law is fulfilled in the Person of Jesus in the New Testament.

In the sacrifices and ordinances of the law many types foreshadow Jesus Jesus as the Savior who was to come.

For example, in Exodus 12 the ordinance of the Passover lamb foreshadows salvation through faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Jesus, shed at the Passover season upon the cross at Calvary. Similarly, the various sacrifices connected with expiation of sin and approach to God, described in the first seven chapters of Leviticus, all foreshadow various aspects of the sacrificial, atoning death of Jesus Jesus upon the cross.

For this reason, John the Baptist introduced Jesus to Israel with these words:

Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).

By the comparison of Jesus to a sacrificial lamb, the people of Israel were directed to see in Jesus the One who had been foreshadowed by all the sacrificial ordinances of the law.

This purpose of the law is summed up in Paul’s words in Galatians:

But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise of faith in Jesus Jesus might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Jesus, that we might be justified by faith (3:22-24).

The Greek word here translated “tutor” denotes a senior slave in the household of a wealthy man whose special responsibility it was to give the first elementary stages of teaching to the wealthy man’s children, and thereafter to escort them each day to the school where they could receive more advanced instruction.

In a corresponding way, the law gave Israel their first elementary instruction in God’s basic requirements concerning righteousness, and thereafter it was a means to direct them to put their faith in Jesus Jesus and to learn from Jesus the lesson of the true righteousness which is by faith, without the works of the law.

Just as this slave’s educational task was complete as soon as he had delivered his master’s children into the care of the fully trained teacher in the school, so the law’s task was complete once it had brought Israel to their Messiah, Jesus Jesus, and had caused them to see their need of salvation through faith in Him. For this reason Paul concludes:

But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (Gal. 3:25).

That is, we are no longer under the law.

To Preserve Israel

In the words of Paul, there is a phrase which reveals one further important function of the law in connection with Israel. Speaking as an Israelite, Paul says:

We were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed (Gal. 3:23).

The law kept Israel as a special nation, set apart from all others, separated out by its distinctive rites and ordinances, preserved for the special purposes for which God had called them. The prophet Balaam, in his God-given vision of Israel’s destiny, sets forth God’s plan for them.

A people [Israel] dwelling alone,

Not reckoning itself among the nations (Num. 23:9).

God’s perfect will for Israel was that they should dwell alone, as a unique and separate nation, in their own land. But even when Israel’s disobedience frustrated this first purpose of God for them and caused them to be scattered as exiles and wanderers among all nations of the world, God still ordained that they should not be reckoned among the nations.

In the past nineteen centuries of Jewish dispersion among the Gentile nations, this decree of God has been most wonderfully fulfilled. In all the lands and nations whither they have come, the Jews have always remained a distinct and separate element which has never been assimilated or lost its special identity. The main instrument in keeping Israel a separate nation has been continued adherence to the law of Moses.

In conclusion, we may sum up the four main purposes for which the law of Moses was given.

1. The law was given to show men their sinful condition.
2. The law also showed men that, as sinners, they were unable to make themselves righteous by their own efforts.
3. The law served to foretell by prophecy and to foreshadow by types the Saviour who was to come and through whom alone it would be possible for man to receive true salvation and righteousness.
4. The law has served to keep Israel a separate nation throughout the many centuries of their dispersion, so that even now they are still preserved for the special purposes which God is working out for them.

Perfectly Fulfilled by Jesus

Our examination of the relationship between the law and the gospel could not be complete without taking into account the words in which Jesus Himself sums up His attitude and His relationship to the law.

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled (Matt. 5:17-18).

In what sense did Jesus fulfil the law?

First of all, He personally fulfilled it by His own spotless righteousness and by the faultless, consistent observance of every ordinance.

God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Gal. 4:4-5).

Notice the words “born of a woman, born under the law . . .” By His birth as a man, Jesus Jesus was a Jew, subject to all the ordinances and obligations of the law. These He perfectly fulfilled throughout the entire course of His life on earth, without ever deviating one hair’s breadth from all that was required of every Jew under the law. In this sense, Jesus Jesus alone, of all those who ever came under the law, perfectly fulfilled it.

Second, Jesus Jesus fulfilled the law in another sense by His atoning death on the cross.

Who committed no sin, Nor was guile found in His mouth . . . who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness (1 Pet. 2:22, 24).

Himself without sin, Jesus took upon Himself the sins of all those who had been under the law and then paid in full on behalf of them the law’s final penalty, which is death. With the full penalty thus paid by Jesus, it became possible for God, without compromising His divine justice, to offer full and free pardon to all who by faith accept Jesus’s atoning death on their behalf.

Thus Jesus fulfilled the law first by His life of perfect righteousness and second by His atoning death, through which He satisfied the law’s just demand upon all those who had not perfectly observed it.

Third, Jesus fulfilled the law by combining in Himself every feature prophetically set forth in the law concerning the Savior and Messiah whom God had promised to send. Even at the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry we read how Philip said to Nathanael:

We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph (John 1:45).

Again, after His death and resurrection, Jesus said to His disciples:

These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me (Luke 24:44).

We see, then, that Jesus fulfilled the law in three ways:

1) by His perfect life,

2) by His redeeming death and resurrection, 3) by fulfilling all that the law foretold and foreshadowed concerning the Savior and Messiah who was to come.

We thus find ourselves in perfect agreement with the words of Paul:

Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law (Rom. 3:31).

The believer who accepts the atoning death of Jesus Jesus as the fulfilment of the law on his behalf is thereby enabled to accept, without compromise or qualification, every jot and tittle of the law as being completely and unchangeably true. Faith in Jesus for salvation does not set aside the revelation of the law; on the contrary, it fulfils it.

For Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom. 10:4).

The Greek word here translated “end” has two related meanings: 1) the purpose for which something is done, 2) that which brings something to a close. In both senses, the law ended with Jesus.

In the first sense, once the law has successfully brought us to Jesus, it is no longer needed in this capacity. In the second sense, Jesus by His death put an end to the law as a means of achieving righteousness with God. Faith in Him is now the one, all-sufficient requirement for righteousness.

In every other respect, however, the law still stands, complete and entire, as a part of God’s Word, which “endures forever.” Its history, its prophecy and its general revelation of the mind and counsel of God – all these remain eternally and unchangeably true.