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.