Holy Spirit Part 4

Part 4

Gifts and Indwelling Presence

Psalm 104:29–30 (ESV) — When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their  breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. 

Romans 8:9–11 (ESV) — You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of  God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in  you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of  him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 

Acts 1:8 (ESV) — [Jesus said to them] “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come  upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the  earth.” 

We Must Understand The Holy Spirit’s Mission Before His Work 

What does a farmer do? 

Ultimately the mission of a farmer is to produce crops and profit from the sale of them. That’s his or her  mission. Yet there are many different works that go into that mission.  

Right outside of my office window I can see many farmers laboring at various times of the year.  Sometimes I watch them filling grain bins, sometimes I watch them emptying them again. Sometimes I see a farmer driving tractors down the highway. Rarely, but sometimes, I will see a combine drive by, but this is all I ever see.  

From my vantage point in my office, I’ve never actually seen someone working a field with a tractor or harvesting crop with a combine. My office does not give a sufficient or complete view of a farmer’s mission. It only showcases a few of their works. So if I were to define the works of a farmer purely on what I see them do from my office, I would have to tell you, “mostly they just move grain into and out of  bins. Sometimes they drive tractors down the highway for fun. Beyond all that, I don’t really know what  they do.” Obviously, this would be incomplete to the point of erroneous. 

This illustration shows how important it is that we begin our understanding of the Holy Spirit’s work by first understanding His mission, and then go on to look at His individual works. The individual works do not necessarily give us the entire picture any more than my casual observations of what farmers do outside  my window reveals to me the mission of the farmer. 

A Common Problem in Pneumatology 

“Pneumatology” is the branch of theology dedicated to the study of the Holy Spirit. Yes, I know that the  word resembles “pneumatic” which in English means “filled with air.” The reason for this is that the Greek  word “pneuma” can mean “spirit” or “wind” or “breath” or even “air”. Your car tires are not filled with the  Holy Spirit, but they were created by Him. Similarly, “pneumatology” is not the study of tires, but the study of the Holy Spirit who made them. 

Pneumatology in the Christian congregations of our day and age has a widespread problem. It has largely been ignored and when not ignored the attention given to it has been narrowly focused on one specific event: Pentecost.  

Don’t get me wrong, Pentecost is a very significant event. It signals the arrival of the Church and it was a very public display of the Holy Spirit’s power, but the giving of the Spirit on Pentecost is only a part of His  work and just a small illustration of His presence in our lives. Just as farmers need to haul grain when the season is right, that was work He needed to do at the right time. But if we narrow the work of the Holy  Spirit down to “sometimes He appears in fire and gives people the miraculous power to preach in a foreign language” we’re going to lose track of His presence in our own lives.  

“Dwelling” Versus “Empowering” 

A closer examination of the Pentecost event is warranted, but before I dive into that we need to tease a few more things apart. The first is the difference between the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence (which is graciously given to all believers, John 20:22, Romans 8:9-11) and His empowering presence (which is given  to all believers, but in unique ways and for the building up of the congregation 1 Corinthians 12:4-7,11). 

The “Indwelling” presence and the “Empowering” presence of the Holy Spirit are highly related, but are not the same thing. Every single believer in Jesus Christ has been given the indwelling Holy Spirit, and there aren’t many Holy Spirits, there’s only one. So, by virtue of the fact that we all have the same Holy Spirit  dwelling in us, we are connected to God and to each other (1 Corinthians 12:13, Ephesians 4:4).  

Every believer has been given this “Indwelling” presence (Romans 8:9), and this gift of the Holy Spirit  unites us into one body: the Body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23, 4:3-4).  

Conversely, we all have been given “Empowering” gifts by the Holy Spirit, but they are as varied and unique as people and/or body parts are (1 Corinthians 12:27, Romans 12:4-5). The reason the Holy Spirit  gives gifts is to advance His mission: to give, create and maintain life.  

It’s important to note, however, that the reception and display of “Empowering” gifts was never intended to be a litmus test to check for the “Indwelling” presence of the Holy Spirit. In both Romans 12 and 1  Corinthians 12, one of the main points that Paul is making is that we should understand that the gifts are so widely varied that someone cannot declare someone else to be separated from the body on account of  their Empowering spiritual gifts or lack thereof.  

Unfortunately, in many Christian circles, it’s become an acceptable and even encouraged practice to judge members of the body by their gifts. If you lack a certain gift (Speaking in tongues? Generosity? Service?),  it’s taught that you probably should also doubt the presence of the Indwelling Spirit in you. This teaching is an awful heresy, and it correlates with another equally confusing heresy.  

Many Bible teachers are using the same broken practice to judge whether or not the Old Testament saints had the Indwelling Holy Spirit. They are judging the Holy Spirit’s Old Testament works and presence by a  few of the Holy Spirit’s works that we observe in the Old Testament, instead of according to the Scriptural  testimonies about His mission. It’s like they are saying the Holy Spirit is a farmer and the only thing we see Him do in the Old Testament is haul grain. 

Indwelling Presence Known By Faith 

Here’s the truth that so many are ignoring: the presence of the Indwelling Holy Spirit is only revealed by God’s Word. It’s only known by faith. “Signs” and “manifestations” are not a reliable way to judge the presence of the Indwelling Holy Spirit in your life or in others.  

When Nicodemus came by dark of night to talk with Jesus, he began the conversation by asserting what he knew (or at least, thought he knew.)  

“We know your are a teacher and that you’ve come from God. We know this because we’ve seen your signs  and we are smart enough to interpret them.” (John 3:2, paraphrased).  

Jesus responded by telling Nicodemus what he didn’t know. John 3:8 (ESV) — [Jesus said to him] “The  wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it  goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  

What Nicodemus didn’t know and was incapable of knowing apart from God revealing it to him was what  the Holy Spirit was up to.  

Everyone has died spiritually, therefore everyone must be born again spiritually. This being “born again” is the same thing as being spiritually resurrected (Romans 6:4, 8:11). And yet, this rebirth is not known to us  by our natural senses anymore than our natural senses can discern the source of the blowing wind.  

 1 Corinthians 2:14–16 (ESV) — The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they  are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The  spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.  

Our natural, “sinful old self” is not capable of even sensing the Indwelling Holy Spirit. Our reborn, spiritually alive self is. But our sense of the Indwelling Holy Spirit is not what we lean on to know that we have the Holy Spirit. Instead, we know that we have the Holy Spirit by faith.  

What I mean is that we don’t trust in our senses, but instead we trust and believe what the Word of God  declares to us. Our new and old minds continue to wrestle with each other all the way until our death.  Paul talks about this personally affecting him in Romans 7:11-25.  

 Romans 7:22–23 (ESV) — For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members  another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that [still]  dwells in my members. 

Paul says that both sin and the Holy Spirit dwell in him, and they are at war. 

The world doesn’t trust God’s Word so they want anyone who claims to have the Indwelling Holy Spirit to  prove it by doing miraculous signs and wonders (Matthew 12:39). They believe, like Nicodemus did, that they can accurately discern the signs. The world wants to walk by sight instead of faith, but we are encouraged to do otherwise (2 Corinthians 5:7). Our sight is not that clear. Our understanding of what we see is even  more suspect. We understand this in regards to all kinds of other things, but for some reason a great  multitude of Christians think their sight can be trusted to reveal the Holy Spirit.  

Walking by faith means trusting what Scripture says above and before our own sight and discernment.  Scripture gives us a test to discern the presence of the Indwelling Holy Spirit, so that is what we should  use. 

 1 Corinthians 12:3 (ESV) — Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God  ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. 

 1 John 4:1–3 (ESV) — Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from  God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit  that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess  Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the  

world already.  

 Romans 10:9–10 (ESV) — because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your  heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is  justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 

The Scriptural test to know if you have the Indwelling Spirit is not if you can preach the glories of Christ in a foreign language or if you can pray a guy back to life after he falls from a window (see Acts 20:7-12). The Scriptural test for the Indwelling Holy Spirit is your confession of faith.  

The Next Questions  

Many questions follow from understanding this. Did the Old Testament saints have the Indwelling Holy Spirit in the same way that we do? Was Pentecost a change in His Indwelling-ness? What is the benefit of  the Indwelling Holy Spirit if it’s so hard to know if He’s there? 

I’ll give a few short answers, but we’ll have to leave a deeper explanation of them for next month.  

I’ve heard many Christian theologians teach that the Old Testament saints did not have the Indwelling Holy Spirit. Simply put, this is wrong. Pentecost signaled a change in a few things, but that was not one of them. The answer to the last question I posed (the benefit of the Indwelling Spirit) helps shed some light on the  answer to the first. 

The benefit of having the Indwelling Spirit is life. In fact, “benefit” is not anywhere near strong enough a  word to describe it. 

John 17:3 (ESV) — And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom  you have sent. 

Life is a relationship with God, and God desires a level of intimacy with you that is beyond all others. God  takes His Holy Spirit and sends Him to dwell in you and with you. Without Him, you are spiritually dead and  headed for eternal death when your physical death catches up to your spiritual one. With Him, you are  spiritually alive and even if your body should die, that death is only temporary. The Spirit who raised Jesus from physical death will raise you as well (Romans 5:11-12). 

You must have the Indwelling Holy Spirit to receive eternal life. And yet, we know from Christ’s own words  that there are Old Testament saints that are already basking in eternal paradise. Abraham, Isaac and  Jacob are not dead but are living (Matthew 22:31-32). Moses and Elijah also are alive today (Matthew 17:3- 4). All these are attested by Holy Scripture to be alive in the Holy Spirit, even though their bodies are dead  (ok, I grant you that we don’t really know what’s up with Elijah’s body, see 2 Kings 2:11).  

 Genesis 15:6 (ESV) — And [Abraham] believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham was righteous by faith. So to Abraham, the Holy Spirit was life, because of his righteousness  (Romans 8:10.) All the others, also, had life. They had the Indwelling Holy Spirit.  

We’ll expand on all that and we’ll begin to answer what actually did change at Pentecost next month. In  upcoming months, we’ll also start to look at spiritual gifts and the Holy Spirit’s Empowering presence. Until then, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be  with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14.)