5. The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit

"Christ. in whom, on believing, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession" (Ephesians 1:13, Moule). "The Holy Spirit of the promise": this name immediately takes us back to John 14:1-31; John 15:1-27; John 16:1-33. The Holy Spirit was promised to the disciples. Without Him they would indeed have been orphans. On December 9th, 1934, in a deserted house in the town of Miaosheo in China, a baby, not yet three months old cried and slept alone through the night and on into the next day. On the hillside outside the town lay the bodies of her young American father and mother, cut down by the swords of a band of Communists. None dared to come near the house, for the Reds were still only three miles away. Could there have been a more complete embodiment of the word orphan than this helpless little life, so powerless in itself, surrounded by brutal enemies, and with no friend near? In the context of the new life within, the disciples would indeed have been orphans, except for the coming of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of the promise. What was the promise? The answer is relevant to Ephesians, for in 1:13 we are so distinctly referred back to it. "The Father . shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever" (John 14:16). "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (14:26). "He will guide you into all truth: .and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you" (16:13-14). Where shall we find words to present the life, the peace, the blessing which are the potential of this unction from the Holy One? It lies behind all that follows about the gift and office of the Holy Spirit.

First, then, we need to know when we receive Him. We need to have assurance about this, for there is no part of the teaching of Scripture regarding the Holy Spirit on which there is greater diversity of view than on this question. When does a person receive Him? The definite answer is here in this verse in Ephesians we are now considering. In the Acts there is in fact a considerable variety as to the stage in the experience of individuals at which the Holy Spirit was given, and also as to the human instruments and their part in the gift. It is necessary to believe either that such varieties were intended to continue throughout the Church’s history, or that some of them were special cases appropriate to the introductory phase of Christianity. We only need to hear the united voices of the epistles to understand that all but one were special cases, not to continue. There are two real questions. Is the Holy Spirit received at the moment of faith in Christ, or before, or after?

Note (biblecentre):A third question which may usefully be be asked is whether there are individuals who are born again but have not yet believed the full gospel of salvation (such as the Ephesians themselves, in Acts 19:1-41). Such have a new nature and therefore the right desires but are still in the state of Romans 7:19-22). This is not the normal state of a Christian which is considered in 1 Corinthians 12:13 etc. But, unfortunately, many may be in a state which is not normal. Your find good teaching on this subject here and here. Is the laying on of hands necessary? In Acts 8:17 at Samaria, the Holy Ghost was given through the laying on of hands, and likewise at Ephesus in Acts 19:6. In all other recorded cases, the Spirit was given without laying on of hands. At the first preaching to the Gentiles the Spirit was given at the moment of belief, but in all other instances as a distinct event subsequent to belief. The usage of the epistles shows that the first preaching to the Gentiles provided the pattern intended to be permanent, and the rest were exceptional events for special reasons connected with the introduction of the new faith. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 "are we all baptised by one Spirit". Who is this "all"? All that in every place invoke the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Galatians 3:2 the fact that the Galatians (who had fallen from grace, and were not running well) had received the Spirit by the hearing of faith, is made the ground of the argument as to how they were to be made perfect. But here in Ephesians 1:13, quoted in opening, is the most definite passage on the subject. They were sealed with the Holy Spirit "on believing". The promise of John 14:1-31 contains the words, "that He (the Holy Spirit) may abide with you for ever". The irrevocable nature of this immense gift is emphasised here also in the reference to seal and earnest, and especially" until the redemption of the purchased possession". The Holy Spirit as seal gives final certainty to the covenant of salvation. The matter is finalised and settled and nothing can ever open again the question of salvation once a person is sealed with the Spirit. The thought of the Holy Spirit as earnest contains at least three elements. That He has been given is the certainty of our final entrance into the fulness of the life with God in heaven. The Holy Spirit is also the foretaste of that fruition: and this involves the fact that what is given with Him is the same in kind with what the saints will enjoy in heaven. What He gives (especially strength with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith) will, in quality and kind, never be surpassed in heaven. It will, thank God, be surpassed in the measure of our appreciation and response. The grapes of Eshcol were only in part a picture of the earnest. They were the very fruit of Canaan itself and therefore a true foretaste. But they did not involve the certainty, for the individual concerned, of entrance into the land. In this respect they fall short of being a true picture of the earnest. In 2:22 we have the consequences for the saints collectively, of the gift of the Spirit. "In (the Lord) ye also are being built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit". The truth that God has ever desired to dwell amongst His people, and what was required before this could be true, is a thread which runs through Scripture. It was first known as an immediate consequence of redemption. "The Lord. is become my salvation. and I will prepare Him an habitation". "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established" (Exodus 15:2; Exodus 15:7). This was true in an outward and ceremonial sense. Since an accomplished redemption has been achieved by the blood of Christ, then there can be in an inward, spiritual, true and final sense, an habitation for God. God now dwells in His people as His house by the Holy Spirit. The central thought here is nearness to God, both for those who were distant and for those who were nigh only in the old outward sense, for we have access through Christ by one Spirit to the Father. In these verses we have the church as the temple in verse 21 and as the habitation or dwelling-place in verse 22, and it is with the latter that the activity of the Holy Spirit is especially connected. In the Psalms the meaning of these two figures in the experience of God’s people becomes clear. The temple is connected in the thoughts and experience of the saints with that distinctness and separateness of God in His holiness, in which He is the object of worship. The house is connected, on the other hand, with His people’s experience of joy in nearness to Him. "I went. to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day" (Psalms 42:4). "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth." (Psalms 26:8). "How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house, and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures" (Psalms 36:7-8).

Still considering the positive gain of what the Holy Spirit has established, we come to Ephesians 3:5. The new things, hitherto secret and hidden from the sons of men "are now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." These are the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; they have not entered into the hearts of men, but God hath prepared them for those that love Him. The same Spirit who has sealed each believer, and by whom God dwells in the church, thus makes available in this place and to these people the knowledge of the depths of God. This super-abounding wealth of activity by the Spirit of God fills out the concept that the saints are accessible to spiritual influences in heavenly places, and it is manifestly of the greatest consequence that we should also learn how our actions can affect our reception of such spiritual activity on the part of God by His Spirit.

Before leaving the doctrinal part of the epistle behind, however, we find another element in the positive result of the Spirit’s work, and this is the unity of the Spirit in 4:3. This idea really arises from chapter 2, the intervening chapter being parenthetical, though supremely important. Note again the reiteration of the fact of unity in chapter 2. Jew and Gentile believers have been made one (verse 14), reconciling both unto God in one body (verse 16): and both have access by one Spirit to the Father. The first call by which the saints are to make effective their response to God’s blessing is to remain faithful to this unity. We are not called to make a unity. God has done this, and we are called to translate into practice the unity which God has formed by His Spirit. No modern cleavage threatens the maintenance of this unity so deeply as that between Jew and Gentile. Everything in race, history, aspirations, diet, worship and habits tended to separate: but to maintain it, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.

It might have been expected that the call would be to keep the unity of the body: but it is evident from the next few verses that the unity of the Spirit contains other elements than the unity of the body: there is the unity of the faith and the unity of the children of God. The "unity of the Spirit" also emphasises the inwardness of this oneness in essence, and hence that action in the moral rather than in the organisational realm is required to keep it. Lowliness and meekness, longsuffering and forbearance on the part of individuals can and do meet God’s desire here, rather than the efforts of religious politicians to recreate an external and organisational unity. The evidences of the fact of the presence and activity of God by His Spirit in the church appear in the Acts. Acts 5:3 shows the fact of the presence of God by the Spirit: "But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?" Acts 13:2 illustrates the activity of the Holy Spirit: "The Holy Spirit said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." The references to the Holy Spirit in the hortatory part of Ephesians very strikingly underline that the central requirement from the believer is behaviour which does not hinder the Spirit in His mighty works in. the saints, but rather forwards them and co-operates with Him. There are four:

• Grieve not the Spirit (4:30).

• Be filled with the Spirit (5:18).

• Take the sword of the Spirit (6:17).

• Pray in the Spirit (6:18).

I think I can see a connection between the first of these and the Lord Jesus being grieved in the Gospel. "And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). In another place He was grieved because of the hardness of their hearts. The mighty works of that Mighty One were diminished ("not many") by His being grieved. If no less a miracle than this has taken place, that the Holy Spirit of God has taken up His dwelling in and amongst the saints, where are His mighty works? We humbly thank God that we do see something of His mighty works in the saints. Why not more? It is because our behaviour grieves Him. If we put away lying, let not the sun go down upon our wrath, the stealer steal no more, the Spirit could take the things of Christ and show them to us. If kindness, tender-heartedness and forgiveness displaced bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking, then more of His mighty works would be seen.

"Be filled with the Spirit" is not, like Romans 12:1, a crisis in the believer’s history and experience, nor does it denote a moment when he "arrives". It is a constantly repeated or habitual thing. By the contrast with being drunk with wine, there seems to be a reference to our intake in spiritual things. If our intake is in the things of the Spirit, that is, the things of Christ, then behaviour will be dictated by the Spirit and not by wine. Read again how this also is illustrated in the Acts. It was when they forgot themselves and were full of enthusiasm for Christ that they became "filled with the Spirit" (Acts 4:31). Who could have conceived that in such circumstances their prayer should not have contained a single hint of concern for the safety of their own skins? They prayed for boldness in the cause of Christ, and for signs and wonders in His Name. These are the conditions when men and women, with the eye away from themselves, and filled with Christ, are filled with the Holy Spirit. In what sense is the Word of God the sword of the Spirit? Akin to the fact that the Holy Spirit has been the Revealer, the Word of God is in a sense forged by the Spirit. The sword of the Spirit is Scripture as the Word of God. ’Observe that the Lord Himself, in His temptation, the history of which should be compared with this whole passage, used exclusively verbal citations from Scripture as His sword. No suggestion could be more pregnant than this as to the abiding position of the written Word under the dispensation of the Spirit’ (Moule). "Taking" the sword of the Spirit involves knowing it, and the deliberate recognition that without it the enemy cannot be overcome.

"Prayer and supplication in the Spirit" seem to say that all true prayer is the outcome of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit poured out on Israel will be the Spirit of grace and supplication, and then only will their prayer be true prayer and reach the throne. Of ourselves we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but in and with our prayers the Spirit Himself makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. It is because God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts that we cry" Abba, Father".