FULLNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
FULLNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is very closely involved in our world and especially in the lives of God’s people.
In the second verse of the Bible referring to the creation of the earth we read “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”.
It is the Holy Spirit who convicts the sinner of sin and reveals to him the horrors of his sinful condition, driving him to the Saviour in repentance and felt need. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to us the uncleanness of the flesh and that flesh cannot enter God’s kingdom. It is He who drives the sinner to seek the Saviour and who creates the seeking sinner anew in Christ (new birth). It is the Holy Spirit who then gives God’s peace and who brings the believer to assurance of faith and the experience of the love of God being shed abroad in his or her heart. He is the “Spirit of adoption” who makes it possible for the believer to live in relationship as a son of God.
It is the Holy Spirit who sanctifies each individual believer and who baptises each one into the one body of Christ.
He” witnesses to us” (Heb 10:15) and He witnesses with us, “with our spirit” (Rom 8:16), and “makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Room 8:26).
The Lord Jesus alone baptises in the Holy Spirit for empowerment and grace of witness. This empowering baptism is described by Jesus as “the Promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). It is the Holy Spirit who empowers redeemed men and women to serve God beyond their natural capacities.
It is the Holy Spirit who operates spiritual gifts in the church. It is the Holy Spirit alone who enables the ekklesia to fulfil her spiritual calling and it is He who brings seasons of revival to the church and empowers the servants of God.
It is the Holy Spirit who inspired the written Word of God and who gives life to the written Word.
It is He who leads and directs the disciples of Christ – He “drove” Jesus into the wilderness (Mark 1:12).
And all the time He constantly glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father with whom He is in absolute Oneness.
All of this being so, He rarely forces Himself upon us. He looks for an inviting heart to work in. The Scriptures speak of how to our great (and may be eternal) loss we can ‘resist’ Him, ‘grieve’ Him, ‘quench’ Him and fail to curb our ‘flesh’ which by nature ever ‘lusts against’ Him (Gal 5:17).
The New Testament records many instances where individuals or a corporate group experienced a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On such occasions these people were flooded by the Holy Spirit, immersed, drenched, baptised in divine love and spiritually empowered. Church history since the New Testament times is replete with similar occurrences where people were immersed in the Holy Spirit and empowered by Him. The experience is often associated with the impartation of gifts and spiritual power for a particular calling together with a powerful realisation of the love of Jesus.
Many long for such an experience but never receive it in this life on earth. Others receive an experience with differences in manner and intensity to others. Why is this?
Firstly, we must understand that God is sovereign in all things and He does what He will and when He wills and where He wills and He will not be manipulated by us. Jesus said “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
Yet the Apostle Peter said that “the gift of the Holy Spirit” as experienced at Pentecost was for “as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38) and the Apostle Paul said to “eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit” (1 Cor. 14:1).
If we “eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit” how might that show itself? Firstly, it will mean a desire to deal with any sin and flesh blockage.
As I reflect on my life I see that so much of my life was a mixture of flesh and Spirit. I had real and deep desire for the things of the Spirit but the flesh protested and wanted space also. I very much wanted the fullness of the Spirit but how far was I prepared to unrelentingly pursue with pressing desire? Was I too easily diverted from whole-hearted pursuit? How far was I prepared for the cost of offering my body without conditions as “a living sacrifice”? These are questions for my personal reflection. I have experienced the Holy Spirit but how much more might there have been? Oh, for an overwhelming, over-flooding, baptism of the Spirit!
Without the Holy Spirit we cannot experience the spiritual order He operates. Without Him there will not be deep conviction and repentance for sin or a realisation of the vileness of our sinful flesh. This explains why much of the church has a shallow and legalistic view of sin and the corruptness of the flesh is poorly understood. Unless you have seen these things for what they are by the Spirit you cannot understand their depths and the tendency is to intellectualise our salvation and miss the transforming spiritual force of the cross of Christ.
People who received a significant baptism in the Spirit include those who ‘desired’ and ‘sought’ with an intensity that penetrated the heavens. Read the struggles of John Wesley over many years; the story of George Whitefield and of the severity of his self-inflicted deprivations and fasting as he desperately sought the blessing; the story of Jonathon Goforth whose wife was alarmed that the intensity of his seeking would destroy his health. Look at the background of revivals – the prayer, the intense pleading desire for the Spirit to come. And when He came He even sovereignly fell upon some enemies of Christ as He did upon Saul of Tarsus.
While God is sovereign, history shows His willingness to respond when His people “desire earnestly”, but He may choose to leave us to press on in faith without such an experience and to honour Him in that.
Should the Holy Ghost come – let us obey.
Rees Howells spoke of his fear of the Holy Spirit and the consequences of letting human will interfere with His holy demands upon him; no matter how much they cut across the most ‘reasonable’ will of the flesh. He concluded that if for the heavens to remain opened, an Isaac had to be sacrificed, or a Samuel consecrated, so be it, he must obey, and he did.
“And who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16).
(P. S. More than three decades ago I read ‘Joy Unspeakable’ by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and I still think it is the most helpful book I have ever read on this subject of the various aspects of our relationship with the Holy Spirit.)