The Ministries of God the Holy Spirit Today: Baptism, Indwelling
Ephesians 4:3–5
Ephesians Lesson #117
August 15, 2021
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www.deanbibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Father, we are thankful for Your Word because as we study Your Word, we come to know reality as You created it. Not as man has experienced it or imagined it or rationalized it, but we understand truth—truth that is embedded within Your very character and is exemplified in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ Who said, “I am the way the truth, and the life.”
“Father, we know that as we study Your Word that it is truth, for our Lord said that we are to be sanctified by Your Word, Your Word is truth. This is a concept today that is often rejected by the world around us, choosing instead the mirage of moral relativity, that we can each make up our own minds and have our own values, which just exemplifies the rebellion of the creature against the Creator.
“Father, as we study Your Word now and come to understand the things that happened to us at the instant of salvation as they relate to God the Holy Spirit, help us to understand what Your Word reveals to us and to see its significance in setting us apart uniquely in all of history.
“That every believer in the Church Age is given these assets, these blessings, these privileges. And that they are there for us to develop, to learn about from Your Word, and to live on the basis of, for this is part of that high position that we have been given and are called to live in light of.
“We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”
Slide 2
Ephesians 4:3–5, continuing our study. I will read these just to put it back in your mind before we continue.
Ephesians 4:3, Paul continues to explain what this worthy walk is back in Ephesians 4:1, that we have been challenged to walk worthy of that high position to which we have been called or summoned.
He says that part of this is we are to diligently work—or endeavor, to make every effort—to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. To remind you, this unity is established at the instant of our salvation.
Every believer is united in the body of Christ by especially the baptism by the Holy Spirit, which we studied last time. He goes on to say that there is one body. Notice there are seven “ones” in the next three verses. Each of these will take us back to the concept of unity of the Spirit in Ephesians 4:3.
There is one body; that is the body of Christ, the Church. We are all in one body—not a local body, but the universal body of Christ—made up of all believers in the Church Age from the Day of Pentecost up until the present, which composes the Church, the body of Christ.
There is one Spirit, God the Holy Spirit and His ministries to us at the instant of salvation and throughout our spiritual life all relate to that calling: that high position, that exalted position, to which we have been summoned, Ephesians 4:1. That is our hope.
Hope in the Bible is never some sort of just optimistic wistfulness, it is a confident expectation. It is not thinking, “Well, I hope it doesn’t rain this afternoon. I need to work in the yard,” or maybe, “Well, I hope it does rain this afternoon, so I won’t have to work in the yard.” We don’t really know what will happen, it’s just wishful optimism.
But in the Bible hope is a word that conveys a certainty, an expectation, something that is absolutely stable, and that is the hope of our calling. It looks forward to the future that God has for us in heaven.
Ephesians 4:4 relates to ministries of the Holy Spirit; Ephesians 4:5–6 relates to the Lord Jesus Christ. We see another of Paul’s Trinitarian expressions here, talking about the Spirit, the Son, and the Father, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
The Ministries of God the Holy Spirit.
I want to review, maybe make a couple more comments before we go forward. The next two have to do with the indwelling presence of God the Holy Spirit in every Church Age believer, then the sealing by the Holy Spirit.
Slide 3
We looked at the first two of these ministries of God the Holy Spirit that are to the world at large, the world of unbelievers.
- The first has to do with a restraining ministry because He restrains evil during this age. We only think things are bad, but they could be a whole lot worse.
- Secondly, we looked at the convicting ministry of God the Holy Spirit.
We have looked at the ministries that take place at the instant of salvation. They all happen simultaneously, instantly, at the same time; we are: regenerated, baptized by the Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit, sealed by the Spirit, and at the instant of salvation we’re also filled by the Spirit.
That is the only one that can be lost. We lose it and recover it many times, and will discuss that probably next time. These happen simultaneously, but there is a logical order to them. First of all we are born again, and simultaneously as part of that, there is identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. Also, at that time the Holy Spirit indwells us and seals us.
Slide 4 Skipped
Slide 5
We saw that with the baptism by the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:13, there are some issues related to this, related to the translation, not to the theology that we have learned and understood.
You think you got a little confused last time maybe, although you’ve heard it many times? I take a group of pastors through this. We had to go through it all over again Friday morning because some of them haven’t spent enough time with Greek. Just as you all know, you start talking numbers, I’m lost. Some of us just don’t do well with numbers, and some don’t do well with grammar.
Some of those in the group who have their doctorates, when you start talking grammar and details of grammatical exegesis, there are aspects of it wherein their brain freezes. So do not feel like you are alone if you felt a little lost last week. You got the end result and that’s important. But it’s also important to understand the correction to some problems in the way this is expressed.
1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.”
Just a side note in light of our study in Ephesians 4, we have to remember what Paul taught in the second half of Ephesians 2, where he started off talking to the Ephesians as Gentiles. In God’s plan, the world is divided into two basic groups. There are the Jews who are God’s chosen people, those he called out through Abraham, the head of the Jewish race, and He made certain promises to them.
In the Old Testament they were distinct from all of the other ethnicities because of God’s purpose and plan for Israel. There were certain things in the worship of God wherein Gentiles were excluded. Women were also excluded, and slaves were excluded. God was teaching certain things in that.
The high priest was the only one who had access directly to God by entering the Holy of Holies. He could only do so once a year and that on the Day of Atonement, which by the way, is coming up in September on the Jewish calendar.
God has this distinction. It’s the only racial distinction that has been legitimized by God in all of human history. And God abolished that at the Cross, because the purpose for that wasn’t because of racial superiority, it was because God had a purpose that He wanted to bring to fulfillment among the Jewish people. It was through them that He would send the Savior who would go to the cross and die for our sins.
In Ephesians 2, Paul reminds the Gentile Ephesians that “you were once Gentiles called un-circumcision,” as sort of an insult by the Jews, who were called “the circumcision made in the flesh by hands,” and he says that’s when you were unsaved. He uses several phrases to describe that.
Then he says, but now—that is, in this Church Age once you trust in Christ as Savior—you have been brought near by the blood of Christ, by His death—that He is our priest and He is our peace. He has broken down the middle wall of separation, which it goes on to describe as the Law.
So now in the body of Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. Paul emphasizes this in 1 Corinthians 12:13. Jew and Gentile, those ethnic distinctions that were valid under the Mosaic Law have been eradicated, abolished at the cross. “Slave or free,” those distinctions in terms of their service to God has been eradicated. So we are unified in the body of Christ.
That is part of the background that must be kept in mind as you read through passages like Ephesians 4:3–6. We keep the unity. The unity that he has talked about in the context is this unity now between Jew and Gentile—all believers.
There is no legitimate basis for making an issue out of one’s ethnicity, one’s culture or subculture because the only thing that matters is that we are one in Christ and we are to maintain that unity. That unity is explained through those seven “ones” in Ephesians 4:4–6.
Slide 6
On the left side of our chart is the Eternal Realities. This is our legal position before God from the instant of salvation. This chart helps you understand that there are some things in the Scriptures that are addressed in relation to our position, our legal position, and identity in Christ.
Others are related to our spiritual life as a child of God in the Church Age. We’re really focusing on that which has to do with eternal, unchangeable realities once we trust in Christ.
Slide 7
The circle is white because we are made sons of light according to Ephesians 5. At that instant of salvation, our new legal position is in Christ. We are baptized by means of God the Holy Spirit.
Slide 8
The right circle: because we are sons of God, children of light, we are to walk in the light. We are filled by the Spirit, and we are to walk by the Spirit.
That is the basic framework.
Slide 9
The position is that we are “the called.” We have been called, we have this exalted position.
Slide 10
We started looking at a summary of the ministries of God the Holy Spirit today. I pointed out that there is much confusion about this, because there is a lack of clarity in an in-depth study of what the Scripture says.
Slide 11
The Ministry of God the Holy Spirit to the World.
Slide 12
He is Restraining Evil.
Slide 13
2 Thessalonians 2:6–7.
During this Church Age, He restrains evil, but when the Rapture of the Church occurs, which ends this Church Age, the Holy Spirit is removed and Satan is given a free reign to try to do his best to bring order to the world and to rule what he has stolen from man.
Man was originally created to be the ruler of the Earth, but Satan stole that with Adam’s sin in the Garden. Everything fell apart because Satan is unable to control or bring peace to the planet.
Slide 14
The restraining ministry is a work of common grace, and the Holy Spirit restrains evil and lawlessness during this Church Age.
You look around and say, “There seems to be a lot of evil and lawlessness!” If He weren’t restraining, it would be a lot worse. It would be North Korea everywhere.
Slide 15
The Holy Spirit convicts unbelievers when they hear the gospel.
Slide 16
Our Lord summarized this in John 16:8–11, that the Holy Spirit is doing three things when we are communicating the gospel to people.
First of all, He convicts the world of sin, not in the sense of making them feel guilty because of all their sin, that’s not the point, but as John 16:9 says, “… because they do not believe in Me.”
Christ paid the penalty for sin. That doesn’t mean everybody goes to heaven. It means that legal sin penalty that God assigned to Adam and his descendants the instant he sinned is now paid for.
But you and I and everyone else are still born spiritually dead, and because we are born spiritually dead, we must be made alive. We are still born unrighteous, and even though we do many good things, we are still unrighteous.
Jesus, at one of those moments where He spoke truth instead of trying to win friends and influence people, said to His disciples, “You being evil …” Yeah, that’s what He said, “You being evil …” His disciples! He said, “You being evil know how to give good gifts to men.”
Evil people know how to do good things. That doesn’t mean they’re not evil. That doesn’t mean that their heart is not turned against God, and that they are not spiritually dead. This is what the Holy Spirit is convicting the unbeliever of—that they have not believed in Christ; therefore, they are still spiritually dead.
They are unrighteous, therefore, they need righteousness which comes at the moment of faith. And judgment because Christ judged the ruler of this world—that is Satan—on the Cross.
Slide 17
Regeneration
Slide 18
The problem is that we are all born spiritually dead. Ephesians 2:1, “you were dead in your trespasses and sins.”
Slide 19
What do we need? The sin penalty is paid for, but we still need to be given new life, and that new life comes when we trust in Christ. We are born “alienated from the life of God,” Ephesians 4:18.
Slide 20
Jesus told Nicodemus, “… unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.”
We cannot give birth to ourselves; we cannot do that ourselves. We can’t will to be born again.
At the end of that section, John 3:18, we are told that “he who does not believe in the son of God is condemned because he has not believed in the name of the son of God.” Not because of his sin, but because he has not believed. Because by believing you receive life, and you receive the righteousness of Christ.
Slide 21 Skipped
Slide 22
Titus 3:5 sums this up, it’s “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration, even the renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
Slide 23
The Baptism by the Holy Spirit
Slide 24
I defined it this way:
The baptism, “by means of the Holy Spirit” to be technically correct, is the work of Christ. Christ baptizes by the Spirit, whereby at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone, Christ uses the Holy Spirit to identify the believer with His death, burial, and resurrection, and places the believer into the body of Christ, the Church, as the Holy Spirit builds the new temple, which is the body of Christ.
All that happens, but we don’t experience a thing. It is a legal transaction from Heaven that is more real than anything that we can experience.
Slide 25
We are baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ.
Slide 26
Matthew 3:11, John the Baptist prophesied that “the One who comes after me, He will—sometime in the future—baptize you by the means of the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Slide 27
1 Corinthians 12:13 the other key verse, we are all baptized into one body. This is not immersion; this is not talking about water baptism. There are eight baptisms in the New Testament, only three are wet.
The other eight, nobody gets wet, nobody gets immersed into anything. In 1 Corinthians 10:1–2, the baptism into Moses, it says that all of those who crossed through the Red Sea were baptized, it uses the same phraseology as with the Holy Spirit, were baptized by the cloud and by the sea.
They did not go into the cloud; they did not go into the sea, they did not get wet. It has to do with what God is identifying them with. God is the cloud representing the Shekinah glory. The sea represents the judgment on the Egyptians. They are identified with that and are placed into Moses, and that demonstrates the salvation of Israel.
Slide 28
The problem is one of translation. Often you hear people talk about the baptism of the Spirit. Technically, that’s incorrect because it’s a genitive and that phraseology is never used.
The reason I belabor this is because we believe that God breathed out every word of Scripture, therefore every word, every phrase is important. To mishandle it leads to misunderstanding, and that’s what happened here.
Slide 29
The Gospels were translated with the phrase “baptism with the Spirit.” 1 Corinthians was usually translated either baptism in the Spirit or baptism by the Spirit. But the reality is that in every one of the verses, the four Gospels, Acts 1, Acts 16, everywhere else, it’s the same phrase. It’s just translated differently in 1 Corinthians, which led to the problem.
The problem for many isn’t a theological problem. For some it is, but it is a matter of looking at this and thinking, “There must be two baptisms.” There’s one baptism. That’s what is said here in Ephesians 4:5, one baptism, and it is a baptism. The reason it comes after one Lord is because it is still Christ who performs the baptism, and He uses the Holy Spirit to do it.
Slide 30
So, one baptism by means of the Holy Spirit. Christ performs this baptism. The instrument used to effect the identification is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is often expressed that way. We are filled by means of the Holy Spirit. He’s the One who is directly involved; He is always under the authority of God, but it’s more indirect.
It means the same thing in terms of what we have said. The Pentecostal interpretation that one is for unity, 1 Corinthians 12:13, one is for power doesn’t play out if there aren’t two baptisms. There is only one and they’re all the same because they all use the same language.
Slide 31
Galatians 3:27–28 states this, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek …” Same thing he says in 1 Corinthians 12:13.
In the Old Testament Jews could go all the way into the temple or into the tabernacle. Only one could go all the way into the Holy of Holies. Levitical priests could go into the Holy Place. Some Jews could go into the outer courtyard, but there were other courtyards: the courtyard of the women, the courtyard of the Gentiles. There were signs there warning that you could not go beyond certain areas.
This is no longer true because Christ has removed the veil. Now we have this unity, so that ethnicity does not impact our worship of God. This doesn’t have to do with other roles. Men have some roles, women have other roles, but it impacts that personal access to God.
Paul brought this out in Ephesians 2:18, “For through Him—that is Christ—we both—Jew and Gentile—have access by one Spirit to the Father.” They didn’t have that in the Old Testament.
Slide 32
Putting together what the Bible says about being born again, being regenerated, with the baptism by the Spirit. (I just flew past this last time.)
Titus 3:5 states that it is “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
I have translated and expanded that for clarification. This is a noted passage of difficulty in terms of handling the Greek.
The key phrase is “He saved us.” Who is “He?” If we look at Titus 3:4, it is God our Savior, referring to God the Father who is the author of the plan of salvation.
In the Trinity there are role distinctions. They are equal in deity. Now pay attention—this is really important; it is foundational to some of the problems we have in our culture: it is understanding the differences between men and women and other differences.
The Bible says that in the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are absolutely, totally, in every way equal in their Personhood, in Who they are. They all are equally omniscient, equally omnipotent, equally omnipresent.
They are equally righteous and just and love, and all the other attributes. There’s no distinction. One is not better or superior to the other in any way shape or form. Yet, even with in the perfect Godhead, there are role distinctions. God the Father is the One who is in authority over God the Son, and over God the Holy Spirit.
There are many in our culture, who have problems with authority. They think somehow authority is something we need to get away from; everybody can do whatever they want to. But authority is inherent within the very relationships of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
So that the Father sends the Son to go to the Cross. Then in John 14, the Son says that God sends the Spirit; later He says He too sends the Spirit. Which shows that there is an authority structure in the Godhead, that the Son is under the authority of the Father, and the Spirit is under the authority of the Son and the Father.
Being in an authority position or having a role distinction does not mean that you are of lesser personhood, that you are less equal or less important. If you say that or if you believe that, you’re basically committing blasphemy against the Trinity, because you are saying that inequality is inherent in role distinctions and that is not the case.
I have always held that the idea that role distinction means inequality is a lie from Satan designed to destroy our understanding of the Trinity, and we must not commit that act of blasphemy.
He saved us; God the Son saved us. The Father’s the author of the plan of salvation, and He saves us by the Son, who is not mentioned in this passage.
Slide 33
It is God the Father who saved us according to His mercy. There is a standard that must be followed in the entire plan of salvation. God diligently planned out everything, so that He could teach it through various assemblies and sacrifices in the Old Testament, and that it is according to mercy. What is mercy? Mercy is grace in action.
“Oh good, what’s grace?” Grace is the action of God’s unmerited and undeserved love. We are sinners alienated from the life of God condemned, corrupt, obnoxious to God, yet the Scripture says in John 3:16 God loved us “in such a way that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” That is just phenomenal!
God overlooks our sinfulness, our darkness, our corruption because we have been created in His image and likeness. You can’t really understand the Cross without understanding Genesis 1:26–28. It is because God created us different from all living beings in His image and likeness, that He desires to save us despite our rebellion, despite our obnoxiousness to Him.
Grace means that God’s love flows to us even though we do not deserve it. He does the best for us He can in His omnipotence and omniscience.
Slide 34
When grace is expressed, that idea is mercy. It’s also undeserved, so it’s according to His mercy—according to the qualities of mercy that are at the core of His being—that He saved us.
That is preceded in Titus 3:5 by the phrase “not by works of righteousness” which means we can’t do anything. In fact, the Scripture says that we can do nothing except trust Him.
Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him.”
It is not that it is faith in and of itself that pleases God, for everybody exercises faith all the time, even someone who is an extreme rationalist expresses faith. They have faith in their own ability to reason and think through to answers to questions. Everybody functions on the basis of faith.
It is a faith in the promise of God. Hebrews 11:6, “… for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
When it comes to righteousness, everybody thinks that they can do some things that impress God, but Scripture says we can’t do anything to impress God because we have all violated God’s standards.
In James’ epistle he says you haven’t committed adultery, but you have committed murder, but if you’ve committed murder, you’ve broken all the Law. If you break one part of the Law, you’ve broken the whole Law, and if you’ve broken the Law of Moses, that just demonstrates you’re a sinner and you need to be saved by grace.
Isaiah 64:6, “we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses—not our unrighteousnesses, but all of our righteousnesses—are as filthy rags.”
Slide 35
Paul says in Titus 3:5, it’s “not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing …” This is a construction that I have to interpret here. It means “the washing produced by regeneration.”
In grammar it’s a subjective genitive, wherein the noun conveys an action that is performed. This is what’s performed, so it’s a washing that’s produced by regeneration
“… even—it’s usually translated as ‘and.’ ”
If you want to have a little fun, go open your dictionary and look up the word “even.” I looked in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It didn’t have a whole lot, gave about five categories. But the Collins Dictionary had 27 different meanings for the word ‘even.”
It has the sense of “namely” or “that is.” It is expanding on what was just said, clarifying it.
So, “through the washing produced by regeneration that is—in other words, regeneration is—the renewing that is produced by God the Holy Spirit.”
When you see words like “washing,” what does that remind you of? That reminds you of baptism and the symbolism of baptism. All of these things are so tightly connected because God is working with the multiple facets of what transpired to save us.
It’s not just that He snaps His fingers and we’re saved. In one sense it’s that way, but it’s so much more complicated than that. And He does so much for us!
Slide 36
This is the backdrop of Galatians 3:27–28.
Slide 37
One last thing before we move on. There is no command to be baptized by the Spirit. There is no command to be baptized by the Spirit because we don’t do it. God does it for us at the instant that we trust in Christ as Savior.
In the same way, there is no command for us to be indwelt by the Spirit. We are never told to be indwelt by the Spirit. It happens automatically for every Church Age believer just as the baptism by the Spirit happens automatically at the instant of salvation.
Slide 38
What Does the Bible Teach About the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit?
Slide 39
At the instant that we trust in Christ, we are baptized by the Holy Spirit, we’re identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and this is tightly connected to the fact that God the Holy Spirit cleanses us.
It’s a washing that is produced by regeneration that cleanses us in our position before God. It will also tie in the imputation of righteousness, and many other things that happen at the instant of salvation. But we’re just focused on the Holy Spirit.
Slide 40
We are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. We can’t lose that indwelling; that is ours forever. And that is different from the experiential reality.
Slide 41
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3 after he has reproved them and rebuked them several times in 1 Corinthians 1–2 for all of their sinful behavior. We get the idea that the people to whom these letters in the New Testament are being written were somehow really great solid Christians, but most of the time they’re not.
Those who lived in Corinth were incredibly rebellious toward God, and they had all kinds of problems that Paul rebuked them for. They’re arrogant, they’re divisive; they’re picking sides with different apostles. Some would say, “Well, I’m like Paul,” someone else would say, “I like Apollos,” and the really holy ones would say, “I follow Christ.”
Paul rebukes them for that. He rebukes them because they’re in love with the rationalism and empiricism of the Greek philosophers. And they’re elevating that to an authority over the authority of Scripture.
They let rank immorality take place without rebuke in their congregation, where not only did everybody in the church know it was going on, but all of the people in the community knew what was going on and were appalled that these Christians wouldn’t deal with it.
He’s constantly having to deal with their arrogance and their pride and their sinfulness and all kinds of problems, so he reminds them of their positional reality. 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God—you as individual believers—and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
What’s important here is the Greek word for temple is NAOS. You’ve gone through many studies with me in the past where we looked at the tabernacle and the temple: the outer courtyard and inside is the building, the temple itself. The Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The word used to describe that inner building is NAOS.
If you are talking about the whole outer courtyard and you’re talking about all of the Temple precinct, then you would use HIEROS; that includes all the areas where the Jews and the Gentiles were. But if you’re using NAOS, you are talking about that inner sanctum where God dwelt, where the Shekinah of God dwelt in the temple.
He says we are like that; our bodies are a Temple by the Holy Spirit. In essence, He creates a sanctified place in our soul where God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit dwell in us. Because of that, Paul says it’s part of our calling—our high and exalted position in Christ. Therefore, we have to live consistently with that.
Slide 42
Three chapters later he repeats this, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit—He’s in the soul, the soul is in the body—who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”
Later he adds to this, and says you’ve been bought with a price and you are not your own.
Romans 6, you’re either a slave of righteousness or slave of Christ, take your pick, but you’re never neutral.
Whenever we’re sinning, we’re acting like a slave to our sin nature. So we confess sin and we’re forgiven and cleansed, and then we can walk with the Lord and learn what it means to be a bond slave of Christ.
Slide 43
This goes back to this whole idea of unity, what God the Holy Spirit is producing in the new church that we studied in Ephesians 2:19–22.
Ephesians 2:19, “… you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints—remember, the Jews were saved first. From Acts 2–10 the Church is only composed of Jews.
After that Cornelius and his household are saved, and the apostles realize the church is going to be composed of Jew and Gentile equally—but we’re fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” This is not talking about Old Testament saints, he’s talking about the early church Jewish saints.
Ephesians 2:20–21, “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets—that can’t be referring to the Old Testament—Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
So we’re not only individually a temple with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but corporately the body of Christ is seen as a temple constructed for the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.
Slide 44
Romans 8:9, “But you are not in the flesh—that is, walking according to the sin nature—but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” The Spirit indwells us individually.
Slide 45
John 14:16–17. This is the promise. It is important to understand that in the Scripture when it talks about the fact that this is the fulfillment of the promise of God that this promise is made in John 14:6. That goes back to Titus 3:5 and other passages that talk about the promise of God.
Jesus said, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
Again, this is the Holy Spirit in each of us, not only corporately but individually.
Slide 46
1 John 2:27, “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you.”
This is John’s way of talking about the indwelling of the Spirit—the anointing. You often will hear in some churches that they got an anointing, and they just did something, and they sang and it was beautiful, “Oh, that was such an anointing.”
That is an abuse of the language of the Bible. Anointing is Paul’s language for the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, which comes to every believer at the instant of salvation.
“… the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you—this is the role of the Holy Spirit in helping us to understand the Word—concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”
Next time we will get to the sealing of the Spirit, which I did not have time to cover today; it was necessary to do some review. All of these things are ours in Christ. These are these incredible things the Scripture tells us that God did for us at the instant of our salvation, elevating us in terms of our privileges above any believer in the Old Testament.
The problem is too often as believers we are living as if we have none of these things. We do not need to be friends with the world, we need to be alienated from the world, and we need to conform to what the Scripture teaches. That is how we grow; that is our challenge.
He’s given us so much that are assets to give us the ability to live in a way that no other believer
Closing Prayer
“Father, we thank You for this opportunity to study these things and be reminded of so much that You’ve given us. We don’t deserve any of it. We don’t deserve salvation. We don’t deserve all these many blessings that are ours in Christ. Yet You have given these things to us out of Your grace, out of Your goodness, out of Your desire to make an exhibit of us as trophies of grace.
“That throughout the ages, people will be able to go back and see what You have done in this Church Age, elevating sinners who were alienated from You to such a position because of all that You have done for us. You have made us alive together in Christ, and You have raised us together and seated us with him in the heavenlies.
“Father, we pray that if there is anyone here that is unsure of their salvation or uncertain of their eternal destiny, that You would make this very clear. Father, all of us of come to a point in life at one time that we realize that there is life after death, and that there are options; that we can either try to earn our way there so that we end up in the good place, as people say or we just act like You aren’t there and ignore it, and hope somehow it will all just work out.
“But Your Scripture has revealed that there is a future for those who trust in You, that even though all are sinners—all have fallen short of Your grace—that there is a free gift of salvation. So that those who trust in You because of all You’ve done for us, have eternal life, which can never be taken away.
“Father, we pray that You would make the gospel clear to those who listen to this message online or here, and that all of us would have recognized that we must trust in Christ for our salvation. “We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”