“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” ~ Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:11

For the most part, I was a good kid. I behaved.

Noting that, one of my grade school teachers let herself be overhead telling my parents that she thought I had an “old soul.” I still don’t know what that means, but I liked the sound of it.

In junior and high school, I didn’t have an urge to rebel or act out or express my teenage angst, and as a result there were not very many rules in my house. Call when you’re going to be later than you thought; let us know when you’re out with the car; that sort of thing. There really wasn’t much need for rules.

Then I went to college. There really wasn’t much need for rules there as far as I was concerned, but there were plenty of them anyway. Rules pretty much regulated everything about a student’s life except how many times per minute one should breathe.

(During banquet season – we had banquets instead of dances; it was a very conservative Christian college – the dean of women had a letter read to all of the girls in the dorms beforehand, detailing how wide the straps of gowns {straps were required} had to be {1-1/2″}, and so forth. She closed it by saying, “Women who fail to abide by these instructions will be asked to change in front of their dates.”)

I was not a flagrant violator of rules at college, but because there were so many – and such a large number without any apparent value in preventing perfidy – I was unaccustomed to the onslaught of temptation to commit an infraction from time to time. I discovered that working technicals for drama productions gave a person some leeway on having to sign in to one’s dorm at 10:00pm, and actually made it possible to leave campus and have some two-or-three-day-old coffee (the best kind) at the truck stop near the highway during the wee hours of the morning.

That was about as wicked as I got. Sorry if that disappoints. But I still felt a little guilty.

I quickly became acquainted with the Romans 7 frustration felt by Paul about law.

And since then I’ve come to terms with the conflict of law versus grace in scripture on the theory that some folks just need rules. Some of them just like rules. They’re comfortable with rules. Rules let them know where the boundaries are. Some folks need rules to help them control themselves. Some folks need rules to help them control others. For them, rules rule.

So, of course, when they read scripture, they see what they like … and they see rules.

But then Jesus comes along, followed soon after by Paul and others, and everything gets messed up. The rules don’t sound like rules anymore. There are very few “thou-shalts” and “thou-shalt-nots.” Instead, there are beatitudes … words of comfort for people who are struggling with living a life pleasing to God; people who basically don’t need any more rules; people who have been marginalized and terrorized by the rules built upon the rules built upon the commandments God intended as instructions to help people live peaceably with each other and to express His love and holiness.

People who are being ruled to death: by Rome, by their own collaborating local government, by their own religious leaders.

They didn’t need any more rules to rule them. They needed love, healing, encouragement, comfort, respect, forgiveness, freedom, faith. They needed an Example of what God meant to convey with all those rules, a perfect Example to imitate and respect. They needed a Redeemer who could be perfect when they couldn’t be, and take their guilt away through His guiltlessness. They needed a mature older brother to point them back to the loving Father from whom they had fled and taken and squandered.

They needed fewer rules, and better instructions: Love deeply. Don’t judge. Forgive. Give. Share. Go the extra mile. Serve. Believe. Live fully. Die faithfully. Live eternally.

That’s exactly what Jesus brought, taught, shared, lived, died and brought to life again.

It’s called “grace.”

So when folks who like rules read the New Testament, they’re confused. They can’t find as many imperative rules there, when they were so easy to find in the Old Testament written when humanity was young and immature. Surely, they think, the rules must be there. If most of the old rules were abrogated by the authority of God in Christ, then there must be more and tougher rules to take the place of the missing ones.

Some folks reason that the rules must be hidden in scripture, and that with superb and unjaundiced logic, they are capable of ferreting out the rules and proclaiming them loudly and enforcing them on everyone else (and often, even themselves).

And – right or wrong – I’ve come to the conclusion that this reaction is simply immature. It’s foolish. No one has perfectly unprejudiced powers of logic and reason (fictional character Mr. Spock notwithstanding). The conclusion that rules are hidden in scripture is not a conclusion at all, but an assumption that is treated as fact. It’s based on a preference for rules over grace. That’s hardly unbiased behavior.

The old rules still have value: like a schoolmaster, they teach us what behavior God wants us to understand as good – and why (~ Paul, Galatians 3:24). But the old rules do not have ultimate value: like a prison warden, they enslave even the kid who wants to do right … by presenting temptations that are unlegislated under grace (~ Paul, Galatians 3:23).

And grace provides what law cannot: it saves us. Rules can only condemn us, because none of us is perfect (~ Paul, Romans 3:23).

Grace also provides help: the very Holy Spirit of God and His Son Jesus, invested in our hearts to guide us into all truth and empower us to live Christ boldly and comfort us when the world gives us our licks for doing so – eventually even breathing into us the eternal life that completes the life we’ve exhaled for the last time here in this world (~ Paul, Romans 8:11).

God, of course, still wants our obedience. But He wants our obedience to the gospel of our Lord Jesus – which is parallel in 2 Thessalonians 1:8 to “know(ing) God.” Rather than following an old law about sacrificing lives in worship, He wants us to lead sacrificial lives of worship (~ Paul, Romans 12:1-2), just as Jesus did.

He does not expect perfect obedience to law, especially to law that consists of doctrines contrived by men (~ Paul, 2 Timothy 4:3). In fact, when people do that and try to pass off their laws as God’s, He says it invalidates their worship (~ Jesus, Matthew 15:9; Mark 7:7).

The message of law is “Shape up – or else!”

The message of the gospel of grace is “Grow up in Christ.”

At some point, we really need to outgrow the infantile craving for rules, the desire to rebel against them or use them against others … and accept the love and grace and gift of the Holy Spirit, Who brings maturity, completion and salvation:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. ~ Paul, Ephesians 4:11-16

“Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.” ~ Isaiah 63:10

“But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” ~ Jesus, Mark 3:29

“And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” ~ Jesus, Luke 12:10

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?” ~ Acts 5:3

“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” ~ Stephen, Acts 7:51

“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” ~ Paul, 1 Corinthians 2:14

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” ~ Paul, Ephesians 4:30

“Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.” ~ Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:19

How we relate to God’s Holy Spirit matters.

“The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” ~ Job 33:4

““The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” ~ John 6:63

“Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.” ~ Luke 23:46

“And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” ~ John 20:22

“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” ~ Romans 8:11

“So it is written: ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” ~ 1 Corinthians 15:45

“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” ~ 2 Corinthians 3:6

“The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” ~ Galatians 6:8

I don’t know what conclusion you draw from these verses; whether you regard them as literal or figurative or unimportant or incomprehensible. To me, these and other scriptures say very plainly that from the first moments when God’s Spirit hovered over the waters to the present moment when the Spirit and the Bride say “Come!”, the Holy Spirit has been and remains the Spirit of Life through whom God gives life.

If you believe that and regard it as part of the natural order that God has created and sustains, I cannot argue with you. If you believe that and regard it as miraculous – the restoration of life to dead, buried, disintegrated flesh; gloriously transformed into the image of the Incorruptible – I cannot argue with you, either. I do not know which way to describe it.

I simply believe it to be true, because that is what scripture simply says.

If it is true … what does that mean for those who quench the Spirit? confidently restrict His power to the past inspiration of the scriptures only? loudly assert their absolute knowledge regarding what He can or will or does or does not do in the present age?

Back up to Romans 8:9-10, just before the verse quoted above:

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”

Can a person who does not permit the Spirit of Christ to live in him or her – by denying that He can and should – have a reasonable expectation to be resurrected from the dead by that Spirit?

If Jesus’ words in John 16:5-15 were for His disciples and/or that era only, then who convicts the world of sin and guides His followers into all truth today?

If He is gone from our lives and our words, how can we hope for the full and eternal life He brings?

How can we convey that hope to others?

Well …

Did you ask to be inspired?

“For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” – Jesus, as recorded in Luke 11:10-13

The context is His teaching on prayer. In one swell foop, He tells us that God loves us like a father and wants to give us good things; wants to give us the best gift of all – His Holy Spirt, but that we should ask. I get the impression that this describes how He wants to live through us, and it’s not something to be taken lightly. And that it doesn’t seem to be in His nature to just appropriate someone’s body and do His will through them without their consent or request.

So there’s really nothing to fear, is there?

Have you obeyed God?

“We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” – Peter, as recorded by Luke in Acts 5:31

Oh, well; then no one is worthy of God’s Spirit, because all have sinned and falled short of His glory. Sure, I’ve read Romans 3:23. That’s the whole reason Jesus came. Not a proscription against Him being able to work through us. Remember, the same Peter speaking in in Acts 5:31 was the one whom Paul had to withstand face-to-face for refusing to eat with Gentiles.

Have you actively resisted the Holy Spirit?

“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” – Stephen, to the Sanhedrin, in Acts 7:51

Again, the implication to me is that the Spirit won’t go where He isn’t wanted.

Were you baptized into more than just the name of Jesus?

“When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” – Luke, again, in Acts 8:15-17

I am admittedly going out on a limb here. What seems to be described here – to me – is an act of two apostles signifying by prayer and by resting their hands upon these Christians that they felt these believers should receive the Spirit without having to be re-baptized in the way Peter and John have described to them. That’s making some assumptions, I admit. But Jesus requests that his disciples baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in Matthew 28:16-20, and – unlike its companion passage in Mark 16 – these verses’ authenticity is not generally questioned. And a similar thing happens with Paul in Acts 19.

Have you ever felt the power of overwhelming hope?

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – a blessing from Paul in Romans 15:13

Well then, if He brings such power it might seem logical – given the whirlwind, tongues of fire, healings and other miraculous manifestations connected to the giving of the Spirit in century one A.D. – that there could be no doubt about His presence in our lives in century twenty-one.

If there can be no doubt, why are would there be phrasings in scripture like these:

“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us ….” – Acts 15:28a

“… I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” – Paul, in I Corinthians 7:40b

That second verse is a study in the conflicting teachings of Paul and some other individuals whom Paul – rather graciously, “I think” – concedes have the Holy Spirit, even though they disagree on a matter that he qualifies “In my judgment.”

I have to conclude that there are matters on which people can disagree and still be inspired by God’s own Holy Spirit. Spiritual matters. Not just political parties or football teams or worship styles; but matters of life choice and destiny, such as whether to marry at a time when cataclysm is prophesied – the question at hand in this passage.

In other words, when there is no “right” answer.

And I have to conclude that the Spirit sometimes operates in us so subtly; so unobtrusively that we might even doubt His presence; or at least, not fully perceive it.

I think that’s because God’s plan involves faith and choice and free will.

I don’t want to reduce His indwelling to some simplistic formula, for it is a matter much deeper and wider and more powerful and mysterious than any of us ultimately can grasp. But there are aspects of it that God wants us to know and understand, and be comforted by – that is one of the Spirit’s primary concerns – and they are not too difficult to seek, to find, and to comprehend.

I will tell you something that I’m not sure I’ve ever shared on this blog before.

Pretty much every time I sit down at my retro Mac to write a post for “Blog In My Own Eye,” I pray that God will inspire me through His Holy Spirit; that He will not let me mislead others; but instead that He will use me to draw others closer to Him – and me along with them.

It’s something I’ve done for about the last year year and a half of my blogging endeavors, after a time when I was wistfully remembering how Mike Cope would begin each of his sermons during our tenure at Highland with the prayer that God would “pour through me the gift of preaching.”

I don’t believe that such a prayer – for Mike, or me, or anyone else – is a solid guarantee that God will answer with a sudden earth-trembling wind-stirring inrush of holy inspiration and an infallible prevention of error and an inarguable gift of persuasion.

But I do believe it’s a good place to start.

I think it’d be a good place for everyone who shares The Story to start. I’ll go further than that. I think it’s dangerous for anyone to speak, ostensibly on God’s behalf, without the assistance of His Holy Spirit.

We make His indwelling such a thing of ultimate mystery; of fear and even dread – perhaps that we’ll somehow lose control of ourselves and become scripture-spouting lunatics, or glossalalic-babbling weirdoes, or just some of those glassy-eyed people who murmur intense blessings on you when you check out at their register at Lifeway Book Store. Or the notion of His home in our hearts may be a thing of doubt – maybe that we’re not sure when we are or aren’t indwelt by Him or whether we’re speaking by His inspiration.

While there is certainly an element of mystery and depth to the Spirit that we may never understand, I believe that what scripture says of the way He lives within us is fairly simple and direct.

Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. – I Corinthians 12:3-7

The mention of the name “Jesus” is no guarantee of the Spirit’s inspiration. (I hope you can deduce that by watching Televangelical TV.) But no one who tells The Story and proclaims Him as Lord and lives out that Story in service can do so by any other means.

I believe that the Spirit’s inspiration is no more complicated than that.

People today are inspired as were people of century one A.D. It’s expressed in their writing, their speaking, their art, their music … now just as it was then.

I haven’t seen the manifestation’s of the Spirit’s presence that most folks call “miraculous.” I haven’t seen the blind made to see, or the deaf to hear, or the lame to walk, or the dead to rise. I do see in scripture a tapering-off of those incidents as years pass in century one. But I also try to keep an open mind about century twenty-one.

What I do see are miraculous results of the Spirit’s residency.

People are still persuaded that God loves them enough to have sent His Son to live and die and live again for them, so much so that they resolve to die to themselves and live for Him and for others.

Isn’t that miraculous?

And the effects – unlike a wonderful but temporary healing of the body – are an eternal healing of the soul.

I do see and hear and read extraordinary insights into the deeper meaning of scripture – some of those insights already centuries old, but later than century one; others in blogs written and sermons shared and lives lived in the past few months and weeks and days. I believe they are inspired by the same Spirit.

Should they be in the canon of scripture?

In a sense, I believe they are. God remembers them. And I think He wants us to share them, just as Paul did before judges and governors and kings. Our stories as believers are part of the ongoing Story of Christ; the way He works in and through our lives. Now, I believe the canon to be complete due to its sufficiency of truth. (Scripture was never intended to convey all truth – the atomic weight of artificially-induced elements, for instance; or the meaning of a half-smile on your beloved’s face.)

Yet Christ living in us is a story that has great power, and is a worthy supplement to the gospels of scripture.

Just like the epistles.

And, like the subtitle of my blogging buddy Matt Elliott‘s blog says: “Every day I write the book.”

One Who Testifies: Letters to the Hebrews – the Revelation
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII

Hebrews 1:14 | Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

“Spirits” is not capitalized here in the NIV and it is plural. Why do I include it? I wonder if it points out that it’s not natural for a spirit to be separate from a body in this world. In heaven, angels are spirits. When on the earth, they seem to have bodies; forms. They can be wrestled with, and knock a hip out of joint by touching it. Maybe it’s not “natural” for the supernatural Holy Spirit to be in our world without a host – us – someone to dwell within and walk side-by-side with. I’m speculating. What do you think?

3:7 | So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, …” (Psalms 95:7-11)

The Holy Spirit says this through prophecy in the book of Psalms, and the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews quotes it – warning them not to “harden their hearts” or test/try God. Because it led Him to say “They shall never enter my rest.” What the Spirit spoke long before can carry the same truth – the same warning – now.

6:4-6 | It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who whave tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

This warning, also gravely serious, lets us know that the Spirit is shared; or at least shared in. Though one, He is in many. Sort of the reverse of “e pluribus, unum.”

Is it really impossible for a Christian who has renounced God to repent again? Can the Spirit return to such a person? Or has that house been permanently tainted, laid waste, defiled, desecrated beyond further habitation? One of the phrases that recurs in Hebrews as well as other epistles is that “Christ died once for all.” This writer says that apostasy followed by penitence is the same as re-crucifying and disgracing Christ.

It’s the mark of someone who is fatally wishy-washy; who can’t decide and stick to what he/she believes; who cannot serve as a faithful witness, having called their own credibility into question.

9:8 | The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing.

The Holy Spirit was involved in the design of the tabernacle and temple (He filled Bezalel, the temple designer/contractor) … which may explain why He had Matthew, Mark and Luke include the detail that, at Jesus’ death, the temple veil was torn down the middle, exposing the Most Holy Place.

9:14 | How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

Jesus offered Himself unspotted by sin to God through the Spirit. Is the implication that He renders us unblemished through His blood, dedicating us to a life of serving God through the Spirit as well?

10:15 | The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this … (Jeremiah 31:31-34 quoted here)

Again, the Spirit speaks from the past – and the message is that God will put His laws in our hearts; write them in our minds. Is the Spirit an agent of that putting and writing?

10:29 | How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Some are squeamish about God sending disobedient souls to hell for eternity, and are re-examining and deconstructing the scriptures that speak of it. That’s good! It’s good to try to get closer to understanding God’s nature, and even to want to see Him as love in person. But there are just folks who desperately deserve to be punished. They’ve had exposure to His goodness and have trampled it underfoot and have insulted Him as their response. Would they repent in hell? Sure! Who wouldn’t?

Here the writer uses the term “Spirit of grace.” As we’ve seen above, though – grace only goes so far. It’s not limited by God. It’s limited by the one who refuses it.

I Peter 1:10-11 | Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Peter has in common with Paul that spiritual curiosity and longing to peek into heavenly matters. The prophets shared it, too; yearning to know more than had been revealed to them by the “Spirit of Christ.” Who got to peek into heaven? We do; Christians do through that prophecy and its fulfillment, the gospel – also preached by the Holy Spirit.

3:18-20 | For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

If you’ve ever wanted to know how Jesus came back to life, now you know.

4:14 | If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Hmm … Peter must have been paying attention during the Sermon on the Mount! But he shares more, the full span of the blessing: the “Spirit of glory and of God” rests on us.

II Peter 1:21 | For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

If you’ve ever wondered how inspiration works, now you know. What’s it like to be “carried along” by the Holy Spirit? Maybe it’s when words fail us; when feelings go too deep for them; when He intercedes with groans that the Father can understand. Maybe that’s just the tiniest fraction of it.

I John 3:24 | Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

How does He live in them? Are there still “other spirits” to be tested? What’s the test question? (answers above).

4:6 | We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

(See also 4:13) Does that mean the Spirit is involved in the listening? That those who will not listen reject not only the speaker, but the One speaking through him/her?

5:6 | This is the one who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Anybody have a clue what this means? I’m clear about the Spirit testifying truth, and it’s important for two or three witnesses to agree. Is it possible that John is speaking of Jesus’ own baptism, foreshadowing the spilling of His blood and His resurrection to life by means of the Spirit (see I Peter 3:18-20 above)? All three conspire to tell the truth – the gospel – in God’s grand scheme of redemption?

Jude 19-20 | These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.

God’s Spirit is in close proximity to the theme of unity again, just as He is in John 17 and so many other scriptures. Jude encourages those who are pestered by dividers to pray in the Holy Spirit. Again … can we actually pray without Him?

Revelation 1:10 | On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, ….

What does John mean, that he was “in the Spirit”? Was he in a transcendental state? Was he praying, possibly fasting? Meditating on God’s word? Is there a heightened sense of the Spirit’s presence indicated? Can we be “in the Spirit” also (whether we are shown revelations of John’s magnitude or not)?

2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 3:13, 22 | He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Here, as in many other scriptures, the Spirit speaks directly. Not John. Not some scribe, teacher, emanuensis. The Spirit speaks. Time to listen up.

4:2 | I was in the Spirit …

It’s happening again! John is “in the Spirit.” Something extraordinary is about to happen.

1:5; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6 | the seven spirits of God (or the seven-fold Spirit of God)

Some have gone so far as to name all of the spirits separately, drawing names from scripture like “Spirit of Christ,” “Spirit of Grace,” etc. Go back through the scriptures in this study; you don’t have to trust me on this one. There’s a LOT more than just seven names or descriptors in the Bible’s phrasings. Maybe “seven-fold” Spirit of God is the better translation; using that mystic, numeric symbolism of the numeral “seven” to represent completeness or fullness.

17:3; 21:10 | … carried me away in the Spirit ….

Carried away like Ezekiel? Like Jesus? Like Stephen? (Or like I get carried away with question marks?)

19:10 | At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

(Not capitalized in the NIV) Okay, I think the NIV editors missed this one, too. Who else would be the Spirit of prophecy except the Holy Spirit who inspires it? Here’s the important point: reinforcing the fact that you can’t say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. It’s as simple as that.

Prophecy isn’t all about foretelling the future. It’s also about forthtelling the truth.

22:17 | The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

Just as the Spirit is part of the unfolding of scripture in the opening verses of Genesis, He is crucial to the unfolding of it in the closing verses of Revelation. He begs, along with the bride – the church; the kingdom – of Christ for those outside to come in. And – sure enough – He’s right there in close proximity right at the close to water and life and order out of chaos; at the renewal of earth, at the renewal of all things, at the fulfillment of every one of God’s hopes and dreams and intentions for us, His children.

You can’t add much to that and enhance it. You can’t take away anything from it and leave it intact.

That’s probably why both are forbidden.

By no means is this an exhaustive study. I intended to raise more questions than I could possibly answer. Call me modern; call me Socratic; call me for lunch. It’s the dialog, the questioning and reading and meditation and prayer that help us grow closer to God and to each other in Christ. I can’t do that for you. I can’t even do that for me.

But I know Someone who can.