You Can Pray

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

There may be a lot of things you can’t do to relieve suffering, help others, make the world a better place, proclaim the gospel or work toward the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.

But you can pray.

You can pray for your fellow commuters, fellow workers, customers, clients, patients, suppliers, visitors, office neighbors, family, friends, church, city, state, nation, world.

You can pray for newborns, babies, toddlers, children, pupils, students, graduates, applicants, candidates, professionals, laborers, retirees, the aged, the dying and the dying inside.

You can pray for the healthy, the ill, the confused, the distressed, the hungry, the hopeless, the helpless, the depressed, the damaged, the deserted, the bereaved, the forgotten, and the lost.

You can pray for the public servant, the private tutor, the teacher, the instructor, the professor, the administrator, the honest, the dishonest, the learned, the learning, the giver and the recipient.

You can pray for the pastor, elder, shepherd, deacon, servant, minister, preacher, leader, member, seeker, saint, rebel, mentor, questioner, enforcer, incarcerated, the free and the enslaved.

You can pray for people you know and people you don’t.

You can pray for your friends. You can pray for your enemies.

You can pray for angry people, hateful people, evil people, nasty people, people opposed to God, people who don’t believe in God, people who don’t want to believe in God, ever, because it might mean having to give up on their self-dependence and self-indulgence in a world that has perhaps blessed them and/or perhaps let them down in every way possible.

You can pray for justice. You can pray for mercy. You can pray for a humble walk with God.

You can pray for the Kingdom to enter hearts with force and tenderness and love. You can pray to be part of it.

You can pray for gifts for others. You can pray for gifts for yourself.

You can pray for greater understanding, more compassion, increased courage, elevated awareness of others, deeper love, heart-baring compassion, a cascade of opportunities, and a bottomless reservoir of spiritual wealth to share with all you meet.

You can pray for time and energy and willingness to use them when given.

You can pray for peace of heart, peace of mind, peace among neighbors, peace on earth, peace with God.

You can pray and pray and pray and pray.

And then you can be part of God’s answer.

He will answer. You may not like His answer. It may not come at the time you want it to come. It may sweep you off your feet and engulf you in a life you never dreamed possible, for your good but perhaps not for your comfort – but certainly for the good of those you encounter.

You can pray to enter into partnership with God through Christ, sustained by their Holy Spirit, to do good works that He has created beforehand for you to do and for which He created you.

You can pray timidly or dangerously.

You can pray for healing for others, but you can pray for healing for yourself, too.

You can pray that others will be blessed with greater insight and understanding of God’s will for them, but you can pray that for yourself, as well.

You can pray morning, noon and evening. You can pray without ceasing. You can live your life as a prayer, a sweet-smelling savor of incense burning in the hearts of God’s saints, pleasing to His senses.

You can.

You can.

The Holy Spirit and the Church, Part 2

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

I’m going to phrase this as carefully as I know how:

I believe a church that focuses on the Holy Spirit and gifts from Him can still go way wrong, just as an individual gifted with His presence in their lives can go way wrong. (Consider King David and Psalm 51, for instance.)

In a previous post (The Problem With Tongues), I’ve already shared my opinion that one of the problems that had cropped up in the church at Corinth was that jealous, selfish-minded people were faking the Holy Spirit’s gifts in order to gain attention. I can’t and won’t say that the problem persists or is widespread to this day, because my experience with churches fastened on the Holy Spirit and His gifts is meager.

But I will say that I can’t imagine how someone reading the first epistle to Corinth (as our Bibles label it) could see a pattern there for the way God would prefer and order the gathered worship of His saints.

There, the attention given to individuals with certain gifts had created or worsened a problem of jealousy and division (evident in the early chapters), and perhaps had contributed to the demotion of the importance of their time in remembrance and proclamation at the Lord’s table (evident in chapter 11), and was contributing heavily to the chaos taking place in their gathered worship (evident in the following chapters).

I continue to propose that fakery was going on in that church, but I would be quick to point out that wasn’t the worst of their problems there.

The focus in their worship was on themselves, and not on Christ – that was the chief and root problem.

In studying the purpose and nature and personality of the Holy Spirit, one cannot escape the conclusion that He is all about glory being given to God through Christ. He doesn’t even have a name of His own, His nature is so humble. As nearly as I can tell (unlike the Father and the Son), there isn’t even a gender associated with Him, and we use the masculine one regarding because English doesn’t have a gender-neutral pronoun for people. And it just sounds disrespectful to refer to Him as “It.” (I am wholly unschooled in biblical Greek and eagerly willing to be corrected on that perception by someone who is conversant in it, however.)

The point remains that the focus of worship is not gifts or even the Spirit as giver, but on the Lord God Almighty. Jealous of each other must give way to love of each other in view of God’s jealousy regarding our hearts. Self must be dethroned so that God may be enthroned there.

It’s the selfless heart who can be trusted with great and powerful gifts from the Holy Spirit. Because it is the selfless heart who uses those gifts to the benefit of others and the glory of God, not himself or herself.

I have said before that I would be the wrong choice as a recipient of a gift of healing others. I would never rest, spending all my time at hospitals and clinics, doling out perfect health for as long as I could because I cannot bear to see others suffer. In fact, I’d start at Arkansas Children’s Hospital because seeing children suffer just kills me and I would do everything I could to put a stop to it. Would I take time to nurture the wounded souls and spirits of those around? Tell of Jesus’ love for them? Speak to them of immersing themselves in the kind of life He lived and wants to live through them?

I don’t know. I am not proud to say that. I am afraid that I would not; as an untrusting yet believing soul, I fear that would simply spend that gift as if it had a finite quantity – before it ran out. And the saddest part of this confession is that I would spend it just as surely for myself as for others … because of the relief it would give me, personally, each time I saw suffering relieved. Yet there could be no end to it.

I mean, it sounds unselfish – dashing about serving others?  I assure you, it would not be.

Self, of course, is not the reason that gifts are given. Any cursory study of them quickly reveals that they are not for self but for others, and to God’s glory. That’s because they are given as a result of grace:

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. ~ Romans 12:3-8

Jesus had extraordinary gifts, and Satan knew it. He tempted the Lord to use them to sustain, promote, glorify self rather than God. Jesus refused.

Paul was given extraordinary gifts (2 Corinthians 12:12), including tongues (1 Corinthians 14:18-19) and healing others (Acts 14:9, 28:8) yet prayed for relief from a thorn in his own flesh (1 Corinthians 12:1-10), but was given the answer that God’s grace was sufficient for him. It is not our gifts which are our glory, but our suffering (Romans 5:3; 8:18). It is a hard, hard lesson.

Finally, to seal the point I hope to make, there are greater gifts (1 Corinthians 12), but they are the ones which clearly benefit others and the church as a whole: apostolic leadership, prophetic proclamation, humble teaching … and then the others. All are to be used to God’s glory.

And not our own.

That’s why gifts are not commanded, but given.

That’s why they are given at God’s discretion, not ours.

That’s why they are not signs or marks of the Spirit’s presence for one’s own assurance, but for the power of turning others’ hearts to God. (2 Corinthians 5)

The Holy Spirit and the Church, Part 1

/ W. Keith Brenton / 23 Comments

I’ve blogged mostly about why I believe that the Holy Spirit lives within the believer, but I don’t want to ignore an important implication of that belief: the Holy Spirit lives among believers, plural; unites believers and intercedes for believers and empowers believers to proclaim the gospel boldly. Plural. Plural. Plural.

When Ananias and Sapphira conspired to defraud the early church at Jerusalem and cheat the beneficiaries of that church’s generosity, the charges against them were not just fraud and cheating, not to Ananias:

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?  Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” ~ Acts 5:3-4

And not to Sapphira:

Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” ~ Acts 5:9

Ananias and Sapphira, as nearly as we can tell (like every believer in Jerusalem) were the beneficiaries themselves of the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is no stretch of the imagination to understand that the same Holy Spirit within them – or at least among them – revealed their conspiracy and lie to Peter and the other believers.

Clearly, the Spirit is no One to be trifled with. Peter’s words to Ananias are clear: the lie was not just to human beings, but to God Himself.

It should not be a surprise that Paul links the Holy Spirit’s work to the unity of the believers, and advises them to maintain it in order to mature in Christ:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ~ Ephesians 4:3

Or that Paul describes how the relationship between Spirit and believer works in terms of unity:

But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. ~ 1 Corinthians 6:17

Or that he cites it when encouraging believers to agree in humility:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ~ Philippians 2:1-2

And no wonder. Jesus’ prayer for unity – at the very table where one had separated himself to betray his Lord – describes His desire for that unity taking place by God being in us as well as us being in God:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” ~ John 17:20-23

He has just spent the text of the previous three chapters punctuating His final mortal discourse with them with hints at how His Spirit would help and unite them from within – beginning with:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ~ John 14:16-17

So I think it’s clear as can be that the Spirit’s dwelling place within believers is also among believers. Where we have let Satan take us off-center with this is by believing the lie that our individual understanding of the scripture inspired by the Spirit is more important that our communal sharing of it.

But that’s where I plan to go in part two of this subject.

Why the Holy Spirit Matters

/ W. Keith Brenton / 24 Comments

On seeing this series of posts (linked through my Facebook account), a childhood friend privately advised caution in the way I proceed. His concern, in short, was that my pursuit of the way the Spirit works might cause some folks who are opposed to my perceptions to overstate their objections, blaspheme and be lost.

His concern is genuine, and I share it.

So let me say this, and be as clear and loving as I know how to be:

If you believe that the Holy Spirit works through the written word of God, you go right on believing it. It’s true. He inspired it. He reveals God through it. He tells the gospel of Jesus Christ with it. As I just wrote in a comment on the previous post, scripture is the tangible way we have been given to know of God.

However …

If you believe that the Holy Spirit works ONLY through the written word of God, I would only ask that you be open to the other ways and possibilities described in scripture. I have only described what I find to be revealed there in these posts. I have not quoted other sources or supposed authorities or recounted personal experiences of myself or others in support of the conclusions I’ve drawn.

Don’t let what others have written or taught you personally on the matter limit your perception of the Spirit’s power, or God’s giving of it. Don’t trust what men write – not even what I write. Go to scripture. Read it for yourself. Draw your own conclusions. Prove all things. Hold fast what’s good.

Here’s why I believe the Holy Spirit – fully empowered by our permission as well as God’s gift in our lives – matters.

There are too many instances given in scripture in which the Holy Spirit is spoken of as being given to believers, dwelling within them, giving them gifts, acting with God’s purpose and glory, benefiting His children, propelling His gospel, glorifying the Christ … which simply cannot be fully done by written scripture alone.

A commenter at New Wineskins once observed, “If the Holy Spirit still dwells within believers, why do we not all believe the same thing?”

I should have answered, “If the word alone is perfect, why do we not all believe the same thing?”

The answer for both questions is the same: because we believers do not believe to the extent that we are willing to fully turn our lives over to Christ, permit the Spirit to say what He says and do what He does through us or to help us understand completely and clearly what is written. We are satisfied to see in part and know in part, as in a mirror, dimly … and to confidently declare that our vision and knowledge is as good as face-to-face.

I am no more exempted from this judgment that anyone else, but I am convinced that grace still covers my insufficiency. That, however, is no excuse for remaining indolent, arrogant, selfish or deluded about our own competence. Believers have been promised and given a Holy Spirit for the asking who can draw us closer to God in Christ if we’re willing.

If we limit God’s action in our lives to leaning on our own understanding of His will in His word, we are only half-armed for the battle against sin and for the cross.

Just because your Bible may have a paragraph break after Paul’s description of the full armor in Ephesians 6:10-17 doesn’t mean his thought ends there. It continues:

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. ~ Ephesians 6:18-20, my emphasis

So I’ll close out this part of the study with an index of where I began it years ago, asking questions and positing answers. I’ll encourage you to begin at the beginning and end at the end, because you’ll find the Spirit in the first sentences of scripture, and closing them out as well. Ask questions. Ask more and different questions than I did. Ask God for answers to them.

Ask Him for His Holy Spirit.

His Holy Spirit, Part I
His Holy Spirit, Part II
His Holy Spirit, Part III
His Holy Spirit, Part IV
His Holy Spirit, Part V
His Holy Spirit, Part VI
His Holy Spirit, Part VII
His Holy Spirit, Part VIII

As Long As We’re on the Subject….

/ W. Keith Brenton / 54 Comments

… you should read Jay Guin’s post on baptism, the Holy Spirit and salvation.

http://oneinjesus.info/2011/01/baptism-an-exploration-water-baptism-and-the-spirit/

If this doesn’t either comfort you deeply with the expansiveness of God’s mercy and grace or rile your righteous indignation over the challenge to your justice-only vision of God … well, the link must have taken you to the wrong article.

Is the Spirit Too Holy To Dwell in Sinful Men?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

There is an old saying in Christianity – stated one of several ways – that God is too holy to tolerate sin; to abide sin; to dwell in the presence of sin, or the sinner. It is used to support the Spirit-in-the-written-word-only-today doctrine by saying that the Holy Spirit somehow becomes an accomplice to sin if the person in whom He dwells falls even for a moment.

To establish this proverb, Isaiah 59:1-2 is sometimes quoted:

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear.
But your iniquities have separated
you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
so that he will not hear.

But, generally the rest of the chapter is not cited … because a thinking person would realize that it ends with God’s covenant to inspire descendants forever with His words through His Holy Spirit:

“As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the LORD. (Isaiah 59:21)

That – and the rest of the chapter which describes how God overcomes the sin He sees through a Redeemer – is inconvenient to the argument that men are too sinful for God to dwell with them or within them.

And sometimes Habakkuk 1:13a is cited:

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

But the rest of the verse, usually not … because a thinking person would realize that the prophet is having a conversation with God and actually accusing Him of tolerating evil:

Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

Plus … how could He be aware of evil if He does not see it or look upon it? if He is indeed blind to it?

The Lord’s answer in chapter two make it obvious that He sees and judges the sin spread out before Him and pronounces His woes and will dispense His justice:

The cup from the LORD’s right hand is coming around to you,
and disgrace will cover your glory. ~ Habakkuk 2:16

The LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him. ~ Habakkuk 2:20

It is always a foolish and dangerous thing to base an argument upon what God cannot do. With God, nothing is impossible (Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27) – and His eyes remain holy even if He sees sin. His Presence is not hobbled nor destroyed by the presence of it in His world.

You see, if God is too holy to even look upon sin, too holy to dwell among sinners, too holy to live within them …

Too holy to dwell in sinful men?

Yes, but not the ones He has forgiven.

Our sins may hide God’s face from us, but He still sees. He sees those sins repented. He sees them nailed down, lifted up, and crucified dead. He sees His Son, dying on that cross.

And for reasons unfathomable to us save in the term “love,” that is all that matters to Him.

Shame on any of us for ever trying to pretend God or His Son or His Holy Spirit are too weak to do what Christ’s blood has done.

The Holy Spirit: Then and Now

/ W. Keith Brenton / 52 Comments

A few important questions: If the Holy Spirit only operates today through the written word, then …

What scripture says so?

Doesn’t it stand to reason that He only operated that way in the first century too?

What scripture makes it clear that His operation changed from active to passive; from literal to figurative?

If His dwelling within the believer is figurative now but used to be literal, when did it change? What scripture makes this clear?

Are the promises regarding the Holy Spirit really different for people now than they were then? Does He no longer distribute any kind of spiritual gifts? Or any of the other aids mentioned in this previous post? If He does provide some but not all, which ones? How can one tell from scripture; which passage differentiates them?

If His dwelling within is figurative and always has been, how does He help believers through the written word only but in ways that only a living, present Person could (such as intercession in prayer)?

How much other scripture is figurative and not literal? How can we as readers know when God does not really mean what He says?

These are questions that beg an answer if the Spirit-in-the-written-word-only-today doctrine is to be taken seriously.

Does the Holy Spirit Work Miraculously Today?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 17 Comments

Here’s a refreshing way to answer that question:

I don’t know.

I have my suspicions, and my suspicions are that He does … just as He did. I don’t believe – as I have already posted several times – that there is a time, date, or event prophesied or spoken of as having passed in scripture which indicates that the work of the Holy Spirit among people is over, or that it has been limited only to the written word.

I also do not believe that scripture makes a distinction between what we would call miraculous gifts and less-than-miraculous gifts. Both kinds, to our reckoning, disappear when “that which is perfect is come”: knowledge as well as prophecies and tongues (1 Corinthians 13).

Plus, while some may perceive anything unusual or anything accomplished through the Spirit as miraculous, others like me will more narrowly define miraculous as “visible, audible, tangible manifestations of supernatural power” (per my previous post Does the Holy Spirit Only Work Miraculously? ).

So if you disagree with my perception of those items, you are not likely to agree with my suspicions about the Spirit’s work today.

Confession: I have never witnessed anything that I would describe as a miracle. Ever.

But as Jay Guin observed in a recent post on this subject, “… absence of proof isn’t proof of absence.” (I’ve never seen anyone who collects kewpie dolls, but that doesn’t prove that none of them exists.)

I’ve had unusual experiences, and I can’t explain them, and I have benefited from them – and have seen others benefit from them. I know Whom I feel compelled to credit them to. But I have no proof.

And that’s fine.

As always, what I believe is rooted in scripture:

I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
I will consider all your works
and meditate on all your mighty deeds.
Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?
You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples. ~ Psalm 77:11-14

This psalmist was apparently Asaph, and he remembered “miracles of long ago.”

He was a musician; a contemporary of David, and very few miraculous events were recorded in that era. A sound in the tops of poplar trees cued David to victory over the Philistines (2 Samuel 5). Uzzah was struck dead for touching the ark of the covenant (2 Samuel 6). That’s about it.

Yet Asaph still praised the Lord as “the God who performs (present tense) miracles.”

Do we seem to be living in a similar era when the tap of miracles-poured-out has run dry? Are we in a drought of divine intervention?

I think that it’s worth noting that there were spans of biblical history – usually about four hundred years at a time – when God did not speak to His people – likely because they had not been speaking to Him. Then He would show His providence and glory in memorable ways. Like deliverance from Egypt by Moses. Or deliverance from sin by Jesus.

It isn’t like He owes us any more miracles.

But it also isn’t like God doesn’t love us enough to confirm His word or manifest His compassion through miracles today.

I hope to share some further thoughts on this as I have opportunity to organize them, but for right now I just want to share this one:

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” ~ John 20:24-29

You may have heard a sermon that took the notion that Jesus was scolding Thomas for doubting what the other apostles told him they had seen and heard. Maybe you heard it developed to the point that people who have not seen yet have believed are somehow more blessed than actual witnesses.

Let me propose an equal possibility, because the text doesn’t say either of those things.

Thomas was blessed to see, hear and touch the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection in His very own body. Maybe Jesus was trying to impress on Thomas how very blessed he was to have been a witness, and what a responsibility that was to bless others with his testimony. Maybe Jesus said those words to Thomas how important it was to be more persuasive than his fellow apostles had been with him.

You see, I’m afraid the two other teachings can be knotted up in an arrogance that teaches the Spirit as active only in the written word today, and that those of us who believe without confirmation beyond reading or hearing it are somehow better, more righteous, more blessed than those who see and hear and touch.

Really?

Don’t you think there will be millions of us come-latelies in heaven who would queue up for eternity between velvet-chained stanchions just to have the opportunity Thomas had?

I’d be one of them.

We are not more blessed – or less blessed – than those who saw Jesus, witnessed the miracles He did or that the apostles did or that others did by virtue of the living Holy Spirit’s gifts within them. All who believe and obey are blessed with resurrection and eternity with God.

Let me just ask this … and understand that I am shamefacedly asking myself this question, too:

Do we bless others by vigorously persuading them about the gospel of Jesus Christ; by witnessing what we have seen, heard and touched … lives irrevocably changed by the power of His grace; souls with the deposit of the Holy Spirit marking and sealing their resurrection to come? Do we remember and proclaim the miracles of the past and still praise the Lord as “the God who does miracles”?

If we don’t, then why should we expect to witness the glory Thomas witnessed?

Is the Holy Spirit Found Only in the Word Today?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 36 Comments

I feel compelled to point out that the Spirit-in-the-word-only-today proponents’ case is almost totally dependent upon twisting together two or more basically-unrelated passages of New Testament scripture into a logical argument, which usually runs like this:

Ephesians 3:17 says “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith….” Scripture says Christ dwells in our hearts and then tells us HOW He dwells in our hearts, “by faith.” The Holy Spirit dwells in a Christian the same way as Christ dwells in a Christian – by faith. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God in Romans 10:17.

This logical argument depends upon several assumptions: first, that Christ dwells in a believer’s heart ONLY by faith; that the Holy Spirit dwells in a Christian the same way as Christ dwells in a Christian (unsubstantiated with scripture); that faith ONLY comes by hearing the Word of God; that these two passages were written with textual, contextual or subtextual purpose of establishing that the Holy Spirit dwells in the believer only in the form of the word or bodily; that this logical argument outweighs any other clear scripture (usually ignored, but sometimes explained away) which implies otherwise.

That’s a lot of assumptions. If any fail, the logical argument falters as well.

Let’s just deal with them:

Ephesians 3:17 is immediately surrounded by this context: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” So it is surrounded by a prayer for the Spirit’s power in your inner being with no mention whatsoever of written scripture, which establishes a bodily surround for the Spirit.

Romans 10:17 is surrounded by the context:

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’ “ So it is engulfed in a discussion about the importance of believing and the importance of hearing and preaching so that something crucial – the gospel – may be known and believed. There is no mention of the Spirit. (Though it is worth mentioning that the Spirit is deeply involved in the proclamation of the gospel … I was going to list scriptures here, but my previous posts establish that.)

  • Neither passage establishes that it is directly related to the other by any key word or phrase or concept.
  • Neither deals with the focus of the subject matter of the other.
  • Neither establishes, on its own or together, that Christ or the Holy Spirit exists in the believer ONLY by faith (one would have to consider Saul’s experiences in 1 Samuel 10 and 19, certainly, before concluding that – neither mentions a prerequisite of faith on his part).
  • Neither establishes, on its own or together, that faith comes only by hearing (and one would have to ponder about faith being given as a direct gift of the Holy Spirit per 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 before concluding that, especially verse 9).
  • The second passage has no reference to the Holy Spirit; the subject simply isn’t in view. How could a conclusion drawn from it specifically apply to Him, especially if the context of the other scripture contradicts the conclusion?
  • The other passages “explained away” by this logical argument speak clearly and explicitly to the Holy Spirit dwelling within the believer: John 14:16-17; Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 John 3:24. That is their subject and and at least part of their purpose in being written: to describe the way the Holy Spirit – a Person – truly “lives,” not figuratively but literally – in the heart of the welcoming believer.

Most of the supporting assumptions in this logical argument fail. When you knock the supporting legs off of a milkstool, it don’t stand up no more – and this argument is no different.

Does the Holy Spirit Live Within the Believer?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 38 Comments

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” ~ John 14:16-17

“We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” ~ Acts 5:32

“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 because of his Spirit who lives in you.” ~ Romans 8:11

“What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 2:12

“But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” ~ 1 Corinthians 6:17

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” ~ 1 Corinthians 6:19

“The one who keeps God’s commands lives 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.” ~ 1 John 3:24

Is there anything particularly difficult to understand about these passages? Is there any language in them which would lead one to believe that they are only meant figuratively? Is there anything that says that the Spirit dwells in the believer through His word only?

Or do these verses simply mean what they say?

When Jesus spoke figuratively about going away (dying) and seeing Him again (being resurrected), John quoted Him as saying so:

“Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father.” ~ John 16:25

When Paul spoke figuratively and slavery to law and freedom from it, he said so:

“These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar.” ~ Galatians 4:24

If they meant to speak in parables or metaphors, the New Testament writers generally clued their readers in by saying so, as Jesus did in His kingdom parables (“the kingdom of heaven is like …”) – or they would use the highly apocalyptic language of the prophets before them (“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day ….”) They did neither when speaking about the Spirit dwelling within the believer.

Nothing in scripture indicates that when one reads or memorizes the word of God, it is like the Spirit is living in him/her. Nothing scripture says reveals that reading or memorizing it alone IS the Spirit living in her/him.

This promise is stated literally in Joel (2:28-32), is literally fulfilled beginning in Acts 2, and continues being fulfilled throughout New Testament writings – with no record that it stopped or changed in nature or would stop or change in nature (to refer to the Spirit dwelling in someone only through the Word).

If you want to contend that Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to be only in the apostles (John 14:16-17), you still have to explain away Romans 8:11, 1 Corinthians 6:19 and 1 John 3:24.

The burden of proof is clearly on those who wish to propagate and live by a Spirit-in-the-word-only-today doctrine, and their proof continues to be assertion and adding words and/or meaning to scripture that it does not explicitly express. That’s called interpretation, and while we all do it, interpretation has rules: one begins with what scripture says and stops with what scripture actually says.

As most of the proponents of the Spirit-in-the-word-only-today doctrine would agree, “going beyond the word” (Numbers 22:18; 2 John 1:9; and some would add Revelation 22:18) is dangerous business.

They just can’t see or hear themselves doing it.

That’s why it’s so important to let the Holy Spirit lead us into all truth, and if He lives within the believer who listens for the truth, yearns for the truth, and asks for the truth … the source of truth within the written word of God is right there within from the One who inspired its writing.