Infilling of the Holy Spirit

Purpose Media Productions

The Infilling of the Holy Spirit

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Acts 1:8

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:16.

In the last article, we considered that every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, being baptized into Christ. The Holy Spirit comes with power because our God is powerful. It means that every Christian has power. From elementary knowledge of physics, energy is in two states: that is either as potential energy or kinetic energy. Potential energy is dormant energy or capacity. In other words, ability at rest while kinetic is operative or mobile energy.

The Holy Spirit comes with power no doubt, but it is not everyone who utilizes or activates the power. Then to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be immersed, controlled or taken over by the Holy Spirit and that was why Paul parallels it with intoxication with wine. It is not possible to be intoxicated and not propelled to action. Paul had earlier told the Ephesians:

In Him you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire the possession of it, to the praise of His glory. Ephesians 1:13-14.

The Ephesians having believed the gospel are sealed or stamped by the Holy Spirit. They are now separated as God’s property and a people belonging to God. There is an account of how the twelve brethren who began the Ephesian church received the Spirit in Acts 19:1-7. This implies that when we believe, the Holy Spirit seals or marks us as people belonging to Christ and to God. The seal is for three purposes, ownership, authority and protection. Paul explains the Holy Spirit as a seal of God’s ownership over believers’ life differently in Romans 8:15-16 and Galatians 3:14; 4:6-7:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

So that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

The Ephesians were already sealed by the Spirit, meaning they had or possessed the Spirit of God, but Paul still challenged them to be filled with the Spirit. It was the same admonition he gave Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:6-7, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame (activate, be propelled by) the gift of God (the Holy Spirit) which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not to fear but of power and love and self-control.”

In the same way that Paul needed the Corinthians to come out of ignorance of the gifts of the Spirit, if we do not know the power, we would be in delusion. What is this power? John 1:12-13 says but as many as received Him, He gave power (the Spirit) to become sons of God, even those who believed on His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Remember, except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

The power is the regenerative power of the Spirit to transform sinners into saints. This can be done only by the power of God. This power sanctifies and empowers us to live a life that pleases God, consecrated only to Jesus. The power empowers us for service that we can proclaim with boldness the good news or gospel for the salvation of others. The power is Christ focused and not man centred as we see in many manifestations of spirit’s power today. We shall be focusing more on this in the next article by the grace of God.

How can we be filled with the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit dwells in us so we can be conformed to the image of Christ. Paul says he travails over the Galatians like a mother about to give birth until Christ is formed in them. How does Paul travail? He labours in the gospel. Apostle Paul would say, Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. The Holy Spirit’s work is to make Christ and His words dwell in us richly by the power of the gospel. God manifests Himself to us through the Son and the Holy Spirit points us to and magnifies the Son. The Holy Spirit is not a force that has come to proclaim Himself or bring glory to a “man of God” as powerful and anointed. His ministry is to lead us to the crucified and resurrected Christ. John 16:13-15.

The filling of the Holy Spirit is beholding Christ through the power of the gospel so much so that our lives begin to produce in increasing measure the fruit of the gospel, also known as the fruit of the Spirit, Gal. 5:22-24. Timothy is also reminded that the Spirit of power we received produces in us love and self control, or in another version, a sound mind. Love is the fruit of the Spirit of which self control is embedded, 1 Cor. 13:1-13. In conclusion, the Holy Spirit resides and dwells in us but we have a responsibility to fan into flame by availing and yielding (submitting) our lives entirely and in entirety to the power of the gospel. As such, the Spirit will have the fullness to have its course in our lives. This is our sanctification and what differentiates and distinguishes us from the rest of the world. 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 3:8-10.

© Purpose Media Publications, 2020