It is the Spirit who
gives life:
The flesh profits
nothing.
the words that I
speak to you
are spirit, and they
are life.
John 6:63
For the law of the
Sprit of life
in Christ Jesus has
made me free
from the law of sin
and death.
Romans 8:2
To say that
you are a Christian then has an element that many assume is a pejorative term:
DUTY. It is our duty to live according to what we say we are: CHRISTIAN. Both
being a Christian and duty are in accord with election or chosen by God for
salvation. Paul in writing to the Galatians stated this under inspiration: “If
we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). As
a Christian we live, move, for our lives, our in God we have our being. Jesus
promised to send the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit to those chosen by God and the
Holy Spirit is ever with us and His power and might upholds us, our faculties
are strengthened so that all our movements whether they be corporeal, mental,
spiritual, proceed so that our actions exist in this One sent; we are
preserved. We are to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit. This is a problem in
the Church many want it “their way,” and live lives liberally, making excuses,
as reasons: why their lives are out of harmony with Scripture. Our spiritual
action is not of ourselves, from our desires, even our desires to do things
that are good, but are not dependent upon the Holy Spirit for direction to our
faculties. Our very disposition that we have if it is according to Scripture
towards the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Spirit. The goal of the Spirit
operating in man is to change man’s disposition, to conform man into the image
of God so that our view of God is the same as Jesus Christ’s view. The work of
the Holy Spirit is peculiar inasmuch as it is the work of sanctification. The
Holy Spirit sees our natural actions in our lives as we move in God; and, our
lives as we walk and live are spiritual actions: we walk in the Holy Spirit.
Scripture
is not silent as to our dependence upon the Holy Spirit as the opening verses
testify. Ezekiel gives us assurance that all are dependent upon the Holy
Spirit, the breath of God: “Also He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath,
prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: ‘Come
from th four wings, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live’”
(Ezekiel 37:9). The Hebrew word; ruwach, “תוך,” used some 378 times in
Scripture does mean, breath, wind, and more according to the context. It is
clear that the wind regarded in Scripture as a fitting emblem of the mighty,
penetrating power of the invisible God. (Strong’s Concordance, 2001; p. 808). Our bodies are dependent upon the Holy
Spirit as our bodies are dependent upon the oxygen and other elements in the
air that we breathe. We pray, or should pray in our earnest prayers that the
Holy Spirit granted, and not taken away. A Psalm of David tells us that the
Holy Spirit is the giver of all good: “Do not cast me away from Your
presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of
Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit” (Psalm 51:11–12). Matthew
and Luke agree that the Holy Spirit is God. The Father gives good gifts, and so
does the Holy Spirit, both accounts are the same account: “If you then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him” (Matthew
7:11)! “Compare: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts
to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
who ask Him” (Luke 11:13)! The good gifts we ask are not things, or
healings, or miracles, for God will supply according to His will those things.
Our asking from God is the Holy Spirit. This is the good gift of God. We are to
be led by the Holy Spirit for if not, then we are under the law, that is the
law and all its requirements, and many are under the law for they have been
taught to do, to have, they look for the supernatural, all so that they appear
to be pious. This is not the Christian life: “But if you are led by the
Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18). Paul correlates being
under the law as sin: “for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are
not under the law but under grace” (Romans 6:14). The law, or rules, or
false doctrines are nothing more than a law and they cannot do what God has
done and will do: He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to die for sin, and The Son
will come again to permanently destroy all sin and further God, the Son and the
Holy Spirit as all spoken as One: “For what the law could not do in that it
was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, on account of sin: he condemned sin in the flesh, that the
righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk
according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live
according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those
who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally
minded is death, but to be spiritually mined is life and peace. Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, no
indeed can be” (Romans 8:3–7).
No
Christian, the one who believes and is converted, those who have any sense of
his dependence on the Holy Spirit, and the divine life he enjoys, the blessing
that are included, can be indifferent to the Holy Spirit from whom all good
things proceed. A true believer in Jesus Christ cannot willingly “grieve” the
Holy Spirit. A true believer in God, in His Son, and in the Holy Spirit, Three
in One, the Godhead, by whom they are sealed to the day of redemption will seek
to know anything else but the mind of the Holy Spirit. It is sweet communion
that true believes have with the Holy Spirit, a foretaste of heaven, and we can
enjoy this while we are on earth.
And do not be drunk with wine,
In which is
dissipation;
But be filled with the Spirit
Ephesians 5:18
Walk in the Spirit
Richard L. Crumb
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