The office of the Holy Spirit is to change your soul, and to bring new life to you

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your Holy presence,

and do no take Your Holy Spirit from me.

restore to me the joy of Your salvation,

and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

Psalm 51:10–12

            Those words written to the Chief Musician, a Psalm of David, written by David after his confrontation with the prophet Nathan due to his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, is the cause of the husband of Bathsheba, Uriah. Nathan approached king David as he was instructed by God to confront David for this sin and King David responded with a broken and contrite heart for he had sinned, sinned against the nation of Israel, and against God: “So David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die’” (2Samuel 12:13–14). By the mercy of God and by His Grace king David did not suffer death but he did suffer loss as those were the consequences of his sin. Do not be fooled by foolish thinking, some are being fooled, and by those who are pastors and teach a “sloppy agape” type of Christianity. God will not in every case, take away the consequences of our actions and especially our sins. By the Mercy and Grace of God we live, therefore we ought to do as King David: repent.

            Good News! God’s children, those elected before the foundation of the world to eternal life, predestinated to live forever and become in the image of Jesus Christ, have the Holy Spirit who is the sanctifier and comforter of God’s people. The Holy Spirit is the author of holiness that all of God’s children, those who are saved are the recipients of this holiness: “…elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1Peter 1:2). This sanctification comes to a child of God by his being washed (ἀπελούσασθε: not baptizo), the Greek word ἀπελούσασθε is third person plural, aorist, and this means that “you all were, at some point in time and that work extends into the present,” to use a Southern idiom, “you all,” were washed, released from, liberated, dismissed, from your sin. Not by what you have done, or will do, even if for God, for His Son, no: God before time released you by His election, and by this election and by means of the sanctification that come through and by the Holy Spirit of God: you are sanctified. You have and are a new life, a new spiritual life through regeneration: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). To sanctified by God through His Holy Spirit is not the beginning of a new life. You are sanctified in heaven, justified by God, and if you die you will as one of God’s children by with Him. Now in this life, one that is corrupted, flawed, due to sin, we grow in sanctification, that is if: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). This walking in the Spirit not accomplished by ourselves for sin has maimed our consciences, yet we can live by the Spirit and this means to be: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18). What is required, and this is so abused, this doctrine of the Office of the Holy Spirit. The One, who has sanctified us and fills us to do that which is becoming a Christian. Not those things, which attributed to some baptism of the Holy Spirit that is not Scriptural and brings, blaspheme upon our God and Savior. This inhibits the Holy Spirit to lead us. Those charismatic revelations and those workings to be some part of signs and wonders, those things that make cause to jump, holler, shout, bark like a dog. Things people do as in to run through tunnels of fire, etc. This is not being filled with the Holy Spirit, that are who and whose, and what constitutes true believers n Jesus Christ: “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving things always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:18–21). We as true believers in Jesus Christ, converted to Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, and led by the Holy Spirit, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, are not to be intoxicated. If you being intoxicated, by wine, or any other thing, then you are not being led by the Holy Spirit and you have poured bitterness upon the office of the Holy Spirit: “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:17). Be as King David, truly sorrowful for your sin(s) and repent. The office of the Holy Spirit is to change your soul from a state of death due to trespasses and sins, and to bring new life to you and this by our change to our vile body and then fashion ourselves, into the image of Jesus Christ.

          The question: will you?

I beseech you therefore, brethren,

            By the mercies of God,

That you present your bodies a

            Living sacrifice, holy,

Acceptable to God, which is

            Your reasonable service.

                                    Romans 12:1

Be led today: By the Holy Spirit

Richard L. Crumb