I’m not going to attempt a complete theology of the Spirit (pneumatology, technically), nor will I endeavor to suss out just what the Spirit does and doesn’t do today. I just want to offer the barest of introductions to a healthy understanding.
First, Jesus explained the working of the Spirit in enigmatic terms —
(Joh 3:8 ESV) 8 “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
— which parallels —
(Isa 40:13 ESV) 13 Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?
As one commentator explains,
The Spirit does not come from our personal depths within (the perennial Gnostic heresy of Withinism) nor from our passionately ascending mystical heights above, accessible only to the spiritual disciplines of a soul’s Godward climb. No, the Spirit comes down into our hearts in the meetings of believers, and then for the new convert comes down on and all over one’s body and soul in the waters of initiation, but always in sovereign freedom. The New Birth is sheer divine gift, as surprisingly unpredictable and as free as a fresh wind: “This is exactly the case with every individual born of the Spirit.”
Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2012), 180–181.
In short, don’t try to limit or control the Spirit. The Spirit is a person, a member of the Godhead, and not subject to our manipulation or control. The Spirit “blows where it wishes” — which may not be where you wish.
The most obvious doctrine of the Spirit missed by many within the Churches is the influence of the Spirit on the Christian’s heart. By no means is the Spirit’s work limited to the heart, but I think the heart is at the core of the promises we have regarding the Spirit.
The Old Testament prophets are quite clear on this point —
(Eze 36:26-27 ESV) 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Through Ezekiel, God promises the coming of the Kingdom, at which time God himself will reshape our hearts so that we become obedient to God. And the point is that God will do this in contrast to our doing this ourselves, and he will do it through the Spirit.
Ezekiel says nothing of taking away our free will, but he does promise transformed hearts that submit to God’s commands.
(Jer 31:31-34 ESV) 31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
This is a central Old Testament text that is frequently referenced by New Testament authors. Jesus refers to it at the Last Supper when he says that the cup is the “new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). The entire passage is quoted in Hebrews 8, where it forms the foundation for the remainder of the book’s teachings through at least chapter 10.
Notice that this “new covenant” (v. 31) is “not like” the old covenant (v. 32). How is it different? Well, under the old covenant, the individual Israelite had to read the Law and obey on his own. If his heart had to be changed, he changed it himself (contrast Deu 10:16 with Deu 30:6). But under the new covenant, God says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.”
No longer is it up to the individual all by himself. God will become active in the hearts of his children to change them — from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh so that God himself can write his laws on his children’s hearts.
Paul picks up this theme several times, most obviously in such passages as —
(Phi 2:12-13 NET) 12 So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, 13 for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort – for the sake of his good pleasure – is God.
(2Co 3:17-18 ESV) 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
In both cases, the active agent is God or God acting through his Spirit to change the heart of the individual Christian, precisely as promised by Ezekiel and Jeremiah.
And yet there is nothing here about revealing new doctrines or writing new canonical books of the Bible. Rather, the focus is on our hearts and our obedience — on our hearts being changed by God himself so that we obey.
The Churches of Christ have been blind to this teaching because we were so afraid of Quakerism and Calvinism we wouldn’t even consider the possibility that the Spirit might work in other ways.
And so we see that the heart is actually very much at the core of the Spirit’s work. After all, if I “obey” out of fear of hell, my motivation is love for myself, not love for God, and that’s just not real obedience. To truly obey I must do so out of a love for God that’s greater than love for myself — no easy thing.
(Deu 6:5-6 ESV) 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You see, the Law of Moses was as much a system of heart-obedience as Christianity. It’s core teaching was to love God “with all your heart” — just as is true of Christianity. Mere ritualistic obedience or obeying in hopes of earning a blessing is selfish and does not qualify.
This is a standard that we mere mortals can only talk about achieving on our own. Free will or no, we struggle to put God ahead of ourselves — especially to do so without fear or desire for reward, that is, to do so with unmixed motives, solely out of our love for God.
And this is exactly what the Spirit provides to the Christian. Not instantly and perhaps not even easily at times, but our transformation into the image of Jesus is very much the promise of the Spirit — that is, we can approach being as submissive and sacrificial as Jesus —
(Eph 5:1-2 ESV) Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
This command follows shortly after —
(Eph 4:30 ESV) 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
You see, it’s the work of the Spirit to transform us to become like Jesus, as Paul prayed earlier in Ephesians —
(Eph 3:14-19 ESV) 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith — that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
If you follow the verses in Ephesians about the Spirit, you’ll see Paul offering this prayer and then later insisting that his readers live the prayer by imitating Jesus — which can only happen if our hearts of stone are transformed into hearts of flesh so that God can write his laws on our hearts.
I could go on. These Spirit passages permeate Paul’s writings, Acts, and the Gospel of John especially — and we could go for weeks studying them.
But here’s the point: The Churches of Christ have, as an institution, missed them in an over-abundance of zeal to flee genuine error. Preaching against error ultimately took us away from the scriptures themselves — which is the great danger of reactionary theology. That is, when we develop doctrine to defeat error — even very genuine error — the human tendency is to leave the scriptures behind and define ourselves by what we’re against and not by what the Bible actually teaches.
And this has to change. I’ve heard all the arguments against Calvinism and Quakerism I need for this lifetime. The point’s been made (and made and made). It’s easy and intellectually lazy to be only against error. The challenge of scripture is to figure out what you’re for based on what the Spirit teaches — not what you teach against.
“Through Ezekiel, God promises the coming of the Kingdom, at which time God himself will reshape our hearts so that we become obedient to God. And the point is that God will do this in contrast to our doing this ourselves, and he will do it through the Spirit.”
Jay, do you believe that our brethren who deny the “personal indwelling” of the Spirit (who believe that the Spirit indwells in the same sense and manner as does Christ himself), still have said indwelling? Or, does an alleged mis understanding of the indwelling of Spirit cause the Spirit to not indwell at all? Or to indwell but not fulfill the promises and purposes of his indwelling?
If the indwelling of the Spirit is given to ALL who believe and are baptized (have faith in Jesus) regardless of whether or not the believer understands it all, would/does the promise of the benefits of the indwelling still apply? Namely, that God will replace our heart with a new heart and replace our spirit with a new spirit?
If so, and if the new heart and spirit is what causes the Christian to obey (and not his own determination and efforts), why do so many Christians still not obey? Why isn’t the new spirit able to AT LEAST convince every Christian that they have one?
Lastly, the passage(s) that promise us “a new spirit” declare just as clearly promise “a new heart”. And that God would “remove” our previous heart. Is that literal? Do we actually have a literal replacemnet of our heart? Or is the language of the passage only figurative?
If the language of the passage regarding the heart replacement is not literal but figurative, why couldnt it be the same regarding the replacement of our spirit? Why must one be literal and the other only figurative all within the same passage?
Wouldn’t it be more consistent to interpret the whole passage in the same way?
Does that make sense?
The teaching of cessationism,, that miracles ceased after the New Testament, and that the Holy Spirit only dwells through the word and doesn’t really do anything (functionally, that is what has been taught) have been stepping stones for many to skepticism and atheism. After all, it is a short jump from all miracles ceased 2000 years ago to perhaps they never occurred at all.
Hank says: “Does that make sense?”
Absolutely, most sensible thing I have read in a while around here.
stevdor75 , I beg to differ with your analysis,The teaching of cessation is not the problem, the teaching of continuation, is the problem. When we teach miracles are a modern day action of the spirit, and all we have to do is ask to receive . When we teach this and someone truly needs a miracle in their life nothing except the attention of God can solve their problem, and nothing happens, prayers go unanswered , the whole church gets in on the praying and still the problem exists, then the person who did believe in miracles , and has asked with every fiber of their being sees no miracle, they begin to ask WHY. What did I do wrong. When we teach miracles today they are hidden miracles, not the kind everyone standing by saw. Just as everyone standing by in time of miracles saw them performed, the people standing around today see the failure of a miracle to come, so it not only injures the faith of the one needing the miracle but many others as well. But it is an easy fallacy to teach and convince people of, they are so needy that they can see a miracle in a cereal bowl, or a tree line or a water droplet running down a window.
Do you think, if people regularly witnessed miracles of the sort performed during Jesus stay here we would need to convince people there were still miracles? I don’t think so.
Abraham told the rich man that if his brothers wouldn’t believe the prophets, they still wouldn’t believe, even if they saw somebody come back from the dead. The Jews watched Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, and their response was not to believe, but to plot the murder of Jesus AND Lazarus. Those who refuse to believe, refuse to believe. So many Christians say “If I saw a miracle, then I would believe in miracles!” There is nothing to lead us to believe this would be true.
Charles, I don’t remember where the witnesses to any miracle spoken of in the bible , were numbered. But we know by experience that many thousands could not have been close enough to witness them, they received their knowledge the very same way we do by word of mouth, by rumors , it is not like they personally witnessed the miracles, even in the feeding of the multitude, all most saw was a basket of fish, and possibly a story of how it came to be. so how can you question the doubts of many, even those who were close to the event. I doubt that any of us could say with confidence how we would have reacted when told Jesus just raised a dead man.
Jay quotes Paul on the activity of the Spirit in our lives, and then tacks on a disclaimer: “And yet there is nothing here about revealing new doctrines or writing new canonical books of the Bible.”
Actually, that is EXACTLY what was happening at the time of the writings Jay quoted.
But I understand the disclaimer. I once made such myself, partially from an intention to be kind with my brothers and “bring them along slowly”, and partly to protect my position in the church. (Turned out not to accomplish either one, but that is another tale…)
The truth and immutability of the Bible is perhaps the most important article of faith we hold. In fact, in many quarters, faith in Jesus actually comes from faith in the Bible, rather than the other way around. When an immutable Bible is the idee fixe of our faith, that faith becomes static, similar in form to Moses’ tablets of stone and how the Jews followed them. Paul describes a dynamic spiritual life, one impelled and empowered by the living Spirit– a life centered around change; the ongoing change that marks being formed into a person we are not now. And by extension, to be a community which we have not yet become. To one whose faith is in tablets of stone, such dynamism may seem near chaos, unpredictable and terrifying.
But if this life of change is anchored in a Person, rather than in a book about that person, then we can be comforted in the consistency of His character, instead of in the predictability of our own path.
Charles, miracles are another case for “belief” not fact. I have a very long list of miracles asked for but not received, how long a list do you have for miracles asked for and received. I am not going to accept those named in the bible, because you didn’t see them. But even if they were included, my list would out number yours many times over.
Paul pleaded three times to the Lord that the thorn in his flesh be gone. That doesn’t mean that God will never answer Paul’s prayer, God didn’t answer Paul’s prayer when Paul thought He should. God answers prayers, just not always when we think He should, He does what He does in His timing, not ours.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 But to keep me from being puffed up with pride because of the many wonderful things I saw, I was given a painful physical ailment, which acts as Satan’s messenger to beat me and keep me from being proud. Three times I prayed to the Lord about this and asked him to take it away. But his answer was: “My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak.” I am most happy, then, to be proud of my weaknesses, in order to feel the protection of Christ’s power over me. I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
People seem to think all miracles have to be what they perceive as a miracle, so many people think that God no longer does miracles that they miss so many of them. The apostle Paul never fully recovered his sight after he had been struck blind, Galatians 4:15 “What has become of the happiness you once had? You would have taken out your own eyes if you could have and given them to me.” Galatians 6:11 “See what big letters I make when I write to you with my own hand.” I would still say that Paul receiving some sight back after he had been blind that it was a miracle, even though he was still partially blind and could not see very well.
stevdor75,
I recently read an article from a mainstream evangelical listing the signs of liberalism. Among those was a denial of the Spirit’s present, personal activity in the lives of Christians!
The refusal to see the Spirit is very modernist and very humanist. Indeed, that doctrine did not exist until after the Enlightenment, in which human reason was placed above revelation.
It’s the naturalist who insists that the universe is a closed system and that there is no room or need for God to intervene in human affairs. And yet many within the Churches of Christ adopt this same position, unaware that they are adopting a worldview that not only violates scripture but is fed by a modernist worldview that is uncomfortable with the supernatural and the miraculous — a worldview founded on Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke, not the scriptures.
And so we have this huge irony that while the conservative Churches often call us progressives “liberal,” they are in fact guilty of drinking from the well of liberalism.
Interestingly, Augustine originally was a Cessationist regarding the continuation of miracles (but he believed in the continued direct operation of the Spirit on the Christian’s heart). However, as Bishop of Hippo he investigated several alleged miracles, intending to debunk them, only to conclude that they’d really happened.
Therefore, there is no evidence that miracles ceased at the end of the apostolic age. The early church fathers record no such cessation — and surely the church would have noticed!
Hank asked,
Hank,
I can’t prove this from scripture, but it’s my observation — and many others have observed the same thing — that those who deny the Spirit’s indwelling tend to resist the work of the Spirit, that is, they grieve the Spirit (Eph 4:30). That is, when someone who once denied the indwelling comes to believe in the indwelling, they begin to change and become more “spiritual.” After all, you can’t yield to something you deny. Moreover, you can’t truly understand grace unless you understand the Spirit — which is why Romans 8, which is the culmination of Paul’s lessons on grace, is about the Spirit. And if you don’t understand grace, you struggle to know how to live as a Christian.
The legalistic point of view sees grace as dangerous because people need to fear hell and damnation to do good. This motivates a certain kind of living. But those who understand grace discover that perfect love drives away fear, and with fear eliminated, our love for God grows exponentially — and so grace frees the Spirit to create a life-changing love for God so that obedience becomes a joy and not a way to flee hell. It truly becomes about pleasing God out of love for God — and people who are motivated this way live dramatically transformed lives — and are far more obedient than those who serve out of fear.
The Spirit’s work within each Christian is a desperately needed teaching because, among other reasons, people are changed to become closer to the image of Jesus when the Spirit is taught correctly. I have seen it with my own eyes many, many times.
Hank asked,
No, it would not. We use metaphors all the time in ordinary speech. But in so doing, we don’t intend that every word we say is to be taken as a metaphor. There is no such rule.
Obviously, when Ezekiel refers to people having a “heart of stone” he is speaking metaphorically — but because he intends to be understood, he makes the use of metaphor obvious.
There is, however, no reason to suppose that the references to God’s Spirit are metaphorical. After all, Ezekiel does not write in a literary and cultural vacuum. He has the Torah in mind, and likely other earlier OT books in which references to the Spirit are plainly literal —
I suspect that Ezekiel took his heart metaphor from Psalm 51 myself. And although Psalm 51 is a poem filled with metaphor, the reference to the Holy Spirit is plainly literal.
Finally, I should add that the Ezekiel prophecies regarding the Spirit are part of a long chain of such prophecies beginning with Deu 30:6 and winding through the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel (among others). It’s an important theme of the OT that specifically promises a direct operation on the hearts of God’s children.
Jesus continues the theme.
(Lots of metaphors, but the references to Living Water are explained as literally meaning the Spirit.)
I could go on. There’s a lot of material promising the Spirit to the followers of Jesus. And there’s no way that these all use “Spirit” figuratively — figuratively for what? For human effort? The whole point of these passages is that God himself will enter our hearts and change them to be able to better serve him.
Jay, You mention Ezekiel borrowing metaphors from other books. If he was moved by the Spirit, could God not have told him directly what to say? Where is the fine line between inspiration and plagiarism?
Hank, I do believe, as the Bible states, that the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to all believers when they are baptized. I also believe that if one has been taught from early childhood on that there is no indwelling Spirit, the Holy Spirit can be grieved or quenched and this can be to the point that the person may be spiritually unalive. The Holy Spirit’s work is to change the very nature of the spirit with which we were born. That spirits heart is stone and only the Holy Spirit can change it. A person with a heart of stone can impersonate a person with a heart of flesh but they will know they are impersonators because in their secret moments, they will know that they didn’t serve God and Man with love and gladness but only out of a sense of duty and obligation. Having served both ways, I can testify that there is a big difference.
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Laymond, anyone who wants to mount a personal defense of his own unbelief by listing his many disappointments with God will get no argument from me. That would be me interfering in an personal issue a son has with his Father.
Do those who deny the indwelling Spirit receive Him anyway? Reasonable question, with no definitive answer. But it does remind me of a child who was offended at his uncle, who had pointed at the boy’s abdomen and said, “Your duodenum is right there.” The lad insisted to his uncle that if he had something inside him like that, he would certainly know it!
I am also reminded of many of my CoC brothers who are taught, and continue to believe, that they lose their salvation upon committing an intentional sin, and are unsaved until the hour they repent. The fact is that the believer remains saved during that time period between sin and repentance, and any denial of this does not change the reality. Sometimes I think we have more from God that we are willing to believe.
Charles said “Sometimes I think we have more from God that we are willing to believe.”. Well Charles… you have to admit that something so good IS hard to believe. Especially if you are trying to believe it on your own.
Doug, and the rest have we not read the story of Moses and Pharaoh did I miss something where it said That when Moses spoke the word of God, Pharaoh’s heart was softened, and God hardened his heart so he would not do what he started to do. It seems that you all have turned that story around.
Charles, the list of which I spoke, was not a list of my own disappointments. Just those I know about from others. I have vowed to do my work, and trust God to do his. If my will runs concurrent to my Father’s GREAT, but if my will runs opposite to God’s I expect I will know it, and will do my best to change, I don’t recall ever asking my God to change. And I don’t intend to do so. I try not to gripe over things he gives me, and I do say “Thank You Lord” a lot, actually more than once
every day. I am mostly satisfied with who I am, and absolutely satisfied with who he is.
Skip asked,
Plagiarism is not remotely at issue. When we ask those “coming forward” to be baptized to confess that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” we are repeating the words of Peter, but not plagiarizing him. Rather, we’re honoring his confession as Jesus honored it.
If I choose to teach that the Spirit turns our hearts from stone to flesh, I’m alluding to Ezekiel but not plagiarizing Ezekiel. I’m expecting my audience to recognize that the source of the allusion is Ezekiel, not me. I’m not claiming that metaphor as original with me.
It’s obvious from reading the various NT books that however inspiration works, each author has his own style and own voice. Paul and Peter do not write the same way.
Therefore, I have to reject the theory of inspiration that assumes that the human author is merely transcribing the words given by the Spirit. There is, in inspiration, a certain synergy so that Jeremiah reads like Jeremiah not Ezekiel, and yet both authors bear the obvious stamp of inspiration. No mere human can write as these men wrote.
I’m no expert in the scholarly theories of inspiration. I just observe the distinctive voices of different human authors, voices that the Spirit enhances to be obviously beyond mortal capabilities.
Here’s a somewhat abstruse article by William Lane Craig wrestling with the question. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/men-moved-by-the-holy-spirit-spoke-from-god. It’s not an easy read but gives a detailed history of the theology of inspiration.
Actually Pharaoh is said to have hardened his heart at times during the narrative and at other times it is stated that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart…
Laymond,
I cannot find a version of scripture that implies that Pharaoh’s heart was ever softened by words spoken by Moses.
In response to, “Doug, and the rest have we not read the story of Moses and Pharaoh did I miss something where it said That when Moses spoke the word of God, Pharaoh’s heart was softened, and God hardened his heart so he would not do what he started to do.”
Actually Laymond, I think the Exodus scriptures point out quite clearly that Pharaoh had a heart of stone before Moses every spoke any words God gave him to speak. That heart remained stone through all of the ten plagues and the only times Pharaoh seemed to yield to what Moses saying was when he put on an act to attempt to manipulate God. There’s not a much harder heart to be found than in a person who tries to manipulate God for selfish reasons. Unfortunately, I have come across more than a few preachers who do the same thing with scripture.
arkie55, Here is my understanding of how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. It is somewhat like the sun on a hot day. When it hits a stick of butter, the butter quickly melts. When it shines on clay, the clay only gets harder. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by putting pressure on him. Humble people soften but Pharaoh simply chose to get harder.
Jay notes: It’s the naturalist who insists that the universe is a closed system and that there is no room or need for God to intervene in human affairs. And yet many within the Churches of Christ adopt this same position, unaware that they are adopting a worldview that not only violates scripture but is fed by a modernist worldview that is uncomfortable with the supernatural and the miraculous — a worldview founded on Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke, not the scriptures.
I appreciate Jay bringing this out. Trouble is that it is highly unlikely that this topic would ever be discussed in a CoC pulpit. We have been so conditioned to hearing “only the Bible” from the pulpit– again, as a defense against error– that going beyond the scripture to explain things around us is not acceptable. We want a string of BCV’s and a conclusion drawn from it, and a good invitation. And that’s it. Okay, you can open the sermon with a joke and close with a Helen Steiner Rice poem, but that’s as far out as we will let the preacher go, lest we fall into the vain philosophies of this world… or worse, Pentecostalism.
Jay expresses his opinion
What Paul says is not what Jay reads into what Paul said. Paul is pointing out that we who love Jesus are to walk and talk as Jesus did. It’s our duty. It’s our calling. Jay suggests it’s the work of the Spirit. Peter makes it equally plain, we are to ADD TO our faith. We’re not told that the Spirit will do the adding. The more we emphasize the Spirit, the less we are speaking of the Lord Jesus. What name would be correct for those who love and honor and seek help from the Spirit?
Christians love and honor and seek help from Jesus who sends the Spirit where He is needed.
When Paul charged the church in Ephesus to “be filled with the Spirit”, what did he mean? They already all “had the gift of the Holy Spirit” since their baptism, right? How were they to “be filled with” the HS? Was that something they did each one individually? Did some have more “of the HS” than others. Do people’s “levels of the HS” go up and down? What causes one guy to have less HS while another guy if filling up?
Isn’t it possible that the Holy Spirit dwells in Christians the same exact way as Jesus dwells within us? Why is the indwelling of Christ any less “actual” than the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Remember, Jesus claimed to be “in” his disciples way back in John 15. Was he really, actually “in” them then? In what sense? Why not be consistent in our understanding of the Spirit? Why must the HS be in us in a different way than Jesus claimed to be in his disciples back in John 15?
Hank asked,
I’ve heard the old word-only arguments — many times. And they fail because they do not take into but those few verses that can have a word-only reading imposed on them.
Because of the very many scriptures that promise a personal indwelling, going back to the Law and the Prophets and continuing throughout the NT, many of them cited in this post. I see no way to reconcile the word-only view with the entirety of the texts that speak of the Spirit. The passages cited in this post and the preceding post should be more than enough to make the point.
If I’m wrong, show me how each of the passages cited in these two posts can be sensibly reconciled with the word-only position. The fact that a handful might be rationalized proves nothing. The entirety of the Holy Spirit passages have to fit the theory or else it fails.
What does it mean to filled with the Spirit? I fail to see what point you want to make. What is your interpretation? Ridicule Ephesians 5:18-21 proves nothing. Put forth a theory for how one is filled with the word and ask yourself the same questions. Do people’s “levels of the word go up and down?”
In fact, people’s relationship with the Spirit can change for good and bad.
(Gal 5:25 ESV) 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
The Spirit is an influence but does not remove free will. We choose whether to submit to its influence — and sometimes we even resist the Spirit —
(Eph 4:30 ESV) 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
And so we can grieve (resist) the Spirit or keep in step with the Spirit and it’s our choice — and the more we submit, the more we are “filled” with the Spirit.