A very confounding issue for most of us is the topic of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. A natural picture we have is that a filling takes place when a vessel is empty. Therefore we tend to think that the Spirit infilling happens to those who are most yielded to God. This is however, not true in the spiritual sense because God fills the new believer who has repented, not the believer who has emptied himself the most. In fact the emptying and the yielding is a lifelong process and leads someone to be full of the Spirit, a term that is vastly different that being filled with the Spirit.
The filling of the Spirit (called the baptism of the Holy Spirit when it happens the first time) is given for a deep inner cleansing and an empowerment and has little to do with how spiritual a person is. It gives a new confidence in God and a new boldness in witnessing. It is also surprising to find out how quickly a cleansed believer can be defiled if he does not begin to walk by the Spirit. Please note that the flesh is not subdued by the infilling. This is where most of us are confused. An infilling does not cause love to overflow. It can only cause power to overflow. Love can overflow only when the flesh is subdued. The key is that we walk in the Spirit and we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Gal 5:16). A verse that can add to the confusion is the King James translation of Romans 5:5. The actual translation is not 'love shed abroad' but 'love has been poured out into our hearts' by the Holy Spirit. The context clearly shows Paul saying that we do not just look forward with hope but we can experience depths of God's love right now due to the present dispensation of the Holy Spirit.
The filling of the Spirit (called the baptism of the Holy Spirit when it happens the first time) is given for a deep inner cleansing and an empowerment and has little to do with how spiritual a person is. It gives a new confidence in God and a new boldness in witnessing. It is also surprising to find out how quickly a cleansed believer can be defiled if he does not begin to walk by the Spirit. Please note that the flesh is not subdued by the infilling. This is where most of us are confused. An infilling does not cause love to overflow. It can only cause power to overflow. Love can overflow only when the flesh is subdued. The key is that we walk in the Spirit and we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Gal 5:16). A verse that can add to the confusion is the King James translation of Romans 5:5. The actual translation is not 'love shed abroad' but 'love has been poured out into our hearts' by the Holy Spirit. The context clearly shows Paul saying that we do not just look forward with hope but we can experience depths of God's love right now due to the present dispensation of the Holy Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment