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The Holy Spirit In-Dwelling
Man
by Geoffrey Bingham
The Holy Spirit
Indwelling Man 
Introduction: The Holy Spirit and
Man a Spirit
It is clear that in the
New Testament, the Holy Spirit dwells in those persons
who have submitted to the Lordship of Christ, believing
in Him and so receiving eternal life. Before we go on to
see the world-wide action of God in the Holy Spirit we
need to see what Man is regarding his being a spirit, or
a spiritual creature, and then to discover what he is in
relation to the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit Which Dwells in Us
In talking of the powerful
and transforming regeneration of Man, we have seen this
comes about when the holy Spirit comes to a person and
applies, or communicates, the work of Christ through
the word of Christ. By 'the work of Christ' we mean that
which Christ did, and none other could do for it is His
work alone, though He was aided in doing it by both the
Father and the Holy Spirit. That work is told by
'the word of Christ'. It is through the Holy Spirit that
the word becomes effectively to us the applied work
of Christ. We know that in Genesis 1: 1-3 there was the tohu
wabohu- - the without form and void' condition
- and only when the Spirit made His movement of power across
the face of the deep and the word of God was spoken did
all become transformed into order and beauty and coherence.
Together the word of God
and the Spirit bring Creation to its true being, for being
inseparable they are dynamic.
In James 4:1-12 the writer
sets out two ways of life, the moral and the immoral:
What causes wars, and
what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions
that are at war in your members? You desire and do not
have,. so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain,
.so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because
you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you
ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. Unfaithful
creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world
is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a
friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or
do you suppose it is in vain that the scripture says,
'He yearns jealously over the spirit which he has made
to dwell in us'? But he gives more grace,. therefore
it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the
humble. 'Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the
devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and
he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you men of double mind. Be wretched
and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning
and your joy to dejection. Humble yourselves before the
Lord and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against
one another, brethren. He that speaks evil against a
brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the
law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you
are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver
and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But
who are you that you judge your neighbour?
As we read the passage we
are moved to see 'He yearns jealously over the spirit which
he has made to dwell in us', because whether the word 'spirit'
should be written with a capital 'S' or a small 's', it
tells us the state of God's heart when one who should be
living according to the Spirit is not doing so. Even if
the term 'spirit' is the correct one it tells us God's
heart yearns jealously for us when we are not filled with
His glory and not living by its moral order, but rather
are in that state where we are conformed to the world when
we do not even belong to it!
We need, then, to take up
the matter of the Spirit's dwelling in us. This of course
is a momentous matter in our lives. That the Third Person
of the Triune Godhead should dwell in a human person is
astounding. Paul asks the question, 'Do you not know that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which
you have from God?' (1 Corinthians 1:6). It is difficult
to believe that human bodies can be a temple. It is the
Spirit of holiness Who dwells in that temple. Paul in other
places is strong about the indwelling of the Spirit. In
that grand chapter of Romans 8-which is all about the Spirit-he
says, 'But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit,
if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any one who
does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him'
(verse g). Everything comes to the one who has the Spirit
indwelling him, and nothing comes to the one from whom
the Spirit is absent. Look at the outcome of a Spirit indwelled
life, 'If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit
which dwells in you' (verses 10-11).
The amazing promise of the
Spirit's indwelling was given by Christ to His disciples
in John 14:15-17:
If you love me, you will
keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and
he will give you another Counsellor, to be with you for
ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, you
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.
The Holy Spirit dwelled with
the disciples, mainly through Jesus being with them, for
He indwelt Christ. Soon-at Pentecost-lie would come to
dwell within them-an entirely different system altogether.
Paul attests twice more to this. In Romans 5:5 he says,
'And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has
been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which
has been given to us'. This is a magnificent attestation,
for the whole of God's love comes with the Spirit, given
to us, and remaining within us. Again, in Timothy 1:14
he says, 'Guard the truth that has been entrusted to you
by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us'. [1]
Man is a Spirit
What we now wish to see is
the state of Man as a spirit, and the place of the Spirit
in regard to Man and His Creation. We saw in our first
Chapter that in Genesis 2:7 God formed Man of the dust
of the earth, and 'breathed into him the breath of life'.
We saw that 'breath' in this text was neshama, and
that in Genesis 6:17'the breath of life' which is in all
creatures is ruach, and in
Genesis 7:22 this 'breath of life' is neshama, ,
so that the two words are virtually synonymous. God only
breathes into Man and not into the animals. From God's
breathing neshama into Man he becomes a 'living
soul', or' a living being'. We saw that soul-nephesh-is
different from animals. Man does not so much have a soul
as he is one. he is a spirit, for God is 'the Father of
spirits' as Hebrews 12:9 puts it, undoubtedly quoting from
Numbers 16:22, 'And they fell on their faces, and said,
'0 God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one
man sin, and wilt thou be angry with all the congregation?".
The phrase, 'the God of the spirit so fall flesh' is used
again in Numbers 27:16. Man does not so much have a spirit
as he is a spirit. This sets him apart from the animals.
When we look at Psalm 104:29-30
we see that not only Man but all things, creatures and
even vegetation, are created by the Spirit who constantly
gives them life. 'When thou hidest thy face, they are dismayed;
when thou takest away their breath [ruach], they die and
return to their dust. When thou sendest forth thy Spirit [ruach], they
are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground'.
This means not simply that the Spirit creates, and what
is created is then simply sustained, as though that were
the whole of the matter, but that the Creation is also
praising God, and telling His glory, and even, in some
way partaking in that glory. The Creation is in glorifying
action! It is not only Man who is in action. Creation
is thus purposeful, a fact borne out by the powerful doctrine
of Creation which Israel knew.
Note on Aboriginal Spirituality.
Aborigines know they do not
have in their own spirits the power and wisdom to understand
life. They need their culture. They need the spirit who
has always been in action from creation i.e. the spirits
of their Dreaming Time. They draw from this and they give
to this in their rituals, corroborees, singing, etc. They
strengthen what they see as dynamically there. They live
by the word -passed on-and the spirit or spirits of the
Creation as they know them. They need something from outside,
but at the same time see themselves as part of this spirit-creation.
They know this and adhere to it. Their law is oral, not
ever written. [2]
The Word and the Spirit Together
in Creation
With this significant reference
to the Spirit in Psalm 104:29-30, we have Psalm 33:6-7,
'By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all
their host by the breath [ruach] of his mouth lie
gathered the waters of the sea
as in a bottle; he put the deeps in storehouses'. God created
and He has set the 'fixed order' of the waters (cf. Psalm
148:5-6; [3] Jeremiah
31:35-36). This refers to both the word of God and the ruach of
God employed in creation and continuing creation. Elihu
in the Book of Job states the creative power of the neshama of
God, 'The spirit of God has made me; and the breath of
the Almighty gives me life' (job 33:4), i.e. God is involved
continuously in creating and upholding it. In Job 4:9,
Eliphaz states the destructive side of God's ruach against
those who do iniquity, 'By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed', and in
Isaiah 11:4 Messiah is said to slay with the breath (ruach) of
His lips.
In respect to creation we
have the presence of the Glory Spirit in Genesis 1:1-3.
Out of this event comes the whole of Creation, including
Man, but then in Genesis 2:7 we have the special creation
of Man as God breathes into him His neshama, and
the woman is created from the Man, so that he is her source.
Was the Spirit there in the whole act of creation and did
He remain with all creatures and all elements of Creation?
The answer is 'yes', as shown in some of the previous references.
Man's Spirit: the Holy Spirit, and
God's Covenant
The Spirit is always associated
with the Covenant of God, for He is both the Spirit of
Creation and the Spirit of love and relationships. Naturally,
then, tie is the Spirit of God's law, the perfection of
moral glory, and is so even in Eden. Isaiah 63 tells of
his doings with Israel as they went through the wilderness.
Events took place which meant disobedience to both God's
Covenant and his law. Later the prophets, filled with the
Spirit, recalled Israel to the law. In Ezekiel 36:24-28 [4] the
Holy Spirit comes to Israel and creates the spirit of Israel-Man-afresh
in that he now obeys the covenantal laws, commandments
and ordinances of God, i.e. he is one with the glorious
law of God, and so with God Himself.
The Holy Spirit: the River of God
Without doubt, in John 7:37-39
Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, rivers of living water'. We
might say 'the river of living water' because
the river in Genesis arose within Paradise but flowed out
as four rivers, designed to water the whole earth. We surely
have to say that nothing has life without water, and that
the Holy Spirit sustains all life, meaning that the Spirit
is the river arising in Eden and becoming rivers to water
the whole earth. In Revelation 22 the river is surely that
of the Holy Spirit, just as in Jerusalem. As Psalm 46:4
tells us, 'There is a river whose streams make glad the
city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High'. There
was no river in Jerusalem as such. Yet in Ezekiel 47 the
river flows from the south of the altar, as in Revelation
22 it flows from 'the throne of God and the Lamb'. In Revelation
22-as in Ezekiel 47-the river waters the tree of life which
is on both sides of the river, and its fruits are perpetual
as its leaves are, also, for the healing of the nations.
We always associate the Spirit with flowing, life-giving
water. We associate film with fruitfulness-'the fruit of
the Spirit' as in Galatians 5:22-23. We associate him with
healing-'the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing
of the nations'.
The Spirit, Always the True Source
of Creation and Created Life
All of this tells us that
the Holy Spirit is the true Source of all life. We know
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of hope, is linked with the
renewal of Creation. Romans 8:18-30 certifies that. But
we now think in terms of the Spirit sustaining all life.
Therefore all things, and Man in particular, are never
deserted by the Spirit, except there be judgement on the
land. In Isaiah 24-which we have seen-the earth languishes
because of Man's immorality, but then this is what happens
following the fall.
One thing is surely
clear: The difference between Cain and Abel, the first
being the carnal-'unspiritual'-man, and the second being
the spiritual man. [5] Cain
was still a spirit, a spirit sustained biologically by
the Holy Spirit, but a spirit in whom was not the Holy
Spirit. Cain was said to be of the Devil (I John 3:12)
and Paul describes this Devil 'as the prince of the power
of the air, the spirit who now works within [energises]
the children of disobedience'.
In Ecclesiastes 3:11
the Preacher says, 'he has made everything beautiful
in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind,
yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from
the beginning to the end'. The writer of Proverbs says,
'The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching
all his innermost parts' (20:27). This can also be translated,
'The lamp of the LORD searches the spirit of a man; it
searches out his inmost being' (NIV). But the former
translation seems to be the heart of the matter, especially
as the NIV has as a footnote, 'The spirit of man is the
Lord's lamp'. God has such affinity with Man, even fallen
Man, that he uses the spirituality of a man-however deficient-to
search his heart. Some would see this as the conscience,
for the conscience, used by God, is a powerful faculty.
The Dimensions Man as a Spirit Can Know
The point we are trying
to make above is that Man, though fallen, has the configuration
of eternity in his heart and he can be sensitised to
the fact of genuine spirituality, though not apart from
the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. The other side-the
tragic side--of this good picture is the wisdom of the
serpent which grasps and deceives Man when Man desires
to be more than a creature of the five senses and the
three dimensions, ie: to be more than a limited person.
What Man forgets -see the paragraph below-is that
to be a person, which is a so-called limited creature,
is to have the vast experience of all that God is, and
the whole Creation. Art and spiritual being are certainly
indicators of this.
In relation to Man's
supposed limitations as a created being theologians and
philosophers often say Man's problem is his finitude.
They say he cannot be free unless, and until, he is infinite
and feels he is being confined to being less than what
he could be, and, perhaps, should be. This was really
the message the serpent communicated in the Garden of
Eden. He brought Man to where he was wanting to be 'as
God', i.e. know good and evil on the infinite plane of
being and living. Man is a creature and not a creator,
but his finitude is no problem at all whilst he recognises
he is a creature. If he explores his creature-hood and
utilises his dependency upon God then he is a free creature.
But because he is jealous of God and wants to be as Him
and not just like Him-for he is like Him by creation-he
reaches out to the occult to 'spiritualise' himself.
Hence the 'new age' aspirations which have been present
in every age since Eden. He reaches out to the gods he
devises who are 'other' than him. If he were not a spirit
he would not care, but all the arts which are gifts given
by God he uses to get something 'spiritual' to satisfy
his high longings, but without making true moral demands
of him. The arts are media for the 'spirit' to use, to
work, and to be creative, [6] and
to receive something which is not dull or empty, and
which can thus be a substitute motivation for the spiritual
drive which is in obedient Man when he is aided and driven
by the Holy Spirit. This also explains Man's use of drugs-stimulants
and sedatives which are the producers of joy' and 'peace',
two elements which are known only truly in union with
God.
We have to sum up fallen
Man as being a spirit sustained by the Holy Spirit, but
lacking authentic spirituality of himself.
We have to sum up
fallen Man as being a spirit sustained by the Holy Spirit,
but lacking authentic spirituality of himself. His spirituality
which is apart from Clod is a drive to fulfil his being
as 'spirit'. But yet satisfying the 'spirit apart from
God, an obviously impossible task. It remains for us
to comprehend what Man could be were the Spirit and the
Word to come to him in full force.
The Indwelling of the Spirit
In one of the coming
Chapters we will speak of the event of Pentecost and
the Spirit being poured out on lils people. But we need
to keep in mind what is the nature of the Spirit's indwelling,
especially as we see Man as a spirit. We have already
seen that the Spirit who indwells us helps us in having
our eyes fixed on Christ, so that we are changed into
His image, and not merely into 'the likeness of his image'.
We participate in the very image of God that Christ is:
we are one with Him in His image. This is one of the
effects of the Spirit's indwelling, but what
does the indwelling of the Spirit mean?
There is much that
is mystery when the Persons of the Godhead indwell Man.
But if we believe that the true image of God is where
Man is one with God from the beginning, then the relationship
of Man and God has ever been in His Covenant. As the
Three Persons indwell One Another without losing their
identity as Persons, so Man in his innocency was one
with God. And, in the regeneration which grace brings,
he is again one with God. In John 14:17 we saw that the
Holy Spirit was among the disciples when Jesus was present.
But, as Jesus promised the Spirit would come to dwell
in them. So He did at Pentecost and has done so ever
since.
We saw in Romans 5:5
that he came into the heart bringing the fullness of
God's Love with Him. So the Spirit dwells with and by
this love. Romans 8:26-27 tells us of the love and intimacy
of the Spirit in our hearts.
Likewise
the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not
know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself
intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And
he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the
mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for
the saints according to the will of God.
Here the Spirit is
one with our hearts. His total identification with us
means tie is not a sleeping guest or a detached inhabitant,
but has an immense love for us, in that lie takes
up the anguish which all Creation knows in general and
the Spirit-possessed person knows in particular. This
knowledge of God's indwelling love in the Person of the
Spirit is enormously important. Truly the strong Spirit
has come and we are different. We are not 'orphan spirits',
deficient and deserted, but we are one with the Spirit.
Another side to this
indwelling is that all which the Spirit initiates in
God's people such as love, unity, fellowship, prayer,
worship and spiritual warfare results from the Spirit's
indwelling. This is too vast a subject to deal with here
and we will leave it until later.
The Spirit brings
energy for living true life-eternal life-and also gives
the gift of power so that our witness to Christ and the
truth can he authentic, and the communication of the
gospel can be effectual.
What we are saying
in all this is that the Spirit who came at Pentecost
goes on 'pentecostalising' the people of God. What we
have said about Man being a spirit, but, as fallen, being
a lone spirit without the resources we have mentioned
in the few paragraphs above, now, by the indwelling of
the Spirit, becomes an extraordinary person. Yes: the
believer is a person who is a spirit indwelled by the
Spirit. [7] This
is, then, the great experience of the Spirit as the Lover,
to say nothing of Christ and the Father loving us through
the Spirit.
In the later Chapters
on the gifts and ministry of the Spirit in the Church,
and especially on those who speak of film as 'the Eschatological
Spirit', we will see in more detail what Paul states
in Romans 8:11, 'If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus
from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus
from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit which dwells in you'. This is also
linked with Romans 8:18-30 where the hope of glorification
is the holy Spirit, for lie is the one who encourages
us in the present convulsive pain of spiritual anticipation.
The Spirit who dwells in us is the Spirit who raises
us from the dead, in glory.
The Indwelling Spirit and His Outflowing
This is the key to
the transformation the Spirit brings to Man. Fallen Man
of himself is always concerned only with himself. All
relationships are concerned with him. We can say that
his seeming outflowing to others is never better than eros and
always short of agape. When the Holy Spirit comes to
the heart, bringing love and indwelling as the Spirit
of love (cf. Romans l5:30), lie also comes as the outflowing
Spirit.
That this is His nature
we have seen in His being the river of God. Now He transforms
Man as a spirit by causing His own, rivers of living
water' to flow from the heart of this regenerated Man.
In fact, this is our whole being, and our whole cause
for being. The outcome of this outflowing is beyond our
dreams, but not beyond our new aspirations as spirit
fulfilled and spirit in action.
The Application: 'Go on Being
Filled with the Spirit"
The indwelling of the
Spirit is strong not because we foster the Spirit but
because we are the people of the Spirit. He, with Christ,
is Lord (cf. 11 Corinthians 3:17-18). Thus the believer
is strong when the believer 'goes on being filled with
the Spirit' as Ephesians 5: 18ff. exhorts us. The believer
goes on being fervent in spirit by the Spirit as Romans
12: 11 commands us, and goes on walking in the Spirit
as Galatians 5:16, 18, 22-26 (cf. Romans 8:14-15) enjoins
us. [8]
The whole life of a believer
is one in which he is led by the Spirit, walks by the Spirit
and lives by the Spirit. As a spirit he is filled in spirit
by the Holy Spirit. In this way the intention of God for
him is fulfilled. This is his high destiny.
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