BASIC BIBLE STUDIES
# 028
The Gift of
the Holy Spirit
"Then Peter
said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you will receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit.' " (Acts 2:38).
When a person
hears the gospel of Christ (the good news of Christ's death, burial, and
resurrection) with an open heart, sincerely believes that message of God's
redeeming grace, genuinely repents of his sins, confesses faith in Christ as
the Son of God, and is baptized (immersed) in the name of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19) for the remission of sin (Acts 2:38), that person
has properly appropriated the saving grace of God to his life. His sins
have been remitted, he has "been justified
(brought into a right standing, hf) by faith,"
and has made "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans
5:1). He has moved into the realm of God's grace in which he now can
stand with confidence and "rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:1-2). Among the many spiritual
blessings available to the person who has been baptized into Christ
(Romans 6:3; Ephesians 1:3) is the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).
There is a wealth
of information in the New Testament regarding the Holy Spirit and His
work. In the apostolic days of the church (the first century), there were
people who exhibited various miraculous manifestations of the Spirit--either as
a result of having been baptized in the Holy Spirit (as were the apostles on
the Day of Pentecost [Acts 2:1-4] and as were Cornelius and his household [Acts
10:44-48; Acts 11:15]), or as a result of having the hands of an apostle laid
on them (as in the case of the Samaritans [Acts 8:14-17] and as
in the case of 12 disciples in Ephesus [Acts 19:1-7]). A careful and
thorough study of the New Testament reveals that these miraculous gifts of the
Holy Spirit ceased once their purpose had been achieved (see Mark 16:17-20;
Hebrews 2:1-4; I Corinthians 13:8-10), and once the means of receiving them was
no longer available. But the cessation of the miraculous manifestations
of the Holy Spirit in no way denies the reality of God's redeemed people
possessing the Spirit as His gift to us.
The apostle Paul
affirms: "And because you are sons (because we have become children of
God, hf), God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son
into your hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father!' " (Galatians
4:6). It is important to note that God does not send the Spirit of Christ
into our hearts to make us His children;
rather, we receive the Spirit of Christ because
we have become
God's children.
Ephesians 1:3-14
is a truly magnificent section of Holy Scripture, providing the reader
with a vast "sweep" of the magnitude and scope of God's eternal
purpose for mankind's redemption. In the original Greek language of the
New Testament, these 12 verses constitute one long sentence, a
construction that is honored by the translators of the American Standard
Version of 1801. But in order to make the passage more "manageable"
to study and digest, other English translations--
including the King James Version, the New King
James Version, the New American Standard Version, and the New International
Version--break the sentence down into paragraphs. Verses 3-6 summarize
what God the Father has done for us, verses 7-12
show what we have in Christ the Son, and verses 13-14 tell what the
indwelling Holy Spirit does for us. Let us look at these last two verses.
First, Paul
briefly reviews the conversion process: (1) "In Him (Christ) you also trusted
(put your faith), (2) after you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation..." (Let it be
recalled that faith comes by hearing the word of God, Romans 10:17).
Next, the apostle speaks of one of the benefits that came as a result of
believing in Christ: (1) "...in whom (Christ) also, having
believed, you were sealed
with the Holy Spirit of promise, (2) who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession..." (Christians are God's
purchased possession, Titus 2:14; I Peter 2:9-10). Paul concludes by
declaring that all of this is "to the praise of His (God's)
glory."
Let us now look a
little more carefully at the two purposes for which God's "purchased
possession" (Christians) receive the Holy Spirit. First, the Holy
Spirit is a seal
(an official mark of authenticity and ownership) that we indeed belong to
God. This seal/mark is not outward or fleshly, but is inward and
spiritual. Later, Paul writes: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of
God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" (Ephesians
4:30). We grieve God's Holy Spirit when we live in ways that dishonor the
One who owns us! The evidence of the Spirit's seal (His indwelling
us) is not in miraculous manifestations such as were characteristic
of some in the apostolic age (as noted in paragraph two above), but rather
in the demonstration of the beautiful "fruit of the Spirit [which] is
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). These are the
qualities that authenticate our being owned by God.
Second, the Holy
Spirit serves as a guarantee
of the faithful Christian's inheritance. The King James Version uses the
quaint term "earnest," a term we still use today in certain business
transactions (as in "earnest money") to indicate our good intentions
to "carry through" on our part of a deal. God gives the
Holy Spirit to His redeemed children as an earnest or deposit of His final
reward to us. Elsewhere Paul wrote: "Now He who establishes us with
you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us
the Spirit in our hearts as a deposit" (II Corinthians 1:21-22).
Again, he said: "Now He who has prepared us for this very thing (our
eternal dwelling place in heaven, verses 1-4, hf) is
God, who also has given us the Spirit as a deposit" (II Corinthians
5:5).
When in our
earthly transactions we put down earnest money on an intended purchase, we
commit ourselves to a process that we do not want to abort or on which we do
not want to renege. By the same token, when we commit ourselves to the
Lord and receive His earnest/deposit of the Spirit, we do not want to abort His
eternal intentions for us by grieving the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30), quenching
the Spirit (I Thessalonians 5:19), or by conducting ourselves in such a way as
to wind up "not having the Spirit" (Jude 19). The apostle
Paul unequivocally affirmed: "Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of
Christ, he is not His (Christ's)" (Romans
8:9).
May we as
the redeemed people of God heed the exhortation: "And do not be
drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the
Spirit...giving thanks 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). And let us be duly
reminded of what one must do to receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you will receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
If this essay has
blessed you, feel free to forward it to others who may benefit from it.
Hugh Fulford