Being “Filled with the Spirit” #1
Being “Filled with the Spirit” #1
“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God, even the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” Eph 5:18-21
This Blog, and the next 2, will be about the above verses. The seed thoughts for these came from a sermon we heard on YouTube while at the Wickliffe Center; no one thinks an “original thought” except God; we all get ideas as we listen to others.
Christian, do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, meaning do you want him to have a freer and more powerful influence in you life? If you are a Christian, you absolutely do; in fact, that is an evidence that you are a Christian!
Here in Eph 5 we have practical directions to effect that; 4 things we can do, to promote being filled with the Holy Spirit; 4 things we can do to give him freer reign in our lives; 4 things we can do, to, as it were, spiritually, within our hearts, “To prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight. To fill every valley and bring low every mountain and hill; and to make the crooked straight and the rough ways smooth;” Luk 3:4-5
You who receive our missionary newsletter will remember Cheryl recently wrote about this; that YouTube sermon spoke to both of us.
First, 3 introductory, clarifying statements:
Generally we Evangelicals do not say things like “4 things we can do”. We do not trust in our works, and when we think of works, we think of God as the actor, and we the acted upon; after all, salvation is of God. With regard to salvation our Protestant Reformation forefathers believed that God was sovereign, but our growth in grace, our sanctification, was a co-operating work, us working together with the Holy Spirit; we are, each of us, to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling”. Yes, they rejected the idea that we co-operate with God in salvation, but they embraced it regarding sanctification. On an historic note, George Whitefield and John Wesley were friends. Whitefield was a Calvinist, and Wesley an Arminian. Whitefield wrote two (2) long letters to Wesley, one on Election and the other on Sanctification/Perfectionism. Whitefield held the historic Protestant positions that God is sovereign in salvation, but sanctification was a co-operative work. Wesley however believed that man cooperated with God in salvation, but sanctification was a one time, sovereign act of God, hence the phrase: “Wesleyan Perfectionism”. Whitefield challenged Wesley on those two issues.
We Christians who are of Reformed persuasion, rarely talk about “being filled with the Holy Spirit”. We think that is what the Charismatic and Pentecostals say; but note, this is a bible phrase, it is written by Paul to the Christians at Ephesus, it is a command of God, and hence we need to understand it, and do it.
There is confusion because in the bible there is also the phrase “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” John said he baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Generally the phrase “Baptism of the spirit” is taken to refer to salvation, regeneration, when the Holy Spirit gives us new life, and the phrase “filled with the spirit” is considered to refer to the work of the Holy Spirit within us after we are saved, i.e. our sanctification, our growth as a Christian.
Now the verses themselves:
Firstly, there is a theological reason why we struggle with the term “filled with the Holy Spirit”. The Holy Spirit is a person; he is not a thing. The Holy Spirit’s pronoun is “he,” not “it.” At salvation, he, in his entirety comes to live within us; we don’t receive him in bits and pieces, so we hesitate to use “filled” when referring to subsequent events, because we say he, in his entirety, is already in us. The hesitation is because we think of filling, like we think of filling a cup, by pouring more liquid into it. However, if we think of filling as expanding, we get a more correct picture. The Holy Spirit is in us in his entirety, but he does not “occupy” all areas of our hearts and minds; he does not have free reign to work in all areas; we have not given him access to all areas. Think of a balloon which is inside a bottle, but it is only partially inflated; the entire balloon is in the bottle, but it does not fill the entire inside of the bottle. Later, as it is inflated more and more, it fills the bottle; that is the idea of filling: inflating/expansion/increasing occupation.
Secondly, Paul uses the picture of “drunk with wine”. This is a very clear picture of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit; it means to be under his control. As wine controls us, so the Holy Spirit is to control us. As wine’s effects are visible, i.e. as we see by a person’s speech and actions that they are drunk, so the speech and conduct of one filled with the Holy Spirit will be visible. As we can say with certainty “He is drunk”; so too, we should be able to say, “He is full of the Holy Spirit.”
Thirdly, this is a command. Commands are not suggestions or requests, they are commands. God commands us, we Christians, to be filled with the spirit. He wants the Holy Spirit to control us, to have greater, dare I say total control of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength! This is growing in grace; this is sanctification. Just as we do not want our children to remain immature, but to grow up, so too God wants us to grow up into mature, holy Christians. Just as it reflects poorly on us as parents if our children remain immature and never grow up, so too it is a terrible reflection on God our Father if we do not grow up as Christians. If it is a command, then if we are not filled with the Holy Spirit, or at least not “working out our salvation so as to be filled with the Holy Spirit,” we are in sin.
Fourthly, while not clear in English, it is clear in the Greek, it is not a one time filling, but a continual on-going filling: “go along being filled with the spirit,” day by day. Paul is talking about the on going work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, influencing us and conforming us to Christ, more and more each day. That is why I like the balloon in a bottle picture: he is in us, and his influence is to increase day by day.
Fifthly and finally, Paul gives 4 things we can do to give the Holy Spirit freer reign in our lives; they are:
1) speak/preach to ourselves using psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
2) sing and make melody in our hearts to the Lord
3) give thanks always for all things unto God, even the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
4) submit ourselves one to another in the fear of God
The next Blog will address each of these individually.
And for myself, I do not want to just write about these verses, I want to do what they command, that I too might be more filled with the Holy Spirit.
9 March 2024