THE
INDWELLING SPIRIT (8)
It would be a mistake to suppose that the Holy Spirit’s teaching work is confined to helping us understand truth. He does that, as we have seen, but he does more than that as well. He also causes the truth he reveals to affect our hearts.
That fits with the way God has made us, the way sin has affected us, and God’s purpose in speaking to us. God has made us as beings governed ultimately by the “heart”, an inner complex involving the mind, affections and will. We don’t act simply on the basis of what our minds tell us is true but as a response of the heart or “inner man” to what we know. It is with the heart we believe (Romans 10:10) and out of the heart that our words, thoughts and actions spring (Proverbs 4: 23; Mark 7:20-23).
The heart as a whole, however – and not just the mind – has been deeply affected by sin. It has been hardened to the things of God – or worse still, “deadened” to them. That makes it impossible for us to respond as we should to what God says. And that’s why the Spirit’s work within us includes more than simply helping us see correctly. He also helps us receive what we see and respond to it.
The apostle Paul alludes to this in his prayer for Christians recorded in Ephesians 3:14-19. Well aware that his readers have been enlightened and sealed by the Spirit when they heard the gospel (1:13), he nevertheless prays for the continuing ministry of the Spirit to enable them to live by faith in Christ. “I pray that out of his [the Father’s] glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (vv. 16, 17). Paul’s ultimate desire for his readers was that Christ might “dwell in their hearts by faith.” But for that to be true for them, he realized they needed to be “strengthened with power through the Spirit in their inner being”.
What did he mean by this? Firstly, he undoubtedly recognized their ongoing need for the Spirit’s illuminating work in their minds to enable them to see the glory of Christ and their new relationship to him. They needed to see that Jesus had not only given himself for them in his once-for-all death on the cross, but also to them (to be the source of their new life) in his resurrection. They needed to see that they truly were members of his body, one with him in spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17), raised with him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:1-3). Only as these truths were continually kept alive in their hearts through the Spirit could they ever have a foundation for living daily in the strength of Christ.
But more than just helping them understand these things, Paul was looking to the Spirit to bring them home to the hearts of his hearers with such power that they believed and embraced them confidently. Faith differs from mere understanding, however closely the two things might be linked. Faith believes; it accepts as true what it sees and hears; it is deeply assured and certain of the things it receives, giving invisible things substance as it were (Hebrews 1:1). It’s something the Spirit produces secretly within through his “witness” or testimony to God’s truth, a testimony producing an assurance beyond (though not apart from or contrary to) evidence or reason. Spirit-born faith doesn’t just “think” or “hope” something is true; it knows. It’s this kind of certainty that John had in mind when he wrote to Christians in the first century telling them that they had an “anointing from the Holy One”, and that consequently they knew the truth and did not need anyone to teach them (1 John 2:20, 27). This is the kind of strengthening work of the Spirit Paul was praying the Ephesians Christians would experience. Knowing as he did the weakness of the human heart – its tendency to vacillate, its double-mindedness, its fearfulness – he prayed for the Spirit to work in power.
But the Spirit, in illuminating and bearing witness to the truth, does more than confirm its certainty within us; he enables us to respond to it as we should. Naturally the thought of being totally dependent upon Christ to do anything of spiritual value isn’t something that excites us. Our instinct is to boast in our ability, not in our inability. However, when the Spirit of God opens our minds to the truth of our impotence and helps us see how selfish and ignorant, how full of pride and self-seeking we are, and at the same time shows us the beauty and power of Jesus and his readiness to give us all we need, our attitude changes instantly. Suddenly there is nothing we want to know more than that we are helpless without him; nothing we are happier about than that our strength lies in Christ alone. We want to fill ourselves full of him, to drink at the stream of life he offers until we can’t drink any more. In doing so we find ourselves filled with a peculiar joy, a joy quite unlike anything else we experience. In this way the Spirit strengthens us inwardly to make us embrace the things we should.
And in this way he also moves us to do what we should. He doesn’t force or overpower us, but gently and sweetly compels us to do God’s will. Through the vision of Christ that he gives, and the certainty he works in our hearts, he empowers us to decide and do as we should. That’s the way God works in us to “will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).
Associate Principal GTC (South Island)