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Receiving the Holy Spirit

by Jon von Ernst  
8/14/2023 / Bible Studies

“While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions and came to Ephesus. He found some disciples and asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ ‘No,’ they told him, ‘we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ ^‘Then what baptism were you baptized with?’ he asked them. ‘With John’s baptism,’ they replied. Paul said, ‘John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe in the One who would come after him, that is, in Jesus.’  When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.  And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began to speak in other languages and to prophesy.  Now there were about 12 men in all” (Acts 19:1-7, HCSB).

There was apparently something in the behavior or the appearance of these disciples that troubled Paul and caused him to ask them whether they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed. Perhaps it was their attitude, or perhaps the things they said. Apparently, there was something that gave Paul the impression that they were not walking according to the Spirit, but according to the flesh. Perhaps they were legalistic and attempting to be justified according to the law.

Paul later writes to the church in Ephesus, “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.  Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

 “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.   Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.  For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:1-8, NIV).

Perhaps Paul wrote this to the church in Ephesus out of concern about what he had earlier observed when he met the 12 disciples of John’s baptism of repentance. The gospel of repentance addresses the sins that we have committed with an outward washing by baptism in water and challenges us to turn back to God. However, it does nothing to cleanse our conscience from sin, nor does it free us from the fallen sinful nature of our old man or empower us to live a holy life.

Paul knew that if we are to walk worthy of the Lord and be pleasing unto Him, if we are to live victorious Christian lives, we must have our consciences cleansed and we must be set free from the dominion of sin in our lives.  But how can we experience this cleansing and this deliverance from the control that sin has over us?

The only way to enter into this experience is to believe in Jesus and be baptized by Him with the Holy Spirit. It is only by being born again, by having the Spirit of Christ indwell us and abide in us that we could have our consciences cleansed and be set free from the dominion of sin to live holy lives that would glorify God.

Paul says in Romans 8:9, “If anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  It is clear from this verse that what we need, to become a Christian, is the Holy Spirit.  Without the Holy Spirit, we will never be able to please God.  Without the Spirit, we are not genuine Christians.

Jesus said in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We must be born again. Our spirit must be born or made alive by the Holy Spirit coming to dwell in, abide in, our spirit.

The question then is, how can we receive the Holy Spirit? What do we have to do to receive the Holy Spirit, to be born again? Are there some secret words we must say? Is there a certain prayer we must repeat? Is there some kind of penance we must do to make ourselves acceptable so that the Holy Spirit will be given to us?

Luke 11:9-13 tells us that Jesus said to His disciples, “I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (WEB).

It is clear from this passage that our Father, who is in heaven, wants to give us what is most needful for us to live lives that are totally pleasing to Him. Our heavenly Father wants to give us the Holy Spirit. All He requires is that we, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, ask Him. It is that simple.

I believe that many people never received the Spirit when they believed because they never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. They had merely heard the gospel of repentance. They may have been led to feel sorry for their sins. They may have been baptized in water. They may have even gone through the motions of repeating a prayer asking for forgiveness and asking Jesus to come into their heart. But through this entire process, they never even heard that there was a Holy Spirit.

Since believing, they may have joined a church. They may have begun reading the Bible. They may have made vows about living for the Lord and ceasing from sin. Yet, instead of embarking on lives overflowing with love, joy, and peace, they have experienced lives of struggle and frustration. They continually try to be better. They try to please God. But they find they do not have the power or the ability to do it. They need the Holy Spirit!

Can someone be born again and not know it? Can someone’s spirit be made alive by the Holy Spirit and not know it? Can someone become a new creation and not know it? Can someone be transferred from darkness to light and not know it?

If you have been born again, if the Holy Spirit has come to indwell you, you will know it. He makes all things new. He empowers you. He teaches you. He comforts you. He equips you to hear the Lord and to obey His voice. He overflows in you with love for the brothers, with joy in the Lord, and with praise and worship of our Father in heaven. The Spirit will completely change your life.

If you are not living a victorious Christian life, if you did not receive the Holy Spirit when you believed, I encourage you to simply ask our Father who is in heaven and He will give the Holy Spirit to you. Be persistent, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking and the door will be opened to you. The Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. We have Jesus’s assurance on this. If we truly believe Jesus, we will believe His promise regarding the Father’s faithfulness to give us the Holy Spirit.

Remember, God wants the best for us. He wants us to know everything that is ours in Christ. It is for this reason that He wants to give us His Holy Spirit, that we might be enabled to live holy lives to His praise and to His glory.

According to Scripture, there is one sin that is unforgivable, that is the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:29). To blaspheme the Holy Spirit means to speak against the Holy Spirit, to defame it, to revile it, to disrespect it as unnecessary. The reason this sin is unforgivable is that it is impossible to be saved, to be born again, without the Holy Spirit.

You must desire the Holy Spirit. You must trust the Holy Spirit enough to ask to receive Him into your spirit. Who is this Holy Spirit? In order to trust the Holy Spirit, to desire the Holy Spirit, we must understand who He is and how He operates in the life of a believer.

Jesus says in John 14:16-18, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

Who is this Spirit of Truth? Jesus tells His disciples, “You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” Then He tells them that He will not leave them as orphans without help, but that He Himself would come to them.

Clearly Jesus is revealing to His disciples that He Himself would be coming as the Spirit of Truth to dwell within them.  This is further evidenced by Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 where he writes, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” The “Lord” in this passage refers to Jesus Christ our Lord, and the “Spirit” refers to the Holy Spirit.

In John 7:37-39 Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out because Jesus had been glorified.  Peter said in Acts 2:32-33, “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.” Jesus had been glorified, exalted to the right hand of the Father in heaven and thus the Holy Spirit could be poured out.

Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:20-23, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

Jesus was not praying just for the twelve disciples, but for us who would believe through their word. He was praying for us, that we would be perfected in unity, so the world would know that He was indeed sent by the Father.

The indwelling Holy Spirit transmits to us the reality of all that Christ experienced in His life, death and resurrection and makes it our experience as we grow in Christ. The Spirit does this by teaching us, by revealing to us everything that is ours in Christ (I Corinthians 2:10-12).

In Christ, our sins are forgiven, and our consciences are cleansed (Colossians 1:14, Hebrews 9:14). In Christ, we are crucified with Him and buried with Him in the likeness of His death that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died is freed from sin.

Now we are empowered by the indwelling Spirit to present ourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness to God.  Having been set free from sin, we have become slaves of God, and we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life (Romans 6:4-13, 22).

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and of death (Romans 8:2). Now, when we walk by the leading of the Holy Spirit, we do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, but instead, we love the brothers and glorify God (Galatians 5:16, I John 4:7-16). In the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, we are given everything we need to live holy, godly lives, fully pleasing to the Father (2 Peter 1:3).

“We are more than victorious through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37, HCSB).

 

Writings By Jon von Ernst

The Lord of All Things Series - A Trilogy of Truth
Books in this series:
Book 1 - The Gospel of the Kingdom
Book 2- The Victorious Christian
Book 3 - Walking in the Light - Following in His Steps

*- Audio of these books are available free of charge at thepureword.net.

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