October 31

Read: John 5:36-39

Search the scriptures; in them ye are assured ye have eternal file: and it is they that testify of me (John 5:39, Wesley’s translation).

The Holy Spirit In The New Testament (Continued)

Regarding the truth of Christian perfection John Wesley wrote: “I tell you as plain as I can speak, where and when I found this. I found it in the oracles of God, in the Old and New Testaments, when I read them with no other view or desire but to save my own soul.” Let us follow in Wesley’s questing footsteps.

“When we turn to the teachings of the Pauline Epistles we are faced with abundant teaching. One Bible student states that the Holy Spirit is mentioned 120 times in St. Paul’s Epistles. In Paul’s teaching, ‘The Spirit of Christ’ and ‘the Spirit of God’ are used interchangeably with the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9). “The presence of the Spirit was the presence of Christ; all that the Spirit was said to do, Christ himself did; to be filled with the Spirit was to be filled with Christ; and to live the life of the Spirit was to live a life hid with Christ in God’ (Edwin Lewis).

“The work of the Spirit in regard to man’s salvation may be classified by general divisions — the birth of the Spirit, imparting divine life to the soul, and the baptism of the Spirit, or the Holy Spirit as ‘a sanctifying Presence,’ making the believer holy and empowering him for life and service. When we receive the gift of the Spirit, we receive all of Him, for He is not divisible, but He does not receive all of us. While the child of God possesses the life of the Spirit, Paul says there is in him also the carnal mind. Thus the believer experiences also the baptism of the Spirit, which in a more restricted sense refers to the act of purifying or making holy; then the Holy Spirit receives all of us” (Insights into Holiness, pp. 183-86).