“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate
to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.”
John 14:16–17a
The Christian/biblical doctrine of the Trinity is the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: three Persons in one Godhead, equal in power and glory (Deuteronomy 6:4). Here is a human example to help you visualize. One person can simultaneously carry out three distinct roles as a man: son, husband, and father.
There are three basic truths about the Holy Spirit:
- The Holy Spirit came to take the place of Christ (His physical presence).
- He is the same Spirit who lived in Christ, and He is to be in us just as He was in Christ.
- He is to live in us in order to reproduce Christ in us and to make us to be in the world exactly what Christ was and what He would have continued to be if He had stayed on Earth!
And yet, the Church can’t seem to agree on the role of the Holy Spirit. People’s opinions about the Person and work of the Holy Spirit are varied. Charisphobia is exercised by people who have a great fear of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit—especially speaking in tongues. They have a tendency to look down on all forms of freedom and spontaneity as dangerous, disruptive, and fanatical.
Charismania is carried out by people who have a preoccupation with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit—especially speaking in tongues. They have a tendency to feel that they have “arrived” and, consequently, look down on other Christians as second-class citizens of the Kingdom.
Well-balanced charismatic Christianity is practiced by those who have developed the biblical balance on all gifts of the Holy Spirit. They realize that the real proof of the Spirit’s work is moral and not miraculous. They, therefore, have a greater concern with the presence and maturity of the fruit of the Spirit than with a display of the gifts.
So, how can we be filled with the Holy Spirit? We must deal with ourselves honestly. What is keeping me from being filled? What areas of my life are not fully surrendered to His Lordship? Confess all known sin to God. Appropriate your crucifixion with Christ. Ask for the filling of the Holy Spirit and accept it by faith. As a result, there will be fruit of the Spirit manifested in your life (Galatians 5:22–23).
The fruit of the Holy Spirit cannot be manufactured, imitated, or worked up by the human spirit. The natural life of man can only produce what Paul called the “acts of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19–21). Fruit is the natural consequence of abiding in the Word through the Spirit.
So, the life of the Christian is like a field in which a farmer sows. The field is divided into two sections. One Paul calls the field of “the flesh” (what we are by nature), and the other he calls the field of “the Spirit” (what we have become by new birth/grace). We have the freedom to sow in either field. So be careful what you plant and where you plant! Once planted, life will germinate from one and death from the other.