Knowing The Spirit (iv)
SCRIPTURE: The Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive, for it seeth Him not,
neither knoweth Him: Ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.\’-John 14: 17.
\’Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’ -1 Cor. 3:16.
And what will be the chief marks to be found in the Word by which the Spirit in us can be
known? They will be chiefly two.
1.The first will be more external, referring to the work He does.
2.The second more in the inner life, in the dispositions which He seeks in those in whom He
dwells.
We have just heard how Jesus spoke of a loving obedience as the condition of the Spirit\’s
coming.
(i) Obedience is the abiding mark of His presence. Jesus gave Him as a Teacher and
Guide.
(ii) All Scripture speaks of His work as demanding the surrender of the whole life. \’If
by the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live; for as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.\’ \’ Your body is a temple of the
Holy Ghost: glorify God therefore in your body.\’ \’ If we live in the Spirit, let us
also walk in the Spirit.\’ \’We are changed into the same image, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord.\’
(iii) Words like these define very distinctly the operations of the Spirit. As God is
first known in His works, so with the Spirit. He reveals God\’s will, Christ doing
that will, – and calling us to follow Him in it. As the believer surrenders himself
to a life-in the Spirit, cordially consents that the leading of the Spirit, the
mortifying of the flesh, the obedience to the rule of Christ, without limit or
exception, shall be what he gives himself up to, and as he waits on the Spirit to
work all this, he will find and know the Spirit working in him.
(iv) It is as we simply make the aim of the Holy Spirit our aim, and give up ourselves
entirely to what He is to come and work, that we are prepared to know Him as
dwelling in us.
(v) As we are led by Him to obey God even as Christ did, it will be the Spirit
Himself, bearing witness with our spirit, that He dwells in us.