What the Possession of the Spirit Means.
The reception of the Spirit of God into our hearts means power. By that Spirit God created the heavens and earth, brought cosmos out of chaos, and light out of darkness, garnished the heavens, and beautified the earth. Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13. By the same Spirit God renews life upon the desolated earth. Ps. 104:30. By that same Spirit God regenerates man, cleanses and sanctifies the sinner, upholds and keeps him, instructs him in the way, and raises those from the dead who fall asleep. 1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; Ps. 51:11, 12; Neh. 9:20; Rom. 8:11. That Spirit brings into our mortal frame the life of God, not in sentiment, or in feeling, or in hope; but in actuality, and in power. All men have life; and that life—all life—comes from God; but in the sinner and in all nature under the sinner, that life is perverted by sin, and its possessor eventually dies. He possesses only a perverted life, perverted by the transgression of God's law, "the law of sin." But he who opens and empties his heart for the Spirit of God to come in, who yields all to God, receives the Spirit, or life, of God according to God's law; there is in it all the power of God's "endless life." Its effect is freedom; "for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Rom. 8:2. It sets free from sin and its power. "The strength of sin is the law," the law in perverted man, which causes death; but the strength of righteousness is the eternal power of the Spirit of life working in harmony with the unperverted law, as manifest in Christ Jesus, and through Him to all who believe. It means that new life shall actuate the mind, the intellect, the aims, the ambitions, the purposes, even the life, of God's love; for the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. Rom. 5:5. It means that the members of the fleshly man which before were yielded to sinful appetites, lusts, and passions, shall, under the new life, be not only held in check, but controlled and used to God's glory. Rom. 6:19-22. It means—the reception of God's Spirit does—separation from sin and the world, and separation unto God. It means new life, new love, new purposes. It means, in short, a fruit-bearing life to God's glory. O reader, whoever you are, professor of religion or the lowest sinner, seek for the Spirit of God. Do not be deceived. Apart from that you are nothing. The Spirit is the life which connects you with the True Vine, which unites you to Christ. "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His;" but if any have the Spirit of Christ he possesses that which brings all the fulness of heaven in its train, and makes the possessor a fruit-bearer to God's glory.