| THE COVENANT PROMISE HIS GLORY REIGNS B. Childress Oct 24, 2007 Gracious Word - The law (Old Testament - Ten Commandments) commands and makes us know what God requires of us. The Gospel (New Testament) encourages us to obey the will of the Lord and enables us to practically walk in His ways. In addition, God, by His grace, gives sinners the indwelling of His Spirit to keep them on course. A Divine Word - To put the spirit of God into our nature is exclusive of and peculiar only to the Divinity of the Godhead. Only the omnipotent and eternal God, who purposes, promises, and performs, can breath the Spirit of God into a sinner's heart. An Individual and Personal Word - God deals with each man individually in matters of eternity, sin, and salvation; personalized and individualized operations of God's grace. Each person must receive the Spirit of God for himself. It is only by the infusion of grace, by the eternal Spirit of God, that a man becomes "better equipped" to walk in God's statutes. A Separating Word - God gathers His own from among the ungodly, separating a man from his peers (men, by nature, are of another spirit and are under subjection to the Prince of the power of the air, the god of this world). The infusion of the Spirit of God produces a new man, a man "not of this world," just as Christ was not of this world. A Uniting Word - We are joined to God when his own Spirit comes to reside in our mortal bodies. Your body is sanctified, dedicated, and elevated into a sacred condition having been set apart as a temple of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God seals you, anoints you, abides in you and provides you with the ability to commune with the threefold (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). A Condescending Word - The Spirit of God is the power and energy of God - the same force by whom God's Word is carried into effect: who created life and order from chaos and death, who created Jesus Christ, and who engineered God's written word through man. Yet this is the same Holy Spirit who condescends (lowers himself) to reside in man; He was the God in Jesus Christ (perfect and sinless) and He is the God in millions of sinful men today. A Spiritual Word - "I will put my spirit within you" Ezekiel 36:27 is a divine and intensely spiritual process exclusive of anything material and visible. God puts His Spirit in the center of man's being. The promise means, "I will put my spirit in your bowels, in your hearts, and in the very core of you." An Effectual Word - The Spirit is operative from the inner life with you: it causes you to love the law of the Lord and it motivates you to keep His statutes concerning Himself and His judgments between you and your fellowman. He puts the light of the Spirit within us which allows our light to shine from deep in the heart. The Spirit of God works upward like a spring from the bottom of a well. There need never be a fear of failure for the light of the Spirit dominates the whole man - There is no removing it. "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:14 A Quickening - Quickening is one of the first effects of the Spirit of God being put within us. The Spirit of God imparts life to those who are dead in trespasses and sins: the spirit of God alone is the life of the regenerated heart. The man visited by the Spirit of God begins to feel: the terrors of God make him tremble; the love of Christ makes him weep; he learns spiritually to sorrow; and he is grieved at having sinned and his inability to cease from sinning. Ultimately, he desires to find the way of pardon and reconciliation with God and trust in Jesus Christ. Enlightening - Generally occurs after quickening. The Spirit of God opens the eyes of men so they can see the truth. The Spirit of God illuminates every believer and enables them to see even more marvelous things out of God's law. This light comes to the blind and dead and reveals truth with clearness. Conviction - The Spirit of God convicts men: conviction is the setting of a truth before the eye of the soul so as to make it powerful upon the conscience. The Spirit of God makes sin appear as sin and he makes us see sin as an offense against a just and holy God. The Spirit of God also convicts us regarding the Lord Jesus; we cannot know the Christ as our Savior until the Spirit of God is put within us. We can never fully see the things of the Lord Jesus until the Spirit of God shows them to us. Purification - The Spirit of God infuses us with new life - a fountain of holiness. This new nature cannot sin because it is born of God and it is a living and incorruptible seed. The old man within us is not absolutely dead but crucified with Christ with the coming of the Spirit. The Spirit of God pronounces sentence on sin, gives the power of sin it's death wound by nailing it to the cross, and delivers sin over to burning. We can never overcome sin in our own power, nor by any energy other than that of the Spirit of God, for sin must be removed from us by fire (if no gentler means will serve) and He is an all consuming fire. Preservation - The Spirit of God acts in the heart as the Spirit of preservation so that men do not lapse into ruin. He works in them as a watchfulness against temptation day by day. He helps the Christian to wrestle against sin. He works in a believer's union to Christ, which is the source and guarantee of acceptable fruitfulness and he creates in the saints those holy things which glorify God and bless others. Guidance - The Spirit of God is given to lead us into all truth and into the deep things of God. He is our practical guide to heaven, he guides us in our personal and daily lives, He guides us in death, and He will guide us to glory. He will guard us from modern error or ancient error. He will guide us through the darkness. He will guide us in ways that we know not, and He will lead us in ways we have not seen. We can trust on Him to know that He will do these things for us and not forsake us. Consolation - The Spirit of God is also known as "The Comforter." God comforts us through His Spirit. You can be gentle, peaceful, resigned, and acquiescent in the divine will while walking by faith in God. We have all light and all things when we have our God because we are no longer walking in darkness. The Spirit of God makes us comprehend this when He is put within us. |
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