21 – 23 Mar 2024
We recall that Jesus now only bore the Spirit while on earth; he also bestows the Spirit on the church and believes on Pentecost.
Our body is sanctified by the presence of God himself through the Holy Spirit; we must therefore sanctify it as well by living the life in the Spirit, a life of holiness.
The Christian is a new man in Christ; he no longer is subject to sin. He has power over sin and he can take authority and act to eradicate the habitual patterns of sin in the mind and flesh, perfecting his life into the likeness of Christ. This is so because of what the Lord has done at the cross – the Lord destroyed the guilt of sin, the power of sin, the penalty of sin, although the presence of sin still lingers until the second coming of Christ.
This is important to recognise as Christians; otherwise we may feel that we are not in the position to have victory over the habitual patterns of sin in our lives. We would then be ignorant that the Lord had removed sin’s power and penalty. But this does not mean that we will no longer fall into sin and live perfect lives; God has provided the forgiveness of sin when we do fail in our weakness, but we need to confess our sin and repent, to ensure our fellowship with God still remains intact (1John 1:9).
Nevertheless, God has not left us without any help to deal with the presence of sin. Whereas our salvation was a purely solo event on God’s part, to which we could add nothing, our sanctification is a joint affair, in which we partner with God in our transformation into Christlikeness. God is still very much at work.
And the main Person at work is the Spirit of God.. He is the power that raised Christ from the dead, and he revivifies our dead spirit and now resides in us (Rom. 14; Eph. 1:19-20). It is this Holy Spirit who partners with us in perfecting our path in and toward holiness. Ninety times in the New Testament the Spirit is called Holy; it is no wonder that his primary role is to make us holy. The Holy Spirit is the sanctifying Spirit. Sanctification equals you and me walking in God’s statutes through the gift of a new spirit (Ezekiel 36: 25-27).
Many Christians get into serious difficulties and remain trapped for years in sinful habits and mind-sets because they have received the Spirit for regeneration but are not prepared to walk in the spirit for sanctification. They do try to keep the law in their own power – and wonder why they fall flat on their faces.
We must grasp the understanding of the Spirit as bringing change in character as well as through charisma (gift). Many want the charisma of the Spirit without the character – this was true of the Corinthian church. Even today, many Christians want the power of the Holy Spirit for works of service but they do not walk in Christlikeness – we have eyes on ourselves rather than God’s glory.
Sanctification is a principle wrought and preserved by the Spirit, but one where the believer has a responsibility to mortify sin, have godly sorrow at sin, daily cleanse the heart and mind, and commune with God. Good works and obedience to God do not stem from the individual but from the internal supernatural principle of grace. The new heart and new life given by the Spirit will cause the believer to obey God’s statutes, not as law but as inevitable inclinations (upholding the family code as God’s children).
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, taught entire sanctification – telling the followers to pray and pursue this – they often talked about being ‘perfected in love’, and that there was a definite ‘experience’, a gift of grace by the Spirit subsequent to conversion. This unfortunately led to striving, and to another road to work righteousness.
The influential American evangelist Charles Finney also taught this, calling it ‘perfect love’ or ‘entire sanctification’.
At the end of their lives, John and Charles Wesley admitted in correspondence that, while they had taught this doctrine faithfully, they had seen no real evidence of it working!
In a letter to Miss Jane Hilton, John shared that hardly one in thirty showed evidence of entire sanctification a year after having claimed an experience of the Spirit. John Wesley also wrote to Dr. William Dodd about his own failure to live up to his message of entire perfection.
This is not to say negative things about John and Charles Wesley; they were godly men in their own rights and had influenced many positively for Christ. But this is to highlight that the wrong theology and understanding can cause much damage; the Methodists’ teaching on Arminianism for instance (Semi-pelagius doctrine) also affected Finney negatively and together with this, John Wesley and Charles Finney did not believe in the teaching of Christ being our ‘substitute’ on the cross.
By God’s grace, we may look further into the ministry of the Spirit in helping believers to live holy lives.
(B)
We have seen how the Lord Jesus, the bearer of the Spirit, bestowed the Spirit on the church and believers on the day of Pentecost.
We saw also how the indwelling Spirit is principally the Person who brings to believers all they need to know about the Lord (as he was with the Lord Jesus as his constant companion throughout his journey from the womb to the tomb); he is also the One, as the third Person of the Godhead, who brings the experience and reality of Father and Son to God’s children, and also the One responsible in transforming the believers into the image of Christ.
Holy living and sanctification is a joint affair, in which we partner with God in our transformation process into Christlikeness – God is still very much at work. Sanctification equals you and me walking in God’s statutes through the gift of a new spirit. The Holy Spirit brings change to character as well as through charisma (gift). We cannot try to keep the law in our own power and then wonder why we fall flat on our faces. The church in Corinth had many spiritual gifts but what was essentially missing was every Holy Spirit character trait.
We noted also how in church history, there were those who were sincerely seeking to be holy on their own efforts and determination (eg. the teaching of entire sanctification) but ended up with work righteousness.
No doubt, the believer has a responsibility to mortify sin and to daily cleanse the heart and mind, and commune with God. However, good works and obedience to God’s laws do not stem from the individual but from the internal supernatural principle of grace (wrought by the Holy Spirit).
We need now to consider how we continue in holy living and staying holy. We need to practice the presence of God, not the presence of lust and sin. Many abide in sin instead of abiding in Christ. As Christians, we are meant to live and move and have our being in Christ – yet for many of us who are strangled by sin, we live and move and have our being in our sin. What is often needed is not more ministry, counselling, deliverance, or inner healing, although there may be the need for such provisions in the church at times.
The cycle of sin-confession-prayer, sin-confession-prayer can cease. Freedome can come – there is genuine hope of genuine holiness. And the key is to abide in Christ. Many Christians are still in their sin because they abide in sin. They visit Christ, but they live in sin (man loves darkness rather than light John 3:19). When John wrote that “anyone who abides in Jesus will not (continue in) sin,” – this is a reference to habitually keep on sinning. – it is not a state of sinless perfection, but an ongoing process.
To abide is to live somewhere – not to lodge, not to visit, but to dwell to be a resident. The one who abides is the one who does not leave the sphere or realm in which they find themselves. As the Father abides in Christ and Christ in the Father, we are invited to take up royal residence in God (John 14:10). We are called to live in God (the Triune God – 1 John 14:10).
The term “Abide” is found repeatedly on Christ’s lips in John 15 and throughout 1 John. Of the 120 occurrences in the New Testament, 69 are found in John’s literature – 40 in John’s gospel alone.
Jesus began his discourse in John 15 employing the analogy of a vine with its branches. He is the vine, and we are the branches, as we abide, we bear fruit. By saying that he is the true vine (v. 1), he was saying that there are other vines that are false. The vine was a symbol frequently used to describe God’s people Israel in the Old Testament, normally in negative terms of being fruitless and faithless.
When Jesus declared himself as the true vine, he was saying that in himself he represents the fulfilment of all that Israel represented – he is the new true Israel of God; he is the living temple of God. Only by being in him can anyone seek to bear fruit. Jesus said that God the Father is a gardener who cuts off all fruitless branches. This has caused some to fear that God will throw away fruitless believers, or apostate Christians, into eternal damnation. But that was not Jesus’ point – he made it very clear here and elsewhere that there is security in him. The disciples were already clean because of the gospel Christ had delivered and they received (John 15:5). It is likely the unfruitful branches refers to those Jews who rejected Christ, who refused to live in him (Rom. 11:17)
Fruitfulness is the fruit of righteousness; it is holiness, and it comes only through being grafted into Christ, only by having his life flowing through us. Branches cannot bear fruit if they are not connected to the vine. A Christian can only bear fruit if he is abiding in the vine.
Branches must stay connected to the vine: Jesus then said repeatedly ‘abide in me’ (five times in John 15:4-7). We must live without separation from him; we must live with all his life flowing through us – we in him and he in us.
Christ is love, so to abide in Christ is to abide in his love (vv. 9-10); it is not an abiding in law but an abiding in love; not an abiding in obligation but an abiding in affection. It is willingness to be loved by Jesus and to love him.
There are those who believe they are abiding in Jesus when in fact they are abiding in religion; they abide in their denominations, church traditions, confessions and creeds. They abide in the teachings and liturgies and sacraments of their religious fathers. Abiding in religion can easily become a substitute for abiding in Christ.
We must constantly examine our Christian life and ask where we are abiding. From where are we drawing our spiritual life? To what are we being fashioned and formed?
Bishop J.C. Ryle described it like this:
‘”Abide in me,’ says Jesus. Cling to me. Stick fast to me. LIve the life of close and intimate communion with me. Get nearer to me. Roll every burden on me. Cast your whole weight on me. Never let go your hold on me for a moment. Be, as it were, rooted and planted in me. Do this and I will never fail you. I will ever abide in you.”
There are however consequences of abiding:
There will be pruning. God prunes us like the gardener prunes the plant; he prunes because he wants the best for us and from us. He is looking for much fruit, and so he prunes us to increase the crop. Pruning makes a weak vine stronger. God wants us to be fruitful – the knife with which he prunes may well be storms and trials, disciplines and difficulties. But the goal is always our good.
There will be much fruit and God will be glorified. Besides fruit of character, there will be fruit in ministry. We glorify God not simply by praising his glory but by living in such a way as to bring him glory.
“When we cling wholeheartedly to him (Jesus) and our minds are filled with thoughts of him and we constantly delight ourselves in him, then spiritual power will flow from him to purify our hearts, increase our holiness, strengthen our graces, and sometimes fill us ‘with joy inexpressible and full of glory.’ (John Owen).
Sin will diminish, for no one who abides in him keeps on sinning (1 John 3:6). Here we have both precept and promise. Abiding progressively sanctifies us. It is not our effort that bears fruit, for we cannot bear fruit by ourselves. Fruit will grow only when the branch is connected to the healthy vine. But fruit will surely come as we stay in Christ. We cannot make ourselves holy. Holiness comes as a gift and a by-product of abiding in Christ, his indwelling Spirit transforming us. The extent of our holiness is dependent on the extent of our abiding.
(The New Covenant)
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or to say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
This is perhaps one of the best known texts in the book of Jeremiah. As Christians, we have understood that God’s new covenant with us is accomplished through Jesus. It is however also important that we first hear God’s promise of a new covenant within the book of Jeremiah itself.
Firstly, we see, without doubt, the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament; we also note the progressive revelation of God to his people beginning from Genesis to the consummation in Revelation.
God established a covenant with Israel at Sinai (Exodus 20-24). However, as we trace the history of Israel from then, the people broke covenant by forsaking God for another ‘husband’ and master. Their hearts were overwritten with sin that led them away from God. If the people are to enter into a new covenant, God will need to change their hearts and turn them back to God.This is exactly what verse 33 affirms that God will do: correct the ‘heart’ problem of God’s people. Jeremiah accused God’s people of not knowing God: to ‘know’ God is to be devoted to Him and to obey Him. Israel and Judah were neither devoted to God nor did they obey Him. Jeremiah 31:31-34 looks toward that day when God has established a new covenant and corrected the ‘heart’ problem of the people so all will “know” God. The promised new covenant rests upon God’s decision to forgive and not remember sin. God’s decision opens the possibility for restoration, for building and planting, for a new covenant and a new start between God and the people.
A new covenant is needed to replace the one that had been broken. The promise in Jeremiah is given to those who experienced the exile of 587 B.C.
Of course, the writers of the New Testament affirm that in Jesus, God entered into a new covenant with humanity. This view is held particularly in Hebrews 8:8-13; 9:15-22; and 10:16-17, but it is also found in Paul (2 Cor. 3) and in the words of institution of the Lord’s supper (Matt 26:28; 1 Cor. 11:25).
This new covenant contemplated by Jeremiah would be one of the spirit rather than the letter (cf. 2 Cor.3:6) and as a response to divine mercy (hesed) would spring forth from the depths of man’s being. Because allegiance to this covenant would be motivated internally, it would be of permanent validity and duration for the people. While the new agreement would be made with the Israelites, it would not be restricted to them, for because of the essential freedom of choice which it posited it would ultimately be operative between any willing person and God.
In the Gospels, Jesus’ preaching, teachings, and deeds focus on deliverance, forgiveness of sin, transformation and the renewal of hearts. Even though Jesus does not explicitly talk about the law written on the heart, he links spiritual and ethical renewal with belief in his message about forgiveness. In this respect, the echo of Jeremiah 31: 31-34 is clear.
In Mark 14:24,Jesus says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many’, alluding to Exodus 24;8, but making the newness of the situation clear with the preposition “my”. Matthew 26:28 adds a more explicit reference to Jeremiah 31:34 with the words “This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”. Luke 22:20 has “the new covenant” instead of ‘the forgiveness of sins’, and a different form of the saying similar to the tradition that Paul records: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (cf. 1 Cor. 11:25). Jesus declares that the Son of Man proceeds to his death ‘as it has been determined’, and in Luke’s account Jesus explains the divine plan with a quotation from Isaiah 53, and the way Luke’s passion narrative unfolds has the whole of Isaiah 53 in view.
Luke does not explicitly contrast the New Covenant with the Mosaic or Sinai Covenant, but implies that it is the fulfilment made with Abraham and the fathers of Israel (Luke 1:73-75; cf. Acts 3:25:7:8). A transformative, rather than a purely forensic, view of forgiveness is implied by several passages in Luke’s Gospel (3:3-14; 5:17-26,27-32; 7:36-50; cf, 19:1-10).
Since transformation in the prophetic writings is also related to the work of the Holy Spirit, the fulfilment of this is seen clearly and fulfilled in the great events soon to be narrated, beginning with the Day of Pentecost.
In Acts, and in the various epistles of Paul, it becomes clear that the New Covenant established in Jesus, is accompanied in its outworking by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the ministry and presence of the indwelling Spirit in the lives of believers individually and corporately. It is also the fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah in 31:31-34 not just in the people of Israel but in the ‘New Israel’ in Christ, including Gentile believers.
At the end of Luke’s Gospel, 24:47, Jesus’ followers offer forgiveness and call their fellow Israelites to repent in Jesus’ name. Repentance is a human responsibility, but it is the gift of God, made possible by his promise of forgiveness.
The Holy Spirit in Acts is not simply given to equip the believers for service but to make possible the sort of transformed relationship with God promised in passages such as Isaiah 32:15-17; 442-5; Ezekiel 11:19-20; 36:26-27.
Although Jeremiah 31:31-34 does not mention the Spirit’s work, the prophet indicates that God will put his law within them and write it on their heart, so that they will all know him ‘from the least of them to the greatest” (cf. Jeremiah 24:7)
In the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, these prophetic expectations are viewed as being fulfilled in the same salvific events. The promise of the Spirit about which Jesus spoke doing his earthly ministry (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4) points to the covenantal aspect of the renewal in Jeremiah, Joel 2:28-32; Gal. 3:14).
The Spirit is the new covenant fulfilment of the ancient covenant promise!
Those who want to be saved from the judgement of God need to distance themselves from their generation (described by Jesus as unbelieving, perverse, corrupted, with damning influence -similar to previous generations who rejected God’s messengers and killed them).
The disciples of Jesus are the nucleus of a renewed Israel, to which those wh0 desire to be saved should attach themselves.