King James Version.
"Spirit-filled" terminology and labeling have so
penetrated the Christian church today that division between the
"haves" and the "have nots" is taking place.
"Haves" are Christians who believe that they have experienced a
"filling of the Holy Spirit" on a special occasion subsequent to their
conversion. Christians who have not had this type of special experience are the
"have nots." Many of those who believe they are
"haves" tend to look down on and sometimes even despise the "have
nots." On the other hand, many of those who are labeled as "have nots"
tend to judge the "haves" as too emotional--or unbiblical--or worse!
This sad commentary on the lack of oneness of the body of Christ reflects a
failure on both sides to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace" (Ephesians 4:3).
Ephesians 5:18 is a command to all believers to be "filled with the
Spirit." What exactly is the filling of the Spirit? How do Christians know
if and when they are Spirit-filled? These are certainly important and valid
questions which should be answered, because Ephesians 5:18 is a command,
not just a suggestion. In the interest of "endeavoring to keep the unity of
the body in the bond of peace" by bringing greater understanding on this
topic, let's examine the Scriptures to see what the filling of the Spirit is,
and what it is not. Hopefully, more understanding of what the Bible defines as
"Spirit-filled" will result in more love and harmony in the body of
Christ. First we'll look at what the filling of the Spirit is not.
Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
The filling of the Spirit is not the same as the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit. The indwelling of the Spirit takes place at conversion, when
the believer's body becomes the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (1
Corinthians 6:19). In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit did not permanently
indwell the body of the believer. The Holy Spirit was with Old Testament
believers and came upon them at various times, to fill them and empower
them for acts of service to God. (For example, see Exodus 31:1-5; Judges
15:14-15; 2 Chronicles 15:1.) The Old Testament also mentions that the Holy
Spirit would depart, depending on the situation or the lifestyle of the
individual. (See Judges 16:20; Psalm 51:11.) But a wonderful change took place
with the coming of Christ. Now the Holy Spirit immediately indwells the
believer at the time of conversion. In John 7:38-39 the Lord Jesus foretold this
blessed change: "Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams
of living water will flow from within him. By this He meant the Spirit, whom
those who believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had
not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified." And in John
14:16-17 the Lord promised, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you
another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth. The world
cannot accept Him....but you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in
you."
Ephesians 1:13 says "you also were included in Christ when you heard the
Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in
Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit." All true believers are sealed
in Christ with the indwelling Holy Spirit the moment they believe. Notice that
the sealing with the Holy Spirit of the Ephesian believers did not take place at
some time after their conversion, but when they believed the
gospel. Notice also that the apostle Paul was not writing to just a select few
of the believers at Ephesus (1:1). The Holy Spirit did not seal only some of
the Ephesian believers, but all of them. According to Ephesians 1:14, the
Holy Spirit is given to all believers as a pledge of our coming inheritance.
What better guarantee could we have of our salvation and eternal security? If
the Holy Spirit is truly a seal and pledge, He will never leave the believer.
God's sealing and pledging are not subject to a believer's imperfect walk or
lifestyle. The Holy Spirit dwells in us to enable and empower the believer's new
life in Christ. 2 Timothy 1:14 encourages us to "guard the good deposit
that was entrusted to you--guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who
lives in us." How thankful we can be for the continual help of the
indwelling Holy Spirit of God who is available at all times to enable us and
empower us to guard--and to live out--the gospel. So every Christian is the
permanent dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, however, every Christian is not
necessarily always filled with the Spirit!
Baptism of the Holy Spirit
Furthermore, the filling of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not something that
happens to the individual believer on a specific occasion some time after
salvation. The baptism of the Holy Spirit took place at Pentecost, when the body
of Christ, the Church, was born. At that time the Holy Spirit baptized all
believers into the one body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 we read,
"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its
parts are many, they form one body. For we were all baptized by one
Spirit into one body ..." Perhaps it could be said that a believer
is baptized "by" or "in" or "of" the Holy Spirit
at conversion, but it is probably more scripturally correct to realize that at
conversion believers are brought into (or incorporated into) the
already-baptized body of Christ. The following illustration may be helpful. When
a new employee joins a corporation, he or she is "brought into" the
corporation--but the corporation was formed (or incorporated) long before the
new individual employee was "incorporated" into the company. In the
same way, when new converts are brought into the body of Christ we can speak of
them as being baptized into the body by the Holy Spirit, but in actuality the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place when the Church was formed. John the
Baptist foretold this baptism of the Holy Spirit in Matthew 3:11: "I
baptize you with water for repentance. But...He will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit..." (See also Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33.) The Lord Jesus
referred to this baptism of the Holy Spirit when He told the disciples to wait
in Jerusalem after He ascended (Acts 1:4-5).
Now it is true that when the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place at Pentecost
the disciples were filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4). However, their experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit was not synonymous with the event of
the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Even Bezelel, an Old Testament
believer, was filled with the Spirit long before the baptism of the Spirit was
predicted (Exodus 31:3). So the filling of the Spirit is not to be equated with
the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Gifts of the Holy Spirit
What about the gifts of the Spirit? Is this what the filling of the Spirit
is all about? No! The spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit are not the same
as the filling of the Holy Spirit. Some Christians emphasize that the display of
certain spiritual gifts such as speaking in "tongues," or a language
unknown to the speaker, is the sign of a Spirit-filled believer. It's true that
at Pentecost the spiritual gift of "tongues" accompanied the filling
of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4). Those tongues were known foreign languages and
the purpose for that spiritual gift on that day was evangelistic. People from
many different countries were gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost,
and the gift of languages permitted these people to hear the gospel in their own
native languages (Acts 2:5-11)! But the gift of speaking in unknown languages
did not always accompany the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Acts. (See Acts
8:14-17, for example.)
More to the point, the mere possession of spiritual gifts is not an
indication of the filling of the Spirit! All the Corinthian believers were
described as being baptized by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13), and
1 Corinthians 12:30 says that many of them (although not all of
them)--spoke in "tongues." Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 1:7 tells us
that all the spiritual gifts were represented in the local church at
Corinth. However, all of the believers were certainly not filled with the
Spirit because Paul described them as carnal--not spiritual--in 1
Corinthians 3:1-3! So let's not confuse the possession of spiritual gifts with
the filling of the Spirit. All Christians have at least one spiritual gift (1
Peter 4:10), but not all Christians are necessarily filled with the Holy Spirit!
Filling of the Spirit
Well, if the filling of the Spirit is not the indwelling of the Spirit, and
it is not the baptism of the Spirit, and it is not to be confused with the gifts
of the Spirit, then exactly what is the filling of the Spirit, and what
does it mean to be Spirit-filled? To be filled with the Spirit simply means to
be under the influence and control of the Holy Spirit. That's why the
contrasting parallel is made in Ephesians 5:18 with being filled with wine. An
intoxicated person is under the influence and control of the wine's power. A
Spirit-filled believer is controlled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. That's
what characterized the disciples at Pentecost. Many in the temple crowds thought
that these followers of Christ were filled with wine (Acts 2:13), but they were
filled with the Holy Spirit. On that historic day those early Christians were
completely under the control of the Holy Spirit. But Scripture does not teach
that those Christians remained completely Spirit-filled for the rest of their
lives. Maybe some of them even went on to be the very definitely unfilled Jewish Christian legalists who erected all kinds of barriers to the Holy
Spirit's work of bringing about oneness in the early Church. If the filling of
the Spirit was a once-and-for-all event or experience in the Christian life, the
command to be continually filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:18 would not
make sense. "Be filled with the Spirit" is written in the Greek
present tense. This indicates that the filling of the Spirit is not a
once-for-all-time experience, but an on-going, daily lifestyle choice.
The illustration of "being filled with wine" is used as a contrasting
parallel to "being filled with the Spirit" in Ephesians 5:18. Just as
an person can choose to place himself under the influence and control of
alcohol, so a believer can choose to place himself under the influence and
control of the Holy Spirit. Being under the influence of alcohol is a matter of
choice, and being filled with the Spirit is a matter of our choice, too. We can
consciously choose to yield our thoughts and actions to the will of God and live
under the Spirit's influence and control, or we can choose to "love the
world" and our own selfish wants and desires (1 John 2:15-17). As we yield
to the control of the Spirit we will be empowered to use the spiritual gifts
that the Lord has given us for His glory and not our own, and our lives will
increasingly be characterized by the Word of God, thankfulness, and harmonious
relationships with fellow-believers. Why? Because these are the characteristics
of the Spirit-filled believer as we see in the verses following Ephesians 5:18.
Spirit-Filled Characteristics
What are the characteristics of a Spirit-filled believer? The "fruits
of the Spirit"--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control will certainly be seen in the lives of
Spirit-filled believers (Galatians 5:22-23). And we don't have to read much
farther in Ephesians 5 to find three more characteristics of the Christian who
is filled with the Spirit. In fact, that's what the context (the rest of
Ephesians 5) is all about.
The first characteristic is found in verse 19: "Speak to one another with
psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make melody in your heart to the
Lord..." The Spirit-filled Christian sings spiritual songs. Singing psalms
was (and still is!) a wonderful way to worship the Lord. Spiritual songs would
contain words of Scripture. Believers from a Gentile background weren't familiar
with the Old Testament, and singing Scripture was a good way to learn it. The
same is true today. Many of the hymns which were learned and sung by the early
Christians contained the teachings of the apostles (New Testament truths) which
were not yet in writing at that time. (See Colossians 1:15-20, Ephesians 5:14
and Philippians 2:6-11 for examples of early hymns.) In addition, singing
spiritual songs was then, and continues to be, an outward sign of inward joy,
one of the fruits of the Spirit's filling in our lives (Galatians 5:22).
Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly...as you
sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to
God." It's obvious that the Spirit-filled Christian of Ephesians 5 is same
as the Word-filled Christian of Colossians 3. In fact, the Word of God is really
the key to being a Spirit-filled believer. As we read and meditate on--and
sing--the Word of God, we will not only be built up in our faith, but our
thought-patterns and our lifestyles will increasingly line up with the mind of
God. We will confess our known sins (1 John 1:9). We will be more obedient to
the Word of God (John 15:10). We will yield ourselves more and more to His
control (Romans 12:1-2). We will increasingly be emptied of self (Galatians 2:20)--and filled with the Spirit!
A second characteristic of the Spirit-filled believer is given in verse 20:
"Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ." The Spirit-filled believer is thankful for all things--not because all the circumstances of life are pleasant, but because we
know that God is in control of everything. He "works all things after the
counsel of His will" (Ephesians 1:11), and "in all things God works
for the good of those who love Him" (Romans 8:28). Peace of heart and mind
is a fruit of the Spirit which can be seen in a believer who is able to give
thanks for everything. Many Christians (both "haves" and "have
nots") fail this important test of thankfulness. An ungrateful or
complaining or bitter Christian is not a Spirit-filled Christian--no
matter what spiritual gifts or experiences he or she may enjoy, or how much
doctrinal knowledge he or she may have acquired!
The third characteristic of the Spirit-filled believer is given in verse 21:
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Believers who are
filled with the Holy Spirit is unselfish and humble in their attitudes towards
other believers. Love, patience, kindness and gentleness are fruits of the
Spirit that will be seen in their lives. (See Galatians 5:22-23.) In addition,
the Spirit-filled believer recognizes and submits to the authority structures
that God has set up in the church and in the home. Many Christians have problems
with this matter of "submitting to one another." Some Christians seem
to think that the local church or fellowship group should be run their way,
or that their homes and families should revolve around them and their
needs and desires. They have trouble with authority--both submitting to it or
handling it wisely. They want to "do their own thing" in their
Christian lives, rather than regarding the needs and interests of others
(Philippians 2:3-4). They have been known to use words such as "The Lord told me...." or "My interpretation of that passage
is...." or "I'm the authority here, so everyone must submit to my decisions..." According to Scripture, these Christians are not Spirit-filled.
"Am I filled with the Spirit?" We should all ask ourselves this
question. The answer should be easy to determine now that we've looked at the
characteristics of a Spirit-filled believer which are found in the Word of God.
Let's be careful that we don't claim "Spirit-filled status" for
ourselves if we're not displaying the fruit of the Holy Spirit as well as the
characteristics of Spirit-filled believers which we've seen in Ephesians
5:19-21. As we yield to the control of the Spirit our lives will increasingly
characterized by the Word of God, thankfulness, and harmonious relationships
with fellow-believers. Let's be careful not to label fellow-believers as not Spirit-filled because they don't meet our prerequisites of certain
experiences or gifts. Even though we may disagree on the subject, both
"haves" and "have nots" must be careful not to despise or
demean fellow-believers. Let's all endeavor to keep the "unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace," and let's all endeavor to live continuously
under the control of the Holy Spirit--filled with the Spirit!
This essay may be forwarded or printed and freely distributed with acknowledgment.