The Law of Liberty (3)

And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit…  Ephesians 5.18

Sorting out the confusion
I don’t know a single Christian who doesn’t believe that being filled with the Spirit of God is a good and necessary thing.

But I know lots of believers who don’t have a clue as to what that means.

For some believers, the filling of the Spirit is a simple formula: breathe out your sins through confession, breath in the Spirit by prayer. Having done that, you’re filled.

Others insist that the filling of the Spirit is achieved through extraordinary gifts. In some churches you can even find instruction in how to “prime the pump” of your speech by uttering mindless, repetitious phrases until the Spirit takes over and, voilà, you’re filled with Him.

Still others will insist that being filled with the Spirit means don’t drink, don’t smoke, and don’t hang with those that do. Or just having a swell time singing and raising your hands during the praise songs of “worship.”

Looking to the Scriptures
With such divergent views of the filling of the Spirit, we do well to see if Scripture has any clear and complementary instruction to help us understand what Paul means.

The Spirit of God, we know, teaches us the things of God by comparing passages of Scripture with one another so that, in their harmonizing tones, we can hear and delight in the Truth of God (1 Cor. 2.12, 13). Whatever we believe about the filling of the Spirit, therefore, must come from His instruction in His Word.

I want us to look briefly at three passages of Scripture that relate to the work and filling of the Spirit of God. In the light of these texts we can gain a better understanding of what God has liberated us unto in His holy and righteous and good Law.

God at work in you
The first passage is Philippians 2.13. Here Paul says God is at work within us to make us willing and able to do whatever pleases Him. Now we know that the Spirit of God, dwells in the hearts of all who believe in Jesus, and is the power of God Who works within us to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ (Acts 1.8; 2 Cor. 3.12-18; Eph. 3.20).

But what pleases God? What is the Spirit working within us to make us willing and able to do? Certainly we must believe that He is at work within us to make us willing and able to speak and do those good works for which we have been redeemed, and which God has prepared for us in His Law (Eph. 2.10). We are filled with the Spirit when He is having His way in us and we are speaking and doing that which accords with His Law.

To convict and to instruct
Jesus taught that the Spirit of God will convict and instruct us when He comes to dwell within us. We read this in our second passage, John 16.8-11. This is how the Spirit begins to make us willing and able to do the good works of God. He convicts us of our sins – which Paul says He does by pointing us to the Law of God (Rom. 7.7) – and He teaches us the way of righteousness, which is the way of Christ’s Kingdom (Rom. 14.17, 18).

So by drawing us into the light of God’s Law, the Spirit of God convicts us of sin and points us down the path of right living and good works. Surely to be filled with the Spirit means to be always ready to confess and repent of our sin and to take up the life of righteousness in Jesus (Ps. 119.59, 60; Eph. 4.17-24).

To teach us to obey the Law
Finally, through the prophet Ezekiel, God specifically told us, that when He gives His Spirit to His people it will be so that the Spirit will teach us His Law, and enable us to walk in obedience to it (Ezek. 36.26, 27).

The Spirit of God – Who is, we should recall, the Holy Spirit – is working within us through conviction and instruction to make us willing and able to understand and obey the Law of God, the law of liberty. As we take up the holy Law of God we are liberated from the life of the flesh into the life of the Holy Spirit of God.

And the more we take up that Law, reading and meditating in it day by day, and walking the path it marks out for us, the more we will be filled with the Spirit according to the teaching of God’s Word.

For reflection or discussion
1.      Why must we have the Spirit of God to enable us to speak and do according to the perfect Law of liberty, the Law of God?

2.      What would be a good way for you to begin becoming more familiar with the teaching of the Law of God?

3.      Can we be filled with the Spirit if we remain indifferent to or ignorant of the Law of God? Explain.

Next steps: How do your Christian friends understand the filling of the Spirit? Ask a few of them. Share some of the insights from this study.

T. M. Moore

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This week’s ReVision study is Part 8 of a 10-part series, “Full Faith.” You can download “The Law of Liberty” as a free PDF, prepared for personal or group study. Simply click here.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.