In Romans 8:9 and 11 Paul speaks of the Spirit indwelling the believers. It is a great matter to have the Spirit indwelling us. Verse 9 speaks of the Spirit of God dwelling in us. Verse 11 goes on to say, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from among the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” As the Spirit indwells us, He is not idle. Rather, He is active to impart life to us. The indwelling Spirit is the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit who gives life. According to Romans 8, the Spirit gives life to our spirit (v. 10), our soul, represented by the mind (v. 6), and our body (v. 11). This indwelling Spirit is thus imparting the divine life into our tripartite being. The purpose of the Spirit’s indwelling is to dispense life, which is actually God Himself, into the three parts of our being. This dispensing begins from our spirit, the center of our being, and then spreads into our soul and body until our entire being is saturated with the divine essence for our transformation.
Two verses in 1 Corinthians speak of the Spirit indwelling the believers. In 3:16 Paul asks, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Then in 6:19 he asks, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” In these verses we have two kinds of temples-the corporate temple, the church, and individual temples, which are the believers’ physical bodies. In 3:16 the believers are a corporate temple; in 6:19 a believer’s body is an individual temple. The Holy Spirit is in our spirit (Rom. 8:16), and our spirit is within our body. Hence, our body becomes a temple, a dwelling place, of the Holy Spirit. Both kinds of temples are for the Spirit’s indwelling so that He may dispense the Triune God into us individually and corporately.
Second Timothy 1:14 says, “Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” The indwelling Spirit is working to enable us to guard the deposit. According to 1 and 2 Timothy, this deposit consists of healthy teachings concerning God’s economy, God’s plan to dispense Himself into us. Timothy had received these teachings as a deposit, and Paul charged him to guard this deposit through the indwelling Holy Spirit. By guarding the deposit in this way, Timothy would not be distracted from the healthy teachings concerning the eternal economy of God to dispense Himself into His redeemed people. Today we also need to guard the good deposit through the indwelling Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit dwells in our spirit, to guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit requires us to exercise our spirit.
Finally, James 4:5 says, “Do you think that the Scripture says in vain: The Spirit who dwells in us longs to envy?” The Greek word rendered “dwells” may also be translated “makes His home.” The indwelling Spirit makes His home in us so that He may occupy our entire being for God (cf. Eph. 3:17) and cause us to be wholly for our Husband. When God secured us to be His spouse, He put His Spirit into us to make us one with Him (1 Cor. 6:19, 16-17). He is a jealous God (Exo. 20:5), and His Spirit is jealous over us with the jealousy of God (2 Cor. 11:2), longing, jealously desiring, that we may not be friends with His enemy and be His lover at the same time.
Only in 4:5 does James mention God’s indwelling Spirit. His one mention of the Spirit is negative, concerning the abolishing of the friendship of the world. It is not positive, concerning the building up of the Body of Christ.
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