Question: Would you share with us the difference between the filling of the Holy Spirit and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit?
Answer: Spiritually speaking, we received both the infilling of the Holy Spirit (within us) and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (upon us) at the beginning of our spiritual experience, our regeneration. In our Christian life, we may think that these two experiences are separate from each other. However, as we are gradually matured as believers, these two kinds of experiences will merge together.
The infilling, or the inward filling, of the Holy Spirit is for the growth of life. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is for the release of what is within us. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not merely for power; the outpouring and resulting power are for the release. The more we go along with the inner regulating, the more we are filled, occupied, and possessed by the Holy Spirit within. Yet if we do not have the outpouring, it is very hard for us to release what we have experienced in the Lord’s filling of us. Even if we have many experiences of the inner regulating, without experiencing the outpouring of the Spirit, we will be unable to minister to others what we have experienced. When we experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we are released to minister to the saints what we have experienced of the Lord inwardly.
However, in the matter of the outpouring we must exercise some care. The outpouring brings the release, but we must be careful about what we release. What we release depends upon what we have experienced and what is within us. For example, when those who have a bad temper experience the Holy Spirit as their release, they may release their temper. We can see this in the Old Testament. When messengers were sent by King Saul to capture David, they saw a company of prophets prophesying under Samuel. As a result, they themselves began to prophesy. When this was told to Saul, he went to where the prophets were, and the Spirit of God came upon him also. The issue of this outpouring was that he was fully released: he stripped off his clothes and lay down naked all that day and night (1 Sam. 19:20-24), thereby exposing himself. We can only release what we are full of. After some receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they release many fleshly things. This is because they are full of carnal things. It is thus not sufficient to have the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us; we also need the infilling of the Holy Spirit within us. If we take care of the inner regulating all the time, we will enjoy and experience the infilling. When we are filled with the Spirit, it is very easy for us to receive the outpouring. All we must do is claim the outpouring based upon the inward filling.
When we receive the outpouring of the Spirit, we should not pay much attention to the manifestation, the gifts. Instead, we should pay attention to the infilling. By paying attention to the outward gifts and manifestations, many Christians have been damaged. They have been damaged because, by paying their full attention to the outward manifestation of the gifts but caring little for the inner regulation of the Spirit, they are unable to grow in life. The outpouring is for the growth of life; it is even a help to the inward growth of life. Although the inward growth of life is absolutely a matter of infilling, the infilling needs the help of the outpouring. Hence, there is a need for us to take the infilling and the outpouring in the proper proportion according to God’s way. If we do, we will have both the growth of life and the proper manifestation and function of the gifts. If, on the other hand, we pay attention to the outward gifts and manifestations and neglect the inward growth of life, we will suffer damage.
If we pay attention to the inward regulating and have the infilling all the time, we will be able to receive the outpouring whenever we need it. Eventually, we will be persons who always have both the infilling and the outpouring, for in our experience, these two matters will be merged together. We will have the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, both the growth in life and the manifestation of the gifts. In conclusion, the infilling produces the growth in life, and the outpouring is for the release, the outflow, of what we have received of the divine life through the infilling.
Question: Is being filled with the Holy Spirit a process or a crisis?
Answer: It is both. Spiritual experiences always begin as a crisis but then proceed as a process. Times of crisis cause our experience to deepen. For example, perhaps you were a Christian for years, yet you knew nothing about the inward regulating of the law of life. Then one day the Lord opened your eyes to see this matter. That experience was a crisis that helped you progress. After that crisis, you proceeded in a good way for a certain time. Perhaps two or three years later you came to a point where the Lord showed you something deeper concerning the inward regulation (the inward regulation is a matter of degree). After your first realization, you truly entered into the experience of the inward regulation, but your degree of experience was very low. Although the law of life regulated you in many things, your experience was not especially high or deep. Hence, after a process of several years, you suddenly realized that the inner regulating is much deeper than what you had previously experienced. That realization was another crisis. That crisis was then followed by another normal process. The Christian life is thus a cycle of crisis and process. This is a scriptural principle: first we must enter the gate; then we walk on the way. The walk does not come first; the gate does (Matt. 7:14). This is our experience of crisis and process.
Question: Acts 2:4 seems to indicate that the immediate result of the outpouring of the Spirit was a filling: first the saints experienced the outpouring of the Spirit; then they were filled with the Spirit inwardly. Could you please explain this?
Answer: We must first address how the Greek words for fill are translated into English. The English language has only one word to express the thought of filling, whereas Greek has at least two different words that express it. We may illustrate these two meanings of the word fill with baptism by water. Before a regenerated one is baptized, we must first fill the baptistery with water. Once the baptistery is filled, we immerse the brother into the water. We can also call this immersion a filling, for it “fills” him with water outwardly. This second filling is a filling that is according to the sense of one of the Greek words. Hence, there are two kinds of fillings. With the baptistery, there is the inward filling, whereas with the brother there is the outward filling. As far as the baptistery is concerned, the water fills it inwardly—the water is only in it and is not outside of it. As far as the brother is concerned, he is filled with water outwardly—the water is only outside of him and not inside of him. Both are filled, but in different senses.
Acts 2:2 says, “And suddenly there was a sound out of heaven, as of a rushing violent wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.” According to this verse, the wind “filled the whole house where they were sitting,” much like the water fills the baptistery. The Greek word for this inward filling is pleroo. Following this inward filling, verse 4 says that “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” The rushing violent wind that filled the house in verse 2 was the Holy Spirit. Now in this verse, the Holy Spirit filled the one hundred twenty disciples. The Greek word rendered filled here is pletho, which indicates outward filling. Suppose the windows of a meeting hall are open and the wind comes in and blows on us. On the one hand, the wind fills the hall inwardly. On the other hand, we are filled with the wind outwardly. As to the hall, the filling is inward. As to us, however, the filling is outward. The filling in Acts 2 is very much like our illustration above concerning the baptistery. The wind, which was the Holy Spirit, filled the house within, much like the water fills the baptistery. At the same time, the one hundred twenty disciples within the house were filled with the Holy Spirit, much like the water fills the one being baptized. The house was filled inwardly; the disciples were filled outwardly.
By knowing these two Greek words, we can have a clearer understanding of the filling spoken of in the New Testament. When the Holy Spirit speaks concerning infilling in the Scriptures, He uses the Greek word pleroo, and when He speaks concerning outpouring, He uses the word pletho. The word pleroo is used in Acts 13:52 and Ephesians 5:18. The word pletho is used in Luke 1:15, 41, 67 and Acts 2:4; 4:8 and 31; 9:17; and 13:9. A careful study of these verses with a good concordance, such as Young’s Analytical Concordance, will render us much help concerning these two words and their different denotations. Again, with regard to the Holy Spirit in our experience, there are two kinds of fillings: one is inward; the other is outward.
Near the city of Nanking, the former capital of China, the businessmen have a custom of going to teashops to drink tea early in the morning. Then in the evening, they go to the bathhouse where they soak in the baths. Hence, they have a proverb: “In the morning, the skin embraces the water; in the evening, the water embraces the skin.” This is a good illustration of the Spirit’s inward and outward filling. We must have both the Holy Spirit filling us within, like the skin embraces the water through drinking, and the Holy Spirit filling us without, like the water embraces the skin through bathing. Through this experience we will eventually be a person full of the Spirit within and without—full of the Spirit within by drinking and full of the Spirit without by being baptized into Him as the Spirit. We see this in 1 Corinthians 12:13, which says, “For also in one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” This verse shows us that on the one hand, we are baptized into the Holy Spirit and, on the other hand, we have to drink of the Spirit. This verse states clearly what the illustration of the tea and the baths in Nanking portrays. In this one verse we have the two aspects of the filling of the Holy Spirit: the inward filling and the outward filling.
Christians today are confused concerning these two aspects of the filling of the Spirit. The so-called Pentecostals promote the outward filling yet neglect the inward filling. Some go so far as to say that if a person has not spoken in tongues, he has not been baptized by the Holy Spirit and is therefore not regenerated. Others maintain that although he may be regenerated, because he has not spoken in tongues, he is not baptized by the Holy Spirit. Many of the Lord’s children have been confused by this erroneous teaching. According to the clear word of the Scriptures, we know three things. First, we know that at the time we received the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we were regenerated by the Holy Spirit (1 Pet. 1:23; John 1:12-13; 3:6b). Second, we know that the Holy Spirit who regenerated us dwells within our spirit (2 Cor. 3:17; 2 Tim. 4:22). Even if we grieve Him, He will not leave us but will remain within us. Third, since this Holy Spirit who regenerated us now dwells within us, we must yield to Him, go along with Him, and cooperate with Him (cf. Acts 16:6-7). If we do this, He will take the ground to fill us within. The regenerating, indwelling, and infilling of the Holy Spirit are for the inner life. By the Spirit’s regeneration, we received the divine life; by the Spirit’s indwelling, we are able to be under the ruling of the divine life; and by the Spirit’s infilling, we will be matured in life. Although these three items are wonderful, we must go on to experience something else. We must experience the outpouring of the Spirit upon us as power both to release us and to equip us for service.
We can see both the inward and the outward filling with the Lord Jesus. He was born of the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35). This means that throughout His entire life, He was filled with the Holy Spirit inwardly. But when His ministry began at the age of thirty by being baptized in water, the Holy Spirit came upon Him (Matt. 3:16). This does not mean that before this time the Lord Jesus did not have the Holy Spirit. Rather, it means that although He was filled with the Holy Spirit inwardly, He still needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit outwardly as the power for Him to preach the gospel (Luke 4:1, 18).
We also see the two aspects of the filling with the apostles. The apostles had already received the Holy Spirit inwardly on the night of the Lord’s resurrection. On that night, the Lord came to them and breathed into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). This breathing was for life. But forty days later, the Lord told them to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit would come upon them (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). Then after ten days, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon them (2:2, 4). Again, we see the two aspects of the filling of the Holy Spirit.
In John 4 and 7 the Lord likens the Holy Spirit to living water for us to drink (4:14; 7:37-39). However, in Luke 24:49 the Lord likens the Holy Spirit to clothing: “Behold, I send forth the promise of My Father upon you; but as for you, stay in the city until you put on power from on high.” The American Standard Version renders the last phrase of this verse in this way: “Until ye be clothed with power from on high.” The clothing in this verse is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit as the clothing for us to wear in Luke is quite different from the Spirit as the water for us to drink in John. On the one hand, the Holy Spirit is the water for our drink within. This is for life. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit is clothing for us to put on. This is for power. I hope that you realize these two aspects of the Holy Spirit’s filling.
With the outpouring there is the manifestation of the gifts. However, the real function of the gifts depends upon the growth in life, which results from the infilling of the Spirit. If we do not have the infilling, we will not have the growth in life and consequently not have the proper function. The function depends upon the growth in life, and the growth in life depends upon the infilling. The manifestation of the gifts depends upon the outpouring. In other words, the outpouring helps us manifest the gifts. Yet I say again, we may have the power and we may have the gifts, but if we do not have the growth in life, we will not have the proper function. Hence, we need both aspects: the inward filling for the growth of life and for the function, and the outward filling for the manifestation of the gifts and for the power. Then as members of the Body we will be completely equipped to live and work.