In the initial stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of regeneration, the believers are made a new creation by being regenerated, by receiving the Holy Spirit, and by having the eternal life of God. Since we have covered the matter of regeneration, we shall proceed to see the matters of receiving the Holy Spirit and having the eternal life.
We receive the Spirit through hearing and believing the gospel (Gal. 3:2). When we hear the word of the truth, the gospel of our salvation, the Holy Spirit begins to move within us, urging us to believe in and receive Christ. When we believe in and receive Christ, we are regenerated. At this time, on the one hand, God causes His Spirit to impart His life into our spirit to enliven our dead spirit; on the other hand, He puts His Spirit into our spirit, that is, He causes His Spirit to dwell in our enlivened new spirit. Hence, we, the regenerated ones, not only have obtained the eternal life of God but also have received the Spirit to indwell us.
According to the revelation of the Bible, the indwelling Spirit in us has the following six main functions:
First, the Spirit enters into us as the essential Spirit for our existence, being, life, and living. He is the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God, the life-giving Spirit whom Christ became in resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45). This Spirit enters into us who have believed in Christ (John 20:22) and lives in us to be the essence of the divine life, nature, and being within us.
The Spirit enters into us as the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). Life is the contents of the divine Trinity. When the Spirit of life enters into us, He imparts the eternal life of God into us to be our life. According to the revelation of Romans chapter eight, the Spirit of life is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and even Christ Himself (vv. 9-10). First, the Spirit of life comes into our spirit to make our spirit life (v. 10). Then He spreads from our spirit into our mind to make our mind a mind of life (v. 6). Finally, He imparts this life even into our mortal bodies to make the body of death a body of life (v. 11). Thus the Spirit of life fills our entire being, including our spirit, soul, and body, sanctifying us and conforming us to the image of the firstborn Son of God (v. 29) that we may become the many sons of God to be His corporate expression.
The Holy Spirit enters into us also as the seal within us (Eph. 1:13; 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:22). A seal is a mark. That we, the believers, are sealed with the Holy Spirit means that we are marked with the Holy Spirit as a living seal, indicating that we belong to God, that is, that we are God’s inheritance (Eph. 1:11). Furthermore, a seal also has an image. When we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, we bear the image of God signified by the seal. Thus we are made like God and can express God.
The Holy Spirit is the seal and also the sealing within us. The Spirit as the seal comes into us once for all, but the sealing of the Spirit continues until every part of our being is sealed, even unto the redemption, the transfiguration, of our body. As Ephesians 1:13 and 14 tell us, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the redemption of God’s acquired possession. At the time of our regeneration, the Spirit as the seal was put into our spirit, and His sealing began within us. This sealing is spreading from our spirit to our mind, emotion, and will for the sanctification and transformation of our soul. Eventually, even our body will be thoroughly sealed, that is, saturated and transfigured; that will be the redemption of our body.