Every believer has the Spirit

In all our thinking about the gifts, let us never forget the greatest gift of the Spirit: the Spirit himself. It is not just that his gifts are given to us, it is that he himself is given to us. The Third Person of the Godhead is given to the believers in all his fullness. In a mysterious and wonderful way, God himself is in your heart, in your mind, at the very centre of your being as a permanent indwelling presence. What a tragedy it would be if we got so absorbed in the speaking gifts and the serving gifts, that we forgot that the Spirit himself—never mind all his gifts—is given to us.

That is true of every Christian, not just of a select few. There is a teaching today in the churches that only some Christians have the Holy Spirit in their hearts. There is the so‑called baptism of the Spirit. And until you have had this experience, you do not have the Spirit. That is simply unbiblical, and it is wrong. In Romans 8:9 Paul says, Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Quite simply, if you do not have the Spirit, Paul says, you are not a Christian, you are not a believer. It is not a matter of two levels of believers. It is not a matter of believers who do not have the Spirit and others who do. Every believer has the Spirit. If anyone does not have the Spirit, he does not belong to Christ.

Or again, he is writing to the Corinthians. Do you remember what sort of a church Corinth was? It was a gifted church in many ways, but there were lots of very unsatisfactory members in the church. They were Christians, but the way they behaved, the things they did, the mistakes they made, the heresies in that church was not good. It was an exciting church, but it was a confused church, a mixed‑up church. And in 1 Corinthians 6:9 Paul, writing to all the members of the church, says to each and everyone of them, Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God. Not just some of you, not just the best, not just the most consecrated, every one of you. If you are a member of the church, if you are a believer, the Holy Spirit is in you.

He, of course, is far more precious than all his gifts put together. But I am not writing on the Holy Spirit in this article. Let me recommend to you to read carefully and prayerfully Romans 8:1–39; there you will get an unrivalled picture of what the Holy Spirit does in us and for us. Read those verses slowly and prayerfully; think about them; thank God for them. Note every time the Spirit is mentioned, and say to yourself, “If I am a Christian, he is in me, and he is able to do this for me. He sets us free from sin. He helps us to love God. He enables us to put sin to death. He enables us to cry Father! He groans with us in prayer. He keeps us secure in the love of God and much more. And dear readers, we should think more about the Spirit than we do. We should thank God for the Spirit. The glory of having in your heart God himself to make you strong, to guide you, to help you, and to be with you at every moment. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, God, by his Spirit, dwells in your heart.¹

Edward Donnelly