Our 21st century world needs to see what Spirit-filled believers actually look like.
In the early days of the Church, one fact is evident: the boldness and power of the believers was linked to the coming of the Holy Spirit. It should also be clear on even a cursory reading of Acts that a distinction was made between the indwelling and the filling of the Spirit.
Who is indwelt? Every believer! “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rom. 8:9; see also Acts 2:38; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; and 2 Tim 1:14). And because “we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).
But now to the question: Who is filled with the Spirit? The evidence is incontrovertible that we are commanded to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) and many of the NT saints are unabashedly stated to be exactly that—filled!
Stephen, for example, was not listed among the apostles. He was not an elder; he was a deacon. Of him we have this gripping description: “a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 6:5) and “full of faith and power” (v. 8). The basis of the selection of these seven deacons was that they were required to be “full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” (v. 3).
So would you qualify? Would I? How many Christians do you know that are filled with the Spirit? To say that nobody knows who is filled with the Spirit is to make the last paragraph nonsensical. The apostles could instruct the believers to select seven men who were filled—and they knew exactly who qualified.
So Ephesians 5:18 is a command. Agreed? And the filling of the Spirit is a definite possibility in the present day. Agreed? And the results of being filled were so remarkable in the first century that we cannot do without it. No amount of money, organization, creative ideas, Bible knowledge, or orthodoxy will do what the filling of the Spirit will.
We read that Barnabas “was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord” (Acts 11:24). Can we doubt that there is a connection between his filling and the people being “added”?
So maybe all our efforts at training in evangelism, seeking to stir gospel zeal among believers, and all our conferences and Bible teaching—maybe there is a prior need, without which so much well-meaning effort largely falls to the ground. As the prime prerequisite, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
When I was growing up, if I recall the teaching I received, the Ephesians 5:18 command was thought to be somewhat mysterious. Ah, but wait! Colossians 3:16 to the rescue! “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” That was it! In order to be filled with the Spirit one must simply be a careful student of the Word and the filling would occur as a direct result. But is that true?
Remember what the Lord Jesus said? “If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Lk. 11:13). It’s hard to dispensationalize this away since the context includes His instructions to His own on how to pray!
I know the filling of the Spirit doesn’t mean getting more of the Spirit, but the Spirit getting more of us. How much more? That’s the real question. If we are to be filled with the Spirit, it seems to me that this would require a methodical emptying of every other passion, motive, influence in competition with Him.
I just read The Cambridge Seven by John Pollock. Men like C.T. Studd, who shook their world for God, had a definite time in which they inventoried everything in their life and resolutely transferred it, piece by piece, to the Savior. Then, naïvely perhaps, they followed the Lord’s instruction and asked the Father for the Spirit’s filling as the only way to obey the clear command of Scripture.
Are you satisfied with your life? Is less than full OK with you? It’s not with me. I want to experientially discover what it means to be “filled with the Spirit.” I want to be the blessed recipient of such a prayer as this: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another” (Rom. 15:13-14). O that in our day, in our hearts, we might know what it is to “be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).