0697. Christ Was Filled with the Spirit

Christ Was Filled with the Spirit

"And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from the Jordan" (Luk_4:1).

It is one thing to have the Holy Ghost upon us, and another thing to have the Holy Ghost within us. It is one thing to have the Holy Ghost indwelling us, and another thing to be filled with the Holy Ghost.

1. The Holy Spirit indwells all believers, but all believers are not filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit may be in the throne room, without being on the throne; the Holy Spirit may even have a right-of-way in the believer’s life, without having all the way.

To be filled with the Spirit pre-supposes the abandonment of the life to God. What we yield, He accepts; and what He accepts, He fills. A life that is not surrendered, consecrated, yielded, abandoned to God, cannot be a life filled with God.

2. In Eph_5:18 we read: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit." This verse shows some of the effects of being filled with the Spirit. When one is drunk with wine, the wine dominates him to the finger-tips; when one is filled with the Holy Spirit, he is dominated through and through by the Holy Spirit. The invariable result is recorded in Eph_5:19. The Spirit-filled will be "speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things, * * submitting themselves one to another in the fear of Christ."

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR