In my study of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, my thoughts turned to the epistles to learn some of the key teachings there. If you want the complete study guide that I prepared for my Sunday School class, you can find it here. This won’t be a complete discussion but rather some of the key points that stood out to me.
In Galatians 3:5, Paul tells us that the Spirit is received by faith. There are no works or human effort that will cause the Spirit indwell us, but rather it is through faith in the same way that salvation is through faith.
One of the things that we know with our mind, but is incredible to really think about is that the Holy Spirit indwells us as Christians. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Somehow the “spiritual” indwells the “physical”. It doesn’t make sense how that can be but it is clearly what scripture teaches in the following passages: I Cor 3:16; I Cor 6:19; Gal 4:6 and Romans 8:16.
A third truth that we’ll review today is that the Holy Spirit is a “down payment” on the rest of our salvation. He is a guarantee of what is to come. He seals and secures us for eternity. A person who gives a down payment has to be prepared to lose the down payment if he can’t follow through with the rest of the purchase. In the same way, God is so committed to our future salvation and glorification that He is willing to give us His Spirit as the down payment for that commitment.
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