My title comes from one of the most amazing truths ever penned in the history of mankind:
To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27
Anyone bothering to look dispassionately at the facts can easily discern Christianity’s absolute uniqueness among all world religions. There are multiple proofs for that claim; this truth is one of them. Our raised-from-the-dead Founder (another distinctive of our faith) takes up residence by the Holy Spirit inside the physical bodies of all Christ-followers at the moment of salvation; He remains there for the duration of their lives on this planet.
We call this “the New Birth.”
Let’s explore what the Scriptures say about this spiritual reality and the impact it should be having on us as Christ-followers.
Jesus Initiated It
In the Gospel of John, post-resurrection Jesus appears before His disciples as recorded in Chapter 20:
Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:19-21
I personally believe His disciples received the New Birth at that moment. Truth be told, I cannot fathom how another theologian could possibly disagree with me on this.
What the Rest of the New Testament Says
Working our way through the New Testament from there, we read:
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His . And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you .
Romans 8:9-11Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you ? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are .
1 Corinthians 3:16-17Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
1 Corinthians 6:19And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts , crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Galatians 4:6That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us .
2 Timothy 1:14You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
1 John 4:4
The Bible says in several places “out of the mouths of 2 or 3 witnesses is something established” (see Matthew 18:16 & 2 Corinthians 13:1). We have that here in spades! And God doesn’t repeat Himself simply to hear Himself speak; He’s driving home a point He doesn’t want us to miss.
Divine Mystery Strikes Again
We puny humans cannot fathom why our Heavenly Father chose this particular means to seal the deal of our salvation. Neither do we have really any clue as to how it all actually works.
The whole event remains a divine mystery this side of eternity — and maybe even there! As I have taught in several places elsewhere here at Miscellaneous Ramblings, such enigmas defy our piddling human ability to intellectually fathom them.
As Christ-followers, we are required to accept them by simple faith apart from our flesh-driven-knowledge-is-power cravings for exhaustive understanding. We can look into such mysteries to our hearts’ content, examine them from every angle, explore all the Scripture references, read all the commentaries, and listen to our theological betters until we are blue in the face, but the bottom line is such mysteries are just that: mysteries.
Our ability to tolerate and accept divine mystery and ambiguity is a direct barometer of our child-likeness before our Heavenly Father. And, as I’ve also said before, every heresy which has ever been invented throughout church history was instigated by one or more bozos who pressed on regardless, desperately trying to pound the square peg of a divine mystery into the round hole of their intrinsically flawed human intellect.
The Implications
So why should we care about all this? If God is indeed omnipresent (everywhere in the universe all at once), why does it matter that He included us as yet another place where He has chosen to reside?
For me, it all goes back to a phrase I was introduced to back when I was a new believer a little over 50 years ago. That phrase is “God-inside-minded.”
Let’s explore that for a bit:
- If God never moved into our bodies at the moment of salvation, we would probably see Him as a supernatural ruler who indeed is present and may even indeed love mankind as a whole, but has little or no regard for us as individuals. Instead, He so highly esteems each and every of us that He literally takes up residence in us when we surrender to Him. This should shape and influence how we see ourselves as children of the Most High: each and every one of us are precious and valuable in His sight rather than merely faceless members of the mass of humanity.
By the way, whenever I pair the words “precious” and “valuable,” I’m not repeating myself. Let me explain the difference: a lock of your young child’s hair may be precious to you, but has zero value whatsoever to anyone else. A barrel of oil is valuable to many, but no one would ever call it precious. In the eyes of God, we’re both!
- Whenever we face those incessant temptations to choose selfishly (aka sin), our awareness of His indwelling can and should inform our choice on how to respond in a godly manner. This, coupled with listening and obeying the Holy Spirit Who is speaking to us in that moment, can save us from a tremendous amount of all kinds of heartbreak.
- As we confront the vicissitudes of life, whether they be social, financial, professional, marital, medical, emotional/psychological, or spiritual, we can face them confidently: Why? Because as I cited earlier from 1 John: “greater is He Who is in us than he that is in the world.”
My pastor, when referring to the Holy Spirit descending like a dove upon Jesus at His water baptism, has frequently recounted how doves are extremely skittish. If you have one perched on your shoulder and want to keep it there, your conscious awareness of that dove influences every move you make to keep it from flying off.
While there is no danger of the Holy Spirit suddenly departing from us for any reason, the principle remains the same. We should be considering every decision, action, and relationship with our intentional awareness of His presence. The more we do that, the greater and greater anointing He can trust us with as we minister to others.
In Closing
I have deliberately avoided the use of the word “doctrine” throughout this article.
Why?
Because we modern-day believers have a strong tendency to intellectually assent to anything having that label, merely agreeing with it in the abstract, rather than embracing that teaching and allowing it to impact our daily lives. 1st-century believers had an entirely different response to that word:
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
Acts 2:42
- continued steadfastly (en proskartereo)
- 1) to adhere to one, be his adherent, to be devoted or constant to one
2) to be steadfastly attentive unto, to give unremitting care to a thing
3) to continue all the time in a place
4) to persevere and not to faint
5) to show one’s self courageous for
6) to be in constant readiness for one, wait on constantly - doctrine (didache)
- teaching; that which is taught; doctrine or teaching concerning something
We flawed humans have a tremendous capacity for taking scriptural principles and relegating them as doctrines to be believed rather than vital aspects of following our living Savior and Lord. There’s a 2-word label for that tendency: comfort zone.
We love comfort zones because, so long as we are snuggling deep inside them, we can avoid that scariest of all God’s demands upon our lives: the need to change.
Selah!
Thanks for reading!
