The Necessity of the Spirit's Indwelling

Luke 11 and the Spirit’s Indwelling in the Old Testament

With that, please turn to Luke 11. I figure since we had taken a break from Isaiah for the past two weeks, and next week I won't be in Isaiah because likely— well, the plan is for Josh to preach in the afternoon—I figure we continue looking at some other things.

And we've mentioned that it would be useful to use this afternoon's service for the occasional topical message to address theological issues that come up, as opposed to just going sequence by sequence in Scripture.

I still want to present the Scripture to you, certainly, but yeah, we have a particular topic in mind, so we come to this. Please stand for the reading of God's Word. Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.

And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation.

And he said to them, which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him, and he will answer from within.

Do not bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get it up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be open, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent, or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

You may be seated. Let's pray. Sorry, just a second. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you would open our eyes to understand this word, that you would, by your Spirit, stir us up to understand the truths that you have for us.

I pray that this passage would be clear, that this doctrine would be clear, and that we would understand your Spirit. In Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so last week I was preaching on the passage in 1 Thessalonians 5.

It says, do not quench the Spirit. And I thought— and one of the things that I had said was that a lot of people criticize Reformed churches for having a low view of the Spirit, but I would contend that we have an especially high view of the Spirit.

And I was think—as I was thinking about that, I actually encountered several times in my reading this past week people who talked about the Spirit very lowly, and I thought that this was a appropriate time to explain how I think that our understanding of the Spirit of God is especially high.

In particular, the question I would like you to consider is, did the Holy Spirit dwell within people in the Old Testament, or is that simply a New Testament phenomenon? A lot of people will tell you that the Holy Spirit only dwells within people since the New Testament, since Pentecost.

I believe it is a necessary biblical truth for the Holy Spirit to dwell in the saints and God's people, even in the Old Testament. And that this distinctive of Reformed theology is an especially high view of the Spirit, because what it essentially says, because Christ is necessary, the Holy Spirit's application of him is necessary, such that we would not—we would not be able to do with a lesser application of the Son of God to our lives.

That if the Holy Spirit were not with us, in us continually and permanently, we would not have hope. So certainly there is new work of the Spirit in the New Testament that you see at Pentecost, but it is still the case that even in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was indwelling in the saints.

Defining the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

Now, it's— it's sort of necessary for me to kind of spell out all the parameters of this before diving into the passage. So as we look at the passage, that's—we're not going to be able to spend too much time in it, but I want to give you some of the key things that are at stake when you think about this.

First of all, let's just consider definitions. What do we mean by the indwelling of the Spirit? Now, there are different answers, because the Bible doesn't actually use that phrase, indwelling. That's just something that we talk about, given some of the metaphors that the Bible uses about the Spirit being in people.

But the phrase, you know, that English phrase, indwelling, is never used. So what does that mean for the Spirit to indwell? First of all, one option is that it's, you know, that He is physically located within us.

Now, there's an obvious problem with that, which is that the Holy Spirit is being God, He is omnipresent. And the more technical term is He is immense. He has no limits. So there is no place that He particularly is more than any other place in a physical sense.

So His presence, when it talks about the Holy Spirit's presence, it must be an ethical presence. That is a special location of His favor. Okay? It's not that He's physically located one place and not another.

Now, with other spirits, that may be. You see, you know, it talks about Satan roaming the earth. You have notions of various spirits being in different places, and they are not omnipresent. They are not immense like the Spirit of God.

But the Spirit of God, being Himself deity, does not have boundaries. So when we're talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we're talking about not His physical presence or physical location, but we're talking about His ethical presence.

Secondly, another option for what the indwelling of the Spirit is, is it instead— is it instead a permanent residence with a person? So a lot of people imagine, oh, well now the Spirit of God is—permanently resides with believers, whereas before it was not permanent, and it could be the case that you could lose the Spirit.

Now, what does that say about all the things the Bible teaches of about salvation, that it is a work of God, that eternal life is not something that is eternal theoretically, and then, you know, later may be lost so that it wasn't really eternal in the first place.

But eternal life is something that we may have, so that when we have it, we know that we indeed have a life that is eternal, that will last forever. Philippians 1 -6 says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Now, if that verse is true now, there's absolutely no reason why it wouldn't be true before as well. God, who begins a work, finishes his work. And anyone who already is convinced of the permanence of salvation, the perseverance of the saints, there is no room to say that, oh, well now the Spirit permanently dwells with people, but then they could have him.

You could change their hearts and then be lost. Another option is you could say, well, the Spirit was permanent then and permanent now with a residing with a believer, but now he is covenant bound to continue residing, and then he was not because you don't have the inauguration of the new covenant.

Well, even though the new covenant had not been inaugurated because Christ had not yet died, it was still in effect. Hebrews 9 -15, Romans 3 -25 -26 both declare that the way that Old Testament saints were staved were still by their faith in that coming Messiah, still by their faith in Jesus Christ, and by his blood.

And so they were still recipients of that gracious covenant. And so if we say that he was covenant bound to reside with believers, that he's covenant bound to reside with believers now, but not covenant bound to reside with believers then, what we have are people being saved by the Spirit under some different mechanism, under some different covenant.

And if the new covenant is the covenant made in Christ's blood, you have people being saved by some other covenant, by some other blood, perhaps the blood of bulls and goats, but Hebrews 10 -4 says blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins.

A fourth option is that by the indwelling we mean the continual assistance of the Holy Spirit. So perhaps he is with someone in the Old Testament permanently, but then only at various times where now it is a continual thing.

That has problems. Once again, if you just have a punctiliar application of Christ by the Spirit, if you just have a punctiliar application of God's grace, then what power do we have to continue living in newness of life?

It is only through him that we can have—that we can be stirred up to good works. It is only through him, the Spirit, that we have that we have that application of the Son of God. And if we need Jesus every hour, every moment, we need his Spirit every hour, every moment.

And to say that someone could live a sufficient life as a Son of God, apart from the continual work of the Spirit, is to posit Pelagianism, you know, the idea that we of our own flesh, our own nature, are able to do what is pleasing to God apart from the Spirit's work.

Galatians 3, 3 says, Are you so foolish? Have you begun by the Spirit to continue to be perfected by the flesh? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Paul pointed out to the Galatians that this is foolishness to say that, yes, the Spirit started the work, but now we of our own natures are going to continue the work.

You see, the Spirit of God, his indwelling was absolutely necessary in the Old Testament as well as the New. And what you see in the New Testament is not a new indwelling, but it is a new outpouring. So the Spirit of God is doing the same work that he had done before, but in a greater, new way.

So that rather than especially blessing, you know, priests and prophets and kings to do that work, Jesus Christ being our prophet, priest, and king, making us a royal priesthood, we all have that Spirit of God in that measure so that we no longer rely on these special offices of prophet and priest and king among the ranks of men.

The Spirit in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and James

I'd like you to consider what some other verses say about this. Romans—. Romans in chapter 8 speaks of the work of the Spirit. It says in verse 9,. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.

He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. You see, life comes from the Spirit who dwells in us. And as Jesus said of the resurrection, he's not the God of the dead, but of the living.

And so if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had trusted in this coming Messiah, if they were God's people and they had life, how is it that they could have true eternal life apart from the Spirit of God dwelling within them?

These blessings and promises, they are not just a nice-to-have. They are absolutely essential to walk as a son of God. First Corinthians chapter 2—and I apologize for running all over the Bible, but I think it's necessary to address this topic well.

Verse 12 says, and First Corinthians 2,. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Okay, so how is it that we understand these spiritual truths? It's by the Spirit who is from God. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. And he had just defined what the mind of Christ was.

The Spirit of God is that mind of Christ that we have. If that were just an initial thing where he changes us and then leaves us or is, you know, outside of us, to use this spatial metaphor, so that we no longer have him, we would no longer have the mind of Christ, so that we could accept the things of God.

We would not be able to accept the things of the Spirit of God. They would be folly to us, and the same would apply to the Old Testament saints. If they were not indwelled by the Spirit of God, then perhaps they would accept these things for a moment, but then they would not be able to continue to, as they would not continue to have the Spirit of God, who is the mind of Christ.

There's one other quick passage I'd like to have you think about, and originally I was going to make this the main preaching text, but I decided it's better to do this one in Luke 11. But James 4 .5 says, Now, in the ESV, that's not capitalized, but I believe it ought to be capitalized, and many interpreters believe that this is the Spirit of God that it's being referred to here.

I think that's a quite a sound interpretation. And James, most likely being the first New Testament book written, when it's talking about Scripture, it's not talking about one of the other New Testament books.

It's talking about the Old Testament. Now, there's no particular verse that it's referring to or none that people can, you know, pinpoint. And so the implication seems to be that what it's saying is that everywhere in the Old Testament, it declares that He has made the Spirit to dwell in us.

To focus on…. Now, it certainly is the case that the Spirit's work is more evident and spoken of more in the New Testament, as it has become a greater work at Pentecost, as it is—as He has been outpoured in greater measure, but to look at that and to look at the explicit way that He is addressed by the New Testament and then to say, well, He dwells in the New Testament, but not in the Old, just on this, you know, biblicist meaning, you know, this very narrow, without context interpretation of Scripture.

If we were to say that, that's like saying, well, you know, today people need oxygen in order to breathe, but before oxygen was discovered, you know, I don't see any books that people actually breathe oxygen, so therefore they must not have needed oxygen back then.

That's not how this works. Oxygen was always needed, regardless of whether or not oxygen was ever specifically, explicitly explained by scientists. Same way, even if the Old Testament does not explicitly talk about the mechanisms of the Spirit, even though I believe it does speak of the Spirit often and our need for Him, that does not mean that the people of old did not, if they were sons of God, did not need and live by the Spirit of God.

Dwelling within them. Now, once again, before going to the text, there's a, there are a number of of texts in John that people used to say the opposite, to say this can't be true, that the Spirit didn't indwell saints in the Old Testament.

And I'd like to, I'd like to go through some of those. John 7, 39 says, Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not yet been given, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Now, so here you have this verse that says the Spirit was not yet given. Doesn't that say that, you know, we have the Spirit dwelling in us now, but they did not? Well, I don't think there's anyone who would take, who would take such a strict interpretation all the way and then say, if you were to go that way, you would have to say something like, well, we have the Spirit now, but since he wasn't given then, they didn't have him at all.

Now, no one is claiming that, but if they're going to take this verse that way, it would seem that they would have to claim the same thing. Instead, all this verse is saying is that there is some new work of the Spirit that had not yet begun.

It is that outpouring that I had already mentioned. Okay, that is, that is all this is saying. This isn't saying that, when it's talking about the Spirit being given, this isn't saying, oh, before, you know, whatever, whatever, however we define the Spirit's work, you know, that continual, permanent, covenant-bound ethical presence that that was lacking in the Old Testament.

This says no such thing. All it lets us know is there is some greater work that he'll be doing at Pentecost. The next is John 14, 6 -7. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Now, unfortunately, I believe I put this down wrong. Oh, no, that's supposed to be, sorry, it's supposed to be 16 and 17.

Those verses went together so well, though. Verse 16. Now, this seems like a passage that, once again, is saying, oh, he's with you now, but he will be in you later. I'd like to remind you, the Holy Spirit is omnipresent.

He is immense. So when we appeal to the spatial metaphor, we, once again, have to be asking ourselves, what does it mean? Does it mean what detractors would claim? You know, people who believe that the Spirit did not reside with people in any kind of permanent, covenant-bound, continual manner in the Old Testament?

It says no such thing. And look at, and, you know, consider those pronouns, with and in. If you go through the book of John and you look at all the times these are used in some kind of relational context— you know, us being in Christ and with Christ, etc the point is not a physical location, right?

The point is an intimacy. Now, there is no reason to reject the idea that the Spirit has a greater intimacy with believers in the New Testament as there has been a greater outpouring. However, once again, if we define indwelling in any meaningful way that's not spatial, we have to acknowledge that every one of those aspects of the Spirit is still required in the Old Testament, and this passage in no way says otherwise, even if it uses that spatial pronoun, with and in.

These are metaphorical and do not imply anything more than an intimacy with the Spirit. The last one before we get to our main passage. John 20, 21 through 23 says, So here Jesus is breathing on the Apostles, and he gives them the Spirit.

Now, once again, it seems like, well, they didn't have the Spirit before and now they do. No, that would be a real problem for multiple reasons, one of them being, well, isn't he going to give him the Spirit again at Pentecost?

Wouldn't you have to then say at Pentecost, well, he didn't really give him the Spirit now because he has to give it to him then again at Pentecost. Once again, this is just referring to a new work, and particularly it is that blessing and power and authority to conduct the work of the Church in what Jesus describes as apostles sent out to establish the Church, to declare who it is who has been forgiven, and to declare who it is who has not been forgiven.

You know, this is a very similar phrase to what you see in Matthew. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So he's declaring that apostolic authority to make these declarations on the behalf of Christ.

They need Christ's authority. They have that by the anointing, by a special anointing of the Holy Spirit. That does not mean that he was not already working in them. Okay. Now, having considered all those things, let me go ahead and open up Luke.

And as we go there, I'll just say that, you know, it's like if I had a blueprint, if I had multiple blueprints as I'm going to build something, you know, and there's a building here with some shrubbery out front, you know, architecture diagrams.

Sometimes if they're drawn from the side, they'll have, like, shrubbery or hypothetical things you could put out front. And, you know, if I have another building that says a shed goes where one of these shrubs is supposed to go, I wouldn't sit there and say, well, you know, I don't know how to resolve these things, but I see a shrub here.

I know there must be a shrub, and therefore this is the right way to do it. I'm going to plant a shrub here. And then when the time comes to build the building, the shrub is in the way. And it's like, why did you build a shrub there?

This is a good analogy for how we have to read scripture. These spatial analogies about one who is omnipresent, about one who is immense without measure, those metaphors cannot be the thing that controls everything else.

It's like the shrubbery. Anyone who looks at one of these diagrams knows that the shrubs are just artistic suggestions and imaginations. They're designed to aid the memory. They're not designed to aid the imagination.

They're not designed to be part of the blueprint that tells you exactly what things are happening. And so with these spatial metaphors about the Spirit, that is not supposed to be the trolling feature that throws aside the rest of the theology that we have about the Spirit's importance, as Christ is continually and permanently important to us to be applied to us continually and permanently.

One must control the other, and that understanding of the Spirit that is everywhere didactically, meaning in a clear teaching fashion explained, has to be the controlling feature that tells us how to understand one or two verses that use spatial prepositions.

The Lord’s Prayer as a Pattern for Asking for the Spirit

All right, let's look at our passage, and I might not reread the whole thing, but in Luke 11, I want to just read the Lord's Prayer. If this doesn't sound like how you remember the Lord's Prayer, that's because you're probably used to the Lord's Prayer from Matthew, but Luke, it's rendered a little differently.

Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. Now, it continues on.

He gives—Jesus gives several analogies about what it looks like to pray well, to pray persistently. You know, even someone who's your friend, their friendship isn't enough for them to get out of bed, but if you knock on their door enough times, they're going to get out of bed.

You know, God is so much better than a friend. He's so much closer than a friend, and he will give you if you repeatedly knock. And the same thing for, you know, a father who's asked for a fish, the father does not give to their son a serpent.

The father does not give a rock instead of an egg when his son asks for an egg. God is a good God who gives far more, who gives good things. He knows how to answer every good request. And so Jesus, having given the Lord's prayer and then explained how the Lord's prayer ought to be offered, he then says this final thing, which I find a little surprising, and I'm hoping you see why.

In verse 13 it says,. If then you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Now, we have been talking about asking for an egg or asking for a fish or asking for daily bread, and here he talks about the Holy Spirit.

The takeaway here is that the Holy Spirit is the primary thing, he is the primary one we are to be praying for in these petitions given in the Lord's prayer. Each one of these is asking for the work of the Spirit, either in our lives or the lives of others.

Father, hallowed be your name. You know, may we recognize your name as holy. May others recognize your name as holy. We are asking for the Spirit of God to work in us. Your kingdom come. We are asking for the Spirit of God to move forward, to do great works.

Give us each day our daily bread. You know, Jesus says in Matthew 6, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. You know, as you consider the very physical daily bread, these things are added implicitly as we seek the kingdom of God.

As we pray this prayer, we are not to go directly here, but we are to pray primarily for the Spirit of God to do as he wills, to bless us, to dwell in us, to stir our souls rightly, and that once we have done that, as we seek the kingdom of God, to do everything else.

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. You know, asking for forgiveness, that is most certainly an application of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit applies Christ's death and resurrection to us.

We ask not to be led into temptation. We're asking for the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and give us guidance. These are all, in the end, they are all petitions for the work of the Spirit within us. And as Christ gives us the model for how to pray, this is not a new kind of prayer that is only for the New Testament.

This is describing a prayer that is the model prayer for all time. Just like when Jesus says, for example, you know, a new commandment I give you, you should love your neighbor as I have loved you, you should love one another as I have loved you.

What's new about that is only the demonstration that we have in Jesus Christ. The fact that we are to love others is nothing new. As John says in 1 John, it is both a new commandment and an old commandment.

Same here. This is a new prayer, but it is an old prayer. It is a prayer that people should have been praying as saints of God, as his sons, at all times. And it is a prayer you see. Just to throw out one verse, Psalm 51, Psalm 51 11, says, David was praying for the Spirit of God.

The saints of old prayed for the Spirit of God, and the Bible says that God is a good Father who gives his Spirit to those who ask. The Spirit of God is not just some New Testament operator. He operated in the Old Testament as well, even if it was in a lessened measure compared to what we see post-Pentecost.

We need to recognize this, and in recognizing the need for the Spirit in the Old Testament, what that tells us, once again, is our need for the Spirit now. If you can imagine that people could survive without the Holy Spirit then, then you can easily imagine that we could do the same without the Holy Spirit now, that we have his work in our lives occasionally, and, you know, that's good enough.

I just need him here and there. No, you need him every minute of every hour, because you need Christ of every minute of every hour, and he is the one who applies Christ to our lives. Consider this as you pray, that you ought to be praying like Jesus says in his instruction on his own prayer, the Lord's Prayer.

You need to be praying for the Spirit. You are in need of him. Do not quench the Spirit. Call out to him, and God, who is a merciful God, will give you the Spirit. That Spirit, any temptation, any sin you are struggling with in your life, any difficulty, what you need to do is seek first the kingdom of God, which means seeking his Spirit, and then all these things will be added to you.

You know, if you have a fancy car that requires special gas, and you go and you put the other kind of gas in it, you probably won't notice too much. You know, it'll keep working to some degree, but there will be things going on, and an expert would recognize, you know, this isn't working exactly like it should.

This isn't… you're not getting the most performance out of it, etc. You know, that's what it's like to be a New Testament person who believes we have the Spirit's indwelling, but doesn't understand that the Holy Spirit's indwelling was necessary in the Old Testament too.

You're not going to appeal to him and, you know, you might just be like the person at the gas station picking the hoses randomly, not knowing that you are to be coming to this particular hose every single time.

We need the Spirit in a way that's so profound and continual and permanent. It's not just this extra blessing that we get in New Testament times. It is something that is a continual need of ours. I'd like you to consider one more thing in this chapter, that Jesus, after having given this prayer, if you jump down later, it says in verse 24, when the unclean spirit—this is talking about demon possession—when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none, it says, I will return to my house from which I came.

And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.

A couple of things Matthew adds to this passage. Matthew has the same similar passage, and it says…it talks about the person being empty, and it talks about…it also says that this applies to this generation, that this generation is worse off than before.

Consider what is being said here. Jesus is saying that apart from having the Spirit of God, you are open to every attack. You are open to demonic possession, even. And that one who does not have the Spirit of God has no hope of contending for his own life in a world of spiritual threats.

This is not some new truth post-Pentecost. This is a truth as ancient as the Fall. And if that generation were in danger because they have rejected the Spirit of God, they needed the Spirit of God already.

Those who truly followed Jesus, or those who truly followed God even prior to Jesus coming to earth, those people were asking God for his Spirit and receiving that indwelling, that permanent, continual, covenant-bound, ethical presence of him.

And we are these houses. You have to ask yourself, are you an empty house? Are you a house full of the Spirit that no other spirit could come and dwell in? And what is in your house? How are you? How are you going to live?

Is your house one that is open to all kinds of spiritual activity, or is your one full of the Holy Spirit of God who turns us to Christ that we might recognize our need for him, our continual need for him, stir us up to offer him ourselves so that Christ may mediate us to the Father and our Father look on us in him and see the perfect righteousness of Christ?

That is the kind of house we need to be, and that is the kind of house anyone who stands before God needs to be. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for just the great blessing it is to be told these things in Scripture.

You do not have to explain these things to us. You are not obligated to tell us much about who you are or who your Spirit is, and yet you have. And we thank you for all that guidance, and I pray that this understanding would lead us, especially in our prayers this evening, or this afternoon, as we come to you and we have some great needs today.

As we come to you with these great needs, I pray that we would be seeking first the kingdom of God and that all these things would be added to us, that we would follow your instruction, and that we would understand our need for the Spirit, which is our need for Christ.

In his name, amen.