What Is the Fulness of the Spirit? — Peter Brandon

The Fullness of the Spirit and Reliance on Scripture

Tonight we are going to look at what is the fullness of the Spirit. I was going to travel to Scotland a few years ago, and I shall never forget this, and I wanted to go from Bletchley instead of going into London.

So I phoned up the local village station and I said to the station master, I would like to go to Scotland from Bletchley. He knew me, so he said, Mr. Brandon, I'll get the book. So he got the book and he says, according to the book you can get a train at Bletchley that stops at Preston, and from Preston you can get the Royal Scot that takes you right to Glasgow.

So I took all the times and thanked him. Then I saw a man who was a very regular traveller from London to Scotland, and I said to him, I'm going to pick up a train at Bletchley, and I'm going to stop at Preston, and from Preston I'm going to get the Royal Scot to Glasgow.

He says, you never will. He says, I've been travelling for 25 years, I've never known the Royal Scot to stop at Preston. So back to the local station master I went. I said, I think you've misinformed me.

The Royal Scot never stops at Preston. He says, wait a moment, Mr. Brandon, I'll get the book. So he got the book and he says, well, according to the book that I have, it stops at Preston. Well, of course, I was uneasy because in the evening I was to speak at a conference, and I didn't want to miss that.

So I saw another brother that all of you know, a well-known speaker, who was constantly travelling from Scotland to England and England to Scotland, and I said, Albert, I'm getting the Royal Scot at Preston.

He says, you never will. You've been misinformed. It never stops at London, Crewe, Kyle Isle, Glasgow. I went back and said, look, station master, I'm awfully sorry, but you've got your facts all wrong.

He says, I'll get the book. Well, he said, Mr. Brandon, according to the book, it stops at Preston. And then he said this. You can go by your friends if you like. I'm giving you what the book says. Well, I went by the book, but I was very nervous.

And the Bletchley train stopped at Rugby. And there I saw the station master all in his gold braid, and I called him over and said, this stop, this train stops at Preston. Yeah. Then I'm going to pick up the Royal Scot that takes me to Glasgow.

He says, you never will. Well, I could have died in the coach. He says, wait a moment, I'll get the book. And he got the book, and his gold braid hat nearly fell off. Well, he says, at this particular time, according to the book, it stops at Preston.

I went by the book, and I was right. Now, beloved, I'm not going by my Christian friends regarding the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to give you what the book says. And if I give you what the book says, it will be right.

And so tonight, I shall go strictly by the book, I shall read and quote all the scriptures I can, and be sure of this, if we go by the book, we'll be right. So it's Ephesians 5, and we read from verse 14.

Ephesians 5 and the Command to Be Filled With the Spirit

This will be our first reading. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, meaning the dead ones, and I shall give thee light. The word there doesn't mean the light of exposure that we have in verse 8.

The word there is the light of radiancy. See then that she walks circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father.

And in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Now first of all I do want to say with some kind of authority, biblical authority, that it's absolutely vital if we're going to make an impact on the modern world to get back to the experimental meaning of what it means to be filled with the Spirit.

Quite frankly any dead church will not make an impact upon modern society. We must get back to the ministry of the Spirit and to the word of God if we're going to really make an impact upon our nation at this time.

Now my thoughts will be quite simple. First of all I'm going to take up the subject, who is the Holy Spirit? Then I want to take up the subject, what is the fullness of the Spirit? What do we mean by that?

Then I want to take up another subject, how is the fullness of the Holy Spirit procured? And then lastly I want to speak on the subject of what are the evidences of a Spirit-filled life? So who is the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God

Now if we had time to go through Romans 8, and we're going to do that one night, we would find the Apostle saying something like this, that if we have not the Spirit of Christ, we're none of His. Now what does he mean?

When a person becomes a Christian, God does two mighty things in their lives. First of all He cleanses them from sin through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, meaning through His death. And that cleansing is so perfect that it satisfies all the claims of a holy God.

Secondly, when a person has been cleansed from the Holy Spirit, cleansed by the precious blood, the Holy Spirit comes into his life and he is born of God. If someone tonight, after this service, stayed behind, and he felt the bitterness of his own sin and he wanted to turn from them, he believed that Christ died on the cross for his sins, and he was prepared to make Jesus his Saviour and Lord, he could kneel down by those hard forms, and from his heart he could call upon the Lord and ask the Lord to forgive him and save him, and be the Lord of his life.

And then the greatest miracle of all times would take place. His sins would be cleansed and forgiven, into his life there would come the Holy Spirit, and that person will be born of God. And that would mean that the Holy Spirit of God that we are going to talk about tonight, would actually come and live in that person's life.

Now that is basic Christianity. Now there are fourteen titles given to the Holy Spirit, I can only give you three tonight. Number one is called the Spirit of God, that shows us his deity. It's called the Spirit of Christ, that shows to us his objectivity.

And he is called the Holy Spirit, that shows to us his unique identity. Now the Spirit of God. What really makes God, God? Well there are three great attributes. God is omnipresent, we'll explain it in a moment, God is omnipotent, and God is omniscient.

Now what does that mean? You cannot isolate the Almighty God. First of all the scripture tells us that he is outside of time and space, and that he is transcendent. That means he looks at the whole of the starry universe, he looks at the world in which we now live, and he looks at it as a small thing.

In fact we are told by Isaiah that he just sits upon the circle of the earth. God is not only transcendent, but he is also imminent. What does that mean? Everything that God makes, he projects in it his own glory.

So that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse shows forth his anti-works. Therefore everything that you look at will speak to you of the creator God. Now you cannot isolate God and put the Almighty God in the little tram lines of your mind.

He is outside of time and space, he is in it and projects his glory, so is the Holy Spirit. You must never imagine for one moment that the Holy Spirit is an inferior member of the Godhead. In every single detail he is co-equal with God.

In fact we call him the third person of the Trinity. The Scripture never does. This may surprise you, the first defined person to be mentioned in Scripture as a person is the Spirit of God. Now the Word of God makes it quite clear that the Holy Spirit is only present.

That means he is outside of time and space, he is in it and he fills the whole universe with his glory. That's why he can fill hundreds of people at once. The psalmist said something like this, Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

Whither shall I see from him? If I ascend into heaven, he is there. If I descend into hell, he is there. In other words, you cannot escape from him, he fills the whole universe. Secondly, we are told concerning God that he is omnipotent.

That means he has all power, all authority. That's why we read of him saying, Let there be light, and one word from his lips released divine forces that were created. So is the Holy Spirit. All the miracles that you find in the Old Testament were wrought by the Holy Spirit.

When the Lord Jesus was born, the great miracle of the incarnation was the work of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost shall come upon them, and that holy thing shall be called the Son of God. All the miracles that the Lord Jesus did, he did in the power of the Spirit.

That's why in Matthew 4 you read of him being filled with the Spirit. When the Lord Jesus was actually doing his dying, and he was accomplishing the atonement, it was the Holy Spirit who energized him in the dying.

When he was raised from the dead according to Romans 8, it was the Holy Spirit who raised him. When he went back to heaven according to Ephesians 1, it was the power of the Spirit that gave him power to go through principalities and powers.

And so you can see that the Holy Spirit, if I may put it in language that we can understand, is the engineer of God. He is the one that performs all the miracles and all the power. Secondly, the Holy Spirit is omniscient.

You say, where's your scripture for that? In 1 Corinthians 2 we read this. He searches the deep things of God. Think of that. Not just those things that we can understand, but he's able to search the very deep, unfathomable things of God.

Now may I say this as clearly as I can? Never think of the Holy Spirit as an active force. Never think of him as a divine influence. Always think of him as a divine person, and always remember he is co-equal with the Almighty God.

Therefore, we realise now that we are handling a subject that is essentially holy. And it should fill our hearts with awe as we speak on the blessed person of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, he is called the Spirit of Christ.

And this too is seen in Romans 8, verse 9. Now what does that mean? The whole work of the Holy Spirit is not to give you an end, like a gift. The whole work of the Holy Spirit is to give you a hymn, to give you Christ.

Therefore, according to the words of the Lord Jesus, he will not speak from himself, but he will take of the things of Christ and reveal them to you. And that is why when you read the book of Acts, you will see very clearly that when the Lord Jesus was absent and the Holy Spirit was present, the disciples and the apostles knew the Lord Jesus much more intimately then.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit was taking of the things of Christ and revealing it to them. Now how does he want to take the things of Christ and reveal them to us? There are two ways in which you can learn Christ.

And both are important. If you have a good mind, you will read the scriptures, and you will read the scriptures intelligently, and you will meditate upon them. And in your mind you will get a mechanical and an academic knowledge of Christ.

Now that's essential. But that doesn't mean to say you know him intimately. It is only the Holy Spirit that can take that knowledge and so bring that knowledge to you, that Christ comes before you as a living person.

And he comes to you as a living person that lives at God's right hand. And you will notice that you will meet two kinds of people in your Christian pilgrimage. You will meet people that have a good knowledge of the Word, that's excellent.

But then you will meet people that know Jesus Christ intimately, that's better. And the whole work of the Holy Spirit is to make the Lord Jesus absolutely real to you as a person. But then he wants to do something more than that.

He wants to make the Lord Jesus real to you subjectively. Now what does that mean? If you read the Philippian epistle, you will see that the whole point of that epistle is to show to us how we can have the very life of Christ in us and how we can have the mind of Christ in us and how we can have the power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus in us.

Now you have a wonderful personality and God never, never changes your personality. What he wants to do is to beautify and release and liberate your personality. So the Holy Spirit comes into you in order to enrage your personality so that the beauty and the loveliness of the Lord is seen in you.

And that's the most wonderful thing that we shall ever see this side of heaven. Groups of people filled with the beauty of the Lord Jesus. Secondly he wants to come into the local churches that are expressions of the body of Christ and year by year he wants to fill them with the glory of the Lord so that each local company conforms to his image.

You say well I don't quite understand that, let me explain. A person should be able to come to your local church in 1993 and look around and see Christ being formed in the local church or the local assembly.

Then he should be able to come back in three years time and see more of Christ being formed in that local company. And that means all the members moving up to the head. All glorifying the Lord and the body filled with the beauty and the loveliness of the Lord Jesus.

And that's the teaching of Ephesians chapter 4 and also 1 Corinthians 12. Then I must say something about the Holy Spirit. There's a glorious Godhead. It's a great mystery comprised of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Now you might say to me well the word Trinity is never used in the scripture. That is correct but the inferences are strong. You will find it in Genesis 1, 2 and 3. You will find the whole thought in Matthew chapter 3.

When the Lord Jesus was baptised the Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove. And God said this is my beloved Son in whom I find all my delight. So the Father speaks, the Spirit anoints and the objective is Christ the Trinity.

And then when you go to the end of that epistle you find that we are baptised in the name of the Father and the Holy Ghost. And if you want to see the whole thought of the Trinity expanded read the Ephesian epistle and you will see it almost in every chapter.

So we praise God for that glorious Trinity comprised of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Now let's get down to the nitty gritty of the subject. What is the fullness of the Spirit? Well the Ephesian epistle shows you what the fullness is.

Fullness, Sovereignty, Love, and Spiritual Maturity

Turn to chapter 1 and you will see how the Apostle uses the word. Chapter 1 verse 22. And hath put all things under his feet, that's the Lord Jesus, and gave him to be head over all things to the church.

Now that basically is the subject that's before him. Which is his body, the fullness of him with all in all. Now can you see the word fullness and the word philos is associated with headship. Headship is associated with sovereignty.

And therefore when a person or a company of people are filled with the Spirit they come under the sovereignty of the Lord. Now that's clear. Now if you turn to the third chapter he uses the word in another way.

Verse 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Now note that word because we are going to discuss it in a few moments. That he being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend. That means to apprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth.

And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that he might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.

So fullness is associated with power. And power is associated with love. So when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit is filled with love. And love is the secret of God's power. Therefore when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit he comes under the mighty authority of love.

Isn't that wonderful. Now when we come to the fourth chapter we see another expression of fullness. Would you look at verse 12. For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And there you can see the perfect man means the matured man.

And therefore when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit he is filled with maturity. Now could I say this in passing. I do not believe that a Christian really begins to grow until he is filled with the Spirit.

And then he grows into maturity. And he moves into various forms of maturity. You see there is no end to it. So that the Apostle Paul could say that I might know him and the power of his resurrection.

The fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. Now we have seen on the surface what basically he means by this word fullness. It's subject to sovereignty, authority, it brings you into maturity.

Conversion, New Birth, and the Reality of Spiritual Life

Now let's ask the big question. If every Christian indwelt with the Holy Spirit. If we went through the book of the Acts we would be in deep water. You say what? Two manifestation is different from Acts 8.

Acts 8 manifestation is different from Acts 9. Acts 9 is different from Acts 10. An Acts 10 manifestation is different from Acts 9. Now if you are going to build a doctrine on that. What manifestation are you going to choose?

You see you must remember this in the book of the Acts. It's Christianity coming out of Judaism. Therefore it's a progressive book. But when you come to the epistles it's all settled. When he writes to the Romans he says if we have not the Spirit of Christ we are none of his.

That means we are not Christians. Again when he writes to the Ephesians he makes it perfectly clear in the first chapter. After he believed he was filled with the Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of your inheritance.

Then when you come to Galatians 3 he argues how did you receive the Holy Spirit? By the works of the law or the hearing of faith. Now what was the hearing of faith? It was the hearing of the gospel. So from the epistles it's clear and settled.

The moment you're saved you are born of the Spirit and you have within you a divine person. But now I must say something that's a little dangerous. I don't want to dislodge people from the faith. But when a person becomes a Christian we must make sure it's not a mechanical profession.

And I'm quite sure of this that many who sit around the Lord's table in various parts of the world have never yet really been born again of the Spirit because there's no spiritual life in them. Now we have seen who the Spirit of God is.

He is co-equal with the eternal God. And when he comes into your life there will be manifestations of his presence. How can you tell a profession? When a person is truly saved first of all he hears information about the gospel.

He hears about personal sin, personal judgment. He hears how that Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world. He hears how that he must receive Christ as his Saviour and Lord to be saved and forgiven.

But you know it's much deeper than just hearing. Then there comes a moment in your experience when God convicts you so that your sins become all personal, painful. And then they're pointed. You say, what do you mean by that?

You realise they're all directed to God. And you realise you're under judgment and there's deep anxiety. Then there comes a time in your experience when you're listening to the cross and God says to that mind, let there be light.

First time you see that Christ died for your sins. And then you feel like weeping. My sins put him on the cross. The Lord loved me unto death. And then you find your heart moved. And then after that there's your responsibility.

You receive Christ as your Saviour. You receive him as your Sovereign. And then you're born of God. Now, if that is missing and the conversion is mechanical then all you have is a profession. You have a form of godliness but no power.

But if it's the real work of the Spirit of God then it's deep and it's genuine. Now I'm not saying that all of us have to be Philippian jailers. For instance, when the Philippian jailer got saved he was going to commit suicide.

He cried out, what must I do to be saved? And it was all dramatic. When little Lydia got converted it was quiet. The set of breezes blew upon her. And quietly she received the Lord Jesus as her Saviour and Lord.

Now we do not all have to have the same feelings. For instance, if he had used the earthquake on Lydia poor little thing, she would have died with a heart failure. She couldn't stand that. And if he had blown with severed breezes upon the Philippian jailer he would have said, ooh, there's someone tickling me.

So God uses one thing for one man, another thing for another person. But they all had conviction, they all had revelation and they all received Christ. And they were indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Now the scripture is clear then.

Awareness of the Indwelling Spirit

Now the second question is more tantalizing. Is every Christian aware of the Holy Spirit? Now I must turn you now to a scripture. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Flee fornication, I'm reading from verse 18. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body but he that commits fornication sins against his own body.

What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God and ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.

Now that little expression, what? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God and ye are not your own. Now when Paul went to Ephesus he found a group of disciples that were following John the Baptist and they were influenced by a brilliant teacher whose name was Apollos.

And the Apostle Paul couldn't decipher whether they were Christian or not. Now what was his acid test? Have you been baptized by immersion? No. Have you a letter of commendation? No. What did he say? Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?

Now that was the identifying question. Now when he writes to the Corinthians and he knew that they had received the Holy Spirit because he had led many of them to the Lord and some of them were living lives that were immoral he did not say to them have you received the Holy Ghost?

Now note the difference. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God and ye are not your own. In other words, haven't you got your eyes open yet to see that the Holy Spirit is within you?

On one occasion I took my car to the filling station filled it up with diesel went to fill in my pocket from my wallet and it wasn't there. If the ground could have opened it would have been a pleasure because the man in the filling station knew I was a Christian.

I walked round the car three times asking for help but nothing came. Well I said I'll have to go in and tell him and it was some distance from my home that I'd filled up the tank and I'd got my money.

So I thought what could I leave him? Well I had nothing to leave him. I don't think I had a watch on. So in my dilemma you know how you go, you put your hands in your pockets and there was nothing there and then I put my hand in my rear pocket and I felt some paper and I pulled it out and there was a ten pound note.

I couldn't help it, they thought I was mad. I said praise the Lord. Now it was there all the time. You see at that moment an angel didn't come and put it there. I didn't call it a baptism. It was there all the time but I'd just got my eyes open and all the joy.

Now there comes a time when you sit in a meeting like this and God opens your eyes to see that the Spirit is within you and you say praise the Lord. My body is the inner shrine of the Holy Ghost. And then you realise that you're infinitely holy and that's not an exaggeration.

You're infinitely holy. Every part of your body is God's inner temple. But is awareness fullness? No. What then is fullness? There's a classical example given in Acts 4. Would you turn to it? And then we see this lovely case of the fullness of the Spirit.

Fullness as Consecrated Submission to Christ

Verse 24. When Peter and John were released from prison perhaps we ought to read from verse 23. We read this. And being let go they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.

Acts 4 verse 23. And when they heard that they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said Lord. Now the word is very strong. It's suffering Lord. If you have an NIV you will notice that they put in the word suffering Lord.

If you have a Newberry Bible you will see that he puts it in the margin suffering Lord. And you will notice with Mr. Darby he does the same. And that's how it should be written. Suffering Lord Thou art God which hath made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is.

Now because of our limited time we haven't got really the time to look at the details of this prayer. Would you look at verse 31. And when they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Now you will notice they did not pray for the filling of the Spirit. They prayed that they might heal in the name of that Holy Spirit Jesus and they prayed that God would give them boldness that would be the very thing that would put them back into prison but they prayed for it.

But you see when they had prayed the place was shaken and Luke tells us they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Now why? Because they addressed the Lord honestly as Suffering Lord. Now in order to see the real mechanics of that word would you now turn to 1 Timothy chapter 6.

And you'll see the real jaggedness of that word. 1 Timothy 6 verse 1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke that's the yoke of slavery count their own masters worthy of all honour that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

The word masters there is exactly the same word Suffering Lord. Now can you see the point we're driving at? Let as many slaves who are under the yoke meaning the yoke of slavery count their own Sovereign Lords worthy of all honour.

These slaves were bought from 8 to 30 pieces of silver and when they were bought they never addressed their master as foreman always by this word Suffering Lord. So when these early Christians came together they loved the Lord so much that they were enslaved to him.

And when they prayed they not only called him Lord but they called him Suffering Lord. And that meant they were all under the yoke. And to put that very simply it simply meant that they were all completely consecrated to the Lord.

And the secret of a Spirit filled life is not so much your relationship to the Spirit but your relationship to that lovely man at God's right hand. And when you can honestly call him Suffering Lord be sure of this you'll be filled with the Spirit.

In fact the more you make him Suffering Lord the greater the fullness will be. Now I can almost hear someone saying and so many have challenged me with this statement that I must mention it they say now look Peter the church is in a carnal state, that's right.

We're grovelling in the dust, that's correct. How can we get from a state where we're carnal to a state where we can say Suffering Lord? Well my dear friends, the first step is hunger. Psalm 42, don't turn to this, let me quote it.

It says as the heart pants after the water brook so pants my soul after thee. Matthew chapter 5 says Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. John chapter 7 says and the Lord Jesus is the speaker if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink and out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.

Let me speak of the Holy Ghost for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified. Can you see it? Hunger, thirst. Now here's a sad and then a glad stand. We go to some people where we can never speak to them about the Holy Spirit.

No hunger. Material things and worldly things have so filled their hearts that all hunger has gone and that means God's people are dying. And then we go to another group of people and you begin to almost hear an inarticulate groan like this.

I've read the scriptures. I love the Word of God but there's something in those first century Christians that I haven't got. There's a power there that I know nothing at all about. And I'm hungry. I'm thirsty.

We've heard people say this in prayer. Lord I don't want to be, I don't want to live. Until you've met with me in power. That's hunger. I wonder can I speak to some of you or on behalf of some of you.

Would there be some here you've been reading through the scriptures and you've not been critical, thank God for that and you've quietly said this. Lord there's something missing in my life and I'm hungry.

Are you there? Now the moment God stimulates a hunger for something deeper, something better, hear me. But if you are satisfied with a mediocre form of Christianity He can leave you. That's why we all need to be hungry for the deeper things of God.

Exposure, Confession, and Spiritual Self-Examination

The second step is exposure. Now let's turn to the scriptures in order to see this. And he went right up to his mother. He looked right into her face and there was a tear. He says mum you're crying, what's that for?

She said you. And he broke down and wept and wept. The slipper hardened him. The tear broke him. There comes a time when you go into the presence of God and you genuinely say this. Lord I've been grieving this.

Grieving the spirit of God. Perhaps I've been doing it for years. Go over my life completely. Search me. Show me everything in my life that's wrong. Help me now to study the scriptures, not to be clever, to be good and I'm willing to search the word of God so as to discover those things that are wrong in my life.

I do not want to sadden thee again. Blessed spirit of God. And there's a time of exposure. Now can I give you some advice here too? Be careful of morbid introspection. That can give you a mental breakdown.

We don't want that. After a time of healthy introspection go into the presence of the Lord. Claim cleansing that comes through the blood that's once and for all that never has to be repeated. And then claim that if you confess your sin it's faithful and just to forgive you to forgive you of your sin and claim it completely.