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"Who Has the Holy Spirit?" (posted July 25, 2015)

   And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
   - Galatians 4:6

All that are born of God, being now in the position of "sons," also have the Spirit dwelling in them. These blessings belong not only to those spiritually advanced, but to all. We will now look at examples of this in the New Testament.

Take the case of the Corinthians. They were yet "carnal" [that is, fleshly, or led by their natural desires], and the apostle could not even address them as spiritual, but as carnal, even as babes in Christ, that is, yet in infancy as to spiritual life (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). Notwithstanding all this, he wrote to them, "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 6:19). This passage ought to be conclusive that the Holy Spirit dwells in all those who are God's people and not only in those who are "spiritual."

Then again, take the example of the Galatians. The saints in Galatia had gotten far away from sound teaching; they lacked intelligence on the first principles of the gospel; they had put themselves under the law, and spiritually they were nothing in advance of what the Jewish people were before the cross of Christ. This was a grave departure from the true principles of the gospel and Christianity, and the apostle saw the seriousness of it.

Notwithstanding all this, pointedly he asks them, "Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Galatians 3:2). Again he says, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law… that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). These verses show us very clearly that all the Galatian Christians, notwithstanding their errors and lack of intelligence, had the Holy Spirit-- and that from the first moment of faith as well as the place of sonship. This is the present birthright of all those born of God (Galatians 4:6).

Albert E. Booth



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