The Holy Spirit Fills Us with the Presence of the Triune God

Have you ever thought about these three things together: salvation, the Holy Spirit, and God’s presence? We often consider salvation to be the forgiveness of our sins, the new birth, being declared “not guilty but righteous instead,” rescue from hell, and receiving the gospel through repentance and faith in Christ—all of which are true! Regarding the Holy Spirit, we may believe that he’s the “forgotten God,” a divine power within us, something for Pentecostals and charismatics but not us Baptists, or an ethereal being somewhat like Casper the Ghost—all of which are not true!1 As for God’s presence, we usually think of a future blessing that we Christians will experience after we die and our soul goes to be with the Lord in heaven—which is partly true and partly not true!

How would you react, then, if I were to tell you that the greatest gift that God gives to us in our salvation is the Holy Spirit so that, as he fills us, we can experience the greatest blessing of salvation, which is the presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?

Let me show you what I mean by each of these three key themes.

THE GREATEST GIFT OF GOD IN SALVATION

Look at the following two versions of Jesus’s teaching about the goodness of God the Father. In both accounts, Jesus is drawing a comparison between human (yet sinful) parents and our heavenly Father. The first is from the Gospel of Matthew: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matt 7:11 ESV, italics added). The second is from the Gospel of Luke, which features a slight yet important difference: “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?” (Luke 11:13, italics added). Like earthly parents, who give good gifts to their children, God the Father gives good gifts to us his children. Luke focuses on one of those gifts: like earthly parents, who give good gifts to their children, our heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to us his children.

give good gifts

give the Holy Spirit

Here’s my thesis: the greatest gift that God the Father gives to those who embrace salvation through his Son is the Holy Spirit.

I can already hear your objection: “NO! NO! NO! The greatest gift that God gives is salvation itself!” And I totally agree with you! But notice what I propose: the greatest gift that the Father gives to those who have already received the great gift of salvation in the Son is the Holy Spirit.

The greatest gift of God in salvation is the Holy Spirit.

Certainly, this gift includes the mighty acts of the Spirit in saving us, including conviction of sin (John 16:8–11), regeneration or the new birth (John 3:1–8; Titus 3:4–7), adoption into God’s family (Gal 4:4–7), assurance of salvation (Rom 8:14–16), sanctification (2 Thess 2:13; 1 Pet 1:2), and our future resurrection (Rom 8:11). But more importantly, and standing behind his saving works in our life, is the Holy Spirit himself—the “Father’s promise” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4; 2:33) and “the gift” (Acts 2:38; 10:45; 11:17).

THE FILLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

What does God expect us to do with this gift? How are we to use this gift? Listen to the apostle Paul’s directive:

Don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. (Eph 5:18–21)

Notice four key Paul’s instruction: [2]

points for understanding

• Its mood is imperative. It’s not a promise. It’s not a suggestion. Rather, it’s a command to be obeyed:

“be filled with the Spirit.”

• Its tense is present. It’s an ongoing command: “keep on being filled with the Spirit” (paraphrase).

• Its voice is passive. It’s not an active voice imperative (e.g., “transform this outdated room”), so it does not call for some action on our part. Rather, it’s a passive voice imperative (e.g., “let this outdated room be transformed”), so it calls for receptivity, for a certain posture or disposition.

• The expected or intended response to this command is for us to yield to the Holy Spirit, to be controlled—pervaded or permeated—by the Spirit in all our ways, to consciously place ourselves under the guidance of the Spirit moment by moment. Such yieldedness to the Holy Spirit will be evidenced as together we experience genuine community (“speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”), engage in sincere worship (“singing and making music with your heart to the Lord”), express gratitude in every circumstance (“giving thanks always for everything”), and love and honor one another through mutual submission (“submitting to one another in the fear of Christ”).

In addition to Ephesians 5:18, which uses the language of “being filled with the Spirit,” Paul employs similar expressions in his other letters to exhort us toward this ongoing posture of yieldedness to the Spirit. When we “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16), we are prompted to do the will of God rather than fulfill the desires of our sinful nature, and we bear “the fruit of the Spirit”: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22–23). Paul adds,

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal 5:25). He uses similar language in Romans 8:4–6, encouraging us to walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

We appropriate and enjoy the gift of the Holy Spirit by being filled with the Spirit, walking by or according to the Spirit, living by the Spirit, and keeping in step with the Spirit. Our posture is one of yieldedness—or submission—to the Holy Spirit and his guidance in our life.

THE GREATEST BLESSING OF SALVATION: THE PRESENCE OF THE TRIUNE GOD3

As we are filled with the Holy Spirit, he fills us with the presence of the God who is three persons. Notice that I said “fills” (present tense) to indicate that the greatest blessing of salvation is not reserved for after our death, when we go to be with the Lord in heaven. Rather, the greatest blessing of salvation is the triune God’s presence in us and in our church that begins now as we live for him in this earthly life.

As Michael Horton explains, “Through the Spirit’s operation, all three persons come near to us and bring us into their fellowship.”4 It is specifically the Holy Spirit who brings about this personal presence of the triune God (this is the divine aspect), and we experience it through faith (this is the human aspect).

Paul emphasizes these two aspects in his prayer for the Ephesians: “I pray that he [God the Father] may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph 3:16–17). Through the Holy Spirit, Christ dwells in us (the divine side) through faith (the human side). Jesus himself pledges, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23, italics added). Jesus promises that if we love and obey him (the human side), both the Father and the Son will dwell in us (the divine side). But how is this pledge fulfilled?

Immediately before this promise, Jesus assures his disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. . . . You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16–17, italics added). Thus, the presence of both the Father and the Son in us is associated with the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in us.

As the Spirit fills us, he fills us with the presence of the triune God. Through the indwelling Holy Spirit, the triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—is present with us. And what is true of us individually is also true of our church, to which Paul refers as “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21–22) and to which Peter applies the imagery of “living stones, . . . a spiritual house [that is, a house of the Spirit]” (1 Pet 2:5).

Still, while this promise of the presence of the triune God is presently fulfilled in us and in our church, the fullness of its fulfillment awaits a future event: the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the new heaven and new earth:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,

and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev 21:1–4, italics added)

Certainly, we experience salvation in part now, during our earthly life. And the greatest blessing of that salvation is the presence of the triune God through the filling of the Holy Spirit, who is the greatest gift, which we have by faith. At the same time, we long for salvation in full, in the age to come. Then, and only then, will that greatest blessing through the greatest gift—the actual presence of the triune God—be ours in full, not by faith but by sight, when we see God “face to face” (1 Cor 13:12).

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[1] Francis Chan, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2009).

[2] The following is adapted from Gregg R. Allison, “Baptism with and Filling of the Holy Spirit,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 16, no. 4 (Winter 2012): 15.

[3] As he discusses the work of the Holy Spirit, J. I. Packer highlights the idea of presence; see J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God, rev. and enl. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005).

[4] Michael Horton, Rediscovering the Holy Spirit: God’s Perfecting Presence in Creation, Redemption, and Everyday Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 28.