Victorious life studies

by Robert Crawford McQuilkin

This is why the disciples had to wait at Pentecost, not wait to get themselves into a certain receptive spiritual state, but wait till the Son of man was glorified and the Holy Spirit was sent forth. They did not need further knowledge of the facts about Christ the Saviour. But before they became witnesses to Jesus Christ, they themselves must become living messages, living witnesses, by having Jesus Christ revealed in them. This is what the Holy Spirit did, and this is what would be impossible without the Holy Spirit given in this new way.

Some one has well said that the Holy Spirit is for the servant, rather than for the service. The service and the life is the normal outflow when the servant, the man himself, has been filled with the Holy Spirit.

The fulness of the Spirit, this new work of the Spirit for the believer, is just the Christ life manifested in the believer. This is the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22, 23). This is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given unto us (Rom. 5:5). This is the earnest of our inheritance—the hope of glory that puts not to shame (Eph. 1:13, 14; Rom. 5:1, 5). This is the transforming power for growth in grace (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the thirteenth of First Corinthians made real in our experience, the love which is the fulfilling of the law.

The Holy Spirit convicts and comforts. He convicts the world, and also the believer when he walks after the world. He comforts the saints, and we have noted something of what this means. The Holy Spirit makes possible the life of victory in Christ. The fulness of the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, the Spirit indwelling the life (that is, controlling it), are all other ways of saying, the life that is Christ, the Victorious Life, the life kept from sinning, the Christ-controlled life.

The Holy Spirit gives distinct gifts for worship and service, he works miracles, he does many things for the believer. But these things which he does for different believers, dividing to each severally even as He will, must be kept distinct from the one central purpose which is the same for every believer, namely the manifesting of Christ in the life (Gal. 3:5; 1 Cor. 12 to 14; Eph. 4:14-16).

And the one proof that Christ is not manifested, is sin. Thus victory over sin is central in the work of the Spirit in our salvation.

We have asked and briefly answered two questions concerning the Holy Spirit: “Who is He, and what does He do?” “Who has Him, and what do they do?” There remains a third question, the answer to which determines whether His miracle working power shall be available in present experience: “Has He me?”

The Holy Spirit may be in a believer, and yet not controlling the life. This is the meaning of the exhortation to Christians in Ephesians 5:18: “Be filled with the Spirit.” These believers were born of the Spirit and sealed with the Spirit (Eph. 1:13), yet there was the possibility of their not being filled with the Spirit. This is the meaning of the charge, “Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Gal 5:6). There was a possibility of walking after the flesh. So in Romans 8:4 Paul declares that the righteous requirement of the law is “fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” This is the life of victory, lived in the power of the Spirit. And this is the life which a believer may effectually hinder by his own will in keeping from yielding to the control of the Spirit, whose control means the manifesting of Christ.

The Christian who is ready to yield completely to Christ may in the very moment of yielding trust Christ for the fulness of the Spirit, knowing that His fruit in life and service is now being produced. The simple condition of surrender and faith for victory is what gives the Holy Spirit sway in the life.

What relation has such a crisis of the fulness of the Spirit of regeneration? Is it a crisis that necessarily must follow the crisis of the new birth? The answer is clearly given in Galatians 5:25. “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk.” If we have eternal life by the miracle work of the Holy Spirit, by that same miracle power let us live our daily lives moment by moment. There would not need to be a crisis after conversion if we stayed in the place of abiding where we started, in full surrender and trust.