What are the conditions which must be fulfilled in the life of a person who desires to receive the gift of the Holy spirit?

By Grace Through Faith

As we consider the teaching of Scripture on this subject, we shall find that there is one basic principle which applies alike to every provision made for man by the grace of God. It is stated in:

Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

In this passage, as also elsewhere in his epistles, Paul contrasts the two expressions, ‘grace' and ‘works.' By ‘grace,' Paul means always the free, unmerited favour and blessing of God, bestowed upon the undeserving, and even upon the ill-deserving.

By ‘works,' Paul means anything that a man may do, of his own ability, to earn for himself the blessing and favour of God.

Paul states that these two ways of receiving from God are mutually exclusive; they can never be combined. Whatever a man receives from God by grace is not of works; whatever a man receives from God by works in not of grace. Wherever grace operates, works are of no avail; wherever works operate, grace is of no avail.

This leads on to the further contrast between ‘grace' and ‘law,' as stated in

John 1:17 "For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

Under the Law of Moses, men sought to earn the blessing of God by what they did for themselves. Through Jesus Christ the free, unmerited blessing and favour of God are now offered to all men on the basis of what Christ has done on man's behalf.

This is ‘grace'.

All that we receive in this way from God through Jesus Christ is by grace; and the means by which we receive this grace is not by works, but by faith.

This is emphasized by Paul in

Ephesians 2:8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not by yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

The basic principle laid down by Paul in this passage can be summed up in three successive phrases; by grace - through faith - not of works. It applies in the receiving of every provision made for man by the grace of God.

Specifically, Paul applies the principle to the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit in:

Galatians 3:13-14: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law...that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith"

Paul brings out two important and interrelated facts. First, the gift of the Holy Spirit is made available to man through the redemptive work of Christ upon the cross; that is to say, it is part of the total provision made for man by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Second, this gift, like every other provision of God's grace, is received simply through faith, and not by works.

This question of how the gift of the Holy Spirit is received had apparently been raised amongst the Christian churches in Galatia; and Paul makes several references to it in the third chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians.

For instance, Paul says in:

Galatians 3:2: "This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?"

Again, in the same chapter:

Galatians 3:5: "Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you...does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?"

And again as we have already seen in:

Galatians 3:14 "...that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith"

Three times, therefore, in these verses Paul emphasizes that the receiving of the Spirit is by faith.

In other words, the basic essential preparation for believers to receive the Holy Spirit is that they should be instructed out of the Scriptures on the nature of God's provision for them, and how they may claim this provision through faith in the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. If this kind of scriptural instruction is first given, and received with faith by those seeking the Holy Spirit, there should thereafter be no need for great effort or delay in their receiving of the gift.

It would appear from Paul's Epistle to the Galatians that the Christians there had originally received from him with simple faith the message of the gospel and of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and had thus entered into the fullness of God's provision for them, Later, however, through other teachers, they had become involved in some kind of legalistic system, superimposed upon this gospel foundation, and had thus begun to lose their first vision of the simple receiving of God's gift by grace through faith.

One main purpose of Paul's Epistle to them is to warn them of the dangers of this, and to call them back to the original simplicity of their faith.

It would seem that groups of Christians in various places today are being threatened by the same kind of error, against which Paul warned the Galatians. There is in many places today a tendency to impose some kind of system, or technique, upon those seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The precise form of technique varies from group to group. In some places, the emphasis is upon some particular posture, or attitude. In other places, the emphasis is rather upon some special form of words, or the repetition of certain special phrases.

Instruction along these lines to those seeking the Holy Spirit is not necessarily unscriptural, but the great danger is that the particular posture, or form of words, instead of being merely a help to faith, may become a substitute for it. In this case, this kind of technique defeats its own ends. Instead of helping seekers to receive the Holy Spirit, it actually prevents them from doing so.

It is often as a result of this kind of technique that we meet the chronic seekers, who say: ‘I've tried everything! I've tried praise; I've said Hallelujah; I've lifted my hands in the air; I've shouted; I've done everything - but it just doesn't work.' Without realizing it, people who speak like this are making just the same error that the Galatians were slipping into: they are substituting works of faith, a technique for the simple hearing of God's Word.

What is the remedy? It is just that which Paul proposes to the Galatians: to return to the hearing of faith. Chronic seekers like these do not need more praise, or more shouting, or more lifting up of their hands. What they need is fresh instruction from God's Word on the free provisions of God's Grace.

As a matter of general principle, wherever people are seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit, a period of instruction from God's Word should always precede any period of prayer. For my own part, if I were allotted a period of thirty minutes to help believers seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit, I should always wish to spend at least half that time - at least the first fifteen minutes - in giving scriptural instruction. Thereafter, the next fifteen minutes devoted to prayer would produce far more positive results that a full thirty minutes given to prayer, without any instruction before-hand.

We see, then, that the basic requirement for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit is defined by Paul as the hearing of faith.

However, in laying down this principle, we must be careful to guard against a false interpretation of what is meant by faith. Faith is not a substitute for obedience. On the contrary, true faith is always manifested in obedience. Thus obedience becomes both the test, and the evidence, of faith.

This applies as much to the receiving of the Holy Spirit as in any other area of God's grace.

In his defence to the Jewish Council, Peter focuses upon obedience as the proper expression of faith in:

Acts 5:32: "And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him."

In speaking of the gift of the Holy Spirit, Paul stresses faith, while Peter stresses obedience, There is, however, no conflict between the two. True faith is always linked with obedience. Complete faith results in complete obedience. Peter says here that when our obedience is complete, the gift of the Holy Spirit is ours.

Six Steps of Faith

In seeking the gift of the Holy Spirit, how should complete obedience be expressed? We find six steps set forth in Scripture, which mark the pathway of obedience leading to the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Repentance And Baptism

The first two steps are stated by the apostle Peter in:

Acts 2:38: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

The two steps here stated by Peter are, first, Repent; and second, be baptised.

Repentance is an inward change of heart and attitude towards God, that opens the way for the sinner to be reconciled with God. Thereafter baptism is an outward act by which the believer testifies to the inward change wrought by God's grace in his heart.

Thirsting

The third step on his pathway to the fullness of the Holy Spirit is stated by Jesus in

John 7:37-38: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'

In the next verse, the writer of the gospel goes on to explain that this promise of Jesus refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This agrees with what Jesus says also in

Matthew 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."

One essential condition for receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit is to be hungry and thirsty. God does not squander His blessings on those who feel no need for them. Many professing Christians who lead good, respectable lives never receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit simply because they feel no need for it. They are satisfied without this blessing, and God leaves them that way.

From the human point of view, it quite often happens that those who seem least deserving receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and those who seem most deserving do not. This is explained by the words in:

Luke 1:53 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness For they shall be filled."

God responds to our sincere inner longings, but He is not impressed by our religious profession.

Asking

Jesus presents the fourth step to receiving the Holy Spirit in:

Luke 11:13 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"

Here Jesus places upon God's children an obligation to ask their heavenly Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit. We sometimes hear Christians make some such remark as this: ‘If God wants me to have the Holy Spirit, He will give it to me. I do not need to ask Him for it.' However, this attitude is not scriptural; Jesus plainly teaches that God's children should ask their heavenly Father for this special gift of the Holy Spirit.

Drinking

After asking, the next step is receiving. Jesus calls this drinking for He says in:

John 7:37 "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink."

‘Drinking' represents an active process of receiving. The infilling of the Holy spirit cannot be received by a merely negative, or passive attitude. No one can drink except of his own active volition; and no one can drink with a closed mouth. As it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual.

The Lord says in:

Psalm 81:10 "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."

God cannot fill a closed mouth. Simple though it may seem, there are those who fail to receive the fullness of the Spirit, simply because they fail to open their mouth.

Yielding

After drinking, the sixth and last step to receive the fullness of the Holy spirit is yielding.

Paul speaks to Christians of a twofold surrender to God in:

Romans 6:13 "...but present yourself to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."

Two successive stages are here set before us as Christians. The first surrender is of yourselves - the surrender of the will and of the personality. However, this is not all. There is a further degree of surrender, in which we surrender not merely our will, but our physical members.

To make this further degree of surrender requires a much greater measure of confidence in God. In yielding ourselves - our wills - we yield obedience to the revealed will of God, but we still retain the exercise of our own understanding. We are wiling to do what god asks of us, provided that we first understand what is asked.

However, in yielding our physical members we go beyond this. We no longer seek even to understand intellectually what God asks of us. We merely hand over unreserved control of our physical members and allow God to use them according to His own will and purpose, without demanding to understand what God is doing, or why He is doing it.

It is only as we make this second surrender, that we come to the place of total, unconditional yieldedness. And it is just at this very point that the Holy Spirit comes in His fullness and takes control of our members.

The particular member of which He takes full control is that unruly member which no man can tame - the tongue. Thus the yielding of our tongue to the Spirit of God to control within us according to His own will, and apart from the exercise of our own intellectual understanding, marks the climax of yieldedness - or surrender - of complete obedience. It is by this that we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We have outlined the following six successive steps to receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit: first, repentance; second, being baptised; third, being thirsty; fourth, asking; fifth, drinking - that is surrending control of our physical members, apart from the exercise of our intellectual understanding.

Out of this outline, the question will naturally arise: is it necessarily true that every person who receives the gift of the Holy Spirit has completely followed through all the six steps just outlined?

The answer to this question is - no. God's grace is sovereign. Wherever God sees fit, He is free to reach out in grace to needy souls beyond the conditions actually set forth in His Word. God's grace is not necessarily limited by the conditions which He Himself imposes. But on the other hand, wherever those conditions are fully met, God's faithfulness will never withhold the blessing which He has promised.

It would seem that of the steps just outlined, there are some which are sometimes omitted by people who nevertheless do receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In particular, the gift of the Holy Spirit is at times granted to people who have not been baptised, and who have never specifically asked for this gift.

I know that this is so, because it happened in my own experience. I myself received the gift of the Holy Spirit before I was baptised, and without ever specifically asking for it. In these two points, God reached out to me in His free and sovereign grace beyond the conditions actually imposed in His Word. I realize, however, that on my side, this now makes me just so much the more a debtor to God's grace. It certainly opens no door to me for pride, carelessness, or disobedience.

It would seem, however, that God never bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit where the other four conditions, stated in His Word, are not fulfilled. That is, God never bestows the Holy Spirit where there is not, first of all, repentance; and then, after that, a spiritual thirst, and a willingness both to receive, and to yield.

In concluding this series of studies on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, it will be appropriate to emphasise once again the close connection between the fullness of the Holy Spirit and obedience. As Peter says, the gift of the Holy Spirit is for those who obey God. Even where God in His grace bestows this gift upon those who have not yet fully met the conditions of His Word, this still leaves no room for carelessness, or disobedience.

In Acts 10, we read that as Peter preached in the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard his word. However, the record of Acts makes it clear that this demonstration of God's grace was in no sense to be interpreted as a substitute for obedience to God's Word, for we read in:

Acts 10:48 "..he (Peter) commanded them to be baptised..."

Even for those who have received the gift of the Holy spirit, the ordinance of baptism in water still remains a commandment of God's Word that may not be set aside.

Above all, in this realm of spiritual gifts, we need to be continually on our guard against spiritual pride. The more richly we receive of the gifts of God's grace, the greater is our obligation to be obedient and faithful in the exercise and stewardship of these gifts.

This principle of responsibility for grace received is summed up by the words of Jesus concerning stewardship. In:

Luke 12:48 "...For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.!"

The more abundantly we receive of God's gifts and graces through Jesus Christ, the greater becomes our obligation to humility, to consecration, and to unfailing obedience.

Source:

Foundation Series Volume 2 Chapter 10- Derek Prince