Yeah, sorry I haven't been posting lately, I have been preoccupied by other pressing things.

 

Really glad you were able to find some time to post this one. I also find the imagery of the sail very helpful.

Here's a slightly different spin I've used while trying to explain this to others. As I remember from a high school chem/phys class, a gas is an expansive thing, occupying whatever volume is available to it. We might compare the Holy Spirit to a gas (an easy allusion based on "pneuma") Who will occupy every part of your life that is not otherwise occupied by other "stuff", what with nature hating a vacuum and all that. At salvation, you receive all the Holy Spirit you're going to get; the question is how much of you that He gets. Like a gas confined to a smaller volume, the pressure grows/intensifies and it is necessary to jettison some of that junk to relieve the pressure. You can take it from there.

 

Bob - that's a very illustration, better than mine. I will probably use it many times from here on in. Thanks.

 

"Consider and learn from what the good kings did as soon as they came into their kingdom - they cleaned out all the gunk that the bad kings let build up in God's temple."

Ahem... then how did the kingdoms decline?

I'll bet they couldn't clean themselves out of the kingdom. Which is what the disciples understood as an impossibility, riches unable to be sold, and something which Christ affirmed is only possible with God.

As to gas... well that is all good and fine but the Holy Spirit doesn't care what you think, Bob, period. Your concept of the HS as a gas, stinks. You don't determined anything. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is God working in us. That little holy sprite that you're talking about can't over come you. But the Holy Spirit can. It it the Spirit which circumcises the junk, not you. If you're doing it, you're fooling yourself, you're just replacing the junk with mounds of hardened pride that you think is the Holy Spirit.

Daniel, you could search high and low and never get out enough to satisfy the demands of the Spirit. That was the point of the Law, that was the point of the good kings, or as Jesus said, there is only one good king, the rest of us when ever we do the Spirit's work bring the sin of our flesh with us. Those kings of old couldn't get their flesh out of Israel and that is why it collapses time and time again. Pursue that path, Daniel, and you will pursue frustration and in the end become embittered or decieved into believing you have actually found all the impurity in the household of your heart and made it ready for the Passover Lamb to occupy.

 

Strong Tower,

I think you may be missing the point.

The point I was highlighting in the post, and that was originally being discussed in the meta, had to do with some of the pitfalls I see regarding one particular model that is used to describe what the filling of the Holy Spirit is supposed to look like.

Briefly, one model - which I will call it the Moody model, paints this filling of the HS as though the HS in constantly seeping out of "leaky" believers, and the other, which I believe to be more biblically correct, paints this filling in terms of a one time filling of the Holy Spirit, that can be grieved by sin.

The grieving that sin produces is likened in a spatial sense, to a displacement, rather than an evacuation - which, when understood, transfers the prayer from "fill me, fill me!" to "empty me of all that isn't you".

I am under no illusions regarding how utterly impotent every last one of us is when it comes to cleaning out the sin in our lives, and I am sorry if anything I wrote was so poorly expressed that it gave you that impression.

The point we are discussing is not how to do the work of the Holy Spirit for/instead of Him, but rather, how to avoid the error of looking for fillings, when you ought to be looking for the repentance only God can grant.

On another note, though I do not answer for Bob, you might want to read over your first comment in this thread again; you come off (and this may just be my opinion) as a little condescending towards him...?

 

Daniel, what does Paul mean in Ephesians by "Be filled in spirit"?

 

Jim - Didn't I just explain that in the whole post? :)

Do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be being kept filled with the Holy Spirit.

The admonition addresses an error and it's correction, as in: You are not to do "X" you are to do "Y".

If that verse had no context whatsoever, we could/would read it in the most wooden and superficial way possible, that is, we might imagine that Paul is simply concerned about drunkeness, and offering a Holy alternative.

But Paul's epistle to the Ephesian believers can't (soberly) be whittled down to a shallow shopping list of dos and don'ts, it begins with a prolonged declaration of the orthodox faith (1:3 - 1:23) proceeds on to an orthodox description of who we were prior to receiving Christ (2:1 - 2:5a), moves onto who we are after receiving Christ (2:5a - 2:13) moving onto a strategic description of the Christ with Whom have a relationship (2:14 - 2:22) and then having laid out who we were, who we are, and who Christ is, holds these truths up to us as the reason for his writing, because we were such and such, and became such and such and have a relationship with Christ who is this way, and not some other - it is because of these truths, or so Paul writes, that he is inclined to teach the very things he is about to teach.

We see that at the beginning of chapter 3. But just before Paul begins the instruction that he is grounding in these things, he underscores his own authority in giving it, as we see in the remainder of chapter three. Paul isn't about to teach something just for the fun of it - he is about to say these things because Christ Himself has put the burden on him, and given him the authority, and responsibility to do so.

In chapter four he begins - because you were once sinners, because you are now saints, because of your new relationship with Christ, and because of who Christ is, and because I am sent by Christ Himself to teach you what Christ would now have you do, and he begins with a summary statement in 4:1 - walk in a manner that is worty of the calling with which Christ has called you.

Immediately Paul begins to put flesh on that summary - what does it mean to walk worthy? Here is where we find our context, as Paul is now giving instruction on what we ought to be doing, what walking worthy of our calling looks like.

We want to note that Paul isn't giving instruction in a vacuum. The epistle was written to the Ephesian believers because they were -not- walking worthy. When Paul gives, therefore a "Do x and not y" kind of instruction, we take x to be something that the Ephesians in particular were doing, and y to be the orthodox expectation that x was transgressing.

We see several examples of this in chapter four (strating at verse 17) and leading up to the verse in question (5:18). By the time we get to 5:18, we are dealing with a particular error in their worship - they were engaged in the error of Nadab and Abihu - that is, they were co-opting the way other God's were worshipped, and trying to worship God in the same way that false gods were being worshipped by their culture.

[cont]

 

[cont]

Paul's admonition is that rather than immitating the worship found in other religions, they should be imitators of God, having been given Christ incarnate to learn from. Walk in love as Christ walked, surrendering yourself up for others - not full of foul language, greed, and what having, but full of thanks giving, for those who practice other religions are idolators as is evidenced by the fact that they continue in these kinds of sin. He exhorts the Ephesians not to be deceived by religious systems that leave you sinful - that you shouldn't be partakers with them in such things because, to reiterate, you were once that way, but now you are not. What they do is disgraceful, but you should not be disgraceful, because unlike them, you are not dead in your sins, that is, you are not "asleep", but have been awoken - that is why the scriptures (or so Paul writes) command you to awake out of sleep - because doing so is to rise out of the grave of your tresspasses and sins, and to have Christ shine on you. Because these things are all so, Paul writes, you are not to continue on like a fool, doing what is disgraceful, keeping yourself ignorant of what God expects from you - no, says Paul, you are to stop being "drunk with wine in which is disipation".

At this point, it is good to review imagery from chapters 17 and 18 of the book of Revelation. There (in the book of Revelation) the whole phrase is rendered "drunk with the wine of immorality" - and it refers to the nations who reject Christ.

I believe that just as the Holy Spirit used the same imagery of the pursuit of immorality as being drunk on "the wine of" immorality in the book of Revelation, so the Holy Spirit here, inspiring Paul's hand, writes for us who ought to walk worthy, not to be drunk on that which intoxifies the world - not referring merely and singularly to the fermented juice of grapes, but more broadly to being "drunk" (as a metaphor) on the things of the earth. The context certainly bears that thought out.

Notwithstanding, we know that other religions were engaged in drunken orgies as a means of worshipping false Gods, and that it was commonly believed that severe intoxication allowed for unimpeded communion with God, so that this sort of thing was (understandably) begining to infiltrate the church (as people just changed the name of their God to the Christian God, and continued to "worship" as they always had). But even in light of this, I believe that Paul's admonition while certainly nodding in that direction, is not limited to it.

When Paul begins by saying, you were such and such, now you are this, now you have a relationship with Christ, and Christ is this; Paul's instruction here falls into this same rut - he is saying, don't be as you were, drunk with the wine of immorality, but be as you have become - keep yourself free from those things - do not be filled by them, as you once were, but be filled with Christ, that is be being kept filled with only Christ by and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

That is what I think Paul means.

 

When I made my post, I forgot to check the option for an email of follow-up comments; so I guess it looks like I've been laying low, but just now getting back.

Strong Tower, I'm guessing you love the Lord your God will all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. I commend you and am grateful for you.

I should know better that to jot off a quick thought in such a forum without including the requisite disclaimers about this single remark failing to express the entirety of my theology and how ANY analogy and metaphor fails at some point, particularly those that aspire to describe the character of God. My bad, please excuse.

God bless you all - I love you.

 

Sorry Daniel, I didn't read the post adequately enough. Thanks for the additional thoughts however. I think I see now what you are saying about the vacuum vs. the displacement of the Spirit by other things. That passage in Ephesians really ties in well and I would have to agree that Paul was probably talking about being drunk with more than just wine. We can be consumed with so many different things in this world and not be filled with the Spirit.

It seems that Paul is contrasting the drunkenness with worldly things by being filled with the Spirit, and this by speaking and singing and the giving of thanks always. So there is no neutral ground, we cannot sit by passively but must actively pursue the things of God and thereby become filled with His Spirit.

 

Great post!

I've thought of it as being a cellulose sponge, which can be fully saturated and dripping - if we are harboring sin in those inner bubbles then we won't be filled with the Spirit entirely.. in fact we might have the stench of hypocrisy etc.

Encouragement I needed today, thanks.

 

Rereading these old posts... I liked this one.