What is the sign of a Spirit-filled Christian? What’s the evidence that he or she is living the life a professing Christian should live? Is it the gifts of the Spirit? Is it the gift of tongues? I’ve heard people say that the “fruit” of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience etcetera – is not enough to make you effective as a follower of Christ.
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INTRODUCTION. In this article I will deal with the claim that the evidence of great faith is the use of spiritual gifts. I will show instead that the Christian life is really all about godliness, obedience and our witness to the world. I will also demonstrate that if the Holy Spirit is really at work in somebody’s life the one being glorified will be the Son of God.
TONGUES – THE WRONG FOCUS. In our time a multitude of people have been fooled into thinking that if you speak in “the gift of tongues” you are already living the Spirit – filled life. You are at the top of the spiritual ladder. You can accomplish great things in the heavenlies and have enormous success in life. God is more likely to listen to you than to the common believer who doesn’t have the gift. However, the letters of first-century apostles tell a different story. Paul told the church of Corinth, who were speaking in tongues freely in the church, that they were falling far short of the mark:
“Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
Pressing the Corinthian church on the matter, Paul then wrote,
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (13:1).
If I’m not living in love, says Paul, I am all noise and no substance. Love, then, is supreme. It’s far more important than any charismatic gift even supposing the gift is real, and any gift is powerless and meaningless without it. John, “the disciple who Jesus loved”, recognized love as the measure of a true believer:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).
TONGUES – NOT WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians clarifies the issue of tongues further. He writes,
” … in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Corinthians 14:19).
Paul said that speaking in a language no-one else in the church understands is just “speaking into the air” (verse 9). The conclusion has to be, therefore, that tongues have no power at all in the heavenlies. They accomplish nothing whatsoever except as sign to a specific group of people.
Are tongues a sign or even “the evidence” of a spiritual Christian? There is no such statement in Scripture to support this, but plenty to contradict it.
YOUR SPIRITUAL ACT OF WORSHIP. Paul told the Romans what real worship is:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).
The ESV translates the last part of this verse, “your spiritual worship”.
A true spiritual act of worship, says Paul, is giving your life in service to God by living out your life in holiness.
POWER TO BE WITNESSES. God sent the early Church “power” from heaven after Jesus’ ascension. What was that power, and what was it for? Was it the ability to have charismatic experiences and sensations? No, it was the enablement to be effective witnesses to an un-saved, unbelieving world:
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
THE DECEPTION OF GIFTS, REAL OR IMAGINED. Jesus even warned about the illusion that sign-gifts would be the mark of a great believer:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:21-23).
Jesus also said that at the judgment when all the nations are before him, and he separates them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats, he will judge the people based on how they have treated other people. Read the passage and you will see not one mention of spiritual gifts. No-one will be judged for failing to use spiritual gifts, and no-one will be rewarded for using them (Matthew 25:31-40)
GREATER THINGS THAN THESE? A host of teachers and self-proclaimed “prophets” and “apostles” insist that since Jesus told his disciples, “You will do even greater things than these”, they should be and are able to do great miracles when the conditions are just right. However, as Jesus raised the dead, healed the blind, made cripples walk and walked on water, what miracle could possibly be greater? How can we up-stage such miracles?
What Jesus was talking about when he said that his disciples would do greater things was that they would take the gospel to the world and change lives. His disciples and over the centuries the Church, went to the far reaches of the earth and helped to draw countless millions to faith in Jesus and eternal life. This is something Jesus didn’t have the time to do on earth before his ascension. It wasn’t HIs mission. He’s blessed us with the task instead.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE SPIRIT ANYWAY! Reading through Paul’s letters I’m struck by how little he talks about the Holy Spirit, in comparison to the regularity with which the Spirit is spoken of and to in our present time in some circles, as though the object of our worship should be the Spirit above all else. To those of us who pay attention to the New Testament over “what God is saying to us today” there’s a clear picture and a clear message in it for us all. Read the opening lines of any of Paul’s letters, or those of other apostles, and you’ll see that they spoke of the Father and the Son, not the Spirit. The focus of our attention should be Jesus and not the Spirit.
Jesus made clear on the night of his arrest that the work of the Holy Spirit would be to direct people to the Son, not to draw attention to himself:
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13).
Our Scriptures tell us that the Spirit works in us and through us even when we are not aware of Him. He is at work in every believer, even when we feel that God is a million miles away. Jesus said that when two are three are gathered in his name he is in their midst. No special service or gift is required, only our faith to believe He is there without the need for visible signs and ecstatic utterances. Experience is not faith: believing when we see nothing is.
WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD. The evidence that we are real believers living by the Spirit is displayed in the way we live our lives. It’s not a case of getting “in the Spirit” so that we can have charismatic experiences, it’s about living in obedience to the Word of God:
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:5-8).
Paul lays out an “either-or” scenario here. Either a person is led by the Holy Spirit and is able to please God in the way he lives, or he is not led by the Spirit, and he is walking in the flesh. Some have taken this truth and twisted it to say what it doesn’t say. However, Paul doesn’t leave us hanging. He clarifies the issue for us:
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Romans 8:9 ESV).
If the Spirit of God is in you, and if you are in obedience to God, you will live a Christ-like life. If you don’t, you’re not a Christian at all, according to the second part of the verse:
“And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ“.
THE GOSPEL DOESN’T INCLUDE SEEKING GIFTS. Paul laid out the gospel for the Romans. Notice that there’s no mention of the need to seek the Holy Spirit in order to be saved:
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved” (Romans 10:8-10).
The Spirit who indwells all true believers also ensures our resurrection. Without Him no-one can be raised:
“But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of] his Spirit who lives in you” (Romans 8:10-11).
IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS, NOT THE SPIRIT. It’s said by some that after you get the Holy Spirit you need a baptism of empowerment from God. This, dear readers, is not the truth. Here’s what Paul said on the matter:
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness (Colossians 2:6-10).
The “deity” Paul speaks of here is God, and it includes the Holy Spirit. If you are in Christ, says the man who turned the world upside down in the first century, you have the fulness of the Holy Spirit!
Here’s how the NKJV words this:
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
YOUR POTENTIAL. You have all the power you need at your disposal to live the Christian life. You are complete when you are in Christ: you have his fulness.
Peter defined the purpose of power in the Christian life. It isn’t for impressing others, it isn’t for getting God to do what we want and it isn’t for being able to do miracles. It’s for living the Christian life as Christ taught us. Peter put it this way:
“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:3-4).
We have divine power, says Peter, so that we can live the Christian life. It isn’t about strutting around and claiming to be super-spiritual. If we really are tapping into that power says Peter, it will be evident in the way we live:
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” (verses 5 -7).
Peter, the spokesman for Christ on that great Pentecost at which the Church received the Spirit as an indwelling presence, is telling us that being effective means using what we’ve already been given in order to live in love and goodness. It’s our obedience and our walk which makes the difference, and we have all we need to do just that, if we “make every effort”:
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. (verses 8-10
YOU HAVE IT! “But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17).
Ask yourself this: How could anyone be one with the Lord and still be incomplete? How can anyone be one with the God of heaven and earth and still be powerless? The accusation should be treated with the contempt it deserves.
If you are in Christ due to your repentance and acceptance and public confession of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you have all the fullness of the deity at your disposal. The question is not “Do you have it?” the question is “Are you going to use it?”. How much of you does the Holy Spirit of God have?
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 