Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Got Spirit?
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If you have the Holy Spirit of God, in other words you are a believer since all believers get the Spirit, then you are a temple where God dwells. Unlike the Old Testament period, God's Spirit will never leave you, even when you grieve the Spirit through sin; even when that sin is severe and ongoing.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome And Lesson Preview
SPEAKER_03Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas. Here's a hint of what's to come.
SPEAKER_01So without the Spirit indwelling, they would not have been able to do the type of service that they needed to do. But I I would also argue it was not automatic either that they would do that because some of these people didn't please the Lord.
What It Means To Be Fit
SPEAKER_00Are you fit to live?
SPEAKER_02In asking this question, you might be thinking about physical fitness. Do you have the strength and the energy to clean your house, maintain your yard? Do you have the energy and the stamina to go to work? The mental acuity and alertness to solve problems? These are some things we might think about when asked the question, are you fit to live this life? But as a Christian, the question takes on a deeper meaning.
SPEAKER_00Are you fit spiritually to live for God?
SPEAKER_02To live a life pleasing to Him. The answer to that is yes, if you are a Christian, because you have the Holy Spirit of God indwelling you. Therefore, you have God's wisdom, discernment, knowledge. You have all the spiritual gifts that you need. All of this dwells within you. Now we can grieve the Holy Spirit, we can sin and we can mute the Holy Spirit. We can rebel and not listen, but He will never leave us. He is always there. That's different from Old Testament saints. So are you fit to live? If you're a Christian, you are. Then comes the next question. Are you taking advantage of the Holy Spirit by reading the word, prayerfully considering and asking God to guide you, by trying to obey the commandments, avoid sin, both physical and mental? Are you trying to live a life that is loving toward and pleasing of God?
RIBS And Regeneration Imagery
SPEAKER_01Okay, we're going to look further at the works of the Holy Spirit. And last week we looked at regeneration. Remember, there's an acronym that we're building. That acronym to remember the works of the Spirit is ribs, right? Regeneration, indwelling, baptism, and sealing. But next week I'm not going to do the B. I'm not going to do baptism because this week I realized I want to follow a more logical order. And the more logical thing to look at perhaps next is filling. And that's not even one of the four letters, right? So we're going to do it anyway because we keep having to touch it when we look at regeneration, and we have to touch on it when we talk about indwelling. So we might as well just spend some time investigating it. So that will be what we do next week. So indwelling. Let's review a little bit of regeneration, and I want to call attention to the imagery of regeneration that is used repeatedly in the Bible. The imagery imagery of regeneration is creation. I'm, you know, particularly you could take a passage like 2 Corinthians 5 7 17, which says we are new creations or creatures. So that's obviously using the imagery of creation. So when you think of regeneration, what should we think of? We should think of the actual creation of the world. Genesis 1. By means of the word of God and through faith, the Spirit does a work of regeneration that results in us being born again, also referred to as becoming new creatures. As new creatures, we have new desires to please God. Remember, Paul says, the thing I want to do, I can't do, and the thing I hate, that's the thing I do, Romans 7. That whole conflict within him. He had these new desires to please God, but he was not able to accomplish it on his own. And when we abide in Christ, this gets into the filling thing that we'll look at next week, but when we abide in Christ, the Spirit who indwells us produces the sinless life of Christ through us. That's 1 John 3, 9. His seed abides in us, and when we abide, you know, we do not sin. Why? Because in him there is no sin. Not because in you there's no sin, it's because in him there's no sin. And so when he is, his life is expressed through us, when we abide, then it's a sinless production. That's why it's called the fruit of the Spirit, right? What the fruit of the Spirit is, is the Spirit producing Christ's life through you. And of course, the Spirit isn't going to produce sin, right? He's going to reproduce the life of Christ, and Christ was sinless, so there is a sinless expression of his life through us when we abide. But you have to be regenerate. The regeneration is what happens the moment you believe in Christ, is one of the things that happens. And it gives you a uh, you become a new creature. And now we're going to look into the concept of the indwelling because the indwelling relates directly to this new regenerate nature or person that you are.
Indwelling Explained With Temple Imagery
SPEAKER_01So this comes to the indwelling of the spirit. This is distinct. It's distinct from, but it is related to regeneration. Both occur, of course, at the moment of belief. Whenever you believe the gospel, whenever you believe that Christ died for your sins and rose again. But regeneration creates the location inside the believer for the spirit to indwell. And so the imagery here is the imagery of the temple. You are, of course, we'll find out a temple, but use the Old Testament temple as your imagery. And we don't have to guess what it looks like, but this was at the time of Christ. It doesn't look like the Old Testament tabernacle or the Solomonic necessarily. But this is at the time of Herod. This is a model actually in Jerusalem. I've been there several times to take pictures. I love this model, actually. It's super cool. You can kind of see everything at one time, and that's what's helpful. You know, because you get lost in the city if you're just standing around. But if you look at this model, you can kind of see how everything was. You're looking actually at the Temple Mount at the time of Christ, which was built by Herod the Great. Great because he was a great builder, right? So you see the this whole area today is the Temple Mount, but it doesn't look exactly like this. But you can see on the southern end what was called the Royal Stoa. These are, this is it's giant, and you could walk under this, it's shaded area. But you also see that all the way around there are actually stoas. So these are like, you know, shaded walkways in that area. And all that area is just this whole area is called the temple compound. And if you look in the top right corner, you see this strange structure right outside the temple called the Antonia Fortress. That's the Roman fortress. And uh at the time of Christ, of course, there were Roman soldiers stationed there overlooking the Temple Mount, so that if there was any problems, any riots, any fights, whatever, they could quickly descend onto the Temple Mount and quell those riots. You see that in Acts chapter 20, 21 with Paul when they attack him. Um, but the center portion, the main portion of the temple, the temple proper, we call it there, uh contains you know the court of Israel and of course the the most holy place inside uh inside the temple proper. Now that inside portion, you know, where you're supposed to put basically the Ark of the Covenant, right? In the small room that was a square in the very back of that area, was known uh by the Greek word naos. Okay, the naos. And the naas means the most holy place where God dwells. He didn't dwell in the whole area, he dwelt in that most holy place, above, enthroned above the angels on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, right? And um the whole area, there's another word for temple in the Greek called the Hiuron, and the Hiuron just refers to the whole area, but that one room is another word for temple, Naos. Okay, and what the New Testament does is it takes one of those two words and it applies it to us, and it says, You are the temple. And the word that it uses is naas, okay, the most holy place. So that is the imagery behind uh indwelling. It reaches back to the Old Testament and the tabernacle and the temple uh complex. So uh the concept of indwelling in a location, a locale, therefore, does not conflict with the con the concept of his omnipresence. Now, as omnipresent, I mean God is in all places completely. He's not, like we used to say, he's not spread out across the universe or something, like part of him is there and part of him is there here and there, you know. No, he's he's completely everywhere at every point in space. He's also completely at every point outside of space, right? That's part of omnipresence. Um, but the concept of him indwelling in a location is not contradictory to that. God can, for example, dwell in heaven, right? This is where we usually say if somebody says, well, where's God? We'd say, well, he's in heaven. I mean, wouldn't everybody say that? But we might also say, but he's also everywhere. And so sometimes we may feel tension in ourselves between these two ideas, but there's really no tension because the concept of indwelling in a locale is that of a meeting place. That is the concept of God indwelling a special place. That is, a meet, it's a meeting place where he meets with man. So in the Old Testament dispensation of Israel, that place was the physical temple that was located eventually in Jerusalem. That is where God dwelled. Uh remember in Deuteronomy and elsewhere it says, when this place, this temple, is built, you will, you should face it three times a day and pray toward this place. And your prayers will be heard and answered by me. And if you remember in the days of Daniel, uh Daniel was actually commanded by the king, not, you know, there's a edict that nobody is to pray to any other God. And Daniel kept doing this three times a day in his window, remember? And the direction that he was facing was guess where? Jerusalem and the temple. It says this explicitly. He was doing exactly like the law said. So God's meeting place in the Old Testament with man was the temple. And if you wanted your prayers to be heard, you would direct your prayers to that temple. Um, I've I've taken some books that relate to temples and so forth from Jewish writers, not Christians, they're just Jewish writers. And they basically say that the way that the Jewish mind thought of it was that when you prayed toward the temple, your voice went to the temple, and then there was like a portal that went up to heaven from there. And that's the way your prayers could be heard. So they thought of it very physically, like you're sending, like we would, like a telephone line. My voice might is modulated through, you know, the electrical to, you know, the other end and it's demodulated or whatever. Um, we think of it like that, or we should. Maybe it's now it's going to a satellite, but the idea is the same. They thought of it like that. Um, very, very physical way of thinking of how you communicate with God. Um but now in the New Testament dispensation, that's post the cross, after the cross, that place is the spiritual temple that is located in all believers. So we want to look at this because this is talking about what? This is talking about where does the world meet God today?
SPEAKER_00And the place they meet him is you and me. We are the temple.
SPEAKER_01So let's go into indwelling.
Old Testament Indwelling Was Limited
SPEAKER_01First, before Pentecost, the dispensation of Israel, not everything before Pentecost, the dispensation of Israel, but when God is dealing with Israel, the Spirit's indwelling was limited to certain individuals to empower them for service. So he didn't indwell all Israelis, and he certainly didn't indwell all believers. He only indwelled certain individuals to empower them for service. For example, the spirit indwelled the judges of Israel. Take a look at Judges chapter 3. Judges chapter 3. Yes, I could put the Bible verses up here, but then no, you wouldn't get any time in your Bible, so that wouldn't be fair. Speaking of Othniel, one of the uh judges, one of the early judges and appeared of the judges, somewhere around 1400.
SPEAKER_001375, somewhere in there.
SPEAKER_01And um in order to deliver, notice verse 9 when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the sons of Israel to deliver them, Athniel, the son of Kinez, Caleb's younger brother. The spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel. When he went out to war, the Lord gave Cushin Rishaiathem, king of Mesopotamia, into his hand, so that he prevailed over him. Then the land had rest for 40 years. So the Spirit of the Lord came upon or indwelled Athniel to give Israel deliverance, right? And you see other judges, you know, you can flip to Judges 6, 34, you know, and see uh Gideon and so forth, 6.34. In his his struggle to deliver Israel from the Midianites, you read in verse 34, so the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, and the Abeazarites were called together to follow him. He sent messengers and so forth, and they go in verse 36 and following to uh deliver Israel ultimately. So the whole idea of the spirit indwelling of the judges was to empower them for service to deliver Israel. There are many other passages that describe this. Also, the prophets actually turn for this one, I don't have it listed here at 1 Samuel 10:10, but turn to Numbers 11, 25. Point here is to catch on that, hey, in the Old Testament, things with the Israel, the spirits indwelling were not the same as they are today. So the Spirit's works have varied down through history. 11, 24, and 25. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. Also he gathered seventy men of ill of the elders of the people and stationed them around the tent. That's the tabernacle, right? Then the Lord came down in a cloud and spoke to him, spoke to Moses, and he took of the spirit who was upon him and placed him upon the seventy elders. So Moses had the spirit, but he also placed the spirit upon these seventy elders. And when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. So another group of people that had the spirit indwelling them in the Old Testament would be those who uh prophesied. And uh that so that's interesting. It was required for that. You can see it in verse 26 again. But two men remained in the camp. The name of one was Udad, and the other was Medad. That's just a joke, but anyway. Not Udad and Medad, but Eldad and Medad. Okay, and the spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those who had been registered but had gone out to the tent, and they prophesied in the camp. So a young man ran and told Moses that, hey, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. Joshua the son of Nun, the attendant of Moses from his youth, said, Moses, my Lord, restrain them. Moses said, What? What are you? Jealous? That they're prophesying? He said, Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them. But see, they he didn't, did he? He only put it on some. And that's to show that it's limited to certain individuals. Also the kings, turn to first 1 Samuel 16. 1 Samuel 16. This is the era of the monarchy. We've been in the judges a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Now we move to the period of the monarchy. 1 Samuel 16. Verse 13. The kings.
SPEAKER_01The kings needed to be indwelt so they could be empowered to serve in their offices. Verse 13, then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him. And by the way, pay attention to that. Stick that lodge that anointing word in your head and don't forget it. But Samuel the prophet anointed him, this is David, in the midst of his brothers, and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Okay, so the spirit indwelt in the passage we've looked at in the Old Testament. Judges to enable them to deliver Israel, prophets to speak the word of the Lord, kings to enable them to serve as kings over Israel. So without the spirit indwelling, they would not have been able to do the type of service that they needed to do. But I I would also argue it was not automatic either that they would do that because some of these people didn't please the Lord. One of them is named Saul. Saul was a king, and if we go back to 1 Samuel 10, you'd see that he also received the Spirit, or 1 Samuel 11. And he actually prophesied too. But that didn't mean that Saul always pleased the Lord and always obeyed him. So there was a little bit more than just being indwelled. What we're going to find is that having the indwelling spirit is a base for operation. It doesn't mean you automatically serve, it's a base for service. You have the capacity then to serve in supernatural ways. So, point B then, the spirit's indwelling was temporary in the Old Testament also. So not only was it limited to certain individuals, it's temporary for those individuals. When they completed their service, then the spirit would depart. So, for example, the spirit left Saul when the Lord rejected him from being king, which means that he didn't always use the spirit in his service. 1 Samuel 16, verse 14, the very next verse. When the spirit entered David, what happened to Saul? Verse 14. Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him. So you could lose the Spirit in the indwelling spirit in the Old Testament. Whenever you were rejected from your service or your service was complete. I don't know if I pointed it out in the prophets section in Numbers 11, but it says only when the Spirit came upon them did they prophesy. Otherwise they couldn't do that. So it was temporary, but and take a look at Psalm 51 to confirm that in fact it could be lost. Psalm 51, this is the Psalm that David penned under inspiration after the Bathsheba and Uriah incident when he had sinned, and the prophet Nathan came to him and uh David was convicted of his sin and he confessed. This is his confessional psalm. You'll see in here verse 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. That was a legitimate prayer in the Old Testament, because indeed God could take his spirit from you, if you as Saul failed in your service. And David knew that he had failed in his service due to his sin with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah. And so he prays here not that the Lord would take his spirit from him, but to
Jesus Predicts Permanent Indwelling
SPEAKER_01the spirit might remain, right? To empower him to continue in his kingship. A prayer which was was answered. So that is a second truth. A third truth in the Old Testament, uh, Israel dispensation is in this limited and temporary sense the spirit was among Israel. That's kind of the key word among Israel. So all Israel didn't have this. Spirit indwelling, just certain individuals, those individuals were among Israel. So as long as the Spirit was indwelling those individuals, he was among all Israel. But Jesus prophesied that things would change and the Spirit would be in all believers in the church. John 14, 17. I know we've seen this verse several times in the last few weeks, but the reason I'm repeating it is because it's so important.
SPEAKER_00John 14, must be 15, 16, and 17. John 14, 15.
SPEAKER_01How do we show the Lord Jesus Christ that we love him? Verse 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Well, he's given us someone to help. Verse 16, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, and he may be with you forever. That is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he abides with you. That was at the present time. He was dwelling among them.
SPEAKER_00In Christ himself, right? And he will be in you. That's a prophecy.
SPEAKER_01Will be. Future tense, right? He will be in you. So that's a prophecy of the Spirit coming to permanently indwell believers in the church. So this is going to be different from Old Testament work of the Spirit. Turn over also to John 7, because John 7.37, another very significant prophecy about the Spirit's arrival on the day of Pentecost and how his indwelling ministry would be different. Would be different. Jesus said streams of living water would flow from within them. Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And he who believes in me, what do you have to do? You have to repent of your sins and promise to live a better life and commit your life to Jesus Christ that you're going to live for him every day, every moment? You have to be water baptized? Do you have to attend church every Sunday, Wednesday?
SPEAKER_00No, you have to do what? Believe in him.
SPEAKER_01As the scripture said, what will happen? From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And you say, well, what is that? Well, thankfully, we get told in the next verse. But this he spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given. Why? Because Jesus was not yet glorified. So this definitely shows a difference in how believers in the Spirit were related prior to Jesus' death and glorification, and believers after that. So that's why I've divided everything to before Pentecost, as we're talking here, and as we'll see in a moment, after Pentecost, because that's when he was glorified, and he sent forth the Spirit to be in them and to flow out of them, you know, rivers of living water. When I grew up, there was a little bookstore in our town, Paris, Texas, called it had this name. It was called, what's it called? It's just dawning on me right now. Does it ever have it's called the uh rivers of living water? Rivers of life, something like that. Uh cute little name for a bookstore, right? Christian bookstore. But um just another observation as we go into this. The people Jesus is speaking to here, like his apostles, they had already believed. But did they have the Holy Spirit living in them yet? No, not yet. They would have to wait until he died and was glorified. Then, of course, on the day of Pentecost, they would receive the Holy Spirit in them. So here's people who had believed during the time of Christ in his earthly ministry, and then they did not receive the Holy Spirit until later in Acts chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so before Pentecost, the Spirit's indwelling was limited and temporary, but what is happening now in the church is it is unlimited and permanent, meaning it's for all believers, and he will not leave you. There's no reason to pray the prayer we'll see in Psalm 51, like David, take not your spirit from me. There's no reason to pray that because he's not going to leave you, he permanently indwells. John Walbert said, one of the distinctive features of this dispensation, meaning the church or grace, in contrast to prior periods, is that the Holy Spirit indwells everyone who is regenerated. So this means we all have him as a base of operation for living the Christian life. They didn't have that in the Old Testament. They just had certain individuals who received the Spirit, and it was
Indwelling For Every Believer Today
SPEAKER_01temporary. So let's look now after Pentecost, what we call the dispensation of the church, which is Jew and Gentile in one body on equal spiritual footing. So first of all, the Spirit's indwelling is for all who believe. All who believe. Galatians 4 6. Galatians 4.6. Seems like there was one here I really wanted to point out.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, we'll do that one second. 1 Corinthians. Galatians 4 6. Galatians 4.6.
SPEAKER_01Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our heart crying, Abba, Father. So he's indwelling, right? He's indwelling our hearts. So that's for all who are sons, which would just be all believers. How about 1 Corinthians 6? Turn back to the left.
SPEAKER_001 Corinthians 6, verse 19.
SPEAKER_011 Corinthians 6, 19, when he's dealing with the lawful use of the body, how we ought to use our bodies, because our bodies have been purchased by Christ, therefore we should honor God with our bodies. In the midst of that, in chapter 6, verse 19, notice the temple imagery. Notice the temple imagery. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? Now, who's he talking to? I mean, specifically. The Corinthians. Were they the model Christian? No, that would be somebody like the Thessalonians or others. But not the Corinthians. I mean, the Corinthians had all sorts of worldliness in the church. In fact, that's the title of the book, 1 Corinthians, the worldness in the church. Plug, putting a plug in. But anyway, 1 Corinthians 6.19 says that the Corinthians needed to know that their bodies were a temple of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00Were they sinning? Well, absolutely. A lot. And was the Holy Spirit in them? Yes.
SPEAKER_01So their bodies are a temple, a spiritual temple. And the Holy Spirit is in that temple, that naas, that most holy place. That's the imagery we have to keep in mind. Now, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, and he dwells in the most holy place, which is the regenerate nature. The regenerate nature is your most holy place, and that's where the Holy Spirit indwells. And then you also have the flesh that's operating through your physical members that Paul talks about, and the flesh and the spirit war against one another, right? And there's this conflict that goes on inside of you. And this is why. Okay? You still have a flesh, but in this most holy place you have the spirit indwelling, and he he is in war with the flesh. So there's a couple verses there about it being the spirit being in all of us who believe. Now, if we do not have the spirit indwelling us, then guess what? We don't even belong to Christ. Meaning we're unbelievers. So Romans, turn to the right, a couple books.
SPEAKER_00Romans 8 9. I'm sorry. Left. Got my directions wrong. Romans 8 9, right?
SPEAKER_01There's a lot here in Romans 8 about the Spirit, but especially about the Spirit's indwelling in all believers in Romans 8.9. However, he says, you Roman believers, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. So if you do not have the Spirit indwelling in you today, you do not belong to Christ. And therefore every believer, of course, is indwelt by the Spirit. Jude 19 is speaking of unbelievers. That's another reference here. It says they are devoid of the Spirit. Unbelievers do not have the Spirit of God indwelling. So the norm is that the Spirit comes to indwell the moment a person believes. Jesus even said that in John 7. Those who believe, they'll receive the Spirit. So he comes to indwell the moment you believe. Galatians 3 2. You want to turn or you want to stay? I'll just I could just read it real quick, or you can turn. Galatians, if you're really fast. Now we'll have a race. We'll have a Bible drill. Everybody stand up. I'm giving out books. I don't know. Galatians 3 2. This is the only thing I want to find out from you, silly Galatians, he says. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Now it's a rhetorical question. How did they receive the Spirit? By works or by hearing? Well, by hearing. Hearing what? Hearing the gospel and doing what with it? Putting faith in it. So the moment you believe is the norm is you would receive the Holy Spirit to indwell
Acts Transition And Apostolic Confirmation
SPEAKER_01you. However, the early church was a period of transition, like we're talking here about the book of Acts. And the Spirit was only given when apostles were present to testify the entrance of a new group into the church. What do I mean here? Why am I bringing this point up? Because I said earlier, well, Jesus said earlier in John 7, when he talked about the rivers of life would flow, living waters would flow out of you. For those who had believed, he says. Well, there were people who had already believed and they didn't have the spirit. But on the day of Pentecost, the day that Peter and other apostles were present, there was a pouring out of the Spirit, and the believers who were Jewish that day, first group to enter the church, received the Spirit. And so that's when they received him. So that's not normal because normally you receive him when you believe, but they'd already believed. Months and even years ahead of time, right? But you had to wait till the day of Pentecost. The second group to enter is the Samaritans in Acts 8. And that's when Philip is up in Samaria. He preaches the gospel. It says these people believed, and then he water baptized them. Even Simon the magician, remember, even he believed. And they were even water baptized. And guess what? They still had not received the indwelling spirit. And it says, then Peter came up and he laid hands on him, it says, and they were receiving the Spirit at that point. So there's a distance between when they believed and when they received the Spirit. Why? Well, because there was no apostle there to verify that this was actually the work of the Spirit of God. Once he arrived, it was verified by an apostle. The third group is Acts 10, that's Cornelius' house and their Gentiles. And who was there? Well, Peter was there. He preached at Cornelius' home, and when they heard, they were believing, and it says the Holy Spirit fell upon them. So they were baptized by the Spirit. Again, it required apostolic presence for affirmation. And then the last one is Acts 19, and that's just outside Ephesus, where Paul meets some disciples of John the Baptist. That's the fourth group. Jews on Pentecost, Samaritans Acts 8, Gentiles, Acts 10, and then disciples of John the Baptist in Acts 19. And again, they had only believed in what John had preached up to where he said, You should believe in the one who's coming after you. And they never stuck around to find out who that was. They went back to their areas outside the land. And now Paul says the one he pointed to was Jesus, and they were believing on him. And guess what happened? At that point, they received the Spirit to indwell them. So those are all little different, little odd situations, but it's because each of those is one of the four major groups who was to enter the church. And so it required apostolic presence for that group to first receive the Holy Spirit to indwell. After that point, the norm for anyone, Jew or Gentile, is the moment they believe, the Holy Spirit comes to indwell them. That is the norm.
Corporate And Personal Temples
SPEAKER_01The Spirit's indwelling again is depicted by temple imagery. We read one passage in the 1 Corinthians. Look also at 1 Corinthians 3.16, because this passage is often not understood exactly correctly. 1 Corinthians 3.16. Paul's talking about how the church grows.
SPEAKER_00This is the passage where he says, I planted, Apollos watered, but and you can fill in the blank, right? But who? God was doing what?
SPEAKER_01Causing the growth. This is that passage. The growth of what? The individual believer? Or is he talking about in the context the growth of the church? He's talking contextually about the growth of the church and every man's responsibility to contribute to the building up of the body of Christ. Right? And the question of this whole chapter is, how are you building?
SPEAKER_00How are you contributing to the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_01And he comes down in verse 16 and he says to the Corinthians as a group, Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? So if any man destroys the temple of God, in other words, you're tearing down the church, you're not contributing to its upbuilding, you're contributing to its downfall. What does he say? God will destroy him. What does that mean? Well, it's talking about divine discipline. That's what it's talking about. Talking about divine discipline. Why? Because the temple of God is holy. The Na'as of God is holy, and that is what you are. So the church itself is a spiritual temple, and we're supposed to contribute to it by upbuilding it. And that, of course, means that we are a holy place, and the world is to meet God at this holy place. Okay.
SPEAKER_00We are the meeting place for the world and God.
SPEAKER_01So that's important temple imagery. Also look at 2 Corinthians 6 16, because in this letter, he's not referring to the church as a whole, primarily, but the individual believer more specifically. The individual believer is a temple as well. So the church corporate is a temple, but also the individual believer is a temple. He asks the Corinthians, who again are compromised with false teachers. He says, What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. And then he quotes from the Old Testament to discuss how God would dwell in them. Ultimately, we know now by means of his spirit. So we individual are temples. Okay, and remember two words Hiran, the whole complex, and Na'as, the most holy place. And guess which one is used? Naas. Okay, the most holy place. That is you. So I mean, obviously, how are we supposed to live our lives? If we're the most holy place, our lives should represent that holiness. I mean, God says it himself. Be ye holy as I am holy. That means to reflect my holiness back to me. Be light in the world, be holy people in the world, live different lives. The good news is that no, we can't do that on our own, but we have someone indwelling us called the Spirit of God. He dwells in that most holy place. And when we get to next week, we talk about how his work is effectual on our lives, how he produces that holiness. We have to talk about abiding and filling these types of work. But for now, just know that you are a spiritual temple. So Israel always has a physical temple. Okay. Israel always has a physical temple. Is there a physical temple in the land of Israel right now? Is there a physical temple up on the Temple Mount? No, you've got the Temple Mount, right? You have the Dome of the Rock, you've got the Alaksa Mosque on the south end, uh, you've got some other mosques, school on the northern end for Islam, Islamic kids, stuff like that. Uh there's no temple there now, but there is to be a temple there in the future. Whenever there is a physical temple, Israel is center stage. Whenever there's no physical temple, guess what? Spiritual temple is center stage. And that's a temple. But there's always a temple. Why is there always a temple? Because God wants to dwell with man. What was the very by the way? Let's just think in a much bigger picture.
SPEAKER_00What was the very first temple technically? The Garden of Eden. How many entrances? One. Which direction was it? The east. When they build the tabernacle and later the temple, which way is the one entrance situated to the east? So um there's a lot of imagery here.
SPEAKER_01Ultimately in the new heavens and new earth there is no temple, for the Lord God and his son are the temple. Right? But that's for the future. He will dwell with them in the New Jerusalem. So which is a cube, though, by the way. It is a cube, right? It's a perfect cube, the New Jerusalem. One fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles by fifteen hundred miles. So it's a 1500-mile cube. Right? What shape was the most holy place? A perfect cube. Both in the tabernacle and the temple of Solomon. So interesting. But so the temple imagery is what signifies again a meeting place. It's where God meets with man. In the Old Testament, Israel would go to the temple to meet God. In the New Testament, church, uh, people go to believers to meet with God. So this is what makes it so important for us to be filled with the Spirit, to be a separate people. So the Spirit who indwells our sinless, regenerate nature, will manifest the life of Christ through us. And that way the world will want to become Christians. Unfortunately, we're not doing a great job at this, but I mean, certain individuals are. I don't mean that. I just mean the church as a whole doesn't seem to be doing a wonderful job with this. We tend to just look a lot like the world.
Sin Grieves The Spirit Not Removes
SPEAKER_01Uh third, the spirit still indwells believers when they sin. In other words, he's never going to leave us. Remember in the Old Testament? Take not your spirit from me, said David. But that's not a prayer now, because he's not going to. Take a look at Ephesians 4.30. Ephesians 4.30. So turn to the right, then you get to Galatians and then Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00God eats popcorn, right? Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Yes, so eating popcorn is godly, yes. I'm just playing. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Ephesians 4.30. And another work of the Spirit's mentioned here, we'll get to in a few weeks. But do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. So what happens when we sin? Well, one of the things that happens is we're grieving the Holy Spirit, right? We're grieving the Holy Spirit. So if we're grieving him, does he leave us or is he there remaining inside of us? But it's a grieving situation because we're sinning. Well, it's a grieving situation. He doesn't leave us. So we don't, you know, we wouldn't lose our salvation or anything like that. See, I mean, there's no sin you can do that can cause you to lose your salvation. Uh at the past church, I was at back in Texas years ago. One man, very I felt a lot of compassion for this man. His daughter committed suicide.
SPEAKER_00And he was worried that she had committed a sin that would cause her to lose her salvation, suicide.
SPEAKER_01And so I didn't. Convince them from the scriptures that the Holy Spirit would never leave us or forsake us, you know, because of any sin that we commit. It doesn't make sin okay. We're not saying that. Of course we shouldn't sin, but there is no sin that we can do that can cause him to leave us. What we can do is commit sin that causes him to be grieved. Be grieved. So we don't lose our salvation whenever we sin, no matter how horrible that sin may be, but we do cause grieving of the Spirit, and this causes us to lose fellowship with God, that close intimacy. We don't lose the relationship, we only lose the fellowship.
Gift Of Grace And Future Resurrection
SPEAKER_01Fourth, the Spirit is received as a gift of grace through faith, and it's not by obedience or by works. We already looked at the Galatians passage, but there are other passages here. We're close to 2 Corinthians, so we can back up to that one. 2 Corinthians 5.5. The Holy Spirit is a gift of God's grace. We don't do any works to receive the Holy Spirit. He just is instantly given the moment we believe. He's a gift. He's given. And 2 Corinthians 5.5 is pointing that out. Paul says, now he who prepared us for this very purpose is God who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. So if something's given to you, it's just a gift. It can't be given to you if you earned it. It's not a gift if you earned it, it's what is due. And the Holy Spirit was not due to you or to me or to anyone because we didn't work for him. He's simply a gift of God's grace. One passage is sometimes used to say we don't receive the indwelling spirit unless we obey, Acts 5.32, but the obedience there is the obedience of faith, meaning believe. What should we do that we do the works of God? Believe in him. That's what you should do. So, no, no works to obey, just believe. The Spirit's indwelling presence, like right here in this verse, 2 Corinthians 5.5, is a down payment, which ensures more to follow. Notice how it says at the end of the verse, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. This word, arabone, which means a down payment. When you go to buy your first house, or maybe you buy a car, you might put down a down payment, right? What is that an assurance of? It's an assurance of more to come, right? You made the down payment, you're saying, I'm good on this. I'm going to follow through. It's a guarantee.
SPEAKER_00And then later you pay. There's more.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, but there's more. More to pay. But in this case, it's a good thing, right? So we've only received a portion of the Spirit, so to speak. He's just given to us as a pledge, a down payment that's an assurance of more to come. This more to come involves our resurrection body, so we'll be fit to live in the glorified creation. So a lot of this is Romans chapter 8. But right now, see, go to Romans 8. We we've we we're just partakers of and have just a taste of the Spirit. We just have a taste. We don't have the fullness of the Spirit, which we will have later. But notice all this. Romans 8, I think it's verse 11. Romans 8, 11. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, and he does if you believe in the gospel, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. So at the rapture, the day that all believers will be resurrected, all church believers, the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence in us is what gives rise to the resurrection body. Verse 13 or 23. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. This is what we're waiting for, right? We're all anxiously waiting. I mean, you have the sufferings of your body. I mean, you go through things, you don't know what's going on, you're trying to figure it out, you try to do the best you can to live a better quality life, right? But ultimately, the quality of life is enhanced tremendously when the spirit who dwells in us redeems our body, gives us a resurrection body. That body is designed for the world to come. And he's just been talking about that in the context. This whole creation that is now longing to be set free from the curse of sin into the freedom of the children of God. The whole creation wants to be set free. And when we're resurrected, we'll be a part of that creation. And this is the time when Christ comes to rule and reign in his coming kingdom. So that's coming. Um, and then I told you, don't forget the anointing, right? I said, nah, you probably forgot, it's been a while, but you remember now.
SPEAKER_00A lot of times people will say, Well, I've had people say to me, uh, you have the and you have the anointing. I'm like, yeah, so do you.
SPEAKER_01Um maybe a little downer for him, but anyway. I mean in the positive sense, like, this is something we all have. This is the this word anointing is it refers to an initial reception of something. Like King David was anointed, right? And it's at that point that he was also received the Spirit to enable him to serve as king, right? And this anointing is for us also the moment we believe, we the anointing is the initial reception of the spirit that we have to come and dwell us. It's not a separate thing that happens later in your Christian life, it happens at the beginning of your Christian life. So every usage of anointing in 2 Corinthians 1 and 1 John 2 are past or once for all tenses, signifying that initial reception of the Spirit. And this makes sense, of course, because the word anoint refers to the initial application of oil, which is a type of the spirit. So all believers, all of us, have the anointing. You receive that as the initial downpayment of the spirit given to indwell you the moment you believe. So, concluding then, okay, let's just put these pieces together. It is the regenerate nature that the Holy Spirit comes to indwell. From this space within your human body, the spirit wars against the flesh. That's that's this is what we are all frustrated with is that there's a war within us. We're like, why can't we just always do righteousness? Um, we'd sure like to. It causes a lot less trouble. It enjoys us to have freedom and enjoy life. Galatians 5, 17 says quite clearly, for the flesh sets its desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. You can't do it on your own. That's why the Holy Spirit has been given to us, and that's why next week's lesson will be on the filling and abiding, because it's teaching us in this next week how. How do we overcome the desires of the flesh? So you have this war going on inside of you. Thus, having the indwelling spirit is not enough to win the battle. I mean, you can be a believer and all believers have the spirit. That's not enough to win. That's just a base of operation. We also have to be filled by the spirit or abide. And when we are, we are empowered to live the new sinless life that resides in our regenerate nature. So the indwelling spirit in our regenerate nature is the base of operation for living the Christian life. He's given to us as a free gift through faith, as a down payment of more to come in the coming resurrection. As such, we are now the temple or the meeting place for other people in the world to meet God. And so next week, then we'll talk about the filling of the Spirit, right? That's what's necessary for the Spirit to produce the sinless life of Christ through us so that our lives appear holy, meaning separate, distinct from the world. Because if we live just like the world, well, nobody's gonna be interested in the message that we carry, are they? Nobody's gonna be interested in Christianity. But if our lives are different, then as Peter says, someone may be given cause to ask for a reason for the hope that is in us, and we may be able to give a gentle response that proclaims Christ and his salvation through him. So that's where we want to go with this. All right. I hope that's a little bit helpful as far as indwelling, but it's pretty fantastic what we have within us to enable us to live different lives.
Where To Find Visuals And Closing
SPEAKER_03Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.