this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit" (2
Cor. 5:5). "Ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an
earnest of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:13, 14). "Through him we both have
our access in one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph. 2:18). "Be filled with
the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). "If there is therefore any ... fellowship of
the Spirit" (Phil. 2:1). "Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth ...
God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you" (1 Thess. 4:8). "For God gave
us not a spirit, of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline"
(2 Tim. 1:7). "He saved us through the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Spirit" (Tit. 3:5). "God also bearing witness with
them, both by signs and wonders and by manifold powers, and by gifts of
the Holy Spirit" (Heb. 2:4). "Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in
us long unto envying?" (Jas. 4:5). "Ye have an anointing from the Holy
One" (1 John 2: 20). "The anointing which ye received of him abideth in
you" (1 John 2:27). "He hath given us of his Spirit" (1 John 4:13).

All the above Scriptures become clear if we understand them to apply to
a people through whom God was manifesting his presence by supernatural
demonstrations, but many of them lack meaning when applied to people of
God who no longer exhibit these supernatural powers.




VIII

THE SPIRIT AND THE WORLD


Hitherto we have been treating the Holy Spirit in terms of the past, but