Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
— John 14:17
He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
— John 6:56
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
— John 14:23
For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
— Isaiah 57:15
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
— Romans 8:9-11
Inhabitation of the Spirit is the First Thing Promised, by John Owen. The following contains Chapter Four of Book Eight of his work, “ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΟΛΟΓΙΑ Pneumatologia,” or “A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit.”
Search the Scriptures, etc. — John v. 39.
Ἐκ τῶν θείων γραφᾶν θεολογοῦμεν, καὶ θέλωσιν οἱ ἐχθροὶ, καὶ μή.
Out of the written word of God come Divine teachings, though His enemies may not wish it. — Chrysostom.
London: 1693.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
— John 14:16
Of the Holy Spirit as a Comforter.
Inhabitation of the Spirit is the First Thing Promised.
Chapter IV.
The first thing which the Comforter is promised for to believers, is that he will dwell in them; this is their great fundamental privilege, and all others depend on it. This must therefore be inquired into in the first place.
The inhabitation of the Spirit in believers is among those things which we ought to firmly believe as to the nature or being of it; but we cannot fully conceive of it as to its manner. Nor can this be the least impeachment of its truth to any who assent to the gospel, in which we have various things proposed as objects of our faith, which our reason cannot comprehend. We will therefore assert to no more in this matter than what the Scripture directly and expressly goes before us in. And where we have the express letter of the Scripture for our warrant, we are eternally safe, so long as we affix no sense to it that is absolutely repugnant to reason or contrary to more plain testimonies in other places. Therefore, to make plain what we intend in this, the ensuing observations must be premised.
First. This personal inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in believers is distinct and different from his essential omnipresence, by which he is in all things. Omnipresence is essential; inhabitation is personal. Omnipresence is a necessary property of his nature, and so it is not of him as a distinct person in the Trinity, but as God essentially — He is one and the same in being and substance with the Father and the Son. To be everywhere, to fill all things, to be present with them or indistant from them, always equally existing in the power of an infinite being, is an inseparable property of the divine nature as such. But this inhabitation is personal, or what belongs to him distinctly as the Holy Ghost. Besides, it is voluntary and it might not have been; which is why it is the subject of a free promise of God, and wholly depends on a free act of the will of the Holy Spirit himself.
Secondly. What is intended is not a presence by virtue of a metonymical designation, or an expression of the cause for the effect. The meaning of this promise, “The Spirit will dwell in you,” is not “He will work graciously in you,” for he can do this without any special presence. Being essentially everywhere, he can work where and how he pleases without any special presence. But it is the Spirit himself that is promised, and his presence in an especial manner, and an especial manner of that presence: “He will be in you, and dwell in you,” as we will see.
The only inquiry in this matter is whether the Holy Spirit himself is promised to believers, or only his grace, which we will immediately inquire into. Thirdly. The dwelling of the person of the Holy Spirit in believers, whatever its nature is, does not effect a personal union between them. What we call a “personal union” is the union of diverse natures in the same person; and there can be only one person by virtue of this union. Such is the hypostatic union in the person of the Son of God. It was our nature he assumed, and not the person of anyone. It was impossible that he would assume any more than in one individual instance; for if he could have assumed another individual being of our nature, then it must differ personally from what he assumed; for there is nothing that makes one man differ from another but a distinct personal subsistence of each. And it implies the highest contradiction that the Son of God could be hypostatically united to more than one. For if they are more than one, they must be more persons than one; and many persons cannot be hypostatically united — for that means to be one person, and no more. There may be a manifold union, mystical and moral, of diverse and many persons; but there cannot be a personal union of anything but distinct natures.
Just as the Son of God could not assume many persons, so too, supposing that the human nature which he united to himself was a “person” — that is, that it had a distinct subsistence of its own, antecedent to its union — there could have been no personal union between it and the Son of God; for the Son of God was a distinct person. And if the human nature had been a distinct person too, there would still have been two persons, and so no personal union. Nor can it be said that although the human nature of Christ was a person in itself, it ceased to be so upon its union with the divine, and so two persons were conjoined and compounded into one. For if ever human nature has in any instance a personal subsistence of its own, it cannot be separated from it without the destruction and annihilation of the individual. To suppose otherwise is to make it continue as what it was, and not what it was— for it is what it is, distinct from all other individuals, by virtue of its personality. Therefore, upon this inhabitation of the Spirit, whatever it consists of, there is no personal union ensuing between him and believers, nor is it possible that any such thing could be. For he and they are distinct persons, and while their natures are distinct, they must eternally abide so. It is only the assumption of our nature into union with the Son of God, antecedent to any individual personal subsistence of its own, that can constitute such a union.
Fourthly. The union and relation that ensues from this inhabitation of the Spirit is not immediate between Him and believers, but between them and Jesus Christ. For he is sent to dwell in them by Christ, in his name, as his Spirit, to stand in his place in love and grace towards them, making use of Christ’s things in all his effects and operations, to his glory. From this, I say, comes the union of believers with Christ by the Spirit, and not with the Spirit himself. For this Holy Spirit dwelling in the human nature of Christ, manifesting and acting himself in all fullness, as declared, being sent by Christ to dwell in like manner and act in a limited measure in all believers — there is a mystical union arising between them, of which the Spirit is the bond and vital principle.
On these considerations, I say, it is the person of the Holy Ghost that is promised to believers, and not only the effects of his grace and power; and it is his person that always dwells in them. On the one hand, this is an argument for his infinite condescension in complying with this part of his office and work: to be sent by the Father and Son to dwell in believers. So too, it is an evident demonstration of his eternal deity: that one and the self-same person should, at the same time, inhabit so many thousands of distinct persons who are or were, at any time, believers in the world — it is foolish to imagine that this concerns anyone who is not absolutely infinite. And therefore, what some oppose as unfit for him, and beneath his glory — namely, his inhabitation in the saints of God — is a most illustrious and uncontrollable demonstration of his eternal glory.
For none but the one who is absolutely immense in his nature and omnipresence, can be present with and indistant from all believers in the world; and none but the one whose person is infinite, by virtue of his nature, can personally and equally inhabit them all. An infinite nature and person is required for this. And in considering the incomprehensibility of this, we are to acquiesce as to the manner of his inhabitation, which we cannot conceive of.
1. There are very many promises in the Old Testament that God would thus give the Holy Spirit in and by virtue of the new covenant, such as Eze 36.27, Isa 59.21, Pro 1.23. And in every place, God calls this the promised Spirit, and as promised, His Spirit, “My Spirit;” which precisely denotes the person of the Spirit himself. It is generally apprehended and I confess that in these promises, the Holy Spirit is intended only as to his gracious effects and operations, and not as to any personal inhabitation. I will not contend much about these promises, except that in some of them, his person, as promised, is expressly distinguished from all his gracious effects. But the exposition given about them in their accomplishment under the New Testament, will not allow us to judge them this way; for —
2. We are directed to pray for the Holy Spirit, and assured that God will give him to those who ask for him in a due manner, Luk 11.13. If these words must be expounded metonymically, and not properly, it must be because either —
1. They do not agree in the letter with other testimonies of Scripture; or,
2. They contain some sense that is absurd and unreasonable; or,
3. It is contrary to the experience of those who believe.
The first cannot be said, for countless other testimonies concur with it; nor can the second, as we will show; and as for the third, we will prove its contrary. What is it that believers intend in their request for the Spirit? I suppose I may say that there is no single petition in which they are more intense and earnest, nor which they more frequently insist upon. As David prayed that “God would not take his Holy Spirit from him,” Psa 51.11, so they pray that God would bestow his Spirit on them; for they ought to do this even after they have received him. His continuance with him, his evidencing and manifesting himself in and to them, are the design of their continual supplications for him. Is it merely external operations of the Spirit in grace that they desire in this? Do they not always pray for his ineffable presence and inhabitation? Will any thoughts of grace or mercy relieve or satisfy them once they apprehend that the Holy Spirit is not in them, or does not dwell with them? Even though they are not able to form any conception in their minds of the manner of his presence and residence in them, yet it is what they pray for.
And without the apprehension of this by faith, they can have neither peace nor consolation. This promise being is confined to believers — those who are truly and really so, as we showed before — it is their experience by which its accomplishment is to be judged, and not the presumption of those by whom both the Spirit himself and his whole work is despised.
3. This inhabitation is what our Lord Jesus Christ principally directs his disciples to expect in the promise of the Spirit: “He dwells with you, and will be in you,” Joh 14.17. The one who so dwells is the “Comforter;” or as it is emphatically expressed in Joh 16.13, “The Spirit of truth.” He is promised to and he inhabits those who believe. So it is expressly affirmed towards all who are partakers of this promise: Rom 8.9, “You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Rom 8.11, “If the Spirit of him that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.” “The Holy Spirit dwells in us,” 2Tim 1.14. “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world,” 1Joh 4.4. And there are many other express testimonies to the same purpose. The subject of these promises and propositions is the Holy Ghost himself, the person of the Holy Ghost — and that is so expressed as not to leave any pretense that it means anything else, or that it is not his person. And nothing is ascribed to him that is unreasonable, or inconvenient to him in the discharge of his office, or inconsistent with any of his divine perfections. Rather, all of it is in every way suitable to his work, and evidently demonstrative of his divine nature and subsistence. Therefore, it is both irrational and unsuitable for the economy of divine grace, to twist these expressions to a lower, simpler, and figurative meaning. I am persuaded that it is contrary to the faith of the catholic church of true believers to do so. Some of them may not have exercised their minds about the manner of the abode of the Holy Spirit with the church. And some of them, when they hear of his personal indwelling, in which they have not been duly instructed, may indeed fear that what they cannot comprehend, cannot be, and that some evil consequences may ensue from admitting it, even though they cannot say what these consequences are. Yet with them all, it is even an article of faith that the “Holy Ghost dwells in the church,” — that is, in those who truly believe — and in this, they apprehend such a personal presence of his, as they cannot conceive. Therefore, this being so expressly and so frequently affirmed in the Scripture, and the comfort of the church, which depends on it, being singular and eminent, it is for me an important article of evangelical truth.
4. Although all the principal actings of the Holy Spirit in us and towards us as a comforter, depend on this head, or flow from this spring of his inhabitation, yet in the confirmation of its truth, I will here name one or two actings by which it is evidenced, and its benefits to the church declared:
1. This is the spring of his gracious operations in us. So our Savior himself declares: “The water that I give him will be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” Joh 4.14. The water promised here is the Holy Spirit, called the “gift of God,” verse 10. This is evident from the parallel passage, Joh 7.38-39, where this living water is plainly declared to be the Holy Ghost.
And this water which is given to anyone, is to be in him, and to abide there; this is but a metaphorical expression for the inhabitation of the Spirit. For it is to be in him as a well, as a living fountain, which cannot be spoken of any gracious habit whatsoever. No quality in our minds can be a spring of living water. Besides, all gracious habits are effects of the operation of the Holy Spirit; and therefore they are not the well itself, but belong to its springing up in living water. So the Spirit in his indwelling is distinguished from all his evangelical operations of grace, just as the well is distinct from the streams that flow from it. And just as it is natural and easy for a spring of living water to bubble up and put out refreshing streams, so it belongs to the consolation of believers to know how easy it is for the Holy Spirit, how ready he is on account of his gracious inhabitation, to carry on and perfect the work of grace, holiness, and sanctification in them. Whatever instruction they may take for their own deportment towards him, may be addressed afterwards. So in many other places, his presence with us which we proved to be by gracious inhabitation is proposed as the cause and spring of all his gracious operations; and so it is distinct from them. So, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us,” Rom 5.5; “The Spirit of God that dwells in you will quicken your mortal bodies,” Rom 8.11; “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God,” Rom 8.16. These passages have been explained and vindicated elsewhere.
2. This is the hidden spring and cause of that inexpressible distance and difference that exists between believers and the rest of the world. Our apostle tells us that the “life” of believers is “hid with Christ in God,” Col 3.3. They have a blessed life while they are here, dead to the world — and as dead in the world, it is a life that will issue in eternal glory! But no such thing appears, no luster of it is cast abroad into the eyes of men. “True,” says the apostle, “for it is ‘hid with Christ in God.’” It is hidden in its causes, nature, operations, and means of preservation. But it is by this hidden life that they are differenced from the perishing world. And it will not be denied, I suppose, that this difference is real and great. For those who believe, enjoy the special love and favor of God; but those who do not, are “under the curse,” Gal 3.10 and “the wrath of God abides on them.” Joh 3.36. Believers are “alive to God,” Rom 6.11, but others are “dead in trespasses and sins.” Eph 2.1. If men will not believe that there is so inexpressible a difference between them in this world, then they will be forced to confess it at the last day, when the decretory Mat 25.41 “Go, you cursed,” sentences of, “Come, you blessed,” will be openly denounced. Mat 25.34
But, for the most part, there is no visible cause in the eyes of the world, of this inexpressible and eternal difference between these two sorts of persons. Besides that, for the most part, the world judges amiss about all that believers are and do. And through an inbred enmity, working by wicked and foolish surmises, it supposes they are the worst rather than absolutely the best of men. And for the most part, there is not such a visible and manifest difference between them in outward actions and duties on which alone a judgment may be passed in man’s day as to be a just foundation for believing there is so unspeakable a difference as spoken of. There is a difference in their works, which indeed ought to be far greater than it is; and so a greater testimony is given to the righteousness of God,1Joh 3.12. There is yet a greater difference in internal, habitual grace, by which the minds of believers are transformed initially into the image of God, Titus 1.15. But these things will not bear the weight of this inconceivable distance.
Principally, therefore, it depends on this — namely, the inhabitation of the Spirit in those who believe. The great difference between the two houses that Solomon built, was that God dwelt in the one, and Solomon dwelt in the other. Though any two houses, as to their outward fabric, have the same appearance, if the king dwells in the one and a robber dwells in the other, the one may be a palace and the other a den of thieves. It is this inhabitation of the Spirit on which immediately depend all the privileges of believers, and all the advantages which they have above the men of the world. And the difference which is made by this, or which ensues from this, is so inconceivably great, that a sufficient reason may be given from this, for all the excellent things which are spoken about those who are partakers of it.
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