3-1-10 Receiving The Holy Spirit

Questions from the floor

CHAIRMAN

Thank you very much, Marie. We are now in that part of our program for questions and answers. Now I’ll go over here and see what sort of questions we have. Well, either Duncan has done really well or really badly, because we have just one question. And the question to you, Duncan is, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?”

DUNCAN HEASTER

The whole idea of receiving the Holy Spirit, I understand in terms of the receipt of the Holy Spirit that occurred in Acts chapter 2, when the disciples were given the gift of speaking in tongues, to go out and heal for example. They received those gifts, as I’ve tried to show, as specific things at specific times. To confirm the Word that they spoke. They went out into this world to preach the gospel, God worked with them, once the written New Testament was completed then that whole working of God changed. Marie has quite rightly quoted that it’s the same spirit that works, but in different ways. So in that sense, yes the Spirit of God is still at work. We’re not saying it isn’t at work. But those people like Peter who received it received it for a specific purpose. When that purpose was finished, they maybe were given it again, as in Peter’s case we showed 3 times he was filled with Holy Spirit to do specific things. When he’d done the job he didn’t need to have that gift. So in terms of have I received the Holy Spirit…I’m submitting that nobody has received miraculous Holy Spirit gifts because we’re now in a completely different dispensation. What we are called upon to do is develop the mind of Christ, the spirit of Christ within us. As Paul says, “if any man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His”. And so we’re not saying that we should be without the spirit in that sense. We are saying that that one spirit operates in different ways. In the first century it operated through miraculous gifts. Now it’s completely different. We’re in a different ministration and different dispensation. We’re asked to develop the mind of the spirit. And that’s not something that can be achieved by being possessed, in that sense. It’s something that we develop. How? For instance, I’ve suggested that the Word of God, the Bible, is the focus of God’s spirit in these days. And through attention to that Word, through making the Word of God become flesh in us as it was in our Lord, so the spirit of God can be manifested in our lives. Now I hope that’s not too long an answer, but that’s the position that I have on that subject. Thank you.