Doctrine of the Holy Spirit: I just listened to a really bad sermon on Ephesians 5:18. There is really no other way around it. Much of what was said would immediately sound foreign to those of us who have spent years trying to distinguish grace from works and the gospel from every system that makes the blessing of God depend upon something we must supply. There were appeals to surrender, obedience, conscious experience, and even the familiar suggestion that the believer possesses only as much of God as they truly want. It would be easy enough to stop there and point out all the places where that kind of thinking departs from the gospel.
But what bothered me even more was the doctrine of the Holy Spirit underneath it all. We have become fairly skilled at recognizing diminished views of Christ: a Christ who accomplishes something, but whose work must still be activated, completed, confirmed, or made effective by what we do. Yet I wonder whether we have been nearly as careful when speaking about the Spirit.
Because the same structure can appear there too. The Holy Spirit may be spoken of as powerful, sovereign, and divine, while practically being presented as someone whose work depends continually upon whether we have surrendered enough, obeyed enough, put away enough sin, confessed enough, or otherwise placed ourselves into the proper condition for Him to act. That is not an exalted doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is a diminished one.
What kind of Spirit is being described when His effective work rises and falls with our condition? In this way of speaking, the Spirit is certainly present, but His power seems to remain suspended until the believer has reached the proper state of surrender, obedience, confession, or separation. He may indwell, but not fill. He may be present, but not empower. He may be willing to work, but something in us is continually determining whether that work can actually proceed.
That should make us stop and think. Have we really exalted the Holy Spirit if we describe Him as waiting upon us to clear the obstacles before He can accomplish what He intends? Or have we made the decisive factor the condition of the believer? The language sounds spiritual because it speaks so much of His power, but practically the emphasis falls upon our preparation for that power.
At some point we need to ask ourselves what this way of speaking actually does to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. If His effective work depends upon whether we are surrendered enough, obedient enough, confessed up enough, or sufficiently separated, then the believer has become the controlling factor in the activity of God. The Spirit may be present, but not filling; powerful, but effectively restrained; willing to work, but waiting upon us to create the conditions in which He can do so. However spiritual that language may sound, it places the decisive power in the wrong hands.
And what does this kind of theology produce in the believer? Almost inevitably, it turns us inward. Am I filled today? Have I surrendered enough? Is there some sin preventing the Spirit from working? But beneath all of that is an even more troubling implication: that the Spirit’s activity can somehow be managed by us. If we remove the right obstacles, reach the right level of spirituality or surrender, confess enough, or place ourselves in the proper condition, then He will act. If we do not, He will not. At that point we are no longer merely speaking of responding to the Spirit; we are describing a system in which the believer can effectively regulate His operation.
One of the authors quoted in the message was Andrew Murray, and that immediately brings to mind an older kind of surrender theology that has shaped the thinking of many for generations. We still hear its confusion in the way some speak of yielding more, emptying ourselves, getting out of God’s way, making ourselves usable, or allowing the Spirit to work. The system may no longer be openly embraced, but much of the language, and the diminished view of the Spirit beneath it, still lingers.
Certainly, Scripture speaks of obedience, grieving the Spirit, quenching the Spirit, and being filled with the Spirit, and none of those things should be dismissed. But neither should they be gathered together into a theology in which the creature ultimately determines how effectively God may act. Perhaps we need to recover something much simpler and much greater: the Holy Spirit is God. MPJ