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Receiving The Promised Holy Spirit

You are also in him, hearing the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in him, also believing you were marked of the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantor of our inheritance to the extent redemption of his own  (Ephesians 1:13-14)

When we hear the gospel and believe we are marked or sealed with the Holy Spirit. This marking or sealing is to the extent of His own, as Paul writes in a previous verse, he predestined us for adoption as his own (Ephesians 1:4). We also know that we receive a Spirit of adoption who cries Abba Father and testifies that we are God's children and fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:15-17). We can connect the sealing and marking of the Spirit to receiving and new birth of the Spirit, which is connected to our inheritance. We are birth into the kingdom of God through the Spirit and this occurs when we hear and believe the gospel.

I tell you the solemn truth, unless any is born anew he can't see the kingdom of God... I tell you the solemn truth unless one is born of water and Spirit he can't enter the kingdom of God, that born of the flesh exists flesh and that born of Spirit exists spirit. Do not be astonished that I said you must be born anew, the wind blows wherever it wills... so is everyone born of the Spirit. (John 3:1-10). 

Jesus makes clear how we are born into the kingdom of God; through the Spirit. One must enter the kingdom of God through a new birth and this new birth is not being born again fleshly (not entering the mother's womb a second time) but being born anew or from above of the Spirit. Jesus came for this reason John writes, he came among his own, (he was born a Jew fleshly, he was born under the Law to redeem those under the law) and his own did not receive him, but as many, as did receive him he gave them the right to become children of God (John 1:10-12). This "becoming children of God" is through the new birth of the Spirit, to those who would receive him would be "born not from fleshly will nor a man's will but rather from God." (John 1:10-13). 

you were dead... who lived according to the age of this world... but God was rich in mercy through his great love, even though we were dead in our trespasses he made us alive together in Christ, by grace saved and raised and seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:-1-8). 

It is an amazing thing our new birth of the Spirit, Paul also calls it being a new creation in Christ. Think about that, a new creation, which did not exist before. Possibly Adam existed such before he sold his inheritance and dominion for a piece of fruit, but even then the scriptures say Adam was a living soul, but Jesus was a life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45). We were dead, living beings walking around in a physical body with a soul, but dead. What was dead and made alive but not our spirit? And think about this in terms of who we are in Christ and the victory already being ours, our spirit was made alive and raised, not a future event, but we are seated in the heavenlies at the time we were made alive. (Ephesians 2:1-7). When are we made alive? Why is the Spirit the promised Holy Spirit?

on the last day of the festival, the great day, Jesus stood and cried out, 'if anyone is thirsty come to me and drink, the one believing in me just as the scripture says, from his heart will flow living water'. Now he said this about the Spirit, which the ones believing in him were to receive, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified (John 7:37-39)

Is our salvation in two parts? do we believe and then receive the Holy Spirit in another event like the disciples did? Jesus said he had opened their eyes so they could see and believe but to the others he spoke in parables. They believed but later received the Holy Spirit. Something had to happen before they received the Spirit, Jesus would be glorified. "When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you"" (John 17:1 ESV). He would be glorified before they would receive the Spirit "the ones believing in him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus had not yet been glorified."

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing (Acts 2:33 ESV)

Jesus had been crucified and the disciples were locked inside afraid but he rose again and appeared to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:21‭-‬22 ESV). Jesus was now glorified, exalted to the right hand of God and now the promised Spirit they would receive. So the new covenant in his blood needed to be established first, it was on our behalf for the atonement and propitiation of sin but also it brought new birth of the Spirit. 

and he did the same with the cup after eating saying this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood that on your behalf being poured out (Luke 22:20)

It was through God's great love that he was rich in mercy, that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so we would be saved (John 3:16). For our salvation, a sacrifice acceptable to God for sin was given. Jesus came to be the Lamb of God, to be a sacrifice and offering acceptable once and for all. It would take his death and his resurrection. And when he was glorified he promised he would not leave those who believed as orphans but would send them the Holy Spirit for they had not yet received the Spirit. 

for a will (covenant, testament) takes effect when one dies, it has no strength as the one who made it is still alive (Hebrews 9:17)

The new covenant was established by his death. Why had the disciples and others who had believed not yet received the Spirit? The Spirit had been upon them, giving them the power to cast out demons and heal. Why was there a separate event for them? Because Jesus had not yet been glorified, he had to die as the lamb of God and be resurrected in power, ascend on high, to bring in a new covenant. It is a new covenant in his blood and in the new, we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe not in a separate event like the disciples. Jesus was born under the Law to redeem those under the Law and salvation came to the Jew first but then it would be as promised to Abraham, that through his seed all peoples and nations would be blessed (Galatians 3:16).

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper [Holy Spirit] will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7 ESV)

We should look at scriptures in the old and the gospels in light of the new covenant. Under the old covenant, we see the Spirit would be upon people, like upon Moses and the elders (Numbers 11:25). Like upon Saul, and also removed from him, and upon David who would cry out to God "do not remove your Spirit from me."  In the old, the Jew was one outwardly, one race of people and the sign of that covenant was circumcision of the flesh. In the new covenant, Paul writes, "a Jew is of that inward, and circumcision is of the heart in Spirit, not of written code, whose praise is not from man but from God" (Romans 2:29). 

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father! (Galatians 4:6)
The right to become children of God Jesus came to give to those who receive him. No longer was being a child of God based upon fleshly birth but upon a new birth of the Spirit. This changes things considerably in the new covenant. Jesus is the only way to the Father and one must be born of the Spirit. There was a purpose in this, both mysterious and amazing. It breaks down the dividing wall and hostility, reconciling man to God so we can boldly approach God because of what we have received in Christ. And because the Law was weak through the flesh. The spiritual is opposed to the fleshly, the laws of God were spiritual and man was carnal, in sinful nature, and could not submit to the spiritual as he had no power to. (1 Corinthians 2:14). This weakness of the Law is solved when we become a new creation, a new spiritual being that has the power to submit to the spiritual laws of God.* Mysterious and wonderful.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come (John 16:13 ESV)

We receive the "promised" Holy Spirit because Jesus promised when he was gone he would ask the Father to send the Spirit (John 14:16-17; John 14:26; John 15:26). He said it was better that he went so the Spirit would be sent (John 16:7). So we connect the scriptures, he would go and send the Spirit and "the ones believing in him were to receive, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified"(John 3:37-39). Also, the Spirit is a spirit of promise as it was prophesied of (Hebrews 10:16; Ezekiel 36:27). Regarding Israel (Romans 11:27). Now, through the Spirit, our hearts can be circumcised to love and know and obey the spiritual laws of God (Romans 2:29; Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 24:7)). This is the fulfillment of the righteous requirement of the law.

for a single offering has perfected for all time the ones consecrated, and the Holy Spirit also testifies to us for saying 'this is the covenant which I will establish with them after that day says the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts and inscribe them in their minds' (Hebrews 10:14-16)

We have established through the scriptures that new birth occurs in the new covenant when we believe and that it took the death of Jesus to establish this covenant. So what we see in the gospels must be viewed in light of this. When John the Baptist said one must be baptized for the remission of sin, he also pointed to the new covenant and Jesus the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world and baptize with the Spirit.

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me (John 15:26 ESV)

The disciples received the Spirit when Jesus ascended on high and sent as promised the Holy Spirit. Peter in Acts tells people to repent and be baptized and you will receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38-39). But this changed, a new covenant had been established. We see this clearly when God gave Peter visions of eating unclean animals and then sent him to Cornelius (an unclean Gentile) where Peter preached the gospel and Cornelius and his household received the Holy Spirit, before they were baptized (Acts 10:44). The "circumcized party" questioned what Peter did being with this unclean Gentile, he responds,

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way? (Acts 11:15‭-‬17 ESV)

This confirms as Paul writes when we hear the gospel and believe we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). The Spiritual blessings we receive in Christ, which Paul mentions in Ephesians 1 (being adopted by the Spirit, redeemed/forgiven through his blood, favored, and receive or are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit) all occur when we hear the gospel and believe. 

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