Receiving
the Spirit –“By the Hearing of
Faith”
You are important,
for Christ died for you. God thinks it just
as important that you be saved as that of
Peter, Paul, or John be saved. All the
provisions of Calvary, including the gift of
the Holy Spirit, are for you-as though you
were the only one to benefit by them. They
are yours upon one condition: acceptance by
faith.
Some say, “But I
have no faith.” That is not true. The
Bible says, “God hath dealt to every man
the measure of faith.” Romans 12:3. God
offers this gift to all. We are to receive
and cherish it. We should pray as the
disciples prayed, “Increase our
faith.” Luke 17:5. A distressed father
brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus for
healing and in his great extremity cried out,
“Lord, I believe; help thou mine
unbelief.” Mark 9:24; Jesus heard his
prayer; so will He hear ours. The
“spirit of faith” (2 Corinthians
4:13) will provide all the faith we need.
How? By the Word: “Faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the word of
God.” Romans 10:17.
Nicodemus heard the
Master say, “Except a man be born of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God.” John 3:5. And 1
Peter 1:23 says, “Being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth for
ever.” One text says we are born of the
Spirit, and another that we are born by the
Word. Can these two texts be reconciled? Yes!
Every seed has in it
the germ of life. Take the germ of life out
of a seed, and the seed becomes worthless.
The germ of life in the Word is the Holy
Spirit. By this agency, God begets a new life
in the hearts of believers. When the Bible
reader receives the Word of God, the
“incorruptible” seed, “ he
also receives the Holy Spirit, for the Holy
Spirit accompanies the Word as it is read by
those who are honest in heart. However, what
does it mean to “receive” the Word
of God and consequently the Holy Spirit?
John 1:12 says,
“As many as received him, to them gave
he power to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on his name.” John
made believing the equivalent of receiving.
Hearers become believers, and believers are
receivers.
How do we receive the
Holy Spirit? Paul asked this question
twice in Galatians 3:2-5: “Received ye
the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the
hearing of faith? … He therefore that
ministereth to you the Spirit, doeth he it by
the works of the law, or by the hearing of
faith?” Paul indicated the answer by his
questions. We received the Spirit not because
of anything we do but “by the hearing of
faith.” To believe is to receive.
The Holy Spirit is
Christ’s gift to His spiritual children.
It cannot be earned. Not by study, nor by
sacrifice, nor by any sort of works that man
may devise may we earn this gift. Simon Magus
received such a rebuke by Peter as to forever
close the door to the thought that the Holy
Spirit might be attained in any other way
than by faith. Peter said, “Thy money
perish with thee, because thou hast thought
that the gift of God may be purchased with
money.” Acts 8:20. The Holy Spirit is
spoken of here as “the gift of
God.” A gift is not earned; it is
received.
To receive the Holy
Spirit we need only believe in God’s
promises and through faith appropriate them
to our lives.” Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law… that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith.” Galatians 3:13,14. Notice the
words “receive through faith.”
Faith in what? Faith in God’s promise.
According to 2 Corinthians 1:20-22, “all
the promises of God in him are yea, and in
him Amen. Now he which hath anointed us, is
God; who hath also… given the earnest of
the Spirit in our hearts.” The faith we
exhibit in accepting Christ and in receiving
the Spirit is faith supplied to us by God.
(Ephesians 2:8.) The Holy Spirit is a gift,
and the faith by which we receive it is a
gift. We are to believe in that gift and
accept it. That is how we may be born again,
born of the Spirit.
Memory Verse:
Ephesians 2:8-10.
“For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith-and this not from yourselves,
it is a gift of God-not by works, so that no
one can boast. For we are God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do
good works, which God prepared in advance for
us to do.”
