In discussing the Holy Spirit’s activities and role, it is necessary to distinguish between what he did during the OT era and what he does in NT times. We saw from the Bible that in the OT the Spirit of God was active in creation, the inspiration of Scripture, regenerating believers, restraining sin, and indwelling believers for specific ministries or responsibilities, especially positions of leadership among God’s people.
According to passages like 1 Samuel 16:13-14, this Holy Spirit indwelling was temporary rather than permanent. In the case of Saul we read that God’s Spirit departed from him, while the same Spirit is said to have come mightily upon David. We read very similar descriptions of men like Samson and others throughout the Old Testament. So rather than speaking of the Holy Spirit indwelling OT saints, we probably should say that he empowered them for ministry, and that this empowering was not permanent.
So when David prayed in Psalm 51:11, “Do not banish me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me,” he was not worried about losing his salvation, but rather his anointing for leadership over Israel. This view of the Spirit’s role in the life of the OT believer is not accepted by every Bible student today. In fact, there are quite a few who believe that the Spirit’s ministry in the OT era was essentially the same as it is today. But there is one very important NT passage which I believe strongly implies that there was no permanent indwelling of believers in OT times.
In John 14 Jesus was teaching his disciples in the upper room on the night he was betrayed to be crucified. He began to teach them about the Holy Spirit, saying, “If you love me, you will keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you” (v.15-17).
There are several important points here. First, Jesus speaks to his disciples and says that there is a direct connection between loving him and obeying him. In fact, in 1 John 2 the apostle says “The one who says, ‘I have come to know him,’ and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete” (v.4-5).In other words, if you don’t obey God you don’t even know him, let alone love him!
So Jesus first establishes who are his true disciples: those who love him and therefore keep his commands. And then Jesus promises them that he will pray to the Father on their behalf, and the Father will send them “the Spirit of truth” who will be with them forever, but what is more, he will be in them, not just with them. Where the OT saints were sometimes indwelt by the Holy Spirit for a period of time to accomplish a specific calling, the disciples of Jesus would be indwelt by the Spirit forever. And where the Holy Spirit sometimes departed from OT saints such as Saul and Samson, he will never depart from the heart of a NT believer.
And Jesus goes on to explain this further: “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him” (v.18-21).Whatever else we may say about this, it is unlike anything we find in the OT. When the Spirit of truth comes to dwell within Jesus’ disciples, it is the same thing as having Jesus himself in them and being loved by God the Father the way that he loves his one and only Son!
At this point, Judas (not Iscariot), asks the question that I’m sure all the disciples were thinking. He says, “Lord, how is it you’re going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” And Jesus responded, saying, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. The one who doesn’t love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me. I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you” (v.23-26).
Jesus answers Judas by saying that only those who obey him will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, because they are the ones who truly love him. Now, he’s not saying that only some Christians will receive the gift of the Spirit, but that only those who obey him are truly Christians! And every one of them will receive the Spirit.
Let me make just two brief observations about what Jesus says here. First, when Jesus promises that “we will come to him and make our home with him,” it doesn’t sound very much like the description by Michael Bradly at bibleknowledge.com with the Spirit locked outside of the house waiting to be released into your soul. So I think we can safely say that his view is contradicted by Jesus’ teaching.
But second, this description of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of believers suggests that a major change takes place between the way things were before Christ’s death and the way they are after. Instead of his home being in Jerusalem in the temple the Holy Spirit of God would make his home within the heart of the believer. So while the Holy Spirit is still doing some of the same things in the NT era (inspiring Scripture, restraining sin, and regenerating believers, for example) he is also doing something quite different from his OT ministry: coming to live permanently with and in believers.