O is for Only

This brings up an embarassing question: Why does not the Spirit give that life to all people? Why is this benefit given only to believers in Christ?

For only believers in Christ receive it. Despite the Spirit's many appearances and works prior to Jesus, Pentecost is unprecedented. Is it arbitrary that Pentecost came after Easter, could Pentecost have come first? Hardly. An explanatory note at John 7:39 says, "This Jesus said about the Spirit which those who believed in him were going to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified." Not only is there no Spirit [given] until after Jesus is glorified, when faith in him as Savior first becomes possible, but even thereafter the Spirit comes only to those who do believe, and to no one else. In Acts the Spirit regularly comes to those who believe and are baptized. Paul says to his converts in Galatia (3:2), "By works of the Law did you receive the Spirit or by hearing with faith?" So faith, then Spirit.

But why? Why cannot eternal life and the Spirit's other gifts be given to everyone? Does the suspicion arise, is it because God is stingy? No, we remember that in amazing grace God let his Son bear the cross without relief. For our sake he let his Son so suffer. Any other gift that God could have given us would have cost him nothing. But since the one thing that did cost, giving up his Son for us all, God indeed gave, we can forever dismiss the idea that God is stingy with his gifts.

So why then? Why not give the Spirit's second kind of life, the eternal kind, to all people (as the first kind is given to all people), but only to those baptized into Christ? Scripture does not answer this impertinent question, but the answers are not far off.

Con-Spiring Captain, Cathy

We must be purified from sin's guilt before the Spirit will come to us. If we are the temple in which the Spirit is to dwell, then the desecrated temple must be cleansed, purged, and consecrated. First we must be sanctified by our faith in Christ as our Redeemer before we are fit for the Holy Spirit to come live in us. St. Basil the Great, whose feast day fell on Pentecost Wednesday this year, said, "Only when a man has been cleansed from the shame of his evil, and has returned to his natural beauty, and the original form of the Royal Image has been restored in him is it possible for him to approach the Paraclete." (On the Holy Spirit, 9:23.)

Another answer is, repentance is prerequisite. Can the Spirit give us everlasting life so long as we are "sailing in the wrong direction," that is, away from God and contrary to God's will? In fact, it would hardly be a favor for the Spirit's power to drive us faster and further in the wrong direction!

Finally, the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. That life eternal, which the Spirit bestows, is not just any life but is Jesus' life. Jesus Christ's life cannot be given to those who are not his. His life is like his righteousness or Spirit or anything else that he gives us, in that these gifts are not detachable from him. They can belong to us indeed, but never apart from him. To have his gifts is to have him, and to have him is to have his gifts. So, "No one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, 'Jesus be cursed!’' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord’' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3). So only those who are in Christ, by faith, receive the Spirit.

Earlier I called the question embarassing, but really, for those of us who love the many non-Christians surrounding us and fervantly desire that they too have our Holy Ruach, it is agonizing. Perhaps that is God's intent -- that our agonizing prods us to verbalize our faith, thus sharing our Ruach to fill their sails too.