Fill
God’s desire and purpose is that His Children receive the Holy Spirit, and not just receive it, but receive it fully.
“Filling” always consists of something entering a certain space, which is suitable for filling, that is, it has a kind of retaining walls, and that space is completely occupied by what is entering. Let’s say we have a glass: If we proceed to “fill” the glass with water, we will pour water inside it up to the brim, and we will say: The glass is full. Or when the bus does not stop because there is no room for one more, we say: the bus is full. It is also necessary to emphasize that the expression “fill” is always intertwined with the concept of “fullness”; a fully occupied space.
The action of “filling” ends when the place being filled cannot offer more space for what is flowing. So we say “it’s full”. The instant before being filled would be “it is filling”, the start of the action could be called “it is beginning to fill”, and before that, the space to be filled is “empty”.
In the matter at hand, what fills the space is a person: The Holy Spirit. And the space in which it enters, are the men or women who have believed in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Since according to the Scriptures, Christians are the Body of Christ on earth, they are the space that the Holy Spirit wants to occupy, just as He filled Jesus.
Fullness
Having heard of that desire and promise from Jesus to His disciples, a longing for that infilling of the Holy Spirit develops in our Christian hearts and we want ourselves, our family, and fellow parishioners to reap the same benefit that ancient Christians received:
(Acts 2:4) And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them to speak.
(Eph 5:18-19) And do not be drunk with wine, in which there is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking among yourselves with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and praising the Lord in your hearts;
(Acts 13:52) And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
These texts not only mention fullness as a real promise, but the context also shows the fruit of being filled with the Spirit in evidence of changes in the filled.
Thus, in the desire for it to come true, an expression is spread everywhere, paraphrasing the Apostle Paul: “Be filled with the Spirit.” It is a great desire, it is according to the will of God, and it is really achievable today as in the beginning.
However, two things seem to happen.
Full, more or less, not all the time, or empty
Let’s see the first thing: many think that it is full or empty. But reading carefully we notice that intermediate states are possible.
- Before being filled, Christians were NOT full, but empty.
- Paul recommends being full (meaning it is possible NOT to be completely full).
- If you recommended being full, you obviously spoke to people who understood what you were talking about, and it means that the filling may also NOT be continuous, but intermittent.
The reality is that a Christian can receive this promise; however, the degree of participation of the Holy Spirit in our lives can be variable. And if we look at the “context” of our daily life, to compare it with the scriptural, this fact is confirmed. Some are full, others not so much. It doesn’t have much to do with God, but with us. Remember that Paul put the outcome in our hands: Be filled.
Let us repeat: God’s desire and purpose is that we fully receive the Holy Spirit; however, it is Christians who hold the key to the level of Him in them.
The second thing that happens is that believers get discouraged when they don’t get the Holy Spirit as easily as they see others do. The question arises: Am I really a child of God, born by the Holy Spirit if I am still empty of the Holy Spirit?
Life and the Holy Spirit
Believers in Jesus Christ as Savior and Redeemer according to the Word of God do not lose the condition of children in which they were born just because THEY ARE NOT FULL.
The Life given to the believer is a gift, and it is not withdrawn if someone has not received the Holy Spirit, we add: yet!
The scriptures teach:
(John 6.51) I am the Living Bread come down from Heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever. And truly the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
(John 6.63) The Spirit is the one who gives life,…
The Spirit (the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, the same one we are talking about here) is the One Who gives Life to all who believe that Jesus is the bread of Life that came down from heaven. That is the Good News of the Gospel.
But Life and the Holy Spirit are two different things. Believers, the redeemed children of God, as we have seen above, can obviously be full, not so full, nearly empty, or empty! Holy Spirit.
It is clear from the words of the Apostle John that to be a child of God it is necessary to have Life (ie, spiritual “life”), but he also states that those who believe that Jesus is the Redeemer receive that Life from God.
(1 John 5.1) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.
(1 John 5,11-12) And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son, he has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
The next two situations can clarify a little more about the difference between having Life and having the Holy Spirit.
In his last days before being crucified, while Jesus was with his disciples, he blew on them saying: “Receive…” Was he speaking of “sons” of God? YEAH. But did they have the Comforter? NO. They did not have the Holy Spirit. This was sent to them later.
The other situation is shown to us by the apostle Paul on one of his missionary trips, when he meets certain disciples.
(Acts 19,1-2) And it came to pass that while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the highlands to Ephesus. And finding some disciples, he said to them: Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? And they said to him: We have not even heard if it is the Holy Spirit.
They had believed in Jesus as the Christ, and God had given them life. They were certainly “kids” already. However, the existence of the Holy Spirit was unknown to them.
Can a person be a child of God and at the same time not have the Holy Spirit in him? The answer is YES, you can be a child of God, have life, and yet not have, have partially or be empty of the Holy Spirit.
Although the great promise, the true will of God, still stands for all who are His children: It is possible to be full!