We are concluding our quick look at the Holy Spirit. We have been discussing how to develop a biblical worldview to understand life from God’s perspective. To do that, we must understand God. We have looked together at the Holy Spirit and who He is and His ministry to us. We are looking at one more thing today and that is what we will call the “filling of the Holy Spirit.”
In Ephesians 5:18, it says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” The other ministries of the Holy Spirit we have already looked at like regeneration, indwelling, baptism and sealing are done for us at the moment of conversion. Things we do not necessarily experience on a cognitive or emotional level, but they do happen. They are our position in Christ. This one is a little different. It is a ministry of the Holy Spirit but notice here in the verse that it is a command. He really wasn’t talking in the context here about alcoholism or drinking, but it is a great illustration. When we drink wine or alcohol of any type, if you do so and get drunk, that alcohol now possesses you and controls much of what you say and do. It influences you greatly in all your actions and thinking and words. He is saying He doesn’t want us like that. He doesn’t want us to be people under the influence of alcohol, instead He wants us under the influence of the Holy Spirit. He says, “be filled with the Spirit.” He is using that illustration. Don’t be filled with alcohol, be filled with the Holy Spirit. The word “fill” could mean control if you realize it doesn’t mean absolute 100% control because we still have choices to make and we can make choices that are wrong and sinful even though we are now under the influence of the Holy Spirit. I take this word to mean that the Holy Spirit now powerfully influences us. Just as a drunk person is powerfully influenced by alcohol, but still makes choices, moral choices that they are responsible for, so the Christian under the powerful influence of the Holy Spirit can still make choices that do not please Him. Nevertheless, if we are filled with the Spirit, if He is influencing our lives in this powerful way, then that makes all the difference in how we live our lives.
How do you know if you are filled with the Holy Spirit or not? It is not subjective. He goes on in our context to speak of some ways that we know whether or not the Holy Spirit is in charge in our lives. In Ephesians 5:19, it says, “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” We have here a picture of a joy that is in our lives as a result of the Holy Spirit. He speaks of singing here. There are only a few passages in all of the New Testament that talk about the place and purpose of singing in the life of the Christian. This is one of them. We see that we are “singing to one another these psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and we are making melody in our hearts to the Lord.” It is a joyful cry to the Lord. One who is under the influence in a powerful way of the Holy Spirit is going to have joy. They are in joy because they love Christ, and they know what Christ has done for them through the Holy Spirit . . .
