work of grace," "higher life," "en tire sanctification," or "fully bap tised with the Spirit after I'm saved" are all without scriptural authority. God has much more for us than any mere "second bless ing." He has them in the thousands. The Spirit-filled life is a very defin ite and clearly definitive existence that the believer is to follow in Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 3:18). It is important to realize the difference between the carnal and spiritual Christian. This is deter mined by the place the Holy Spirit occupies in the believer's life. The carnal man walks after the flesh, while God desires us to follow the pathway of the Holy Spirit. When the flesh is in control the individ ual will not experience victory, but rather mediocrity. God desires our norm and standard of Christian liv ing to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). How easy it is to drift from the initial experience we originally had with the Lord at the time of salvation. The glory of that first experience begins to fade out. Coming to a crisis in life the luster of our life has been diminished. God desires that we continually be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the tense found in the original text. There is to be a constant re plenishment as we are occupied completely with His glorious pres ence. There is often a tendency to associate being filled with the Holy Spirit along with some great emo tional experience. Miss Ruth Pax ton has written, "Being filled with the Holy Spirit is a sane, and a joy ous experience, which makes for a sound mind, a radiant heart, and a patient spirit." The aspect of los ing all emotional control, of falling over and rolling in the aisle, of dancing up and down, and of
every believer to the image of His own Son. How utterly unlovely all such conduct must appear before His gaze. The Holy Spirit not only expresses God's nature but also, of necessity, determines His pur pose to those to whom He minis ters. Thwarting and hindering Him must of necessity bring sorrow un to the heart of God. Let us seek to follow the exhortation to "grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE Another important command concerning our lives is "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). This subject has called forth a ver itable stream of literature revealing quite a divided opinion as to inter pretation. On the basis of I Cor. 12:12, the very moment one is born-again, simultaneous with that act, he is baptised into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. The event can be emotional or unemo tional, depending upon the tem perament of the individual. The spiritual transaction, however, is just as great either way. On the other hand, being filled with the Holy Spirit can take place rather frequently in the believer's life. God's Word must always be the last word on any Biblical, spiritual subject. All we can ever know in this world about the Person and the work of the Holy Spirit is with in the covers of Scripture. You will never get an accurate definition by listening to someone giving an ac count of his own personal experi ence. Our only final and manda tory standard must be the Word. If we do not search the Scriptures for the truth, we will have to be satisfied with half-truths and some times falsehoods. Such expressions as "second blessing," "second
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