The Spirit-filled Life

In our studies so far, we have considered God’s wondrous plan of salvation as wrought out in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen what Christ came to do for us, to be in us, and to work through us. We have faced what life in Christ may be and, therefore, ought to be in every Christian. Let us now honestly face its real worth to us individually.

Is God’s salvation in Christ perfect? Can anything be added to it? Can anything be taken from it? Surely the answer will quickly come from any life in a vital relationship with the Lord Jesus: Yes, God’s salvation is perfect; it provides for every need; it satisfies every desire; it furnishes an all-sufficient Savior. As I look into my life’s deepest need, I can think of nothing to add to it nor of anything that could be taken from it. God’s salvation wrought out in Christ for me is of infinite worth through its perfection.

But is it practical? Is it possible for an ordinary person to live a life in Christ such as God seems to expect? I can imagine the answer of some to be: The truth regarding a life lived on the highest plane is biblical and logical, but it does not match my experience, nor the experience of many Christians of my acquaintance. Isn’t God’s plan of salvation too perfect to be practical for such a world as this? Isn’t life on the highest plane possible only to those who are called into special Christian service?

Everything in God’s Word contradicts this suggestion. God’s plan of salvation is not only perfect, but it is practical and possible for every individual believer. The Good Shepherd spoke concerning every sheep within His fold when He said, “I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” Whoever has Christ’s life in any measure may have it in its fullness.

Colossians 2:9-10

“For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power.”

John the Baptist in two wonderful proclamations declared the entire scope of Christ’s work in salvation when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” and “He that sent me to baptize with water, . . . the same is that which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” (John 1:29, 33). Christ would do a twofold work for those who trust Him as Savior; He would take away their sin and He would baptize them in the Spirit. Thus, John the Baptist states that part of Christ’s work is to bring the believer into as definite a relationship to the Holy Spirit as he bears to Christ, although it is to be a different relationship.

What John the Baptist had said Christ corroborated in two remarkable invitations which He gave to sinners to come to Him and drink of the water of life.

John 4:14

“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life.”

John 7:37-38

“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.”

Jesus Christ promised to bestow a gift upon the one who believed in Him as Sin-bearer, which would bring perfect satisfaction and sufficiency within the believer’s inmost life and which would then overflow in rich and abounding blessing into the lives of others. Christ’s offer to the Samaritan woman was a gift that would change her source of supplies from a water pot to a well and then convert her life into a channel through which rivers of this living water would flow. 

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, Your Word is true. This life is possible!