19: Common Ways the Holy Spirit Manifests Himself in All Believers – Sanctifying

He is the “Holy” Spirit and it is God’s great purpose that His people become holy, so the Holy Spirit is tasked with the job of making each believer holy. Here’s how the apostle Paul puts it:

^{Romans 8:9} You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. ¹¹ And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. 

¹² Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. ¹³ For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

Paul uses the term “led” to describe how the Spirit guides us into holiness. The mark of being a child of God is being led by the Spirit in this way. It is obvious, however, that this leading is not an instantaneous reaching of complete holiness of life, but is a process, a “putting to death” (the Greek present tense suggests continuous or habitual action) the misdeeds of the body.

And notice that the process involves the human factor… “if by the Spirit you are putting to death the misdeeds of the body.” This is not something the Spirit does without our cooperation, but we may say that it is something that He, over and over, makes us cooperative in doing. As Paul says, if we are sons of God, we are being led by the Spirit of God into holiness. If we are not being led into holiness, it is because we do not have the Spirit of Christ. Or as Paul has phrased it earlier in chapter 6:2, “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” The expected answer is, we can’t. But the human factor is affirmed again when Paul says in verse 12, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.”

The apostle John says it this way in 1 John 3:6, “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” The Holy Spirit does not allow us to “continue” in sin, but rather causes us to keep on growing in righteousness. Admittedly, it is not a smooth path of progression, but it is an inexorable one. We have all felt the frustrating alteration and changeability of our spiritual progress and the shameful falling off of our spiritual fervor, but we have also experienced the Spirit guiding us back to the right heart and desire. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for never letting us go.