What Is the Holy Spirit?
WHAT is this Holy Spirit that comes from God?
It is the very SPIRIT — the very LIFE — the very essence, of GOD the CREATOR! God, according to John 4:24, is a SPIRIT, but man is mortal. Man is flesh. God is composed of spirit. Spirit is not like matter. Man is composed of matter. Matter occupies a definite amount of physical space, and has weight. But God's spirit emanates from Him, like the air — like space. It is force, it is power, it is life, it is character! When God's Spirit emanating from the very PERSON of God enters into a man, it IMPREGNATES that man with the very LIFE of GOD — it plants within that man or woman the divine nature of God, to develop the very character of God, until we, through His Spirit, become LIKE God — until we think as God thinks — until we see things with the same attitude as God sees them, and we act as God acts.
Christ Died in Your Stead
Jesus Christ HAD the Spirit of the living God! And Jesus Christ was wholly OBEDIENT to the inexorable SPIRITUAL LAWS that God had set in motion. These laws are spiritual PRINCIPLES which regulate man's relationships and his happiness! Never once did Jesus Christ disobey, though He was tempted in every way as you and I. Never once did He sin — that is, never once did He transgress God's spiritual Law. Never did He bring the penalty — eternal death — upon Himself.
Therefore, He was able to take on Himself your penalty and to pay it in your stead!
Jesus Christ had received the gift of eternal life from God the FATHER! He did not have to die because of any penalty that He had incurred or brought on Himself. But because He loved all mankind — because of His great love for YOU, even before you were born — He GAVE His life for YOU. He permitted misguided men to nail Him to a cross — to pierce His side. He bled to death — dying IN YOUR STEAD, that by His SHED BLOOD ON THE CROSS, your transgressions of the LAWS OF GOD might be FORGIVEN! Jesus Christ had to die because you have transgressed the laws of God.
How to Be Saved
Consequently, if and when you come to realize that sin is WRONG — and that God's laws are RIGHT and for your GOOD — and to REPENT of your disobedience of the Supreme CREATOR GOD — to fully SURRENDER to Him, and henceforth to be OBEDIENT to Him and to His laws, then you may in living FAITH accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior from your own folly — and by your faith in His blood and His resurrection, your guilty past is forgiven. The penalty that you have incurred is paid in full by your Savior, Jesus Christ.
You are then justified of your guilty past, and since there is no longer any disobedience to cut you off from God, you are reconciled to God the Creator. Contact with Him is established and thereupon God has PROMISED you the gift of His Holy Spirit. He has promised that He will implant within YOUR MIND His Spirit — His LIFE — HIS NATURE — HIS ATTITUDE — His very CHARACTER!
By the very essence of the Holy Spirit of God you then become a BEGOTTEN CHILD of the living Creator God!
Even then, you are still human. You still have your old human nature, also, and it will strive against this new nature of GOD which He has now implanted within you. You're not yet perfect as God is perfect.
You are now only prepared to start to live a NEW life of GROWING spiritually — of DEVELOPING the very character of God — of resisting all the desires and impulses of the flesh, which your newly SPIRIT-led mind will reveal to you are wrong and in disobedience of the laws of GOD.
You now start a life of growing daily into closer contact with God through daily PRAYER to Him — and through daily BIBLE STUDY of His inspired revelation of knowledge and of truth, the Holy Bible. You will encounter troubles, problems, trials and tests to try you, to develop CHARACTER within you.
But now you will be close to GOD —and you can take all of these troubles to Him in prayer — and He will give you wisdom to know what to do — He will even change circumstances to bring you out of them. He will give you strength and power for deliverance and for mastery.
Mortal man — cut off from God and the KNOWLEDGE that only God can reveal — has created his own religions, in which he has tried to assure himself that he already has immortality. Men, separated from the real truth which only GOD can reveal, originated the false idea of the immortality of the soul. There is no such idea to be found anywhere in the one Book through which God Almighty reveals the truth to mankind!
Man is MORTAL — and the most certain thing in mortal life is that we shall DIE — unless we turn to GOD, repent of transgressing His ways of life, surrender unconditionally to Him, accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior, and gain contact with God the Father through Him!
Now, how are we to be saved?
KEEP The Commandments!
A young man came to Jesus and said, "What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" And Jesus said, "If thou wilt enter into life," if you want to inherit eternal life, "keep the commandments" (Matt. 19:16-17).
Peter said that the way is first to REPENT, AND THEN BE BAPTIZED, signifying faith in Christ. Baptism is the outward expression of that inner faith in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. After baptism you are promised that you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).
Romans 8:11 promises that if the Holy Spirit dwells in you, God the Father, who raised up Christ from the dead, will also immortalize, or make immortal your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you.
"If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments."
Matthew 19:16-17
Turn now to 1 John 3:1, 2: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." This is speaking of real Christians.”Beloved, now are we the sons of God," yes, already begotten as sons of God when we receive His Spirit, "and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."
Do you know that Jesus Christ is now glorified in heaven as very God? His face shines like the sun in full strength. His eyes like flames of fire. We are to be like Him.”Our vile body [is to be] fashioned like unto his glorious body" — to be glorified fully with Him, to enter into the God family, the very Family of God, the Kingdom of God, and be born by a resurrection into that Kingdom (Phil. 3:21). That is what salvation means. That is how you get it.
These are the plain WHYS and WHEREFORES OF SALVATION.
Personal Counsel
If YOU are ready to really REPENT of your disobedience to GOD — to His SPIRITUAL LAW; if you are now ready to SURRENDER YOUR WILL to God, and you want to become one of HIS CHILDREN — if you are now ready to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior in real living FAITH and live a life of OBEDIENCE, write and tell me. We have dedicated, consecrated, converted, fully instructed and trained, ordained MINISTERS in all parts of the world — available to call on you, visit you in your home, answer your questions, explain the Bible to you — IF YOU REQUEST IT! But none of them will EVER call on you, unless YOU of your own free will request it! Paul had visited the elders (ministers) at Ephesus from house to house — BUT, regarding the general public, Jesus said, "Go NOT from house to house" (Luke 10:7).
Neither Jesus, nor Peter, nor Paul, nor any of the original true apostles ever approached people and personally URGED conversion on them. God has made every human a FREE MORAL AGENT. God compels each to MAKE HIS OWN DECISION, and the true GOD will never force you to be converted.
But if you, of your own volition, want to know MORE about the Bible — if you'd like to ask questions about it, why not write to the Editor and request a personal visit? We may be able to have one of God's own ministers call on you quite soon. And let me suggest that you jot down on paper the questions you are going to want to ask. I've learned, personally, by more than 43 years' experience, that you'll forget them unless you do.
Hundreds and hundreds — yes, thousands upon thousands — are being converted — their lives CHANGED — by this WORK OF GOD, through The WORLD TOMORROW broadcast worldwide, through The PLAIN TRUTH, the Ambassador College Correspondence Course, through this magazine, TOMORROW'S WORLD, and other vital free literature we send upon request.
But if you have any questions about the Bible, or the Christian LIFE, write me. I cannot call and visit with you personally any more (as I used to do and wish I still could), but God has now given me many truly called and chosen men who CAN.