Andrew Murray - The Indwelling Spirit: The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer

The Indwelling Spirit
by Andrew Murray

Copyright 1979, 2006
Bethany House Publishers

Previously published under the title The Spirit of Christ
The 2006 version has been edited and condensed.

Cover design by Eric Walljasper

Italics in quoted Scripture represents emphasis by the author.

All Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Published by Bethany House Publishers
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Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2012

ISBN 978-1-4412-1041-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Preface

Throughout time there have been believers who have met God, known Him, and through faith have had the assurance that they were well-pleasing to God. When the Son of God came to earth, revealing the Father, His purpose was that fellowship with God and the assurance of His favor might become the abiding joy of every child of God. When He was exalted to the throne of glory after His resurrection, it was so that He might send the Holy Spirit to abide in us, that we might know true fellowship with God. It was to be one of the marks of the new covenant that each member of it should walk in personal communion with God.

No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:34)

Personal fellowship and knowledge of God through the Holy Spirit was to be the result of pardon from sin. The Spirit of Gods own Son was sent into our hearts to do a work as divine as that of redemption. The Spirit replaces our life with the life of Christ, in power, making the Son of God consciously present with us. This was the distinctive blessing of the New Testament. The fellowship of God, the three-in-one, was to be within us, the Spirit revealing the Son, and through Him, the Father.

Few believers realize the walk with God that their Father has prepared for them. And fewer are willing to discuss what the cause of the failure might be. We must acknowledge that the Holy Spirit, through whose divine omnipotence this inner revelation comes, is not fully realized in the churchthe body of Christas He should be. In our preaching and in our practice He does not hold the place of prominence He has in Gods plan. While our belief in the Holy Spirit may be orthodox and scriptural, His presence and power in the life of believers, in the ministry of the Word, in the witness of the church to the world, is not what the Word promises or Gods plan requires.

There are many who are conscious of this lack and earnestly ask to know Gods mind concerning it and the way of deliverance from it. Some feel that their own life is not what it should be. Many can look back to a special season of spiritual revival when their whole life was on a higher plain. The experience of the joy and strength of the Saviors presence was for a time very real. But it did not last. For many there has been a gradual decline, accompanied by vain efforts and subsequent failure. Some long to know where the problem lies. There is little doubt as to the answer: They do not know or honor the indwelling Spirit as the strength of their life, the power of their faith to keep them looking to Jesus and trusting in Him. They do not know what it is to day by day wait in quiet confidence for the Holy Spirit to deliver them from the power of the flesh and to maintain the wonderful presence of the Father and the Son.

There are multitudes of Gods dear children who still experience a never-ending stumbling and rising in their spiritual lives. In spite of revivals, seminars, and conferences, the teaching they receive is not particularly helpful in the matter of entire consecration. Their everyday surroundings are not favorable to the growth of the spiritual life. There may be times of longing to live according to the full will of God, but the prospect of actually walking well-pleasing to Him has hardly dawned on them. They are strangers to the best part of their birthright as Gods children, to the most precious gift of the Fathers love in Christthe gift of the Holy Spirit, who desires to dwell in them and lead them.

I would count it an unspeakable privilege if God would use me to address to these, His beloved children, the question found in His Word: Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16) and then to tell them what that glorious work is that the Spirit is able to do in and through them. I would like to show them what it is that has no doubt hindered the Spirit from doing His blessed work. I would explain how simple the path is by which each upright soul can enter into the joy of the full revelation of the presence of the indwelling Jesus. I have humbly asked God that He would give through my simple words the quickening of His Holy Spirit so that through them the truth, love, and power of God might enter into the hearts of many of His children. I long that these words may bring in reality and experience the wondrous gift of love they describethe life and joy of the Holy Spirit as He reveals to them the Lord Jesus, whom until now they may have known only from afar.

I must confess to still another hope. I have a strong fearand I say it in all humilitythat in the theology of our churches, the teaching and leading of the Spirit of truth, the anointing that alone teaches all things, is not recognized in a practical sense. If the leaders of our churchesthe teachers, pastors, Bible scholars, writers, and layworkerswere all fully conscious of the fact that in everything that concerns the Word of God and the church of Christ the Holy Spirit should have the supreme place of honor as He did in the Acts of the Apostles, surely the signs and marks of His presence would be clearer and His mighty works more manifest. I trust I have not been presumptuous in hoping that what has been written here may help to remind even our spiritual leaders of that which is so easily overlookedthe indispensable requirement for what is to bear fruit for eternity: to be full of the power of the eternal Spirit.

I am well aware of what may be expected by men of intellect and culture, by true theologians, that these writings should bear the marks of scholarship, force of thought, and power of expression. To these I cannot dare to lay claim. Yet I venture to ask any of these honored brethren who may read these lines to regard the book at least as the echo of a cry for light rising from many hearts and as a display of questions, the solution for which many are longing. There is a prevalent feeling that Christs promise of what the church should be and its actual present state do not correspond.

Of all theological questions, there is none that leads us more deeply into the glory of God or that is of more intense, vital, and practical importance for daily life than that which deals with the full revelation of God and the work of redemptionor in what way and to what extent Gods Holy Spirit can dwell in, fill, and make into a holy and beautiful temple of God, the heart of His child, making Christ reign there as the ever-present and almighty Savior. It is a question of which the solution, if it were sought and found in the presence and teaching of the Spirit himself, would transform all our theology into that knowledge of God which is eternal life.