And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit
Ephesians 5:18
So far, we have looked at five ministries of the Holy Spirit to believers in the Church Age:
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Regenerating
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Indwelling
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Baptizing
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Sealing
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Filling
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The first four of these happened at salvation, maybe without our knowledge at the time, while the fifth is an ongoing process that is governed by our willingness to submit moment-by-moment and day-by-day to the inner work of the Holy Spirit.
The outline below gives a quick exposition of Ephesians 5:18.*
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The Ephesian Christians had been blessed with every “spiritual blessing.” v. 1:3
Evidently you can have “every spiritual blessing” such as the first four in the list above and still not be “filled.” Filling comes after the initial work of the Holy Spirit at salvation.
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We are not to think of the Holy Spirit like air or water that is the content of the filling.
Filled means “controlled by” cf. Luke 6:11. It is like the command, “fill the bucket with the hose.” I know that you don’t want me to stuff the hose into the bucket until the hose fills it. Likewise, we don’t put more and more of the Holy Spirit into us until we are “full.” The Holy Spirit is a Person and isn’t measured our a bit at a time. The Third Person of the Triune God lives inside each believer–we have all of Him! The Holy Spirit is the one filling us or controlling us. (Later, we’ll see that the Holy Spirit is filling us with what Galatians 5:22-23 calls the fruit of the Spirit.”)
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The command implies that not all Christians are “filled.”
Telling us to be filled shows that this is different from Regenerating, Indwelling, Baptizing, Sealing which happen at salvation.
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The command proves that the responsibility for the infilling is ours.
We never find a command for any Christian to be indwelled or baptized of Spirit. God never commands us to do something that we are incapable of obeying.
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Present tense (in Greek) shows that God wants us to be filled continuously, not merely at times.
Regenerating, Indwelling, Baptizing, Sealing by the Holy Spirit are one-time events. Being filled (controlled) by the Holy Spirit is an ongoing action.
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Not to be filled means we are consciously disobeying the Lord’s command and this is sin.
The other command in the first half of the verse, “be not drunken with wine,” is something for which we are responsible. Being drunk means that a person is intoxicated with alcohol and that “spirit” controls their actions. Contrary to the thinking of some in our society, the intoxicated person is responsible for his/her actions when he/she decides to let another spirit control them.
The life of a Christian—a spiritual Christian—is a life controlled by the Holy Spirit.
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Taken from The Persons of the Triune God, Dr. Alva J. McClain (class notes from Grace Seminary provided by George Zeller, Middletown Bible Church.)