Isaiah 11:2b
2 And the spirit [ruwach] of the LORD [Yahovah] shall
rest [nuwach] upon him, the spirit [ruwach] of wisdom [chokmah] and
understanding, [biynah] the spirit [ruwach] of counsel [`etsah] and
might, [gabuwrah] the spirit [ruwach] of knowledge [da`ath] and
of the fear [yir'ah] of the LORD; [Yahovah] KJV-Interlinear
2 And the
Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the
Lord. NASB
The spiritual life
applies to believers in Christ only. No unbeliever (anyone who has not believed
in Christ) has a spiritual life. They (unbelievers) are simply carnal man (or
woman), made up of body and soul and they have only the Lake of Fire to look
forward to when they leave this world.
In order to have a
relationship with God, you have the have the mechanisms with which a
relationship is made possible. That mechanism begins with a human spirit. A
human spirit is acquired only at the moment when one believers Christ. It takes
only a second for God to create a human spirit in you and impute eternal life
into it. The humans spirit is the vessel or the container, and eternal life is
the life component that is entered into the human spirit vessel.
Anyone who has believed in
Christ has a human spirit. Anyone who has a human spirit now has access to
heaven, or you could call it an entry ticket for permanent residency in heaven.
Without your ticket, without your human spirit you will never get into heaven.
Believing in Christ is the only means of gaining a human spirit, and when you
do believe in Christ, then your gaining a human spirit is automatic and it is
permanent. You can never lose your spirit. You can never lose your access into
heaven. That is Gods promise.
But there is more to life
than just being saved. When you believe in Christ we call this being born
again. That is the function of the human spirit being created in you. It is a
life, and eternal life which is born inside of you. Once you are born, then you
can never be unborn. No one can reverse the birth process after it has been
completed. Try asking your mother if you can reverse the birth process, and if
you live through her response, then maybe you will never ask a stupid question
again.
When you have been born
again, at that same instant, the moment when you believed in Christ, many
things occur simultaneously. One of those things that happens is that the Holy
Spirit enters inside of you and indwells in you. This is not an emotional
experience. You do not feel it nor sense it in any way. It just happens. The
Holy Spirit does not interfere in your thought process nor in any of your daily
activities, but He does offer you the opportunity of growing up spiritually
through the use of His power, and that is really where the spiritual life
function actually begins.
We have called this,
being in fellowship, throughout our study, but here, Isaiah gives the example
of the action of the Holy Spirit as He 'rests' on the person of the Messiah,
Jesus Christ. This has never occurred before in history and in fact, Jesus was
the prototype of this pattern of life for all of the believers who would and
who will, live in the Church Age. The Church Age is our dispensation, or our
era in human history.
Prior to Christ, this
indwelling never occurred. What occurred in the ages prior to the First Advent,
was indument, wherein the Holy Spirit would empower, on a temporary basis,
certain individuals and then He would give them certain powers or gifts, or
abilities, and such. Some of the priests, and prophets, and kings and judges,
and such, had this blessing, but it was not a universal blessing for all
people. Only a certain few received it.
Today, everyone who
believes in Christ receives the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and with it comes
all of the power and blessings which are available in the spiritual life.
The first and foremost
power is that of spiritual growth to maturity. And the reason I say foremost is
because with spiritual maturity comes all of the extra blessings, and gifts,
and promotions, and everything that is beyond ones ability to imagine, which
comes from God both in this life and in the next.
When you are in
fellowship, then God the Holy Spirit is placed in control of your soul. He
directs all spiritual phenomena through your human spirit, and then into your
soul where is builds spiritual assets, where it builds a spiritual complex
inside of your soul. That construction project is your spiritual growth and
power.
When you are out of
fellowship, then the Holy Spirit in not in control of your soul and your whole
spiritual construction project is shut down. You are off line with God, so to
speak.
So the very first
component of your spiritual life begins with being in fellowship and therefore
with the Holy Spirit resting, settling down, dwelling, staying, residing,
functioning as in a home, managing, and all of this from within your soul.
Without fellowship, your
spiritual life is turned off and actually regresses, as an abandoned
construction project deteriorates, requiring a lot of 'do over' work to get it
back where you left off, and then resume toward a finished state.
In order to get into and
retain your fellowship status, all you have to do is name your sins to God the
Father (confession), on a current basis, and then forget them. We studied this
in detail in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. You acknowledge your failures and God does
all of the rest spiritually. And again, this is not an emotional experience.
You will not feel anything, nor sense any change in your body or life. The
spiritual life is separate and apart from this temporal world. We live on
faith, not on feelings.
