Are we in the Spirit or not?

If you are a child of God, you possess the Spirit of God. His Spirit is a spirit of perfect love who now fully indwells you. This is further evidence and confirmation we are totally accepted and perfectly loved in Christ. The reality that the infinitely loving Creator and Sustainer of all things indwells us is an incomprehensible wonder. 

This isn't because of anything we have done to make us suitable for dwelling. This is possible only because of Christ. 

Because of Christ's efforts, not ours, we are counted by God as a pure vessel (legally and objectively), perfectly worthy of His residence in His eyes - i.e. by his standards - not ours. If we were in any way impure, He would not and could not indwell us. God simply ¹cannot indwell an unclean vessel. His indwelling is proof we are pure and perfectly acceptable in His eyes. And because we are perfect, He indwells us. 

 

This is why Christ said he must go so that the Spirit would come. Without Christ going to the cross to address our impurity and make us legally a clean vessel for Him to indwell, the Spirit would not and could not come. Because of Christ taking care of our uncleanness, the Spirit is ours and Christ is ours and we are Christ's. We now fully possess the love of God and His infinite care is now forever set upon us. This can't be taken away, altered, or added to by us because it isn't based on anything we do, but on the work of God through Christ. 

Rom 8:9  You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 

According to the above verse, being "in the Spirit" is synonymous with being a believer. To "...not belong to him..." - or being in the flesh in this passage is the state of a nonbeliever. 

To say it another way, a true Christian cannot be "in the Spirit" on one occasion and "in the flesh" on another. This passage isn't describing a back-and-forth condition of a believer but the state of being in Christ or not being in Christ i.e. being or not being a believer, which is the same as being in the Spirit or not in the Spirit. 

According to this passage, if you do not have the Spirit, you do "not belong to him" and if you belong to him you have the Spirit, no matter how obedient or ²disobedient you are. This has nothing to do with our faithfulness. It is solely based on the faithful and completed work of Christ. 

If you are a believer and have accepted God's provision of righteousness through Christ, then his Spirit indwells you, period...full stop! You are now "in the Spirit" as well as the Spirit is in you. This is the same as saying you are fully accepted and loved by God; you are now under His perfect care and provision, i.e. God's love is in you and fully set upon you. He is fully available to you. The Spirit will not indwell you now or in the future to any greater degree than he did the first day you came to Christ. 

Shifting gears

The issue now becomes do we believe the Spirit is fully ours in this way i.e. never-ending, complete, without interruption, no matter what we do or experience. We don't always feel/experience his love in this way, do we? Why? Unbelief, which is the essence of sin and at the heart of all disobedience. By our unbelief, we can and often do grieve and quench the Spirit. Some think this means God's love stops in some way. On God's side, it never stops. But our sense of His presence may be suppressed by our rebellious unbelief and times of temporarily wandering away from Him - though He never wanders from us.

We as His children however can pull away from God in distrust, not receiving/ believing in His love that is fixed upon us. This leads to our unfaithfulness.

But this is only on our side of the relationship. When we do not trust Him, we no longer pursue Him diligently and therefore lose a sense of his love and presence. It's not that his love stopped and is no longer there and available or no longer fixed upon us, but that we are no longer in alignment with it, believing, receiving, participating in, and experiencing it. To say it another way, we may have all of God by His Spirit, but this doesn't mean He has all of us; all our focus and trust ³which drives all our obedience-faithfulness.

The key to experiencing God's love and presence is believing it is ours as described above and acting accordingly. As one 1887 hymn says, "trust and obey for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus but the trust and obey."

In truth, disobedience is the fruit of unbelief. If we truly believed in the full extent and manner of God's love we would be so enthralled by it we would gladly do all he asks us to do; it would not be a burden. 

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.1 John 5:3 (ESV)

For additional posts on having his love vs fully experiencing it click here. 

______________________________________________________________

¹For God to indwell an impure vessel, He would have to go against Himself. God cannot go along with unbelief because it is rooted in distrust. It's not like we are refusing to believe something in general but something very specific about Him, i.e. that God is not who he claims to be. In essence we are saying God is a liar. God cannot approve of this or support it. For Him to not address this would be to go against Himself. To go against Himself would be to go against all things, for all things depend on Him being who claims to be and is.

It isn't whether we fully possess the love of God, but does the love of God fully possess us. And how does it possess us? By our believing that in Christ it is set upon us no matter what we do, feel or experience and then acting accordingly i.e. acting by faith for God's honor because we know (believe) we are totally loved and perfectly under his care and therefore now desire to honor Him. 

²If you are willingly and flagrantly disobedient, you may wish to search your heart to make sure you are His. We all sin but to knowingly, willfully, repeatedly sin might be evidence you don't know Him (and certainly don't trust Him and His love well, at a minimum) and a reason to examine your faith as to whether you are a true believer and have ever truly received God's love. 

³So does God's love, by his Spirit, drive our obedience or our faith? Yes...both! God's love moves us to obedience but without faith that His love is fully and perfectly ours, we will never participate in it or act upon it.