THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT

We have maintained in the previous chapter that the baptism in the Holy
Ghost was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the
Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not
follow therefore that every believer has received this baptism. God's
gift is one thing; our appropriation of that gift is quite another
thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the
Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect. "God so loved the world
that he _gave_ his only begotten Son" (John 3: 16). "But as many as
_received him_ to them gave he the right to become the children of God,
even to them that believe on his name" (John 1: 12). Here are the two
sides of salvation, the divine and the human, which are absolutely
co-essential.

There is a doctrine somewhat in vogue, not inappropriately denominated
redemption by incarnation, which maintains that since God gave his Son
to the world, all the world has the Son, consciously or unconsciously,
and that therefore all the world will be saved. It need not be said
that a true evangelical teaching must reject this theory as utterly
{68} untenable, since it ignores the necessity of individual faith in
Christ. But some orthodox writers have urged an almost identical view
with respect to the Holy Ghost. They have contended that the enduement
of the Spirit is "not any special or more advanced experience, but
simply the condition of every one who is a child of God"; that
"believers converted after Pentecost, and living in other localities,
are just as really endowed with the indwelling Spirit as those who
actually partook of the Pentecostal blessing at Jerusalem."[1]

On the contrary, it seems clear from the Scriptures that it is still
the duty and privilege of believers to receive the Holy Spirit by a
conscious, definite act of appropriating faith, just as they received
Jesus Christ. We base this conclusion on several grounds. Presumably
if the Paraclete is a person, coming down at a certain definite time to
make his abode in the church, for guiding, teaching, and sanctifying
the body of Christ, there is the same reason for our accepting him for
his special ministry as for accepting the Lord Jesus for his special
ministry. To say that in receiving Christ we necessarily received in
the same act the gift of the Spirit, seems to confound what the
Scriptures make distinct.[2] For it is as sinners that we accept