Shall All Be Made Alive?

"You always resist the Holy Spirit…Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God…Do not quench the Spirit." (Acts 7:51; Ephesians 4:30; and 1 Thessalonians 5:19)

As I have said before, I look at the Holy Spirit as the POWER of God. It is the unseen means by which God’s plan is accomplished. It is like the wind which moves the tree branches but cannot be seen. It is futile to resist this unseen POWER of God. We often resist this unseen POWER which is working out God's plan. We quench the power of God only in the sense that we lose the joy and  peace it can bring when we believe what God will accomplish through this power, the reconciliation and salvation of all at our resurrection.

“As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive…death is abolished…that God may be All in All” (1 Corinthians 5:22-28)

One God

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters....” (Genesis 1:1, 3)

“God is spirit…” (John 4:24)

I think of POWER when I read the word “Spirit” in the Bible. And when I read the words “Holy Spirit” I think of God's omnipotent POWER. Power flows from the generator of that power, it is NOT the generator itself. Think of an electric generator. You turn it on and power flows out of it to provide the energy to turn on the lights.

God is both the generator and the power flowing from it to create all things. In that sense only is the Holy Spirit God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God...the Word became flesh...No one has seen God at any time; the ONLY BEGOTTEN GOD who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him...Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him...” (John 1:1-18; 1 John 4:15)

Jesus is the Word of God, the express image of God, the Son of God...Jesus is the one who explains to us what God is like...in that sense only is Jesus God. And after the resurrection all those who are reconciled, justified, saved and glorified will be GODlike...Jesus prayed for it to be so...

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:20-26)

The phrase “trinity” is not is the Bible. There is no such message in the Bible about three persons who are at the same time one person (which defies logic). There is only one God out of whom comes all things, beginning with the Son...

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things....there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came...the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:15)

This is not rocket science, just a matter of reading the Bible and believing what it says, and rejecting any teaching from men which contradicts what God says.

Help For Our Weakness

"I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that it may be with you for the age; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see it or know it, but you know it because it abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

Jesus asked the Father to give the Holy Spirit to those Jews who believed that Jesus is the Messiah. It would abide in them, and on Pentecost, 50 days after the resurrection, the gift of this power came and settled on those early Jewish believers…

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place…and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (the power of God) and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.” (Acts 2:1-4)

Those Jews then begin to speak to other Jews who had come from all over the world to celebrate the Jewish Festival of Weeks. By this POWER they spoke in the various languages and told them about Messiah Jesus, his resurrection and ascension, and his promised return. The gift of other "tongues" (languages) was withdrawn when the Jewish Nation once again rejected Jesus at the close of Acts. Paul then went exclusively to the "Gentiles" with the Gospel of Grace, God’s good news of the salvation of all mankind through Christ Jesus…

“After three days Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews…and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening…and when they did not agree with one another, they began leaving after Paul had spoken one parting word, The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying…YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; AND YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE …therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles…” (Acts 28:17-28)

Jesus is now interceding on our behalf through the power of God (the Holy Spirit) according to the will of God.

“…the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit…intercedes for the saints according to THE WILL OF GOD….Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? …neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:26-38)

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will…In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:11-14)

Mankind has been "predestined" to hear and believe the good news of their salvation and upon believing they become sealed with the promise of "Holy Spirit".

I have heard much teaching about the Holy Spirit over the years. Like “walking in the Spirit”, or “receiving the Spirit”, or being “filled with the Spirit”. Some teach that the Holy Spirit is a person and part of a “trinity”. Some even teach about a “second blessing” when one is “baptized in the Holy Spirit”. Any many say things like “the Spirit led me” to do such and such.

The various and conflicting teachings on the “Holy Spirit” is confusing and probably wrong to some degree.

Here is a simple way I keep what God says about “Spirit” straight in my mind, Holy or not. I am a man of the flesh…a "soul" which is mortal and controlled by those natural emotions that all mankind experience (the flesh). I will stay “mortal” until I die and am raised a “Spiritual body". It is a promise from God. That body will be Holy and Spiritual - a new creation - only when I am made immortal. But that is in the future…it is our inheritance an hope as children of God.

“So also is the resurrection of the dead…it is sown a natural body, it is raised a SPIRITUAL body. If there is a natural body, there is also a SPIRITUAL body. So also it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living SOUL. The last Adam became a life-giving SPIRIT. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven…Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery…we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the DEAD will be raised imperishable… But when this…mortal will have put on IMMORTALITY, then will come about the saying that is written, DEATH is swallowed up in VICTORY.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-57)