Saint Peter in (Acts 2:38) indicated “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
We see here that St Peter was advocating that every believer to receive the Holy Spirit for salvation and personal sanctification.
However, the main reason the Holy Spirit is given; is to pass from death unto life. For as the bible says, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22)
The operation of the Holy Spirit is also to keep our bodies pure and undefiled. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). In so doing we reap the health benefits which flows from patience and the serene joy of devotion.
The Holy Spirit has enabled men to speak in tongues and to prophesy. But it is necessary as we walk in the light to be able to discern the fallacies of flesh and blood. It also enables us to reject unreligious beliefs of the world and to practice trust in God and above all to love all men every where.
The object which this light brings us most is immediately to know our selves and by the virtue of this as one born of God and has a lively hope and see far into the ways of spiritual care and farther yet the holy scriptures for the scriptures excepting some accidental and less necessary parts are only history of the new man which he himself is and a spiritual care is only a wise disposal of the events for the awakening of particular persons and ripening the world in general for the coming of Christ
( John 16:13) Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”
True notion of the Spirit is that; it is some portion of as well as preparation for a life in God which we are to enjoy hereafter. The gift of the Holy Spirit looks for the resurrection for a life of God completed in us.
Everything in Christianity is anticipation of something that is to be at the end of the world.
If the Apostles were to preach by their Master’s command, “that the kingdom of God is at hand” the meaning was that from henceforth all men should fix their eyes on that happy time, foretold by the Prophets, when the Messiah should come and that by renouncing their worldly conversation, and submitting to the gospel they should fit themselves for, and hasten, that blessing.
“Now are we the sons of God,” as St. John tells us; “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” ( 1John 3:2) and yet what he imparts to us at present will hardly justify that title, without taking in that fulness of his image which shall then be displayed in us, when we shall be “the children of God, by being the children of the resurrection.”
Shalom and God bless
AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST 