Spiritual communion with God is our essential life as Christians. It is the prerequisite to all revival. This fellowship is the work of the Holy Spirit as He is the Spirit of all grace and sanctification. The beauty and the glory of our communion with God show the emptiness all the attractiveness of the world. The glory and excellence of this spiritual communion is our worship of Him and is our lifeblood or our faith that the Lord God delights in. Our church services have a proper place, and they truly have an influence on our increase of faith and grace and are part of our communion with God and our fellowship with one another as believers. These services, however, presuppose our personal walk with the Lord God. This personal communion with God is that for which Christ Jesus prayed in John’s gospel, chapter seventeen. The communion with God already exists; His intercession was a prayer to the Father in Heaven to preserve it. Therefore, He prayed, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one, as we are.”[1]
The Lord compares Christian unity and fellowship to the ultimate unity and fellowship in the Trinity. It has always existed between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: three Persons, yet, one God. There is not any more profound and exact definition of the essence of our spiritual communion than that which He proclaimed in prayer, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”[2] That one Spirit might vitalize all His own people is what is plainly implied in the prayer, “that they may be one in us.” Union with the Father and Son is obtained and maintained only by the Holy Spirit.[3] The prayer of Christ, for all who are His, includes the profound concept that, as one, they may have fellowship with the Father and Son. Thus, the Lord began His prayer in stating, “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Christ Jesus, whom thou hast sent.”[4] We are encouragingly reminded by the Lord about this profound fellowship that is of the essence of our Christian walk. Thus, we are told, “because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba,Father!’”[5] Therefore, because we are sons of God we should joyfully live each day in fellowship with Him. The Lord’s command to “abide in me” finds an echo in the commands to be “led by the Spirit,” “live in the Spirit,” and “walk in the Spirit”[6] That is, believers who are already united with Christ, and indwelt by the Spirit, must enter increasingly into the reality and experience of that union.
The points characterized by this experiential fellowship with God are highlighted by the Apostle Paul in the following words, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.”[7] The fellowship desired in this prayer ascribes different features to each distinct Person of the Trinity. First, it is love that is peculiarly assigned to the Father. Second, grace is assigned to Christ Jesus. Third, the fellowship of the Spirit is highlighted. This fellowship of the Holy Spirit is essential, as it is by the Spirit alone that we have fellowship with Christ in grace, and with the Father in love. Thus, we will joyfully unfold the splendors of our communion with God under these different features.
Fellowship With the Father
We begin this tremendously profound and encouraging topic by considering first what it is to fellowship with the Father. The word “Father,” signifying personal love, was on the lips of the Lord no less than one hundred and seventy times. As Christ Jesus has revealed Him, He is distinctively the Father, our Abba Father. The Lord prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”[8] The apostle Paul uses the same term teaching us how to commune with the Father in prayer. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” All Christ’s prayers were addressed to the Father, with the exception of His prayer on the cross when He quoted Psalm Twenty Two. The Father is the great fountain and spring of all gracious intercommunication and fruits of love. This is whom Christ came to reveal, namely, God as the Father to you, even in the loving, endearing term, “Abba Father.”
We are emphatically instructed, “God is love.”[9] The name of God in this statement is taken personally for the Father. This is evident from the following verse where He is distinguished from His only begotten Son whom He sent into the world. So, the Word of God proclaims, “The Father is love.” Not only is God graciously tender and compassionate as He had proclaimed Himself in the Old Testament,[10] but He eminently portrays Himself to us as love. Thus, His Word continues, “He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”[11] The Father loved us individually and corporately. The Holy Spirit unmistakably shows this love, demonstrated before the sending of Christ. The love of the Father is, in fact, declared to be before the foundation of the world, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”[12]
Our beloved Savior Himself told us, “I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loveth you.”[13] The Father Himself loves each one of us eminently, therefore, we must resolve to hold communion with Him in His love and never be in doubt or troubled about His love for us.
The Personal Assurance of the Father’s Love
Christians walk sometimes with troubled hearts concerning the thoughts of the Father towards them. They are convinced of the Lord Jesus Christ and His love; the difficulty lies what to think regarding the Father’s love. They ought rather to see the Father as the fountain from which all other kindnesses flow. Thus, the Apostle portrays Him, “after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared.”[14] In the same context the Apostle also says, “we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.”[15] Thus, the love of the Father is the hinge on which all these great changes and blessings of believers revolve. The whole source of man’s recovery was from the love of the Father. When the kindness and love of the Father appeared, then these changes resulted. To utterly convince us of His love, the Father compared Himself to all that is endearing and tender in the world. He is portrayed as a father, a mother, and a shepherd, even as a hen over her chicks.[16] Thus, for example, He promises, “As one whom his mother comforteth,so will I comfort you.”[17] This is love in the Person of the Father peculiarly held out to you His own, and in which He holds communion with you. Now, to experience communion with the Father in love, two things are required of us. Firstly, that we receive it and rejoice in it. Secondly, that we attempt to make suitable returns to Him.
Fellowship consists in giving and receiving; until the love of the Father is received, we have no experiential communion with Him. How, then, is this love of the Father to be received, so as to hold fellowship with him? By faith! The receiving of it is the believing of it. God has so fully, so eminently, revealed His love, that we may be received by that love through faith. “Ye believe in God,”[18] Christ declared, that is, you believe in the Father. And what is to be believed first of all in Him? It is His love, because He is “love.”[19]
It is by and through Christ we have an access to the Father and we are able to see the love that He peculiarly bears to us. As the Lord so clearly told us, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”[20] The men which the Son describes are those who were given to Him, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.”[21] Thus, by Christ, and by faith through Christ, we are brought, as it were, into the bosom of God. We are certain of the Fathers’ love, and there we repose and rest. The first thing we are to do in our communion with the Father is to be fully persuaded that God personally loves us, that He may be beloved in our sight. Therefore, He commands us, “My son, give me thine heart.”[22] When we see the Father in His endowment of love,[23] and rest on and delight in Him as such, then we have communion with Him in love. Love is an affection of union, nearness, and contentment. As long as the Father is looked upon in any other way than acting in love towards us, our souls can remain spiritually lukewarm. To love God is to obey Him, and He commands us to rest and delight in His love.
Resting in the Father’s Love
To rest in the Father’s love, believers of old, such as John Owen, dwelt on and relished the prophecy of Zephaniah, “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy, he will rest in his love; he will joy over thee with singing.”[24] Both rest and delight are here assigned to God in His love. First, rest, because He is settled in His love over us. To rest with satisfaction is expressed by being silent, without sorrow, and without complaint. On account of His own love being so full and in every way complete and absolute, He can rests in His own love. He will not remove His love; He will not, nor need not, seek any further for other persons to love. His love is from everlasting to everlasting; as He proclaims, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.”[25] Then delight in knowing, “he will joy over thee with singing.” That is, He is fully satisfied in those on whom He has fixed His love. This also expresses the delight that He has in His love, denoting an inward affection of the mind and joy of heart. To have joy of heart is the highest expression of delight in love. It denotes not the inward affection alone, but also an outward demonstration of it. An outward demonstration of delight is as when men leap for joy when overcome with some joyful surprise. Therefore, the Father is said to do this “with singing.” To rejoice with gladness of heart, to exult with singing and praise, shows forth the greatest delight and contentment possible. Thus, we see profound significance of what it means to be “accepted in the beloved.”[26] Yes, indeed we are, and because of this we also are beloved in His sight. This is His Love for you; His free, undeserved, and eternal love. The Father fixes His love upon you. You are His beloved in Christ. You are immediately to see, to receive, to rest, and delight in His love. Together, in our beloved Savior, we joyfully praise Him, our Abba Father. “How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.”[27]
Fellowship With the Lord Jesus Christ
The Word of God instructs that “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Christ Jesus our Lord.”[28] This is also the fellowship into which we are called. As our Lord and Master Himself invites us, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”[29] This fellowship is obtained by grace, in order to receive more of grace. This fellowship also reveals how gracious Christ is. He it is who “dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”[30] All that went before Him was but typical and in representation of Him. The truth and substance of grace comes only by Christ. “Grace and truth came by Christ Jesus,” “and of his fullness have all we received,and grace for grace.”[31] That is, we have communion with Him in grace; we receive from Him all manner of grace, and in grace we have fellowship with Him. “Grace be with you,” and “The Lord Jesus be with you,” are equivalent expressions. Grace is first of all the personal attractiveness and comeliness of our Lord. Nearly half of the Song of Solomon is devoted in outlining Him as the most graceful and comely Person. As when it is proclaimed, “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.”[32] Thus, also the psalmist sings, “Thou art fairer than the children of men;grace is poured into thy lips.”[33]
His fullness to save by grace is the effect of His excellence. His grace is free; therefore, the consequences are of the utmost. Thus, His Word declares, “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.”[34] He had all fullness of the attributes of the Godhead to Him for this purpose, “for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell,”[35] and He received the Spirit without measure.[36] In addition, from this fullness He gives a supply of grace to all His people, “grace for grace.” Had the Spirit been given to Him by measure, we would have exhausted it. This “grace for grace” is the fruit of the Spirit, sanctifying and renewing our natures, enabling us to excel in goodness and prevent us from doing evil. We are His garden; the rest of the world is a fallow wilderness. “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.”[37] We are His inheritance; the world, such as it is, has no regard of Him. Christ Jesus is the means of grace. The Lord’s ordinances in our church services point to our Lord, to commune with Him. The Lord uses His written Word and the preaching of the Gospel to directly convict the sinner of sin and to bring about salvation. He also uses His written Word and preaching to instruct us as to how to abide in Him. Our obedience is a fruit and not a cause of our abiding in Him. Since this abiding in Him is His training of us, we must carefully examine what it means.
Abiding in Christ
The Pauline concept of “in Christ” finds its counterpart in the Lord’s own commandment, “abide in me.” The New Testament theme looks not inward for sanctification, but to the Person of Christ. Sixty-six times in the Apostle John’s writings the believer is told to look to Christ and not within himself. In John’s writings, the concepts are developed into distinctive statements concerning the lasting relationship between God and Christ, and Christians and Christ. This is equally as strong as the apostle Paul’s teaching of being “in Christ.” Both men using expressions as “remain in” and “abide in” maintain biblical truth and utterly avoid the assertions of identity found in Greek mysticism and the modern Emerging Church movement.
To “remain in” and “abide in” Christ Jesus have a deeper significance than simply to continue to believe in Him, although it includes this. The expressions connote continuing to live in friendship with Him because we are a new creation in Him through the power of the Spirit. It is no accident that the “I am the vine” passage of John chapter 15 is set in the context of Christ’s teaching on the Spirit in chapters 14 and 16. The same is true in the first letter of 1John where the discussion of abiding is closely associated with the work of the Spirit. For example, “And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”[38] And, “By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”[39] The Spirit is the “Spirit of Christ,” and His presence makes possible a real and experienced communion with Christ Jesus, an inward, enduring, and personal fellowship. The true Christian does not deny in any way the rational thought processes,[40] but bathes such thoughts in communion with God. Those who are totally convinced of their powerlessness to do anything without Christ will develop the habit of an awareness of the Lord’s presence.
The Christian writer, C. Campbell, expressed it so well when he wrote, “Thousands of Christians are complaining of barrenness; but they fail to trace their barrenness to its right source — the meagerness of their communion with Christ. Consequently, they seek fruitfulness in activities, often right in themselves, but which, while He is unrecognized, can never yield any fruit. In such condition, they ought rather to cry, ‘Our leanness! Our leanness’; and they ought to know that leanness can only be remedied by that abiding in Christ, and He in them, which ‘fills the soul with marrow and its fatness.’” [41]
The Way His Grace Works in Our Lives
Christ Jesus came to give His life for the sake of the people whom He loves. His life and death are not only the pattern of ours; more important is the fact that they are the source of our living fruitful lives. Thus, we must examine His command to us in this regard. He declared, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”[42] The key word in this commandment is the word “as.” The Greek word for ‘as’ is ‘kathos’ meaning “the pattern” and “by means of.” The commandment, therefore, fits the whole characteristic of the grace of Christ. We love one another by means of His love. Christ Jesus’ death is not just held up as an example but as the source of our love. It is clearly to be a model of the intensity of our love, but most importantly, it is the means for us to show our love for our brothers. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”[43] This is accomplished only because He laid down His life for us; by means of His grace, we also lay down our lives for our brothers. The call of Christ Jesus to “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me” is possible only by means of the same love with which He loved us. Thus, it is only as His love is perfected in us that we can love one another. “No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love has been perfected in us.”[44] His love accomplishes what it was designed and adapted to do, to be the power by which we love one another. We love by means of His faithfulness and His love.
Bearing Fruit in Christ
A non-fruit-bearing disciple is a contradiction in terms.[45] Thus, the Lord instructs us, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit.” No one can become a disciple without an active faith, one that is fruit-bearing. Such fruit is guaranteed by His choosing and sustaining grace. The logic is that the relationship between Christ Jesus and the Father is a pattern for our relationship with Christ. This pattern stands behind all of Christ’s teaching on the Christian life in John’s gospel. The pattern is Father–Me and I–you. This pattern is not a mere style but gives reinforcement to the message. The reality that shapes the incarnate Jesus’ relationship with the Father is the example for our relationship with Christ Jesus. Thus, regarding the pattern of His love, He assures us, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” This is a remarkable expression of His grace. As the Father loved Him, who was most worthy, He loved us, who were most unworthy. The Father loved Him as Mediator, as the head of the church, and the great supplier and supply of divine favor. As the Father has committed His love to Christ, so He transmits that love to us. Therefore, the Father was well pleased with Him, that He might be well pleased with us in Him. He loved Him, that in Him (as the Beloved), He might make us accepted in Him. The same pattern applies Christ’s joy. Thus, He assures us, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”[46] Our joy is full and complete as we abide in Him.
Abiding in the Lord brings the privilege of asking the Father for whatever we wish. The Lord promises, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”[47] Abiding in Christ means we will ask according to God’s will. Nonetheless, He warns us “without me ye can do nothing.”[48] There are many of us who believe the Lord’s assurance that our prayers will be answered in a general way, but we fail to apply it in detail. We know that we cannot do the important things without Christ’s assistance, but how many of the little things we attempt in our own strength! No wonder we fail so often.
Failing to Bear Fruit
The Son of God was the original source of life, and now by His work as Mediator, gives life and grace to all true believers. The commandment to abide in Him is a most serious one, since if we fail to abide in Him in the pattern of His grace, love, and joy, then we are apt to live lives stripped of gifts and opportunities. The warning “without me ye can do nothing” is similar to the salt “losing its savor.” It parallels the Lord’s forewarning, “And, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.”[49] What is at stake is the frightening concept that we can live lives with dead works: “wood, hay, and stubble.” What is to become of these “dead works”? The Word of God tells us, “If any man’s work shall be burned he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”[50] This is a most solemn warning and heart-searching prospect for every Christian. Either our life is as the result of continuous fellowship with Christ, bringing forth fruit to the glory of the Father, or because of our neglect of communing with Him, we are in great danger of being set aside as His witnesses on earth, to bring forth only that which the fire will consume in the last day.
Fellowship With the Holy Spirit
The Comforter has been sent by the Father, but in the name of Christ. Just as the Savior came in the Father’s name, so the Holy Spirit was sent in the Son’s name. Just as the Son had made the Father known, so the Holy Spirit shows Christ to His people. Just as the Son glorified the Father, so the Spirit glorifies Christ. Just as the Savior supplied all the needs of His people so the Comforter fully provides for us believers.
Before He left the world our blessed Lord knew how discouraged His disciples were when He spoke about His departure. Therefore, He promised them the Spirit of sanctification and consolation. The promised Holy Spirit would abide with the disciples forever, unlike the temporary presence they had experienced of the Lord Himself. In the flesh, the Savior had been with them for a little while, and now was leaving them, and returning to His Father. He had been their comforter for a season, but now on His departing He promised them another comforter.
The Spirit often works tender consolations to us. When we do not receive them, He is still present, and we do not discern it; we refuse to be comforted. The Spirit came with power to convict and conquer our unbelieving hearts at the time of our salvation. In contrast, the Spirit as a comforter comes with kindness and gentleness to be received in our believing hearts. He speaks, and it is possible that we believe not that it is His voice. He proposes the things of consolation and we receive them not. As David lamented, “my sore ran and my soul refused to be comforted.” The Holy Spirit never absolutely and universally leaves a believing soul without consolation. A believer may be gloomy and refuse comfort, actually finding none and feeling none. Radically, however, he has a foundation of consolation, which in due time will be felt when God promises that He will heal His own and restore comfort to them. Hence we are commanded, “grieve not the Holy Spirit,whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”[51] That is, such passions of bitterness as wrath, anger, evil speaking, and malice, grieve the Holy Spirit. By this we are not to understand that the Holy Spirit is properly grieved as we are.
The design of the commandment is that we act not towards the Holy Spirit in such a manner as to be grievous and disquieting to our fellow-creatures. We must not do what is contrary to His holy will. Most of all, we must not provoke the Spirit of God to withdraw His presence and His gracious influences from us. The reason why we should not grieve Him is that by Him we are sealed unto the day of redemption. There is to be a day of redemption. Our bodies are to be redeemed from the power of the grave on the day of resurrection. Then we will be delivered from all the effects of sin, as well as from all sin and misery. We are sealed to that day. The Lord God has distinguished us having set His mark on us. He gives us the earnest and assurance of a joyful and glorious resurrection; and the Holy Spirit is the seal. Wherever that blessed Spirit is as a sanctifier, He is the earnest of all the joys and glories of the redemption-day; and we should be undone should God take away His Holy Spirit from us.
The Holy Spirit as the Earnest of Our Inheritance
The Holy Spirit is given to us as the choice part our inheritance itself. The earnest is the same kind as the whole, as an earnest ought to be. The full inheritance promised, is the fullness of the Spirit in the enjoyment of God in heaven, when that Spirit will have perfectly taken away all sin and sorrow. Then He will have made us able to enjoy the glory of God in the full presence of God. That is the full inheritance promised. The Holy Spirit is given to us to equip us to enjoy in some measure the presence of God in this world. While we are in this world He is the earnest of the whole that is to come.
The Lord has given us of the Holy Spirit; in Him we have the first-fruits of glory. The utmost pledge of His love is the earnest of the eternal life that we now have. “Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.”[52] Thus, the Holy Spirit gives us an inner assurance of the love of God. He makes known to us our favor in His sight that He is our Father; He deals with us as His children. The Holy Spirit has been sent to our hearts, “crying Abba Father.”[53] The result is, “then we are not servants, but sons; and if sons, then heirs of God.”[54] The Holy Spirit opens to us the fact that we have an inheritance and an assurance of it. “If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.”[55] That inheritance is His favor here and now and eternal life hereafter. This is an honor infinitely higher than to be heir to the most generous earthly inheritance. Christ Jesus is heir to the full honor and glory of heaven. We are united to Him as his brothers, thus we are presented as destined to partake with Him of His glory. We are the sons of God in a different sense from what He is. He is Son by His nature, and we are sons by adoption. Still, the idea of being a son exists in both; hence, both will partake in the glories of the eternal inheritance.
Quench Not the Spirit
We are commanded by the Lord to “quench not the Spirit”[56] The Holy Spirit was typified by the fire that was always kept alive on the altar. He is also called a “Spirit of burning.”[57] The reasons of this allusion are manifold. Hence, any opposition given to the workings of the Holy Spirit is called “quenching of the Spirit.” Thus, also are also using the same metaphor, to ‘stir up with new fire’ the Spirit’s gifts that are in us. The Holy Ghost is striving with us bringing forth fruit suited to the new creation that we are in Christ. We have been brought into relationship with the whole Trinity, “For through Christ we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”[58]
Through our blessed Savior, we have a Divine Person with us day by day. The Person who quickens us, indwells us, loves us, leads us; who gives us assurance of our being God’s adopted children, who helps us in infirmities by making intercession for us, and who has sealed us unto the day of redemption. May we grieve Him not; rather, as “we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”[59] May we recognize His indwelling presence day by day in acting accordingly, thus availing ourselves of His Divine fullness and power. We must expect a struggle between flesh and spirit as long as we are in the world. But if the prevailing mood of our lives is to be led by the Holy Spirit, making the Word of God our rule, and the grace of God our principle, it will be apparent that we are living in the Spirit. “For there is now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”[60] In all of this, the entire work of the Holy Spirit, Christ Jesus is glorified. “He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.”[61]
In our fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we have a foretaste of the eternal life to come. The profound concept that, as one, we may have fellowship with the Father and Son was the Lord’s prayer, and ought to be our greatest desire, until more and more we see fulfilled that multitude of boundless blessings that have been pledged to us. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Christ Jesus, whom thou hast sent.”[62]
[1] John 17:11
[2] John 17:21
[3] I Corinthians 6:17
[4] John 17:3
[5] Galatians 4:6-7
[6] Galatians 5:25
[7] II Corinthians 13:14
[8] Mark 14:36
[9] I John 4:8
[10] “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,”
Exodus 34:6, 7
[11] I John 4: 10
[12] Ephesians 1:4-7
[13] John 16:26, 27
[14] Titus 3:4
[15] Titus 3:3
[16] Psalm 103:13; Isaiah 63:16; Matthew 6:6; Psalm 23:l; Isaiah 40:11; Matthew 23:37
[17] Isaiah 66:13
[18] John 14:l
[19] I John 4:8
[20] John 1:18
[21] John 17:6
[22] Proverbs 23:26
[23] That is, Christ is sacrificed on the Cross for God’s chosen ones
[24] Zephaniah 3:17
[25] Jeremiah 31:3
[26] Ephesians 1:6
[27] Psalm 36:7-9
[28] I Corinthians 1:9
[29] Revelation 3:20
[30] John 1:14
[31] John 1:17 & 16
[32] Song of Solomon 4:7
[33] Psalm 45:2
[34] Hebrews 7:25
[35] Colossians 1:19
[36] John 3:34 “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.”
[37] Song of Solomon 4:12
[38] I John 3:24
[39] I John 4:13
[40] Many Emerging Church leaders would have us shut down the brain in order to know to experience God. The Lord God however says “ Come now, and let us reason together” Isaiah 1:18
[41] http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/John/john_51.htm
[42] John 15:12
[43] I John 3:16
[44] I John 4:12
[45] See “fruit of the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:22 and Ephesians 5: 9)
[46] John 15:11
[47] John 15:7
[48] John 15:7
[49] Luke 8:18
[50] I Corinthians 3:15
[51] Ephesians 4:30
[52] 2 Corinthians 5:5
[53] Galatians 4:6
[54] Galatians 4:7
[55] Romans 8:17
[56] I Thessalonians 5:19
[57] Isaiah 4:4
[58] Ephesians 2:18
[59] Galatians 5:25
[60] Romans 8:1,14
[61] John 16:14
[62] John 17:3