What is God’s promise of the Holy Spirit?

John 5:24 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

I will never defend nor attempt to make any sense of the reasoning of people who believe in works for salvation. However, I understand their thinking because it is humanistic thinking and not that of God. When lost souls think of God and His gift’s and His workings with the people of this world, it is like they see God as a man and not the Sovereign God that He is. This means there must be two schools of the biblical understanding, fleshly and spiritual. Since the ability to think only like lost people is natural, then because of their dead spirit they can never think spiritual and are what God called spiritually discerned. However, with the Christian, the Holy Spirit has quickened our dead spirit (dead because of sin). “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” Ephesians 2:5 Here we see that a saved soul has had their dead spirit “quickened” and this quickening was accomplished by the Holy Spirit. It is only with this quickening by the Holy Spirit that we are able to hear and interact with God, lost souls have no ability to interact with God at all. It is only after the Holy Spirit has quickened our spirit that we are able to hear the call of God to come. “…He that heareth my word…” While some people, both saved and lost say this call is general (to every human soul) it cannot be because people with unquicken spirits do not hear God’s call. This same unquicken soul does not nor cannot hear the word of God or the gospel. While they can learn some biblical doctrine it will never have an inner meaning to them because they cannot hear it in their spirit which is dead. Paul wrote in “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Romans 8:14 The meaning here is there are two types of people, those are led by the Holy Spirit and those that are not. The deeper meaning here is that those that are led by the Holy Spirit are saved and those that are not led by Him remain spiritually dead. This is the quickening talked about in Eph. 2:5 “hath quickened us together with Christ”. Next Jesus says only when the Holy Spirit quickens the dead spirit in a human soul then they have spiritual life, and along with spiritual life the Holy Spirit of God begins a work within us. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Romans 8:9. He dwells in us the rest of our life because God has come into us and He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us, Heb. 13:5c. Some Christan’s understand little about the working of the Holy Spirit within us because God does not give to us all the same spiritual gifts, 1 Cor. 12:1-11. The Holy Spirit living inside of us, is how God communicates with the believer. He not only quickens our dead spirit, He not only gives us many spiritual gifts, but He also blesses us with the ability to see and hear in our new living spirit the word of God, even the gospel of Jesus Christ. God explained how that a lost soul without the Holy Spirit in them will never come to know Christ and will never please God in anything. Romans 8:7 - 8 “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (8) So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Without the quickening of the Holy Spirit one can never be saved, never truly learn the word of God, and will never do one single good thing to please God. God even said “the carnal mind is enmity against God” meaning in their heart they hate the True God. People want to believe that they control God, that God is not Sovereign and needs their permission to gift them with eternal life. God needs their permission to give them spiritual gifts, and that God needs their permission to give them spiritual understanding of the bible. But God needs no such permission, He does not need a sinner’s permission for anything, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Philippians 2:13 So, why do lost souls not hear and react to the gospel, because the Holy Spirit has not graciously given them the ability to hear the gospel. He has not given them salvation, eternal life, not taught them the goodness of the bible. Let us remember as Christians just how blessed we truly are because God has given to us His Holy Spirit.