Three Person Accommodation

In matters of grace and faith it is important to distinguish between conditions and characteristics, or what the Lord requires of us and what He gives to us. Let me explain. All believers love the Lord. Love for God and the Lord Jesus Christ is a characteristic of every child of God because the Lord implants love in the renewed desires of a converted soul. We love Him because He first loved us and we are inspired to do so by the indwelling presence of God the Holy Spirit. Love to God is the foremost fruit of the Spirit and it is an innate feature of a regenerated, believing soul. 

What God requires He gives

Love for God is neither a condition for becoming a Christian nor a prerequisite for blessing thereafter. It is the fruit of grace in the heart of a believer. The Lord requires nothing from a believer that He does not first bestow. We often wish we loved Him more, yet, love Him we do. Love for God is evidence of spiritual life and characteristic of the new birth. The grace of God in His people enables and empowers those characteristics the Lord requires in the life, walk and conversation of His new creation. Christ’s commandments are not duties to be obeyed but gifts to be exercised and privileges to be enjoyed.

Living by faith

Keeping the Lord’s commandments is not, in isolation, a condition or a requirement for God’s blessing. Keeping the Lord’s commandments is living by faith and is characteristic of a believer’s life. We keep His commandments, just like we love Him. We are enabled and empowered to do so by grace and doing so is our pleasure and privilege. Every believer loves the Lord and every believer delights to serve the Lord and to practise obedience to His calling and cause. It grieves our hearts when we fail and when the weakness of this flesh hinders the longing of our spirit. 

Layers of goodness

Here in John 14-16, as the Lord prepared to leave His disciples to go first to the cross and then to heaven, He comforted His friends with layers of encouraging promises. Foundational amongst these was the promised gift of the ever-abiding Holy Spirit, the Comforter. Believers never lose the Holy Ghost. When He makes His abode in the body of a sinner He cleanses the soul and makes it fit for the presence of the living God. Here the Lord Jesus tells His fearful disciples how wonderful that will be and what to expect.

Big blessings for little faith

We discover God’s blessings are spiritual and enjoyed by faith. We keep the Lord’s commandments as we keep the faith and trust in Him. The world cannot see the Holy Ghost or the ascended Saviour or the eternal Father. Yet, by faith, the weakest believer knows and understands the truth of sin forgiven and peace with God because the Holy Spirit lives in him and shows him the meaning of the Father’s love and the success of the Saviour’s death.

Seeing the Invisible

Believers view spiritual truth through the eye of faith and what we discover is Almighty God in three persons dwelling in the soul of every redeemed and renewed sinner. Jesus says of the Holy Spirit, ‘He shall be in you’. He then adds, ‘If a man love me’ – which every believer does – ‘he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him’. The Father, Son and Spirit all dwell in the human heart of every converted child of God. In this mystical yet very real way God in three persons dwells in every believer.

Indwelt by Father, Son and Spirit

This union brings immense blessing and encouragement in our daily walk in this earthly life. Our Saviour, Jesus, in whom we live and to whom we are inseparably united as members of His body is Himself God and one with God, His Father. He has the same nature, perfections and glory as the Father and is equal to Him. Having joined Himself to our human flesh Christ has formed Himself in our hearts and created us anew. At conversion He joins our renewed spirit to Himself and He, His Father, and the Holy Spirit each enter and make their abode in our soul.

Practical benefits

Consider what comfort this gives. We are the temple of the living God. How the Lord’s disciples must have marvelled at this heavenly language, these glorious concepts and the unconditional promises falling from the lips of their Friend and Master. Do we believe God the Father lives in us, God the Son lives in us and God the Holy Spirit lives in us? Then what a blessed state we are in and how untouchably safe, incomparably blessed and divinely privileged we are! 

Amen.