“Our being is the soil, Jesus is the seed, His Holy Spirit is the Fountain of living Waters, and ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance’.” ~A. B. Simpson.
That, according to A. B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a major influence in the spiritual life of A. W. Tozer, is Christ’s theory of the deeper life.
What does this mean for us?
The Person of the Holy Spirit—at the event of salvation—takes his residence in us. This Person, the exact representation of the Godhead, “enters, possesses, and operates in the consecrated heart.”
Inhabitation Means Simplicity
Like pouring oil through a funnel directs the liquid exactly to the required spot, the Person of the Holy Spirit has his complete way with the obedient disciple. Like the directed oil, the Spirit directs power into the believer’s heart and, in simplicity, that Christian knows what they need to do.
It’s the spirit sense that’s honed in discernment.
Like it would be in learning to listen to a person with a difficult dialect, we, with our spirit sense, listen in to our heart for what the Person of the Holy Spirit is saying.
As we imagine listening, we know very well this will take focus; hence, simplicity. We are to be quite single-minded in this!
The Holy Spirit is power this way, just like the highly respected mentor; just that, being the exact representation of the Godhead, the Person of the Holy Spirit utters only, and inspires, truth. Even truth we will not want to hear, but truth all the same.
The Process of Entrance, Possession, and Operation
As a person would walk into our lives, upon our invitation, sauntering through the door, we have invited the Spirit within at the reception of salvation.
We noticed something new; something entirely different occurred. It could be only the Advocate of Jesus.
Better than marriage—where two persons become one spiritually, but remain two separate persons—the entrance, possession, and operation of the Holy Spirit within us has made manifest the rebirth.
We have, for the first time, become one with ourselves—in God. There is no other way of becoming one with ourselves.
It was our Divine destiny. Suddenly the keys to unlocking the mind’s power and heart’s flourishing desire to love as God loves are made effectual. We love such ‘a possession’—God, in effect, upon our invitation, has invaded our being. Love wins.
But still, our relationship with God is dependent on us. The Person of the Holy Spirit cannot bear wanton sin as we wallow in it. It desires to flush such filth into oblivion. And only with this Advocate can we do it. Truth wins.
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The desire of the Person of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify us through and through; to simplify our focus; to remind us of the overcoming power resplendent in God; to purify us from the colour of scarlet and crimson to white as snow and wool (Isaiah 1:18).
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
General Reference: James Stuart Bell, From The Library of A. W. Tozer: Selections from Writers Who Influenced His Spiritual Journey (
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