Filled with the Spirit

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit. EPHESIANS 5:18

If every believer has the Holy Spirit, what is the fullness, and why does Paul have to command it? Simpson’s answer began with the grammar. The verb in Ephesians 5:18 is an imperative, which means the fullness is not automatic; and it is continuous, which means it is not a single event to be obtained and filed away. Paul is commanding a state to be maintained.

Full of what is already there

His illustration was the difference between a vessel that contains water and one that is full of it. Every believer has the Spirit; the question is displacement. A jar with an inch of water in it and a great deal of air is not empty — but it is not full either. The filling of the Spirit is not the arrival of more Spirit from outside. It is the Spirit occupying more of the person. This explains the terms of the contrast Paul chose. A man under the influence of drink is controlled by it: his speech, his judgment and his behaviour are governed by something other than himself. Paul’s point is not about the pleasure but about the control. To be filled with the Spirit is to be under His government at that level.

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. ACTS 4:31

Simpson noted that the people filled in Acts 4 include several who had already been filled in Acts 2. The fullness is repeatable, which is fatal to any scheme that treats it as a once-for-all attainment.

The conditions

Simpson set out what a believer may do, and was careful that none of it becomes a technique for extracting something from God. Emptying. A vessel already full of something else cannot be filled. The practical work here is honest inventory: what occupies the space — ambition, resentment, a hidden appetite, self-pity? Asking. The promise is explicit and the terms are generous.

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? LUKE 11:13

Obeying. The Spirit is given to the obedient, not to the impressive.

And so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. ACTS 5:32

Taking by faith. Here Simpson applied his general principle: what God promises is received by faith, not produced by feeling. A believer who has emptied, asked and obeyed may take the fullness on the strength of the promise and go about his business, whether or not anything registers emotionally.

The question of tongues

This chapter cannot avoid the controversy that broke over Simpson’s movement after 1906, and his handling of it is one of the more instructive episodes in his life. The Pentecostal revival spread rapidly through the constituencies nearest to his own, and many Alliance people were caught up in it. The question pressed on him was whether speaking in tongues is the necessary evidence that a believer has been baptised or filled with the Spirit. Simpson did not answer from the sidelines. He wanted everything God had. In August 1907 he returned to the same pine woods at Old Orchard where he had been healed, and asked God for a fuller baptism of the Spirit with all His gifts and graces. He did not speak in tongues, then or afterwards. His conclusion was threefold. Tongues is a genuine gift of the Spirit, not to be despised or forbidden. It is not the necessary evidence of the Spirit’s fullness, since Scripture nowhere makes it the test and Paul asks plainly whether all speak with tongues, expecting the answer no (1 Corinthians 12:30). And believers should not make it the object of pursuit, because the Spirit distributes gifts as He wills rather than as we select.

But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. 1 CORINTHIANS 12:11

The policy he settled on has marked his movement ever since, and it is expressed in four words: seek not, forbid not. It cost him. He lost people who wanted more and people who wanted the door closed. Christians still divide over this, and readers of this book will hold different views. What is worth learning from Simpson is not necessarily his conclusion but his method: he examined the Scriptures, sought God about it personally at real cost, refused to despise believers whose experience differed from his own, and declined to make a secondary matter into a test of spirituality.

The evidence that is not disputed

Whatever one concludes about the gifts, Scripture is not ambiguous about what the Spirit’s fullness produces.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. GALATIANS 5:22–23

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me. ACTS 1:8

Character and witness. Simpson’s rule of thumb was that a man filled with the Spirit becomes more like Christ and more useful to Christ, and that any claimed fullness which produces neither should be examined rather than celebrated.

The most practical thing in this chapter is the inventory. Before asking for more, find out what is occupying the room.

Power for what

A question worth asking of the whole subject: what is the fullness for? The promise in Acts answers it, and the answer is narrower than we sometimes assume.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. ACTS 1:8

The power is given for witness. Not for personal exhilaration, not for a sense of spiritual arrival, and not for standing among other Christians. It is equipment for a task, and the task is other people. Simpson pressed this hard, because he had watched the deeper life become, in some hands, an elaborate form of self-cultivation — believers pursuing ever richer inward experiences while the city outside remained unevangelised and the poor remained unvisited. The test he applied is simple. Has this fullness made you more useful to anybody?

The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. 1 CORINTHIANS 12:7

To profit withal — for the common good. Every genuine work of the Spirit in an individual is intended to arrive somewhere else. There is a mercy in this framing. A believer anxious about whether he has been filled can stop examining his sensations and ask a more answerable question: since last year, has anyone been helped through me who would not otherwise have been?

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Take an honest inventory of what fills you. Name one thing displacing the Spirit and deal with it before asking for anything. 2. Ask plainly, on the strength of Luke 11:13, and then act as though God has answered rather than waiting for a sensation. 3. Test any claimed fullness — your own included — by Galatians 5:22 and Acts 1:8. Character and witness. 4. Where you differ from other Christians about the gifts, adopt Simpson’s posture: study honestly, seek God personally, refuse contempt. 5. Renew the filling daily. It is a continuous command, not a certificate.

A PRAYER

Holy Spirit, I have asked for more of You when the problem was how much of me was already occupied.

Show me what fills the room. Empty me of the ambition, the grudge, the appetite, the self-pity that leaves so little space.

I ask, because my Father has promised to give You to those who ask. I take You at Your word, whether or not I feel anything.

Make me more like Christ and more useful to Him. Let those be the evidences, and let me not despise any believer whose experience differs from mine. Amen.