The Legacy and Inheritance of Every Believer

I want to continue studying the moving of the Holy Spirit and this idea of the baptism, the filling, the anointing of the Holy Spirit as it was manifested in King David. In our last message, we saw how, through the anointing David received from Samuel, it says that the Holy Spirit began to come upon David’s life from that moment onward.

By the way, I want to make a small point here. Some brothers and sisters may say: well, what we are talking about is not necessarily the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but something else, a kind of anointing received so that one may be used by God in some specific way.

My point, the way I interpret this, is that the Old Testament approaches the same phenomena of the moving of the Spirit of God differently from the New Testament, but in reality it is the same thing viewed in different ways. We have to understand that the Old Testament was not as interested, so to speak, in presenting things from a doctrinal perspective of training, teaching for workers, and so on. In the dispensation of the Old Testament, God was showing other things that His Church would use in the future.

What we do not find as much of at times in the Old Testament is a theoretical, theological interpretation of the things that happen. Rather, the Old Testament is more narrative, more limited in its implications, and we have to draw out more implications to gain doctrinal benefit from the things we see recorded in the Old Testament.

Now in the New Testament, through the teachings of the apostle Paul, for example, where God is laying the theological foundations for a Church that would be active for centuries after the ascension of Jesus Christ, there is a greater awareness; thousands of years have passed, after all. Humanity is more developed intellectually and culturally. There is a more deliberate approach, a more developed awareness of the importance of clear, specific, and theologically complex teaching, and therefore the New Testament goes into details, labels, and categorization of things much more carefully than the Old Testament, but that does not mean it is not referring to the same things.

What I am trying to point out is that what we see in the Old Testament is certainly a precursor, let us say, to what we will later see in the New Testament in a more developed form and in greater detail. But it is the same thing: the anointing of God, the Power of God, the infusion and establishment of the fullness and Power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, which equips us to perform specific tasks in the Christian life.

That is what we see in the New Testament. God wanted to prepare His Church, to prepare His servants for the conquest of the whole world and the spreading of the Gospel, and He told them: Before you do that, just as I did with the prophets before, with the priests, with the kings, I will endow you with My Spirit.

The difference we see is that, in the Old Testament, what was for a very limited number of people—kings, priests, prophets—now becomes the legacy and inheritance of every believer. That is the wonderful difference the cross of Christ and the Ministry of the Holy Spirit make in the life of every believer: what was once a very, very rare privilege now becomes something available to every child of God who claims the Presence and Power of God in their life.

Paul says in his first message that what they, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, are seeing—these powerful manifestations of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in those believers who received it at Pentecost—is for those who are far away and for those who are near; it is for all whom God shall call. That is so important, because today there are many churches that say the gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased to exist, that they were for the times before the Church’s canon, before Scripture was fixed in the 66 books we have, and that they are no longer necessary. That is an entirely false and harmful doctrine, I would say, for the people of God, with no foundation whatsoever in the Word of the Lord.

What we see clearly throughout Scripture is that what was once the province of a group, a handful of chosen individuals, under the blood of Christ, His Power, His sacrifice on the cross, now becomes the right of every believer—not only in the days of the early Church but in our day as well: those who are far away in time and those who are near in time, those who are far away geographically and those who are near geographically; for as many as the Lord shall call.

Every believer today under the Christian dispensation has access to and the right to enjoy that powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit in their life. Let us not waste this opportunity. What we see in the Old Testament is simply that God had limited that power to a few very select people because the Old Testament shows a very imperfect manifestation of what God would later make universal, powerful, much more far-reaching, stronger, and more effective under Christ Jesus. That is the beauty of what Christ Jesus has made possible on the cross of Calvary.

At this time, every believer can enjoy the Presence and the moving of God in their life simply by receiving it, claiming it, and making use of it through faith in keeping with the parameters established by Scripture, and therefore we must not waste this. In David’s case, that anointing came into his life, and then God immediately began to communicate with him, and we see that immediately afterward, very powerful things happen in David’s life.

I wanted to develop this a little further in this meditation, but the Lord took it in another direction that also seems very important to me. I believe what God is saying to you through this meditation is: do not waste that access, that opportunity every believer has to live a much more powerful life through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, because just as this power moved in the lives of Elijah, Elisha, David, Samuel, Saul, and Solomon, so it can also move in your life now through the Spirit of God who dwells within you, whom you can activate in a very powerful way. Use the gift of God that is within you.

May the Lord bless you, and until our next meditation.