The first part of chapter eight from Professor Williams’ book, The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today, about the greatest reality of our time.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Context (Chapter 7)

Chapter Eight: Effects, Part 1

We come finally to a consideration of the effects or results of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our concern is not so much with long-range effects, though they are certainly not excluded, as with the immediate results of the Spirit being given. A number of these may be noted.

First of all, there is an extraordinary sense of the reality of God. As has been observed, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift of God’s own presence. It is not something the Holy Spirit grants—such as life, power, wisdom—but it is the Spirit Himself who is given. Since the Holy Spirit is God in His essential being, the reception of this gift means the reception of God Himself. This then signifies the stupendous fact of the coming of God, the Holy Spirit, in fullness to lay claim to His creature, and to pervade the totality of human existence. In the action, God without ceasing to be wholly transcendent is also wholly immanent as He possesses the heights and depths of creaturely life. This extraordinary event of the divine self-giving is at the same time a divine self-disclosure, a revelation of the divine reality. The reality of God, His divine presence, is made known to man with compelling force.

Further, the God who comes through the gift of the Holy Spirit is the triune God. Hence, though it is the Spirit who is given—and thus not the same personally as Father or Son—nonetheless His very presence also makes real other persons of the Godhead. He constantly points to, glorifies, makes real the Son, the exalted Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit the exalted Lord constantly makes Himself known to His believing people. Jesus Christ, though now at the “right hand” of the Father and not bodily present, becomes spiritually present among those who believe in Him. Likewise, the Holy Spirit makes real God as Father, for it is through the Spirit’s indwelling and moving presence that the fatherhood of God takes on more intimate and personal meaning. By the Spirit we say “Abba! Father!” not as address to a distant deity but as the cry of the heart to one near at hand.¹  To summarize: the reality of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is vividly disclosed through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As we turn again to the books of Acts, it is apparent that the reality of God is the paramount fact in everything that occurs. When the Spirit is given at Pentecost, the company immediately begins to declare the marvelous works of God and thus to exult in His wonderful presence. It matters not that thousands are gathered around them, for so full are they of God’s Spirit that they go right on praising Him. The reality of God’s presence has gripped them as a community, as individuals, and in such fashion that in all that follows they sense God moving in their midst.

The first part of chapter four from Professor Williams’ book, The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today, about the greatest reality of our time.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Response (Chapter 3)

Chapter Four: Purpose

The central purpose for the gift of the Holy Spirit is power. The biblical term is dunamis—power, strength, might, force—and as the gift of the Holy Spirit, it represents an endowment of spiritual power.

We have earlier spoken of how the gift of the Holy Spirit signifies the coming of God’s Spirit in fullness so that a new divine-human immediacy is thereby established. God is now present in a total kind of way, and man is bathed in the reality of the divine presence. And, as noted, the human response is that of praise to God. Now we proceed to observe that this gift of the Spirit is the gift of spiritual—transcendent, supernatural—power.

Thus we come to the words of the risen Jesus: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). That this power is transcendent is emphasized in the similar words of Jesus: “But stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). Hence spiritual—”from on high”—power is the intention of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The close connection between the gift of the Holy Spirit and power may also be seen in the example of Jesus’ own life and ministry. It is recorded in all the Gospels that at the baptism of Jesus the Holy Spirit “descended upon”¹ Him; thereby He received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Afterward, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan … (Luke 4:1), and following his wilderness temptation, He “returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:14). Thus, clearly, the endowment of the Holy Spirit was one of power. In a summary of Jesus’ ministry by Peter we read “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power … (Acts 10:38). The close connection between the endowment of the Holy Spirit and power in Jesus’ ministry is unmistakable.²

It follows that it is the intention of Jesus that the same Spirit of power that rested upon Him should rest upon His disciples—hence, the words already quoted concerning their receiving power when the Holy Spirit would come upon them. Thereby the disciples would likewise be able to move in the power of the Spirit for the ministry that lay ahead³

More, however, needs to be said. It was not that they were simply to receive the Holy Spirit as He did, but the Spirit who was to come upon them was to be through Him. Ultimately the Spirit was from the Father, but it would be Jesus, the Son, who would mediate the Spirit’s coming.⁴  Thus by the Spirit’s coming the exalted Jesus would actually continue His ministry through them.⁵  They would carry on their work not only in the power of the Spirit as He did, but also with the Spirit of Jesus impelling them.⁶