“Having not the Spirit” (Jude 19).
I assume you believe in the Holy Spirit, but what do you know of Him? Clear knowledge would protect us from many doctrinal errors.
We Must Have the Spirit
Without Him, you have no part in Christ or heaven (Rom 8.9).
Without Him, you have no holiness, no fitness for heaven (Heb 12.14).
Without Him, you are not a Christian; you lack desire and ability to become a Christian (John 3.6; 1 Cor 12.3).
We May Know that We Have the Spirit
Not all have the Spirit; not all baptized church members—Jude’s point.
The Spirit will be known by His effects in one’s heart and life. He is like wind, dew, a sower, the mainspring of my watch, a magnetic field and a compass, and the pilot of a ship. See 1 John 3.10.
A common mistake of professing Christians is to assume they have the Spirit without the evidences of His work in their hearts and lives. Beware!
We Will Have These Marks If We Have the Spirit
a) The Spirit’s work is mysterious (John 3.8). Why one, not another?
b) His work is diverse. Different ages, feelings, duration, instruments.
We should not judge our own experience by others’.
c) The Spirit’s work is often small, almost imperceptible. A mighty river begins as a trickling stream.
Still we may know that we have Him by certain marks:
1) He makes us spiritually alive (Rom 8.3; John 6.63). We are naturally dead to God. The Spirit calls us forth like Lazarus from the grave. If you heart is full of everything but God, how can you have the Spirit?
2) He teaches us. “The Spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Eph 1.17). This is why all true Christians are agreed in religious essentials.
3) He leads us to the Scriptures. The Spirit’s sword (Eph 6.17). We are born again by the Word (1 Pet 1.23) and delight in it (Psa 1.2).
4) He convicts us of sin (John 16.8). “I am a bad man, and I deserve to be in hell.”
5) He leads us to Christ as the only Savior (John 15.26; 16.15).
6) He sanctifies us. He is the Spirit of holiness (Rom 1.4).
7) He makes us spiritually-minded (Rom 8.5). The general tone, tenor, and bias of their minds is in favour of spiritual things. They do not serve God by fits and starts, but habitually. Caterpillars crawl; butterflies soar. They are like butterflies.
8) He makes us feel the inner conflict of old and new natures (Gal 5.17).
9) He causes us to love others who have the Spirit (1 John 3.4), and the more they show the Spirit, the more we love them.
10) He teaches us to pray. He is “the Spirit of grace and supplication” (Zech 12.10). His subjects cry to God night and day (Luke 18.7).
Practical Implications
Your immediate duty is to examine yourself for the Spirit. Not whether all I have said is true, nor whether the Spirit is given to the Church, nor whether you experience pangs of conscience and good intentions, nor the day His operations began, nor whether you are a perfect person, but ask yourself whether you personally have, in your heart and life, the marks of the Spirit!
We now can see clearly the grand defect of pop Christianity today. Many go to church and say they are Christians, but they have not the Spirit.
We need to be especially jealous of this truth about the Spirit. We admit Christ is central, but we must never yield these things of the Spirit. “No salvation without the inward work of the Spirit! No inward work of the Holy Spirit unless it can be seen, felt, and known! No saving work of the Spirit which does not show itself in repentance towards God, and living faith towards Jesus Christ!”
We know why true ministers never despair of any living person. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. Own performances and some church members would dishearten us greatly except for this (Zech 4.6).
If you do not have the Spirit, here is what you must do. Pray to the Lord Jesus and beg for Him to have mercy upon you and send you the Spirit (John 7.37). Christ is the meeting place between God and the soul, and it is His special office to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Also, be diligent to attend the means of grace He has appointed: hear the Word and attend a true church. Be like blind Bartimeus and short Zacchaeus.
If you doubt whether you have the Spirit, consider this. Are your doubts well-founded? If you have any fruit of the Spirit, you have the Spirit.
If you do have the Spirit, proceed this way. Be filled with the Spirit (Eph 5.18). Grieve not the Spirit (Eph 4.30). Bring forth all His fruit (Gal 5.22).
Join with me in praying that the Spirit may be poured out from on high with more abundant influence than He has ever been yet. Pray that He may be poured out on all believers, at home and abroad that they may be more united and more holy. Pray that He may be poured out on Jews, Muslims, and the heathen, that many of them may be converted.
Selected Works of J. C. Ryle, Kindle version of The Complete Works of J.C. Ryle, paraphrased and abridged by D. Scott Meadows.