The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-1, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.

Question

I have a question about the "works of the Spirit," from Judges 14:6, "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily." My point is this, "the Holy Spirit coming upon Samson," the question is [about] the Holy Spirit indwelling people before Acts, chapter two. Also, I have another question referring to the same thing, in the gospel of John, chapter 20:22, "He breathed on them, and said, 'Receive ye the Holy Spirit,' and, only eleven of them received Him.

Answer

I deal with that in my book on the Charismatics [Book: "The Charismatics"], by the way, in one of the chapters. No, in the Old Testament you have many, many occasions where it says, "And the Spirit of God came upon" so and so, "The Spirit of God departed," and "The Spirit of God came," and "The Spirit of God departed."

Let me see if I can make it as simple as possible. No person at no time, now or then, could ever do anything that would please God apart from God's power. I mean, if we are weak in the flesh, they were weak in the flesh--understood? In the flesh you cannot do anything, "No flesh can be justified in and of itself," in the flesh we cannot please God. That's why the Old Testament says, "Not by might, nor by power, but . . ."--what? "'By My Spirit' says the Lord."

So, in the Old Testament, for anything that was done of a divine nature the Spirit of God had to come and to do His work. Now, this is simply an indication of how the Spirit of God worked: the Spirit of God came and went and moved in these ways. Now, when you come to the key verse, you come to the Gospel of John, because in the transition the Lord gets together with His disciples and, it says in 14:16, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever." Now, that's the new part. He came and He went, and did His thing, and moved in a unique and marvelous and miraculous way in spiritual intervention, but now He comes to "abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for He dwells with you, and shall be in you." So, I see that as the distinctive, now that is not to say that they didn't have the Holy Spirit, it is to say that in the Church there is the "fullness" of the Spirit that was not necessarily the same as it was in the old covenant--the fullness of the Spirit is released.

Remember Jesus said, "I cannot send the Holy Spirit unless I go to the Father," in the same passage, "When I go to the Father, He shall send you the Comforter, the Holy Spirit who will come, and He will teach you all things, and lead you into all things. Now, that's back to that ladies question about polygamy and all that; that's why God was patient and overlooked some things in the Old Testament that He doesn't in the New Testament, because the ministry of the Holy Spirit is so unique; it is full and complete only after Christ has done His full and complete work--that releases the Spirit to an indwelling kind of ministry in us. That's why He says to us, "He shall be with you," or, "He shall abide with you forever."

Now, when He said to them, in John 20, "breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive ye the Holy Spirit," I think at that point He was merely giving them a promise. He was giving them a symbolic illustration; I don't think they received the Spirit there, I think they received the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. That was simply a promise of what was going to come, because He was still saying in Acts 1:8, "You shall receive the Holy Spirit," and "You  shall have power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you," and the Holy Spirit, if he said that, couldn't have come upon them already.