A TOUCH OF THE ETERNAL

Who is the perfect model of New Testament Christianity? Is it the apostle Paul? The apostle Peter? Martin Luther? Billy Graham? No, it’s none of those. Jesus Christ is the perfect model after whom we should pattern our lives. The apostle Paul acknowledged this when he said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1, ESV).

As Jesus was concluding His earthly ministry, He was fully aware that the disciples were not capable of becoming His imitators in their own power. These men had just spent several years with Jesus, in person, but they still were not ready. The Lord said to His disciples:

“I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17, NKJV).

In the original language, the word another means “another of the same kind” or as one commentator put it, “another one like the other one.” Jesus was saying, “When I leave you, My Father in heaven will send to you the Holy Spirit, which is identical to My Spirit. He will come from heaven (eternity) and will dwell in you.”

 

When we receive Christ as Savior and the Holy Spirit comes to abide in us, we are receiving the indwelling of the eternal Spirit of God. I call this “a touch of the eternal” — and let me tell you why this understanding is important.

Our heavenly Father does not live within the constraint of time as we do. God is eternal and He lives in eternity. He created this world and time not for His sake, but for ours! From His dwelling place in eternity, our God sends His Spirit to live in us to help us make the transition from this life into eternity with Him.

The magnitude of this is impossible to fully comprehend but if you will simply accept the fact that the Holy Spirit (“another one like the other one”) has come to dwell in you and that that Spirit is eternal, it will help you understand the Power that has come into your life.

It is the Holy Spirit that stands ready to assist us in our weaknesses.

^“Likewise the Spirit helps in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27, ESV).

This is the indwelling Spirit of God communicating in the language of eternity with our Father God in heaven. When we don’t know what to pray, when the need is beyond our control or our understanding, it is time to let the Spirit do the talking. He speaks the language of eternity, which is the language of heaven. “For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 14:2, ESV).

I am amused by critics who suggest that to pray in the Spirit is simply mindless, that there is no engagement of the human mind, and therefore speaking in tongues is empty-headed foolishness. And, you know, they are largely correct!

We are incredibly limited with our mental ability and capacity. So how do we who are so limited adequately express ourselves to a God whose capacity and understanding stretch from everlasting to everlasting? How do we pray when the problem is beyond our understanding or we just don’t know what to say? All we can do is try but when we run out of things to say, then we allow His Spirit to take over and pray through us — and He will!

Paul said, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also” (1 Corinthians 14:15, ESV).

I really think Paul was saying, “There are times when I don’t know what to say or even what exactly to pray about. So when those times come, I pray in the Spirit. There are times when my human language is not sufficient to express the praise I want to offer so I sing praise with my spirit.”

We have been given an earnest, a foretaste, of our inheritance that will be fully realized only when this life is over and we enter into eternity to be with Him. ^“When you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit. . . . The Spirit is God’s guarantee (down payment) that he will give us the inheritance he promised” (Ephesians 1:13-14, NLT).

The Holy Spirit’s dwelling in us is “a touch of the eternal.”