# Romans, Holy Spirit and "OT Saints"



## Eoghan (Feb 25, 2015)

A curious one this, as I was reading commentaties on Romans they referred to OT saints and their inability to conquer sin. The reason is apparently that they did not have the Holy Spirit. 

Peter gave way to his fears when Christ was "captured" but Satan entered Judas - one was regenerate, the other unregenerate. 

In what way was king David handicapped by not having the spirit and in what ways are we priveleged?


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## chuckd (Feb 25, 2015)

OT saints had the Spirit, it was a matter of degree.

WCF 7.3
Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, *and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit*, to make them willing, and able to believe.


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## Scott Bushey (Feb 25, 2015)

chuckd said:


> OT saints had the Spirit, it was a matter of degree.
> 
> WCF 7.3
> Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, *and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit*, to make them willing, and able to believe.



Here is a less than scholarly attempt at the doctrine; specifically in relation to the OT saint. If you dare....

The Holy Spirit in the Covenant of Grace


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## JeddyB1689 (Mar 2, 2015)

Dr. Jim Hamilton from SBTS wrote a work of biblical theology called "God's Indwelling Presence" where he argues from the Gospel of John that OT saints were regenerated, but not indwelt. God indwelt the temple, but not the people yet. He argues that J.I. Packer holds this position as well.


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## psycheives (Mar 3, 2015)

JeddyB1689 said:


> Dr. Jim Hamilton from SBTS wrote a work of biblical theology called "God's Indwelling Presence" where he argues from the Gospel of John that OT saints were regenerated, but not indwelt. God indwelt the temple, but not the people yet. He argues that J.I. Packer holds this position as well.



Please see my lengthy response to Dr Hamilton's book and claim here: http://www.puritanboard.com/f40/holy-spirit-indwelling-ot-85996/

I believe it is very important to uphold the belief that OC saints (not OT because Dr Hamilton doesn't claim this) were indwelt. The scholars who are making these claims are promoting an old Classical Dispensational belief that taught the OC saints were saved another way than NC saints and I am greatly concerned they are making some of the same mistakes. Dr. Hamilton's book does not cover ALL verses but only selected verses to make his conclusions. He does not address many important verses that demonstrate the OC saints were indwelt. 

Hamilton describes OC saints as being sanctified by going into the temple and seeing it. But this misses a great majority of OC saints. What about before the tabernacle, temple etc were ever built? Adam, Noah, Abraham. What about when the people were in exile? What about Ruth and Rahab and Esther who were not near the temple? Hamilton's views still fail to answer the problem of teaching OC saints partook of Christ's benefits WITHOUT union to Christ through the Holy Spirit. Dr. Hamilton describes indwelling as "abiding" and rejects both in OC saints. I have great difficulty understanding how Dr. Hamilton's view does not result in OC and NC saints being saved in two different ways. Many NT verses contradict these views - such as all those describing "abiding in Christ."


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## JeddyB1689 (Mar 3, 2015)

psycheives said:


> JeddyB1689 said:
> 
> 
> > Dr. Jim Hamilton from SBTS wrote a work of biblical theology called "God's Indwelling Presence" where he argues from the Gospel of John that OT saints were regenerated, but not indwelt. God indwelt the temple, but not the people yet. He argues that J.I. Packer holds this position as well.
> ...



I appreciate the response. I have not finished the book, so once I do, I hope to read your response as well. I am not yet decided myself. I am convinced both views have their problems. For example, it really seems like the promises of the Holy Spirit being given in the new covenant, at least at first reading, imply that He had not yet been given. I am having a difficult time understanding the significance of those promises if all they meant was just a more abundant filling (if I am understanding Owen and Ferguson correctly).


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## Scott Bushey (Mar 3, 2015)

JeddyB1689 said:


> psycheives said:
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> > JeddyB1689 said:
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## Peairtach (Mar 3, 2015)

This is a sort of Dispensationalism. 

I remember hearing a preacher from the Christian Brethren, i.e. a Dispensationalist, arguing from Psalm 51:11, that the Holy Spirit could be taken away from OT saints, whereas in the NT, He couldn't.



> Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.



A true child of God can be afraid of this under either dispensation (OT or NT), but if he is truly a child of God it cannot happen, and if he is not, he never truly had the Spirit in the first place.

We correctly interpret the data we have on salvation of the OT saints in the clearer light of the NT, and we are confident from Abel onwards that God did not play dice with the salvation of His elect.


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## earl40 (Mar 3, 2015)

Peairtach said:


> This is a sort of Dispensationalism.
> 
> I remember hearing a preacher from the Christian Brethren, i.e. a Dispensationalist, arguing from Psalm 51:11, that the Holy Spirit could be taken away from OT saints, whereas in the NT, He couldn't.
> 
> ...



So true ...even though we know this we ought to feel and say this prayer "as if" The Holy Spirit could leave us if we continue in unrepentant grevious sin.


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## Peairtach (Mar 3, 2015)

earl40 said:


> Peairtach said:
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> > This is a sort of Dispensationalism.
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Well the Spirit can withdraw His felt presence from the true child of God who is in backsliding to draw him back again, and this must have even frightened the Psalmist when he remembered how wicked he had been.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2


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## earl40 (Mar 3, 2015)

Peairtach said:


> earl40 said:
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Indeed.


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## Nicholas Perella (Mar 3, 2015)

JeddyB1689 said:


> For example, it really seems like the promises of the Holy Spirit being given in the new covenant, at least at first reading, imply that He had not yet been given. I am having a difficult time understanding the significance of those promises if all they meant was just a more abundant filling (if I am understanding Owen and Ferguson correctly).



I find this helpful. I quote Robert Gaffin:



> What really happened on Pentecost? What is the significance of that event, variously described in Acts as the coming upon of (1:8), being baptized with (1:5), outpouring of (2:33), gift of (2:38), the Spirit? This is a large question, and I begin by suggesting that clarity in answering it depends, to a considerable degree, in appreciating and not blurring the distinction between the history of salvation (historia salutis) and the order of salvation (ordo salutis)—the distinction, in other terms, between the accomplishment and application of redemption, between Christ's once-for-all work and the ongoing appropriation of that work by God's people, the believer's actual experience of its benefits. (Gaffin Jr., Robert, _Pentecost: Before and After_ The Journal of Northwest Theological Seminary: Kerux, September 1995.)



Kerux Archives : Issue : 10/2 (Sep 1995)

A significant sense of pre-Pentecost and (Post-) Pentecost is the enthronement of the incarnated Christ Jesus in history.

From Peter's sermon at Pentecost:



> This Jesus had God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he had shed forth this, which you now see and hear. (Acts 2:32-33)




The ordo salutis, the working of God's salvation in His people, and the historia salutis, God Himself entering time (history) to work out that salvation for us, are two different matters of the same form of salvation by God. God saves His people, but God does this in history, so, doing this in history God does it at certain periods of time with the understanding that the work of God's salvation is for His people for all redemptive time (history). Pentecost was a certain period of time in which witnesses saw God's salvation work happen in history. Pentecost is a historical climax of the historical incarnation of Christ Jesus who had worked out salvation in history for all of His people (in all redemptive time) by His historical death and resurrection. Therefore subsequently ascended and received the promise from the Father due to His salvation work in history, and one of these promises from the Father to the Son being His enthronement. Then the promise of the Holy Spirit to proceed from Him and the Father. Pre-incarnation Christ was on the throne (Psalm 2), but now His enthronement work of salvation is not only very God but is very man. To think of Pentecost (and Post-Pentecost) as to what Christ Jesus did (objectively) and less so on what happens to us (subjectively) is helpful in understanding the glory of Christ. Our reception of the Holy Spirit is merely a consequence of God's grace and work.

Obviously Gaffin goes into a detail that is worth reading.


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## Scott Bushey (Mar 3, 2015)

Peairtach said:


> earl40 said:
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'felt' presence...this is quite possible but never in the absolute sense in the life of a believer. To be without the spirit is to be again at enmity w/ God.

The removing that David is speaking of is the amplification of the Spirit that he had. Consider all of the other saints who had a theocratic annointing. To remain theologically consistent, it would have to be this.


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## Scott Bushey (Mar 3, 2015)

earl40 said:


> A true child of God can be afraid of this under either dispensation (OT or NT), but if he is truly a child of God it cannot happen, and if he is not, he never truly had the Spirit in the first place.





earl40 said:


> even though we know this we ought to feel and say this prayer "as if" The Holy Spirit could leave us if we continue in unrepentant grevious sin.



Amen.


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## Eoghan (Mar 5, 2015)

The context of my original question was that in reading my commentaries on Romans I was picking up a sense that OT saints such as David (the Bathsheba incident)did not have the indwelling spirit hence were less able to fight off sin.

I don't know specifically how the Spirit's coming in the NT is different but my impression is that it is an empowering for witness and evangelism. When Paul says that we do not need anyone to teach us (?) he is obviously not referring to preaching but rather the witness of the Spirit to Biblical truth. For that reason I have always thought of the coming of the Spirit as primarily about understanding and communicating the gospel - not the victorious life over sin.


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## earl40 (Mar 5, 2015)

Scott Bushey said:


> earl40 said:
> 
> 
> > A true child of God can be afraid of this under either dispensation (OT or NT), but if he is truly a child of God it cannot happen, and if he is not, he never truly had the Spirit in the first place.
> ...



I see you are also married to a girl named Tina.


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## py3ak (Mar 5, 2015)

B.B. Warfield's article, "The Spirit of God in the Old Testament" is a good read on this topic.



> It is not that His work is more real in the new dispensation than in the old. It is not merely that it is more universal. It is that it is directed to a different end — that it is no longer for the mere preserving of the seed unto the day of planting, but for the perfecting of the fruitage and the gathering of the harvest. The Church, to use a figure of Isaiah’s, was then like a pent-in stream; it is now like that pent-in stream with the barriers broken down and the Spirit of the Lord driving it. It was He who preserved it in being when it was pent in. It is He who is now driving on its gathered floods till it shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. In one word, that was a day in which the Spirit restrained His power. Now the great day of the Spirit is come.



The full article is available here.


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## Peairtach (Mar 5, 2015)

O. Palmer Robertson in one of his talks on Pentecostalism ("Tongues Today?" or "Prophecy Today?" ?) says that one difference is that in the New Testament the Spirit has more of His own "raw material" to make use of i.e. the complete inscripturated Word of God, the Bible.


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## Nicholas Perella (Mar 5, 2015)

Peairtach said:


> O. Palmer Robertson in one of his talks on Pentecostalism ("Tongues Today?" or "Prophecy Today?" ?) says that one difference is that in the New Testament the Spirit has more of His own "raw material" to make use of i.e. the complete inscripturated Word of God, the Bible.



indeed. The fuller is the substance of the covenant of grace is not longer typified. He was born, died, and rose. Also the fuller understanding is in what the New Testament adds in terms of God's revelation by His Word. The same as to when Isaiah was a means for God to reveal to His people an additional revelation. God used Isaiah to be His Prophet to reveal to His people an additional revelation from God as to God's redemptive history. We may turn to the book of Isaiah and read it all to find out that additional revelation. Same goes for Hosea and Amos, etc.... When Christ returns again the complete kingdom of God will no longer be 'not yet' along with the 'is'. His new creation will strictly be 'is' and so even a fuller revelation for His people to enjoy in His heavenly complete rest.


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## whirlingmerc (Mar 5, 2015)

Jeremiah 32:40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.


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