Father, Son and Spirit Dwelling in Us - Thomas Goodwin

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Solparvus

Puritan Board Senior
From Thomas Goodwin's sermon on Ephesians 3:17, "Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith"

God the Father is said to dwell in us by love. God the Father doth more eminently dwell in us by our apprehensions of him in love; both in his love to us, and our loving of him: so you will find it in 1 John iv. 16, 'And we have known and have believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.' Brethren, a man that hath great apprehensions, or any true apprrehensions of the love of God to him, and his heart is kept dwelling and abiding on them, he doth thereby dwell with God the Father. If you look to the whole Scripture, the eminent property that is ascribed to the Father is love: 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father.' Though Christ loves us too, yet it is the Father's love is the original of all. The more you apprehend the love of the Father, whether you do it in assurance, or whether you do it in adoring that love, and cleaving to that love, and following after that love you apprehend in the Father; the more you do this, the more doth God the Father dwell in you: therefore the Apostle prayeth, 'That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and ground in love:' but it is in the love of God the Father. But--

Jesus Christ dwelleth in us by faith,--so it is said here,--and we live in Christ by faith: Gal. ii. 20; 'I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.' But doth not Christ dwell in us by love too? It is certain that Jesus Christ dwelleth in us by love too; for he is our husband, and therefore it must be that he also dwelleth in us by love. But yet for all that, though he dwell in us by love as well as the Father, yet our converses with him are more eminently by faith; he dwelleth in us by faith,--not but that the Father dwell in us by faith too,--but Christ more properly. And in Acts xx. 21, it is called 'repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ;' not but that we repent unto Christ too, but faith is the most eminent thing towards Christ in this life. But--

The Spirit is said to dwell in us also; but, my brethren, the Spirit is not said to dwell in us by faith: which yet is not to be understood as if we do not believe in him, but that the soul doth exercise the main of its acting of faith upon Christ, as its more specially delighted object: but the Spirit lies, as it were, hid in the heart, and works faith in us towards Christ, and love in us towards God. I do not say that we are not at all to exercise faith and love upon the Spirit: there is faith in the Spirit--it is said in the Creed, 'I believe in the Holy Ghost,'--and love to the Spirit, in a Christian: as you find Rom. xv. 30. It is said there, 'for Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit.' So that there is a love towards the Spirit in a Christian; a love in us to the Spirit, for the Spirit's own love to us. As also, because it is the Spirit that sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts. The Spirit works in us love to God and faith in Christ Jesus: but he lies hid, and as it were dormant in our heart, and we little perceive how he is in us.
 
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