Spir Dynamics 888-892, 706, 318 7/28/96
A. Introduction and Definition.
1. This doctrine explains the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to believers throughout all of the Old Testament dispensations.
2. This doctrine explains the difference between the Old Testament spiritual life and the spiritual life of the Church Age, which is far greater for the individual believer. When the resurrection of the Church occurs, everything reverts back to the Old Testament for the Tribulation and then there will be some changes for the Millennium. The ministry of the Holy Spirit during the Millennium is very different from anything that ever existed before.
3. Enduement is defined as the divine endowment of the power of God the Holy Spirit to certain Old Testament believers and on a temporary basis. Only a small percentage of Old Testament believers had anything to do with God the Holy Spirit. Enduement was not a part of the spiritual life of all believers in the Old Testament. Their spiritual life was the function of the faith-rest drill.
4. The enabling power of God the Holy Spirit was given to certain Old Testament believers to provide wisdom, doctrine, leadership, administration, prophecy, and communication to regenerate mankind as well as to unbelievers. But above all, part of that enduement went to the Old Testament writers of Scripture. God the Holy Spirit so supernaturally directed the Old Testament writers of Scripture that without waving their intelligence, their individuality, their personal feelings, their literary style, or any other factor of personal expression God’s complete and coherent message to mankind in the Old Testament canon was recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages, the very words bearing the authority of divine authorship. God the Holy Spirit gave the writers of the Old Testament the power to get the message or canon correct when they wrote.
5. In every dispensation all believers are saved exactly the same way. Every unbeliever is born spiritually dead without a human spirit and must be born again as a trichotomous being, having a body, soul, and human spirit. Regeneration is the function of God the Holy Spirit in creating a human spirit and imputing eternal life to it. The Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit of the believer in the Old Testament through enduement. Enduement was the function of the Holy Spirit teaching the Old Testament believer’s human spirit. Job 32:8, “But there is a human spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty gives them understanding.”
6. God the Holy Spirit did not fill Old Testament believers, He gave them power. No member of the Trinity ever filled any Old Testament person nor did They indwell any person of the Old Testament. You have more as an ordinary believer in the Church Age than the greatest believers of the Old Testament.
7. The Old Testament believer could lose enduement by carnality, but he could not lose his salvation.
B. Who had the enduement of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament?
1. The writers of Old Testament canon.
a. The Torah. Moses had the enduement of the Spirit and the office of unique prophet in the Old Testament.
b. The Prophets (NAVI’IM) .These are the writers who had the office of prophet: Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve.
c. The Writings (KUTHIBIM). These writers had the gift of prophecy: the writers of the Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles.
2. Joseph was endowed with the Holy Spirit for wisdom, leadership, and preservation of the Jewish patriarchs, Gen 41:38-40.
3. Moses and seventy elders of Israel were endowed with the Holy Spirit for leadership, Num 11:17,25.
4. Certain skills related to the worship of Israel received the enduement of the Spirit, Ex 28:5; 31:3, “and I have filled him with the power of the Spirit of God”; 35:30-35. Bezalel, the craftsman of the ark of the covenant and furniture in the tabernacle, was given the enduement of God the Holy Spirit. The power of the ordinary life became the power of the extraordinary life. The Holy Spirit was not available to every believer in Israel.
5. Certain judges received the enduement of the Spirit: Othniel, Jud 3:10; Gideon, Jud 6:34; Jephthah, Jud 11:29; Samson, Jud 13:25, 14:6, 15:14.
6. Saul was given the power of the Holy Spirit in 1 Sam 10:9-10, lost it in 1 Sam 16:14, and never recovered it.
7. David, in 1 Sam 16, was given the enduement power of the Holy Spirit.
8. Daniel had the endowment of power from the Holy Spirit, Dan 4:8, 5:11-14, 6:3.
9. Solomon, when positive to doctrine, was empowered by the Holy Spirit. At some point he lost the enduement power of the Holy Spirit, Prov 1:23.
C. The disciples rejected the enduement power of the Holy Spirit.
1. Lk 11:9-13, “And I say to you, if you ask, then it shall be given to you. If you seek, then you shall find. If you knock, then it shall be opened to you. For everyone who keeps asking, he shall receive; and he who keeps seeking, he shall find; and to him who keeps on knocking, it shall be opened.” Verses 11-12 are illustrations. Verse 13, “Therefore, if you being evil [in the sense of not being perfect], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father from heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
2. This is not a prayer promise and was not offered to all believers, just to the hundreds of disciples who followed our Lord. All they had to do was ask for the enduement. None of his disciples ever asked for the enduement power of the Holy Spirit.
3. Jesus offered the disciples the real power in prayer—the power of the Holy Spirit. The disciples did not have the enduement power of the Holy Spirit because they would not ask for it. Therefore they did not have the real power of prayer in the Old Testament. They did not even have the power provided to Moses, David, etc., though they had the chance.
4. In Acts 1:7-8 our Lord prophesied that the disciples would have the power of the Holy Spirit without asking for it. “He said to them, `It is not for you to know the times or the epochs of history which the Father has established by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’”
D. Conclusion.
1. Less than one percent of all believers in the Old Testament had any relationship with God the Holy Spirit.
2. How then did Old Testament have a spiritual life without the indwelling and filling of the Spirit? God always had a plan and a system for spiritually in every dispensation. Volition, volition, volition! Volition, not circumstances nor environment, is the basis in human history for relationship with God.
a. Every human being must take the responsibility for his own decisions and not blame someone else. God says you cannot blame anyone else.
b. Every human being has equal opportunity for salvation and every believer has equal opportunity to execute God’s plan for a specific dispensation.
c. The Church Age is unique in the provision for the spiritual life, but this uniqueness never implies any handicap for other believers in other dispensations. God provides everything necessary for every believer in every dispensation to fulfill the will, plan, and purpose of God.
3. The spiritual life of the Church Age is based on the principle that every human being must take the responsibility for their own decisions. Only you can live your spiritual life; no one else can live it for you. You begin your spiritual life with the filling of the Spirit at the moment of salvation. You lose the filling of the Spirit through your decisions to sin. The only way you recover the filling of the Spirit and the resumption of your spiritual life is through the use of your volition to name, cite, or acknowledge your sins to God.
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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