The "in" Question

In answering the question, "What does it mean to say the Holy Spirit is in you?" popular Christian apologist, Hank Hanegraaf, replies with:

First, to say that the Holy Spirit is in you is not to point out where the Holy Spirit is physically located, but rather to acknowledge that you have come into an intimate, personal relationship with him through faith and repentance. As such, the preposition "in" is not a locational but a relational term. Bible Answer Book, pg. 31

Hanegraaf, undoubtedly, has helped hundreds of believers and nonbelievers with their questions about the Christian faith. In fact, his work on false teachings and false religions has been of great help to myself. However, as elegant as his response sounds to, what he calls "the "in" question," I adamantly disagree with him. To say that the Holy Spirit does not indwell a believer is to deny a fundamental truth about salvation. He is correct in saying that a believer has an intimate and personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. But, our relationship with the Lord is so much more than that.

"But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." John 16:7

The Counselor is the Holy Spirit. People either don't know or have forgotten that before the resurrection of Jesus Christ, nobody was spiritually alive. As I have heard it stated, Jesus started His ministry with 12 spiritually dead disciples and ended His ministry with 12 spiritually dead disciples. The Holy Spirit has been sent to us and has taken residence up within our Spirits. The restoration of the Holy Spirit is the final, and most important, piece of salvation and the Gospel message. If the Holy Spirit doesn't indwell you, you don't belong to God and, therefore, you are not born again, not saved and not a Christian. Furthermore, you will not be able to discern scripture, say no to ungodliness, experience the love of God or have a relationship with Him.

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being... but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:7, 17

The Holy Spirit, the life of God, was breathed into Adam and he became a living being. This is pretty clear evidence that, at one point in our history, God physically indwelt mankind. In fact, He was our life! But, when Adam sinned God removed His life and Adam died, just as God promised would happen. We know this death was not a physical death because Adam lived 930 years before he physically died. Therefore, that death was a spiritual death. This is a condition all mankind suffers from when they are born into this world. We are born into this world spiritually dead to God in our sins, but alive to the world. It is why Jesus told Nicodemus, "You must be born again (John 3:7)." What is birth? It is life. We have physical life already. When we accept Christ by faith we are born again, spiritually. At that moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit of God indwells us, seals us and carries us throughout eternity. That is why a believer has eternal life. The life of God, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, has raised us from the dead spiritually and will carry us through this life and on into eternity even after we physically die!

"To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:27

The mystery of the Gospel is Christ in us. The life of God, once lost in the Garden through the sin of Adam, has now been restored to us, in Christ, because of His resurrection. If Christ doesn't indwell us then we have some questions to answer regarding passages of scripture that seem to indicate otherwise.

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own..." 1 Corinthians 6:19

How is our body the temple of God if the Holy Spirit doesn't physically indwell us?

"To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." Colossians 1:29

Why would Paul say he struggles with Christ's energy, which works in him, if he didn't have the Holy Spirit in him struggling for him?

"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:13

What is it that Jesus is saying the Father will give those who ask if it is not a real thing?

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14

If the Holy Spirit doesn't indwell us then how are we able to accept and discern the things that come from the Spirit of God?

This last question would seem to apply to Hanegraaf in regards to the "in" question. If you don't believe the Holy Spirit actually indwells a believer it could be because he doesn't indwell you. Now, I don't mean to call into question his salvation because I don't know his heart. If he is truly saved, the Holy Spirit indwells him whether he acknowledges it or not. However, his apparent inability to discern this foundational truth of the Gospel is concerning. All believers are one "in Christ" because we all have been baptised by the Holy Spirit into the family of God. Eternal life is just that, life. What is death? The absence of life. And before salvation we are all spiritually dead to God. What is birth? Life. Being born again means we have come alive to God just like Adam before us, but even better. The life we now have cannot leave us because there is no sin that will cause that life to leave thanks to the cross of Christ. Jesus died for us so that, raised from the dead, He could live "in" us now. The question to ask is "Do you believe this?"