The Holy Spirit and the Anti-Christ
William Diehl
Understanding the person and work of the Holy Spirit is very important if we are to avoid the various heresies that have manifested themselves throughout the history of the Christian church generally.
Many have confused the Holy Spirit with the breath of life that is in all living beings. This lead to the pantheism heresy. A form of pantheism heresy is still among those who believe that all men and women have inherently received eternal life and the Holy Spirit because these teachers misunderstand the Pauline term in Romans that "our Lord died for all". Thus, to these false teachers, all are born "saved" and are only "lost" if they do not believe they are saved. This confuses the universal atonement of Christ with the individual's acceptance of the atonement at justification. This also confuses prevenient grace with saving grace unto justification and sanctification.
We must not confuse the wooing or "calling" of all sinners to repentance and faith by the Holy Spirit with the "infilling" of the Holy Spirit which only Christians receive. The Protestant Reformation (Lutherans) used the term "prevenient grace" to refer to the Holy Spirit's conviction of sin and calling to faith of those lost in sin. When the sinner accepts Christ and acknowledges Him as Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit then infills the believer or "seals" him and begins to make His abode in the heart of the believer to keep him in faith, repentance, sanctification, and continual justification by faith alone until the end.
The work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers is NEVER meritorious and never the BASIS of our acceptance with God. Only the infinite personal righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imputed to the believer's account is the basis of our acceptance with God. God could give all believers instant total sanctification, victory over all sin, and personal sinlessness, but God leaves the sinful nature in believers in order to cause them to continually learn to always trust only in the imputed merit of the Sinless One for their acceptance and justification before God. In this life, all, even justified believers in Christ, continually fall short of the glory of God. Only on the last day will we become incorruptible and free of the sinful nature and be without sin. Then throughout eternity the Holy Spirit will fully indwell the redeemed, but they will always realize that they are mere faint reflections of the infinite righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the visible revelation of the invisible God.
Lucifer's original sin began with a failure to understand the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart. He then refused to acknowledge that his "glory" was borrowed from the True Glory. Lucifer's wisdom and beauty were borrowed qualities by virtue of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but he thought that he had glory, righteousness, wisdom, and even life itself by virtue of his own innate being. Rather than acknowledge that he was a "reflector" of Christ's glory, he claimed that his glory was inherent and underived. Thus he was the first Anti-Christ or "in place of Christ". Self-glorying, self-righteousness, self-will, and pride first began with the angel Lucifer and he became Satan, the Adversary and the Destroyer. He took to himself the prerogatives and attributes belonging only to God.
Thus the entire plan of salvation is to reconcile both heaven and earth through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the cross all the lies of Satan have been unmasked. The terrible history of sin has been allowed to take place so that Lucifer's misconceptions about the person and work of the Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus Christ might be shown to be wrong. After all of the redeemed are saved, and the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet are destroyed, all heaven will give glory and honor and praise to the Eternal Lamb of God who sits upon the throne of God, the only eternally Righteous One, the only eternally Immortal One, who alone has Life and Righteousness, and Wisdom and Goodness and Immortality, unborrowed and underived. Amen.
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