OSAS vs The Spirit of Grace

Because the children of Israel were rebellious and stiff-necked while God led them through the wilderness, Moses longed for the day that the same Spirit of God that rested on him could also rest on the people (Numbers 11:29). Without the Holy Spirit, the people were doomed to rebellion and as a result many of the Israelites perished in their iniquity and lack of faith to the extent that only the next generation could enter the promised land. However, Hallelujah that the day that Moses longed for was fulfilled! God in his grace and love sent us the Holy Spirit, without which we would have no hope.

John the Baptist said I baptize you in water for repentance but one who is coming after me will baptize you in the Holy Spirit. In John 16:7 Jesus said "that unless I go", the Comforter, the Holy Spirit cannot come to you. In Acts 19, Paul was concerned about the believers in Ephesus. Although they were baptized in water and believed in Jesus, they did not yet receive the Holy Spirit. Why was the Holy Spirit so important?

The receiving of the Holy Spirit was the beginning of God's reconciliation with man! Before God had no choice but to withhold his Spirit due to iniquity. Sin is an abomination to God and he can't even bear to look at it (Prov 6:16). But Jesus' death was the perfect sacrifice and his shed blood allows God to passover our former lives in sin. So after Jesus went up, the Holy Spirit could come down.

Whenever we have sin in our lives, the Holy Spirit convicts us of it and leads us to repentance. Repentance is more than saying "I'm sorry", the greek word metanoia means a change of heart or mind. With this in mind if our heart is not turned to the Lord and our mind is not changed then we will perish just like the Israelites who rebelled and complained against God in the wilderness.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

While the Holy Spirit is faithful to us, God is a gentleman and he will never violate our free will. We can reject the Holy Spirit either knowingly or unknowingly based on our choices. In Hebrews 10:26-30 Paul shows how believers can outrage the Spirit of grace:

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth,there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay"

How then do we overcome sin and cooperate with the Holy Spirit? It's by following the desires of our spirit and not our flesh.

Romans 8:1 (KJV) says

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

That last phrase is dangerously left out in the NIV and the Recovery Version. However the original manuscripts have that phrase!

Paul goes on to say in verse 14:

"For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God."

Now the remaining verses concerning the spirit versus flesh make so much more sense:

"For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace."

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law." Galatians 5:16-18

If we walk according to the flesh, we will sin to gratify the desires of the flesh. The Apostle John relates those those who practice sin as children of the devil:

"Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." 1 John 3:8

It's sober warning because if we become of the devil through practice of sin, then we will meet the same fate as him.

John continues:

"No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God."

There's so many other warnings throughout the whole bible that echo this. One of the more prominent ones is when Paul warns the believers in Ephesians 5 and again in Galatians 5 that those who practice sin will not inherit God's kingdom. 

This is what it means to me to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It is in all things to be led by the spirit of grace that God gave to us freely (hence grace) and to put to death our flesh so we will never gratify its desires, knowing full well how close we still are to hell. This is why Jesus said you cannot be my disciple unless you pick up your cross and follow me. Taking the cross daily is required and not optional.

We receive the Holy Spirit because we have been reconciled to God through Jesus. With his Spirit, we also get God's life and that life will transform us and save us so that we become like Jesus-- so that we can stand with confidence on the day of judgement.

1 John 4:17
This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.

That said, we still have free will choice whether or not to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Have you ever wondered why in the Lord's prayer, Jesus said "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one" (Matthew 6:13)? If eternal security is a true doctrine, then that prayer wouldn't make any sense because once you're saved you're always saved. But because Jesus loved us, He gave us this way to pray so that our souls could be preserved.

We see this again when Jesus tells Peter that Satan has requested to sift his soul (Luke 22:31). Jesus goes on to say that He prayed that his faith would be strong-- implying that God didn't spare Peter but granted Satan his wish, just like He did with Job! But Hallelujah we have nothing to fear because greater is He that is in us than the one in the world (1 John 4:4). And we are thankful to Jesus because He is our heavenly high priest that is interceding and praying for our faith to be made strong, just like he did with Peter. Peter though he failed horribly earlier, was eventually able to overcome Satan's testing, becoming one of the pillars of the church as an apostle, and persevere in his faith in Christ until the day of his martyrdom.

Matthew 24:13
"But the one who endures to the end will be saved."