The Cross and the Holy Spirit — The Spiritual Man

The Cross and the Holy Spirit

There are many believers—one could say the majority—who were not filled with the Holy Spirit at the time they first believed. Even after many years of faith, they are still entangled by sin, effectively becoming carnal believers. What we will say below about how carnal believers can be delivered is based on the experience of the Corinthian believers and many others like them. We are not saying that a believer must first believe in the substitutionary work of the cross and only later in the union with Christ through the cross. Rather, it is because many believers did not have a clear revelation of the cross at the beginning, and thus only believed half of the truth. As a result, they still need to believe the other half at a later time.

If the reader has fully believed in both aspects of the work of the cross, then this section may not hold much further significance for them. But if, like most people, they have only believed in one half, then this section is absolutely necessary. Still, we want the reader to understand that the two aspects of the work of the cross do not have to be believed in two separate stages—it is only because people initially believed incorrectly or incompletely that a second believing becomes necessary.