Scripture is very clear that when someone accepts Christ as Savior and Lord and becomes a new believer, the Holy Spirit immediately begins to reside within that believer. This is one of the blessings of the new covenant. In the Old Testament, an individual was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit for a specific purpose. For instance, Isaiah the prophet wrote in Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor...” However, since Jesus has completed His redemptive work by dying to pay the penalty for our sin and rising again the third day to defeat sin and death once forever, now every believer receives the residing gift of the Holy Spirit.
The first believers to receive this gift were the disciples, after they had seen the risen Christ. (See John 20:22.) Since that time, all who come to Christ for salvation immediately receive the Holy Spirit. Our bodies have become temples for the Holy Spirit, like the temple or tabernacle in the Old Testament in which the Spirit of God rested. Paul wrote in his letter to Corinth, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). The praiseworthy difference for us is that when He, the Holy Spirit, comes to reside in us, He never leaves! It’s the Holy Spirit who takes us from a state of eternal death without Christ to a state of eternal life. He does this by sealing us with Himself.
“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). The word ‘life’ in this verse is speaking of eternal life. Therefore, since the Holy Spirit is the infuser of that life, we can know the Holy Spirit will never leave us!
