ROM 8:9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

 

GAL 3:4 Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain?

 

GAL 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

 

1JO 3:23 And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.

 

1JO 4:13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

 

ACT 11:17 “If God therefore gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

 

These passages, especially Peter’s statement in Act 11, are a clear indication that the gift of the Holy Spirit is given the moment one believes in Christ Jesus.

The objective of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is to break the sovereignty of the old sin nature’s rule over human life. The old sin nature is passed down genetically from Adam and resides in the body, where it seeks to control the soul. To offset this attack, God devised a plan whereby the Holy Spirit indwells every Church-age believer’s body to provide the power needed to conquer the old nature. There is a perpetual battle between the old sin nature and the Holy Spirit. Both adversaries are headquartered in the body, and the battleground is the soul of the believer.

 

GAL 5:17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit; and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

 

ROM 7:15-17 For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin [the old nature] which dwells in me.