Filled with the Holy Ghost

BY ELINOR F. EDWARDS.

The New Testament makes frequent use of the expression, "filled with the Holy Ghost." What does it mean? The question is answered by Jesus himself in the fourteenth chapter of John, where he refers to the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Truth. Therefore, to be filled with the Holy Ghost is to be filled with the Spirit of Truth. The impenetrable clouds of mysticism have always enveloped the words, Holy Ghost; but Christ's Christianity dispels the mists of a false theology, not only revealing what the Holy Ghost is, but what it does.

John, "the prophet of the highest," was filled with the Holy Ghost ; so were his father, Zacharias, and his mother, Elizabeth, before his birth. Jesus, filled with the Holy Ghost, met and overcame the threefold temptation. Then he "returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee," and immediately the works followed,—casting out of devils and healing the sick.

In one place the record tells us that the apostles were all filled with the Holy Ghost, "and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Then followed many miracles, and many believers were added to the Church,—three thousand souls in a single day.

Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, was able to stand before the Council and "speak the word of God with boldness," after the healing of the impotent man. Stephen, filled with the Holy Ghost, "did great wonders and miracles among the people." Of Barnabas it is written that "he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord." When Saul was filled with the Holy Ghost, the scales fell from his eyes, and "straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God."

At the close of the thirteenth chapter of Acts, the record states that "all the disciples were filled with joy, and the Holy Ghost." This was after Paul and Barnabas had declared the glad tidings to the Gentiles, "and they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord."

And as it was then, so it is now. Great multitudes today hear the Word and are healed through the Spirit of Truth, and the disciples are again filled with joy and the Holy Ghost, the immortal joy of Spirit.

To be filled with the Holy Ghost is to understand and exercise the Christ-healing; to know how to keep the Master's commandments and follow his example,—heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons,—in other words, to enter into the joy of the Lord.

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