In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told His disciples that they were the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Then Jesus said of Himself: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17-18).

Jesus’ statement that He did not come to destroy the law was probably made because of the possibility of how the disciples would interpret what He would say in verse 20. That verse reads: “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus then announced to His disciples that their spiritual requirements were higher than those in the written law. For example, not only must they not commit adultery, but they must not even look upon a woman to lust for her. To do so one would commit adultery in his heart.

Jesus also said to His disciples that they were not to be angry without cause, or divorce unless adultery had been committed, or swear by oaths, or to get revenge. And they were to love their enemies. In all six of these commands Jesus is lifting the spiritual responsibilities of His disciples above the written law.

Then in chapter six of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that His followers are not to do alms, pray, or fast with the motive of getting attention from others.

When Jesus said that He would keep every jot and tittle of the law and that His disciples were to live above the written law, He knew there was a need for Divine resources to make both things possible. Jesus was God. He also was man–which is mentioned several times in the Scriptures.[1] He came to live as a man. So how can Jesus and His disciples live life on such lofty levels? In John 14:17 Jesus says to His disciples: “… the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”

Jesus must surely mean that the Holy Spirit was in Him when He spoke the words “He dwells with you.” [2]

Several times Jesus said that the Father was in Him. John 14:10 is one of those passages. He says: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.”

Jesus testifies that the Spirit and His Father live within Him. That is why He, as a man, could fulfill every jot and tittle of the law.

Jesus not only lived out the moral law, He became the fulfillment of the ceremonial law. Consider the words in Colossians 2:16-17. “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” [3]

We are enlightened in Romans 8:3-4 concerning the ability of the disciples of Jesus to live on the high spiritual plane that He had set forth for them in the Sermon on the Mount. “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Jesus knew heaven’s plan for His disciples when He said that their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. He knew that His Kingdom would be made up of people who had been born of the Spirit and in whom the Spirit of God dwells. And He knew that when His disciples continued to receive the filling of the Spirit, they would experience the higher-than-law righteousness.

Because it is the Spirit-filled person who lives the life that Jesus taught, the commands in the Sermon on the Mount are in perfect harmony with the command found in Ephesians 5:18 for believers to be continuously filled with the Spirit.[4]

It is through living out our oneness with Christ through our spiritual crucifixion, burial, and resurrection by continually obeying the commands of Romans 6:11-13 that the disciples of Jesus continue to experience the Spirit-filled life.

Two key verses of Scripture that are important in understanding the filling of the Spirit are John 4:14 and Galatians 5:17. In John 4:14 Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well, and He says: “…whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

The water Jesus speaks of is the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ statement that the water is like a fountain springing up is a picture of the Spirit of God continuously seeking to fill the life of the believer. This fact clearly eliminates the thought that the believer must deserve the filling of the Spirit. The Spirit’s desire to fill us is greater than our desire to have the filling.

Galatians 5:17 reads: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”

When one considers John 4:14 along with Galatians 5:17, he sees that believers are filled with the Spirit when the barrier of the flesh is removed.

When we experience our crucifixion, we keep our flesh out of power and remove the barrier to our being filled with the Spirit.[5]

A Christian leader speaking to a group of pastors asked, “How many of you guys are Christians?” Quickly and enthusiastically they all raised their hands. Then he asked, “How many of you are filled with the Holy Spirit? Two of the group feebly raised their hands.

Then the leader said something like, “Some of you guys did not raise your hands because you felt it would be bragging to say you are filled with the Spirit.”

He followed that statement with: “You do not deserve to be filled with the Spirit anymore than you deserve to be a Christian.”

In the spirit of those words, why not receive the filling of the Spirit right now and permit Him to live out a life of righteousness through you?

In a church filled with the Holy Spirit, God will live out His righteousness through the members. It would be impossible for a church filled with the righteousness of God to have conflicts between the members and divisions throughout the church.

In addition to those blessings, in a church filled with the Holy Spirit the pastor would not have need of motivating the members to have an evangelistic and missionary Spirit. They will all be highly motivated by a much higher power.

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From In Christ (Summer 2006 Volume 7, Number 3) used with permission from David Kuykendall Ministries, 318 North Brighton, Dallas, Texas 75208 214-943-4473 www.living-by-grace.org

[1] Christ’s deity is affirmed Scriptures such as Isaiah 9:6,7; John 1:1; 8:58; Col. 1:15-18; 2:9; Heb. 1:1-4,8, etc. His humanity is taught in passages such as Phil. 2;5-11; John 1:14; Heb. 2:14-18, etc.

[2] Matt. 3:16; Luke 4:18; John 3:34.

[3] Bible scholars distinguish three aspects of God’s law in the Old Testament: moral, civil, and ceremonial. [Dietary rules were within the ceremonial category.] Christ fulfilled and set aside the latter two aspects of the law. This article shows how the moral principles of God [which never change, since they are based on His character] are to be expressed through an abiding relationship with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. See also, The Believer and God’s Moral Law at GraceNotebook.com [Clarifications].

[4] “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).

[5] Experiencing our identification with Christ requires “reckoning” [count on it to be true personally, because this really is true!]” (Rom. 6:10,11).

For further study on being filled with the Spirit, see GraceNotebook.com: “Getting Out of the Doldrums.”

Footnotes by JBW

Scripture quotations from the Holy Bible, New King James Version.