Peter SmytheIntelligent Holy Ghost Christianity

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (John 14.16-17, KJV)

Since coming over to the Pentecostals years ago, I’ve sat under the teaching that “God is in you” for so many years. Very often “God is in you” or “the Holy Ghost, Himself, is in you” is stated without any kind of reference to a specific Gospel or Epistle scripture. Interestingly enough, the phrase is not limited to Pentecostals. Many Protestant preachers and denominations teach the very same thing - when you are born-again God comes to dwell inside of you.

For years, that bugged me because, frankly, it is kind of “out there” - the personhood of God, the Father, residing on the inside of a human being. At this moment, I do not recall a similar scripture pertaining to Jesus in his earth walk.

After rummaging around sermon after sermon, it appears that the idea stems mostly from two verses: John 14.17 and Romans 8.11.

John 14.16-17 reads as shown above. The last part of verse seventeen is the clincher: “and shall be in you” (never mind that “you” is plural). Several other translations translate it the same way:

the Spirit of truth, whom the world is not able to receive, because it doth not behold him, nor know him, and ye know him, because he doth remain with you, and shall be in you. (Young’s Literal Translation)

even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (ESV)

the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides with you and will be in you. (NET)

All four of these translations carry the translation “in you” lending us the idea that the person of the Holy Ghost literally comes into the inside of the human body or human spirit to dwell.

If we look at the Greek, we see that “in you” is derived from ἐν ὑμιν:

ὁτι παρ᾽ὑμιν μενει και ἐν ὑμιν ἐσται (John 14.17)

that concerning y’all he dwells (or stays) and in y’all will be

My Texas slang gives us the more accurate “y’all” for you. New Yorkers might say “in youse guys” (wouldn’t that be a funny twist on translations - “and in youse guys will be).

You can’t say that the translators missed it by translating ἐν as “in” because one of the foremost meanings of ἐν is “in”:

BDAG (heavy Greek lexicon): marker of a position defined as being in a location, in, among

But the literal “in” is probably not Jesus’s intended meaning. Notice, though, with BDAG’s definition that ἐν can also mean “among.” We see this use clearly earlier in John’s Gospel:

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (ἐν ὑμιν), (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1.14, KJV)

In this verse, the translators did not translate ἐν as “in” because Jesus didn’t physically enter into us, but rather lived among us as a man.

Given that “among” is the proper translation of ἐν in John 1.14, could it be that ἐν should also be translated “among” in John 14.17?

for he dwells (or stays) with y’all and shall be among y’all. (Smythean)

Frankly, this appears to be the better translation that also gives us a better understanding of the current work of the Holy Ghost. He is the Comforter and Stand-By of the assembly, the Body of Christ. It would also go quite far in enlightening us about Luke’s writings of the “Upon” Baptism of the Holy Ghost which is a secondary experience to being born-again.

But what about Romans 8.11?

and if the Spirit of Him who did raise up Jesus out of the dead doth dwell in you, He who did raise up the Christ out of the dead shall quicken also your dying bodies, through His Spirit dwelling in you. (Young’s Literal Translation)

Some may hoot and holler about this, but Romans 8.11 is speaking not about the Holy Ghost, but the reborn human spirit. Romans 8.10 speaks about “Christ in you” which is all about the born-again spirit and Romans 13 speaks of living according to the spirit which is living according to the reborn human spirit:

for if according to the flesh ye do live, ye are about to die; and if, by the Spirit, the deeds of the body ye put to death, ye shall live; - (Romans 8.13, Young’s Literal Translation)

and if Christ [is] in you, the body, indeed, [is] dead because of sin, and the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness - (Romans 8.10, Young’s Literal Translation)

To read “Spirit of Him” as the person of the Holy Ghost would be lifting the phrase out of Paul’s context. Of course, the reason for all the hootin’ and the hollerin’ would be for the fact that Romans 8.11 implies that part and parcel of the resurrection is Jesus being reborn as the firstfruits of the New Creation.

and if the spirit - that spirit having raised Jesus out of dead ones - will make alive also the death-doomed bodies of y’all through his indwelling spirit in y’all (Smythean Literal Greek)

The indwelling spirit is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” - the reborn human spirit, not the person of the Holy Ghost.

Some might ask, “What about 1 Corinthians 3.16?”

have ye not known that ye are a sanctuary of God, and the Spirit of God doth dwell in you? (Young’s Literal Translation)

The same analysis of “among” may apply here. Okay, but what about “ye are a sanctuary of God?” Here is E.W. Bullinger’s commentary on this verse:

The scope of this chapter [1 Corinthians] is the one Body of God’s building in contrast with many bodies, fellowships, or communities, of man’s making. These are said to be “carnal.” The other is spiritual. When the Holy Spirit is spoken of as indwelling, the word “body,” or “temple,” is always in the singular. Believers are addressed as being in Christ, “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2.22). This building, being “fitly framed together, groweth unto a Holy Temple in the Lord” (v. 21)… . So that, here, it is the Holy Spirit, indwelling the spiritual body of Christ as a whole - and filling the separate members of it with His gifts and by His power. (E.W. Bullinger, Word Studies on the Holy Spirit 122-23)

If we see that the Holy Ghost is “among” us as Jesus said, the Luke’s Acts makes a lot more sense when he writes that the Spirit came “upon” them.  It also lends itself to the consistency that the disciples were first born-again at John 20.22 and were told to wait for Pentecost for the “upon” endowment of power.

Addendum:

As Bullinger points out, the construction of “he will be among you” does not vitiate, in any way, the “filling the separate members … with His gifts and by His power.” What this construction does is give us an understanding of the Holy Ghost’s role from the Old Testament (“upon” the prophets, priests, and kings), to Jesus (had the Spirit without measure) to the Body of Christ (“endued with power from on high”).