The Holy Spirit in the Christian Life by Jonathan Edwards

The Spirit of God is given to true saints to dwell in them as their own permanent abode, and to influence their hearts, as a principle of the new nature, or as a divine and supernatural source of life and action.

Scripture says that the Holy Spirit not only moves and occasionally influences the saints, but also dwells in them as their temple, their proper dwelling place, and their perpetual dwelling place (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16; John 14:16,17).

Scripture affirms that the Spirit is in this dwelling so united with the faculties of the soul that it becomes there a principle or source of new nature and life.

That is why it is said that the saints live because of Christ, who lives in them (Gal. 12:20).

Through his Spirit, Christ is not only in them, but he lives in them, that they may live by the life of Christ; his Spirit is so united with them as a vital principle within them that these saints do not merely drink the living water.

But also “this living water will become” in their souls a spring or fountain of water “welling up to spiritual and “eternal” life (John 4:14), thus being a vital principle within them. The Evangelist himself explains that this living water refers to the Spirit of God (John 7:38,39).

Conclusion

The light of the sun of righteousness not only shines upon them, but is also communicated to them so that they shine likewise and become little images of that sun which shines upon them.

The sap of the true vine is not only transported inside them as the sap of a tree is transported inside a vessel, but it also circulates like the sap that leaves the trunk of the tree to one of its living branches, where it becomes a vital principle.

Once the Spirit of God is communicated and united to the saints, they are called spiritual.