By Roy Hession
“Be filled – now” is more than the title of this small book. It actually summarizes in three words the heart of the message of grace to which these chapters lead.
It is not, be filled tomorrow, when we hope we shall have improved, but be filled now in the midst of our failure and current need – as we are, where we are. And after this now, the next now. Such an experience of present tense blessedness for needy people can only be possible as we are given a new sight of the grace of God making every blessing available on street level. It is in this context we are to hear the word, “be filled with the Spirit.” (from Chapter 1)
The Holy Spirit is not to be regarded merely as an influence. He is a Person, the third Person of the Trinity, as much a Person as God the Father and God the Son. He is consistently referred to in the New Testament not as it, but as He. The one place where the Authorised Version refers to ‘the Spirit itself’ (Rom. 8:16), the Revised Version rightly changes, in the interests of greater accuracy of translation, to ‘The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God.’ In another place the writer violates the normal principles of grammar to make sure that the Spirit is referred to as a Person. The passage is John 16:13, where we have the words, ‘When he, the Spirit of truth, is come. The Greek word translated Spirit is pneuma; which is a neuter word, and yet, contrary to what one would expect grammatically, the personal pronoun, He, is linked with it. (from Chapter 2)
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