Quote:
Originally posted by Puritanhead
Quote: Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia
Psalm 51:11
Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
| I don't think that this supplication or prayer petition neccessarily entails that the Holy Spirit is capable of departing from a true believer, but rather that it is proclamation of appreciative dependence upon the indwelling Holy Spirit. When we're called to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling," and "make our calling and election sure," I think continually petition for the Holy Spirit's presence signifies our submission, humility, and recognition of the Holy Spirit's power.
Similarly, when we ask that God to "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," it doesn't entail that we acknowledge that God can or desires to tempt us. We can still make such a proposition and accept James 1:13. It's the same as asking God to "lift us up in paths of righteousness for his name sake." We acknowledge that without him we can do no good works.
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Calvinīs comments are appropriate at this point:
"The truth on which we are now insisting is an important one, as many learned men have been inconsiderately drawn into the opinion that the elect, by falling into mortal sin, may lose the Spirit altogether, and be alienated from God. The contrary is clearly declared by Peter, who tells us that the word by which we are born again is an incorruptible seed, (1 Peter 1:23) and John is equally explicit in informing us that the elect are preserved from falling away altogether, (1 John 3:9.) However much they (the elect) may appear for a time to have been cast off by God, it is afterwards seen that grace must have been alive in their breast, even during that interval when it appeared to be extinct. Nor is there any force in the objection that David speaks as if he feared that he might be deprived of the Spirit. It is natural that the saints, when they have fallen into sin, and have thus done what they could do to expel the grace of God, should feel an anxiety upon this point; but it is their duty to hold fast the truth that grace is the incorruptible seed of God, which can never perish in any heart where it has been deposited."
Commentary on Psalm 51 vs. 11
[Edited on 9-28-2005 by poimen]