There are two things the Holy Spirit produces in the life of a believer — and the Church has managed to fight over both of them. One camp emphasizes the gifts and minimizes the fruit. The other emphasizes the fruit and dismisses the gifts as temporary or dangerous. Scripture presents both as permanent, both as necessary, and both as expressions of the same Spirit. Choosing between them is like choosing between breathing in and breathing out.

Last time we examined who the Holy Spirit is as a Person. Now we look at what He produces in believers: the gifts He distributes for the Church's ministry and the fruit He grows in the believer's character.

God has made complete provision for His power and life to be fully expressed through His people. In earlier lessons, we've shown what God's plan is for meeting human needs and how every believer has the power of attorney to act in Christ's place among people. We're partakers of the divine nature 2 Peter 1:4. We have access to God and the freedom to exercise the divine powers that belong to God's family.

Think of it this way: everything in existence shares the nature, powers, and characteristics of its own kind. Fish have all the abilities of fish — they swim, they breathe underwater. Birds have every bird-like trait. Animals follow their own kind. Humans are the same. And so it is with God's family. The moment anything is born, it has certain powers from its parents. A baby fish can swim; a bird can fly; a dog can bark. It would be a miracle for a dog to live in water or a fish to fly through the sky — that would go against nature.

In the same way, it goes against nature for people to be spiritually born of God, share His nature, and then live contrary to that nature. We as God's sons should manifest a supernatural nature through the Holy Spirit's indwelling and through faith in Jesus Christ's name and His atonement. God has provided the baptism in the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit for exactly this purpose — to show His divine life in His sons.

Nothing in Scripture is more specific and detailed than God's plan for divine-human sons equipped with power to represent Him on Earth. In previous lessons, we've given hundreds of Scriptures proving this. The spiritual tools God gives us are the gifts of the Spirit, and He wants us — all of His children on Earth — to exercise them fully. He has repeatedly demonstrated His will through the prophets, through Jesus Christ, and through early believers. He has repeatedly promised this power to every believer, so there's no excuse for not knowing about it.

Paul started his teaching on spiritual gifts by saying, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant" 1 Corinthians 12:1, and he ended by saying, "But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant" 1 Corinthians 14:38. It seems like the simpler and more detailed God's truths are, the more people remain ignorant of them! Every time Paul uses a phrase like "I would not have you to be ignorant," the subject turns out to be one of the simplest in Scripture to understand. If anything seems difficult, it's explained so simply and clearly that there can be no misunderstanding — if you actually want to understand 1 Corinthians 10:11 Corinthians 12:12 Corinthians 1:81 Thessalonians 4:13-17. The only reason anyone could possibly misunderstand is if they deliberately refuse to, as Paul plainly stated: "But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant."

In Lesson Eighteen, Point IX, we saw that the gifts of the Spirit were active throughout Old Testament times, except for the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. Saints of old had tremendous power with God — in many cases even greater power than what we see among modern believers today. Let any honest person compare what power they have with what Old Testament saints had, or with what Christ and the apostles demonstrated, and they'll have to admit they're falling far short. Is this normal? Is this what the Bible teaches? Is this really God's will for believers today?

We can't bring ourselves to say this is God's best, not with hundreds of Scriptures on this subject. God has been a God of signs and wonders in both Testaments. He's always the same. His abilities are constant, His attributes eternal, His divine powers unchanging. He has never decreased in power and never will. He's not evolving and never will evolve in divine power. He is today what He has always been and always will be. He will never become what He isn't, and what He ever was, He still is. God's energies don't grow, and His plan of using power for creation's highest good never changes.

The gifts of the Spirit aren't new. They were exercised in ancient times with greater power than we often see today. And these weren't just temporary loans of power to Old Testament saints, as some teach. They were permanent anointings and gifts, just as "without repentance" on God's part then as they are now Romans 11:29. No calling of God and no gift of the Spirit in any age has ever been a mere loan or temporary ability if it was truly given to a person. Solomon said about his gift of wisdom, even after he had backslidden: "Also my wisdom remained with me" Ecclesiastes 2:9. There's no statement anywhere saying Old Testament gifts and anointings were only loans or temporary. That's simply a human theory and should be valued only as such.