Currently at my church, we are going through a teaching series based on the Holy Spirit. That prompted me to try to remember if in all my years of attending church, if I had ever heard anyone teach on the Holy Spirit, and to the best of my recollection, the answer is no.
So I'm going to start with some of the basics of understanding the Holy Spirit, several of which I was ignorant about before our church started this series.
Let's examine three different scriptures, starting with 1st Corinthians 12:13, where the apostle Paul teaches that we receive the Holy Spirit the moment we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior. “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
Romans 8:9 tells us that if a person does not possess the Holy Spirit, he or she does not belong to Christ: “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” Ephesians 1:13-14 teaches us that the Holy Spirit is the seal of salvation for all those who believe: “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”
These three passages make it clear that the Holy Spirit is received at the moment of salvation. Paul could not say that we all were baptized by one Spirit and all given one Spirit to drink if not all of the Corinthian believers possessed the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:9 is even stronger, stating that if a person does not have the Spirit, he does not belong to Christ. Therefore, the possession of the Spirit is an identifying factor of the possession of salvation. Further, the Holy Spirit could not be the “seal of salvation” (Ephesians 1:13-14) if He is not received at the moment of salvation. There are many other scriptures that teach that salvation is secured the moment we receive Christ as Savior. (John 3:5-16 being just one of many)