Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Superabundance

...When we come on to the Book of Acts, we read that the Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost. That is the term that is used - 'poured out'. Nothing is ever said about this except we get this impression of profusion. It is overwhelming; it is a baptism; it is a shower coming upon us and it is unmistakable. So we are told that on the Day of Pentecost the believers were all 'filled with the Holy Ghost' (Acts 2:4). Filled! And we find the same term in Acts 4:31, and in many other places.

And then take the way the apostle Paul puts it in Romans 5:5: 'The love of God,' he says, 'is shed abroad in our hearts.' It is not just a little touch of moisture but love is poured out, 'shed abroad' in a great profusion - 'shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us'. And all the other terms have the same meaning. 'The fruit of the Spirit,' says Paul, and we think at once of an orchard where the trees are groaning with fruit. 'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance' (Galatians 5:22-23). There is great profusion.

And then, of course, the apostle surpasses himself at the end of Ephesians 3. He has already talked about 'the unsearchable riches of Christ' (3:8); he has mentioned 'the exceeding riches of his grace' (2:7). He brings out all his superlatives and still it is not enough. So he can say nothing beyond this: 'that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God' (Ephesians 3:19). God is eternal. There is no limit to him. All his qualities are absolutes, and his fullness is endless; it is eternal.

Then, writing in a very personal and tender manner to the Philippians, though he was in prison, the apostle uses terms which are quite extraordinary when we think of his position. He is in prison. He is suffering in body. He says he has become an old man before his time. Elsewhere he calls himself 'Paul, the aged' (Philemon 9). He is on the verge of death, and it is going to be a very cruel death. Yet he says, 'I have all, and abound: I am full' (Philippians 4:18). Now what more can a man say than that? There is a man who has received of his fullness, and grace upon grace.

John says the same thing: we have life, he says, and this life is in us. There is a seed that remains in us (1 John 3:9). And Peter says we are 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4). There is nothing beyond this, and the New Testament writers all vie with one another to try to give some impression of this fullness and superabundance of life that they have received through the Spirit in Christ Jesus.