The Holy Spirit in us

“‘Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” John 7:38-39
There is confusion in some Christian circles about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian, and what the terms ‘receiving the Holy Spirit’ and ‘baptism of the Spirit’ mean. Some people think they are the same thing, but they are not. To demonstrate this, today we’re going to learn a little bit of Greek.
There are three Greek prepositions used to describe the relation of the Holy Spirit to the believer. We see two of them in John 14:17 – “for He lives with you and will be in you”. ‘With’ is the Greek para, meaning beside (from which we get words like ‘parallel’). This refers to the influence of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of unbelievers, working alongside them, convicting their conscience of their need for a Saviour (John 16:8). ‘In’ is the Greek en, meaning in. This refers to that which happens when a person becomes a believer: the Holy Spirit becomes resident in their heart and indwells them (Rom.. 8:9, Rom. 8:11, 1 Cor. 3:16, 1 Cor. 6:19, 2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 2:22, 2 Tim. 1:14). So all Christians have the Holy Spirit ‘in’ them, as a result of conversion. We see this with the disciples: the Holy Spirit was with them (John 14:17), and after Jesus’ resurrection, we read, “And with that He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:21). At that moment the Holy Spirit came to indwell them.
But it doesn’t stop there. In the Scriptures we see a third relation: when the Holy Spirit comes ‘upon’ believers. This is the Greek epi, meaning on, over, upon (from which we get words like ‘epicentre’, ‘epidermis’, etc.). For the disciples, this happened at the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4). Here were believers, encountering a new relation with the Holy Spirit (see also Acts 8:16). Peter told them that this had been prophesied by Joel, that God would pour out His Spirit on (epi) all people (Acts 2:17, Joel 2:28). We see this called the baptism of the Spirit (Acts 1:5), the filling of the Spirit (Acts 2:4, 4:31, 9:17, Eph. 5:18, ), and the overflow of the Spirit (Rom. 15:13). This is a separate event, and not all Christians have experienced it. The baptism of the Spirit is something that happens after conversion, to enable God’s power to flow out through us to touch others with spiritual life. This is what Jesus was referring to in today’s verse (John 7:38-39). It’s something that is available to you today, if you will just ask for it.