“Be filled with the Spirit,” says the apostle--or more strictly, “filled _in_ the Spirit”; since the Holy Spirit of God is the element of the believer’s life, surrounding while it penetrates his nature: it is the atmosphere that he breathes, the ocean in which he is immersed. As a flood fills up the river-banks, as the drunkard is filled with the wine that he drains without limit, so the apostle would have his readers yield themselves to the tide of the Spirit’s coming and steep their nature in His influence. The Greek imperative, moreover, is present, and “describes this influence as ever going forth from the Spirit” (Beet). This is to be a continual replenishment. Paul has prayed that we may “be filled unto all the fulness of God” (iii. 19), and has bidden us grow “to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (iv. 13) in whom we “are made full” (Col. ii. 9): in the replenishment of the Spirit the fulness of God in Christ is sensibly imparted. God’s fulness is the hidden and eternal spring of all that can fill our nature; Christ’s fulness is its revelation and renewed communication to the race; the Holy Spirit’s fulness is its abiding energy within the soul and within the Church. Thus possessed, the Church is truly the body of Christ (iv. 4), and the habitation of God (ii. 21, 22). The words of verses 19, 20 show that St Paul is thinking of that presence of the Spirit in the Christian community, which is the spring of its affections and activities. The Spirit of Jesus, the Son of man, is a kindly and gracious Spirit, the guardian of brotherhood and friendship, the inspirer of pure social joys and genial converse. The joy in the Holy Ghost that in its warmth and freshness filled the hearts of the first Christians, soared upward on the wings of song. Their very talk was music: they “spoke to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with their heart to the Lord.” Love loves to sing. Its joys “from out our hearts arise, And speak and sparkle in our eyes, And vibrate on our tongue.”