Ryrie discusses the “distinctive and foundational ministry” of the Holy Spirit:
“The permanent and universal-among-all-believers indwelling ministry of the Spirit is at the heart of the distinctiveness of the Spirit’s work in this church age. Although He did live within some people in the Old Testament, that indwelling was neither permanently guaranteed nor universally experienced even by all believers. It was also the focus of our Lord’s promise to His disciples concerning the ministry of the Spirit after His (Christ’s) departure from earth (John 14:17). Also, the doctrine of the indwelling is foundational to the other ministries the Spirit performs today.
“Today the Holy Spirit lives in the beings of Christians only, and He does so in all Christians. This was apparently not always well known by the church, for Paul had to remind believers in the early days that this was a fact (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19), just as it is necessary to instruct believers today of its truth. Too often, some of God’s people seem to think that the Spirit comes and goes and that this erratic and usually unpredictable behavior of the Spirit is often based on the individual’s feelings. Nevertheless, the truth of the Spirit’s indwelling does not depend on our feeling or knowing that it is true. . . . He is a gift to us, not a reward we earn for good behavior. . . . His presence is evidence of being saved. . . . The Holy Spirit is the One who reveals to the Christian the indwelling of our Lord Jesus in him. . . . ‘The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us’ (1 John 3:24). Thus the knowledge of the indwelling of Christ is dependent on the ministry of the Spirit, which is not restricted but which operates in all believers.”