{Quotations from J. N. Darby, old editions}
This presence of the Spirit, all real as it is, is spoken of in a manner which has the force rather of character than of distinct and personal presence, although that character could not exist unless He was personally there. “Ye are in Spirit if so be that Spirit of God dwell in you.” The emphasis is on the word God, and in Greek there is no article before Spirit. Nevertheless it plainly refers to the Spirit personally for it is said “dwell in you,” so that He is distinct from the person He dwells in . . . (Rom. 7, Synopsis, vol. 4, p. 194).
He dwells – Christ having accomplished the work of deliverance, of which this is the power in us – in the man and the man is in Christ and Christ in the man . . . This is the Christian’s standing before God. We are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of dwell in us.
There is no other means (ibid., p. 195).
This Spirit dwells in us, acts in us, and brings us in effect into this relationship [the position of Christ] which has been acquired for us by Christ, through that work which He accomplished for us, entering into it Himself (that is, as man risen) (ibid., p. 195).
But here the power of the Holy Ghost comes in which dwells in us . . . and to this, though not yet separating Him from life as its power, the change from the old position of Adam standing is distinctly referred. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” “On Sealing,” Collected Writings, vol. 31, p. 411).
While His work is the basis, it [deliverance] is possessed and known, and our place in Him, by the Spirit dwelling in us which Spirit we receive on believing in the efficacy of Christ’s work for the forgiveness of our sins. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us (ibid., p. 413).
The blood of sprinkling having made us perfectly clean in God’s sight, the Holy Ghost comes to dwell in us, the seal of the value of that blood, and consequently, so coming to dwell in us, gives us the consciousness that we are in a new place before God – not in the flesh, not in our natural Adam state but in the condition in which the Spirit sets us in God’s presence. This position belongs only to those who have the Spirit. It is the Spirit of Christ {Rom. 8:99But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Romans 8:9)}. If any man has not this he has not the proper Christian place, is not of Christ, does not belong to Him according to the power of redemption, which brings us before God according to its own efficacy, of which the Spirit’s presence and indwelling is the characteristic seal and living power, that by which those who have entered into this place are distinguished (“Exposition of Romans,” Collected Writings, vol. 26, p. 250.)
The believer is in Christ by the life of Christ and the Holy Spirit . . . The new life and the Holy Spirit give to the believer his place in Christ . . . A converted man, as such, is only in the Christian standing when he has been anointed (Meditations on Romans, p. 88.)
The presence, and as to the individual, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost constitute Christianity, and the Christian state of the individual (On Sealing, p. 1).