The Defining Mark of the Christian

By Robb Brunansky

Published November 20, 2025

One of the things that has continuously shocked me throughout my life is the relentless attack against God’s Word – especially from professing Christians. Sometimes, these attacks are subtle, implying the Word of God is insufficient because it is too difficult to understand. Other times, the attacks are blatant, like the promotion of an evolutionary theory as an alternative to biblical creation.

As we have observed throughout our study of 1 Corinthians, this reality was essentially happening in Corinth, where those believers sought after worldly wisdom. They lived like the Bible was insufficient for their needs or that Scripture was inferior to the latest philosophies or psychologies. They also judged men’s wisdom to be superior to God’s, which undermined and attacked the truth of His holy Word.

Paul addressed this problem in 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, reminding the Corinthians that Christians have the mind of Christ, which is infinitely superior to worldly wisdom. The mind of Christ is described as eternal, hidden, and glorious. Additionally, the mind of Christ can only come by divine revelation from God’s Spirit, whose knowledge is expansive, exhaustive, and exclusive. This revelation has been transferred through the apostolic and prophetic writings of Scripture.

As we turn our attention to verses 12-16, we transition to the reception of the mind of Christ. If we renew our minds according to the mind of Christ, there is no doubt we must receive this mind. The mind of Christ can only be known – and will be known – by those who have received the Holy Spirit.

Paul makes a clear declaration here: Christians have received the Spirit, who is from God (12a).

Once again, we need to follow Paul closely, because he uses the word “we” in different ways throughout this section. In verse 6, Paul spoke of himself and his fellow apostles when he said that we speak wisdom among those who are mature. In verse 7, he said God predestined the wisdom of the gospel to our glory, which is a reference to everyone who loves God. In verse 10, Paul speaks exclusively of the apostles, because the Spirit does not give divine revelation to every believer. However, in verse 12, Paul says we have received…the Spirit who is from God, which is true of every believer of Jesus Christ.

It is important to note that Paul makes an unmistakable contrast in this verse: we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.

Many people have guessed Paul’s meaning of the reference for the “spirit of the world,” thinking this phrase points specifically to Satan or a demonic spirit. That’s unlikely, though, because it would be rather unusual for biblical writers to speak of receiving an evil spirit or the devil. Furthermore, since the devil is not omnipresent, more than one person could not receive the devil simultaneously.

Rather, the spirit of the world actually refers to a mind dominated by the world’s thinking. We might liken this to what Paul writes in Romans 8:15, where he says we have not received a spirit of slavery that leads to fear. Christians have not received the spirit of the world, which would put us in the same position as the unbeliever, thinking similarly to the world.

This dichotomy of the spirit of the world and the Spirit from God is an implicit rebuke of the Corinthians, who were conforming their thinking to the world as they looked for status and prestige that impressed others. As Christians, our thinking should not be shaped by the thinking of the ungodly. When we view the gospel as insufficient, or God’s wisdom as folly, we think just like the world. When we don’t recognize the power of God’s Word and the wisdom in the message of the cross, we live like those whose minds are dominated by the flesh.

Believers, therefore, have not received a spirit to think like the world, but we have received the Spirit from God.

This reception of the Holy Spirit is the defining mark of the Christian, which is exactly what Paul told the Galatians when he confronted them about their drift away from the gospel toward the Law. Christians received the Spirit when they put their faith in Christ, and that had nothing to do with the Law or their obedience to the Law. The Spirit marks out God’s people, and the way we receive this defining mark is through faith alone.

Paul would go on to tell the Galatians that God’s promise to Abraham was the indwelling of His Spirit. This is why Jesus died on a cross, so this promised blessing to Abraham might come even to the Gentiles through faith, so all God’s people would be indwelt by His Spirit.

In Romans 8:9, Paul stated that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ do not belong to the Savior. There is no such thing as a Christian who has not received the Holy Spirit. It is fundamentally impossible to be a believer of Jesus Christ and not have the Holy Spirit.

A legitimate question comes up here, which is: How do I know if I have received the Spirit of God?

There is a lot of bad theology about the Spirit, which leads to some bad answers to that query. It’s likely that no member of the Trinity has been more abused and slandered than the Spirit.

For example, a whole movement in the church asserts that Christians know they have received the Holy Spirit by speaking in tongues. Yet, speaking in tongues is not the evidence someone has received the Spirit because Paul clearly states that not every believer speaks in tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30). Even during early New Testament Church, when the gift of tongues was active, not every believer had this gift. So, speaking in tongues, or not speaking in tongues, was not relevant to knowing if someone had received the Holy Spirit.

Many object to these arguments against the gift of tongues, focusing on occurrences in the book of Acts where new believers, who received the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues. Some people in Acts who received the Spirit did speak in tongues as visible evidence to the apostles they had received the Holy Spirit. This gift was an obvious, immediate marker they had been saved at that time, and it always happened when a new group of people unexpectedly came into the kingdom. God decided to authenticate the salvation of Samaritans and Gentiles by enabling the first converts from those groups to speak in tongues as a visible sign of the Spirit’s presence in their lives, as we discover in Acts 8 and 10.

These unusual occurrences with the Samaritans and Cornelius and the disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus were special cases that were never intended to be normative for the entire church. God made His point clearly that people from all nations are welcome in His presence if they believe the gospel. The gift of tongues isn’t part of what God uses today to show that someone has received the Holy Spirit.

Rather, in Galatians Paul gives a list of virtues that come from the Spirit, called the fruit of the Spirit. Those who have placed their faith in Christ alone for forgiveness of their sins AND are walking in the fruit that are characteristically tied to the Holy Spirit, can know for certain that they have this Member of the Godhead dwelling inside their hearts, guiding their lives so they operate according to the mind of Christ. All true believers in Jesus Christ have received the Spirit, which is evidenced not by ecstatic experiences or speaking in tongues, but by living a life that pleases the Lord in accordance with His holy character.