<p>4:8 <i>Therefore he that rejects this teaching rejects not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you</i>- The &quot;therefore&quot; implies that to reject God's calling is to reject God. This is why most hard core atheists whom I know were actually exposed to God's calling and refused it. The Holy Spirit is given at baptism, the internal potential power to overcome the flesh and be transformed &quot;in the inner man&quot; (Eph. 3:16-20), but the Spirit is progressively poured out into the hearts of those open to it. &quot;The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us&quot; (Rom. 5:5), and Paul several times prays that converts will receive the Spirit in this ongoing sense (Eph. 3 in particular). The result is that we are filled with the Spirit in order to sanctify us; to live in uncleanness rather than sanctification is therefore to grieve the Spirit, to go against God's sanctifying intention for us.</p>