My argument is not with someone dead and gone like Campbell, but with the legacy of his false teaching that lives on in Campbellism.
Having said that, I will be honest. I am having a hard time tracking your argument. Yes, in Romans 5:5 Paul speaks of the love that the Holy Spirit:, Who has been given to us, as being "poured out" ("ekxeo") in our heart, but you draw an odd and counterintuitive set of causal connections. The passage begins at verse 1 with our justification by faith (as opposed to works). Paul then goes on with a series of consequences to this justification grounded in faith:
1. Peace with God,
2. Access by faith into the grace that gives us this standing before God
3. As a result of our new standing, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God
4. We even glory in tribulation, because tribulation produces certain effects:
a) patience, which produces
b) experience, which produces
c) hope
Now this hope is not like false hope. It has a sound basis in objective truth. No matter what happens to us in this life, we know where we stand with God. We know our hope in Him will not come up short. And here's the causal link: We know this because God's Holy Spirit has poured love into our hearts! Epistemologically, God gives us certainty.
By contrast, consider this:
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
(Proverbs 13:12)
Paul and Solomon are both addressing the inner workings of the human heart. In Solomon's case, he understands how hard it is to go on when we realize some dear hope we have will never, ever be realized. I have lived that. It can feel like dying. Solomon understood the heart well.
And so does Paul, in these equally inspired words. This new hope we have, being justified by faith, will not be deferred, but we have the indwelling Holy Spirit as the seal, the down-payment on the greater inheritance to come, and this living relationship, this love He pours out in our hearts, is not transitory as in the Old Covenant, but gives us a certainty of our standing before God.
And as if some Doubting Thomas might raise the objection that we don't really know if God loves us, Paul jumps right from our subjective experience of that love into objective proof of that love, how Christ in giving Himself for our sins shows that love unmistakably. We can, as those justified by faith, have absolute confidence in His love for us, and His protection of us from the divine wrath against sin which we so richly deserve. Our hope will not be disappointed.
So again this looks mainly like a false dilemma. There is no one here that I know of suggesting disobedience to Jesus. For myself at least, I am assuming that everyone here wants to obey Him. So that isn't even an issue. Nor is it even a question whether He uses His word to accomplish His purifying work among His people. Of course He does. No one is arguing against either of those propositions.
The problem comes in the added language, the extra baggage added to Scripture that isn't there. In the case of Campbellism, the added term would be this, that the Holy Spirit indwells by the word
only, and not as the Comforter, the Paraclete, the one who comes along side us, who prays for us in our stead, saying for us what we need to say to God when we can't even think of how to form the words, who pours the love of God into our hearts personally and individually, testifying to us of the reality of our blessed hope:
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
(Romans 8:16)
We don't say that we know how that works. But taking the surrounding context of the passage, it is obvious once again that Paul is describing a vital union that is based on an objective reality and has many happy subjective effects. It is a false dilemma to position those two things as if they were in conflict with one another. They are perfectly harmonious.
Are there those who abuse the Scriptural teachings on the indwelling of the Spirit? Sure. But just because a truth can be abused doesn't make it untrue. Are there things we don't understand about the workings of God's Spirit with the spirit of the believer? Absolutely. Does that give us an excuse to convert all those gaps in our knowledge into something more "manageable?" Probably not a good idea. It's one thing to try and explain the word, or to have thoughts about what it means. It's quite another thing altogether to take multiple passages and cancel their plain sense meaning in order to preserve some other doctrinal objective, whatever that might be. We don't have that authority. The Pharisees canceled out the plain sense of honoring mother and father by their "creative" Corban rule. Spiritually, that is a high risk area, and there isn't enough hazard pay in the world to make it worth my while to go there. Just sayin ...
Peace,
SR
Let me first say that I subscribe to neither Campbell nor Campbellism. Where Campbell stood with the Bible, he was right. Where he departed from it, he was wrong. My aim is to stand only with the Bible, as I trust yours is as well, my friend.
Let me also explain more fully my remarks on Romans 5:5, so you can at least understand me, and then agree or disagree.
What Paul says was shed abroad in our hearts is not the Holy Spirit, but the love of God. What are you talking about, Paul? What is this love of God?
It is all that God did for us. But let's first back up a bit. What is this hope we rejoice in? It's the hope of the glory of God - the glory which God has in store for the saints, I believe. (As in 9:19ff: "For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God...the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.")
Not only do we rejoice in that hope, but also in the tribulations, which work stedfastness. And in the stedfastness, which works approvedness. And in the approvedness, which works hope. All these things work to strengthen the hope of what's in store for us.
Nor does this hope put us to shame. Why? (I assume an ellipsis here.) Because God is reliable, and will keep His promise. As in 8:32ff: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?" If God has done even this, our hope is secure.
(The reason I assume such an ellipsis is that Paul explains our hope as resting on the basis of God's love. And if our hope rests on God's love, then something about that love gives surety to hope.)
In vv. 7-11, he tells of that great love. This "wonderful story of love" is the gospel Paul preached, as he was inspired by God through the Holy Spirit. In this way, this message of the love of God was shed abroad in hearts through the Holy Spirit. This is no man-made story. Anyone who reads and receives this message of God's love receives it of the Holy Spirit, because that's Who delivered it.
I hope that explains my earlier comments on 5:5. I'll try and address the rest of your post shortly.
After re-reading your post, I don't see much more to answer.
It's one thing to try and explain the word, or to have thoughts about what it means. It's quite another thing altogether to take multiple passages and cancel their plain sense meaning in order to preserve some other doctrinal objective, whatever that might be.
I applaud and share your commitment to fidelity to the Scriptures. If we're told one place that Christ dwells in us, and told in another place HOW Christ dwells in us, it seems to me we've been given the "plain sense meaning" of indwelling. Would you agree?
And if we're given the meaning, then those who insert a meaning of their own are the ones canceling the meaning God gave us.
Is it different with the Holy Spirit? If so, where does the Bible explain what this indwelling is? Does the Spirit dwell in the disciple the same way faith does (2 Tim. 1:5)? The same way God dwelt among the children of Israel (2 Cor. 6:16)? The same way the word of Christ dwells in the saints (Col. 3:16)?