The Holy Spirit Lord's Day 20

LORD'S DAY 20

53 Q. What do you believe  concerning "the Holy Spirit"?

A. First, He, as well as the Father and the Son,  is eternal God.

Second, He has been given to me personally, so that, by true faith,

He makes me share in Christ and all His blessings, comforts me, and remains with me forever.

John 14:16-31   Allos Paracletos    και αλλον παρακλητον δωσει υμιν

The Holy Spirit is a Divine Person.

Matthew 3:16-17, 28:19,20, 2Cor 13:14

John14-16 a Person, one with the Father and Christ

Allos: Another Same  heteros: another different.

The Holy Spirit indwells every Christian

What is the role of the Holy Spirit? What does he actually do?

There are many valid biblical answers to that question. The Spirit:

• Regenerates us (John 3:6–7)

• Convicts us (John 16:8)

• Empowers us with gifts (1 Cor. 12:4 –7)

• Testifies in our hearts that we are God's children (Gal. 4:6)

• Leads us (Gal. 5:18, 25)

• Makes us fruitful (Gal. 5:22–23)

• Grants and nurtures in us resurrection life (Rom. 8:11)

• Enables us to kill sin (Rom. 8:13)

• Intercedes for us when we don't know what to pray (Rom. 8:26–27)

• Guides us into truth (John 16:13)

• Transforms us into the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18)

These are all gloriously true. In this chapter I'd like to add just one more to this list: the Spirit causes us to actually feel Christ's heart for us.  The Spirit makes the heart of Christ real to us: not just heard, but seen; not just seen, but felt; not just felt, but enjoyed.

Accept the Comfort of the Holy Spirit "παρακλητον  - paracletos"

1. He is the START of the Christian's life

4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy,

God the Father thought the gospel.

God the Holy Spirit wrought in our hearts.

God the Son brought the gospel.

THE MIRACLE OF THE NEW BIRTH

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age…3:3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

sin affected us intellectually,  morally. socially

THE MYSTERY OF THE NEW BIRTH

THE MEANS OF THE NEW BIRTH

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,6 whom He poured out upon us richly

J. I. Packer defines "Regeneration, or new birth, is an inner re-creating of fallen human nature by the gracious sovereign action of the Holy Spirit"

God the Son brought the gospel

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

THE MARKS OF THE NEW BIRTH

8 This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.

A New Practice

A New Passion

THE MUST OF THE NEW BIRTH

 

 

1. He is the SOURCE of the Christian's knowledge

The Spirit takes what we read in the Bible and believe on paper about Jesus's heart and moves it from theory to reality, from doctrine to experience. It is one thing, as a child, to be told your father loves you. You believe him. You take him at his word. But it is another thing, unutterably more real, to be swept up in his embrace, to feel the warmth, to hear his beating heart within his chest, to instantly know the protective grip of his arms. It's one thing to hear he loves you; it's another thing to feel his love. This is the glorious work of the Spirit.

In John 14 –16 Jesus explains the work of the Spirit as an extension of his own work. And he says that the time in which he himself has left but the Spirit has come is a superior blessing to his people. Notice carefully the flow of thought in John 16 as Jesus makes this point:

John 16:12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Remember, the Spirit is a person. He can be grieved, for example (Isa. 63:10; Eph. 4:30). What would it look like to treat him as such in our actual lives? What might it look like to open up the vents of our hearts to receive the felt love of Christ as fanned into warm flame by the Holy Spirit? We bear in mind here that the Spirit will never fan the flames of the felt love of Christ beyond the degree to which Christ actually loves us; that is impossible. The Spirit simply causes our apprehension of Christ's heartful love to soar closer to what it actually is.

This is why, in another place, Paul says that "we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God" (1 Cor. 2:12). To grasp the role of the Holy Spirit, according to this text, we must bear in mind that the Greek word underlying understood (oida) should not be restricted to merely intellectual apprehension.

This verb simply means "to know," and as is generally the case with the Bible's language of epistemology, knowing here is something holistic—not less than intellectual apprehension, but more. It is experiential knowing, the way you know the sun is warm when you stand with your face raised to the sky on a cloudless warm day.

Paul is saying that the Spirit has been given to us in order that we might know, way down deep, the endless grace of the heart of God. "Freely given" in this text is simply the verb form (charizomai) of the common Greek word for "grace" (charis). The Spirit loves nothing more than to awaken and calm and soothe us with the heart knowledge of what we have been graced with.

The Spirit's role, in summary, is to turn our postcard apprehensions of Christ's great heart of longing affection for us into an experience of sitting on the beach, in a lawn chair, drink in hand, enjoying the actual experience. The Spirit does this decisively, once and for all, at regeneration. But he does it ten thousand times thereafter, as we continue through sin, folly, or boredom to drift from the felt experience of his heart.

 

2. He is the SPRING of the Christian's joy

But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, "Where are you going?" But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:5–7)

What is the advantage of the Spirit coming? The natural reading is that he will rectify something that is wrong. And what is wrong? "Sorrow has filled your heart" (John 16:6). Apparently the coming of the Spirit will do the opposite: fill their hearts with joy. The Spirit replaces sorrow with joy.

The disciples were sorrowful because Jesus was leaving them. He had befriended them and embraced them into his heart, so they thought that Jesus leaving meant Jesus's heart leaving—but the Spirit is the answer to how Jesus can leave them bodily while leaving his heart behind. The Spirit is the continuation of the heart of Christ for his people after the departure of Jesus to heaven.

Reflecting on this passage in John 16, Goodwin presses into the marrow of what Jesus is saying to his disciples: "My father and I have but only one friend, who lies in the bosom of us both, and proceeds from us both, the Holy Ghost, and in the meantime I will send him to you. . . . He shall be a better Comforter unto you than I am to be. . . . He will comfort you better than I. He shall tell you, if you will listen to him, and not grieve him, nothing but stories of my love. . . . All his speech in your hearts will be to advance me, and to greaten my worth and love unto you, and it will be his delight to do it."2 Goodwin then makes the explicit connection to Christ's heart:

So that you shall have my heart as surely and as speedily as if I were with you; and he will be continually breaking your hearts, either with my love to you, or yours to me, or both. . . . He will tell you, when I am in heaven, that there is as true a conjunction between me and you, and as true a dearness of affection in me towards you, as is between my Father and me, and that it is as impossible to break this knot, and to take off my heart from you, as my Father's from me.

 

• 4. He is the SECRET of the Christian's victory

The Holy Spirit designs to make you Holy.

Do Not Grieve the Spirit of God

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

 

Do Not Quench the Spirit of God

14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.16 Rejoice always,17 pray without ceasing,18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.19 Do not quench the Spirit.20 Do not despise prophecies,21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.22 Abstain from every form of evil.

 

 

Do Not Neglect the Work of God

2 Tim 1: .6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.