God The Holy Spirit

Now, once again, I find myself in a bit of a quandary with regard to our reading inasmuch as the whole chapter is very relevant, as indeed are other chapters in the Bible, that time is at a premium, and so I'm going to read only up to the twenty-third verse, and perhaps you would like to read the remaining verses later on in your own time. The sixteenth chapter of John's Gospel, and the scene is the upper room where the Saviour is instructing his disciples, and he says, And ye may remember that I told you of them, and these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go my way to him that sent me, and none of you asketh me whither goest thou.

But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.

But if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me.

Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more. Of judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will show you things to come.

He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine. Therefore said I that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you a little while, and ye shall not see me.

And again a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he saith unto us, a little while, and ye shall not see me? And again a little while, and ye shall see me, and because I go to the Father. They said therefore, What is this that he saith, a little while? We cannot tell what he saith.

Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, a little while, and ye shall not see me? And again a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice. And ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come.

But as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Amen. Well, then we come to what I think Campbell Morgan would have called our penultimate study on the doctrine of God, at least for this particular session.

And it is our concern this evening to focus our attention upon the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And, of course, following the whole sequence, the whole tenor of our studies, I am concerned this evening particularly to think about the deity of the Holy Spirit. After all, this is what we have been looking at from Scripture during these last few weeks, the doctrine of God, and then we have come to think about the persons in the Godhead.

I have on several occasions referred to the fact that the Christian church has always taught that God exists in three persons, each of which, though independent of the other, is nonetheless the same. Something that is illogical as far as the human mind is concerned, and something that we accept because it is revealed to us from the Word of God. And Christian people have a sort of mental humility when it comes to illogical problems.

We recognize that God's ways are not our ways, and it is not surprising to us, therefore, to come across certain concepts that we cannot fully grasp. And where we do not understand, there we exercise faith, believing that one day even those things which we can't fully comprehend will be fully revealed to us. So we have been looking, as I say, at this glorious doctrine, the doctrine of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Each of the persons exists together as a unity, in a loving atmosphere where there is no enmity, where there is no rivalry, where one loves the other, and where each one has the same underlying purpose and thoughts as the other. There is no attempt to vie with one another for preeminence or for supremacy. Here in the Godhead, I say, is an atmosphere of pure and absolute love.

And we have seen something of the cooperation of the members of the Trinity in certain stages of the creation of the world, and also particularly in connection with the achieving of redemption for believing mankind. You remember how John puts it in the third Gospel, in the third chapter of the Gospel that bears his name, for God so loved the world that he sent. It was God's purpose to redeem.

It was the Son's purpose to be willing to do those things which the Father asked of him. And you remember how in that incredible hour when Jesus Christ became sin for us, when he gave up the ghost, it was the Holy Spirit who raised him from the dead in the power of an endless life. And according to Paul in Romans chapter 1 and verse 4, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the final proof, the final attestation that he is indeed divine, and that his offering of his own body on the cross of Calvary was acceptable to the Father as a ransom for the sins of the world.

And notice how I said that the Holy Spirit was involved in this, the Spirit who raises Jesus from the dead. And I want to focus your attention particularly now upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit, thinking about his divine nature and about his co-equality within the Godhead. And I shall not just direct your attention to the Old Testament, but to the New Testament as well.

And let me say this, that because my time is limited, I shall only be dealing with the doctrine of the Spirit really on a theological, almost, dare I use the word, on an academic front. I trust it will go beyond this. But there is so much that one needs to say about the Holy Spirit and about the experience of the Holy Spirit.

But a great deal of that will be left unsaid this evening. What I want to do is to draw your attention to the fact that the Holy Spirit is a person within the Godhead. He is God the Holy Spirit with personality, God the Holy Spirit who is by very definition divine.

And it's necessary for us to concentrate our attention upon this, because the doctrine of the Spirit has often been neglected. That was the case in the history of the early church. If you read the writings of people who are known as the early fathers in the first three centuries, that is people who led the early church in the first three to five centuries, I would go so far as to say, and you will see almost a total neglect of the person of the Holy Spirit.

They recognized his work, but it took it seems quite some time before they fully comprehended the scriptural teaching as to the nature and the position and the independence of God the Holy Spirit. So as this error was made in the early centuries of the Christian church, it behoves us today in the twentieth century to learn from the mistakes of our forefathers and to recognize the full scriptural doctrine of the deity of the Holy Spirit. And it's particularly important for us to do so today, because on the periphery of Christianity there are the sects, religious deviations, the teachings for example of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Christadelphians, and so on and so forth.

And these people when they deal with the doctrine of the Spirit, again they deny his essential personality, they speak of him as being an influence, that they speak of him just in terms of a power with no personality of his own. Well, I must correct this, and I must show you that from these scriptures we can make only one conclusion, that God the Holy Spirit is indeed the third person of the Trinity, co-equal with the Father and with the Son. Well, I said to you that I was going to deal with the Old Testament and with the New Testament.

I mean by the verb to deal, to sample the contents of both parts of the Bible. And what do we learn in the Old Testament with regard to the Holy Spirit? Well, I find it very interesting that the Hebrew word that we translate as the spirit in the English language would also sustain the translation breath or wind. And we read of the power of God and the workings of God on this earth, sometimes in terms of him breathing upon something or blowing with his wind.

We hear of God breathing into man the breath of life, and man becomes a living soul. We hear of God moving upon the face of the waters. This is in the eighth chapter of Genesis, and the waters recede back to their original boundaries, and Noah in his ark is allowed to land and his family re-inhabit the earth.

So, in the Old Testament we come across such terms as the breath of God and the wind of God, and they relate to the work of the Holy Spirit on the earth. And again, as far as the terminology is concerned, in the first part of the Bible, we read of the third person of the Godhead in such terms as the Spirit and the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Lord. And strangely enough, it's only as far as I could discover on two occasions in the Old Testament whether the Spirit is qualified with the adjective holy, the Holy Spirit, and the references to that I have given you in your notes.

I think this is important, but it's importance I will endeavour to bring out in ten minutes or so's time. In the Old Testament, therefore, we come across terminology that refers to the third person of the Godhead, and as I say, these terms are sometimes the Spirit and the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Lord. And then, very often, as we would anticipate if the Holy Spirit is the third member of the Godhead, we read about His power, about His work, about His influence in the world that has been created.

And right at the beginning of the Bible, in the first chapter and in the second verse, we read of the operation of the Holy Spirit in the phenomenal work of creation. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now that's very interesting.

There are other parallel scriptures that say the same. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. You say, but we read something like that, something similar to that when dealing with the doctrine of the Son, of the deity, of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Precisely so. There He was at the beginning of time, operative in the bringing about of this world, in the construction of the universe. And again, you see the cooperation of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all acting together to bring about the phenomenon of life as we now know it.

And then other attributes of God are said to belong to the Holy Spirit. For example, the psalmist tells us that the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. The Holy Spirit has all power.

He says in the 139th Psalm, Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? As we conceded dealing with the doctrine of God the Father, that the Father has all power, that His influence circumnavigates the world, so the Old Testament tells us does the power of the Holy Spirit. He also is omnipotent. And there are other scriptures which suggest He is omniscient.

That means that He has all knowledge. Again, the very attributes that we acknowledge as being part of what we would expect of God. And these, I say, are directed, they are recognized as being part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

But you know, something that's thrilled my soul in studying the doctrine of the Spirit in the Old Testament has been the involvement of the Holy Spirit in the affairs of individual men and women. Now I appreciate through my knowledge of the New Testament and through my understanding of the doctrine of salvation that the work of the Spirit is imperative. It is the Spirit who convinces men and women of the truths of the gospel, who convicts them of their sinfulness, who commissions them to serve the Lord Jesus.

All this I was aware of in the New Testament. But you know, the antecedents of this are found back in the Old Testament. There is a prefiguring of all that the Holy Spirit is said to do in the New Testament in the pages of the Old.

And we see the Holy Spirit operative in the world, convicting men and women of sin. You remember how God's word comes to Noah before the world is flooded. And he warns, he tells Noah to warn the people of his day, his contemporaries, that the way that they are living will merit the judgment of God.

But what is the phrase that the Lord uses when he informs Noah of this? My spirit will not always strive with man. What does this mean? My spirit will not always come and work upon man and endeavor to convince him, to convict him of his sinfulness. When he continues to rebel, when he continues to reject, says God the Father, the work of my spirit, then man indeed is in a very terrible predicament.

He is in a very dreadful position. So I say that the Holy Spirit, even in the days of the Old Testament, is recognized as being the convicting factor in bringing about the salvation of the folks who lived within the Old Testament dispensation. You get another classic example of this in the New Testament, actually, in the book of Hebrews.

Again, there's not time for me to explain it fully, but in the third chapter of the book of Hebrews there's a back reference to something that happened centuries before in the history of the Hebrew people. It refers to the time when the Hebrews were rebelling against Moses and rebelling against God in the wilderness of Sinai. And if you read that chapter very carefully, you will again see that it was the Holy Spirit who was being rejected in His operations by the people.

The Spirit who was convicting, but it was the selfsame Spirit that the people were rejecting. And again, I say it underlines the fact, does this example, that the Holy Spirit was involved in the lives of individuals in the Old Testament era. And then again, in working this, in developing this theme out, let me concede that I was aware of the way that the Holy Spirit empowers a man for service in the Christian era, in the Christian dispensation.

But that is not something that is completely new to the New Testament. You find it also in the Old Testament. It is when the Spirit comes upon a man that a man is enabled to serve God.

And there are many homely illustrations in the Old Testament that show how the Holy Spirit comes upon ordinary men and women and empowers them to serve God. I even make reference from the Old Testament to such a homely thing as making a dress, such a homely thing as constructing some ornament. And we read that as the Hebrews were making the garments for the priests, as the craftsmen were constructing ornaments that were to be used in the tabernacle, so the Holy Spirit came upon them and qualified them to do this sterling service for God.

When you read through Judges and particularly center your attention upon the experience of Samson, you will find that it is the Holy Spirit who comes upon Samson and gives him his unique strength, his ability to offset the attacks of the Philistines as they make inroads into the Israelite territory. When you read on in your Bible into the book of Samuel, you'll find that it is the Holy Spirit who inspires men of God to prophesy. The Holy Spirit comes upon Saul, the first king of Israel.

And Saul is enabled to prophesy so much so that people were saying, is Saul also among the prophets? And later on in the same book, we find that the Holy Spirit comes upon David and qualifies him, marks him out as being the successor of Saul, the next king of Israel. And so one could go on, but sufficient, I think, has been brought to your attention from the Old Testament to show you how the Holy Spirit in those days was involved with men and women, involved with the world as a whole, yes, but involved with ordinary people as individuals. And let's go into the New Testament and what do we find there? Well, of course, it's impossible to exhaust the teaching in terms of a five or seven-minute study, but there in the New Testament, let me point out certain things that strike me as being very interesting and important for us to remember and to reflect upon.

And it is in the second part of the Bible that the word, the adjective holy is employed so often in describing the Spirit. Now, I said before that I found that to be interesting. Let me develop my point.

In the Old Testament, who is referred to mainly as being holy? God. The prophet Isaiah often speaks in the name of the Holy One of Israel. For thus saith the High and Holy One, who inhabiteth eternity.

And so on and so forth. But in the New Testament, that adjective holy is taken and it is used to qualify the Spirit. And what point do you think that I'm making from that? Well, simply to show you that here is a further indication of the co-equality of the Spirit with the Father.

The Father is holy, and so is the Spirit. Of course, they're of the same essence. They are one, and yet they have a different ministry.

And the New Testament writers take this adjective used so often in the Old Testament, and they apply it to the Holy Spirit. And it's very interesting to work out the impact that the Holy Spirit had, the influence that He had in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember right at the beginning of the Gospel story, we read of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in connection with Mary.

This virgin, this one who is engaged to Joseph is informed that of all the maidens in Israel, she is the one elected by God to bring out from her womb the Messiah, the Son of God. But listen to the lovely language that's employed to describe how this conception shall come about. I'm referring to Luke's Gospel chapter 1 and verse 35.

The angel answered and said unto Mary, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Again notice it's the Holy Spirit whose work was vital to the conception by Mary of the Christ child.

And throughout the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, recognition is given to the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit anoints the Saviour at His baptism in the river Jordan. And John's Gospel makes a very intriguing remark when it tells us that the Spirit was given to Jesus not with measure.

In other words He had an eternal supply, an abundant supply of the Spirit. And in a tremendous fashion, as you know as well as I do, the Saviour was empowered to perform great miracles and His teaching was sublime. And one sees in the empowerment of the Spirit in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, again, the unity of the Trinity underlined.

The Spirit and the Son and the Father working together in cooperation for what? To achieve the redemption of believing mankind. And when you read on in the New Testament and you come to the book that records the exploits of the early church, we again find that the Holy Spirit is instrumental even in the very institution of the church. On the day of Pentecost 120 followers of Jesus were in Jerusalem waiting upon the Lord.

They'd been engaged in meditation and reflection for quite a period of time. Then the Holy Spirit comes upon them. What happens on that occasion? Certain things that were unique.

Certain remarkable experiences. Paul comments on it when writing to the Corinthians. He says, by one Spirit were you all baptized into one body.

Here is the inception of the Christian church. An inception as I say brought about by the Holy Spirit. And what do we find as far as the disciples are concerned in their ministry? That they're empowered.

They are new men. In one sense I think I could argue but I haven't time to sustain my argument here. But I think I could make out a case that the thing that transformed the disciples from their doubts, from their fears, was not so much the resurrection, although that must have had a tremendous impact upon them, not so much the resurrection as the receipt of the Holy Spirit.

Ye shall receive power. After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And that they were empowered, that they were transformed is obvious as you read the opening chapters of this dynamic book, the Acts of the Apostles.

We see not so much the Acts of the Apostles but the Acts of the Holy Ghost as the Holy Spirit falls upon men and uses men for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. So, this is a very wonderful thing that the Holy Spirit is acknowledged in the teaching of the New Testament as having great importance in the ministry of evangelism and in empowering men and women. Indeed, without the Holy Spirit's operation salvation would be impossible.

Let me read to you a striking verse from the 16th chapter of John's Gospel which we considered earlier. The 8th verse. Jesus is referring to the ministry of the Spirit and he says, When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

And it's very interesting to notice that when Paul preaches before Felix, anointed by the Holy Spirit, the Apostles' words are used to convict Felix and he trembles as Paul reminds him of righteousness and of judgment to come. The Holy Spirit, I say, is vital to the work of evangelism. His work is vital to bring men and women to a knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, without receiving the Spirit it is impossible. It is impossible to belong to Jesus. For we read in Romans chapter 8 and the 9th verse that it is only as a man has received the Spirit of Christ that he can truly be recognized and acknowledged as a follower of the Savior.

Well, let's rush on and I notice I have only 3 or 4 minutes to deal with other important aspects of this doctrine of the Spirit. And we might well ask ourselves, is the Spirit personal? And the answer to the question is most definitely in the affirmative. But why does the question need asking? Well, you see, personality is easily associated with such terms as the Father and the Son.

But because the word Spirit seems to suggest an influence and a power, there are certain people today who are with us as they were in the days of the emerging early church who seem to think of the Holy Spirit just in terms of an influence, the power of God without any separate personality. And we would reject this notion. And why do we do this? Well, again, because of the teaching of the Old Testament and of the New Testament.

And in the second part of the Bible, we read of the Holy Spirit in terms of a person. Again, the 16th chapter of John's Gospel is vital for a study of this particular aspect of the Holy Spirit. When the Lord refers to the third person of the Godhead, He says, when He is come verse 8 of the 16th chapter, and that is a personal pronoun in the Greek language.

When He is come He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness. The Savior didn't say when it is come, but when He is come. And again He indicates the personality of the Spirit by the very lovely term that He employs to describe His ministry.

He says when the Comforter, again in the original, the Paracletos is come. And it's very interesting to note that the Savior refers to the Spirit in terms of the Comforter and not just comfort. You see, comfort is something abstract.

Comfort, if you like, is a sort of influence. It's a sense of well-being. And the Savior doesn't say that.

He doesn't use the neuter. He uses the personal noun here. He says when the Comforter is come.

And I say by using such language, the Savior clearly testifies to the fact that the Holy Spirit is indeed a person in His own right. And in the Old Testament and the New Testament we read of the characteristics of the Spirit. Genesis chapter 6 and verse 3, the Spirit of God strives with men and women.

We referred to that earlier. In Luke's Gospel we read of the Spirit teaching In the Acts of the Apostles we read of the Spirit speaking. In Romans chapter 8 you read of the Spirit healing.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 2 you read of the Spirit revealing and searching the hearts of men and women. And then sometimes you read of the Holy Spirit in relationship to the other persons of the Trinity. For example it's, what, the last chapter of Matthew's Gospel where we read the instructions given to the disciples to go into all the world and to preach the Gospel.

And they are to baptize men and women in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Again, you can't argue against this. The New Testament's clear teaching that the Holy Spirit is a separate person, a separate entity within the Godhead.

In John's Gospel, in the 16th chapter, we've seen how the Lord Jesus Christ refers to the Holy Spirit as someone else different from Himself. And yet in that uncanny, illogical manner that we can only associate with the doctrine of the Trinity, the Lord says although the Spirit is different in one very real sense when He is come, I also have come. This is what the disciples didn't understand.

The 13th and the 14th verses indicate the teaching of the Saviour and the following verses their reaction. Let me read them to you again. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself.

And then the 14th verse, He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. And the 16th verse, a little while, and ye shall not see Me. Again, and a little while, and you shall see Me.

And in that very verse, in the 16th verse, the Saviour seems to put the Spirit in juxtaposition with Himself. It's true in one sense as the Saviour, I'm going away from you. You'll see Me no more.

But in another sense it's gloriously true that when the Holy Spirit comes you will see Me. Now again I say that logically you can't work it out. It all relates back to the doctrine of the Trinity.

These three divine persons separate, and yet the same. A different identity, and yet a common purpose. So that we realize, we appreciate the doctrine of the Trinity in terms of the one in three and the three in one.

Well the last question that I put down on my notes was, is the Holy Spirit divine? And surely I've suggested enough of the teaching of the Old and the New Testament tonight to support the contention that most surely He is. The Holy Spirit has divine attributes. He existed before the beginning of the world, responsible for creation with the Father and with the Son.

The Holy Spirit is omniscient. The Holy Spirit is omnipotent. The same adjective as we've noticed, described that describes the Father, also describes Him.

So close is He to Jesus Christ that sometimes the Saviour seems to be referring to Himself when He alludes to the Holy Spirit. But, and with this point I shall conclude, the most convincing evidence of the deity of the Holy Spirit is His cooperation with the rest of the Godhead in bringing about salvation. Do you know there's a very glorious verse in the New Testament that alas is not very often noted by Christians, and we're the poorer because we've failed to observe it.

It's found in Hebrews the ninth chapter and the fourteenth verse. And the reference is to the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and His shed blood as being the means whereby men and women are redeemed. But listen to how the writer of the Hebrew epistle refers to this teaching.

He says, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spark to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Did you notice that expression? Jesus Christ offers His blood through the eternal Spirit. The eternal Spirit.

The Spirit who has no beginning and no ending. As God the Father. As God the Son.

So God the Spirit. God the Father sends a Son into the world to die on the cross. The Son is willing.

He is obedient. But the blood of the Son is offered to the Father through the Spirit as being the means whereby atonement shall come to men and women. I tell you this is glorious teaching.

As indeed is the comment by the Apostle Paul to which reference has already been made. When Paul alludes to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the reference you recall is in Romans chapter one and verse four. He credits to the Holy Spirit the miracle of the resurrection.

Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead by the Spirit of holiness. And again you see the marvellous unity in the teaching of the Bible in connection with the persons of the Godhead. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

All pre-existent. All independent. All having a separate work to do and yet all miraculously uniquely incomprehensibly the same.

Magnificent teaching. And if I can express myself so clearly that you can grasp what I'm saying. The marvel is that something that to us is so illogical.

The doctrine of the Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is continued throughout the whole of the Bible and is explained in terms of the one in three and the three in one. And from the Old Testament right through into the New Testament the same teaching is found.

And this to me is a confirmation of all that I've ever believed about the Godhead. It's not just one passage of Scripture taken out of context as so often the sects are guilty of doing. It's the whole council of God that brings us to this conclusion inexorably that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are co-equal.

They're different and yet they're the same. You can't understand it. You can only accept it.

But in every book of the Bible virtually certainly in both sections of the Bible you have the teaching brought before you time and time again of the persons of the Godhead. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity ever existing.

Ever having a loving attitude towards men and women. Ever combining to bring about the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And even today the Holy Spirit convicts men and women of their sinfulness and by the shed blood of Jesus reconciles them with the Father and brings believers into the very family of God making them to be children of the living God.

Well what shall we say to all these things? Thanks be unto God for His gift of salvation. Thanks be unto God for His revelation of Himself within His Word. How great is a God that we adore.

Amen.