Meet the Holy Spirit
Romans 8:1-11
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
I want to introduce you to the Holy Spirit. This topic is so vital that Scripture says: If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ (Rom 8:9). Yet this is a topic about which there are many questions, doubts, and confusion. I want to introduce you to the Holy Spirit and in the process answer questions, lessen the doubts, and overcome confusion. Let me introduce you to the Holy Spirit.
Why the questions, doubts, and confusion? Part of it is natural, almost necessary. There is always more of God than we can understand. “His ways are not our ways,” Isaiah said (55:8). If we understand everything about our God, then our God is a man-made God, an idol—a product of our imagination.
Another reason for the questions is the character of the kind of society we live in. We are programmed to be materialistic. We are led to believe that if we can’t touch it, see it, hear it, or taste it, then it is not real. Such a notion not only eliminates major portions of the creation God made, it is also quite unsatisfying. Our God put eternity in our hearts. We have a hunger for something more. Something that only the supernatural can satisfy.
Consider this quotation:
In our own time the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has aroused an interest which seems likely to grow and extend as attention is increasingly fixed on the spiritual side of human nature. It is possible that modern life, as it escapes from the control of crude materialism, may be led to seek the solution of its perplexities in the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit working in the world and in man. (H. B. Swete in the late 1800s: The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church, Baker reprint, 1966, p. 7).
This was true then and doubly true in the 21st century.
Some of the confusion also comes from the efforts of the Enemy to deceive, distract, and destroy the people of God. In our day, the combination of the hunger for something more coupled with an almost total ignorance of the Bible, far greater than in our grandparents’ day, has led many to be tossed about by every wind of doctrine, every claim of spiritual reality that blows down the pike (cf. Eph. 4:14).
Scripture warns, “that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (1 Tim 4:1). Jesus said that before his return, “false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible” (Mt. 24:24). Paul taught that the end times would be accompanied by “counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing” (2 Thess. 2:9-10).
Let me introduce the Holy Spirit. As with any would be friend or acquaintance, an introduction begins with the name. “John, let me introduce you to Bill. I think you will like him when you get to know him.”
Today I want to begin the introduction to the Holy Spirit by telling you his name, or I should say names. A careful reading of Scripture reveals seven names or titles for the Holy Spirit. Each teaches something vital about who he is and what he does.
Curiously the Bible associates the Holy Spirit with the number seven:
From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits£ of God. (Rev 4:5)
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
From his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
The Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and of power,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD— (Isa 11:2)
I take these to be references not to seven different Holy Spirits but as a poetic way of describing the fullness of the Spirit; something about his completeness. While the seven different names I will highlight do not exhaust what we can learn about the Holy Spirit, they are a beginning—an introduction.
Let me introduce the Holy Spirit---
The most common name is the Spirit of God.
First, let’s look at the word Spirit itself. Older English translations used the phrase Holy Ghost. Unfortunately this wording conjures up images of Casper and spooks. Such was not the original meaning of the term Ghost. Some derivations of the word relate it to our word “guest,” and unseen guest.
The old English Ghost, the term Spirit, and the Hebrew term (ruach) and the Greek term all have similar backgrounds. They all are related the terms for breath, breathing, breeze, or wind. Ghost came from older terms related to words like gasp. The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma. From it we get the medical term pneumonia and concepts like pneumatic tire.
For the ancients, breathe meant life. When a person stopped breathing, he died. Wind meant power and strength. When they sought a term for something powerful and invisible and beyond what they could control or explain, they often used this term we call spirit. It could be the spirit of man, and evil spirit, or the powerful wind of a cyclone. They didn’t mean that all of these were the same thing, simply that these were invisible mysteries.
Jesus would mingle these concepts in his figure of speech to Nicodemus: I tell you the truth; no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit (John 3:5-8).
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God—the unseen, personal, powerful presence of the Holy God of the Universe.
This concept begs us to talk about the Trinity. This manufactured term, not used in the Bible itself, is a short hand expression for describing what the Bible does teach about the character of God as he reveals himself. As He reveals himself---this is critical. It is not enough to worship God as we conceive him, or imagine him, or wish him to be. He is not simply “a higher power” open to our definition or conception. He is real; he is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. He is not a figment of our imaginations or a projection of our own desires. He is not, as Plato said of the Greek gods, our own shadows projected on the wall of the cave by the campfire. We simply bow in fear because our own shadows are bigger and more mysterious than reality. No! God is God. He alone can explain himself and his nature.
What he has revealed is that He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Not three different Gods, but distinct aspects (or personalities as the philosophers say) of one Personal God. This portrait of the Triune God is the God who always has been. All three aspects have always been there from eternity. Sometimes one seems more prominent, but all are there. The God of the Old Testament was not one sort of God and then the God of Jesus developed and then later the God of Pentecost became the Spirit.
This concept of the Triune God is important. It is at this point that many cults and false religions go totally wrong. Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, some Pentecostal groups, and Muslims, to mention only a few, are completely wrong at this very basic point about who God is and what he is like. They may use some of the same vocabulary and sound like the Bible, but the nature of the “god” they declare is very different from the God who has revealed himself in Christ and in scripture. This is not a matter of minor theological opinion. The very Gospel is at stake.
I cannot completely explain all that his means. I can simply declare that it is what the Bible teaches. If we can totally explain our God, then we are worshiping a God less than the God of the Bible. No illustration or analogy is completely helpful. There will always be something missing.
But let me use one illustration that may hopefully shed light on this complicated topic. I have here a particular object—a multicolored triangle. Let this stand for the God who has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three colors forming a unity. Is this the same god? (a single colored triangle) Or this? (a mult-colored non-triangle?) Or This? (A single colored bar) No, only this is God. The God who has revealed himself in scripture is God-the Father—God-the Son—God-the Holy Spirit. He is One God revealing himself in three Persons. He is not three different Gods. He is not one God who reveals himself in only one Person.
I want to insist again that this matters. In a world dominated by the Gospel according to Oprah---if it makes you feel good, it has to be right; and it if makes you feel bad it has to be wrong---it is hard for many to discern between the light of God’s truth and the darkness of deception.
Let me introduce the Holy Spirit---He is the Spirit of God. God himself present, powerful, personal, unseen, but yet very, very real. What does this mean? The God we serve is not a God who is way off somewhere, inaccessible, unapproachable, and unavailable. He is real and He is near! But he is also powerful. Don’t think for a minute that he is a genii in a bottle, there to perform your every whim. He is God. He is Lord.
This brings powerful light to the promises of Scripture:
“I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants” (Isa 44:3). Whose spirit, whose presence?
“A new heart I will give you, a new spirit I will put within you: and I will put my Spirit within you.” (Ezek. 36:26-27).
“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28).
The great Christian devotional writer Thomas A’ Kempis (1400’s) wrote of this in his classic The Imitation of Christ. We could do well learn this in our world. It is not the things God gives or does that satisfies our hungry hearts, but God himself, nothing less:
Thou, O lord my God, art above all things, the best; thou alone art most high, thou alone most powerful, thou alone most sufficient and most full, thou alone most sweet and most full of consolation. Thou alone are most lovely and loving, thou alone most noble and glorious above all things; in whom all good things together both perfectly are, and ever have been and shall be. And therefore it is too small, and unsatisfying, whatever thou bestowest on me beside thyself, or revealest unto me of thyself, or promisest whilst thou are not seen, nor fully obtained. For surely my heart cannot truly rest nor be entirely contented unless it rests in thee, and surmount all gifts and every creature. (Moody Press, p. 135-6).
Let me introduce the Holy Spirit. He is God. He is the Spirit of God.
The next name or title is more rare but of utmost importance. Let me introduce the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Jesus. Listen to the way Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit, “I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turnout for my deliverance” (Phil 1:19). Interestingly, the only other place in the New Testament where “the Spirit of Jesus” is used was at the occasion of the supernatural vision that directed Paul to Philippi, the very city where the readers of the previous statement lived, “When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to” (Acts 16:7). Similarly, in Romans 8:9, he says that anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not know Christ.
Romans 8:11 also clearly links the Holy Spirit with the resurrection power of Jesus. Throughout the New Testament, the Holy Spirit of God and the life, ministry, atoning death, and life-bringing resurrection are linked to the ministry of the Holy Spirit so closely that one cannot know the Spirit without knowing Jesus.
To be introduced to the Holy Spirit is to be introduced to Jesus and to be introduced to Jesus is to be introduced to the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught this himself. Consider two statements from Jesus--
John 14:16-20: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
Note closely a few of the words used by Jesus to describe the Holy Spirit: He terms the Holy Spirit, the Counselor; other translations use such words as Advocate or Comforter. Some translations even use the Greek word itself, simply turning it into English letters: Paraclete. The word literally meant “to call someone along side” or “someone who is called along side.” It was used of a defender in a court of law. It could be used of a friend who comes to your aid or of military re-enforcements that come to the aid of an embattled battalion. It is exactly the same idea that is meant when we use the term counselor to refer to an attorney or an advocate as in a child advocate, a legal representative of someone who is unable to defend himself.
The term Comforter seems a bit soft, but the key idea is there. It is meant to describe someone who is there to aid you in your need. The general phrase “heavenly helper” wouldn’t be far off the mark.
A second term used in this passage is instructive as well. Jesus said the Father would give us another Counselor. The Greeks had two terms that are translated by our one English term another. One meant, another but different. For example, in Galatians 1, Paul calls down judgment on those who preach another gospel. In 2 Cor. 11, he warns of those who preach another spirit, or another Jesus, or another Gospel. In each case, this word means another in a different way. But the term used by Jesus to speak of another Counselor means another just like the first. His emphasis is that the Holy Spirit will continue what Jesus started. He will bring heavenly help of the same sort Jesus brought. This is why we can refer to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus.
A third important word in John 14 is the term rendered orphans in vs. 18. The King James says, I will not leave you comfortless. The RSV says, I will not leave you desolate. The NIV term orphan is actually a literal rendering of the Greek word (orphanos). We are not orphans. Jesus didn’t live, die, go away and abandon us. We are not on our own. He is with us!
Consider a second passage in the same teaching occasion of Jesus:
John 16:7-14: But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt£ in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
Jesus explains what the role and ministry of the Holy Spirit will be. He will convict the world of sin and guide the church into all truth. But note that in both cases, the emphasis of what the Holy Spirit does is to spotlight Jesus, what he did and what he taught. The world will be convicted of sin because men do not believe in Jesus. The truth he leads to will be the instructions of Jesus.
This fact has led some to say correctly that the Holy Spirit is the “shy member of the trinity”. He doesn’t talk about himself; He talks about Jesus. He doesn’t call attention to himself; He calls attention to Jesus.
There are two subtle but deadly heresies afoot in the world that this concept corrects. First, to hear some talk the proof of spiritual maturity and vitality is based upon how much a believer or a church talks about the Holy Spirit. Not so. Where the Holy Spirit is at work, people talk about Jesus, what he did on the cross and what he taught. The spotlight of the Spirit’s ministry is to get people talking about Good Friday and Easter, not Pentecost. This is why in 1 Corinthians when Paul is trying to straighten out some terribly mixed up thinking about the Holy Spirit’s work, he starts by reminding them of the message of the cross (1:18-25). That will be true of us today as well. If we are Spirit filled and Spirit directed, we will overflow with Jesus talk, not Spirit talk.
Secondly, an emphasis on the Spirit of Jesus reminds us that the greatest thing God has for us has been provided in Jesus. Some sound like they are suggesting that in coming to Jesus and having a genuine personal relationship with him is insufficient, that God has something better for us if we will simply seek the Spirit. If we have the Spirit, we have something better or more than Jesus, so the reasoning goes. Not so! The Spirit’s work is to bring us to Jesus. In Colossians 2:9-10, Paul declares that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have this fullness in Christ.” He was attempting to correct a notion that there is something more and better than Jesus. The full Gospel is the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and the life of redemption and holiness that is produced by faith in that Gospel. Likewise, John warns of those who run ahead and do not continue in the teaching of Christ. He says they do not have God (2 John 9).
Let me introduce you to the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Jesus. His ultimate work is to bring you to Jesus, to the cross, and the resurrection, and to his teachings---and keep you there. He is the Spirit of Jesus.
Summary: We have considered two of the seven names of the Spirit. The Spirit of God---the personal, powerful, presence of the Living God working in and through us. The Spirit of Jesus—the continuing heavenly helper who calls attention to and reminds of what Jesus said and did in his earthly ministry.
Do you know this Holy Spirit? Is he working in you? Is the product of his ministry obvious and increasing? How do we get there . . . it is not by personal works or moral behavior, not religious ritual (not even baptism), not by seeking some spectacular supernatural manifestation, not by some deep emotional experience. It begins and ends somewhere else. Listen to Eph 1:13-14: 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
