#5

                                                       THE HOLY SPIRIT

   The Holy Spirit is often times misrepresented by ‘sincere’ and ‘good’ people and many different religious denominations. This misunderstanding of who or what is the Holy Spirit comes from a lack of Biblical study and understanding of what the Scriptures say about this wonderful doctrine of the Holy Spirit of God.

   Before we get into the study of what the Holy Spirit does, let us first of all establish ‘who’ the Holy Spirit is.

                                      I. WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD?

A. (John 14:16, 17, 26; 15:26; 16:7, 8, 13-15). First of all, the Holy Spirit of God is a ‘person’. Jesus Himself referred to the Holy Spirit as “he” and “him” several times when announcing the coming of the Holy Spirit in John’s Gospel.

B. (Genesis 1:2; I John 5:7) He is a member of the God Head. He took part in the creation, and is commonly referenced throughout the New Testament with the Father and The Son, making up the Trinity.

C. (Romans 8:27) The Holy Spirit has a ‘mind’.

D. (I Corinthians 12:11) The Holy Spirit has a ‘will’.

E. (Galatians 5:22-23) The Holy Spirit has ‘emotions’.

F. (John 14:16, 17, 26; I John 4:2) The Holy Spirit is referred to by several different names in the N.T.

                                      II. WHAT DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT DO?

A. (John 15:26; 16:13-15) The Holy Spirit has one primary function during this Church age, and that is to testify of, and glorify Jesus Christ. Those people and denominations that major on honoring and glorifying the Holy Spirit have it all wrong. The Holy Spirit is not to be glorified or majored on in any way in our worship or our daily Christian walk.

B. (II Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30) He seals us permanently to God.

C. (John 15: 18-19; 16:1-3) The Holy Spirit “comforts” the believers because if we truly live like Christians, the ‘world’ will hate us and persecute us. What did Jesus mean when He talked about “the world”? From a Christian prospectus, “the world” represents all the people, plans, organizations, activities, philosophies, values, etc. that belong to a society that is without God. From Scripture, we are warned “not to love the world” (I John 2:15-17), and also we are warned to “not be conformed to the world” (Romans 12:1-2).

   (Philippians 1:28-30; I Peter 4:12-14; II Corinthians 1:3-5) Again, the Holy Spirit “comforts” us by reminding us that although we might suffer some for the witness of Jesus Christ, our sufferings can bring us joy and happiness, and might end up giving someone else comfort and joy as well.

D. ((John 16:5-11) The Holy Spirit reproves the world through the believers. The word “reprove” is a legal word that means “to bring to light, to expose, to refute, to convict and convince”. The Holy Spirit works through us, the believers, to ‘witness’ to the world about Christ. We are the ‘witnesses’, the Holy Spirit is the ‘prosecuting attorney’.

E. (John 16:12-15) The Spirit of God is our teacher. He is our teacher in all Spiritual things. He teaches us the things we need to know when we need to know them, and when we are ready to receive them. Comparing (John 14:26) and (John 16:13) we can see the wonderful way that God arranged the writings of the N.T. Scriptures. The Spirit would remind them of what Jesus had taught them; this gave us the four Gospels. The Spirit would “guide” them into all truth; this gave us the Epistles. Then, He would “show them things to come”, this gave us the prophetic Scriptures, including the Book of Revelation.

                                           III. OTHER FUNCTIONS OF

                                                   THE HOLY SPIRIT

A. (John 16:13) He is our guide.

B. (Acts 10: 19-20) He should control who we witness too.

C. (Acts 13:2-4) He should be involved in the selection of leaders.

D. (John 6:63; Romans 8:11) He is the giver of life.

E. (Galatians 4:6) He affirms (to declare to be a fact) us to the Father.

F. (Acts 1:8) He empowers the believers to be witnesses for Christ.

   (John 15:26; 16:13-15) It is essential that we understand that the work of The Holy Spirit is never separated from the work and ministry of Jesus Christ. We often hear about people or denominations that seem to do some ‘crazy’ things that The Holy Spirit gets blamed for, but those ‘crazy’ things are contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. REMEMBER THIS TRUTH: In (John 14:6) Jesus proclaims Himself to be truth, and in the same conversation and context in (John 14:17) Jesus proclaimed that The Holy Spirit is The Spirit of truth and that The Holy Spirit would only bring forth that which is given to Him by the Father and The Son. Whenever the Holy Spirit is at work, Jesus Christ is also at work because they are of the same mind.

                          IV. THE CHRISTIAN AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

A. (Galatians 5:16) We as Christians are admonished to “walk in the Spirit”.

B. (Philippians 3:3) We are also admonished to “worship” in the Spirit.

C. (Acts 1:8) We are told to “witness” in the Spirit.

   As long as we live, or until the Lord returns for us, we will suffer persecution if we truly walk in the Spirit and be witnesses for Christ as we should. What is the secret to getting the victory? It is the presence and the power of The Holy Spirit of God and our obedience to Him.

God bless