Summary
Notes
Transcript
Jesus, I pray that you would teach us. Spirit, I pray that you would illuminate what happens here this evening. May our ears be opened. May our eyes be opened. May our hearts be receptive. In your name we pray. Amen. So, as I mentioned, review. In week one, we tackled the identity, the personhood, and the deity of the Holy Spirit. And the central truth of week one, the main thing that I was hoping that we would all walk away from, is that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force.
He is not a mystical power or a temporary experience. He is a divine person, the third person of the triune Godhead, meaning that he is fully God, co-equal with the Father and the Son. And that was the main thrust of week one. And so then in week two, last week, we started to deal with misconceptions of that central truth. And what we were really tackling was if the Holy Spirit is truly a divine person,
Holy God, and yet distinct from the Father and the Son, how should that change the way we speak about him, worship him, listen to him, and respond to him? What we came to was that the proper Christian response should neither be neglect, meaning we shouldn't reduce the Holy Spirit down to this hyper-rationalistic, cold, callous, just doctrinal textbook topic, But neither should it be sensationalism.
We shouldn't be given over to emotional experience. We shouldn't be given over to the overwhelming, just temporary fleeting emotions that people often claim go along with the Holy Spirit. But instead, our response should be reverence, fellowship, submission, discernment, gratitude, and worship. Because really, the two errors that we were looking to correct last week And we talked about many misconceptions, but they kind of boil down to these two camps, is either reducing the Holy Spirit or using the Holy Spirit as a supernatural power source or as a tool, in our tool build, to accomplish our own will.
From both the time of creation to the new creation, Scripture presents the Holy Spirit as actively accomplishing the purposes of God. And we're going to come back to that phrasing, accomplishing the purposes of God. He creates, he sustains, he restrains, he reveals, he magnifies, he convicts, he regenerates, he baptizes, indwells, seals, sanctifies, illuminates, intercedes, gifts, and empowers. All of those are verbs attributed to the Holy Spirit in Scripture.
Week one kept us from reducing him to divine energy or force or impersonality, but that doesn't mean that we should overcorrect. And say, well, therefore, he's not forceful. He's not powerful. The personhood of the Holy Spirit does not diminish his power. His personhood tells us who his power is. And so if you look at your sheets, the two themes that we're going to be trying to tackle tonight is the Spirit gives life.
And the Spirit magnifies Christ. The Spirit gives life. And the Spirit magnifies. magnifies Christ. So, when we ask the question, what does the Holy Spirit actually do? To be honest with you, there is essentially no part of the Christian life that could exist without the Holy Spirit. I'll say that again. There is essentially no part of the Christian life that could exist without the Holy Spirit. There is no aspect of the Christian life in which the Holy Spirit is considered irrelevant.
Don't check me on my pronunciation. Ruach. And I was listening to a MacArthur sermon earlier this week, and it got me so fired up. Because Ruach... It literally means breath. It literally means wind. It literally means spirit. OK? You're like, well, that's what gets you fired up. You're like, really boring. But it wasn't just the fact of the literal sense of what those words mean. It's the context in which Ruach is used.
And listening to MacArthur, it really struck me because he illuminated this a little bit more. This is not just some... Okay, gentle whispering. This is a powerful breath. This is force in motion with Ruach. It is the animating energy. I was looking at this just before we came here. I was trying to cram in. Blue Letter Bible, if you guys haven't heard of it, highly recommend it. It has interlinear concordances, allows you to do word studies and look at this.
And literally this word Ruach is animating energy. And so the Spirit of God hovering over the surface of the waters, this is the animating energy of God, the Spirit. He is the Spirit of God. And so looking at creation, one of the things that I want to use as an example here is that the creation was a Trinitarian act. That's the fill in the blank on your sheets. Creation is a Trinitarian act. Looking at Genesis 1, 1 through 3, John 1, 1 through 3, Colossians 1, 16, and Psalm 104, 30, we see this picture starting to emerge.
The Son creates. The Son is created. In the beginning was the Word. And so, continuing on from Genesis 1, 1 into Genesis 1, 2, the Spirit of God was hovering. Looking at Psalm 104, 30, it says, You send forth your Spirit, they are, created. Job 33.4, the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Creation. It's so easy to look at Genesis 1, 1-3 and say, in the beginning, God, God created.
Historically speaking, when we think about the Trinity, the Trinity is inseparable. The works of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are the works of one God. And yet we see in Scripture personal distinctions within that unified work. And so the formula that I tried to give you here on your sheets Creation proceeds from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit or by the Holy Spirit. The Father purposes, the Father has the will to create.
Now, real quickly, common doesn't mean... or unimportant, what it means is it's commonly given. It's commonly given. So to say it differently, common grace is God's undeserved goodness broadly experienced by fallen humanity. It's even by those who neither worship him nor acknowledge him. So if you're looking at your sheet, it's God's undeserved goodness broadly experienced throughout humanity. Fallen humanity.
Matthew 5.45 says, God causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. We all woke up today with breath in our lungs, right? We all woke up. Hopefully to a sun shining. We all had another day. Believers in the room, unbelievers in the room. Really good church pastors and evil, despot dictators. God causes his son to rise on the evil and the good.
It's common grace. Other examples of common grace. We've already talked about life. Food. A common grace. Family. Friendship. The ability to experience beauty or creativity, music, knowledge, government, social order. None of those things I just mentioned save any of us. Just because I'm friends with Melissa, she's not getting me into heaven, no matter how nice Melissa is. Government's certainly not getting us into heaven, no matter how hard they try.
Creation itself is not a gift of common grace. It can't be because it exists if it were a fault. But after Genesis 3, humanity rebels, and yet we still see the sun continue to rise. Children are still born. Crops still grow. Automatically, just the fact that God didn't say, peace out, I'm done, I'm withdrawing my spirit, we already have the introduction of this category of grace. This spirit continues to sustain.
Through Genesis 1 comes Genesis 3. Sin enters, death enters, humanity rebels against its creator. And yet, human evil does not immediately reach its fullest possible expression. Why? God is restraining it. Genesis 26, God speaking to Abimelech, which was one of the kings in the Old Testament. This particular scene... I believe Abimelech had taken Sarah into his household, and God afflicts Pharaoh's household, or the king's household, with a whole bunch of things that were going on.
And he's like, what happened? Well, God comes to Abimelech in Genesis 26 and says, I also kept you from sinning against me, which is actually pretty remarkable. In this particular case, we see that God does not merely judge or forgive sins after they happen. In this passage, we see that God explicitly is saying that he prevented a sinful action. This is not the only place that we see this. Genesis 6-3, one of my favorite passages, which we may or may not get into in another future series.
One thing that's fascinating about Genesis 6-3, this comes immediately before the flood, God is looking at the depravity of the world. And remember, this is coming before the flood where God ultimately decides to wipe out everybody except for seven souls and the animals on the ark. He says, my spirit, my ruach, shall not strive with man forever. Now, that word there, strive, is debated. So I don't want to construct an entire doctrine out of this one verse.
I've heard it's a bad thing to do. It's going to take the trouble. But in this passage, we see that God's spirit appears directly within the story of escalating human wickedness that precedes the judgment. So regardless of what the exact meaning of strive is here, in context, it has a connotation of restraint. My spirit will not strive with man forever. 2 Thessalonians 2, 6-7, Paul is speaking about the coming man of lawlessness and says, you know what restrains him now.
For our purposes tonight, the principle that I want to get across here is that evil presently operates within boundaries that God sovereignly permits. Evil presently operates within boundaries that God sovereignly permits. This is one of the things. Sometimes people pay lip service to the sovereignty of God, but they don't live as if God is actually sovereign. The extent of the impact of sin in the world can only go so far as God sovereignly permits.
God has shown in Scripture where he does remove that restraint. Romans 1, 24, 26, and 28, three times in basically four verses, Paul says, God gave them over. God gave them over. God gave them over. This is actually one of the more terrifying things for me in the Old Testament, is when God gets fed up. One of the examples of why we have the Old Testament Israel, God's patience, while it is extensive, at a certain point God says, fine.
And that is terrifying. Romans 1, 24, 26, and 28, three times Paul says God gave them over. Sometimes divine judgment looks like God coming down with a hammer and introducing bad things to punish. Other times, God's divine judgment looks like him saying, you know what, this is what you want so badly, have at it. That's him removing the restraint and allowing rebellion to proceed according to its own consequences.
So what this helps us to understand about human depravity is that total depravity, which there's the doctrine of total depravity, does not mean maximum depravity. So total depravity is one of those core doctrines of man being depraved. We are unworthy of God. We will never be worthy. We are totally depraved. But that does not mean maximally depraved. Sin corrupts every dimension of human nature, but every person is not as evil as he could possibly become.
Thank you. That's a little. If I'm not mistaken, Exodus 31 is the first time where the language, the spirit, filling somebody or coming on somebody is used. What's interesting is that pattern is repeated all throughout the book of Judges. So when we think about the spirit in the Old Testament, a lot of times it's this idea of the spirit coming on somebody. and filling them for a particular work or a particular purpose.
With Bezalel, the spirit gave him wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and craftsmanship for building the tabernacle. In the Judges, the spirit empowered different judges for leadership and deliverance. One of the more famous ones being Samson, the biblical Hulk. Then in 1 Samuel 16:13, We see the Spirit comes powerfully upon David after God withdrew his spirit from Saul. In the prophets, the Spirit empowers God's messengers and communicates divine revelation.
The point I'm trying to get across here is that Pentecost isn't when the Spirit comes back. It wasn't that the Spirit was there at creation and then he peaced out and then Pentecost was like, I'm back. Bezalel, the judges, David, the prophets. Pentecost isn't that the Holy Spirit finally arrives. But what it does represent is that in the new covenant, there's a development in the ministry of the Spirit who has continued to be active from the beginning.
What's that development? One of the most striking differences about New Testament biblical covenant and our relationship to the spirit is that in the old covenant, the spirit would come upon you and empower you for a particular act, a particular purpose, a particular reason that God had purpose for that to happen. And then that spirit could be withdrawn. In the New Testament, the spirit indwells permanently.
And this is huge. Why you super fired up about that? Because the exact same Ruach, that forceful explosion of creative energy that created not just our earth, not just our cute puppies and birds, that wasn't magical enough. Galaxies, planets, universe, all 14 dimensions. of reality lives in you if you are a born-again believer. Same Ruach inside of each of us that has been reborn and regenerated. This is a new development under the new covenant.
Okay? But I want to unpack that in the revelatory work of the Spirit, there's actually two different acts that are going on here. Okay? So the first one is When the Spirit reveals truth, that's what the Spirit does. He reveals truth. In the Old Testament, that was through inspiration. Inspiration. The Spirit's work in producing Scripture. Those 66 books that we have. Scripture. Inspiration is the Spirit's work in producing Scripture.
But that's not all that he does. He also... Participates in illumination. And what illumination is, this is very important for us as New Testament believers. Illumination is the Spirit's work enabling believers to understand and receive the truth revealed in Scripture. I'll say that again. The Spirit's work enabling believers to understand and receive the truth revealed in Scripture. How? Why? 1 Corinthians 2, 10-12.
We talked about this two weeks ago and then again last week. We talked about the identity of the Holy Spirit. When we were trying to convey the divinity of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 2, 10-12 says, Weeks 1 and 2, we were like, Searching the depths of God, the only thing that can search the depths of God is God himself. The only thing that can comprehend the thoughts of God is the spirit of God himself.
Therefore, the spirit is God. We did that equation in weeks 1 and 2. But also, 1 Corinthians 2, 10 through 12 shows that the spirit, in searching all things, even the depths of God, he's able to do that Because he knows the things of God and he makes God's truth known. When Jesus says, it's to your benefit that I leave, that the Father may send the Helper, one of the things the Spirit helps us do is understand truth.
This is very important. Because there are people, huge movement in the United States, huge movement in academia, huge movement across the world, that rejects truth. They say, like, Pilate, they scoff. What is truth? It's called post-modernism. I'm going to speak my truth. You speak your truth, boo. That's cool. There's no such thing as your truth. There's no such thing as my truth. There is only the truth.
But he makes God's truth known. I want to encourage you here. Jesus is called the great teacher, right? Rabbi, the teacher. One thing that I've tried to do in my own personal prayer life is say, Jesus, teach me. And then I immediately follow it up with a prayer to the Spirit, help me understand. Those are two different actions. Jesus, teach me. Spirit, help me to understand. He is the helper, and he illuminates the truth.
And he helps us to understand. Moving on. Not only does the Spirit restrain evil, not only is he working in creation, not only does he illuminate and makes God's truth known, he also magnifies Christ. He magnifies Christ. John 15, 26. Jesus, speaking about the Spirit, says, He... will testify about me. Following up in the next chapter, John 16, 13 through 14, Jesus says, he will glorify me. The Spirit reveals Christ, testifies about Christ, and glorifies Christ.
The Holy Spirit is fully God, right? Review, weeks one and two. The Holy Spirit is fully God. The Holy Spirit, being fully God, is worthy of worship. God. Worship God. Right? We can and we should worship the Holy Spirit. He is equal in deity to God the Father and the Son. Right? And yet scripture also says that one of the Holy Spirit's ministries is continually directing attention toward Jesus. Christ.
Right? He reveals Christ. Now, normally when we say he reveals Christ, we think about that in terms of the world, right? And I should probably say that with a capital W and the world, right? Revealing Christ to the dead and dying world, right? But Scripture doesn't put that qualification on it. The Spirit reveals Christ more and more to all of us. He testifies about Christ, about who he is. He glorifies Christ to both believers and unbelievers.
This isn't just something about testifying to the dead and dying world. You're like, yeah, okay, cool, I've already accepted that, move on. No, the Spirit is continually testifying and revealing and glorifying Christ to believers and unbelievers alike. He is convicting people concerning Christ that he is who he says he is. He's also giving sinners life in Christ, uniting believers with Christ, producing Christ-like character, empowering believers to witness about Christ.
I don't. Now, part of that is because I fancy myself as a stoic guy. And I don't think about that. And I've been convicted about that. I've been praying, Spirit, magnify Christ to me. Make him more beautiful. Glorify him more. Help me to see his glory. That is the ministry of the Spirit. That is a Spirit-honoring prayer. In addition to revealing the truth and magnifying Christ, the Spirit also confronts the world.
And in his ministry of magnifying Christ, making truth known, being the helper, all of those truths that were in that passage, we see that in his conviction of the world, he actually convicts the world in three different ways. He convicts the world about sin, He convicts the sin of the world about righteousness, and he convicts the world concerning judgment. Now, to help illustrate this, I want you all to think about a courtroom.
When we're talking about convicting the world, he's acting like God's prosecutor. And in his role as acting as God as a prosecutor, he's exposing reality and also bringing God's truth to bear upon the human conscience. And that's specifically about sin. So when John 16, 7 through 11 says the spirit convicts regarding sin, he says it's because they do not believe in me. So in this, the question isn't have you done bad things?
The question is what have you done with Christ? That's the conviction that the Spirit is bringing against the world, not have you done bad things. Scripture says convicting sin because they do not believe in me. The question is not have you done bad things, but it should be what have you done with Christ? In addition to convicting the world about sin, he convicts the world about righteousness. And this is really fun.
That's relativism. Humans love establishing relative standards. Why? It gets us off the hook. Gets us off the hook. Basically a good person. Good compared to who? Sometimes individuals get upset with God, or they really struggle, because they say, how could God send good people to hell? What does scripture say? There is no one good, no not one. Why? Because in the statement, how could God send good people to hell, we're saying good compared to who?
Good compared to Alex? Maybe. But when you think about the infinite value of God the Father, The infinite value of God the Son, the infinite value of God the Spirit, the only triune being in all of existence, the only holy being in all of existence. When you sin against something that is eternally holy, it demands eternal punishment. That's the reality. The Spirit convicts according to righteousness because God's standard isn't relative to human goodness.
Christ is the only perfectly righteous one, and the Spirit convicts the world about that. And then lastly, the Spirit convicts the world about judgment. Specifically, it says, because the ruler of this world has been judged. And praise God for that. The ruler of this world has been judged. Even though God is restraining evil and saying people are not as maximally depraved as they could be. And in the end times, I know that that tends to be like a scary thing because judgment, right?
It should change evangelism. We cannot convict anyone. That's not our job. That's the Spirit's job. The Spirit's job is conviction. And we certainly cannot regenerate anyone. Our responsibility here is faithful proclamation. Because the Spirit does what we cannot. He brings conviction. So that makes evangelism simultaneously more urgent because God uses that proclamation and also less anxious because people being saved is not dependent on us.
Walking zombies. Why? Scripture describes our world as dead. D-E-D. Dead. It's a joke, by the way. I don't know how to spell it. Is that really how you say it? No. Scripture describes us as being dead. Dead things don't do anything. You look at a rock and you're like, why don't you believe in Christ? No. Because the rock is inanimate. Dead things are inanimate. There's a reason why I use the description of Ruach as animating energy.
Can a man enter his mother's womb and be born again a second time? And to that, my wife says, no, buddy. No. Okay? Jesus describes something physically. Supernatural. What is happening? That which has been born of the flesh is flesh. That which has been born of the spirit is spirit. This is regeneration. This is new birth. Where have we seen this before? Genesis 1. Creation. The spirit gives life. In the New Testament, he's giving life.
He's doing the exact thing he's been doing from ages past. Scripture describes the condition that regeneration solves with amazing severity. We were dead. Not sick, not confused, not underperforming. Dead. We are spiritual zombies. Orcs can't decide, you know what? I think I'm going to start living. That'd be great. Dead things do not make themselves alive. Life has to be given. And so from Adam's first breath in creation, where God breathed into him life, he gave the ruach to Adam.
It's a valley full of dead bones. Not sick people, not wounded people, dead people. Dry bones. They're really dead. Okay? And in the vision that God gives Ezekiel, bodies form and there's still no life. Okay? Adam. God forms Adam from the dust. There's still no life. Ezekiel 37, bodies start to form on these dry bones. No life until the breath comes. The Ruach, the spirit of God. And once that happens, the dead live.
Now listen to Jesus. In John 3, 8, the wind blows where it wishes. Greek pneuma, like Hebrew Ruach, connects spirit, wind, and breath. In John 3, the pneuma blows where it wishes. It's the same word, it's just freaking out. Jesus uses that same energy to describe the Spirit's sovereign work in the new birth. Ephesians 2, God made us alive. There's a pattern in Scripture here. Creation, God gives life to dust.
In Ezekiel, God gives life to dry bones. With regeneration, the Spirit gives life to the spiritually dead. God makes the dead live. That is regeneration. And that is the work of the Spirit. Regeneration is God's work. Now, I'm going to introduce another theological term for you guys. Monergism. Monergism. The theological term here often uses monergistic regeneration. Mono meaning one, ergon meaning work, one work.
When you hear somebody talk about monergism, what we're talking about here is the work of one being, God. Regeneration is a monergistic work by God, meaning that it is entirely something that God does. We have no part in that. I'm going to say that again. We have no part in that. Dead things do not choose to live. Only somebody who can give life makes that determination. Regeneration is a monergistic act by God.
1 Corinthians 6, your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8, 9, Paul directly associates belonging to Christ with possessing the Spirit of Christ. In John 14, 16, Jesus promises the helper will be with his people forever. The Spirit doesn't just merely work on us as Christians. He dwells within the Christian. All of that, if you have been a believer, if you put your faith in Jesus, all of that happens instantaneously when you put your faith in Christ.
You believe on the Lord Jesus with your heart and you confess with your mouth that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Everything we just talked about here, regeneration, indwelling, Uniting us to the body of Christ and sealing and securing us all happens at that moment. Now, if you're anything like me, it's been a minute, maybe, since that happened. So, has the Spirit just stopped there?
Okay, cool. He does a lot of creative work. He creates new life in me. Boom. Donezo. Good. Fallen today. Pack it up. Right? Nope. Because then the Spirit begins to sanctify us. The Spirit begins to sanctify us. Regeneration gives life. Living people can walk. That's cool, right? Living people can walk. Which is one of the reasons why Scripture starts issuing commands to believers. It says, Galatians 5.16, walk by the Spirit.
Going back to that formula in creation, from the Father through the Son by the spirit. Our walk as Christians is genuine. Really no different. We do this by the power of the Spirit enabled within us. Now, in sanctification, sometimes we think that, okay, cool. So what does it mean to walk by the Spirit? It's a daily, hourly, minutely, secondly, decision. Are you going to yield? Are you going to submit to the Spirit?
Sanctification isn't a 50-50 thing with God. It's not, God will do 50%, and then I'll do another 50%, and that's cool because he's doing it in his power and I'm doing it in my power. That's not sanctification. But it's also not, well, God does everything, and I'm just going to kick my feet up and let him drive, and I'm not going to be involved at all. There is a certain synergism that works within us where we willfully choose to submit to the Spirit enabling that activity or that action within us.
But it is a choice. You can grieve the Spirit. You can choose to ignore that. But the Spirit's work is to produce Christ-likeness. This is where he produces the fruit in us. Many people think, well, how do I get more love? How do I get more joy? How do I get more peace and kindness and gentleness and self-control? That is all products of the Spirit. We yield to his work in our life, and he produces that fruit.
The Spirit glorifies Christ, who perfectly embodies the fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit magnifies Christ to us and increasingly forms Christ in us. Sanctification isn't merely becoming less bad, it's becoming more like Christ. And part of that is asking, will you yield? Will you submit? Now, he helps and he intercedes on our behalf. He equips us to do every good work within the body. So zooming all the way out, in creation, the spirit gives life.
In the fall, humanity's rebelled, but God's spirit sustains and provides, preserves, and restrains. That's common grace. The spirit reveals and makes God's truth known. The Spirit testifies and magnifies Christ. He convicts the unbelieving world. He regenerates. He unites believers into the body of Christ and indwells God's people. He guarantees our inheritance. He sanctifies the living believer who yields, walks, obeys, fights, and puts sin to death by the Spirit.
The Spirit helps, intercedes, gifts, unites, unifies, and empowers. And the Spirit empowers God's people to magnify Christ, and on the last day, the Spirit will raise us from the dead, just as he rose, raised Christ. The Spirit will give life even to our mortal bodies. So what do we do with all this? The Spirit does a lot of things. That's kind of my point. He's not passive. He didn't just kick things off in the beginning and then say, sayonara.
The same spirit who created is the same spirit who raised the valley of dry bones, who gave life to Adam, is also the same one who lives inside of you. In evangelism, I want to remind us all that in evangelism, conviction doesn't belong to us, it belongs to the spirit. Our job is to faithfully proclaim Christ. In conversion, we shouldn't think of me deciding to become a Christian, but instead marvel at the supernatural reality that God made a dead person live.
In ministry and worship, does what we do actually magnify Christ? In assurance, are we asking, does our salvation rest in emotions or in the God who gave us the spirit as a pledge of our inheritance? And in sanctification, are we passively waiting for God to change sins he commands me to put to death? Or am I attempting to defeat sin through sheer willpower? And the answer to both of those should be neither.
Instead, our action of sanctification is to yield. Walk by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit, and put to death sin by the Spirit. To sum it all up, the Spirit gives life, sustains creation, restrains evil, reveals and magnifies Christ, convicts the sinner, regenerates the dead, unites and indwells the believer, secures our inheritance, transforms those who yield to him, and empowers the church to glorify Christ.
The Spirit's really busy. And there is no action, no part of the Christian walk that can be done apart from him. Literally, we are dead zombies without him. Thank you for putting up with me lecturing tonight. I told you I had a lot to get through. I put this worksheet together in order of giving you all the most critical verses. My intent here is to give you guys that so you can go and read these scriptures and put to challenge what it is that we talked about tonight.
I also included links at the back of your handouts for three key articles that were very helpful for me as I was putting together tonight's lesson. Please go and read those if you are curious. Next week we're going to unpack misconceptions about the responsibilities and roles of the spirit, and there's going to be a lot more discussion, I promise you. With that being said, I'm going to close this out.