Ever wondered what the central beliefs of Christianity are? Have you been questioning whether you have it right? We continue a series on the basics of Christianity with a Trilogy on the Godhead. This is part 3.
The Holy Spirit has always been the most mysterious and hardest member of the Godhead to understand.
In some ways its easy to think of Father and Son as personalities, but it’s not so easy to think of the Holy Spirit as a person.
I think our tendency, here, is to think of Him as a power or influence – an ‘it’, not a ‘He’.
This is a fatal mistake because the Holy Spirit is as much God as the Father and Son are.
We’ve already seen in Isaiah 6 and John 12 that ‘the King, the Almighty’, who Isaiah saw in his vision, was in fact Jesus.
But the same passage, Isaiah 6, is also quoted in Acts 28:26-27, and here, Paul says that the person speaking there is the Holy Spirit.
Just as Jesus is God, so also is the Holy Spirit.
His Ministry
The ministries or work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all essential for our salvation. Every member of the Godhead has played a part in creating a way for us to be saved.
The Father planned it, the Son purchased it and the Holy Spirit applies it to us.
Jesus says the Holy Spirit does this by giving us new life (John 3:5-8) and by convicting us of our sin (John 16:8). If we weren’t convicted (shown our falleness and failure) we would never repent and without repentance, we can’t be saved.
We need to be saved from our sin. But the Father’s plan for our salvation didn’t break the power of sin; the Son dying on the cross made it possible to be broken, but it wasn’t enough. Jesus himself addressed this issue in John 6:44. Jesus said, ‘No one will come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.’
How does God draw people? Through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Only the Holy Spirit can draw people to God and he does this by convicting us. Conviction is the knowledge of our sin, and how awful it is. Conviction causes us to long for salvation, it turns us to Jesus for forgiveness.
His Fruit
After we’re saved, the Holy Spirit is still hard at work!
He goes on working in us, transforming us in an act called ‘Sanctification’.
Sanctification is the Holy Spirit changing us to be more and more like Jesus. Helping us to produce a certain kind of fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22).
Unbelievers can have these traits as well, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, these traits become so much more – they should identify us, become who we are, not just sometimes, but all the time.
Yet again, only the Holy Spirit can do this.
His Gifts
The Holy Spirit also grants Christians special gifts that we need to use to grow the Kingdom of God on earth.
It’s only with these gifts that we are able to partner with God in spreading the gospel and building the Church. Without the Holy Spirit’s power, all our preaching and good works are useless and ineffective for Kingdom growth!
It should be an urgent priority for all Christians to seek to know what gift the Holy Spirit has given to them to use in order to do this.
If you’re unsure of what your gift is, start by reading 1 Corinthians 12, and I encourage you to do a Spiritual Gifts course at your church.
‘I think you will agree with me when I say that many people are confused about the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, for instance, is not enthusiasm. Some people get enthusiastic and they imagine that it is the Holy Spirit. Some who can get all worked up over a song, imagine that this is the Spirit, but this doesn’t necessarily follow.
Some of these same people go out to live just like the rest of the world – but the Holy Spirit never enters a person and lets them live just like the world…The Holy Spirit must be Lord, or He will not come at all.’ (A. W. Tozer)
This concludes our intended trilogy, but Next Week we’ll address the topic of the Trinity.
Part 1 – Bitesize Theology: God the Father
Part 2 – Bitesize Theology: God the Son
Inspired by Peter Jeffery, ’Bitesize Theology’, Evangelical Press, 2000
