An Introduction to the Holy Spirit
Good morning! I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to John 14. This morning we are going to be looking at two verses. Some of you may know that we are now starting the Advent season, that time leading up to Christmas where we think about the coming of the Lord. Well this morning we have a different take on this. During advent, we usually think about the coming of Christ. But this morning we’re going to talk about the Holy Spirit and His coming.
We’ve noted in our study of the Upper Room that Jesus has been seeking to comfort his disciples. He’s about to leave them. They are going to feel very much abandoned as their master is ripped away from them. But in this passage Jesus comforts them by letting them know that He isn’t going to leave them all alone. He’s going to send the Holy Spirit to be with them and He’s going to pick up right where Jesus left off.
It is a great couple of verses and I want to dwell on them with you this morning. So let’s read John 14:16-17.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
Let's pray...Amen.
Introduction
One of the things I love about this series that we are doing is that we get to focus a lot on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. That’s because the Holy Spirit is spoken of more in these 4 chapters than almost anywhere else in the Bible. There are three different times in this section of Scripture. We find it here in John 14. He’s mentioned again at the end of chapter 15 and then again there’s a lengthy section in chapter 16. So there is a lot of material here about the Holy Spirit.
It’s great because sometimes we in the Reformed world are accused of not giving much attention to the Holy Spirit. And, there may be some good reason for that. We don’t talk about him much. If we are dedicated to expositional preaching like we are, we don’t come across a ton of passages that deal with the Spirit. I know that throughout my 15 years of ministry, I haven’t gotten to talk about the Spirit much at all.
And sometimes we may shy away from talking about it because of some of the excesses that are out there. When we think of the Holy Spirit, we typically think of Pentecostals and ecstatic gifts and people running around or falling over. I personally was involved in the Pentecostal church and I was drawn to it because the people there talked about the Holy Spirit and they demonstrated a lively, Spirit filled life. Having come out of a dead mainline church, that was a real attractive thing.
But over the course of time I got to learn more and more about the Spirit. And a lot of my views began to change because I learned what the Bible did say about the Spirit.
And that’s why I’m excited about getting into passages like this one. It’s really a wonderful opportunity to get to know the Spirit.
And that’s what I’d like to do this morning. I’d like to introduce you to the Spirit. I’d like us to get to know 4 things about the Spirit. The first of which is his divinity.
I. His divinity
This is really important because a lot of people do not recognize the Spirit as truly divine and a distinct person within the Godhead. They see him as a force or power stretching forth from God. That may be due partially to his being called the “Holy Spirit.” That can be a hard concept to grasp, especially if you think of him in terms of a ghost or spiritual force.
There was also a heresy in the 4th century called “Macedoniansim.” They were also called the Pneumatomachians or spirit fighters. This group of people denied the deity of the Holy Spirit. They believed that the Spirit was created by the Son. So he was considered a lesser god. He may be higher than an angel but not equal to Christ or the Father.
So, historically, you have some misgivings regarding the Spirit. But our passage tells us that the Holy Spirit is 100% divine; 100% God, equal to the Father and the Son.
You can see that in verse 16 when Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper.” The Greek here is very interesting because there are two Greek words for another. There’s one word that means “another of a different kind.” That’s the Greek word “heteros.” Then there is an additional word that means “another of the same kind.” That’s the Greek word “allon.” Jesus uses that word. He’s saying that he’s going to ask the Father to send a helper of the same kind.
He’s not a different helper (that’s what the Mormons would believe). He is the helper who is of the same sort. Jesus is, of course, God. He is the Wonderful Counselor, which all the ancient Jews knew to be God himself. And the Spirit is another counselor of the same kind as Jesus. So that’s pointing out the fact that the Spirit is very much divine, just as much as Jesus.
And let’s understand that we must acknowledge this, not only to be orthodox, but also to ensure that God is not defamed or in any way distorted. We worship the only true God. And to do that we must acknowledge the divinity of all three persons of the Godhead.
Now that we understand that the Spirit and Jesus are akin to each other in terms of their divinity, let’s talk about the Spirit’s personality.
II. His personality
That is to say, the Spirit is a personal being with whom we fellowship and commune. I want you to notice the pronouns that Jesus uses in reference to the Spirit. Look at verse 17. It says that the world does not “see him or know him. But you know him for he dwells with you.”
Notice that this does not say, “the world does not see it or know it.” Jesus does not call the Holy Spirit an “it.” Why does he use the word him and he? Why does he use these masculine pronouns rather than the neuter pronouns? It’s because the Spirit is a personal being.
But that is the way a lot of people think about the Holy Spirit. They think of him as an “it.” That is to say, they believe that the Holy Spirit is merely a force or power, kind of like the Star Wars movies. You have Luke Skywalker using the force to pick up his lightsaber or do some Jedi trick.
This is actually what the Jehovah’s Witness believe. They believe that the Holy Spirit is much like electricity that can be adapted to perform a great variety of uses.[1] They would say that Scripture uses personification when talking about the Spirit.
But the Spirit isn’t an “it.” He isn’t just a power or force out there. This isn’t personification. This is an expression of who the Spirit is. And it is telling us that he is personal, and therefore is personable. You fellowship with the Spirit. You enjoy his presence. As a matter of fact, as it says here, He communes with you and lives with you. You can’t do that with an it. Luke Skywalker does not fellowship with the Force. He manipulates it and uses it to his advantage. You don’t do that with the Spirit of God.
There are a lot of other the Scripture shows the personality of the Spirit. The Spirit can be grieved, he has understanding (he searches and knows the mind of God). He has a will (1 Cor. 12:11 – gives gifts to people as he determines). There are a lot of things like this in Scripture that show you that he is more than a force or a power. But we merely want to point out here that he is personal.
And I emphasize this so that I can reiterate what RA Torry has said. If we think of the Spirit as a force or a power, we’ll likely ask, “How can we get more of it?” But if we think of him as a person, we’ll ask, “how can He have more of me?” You understand what Torry is saying: If the Spirit is thought of as a power, we’re going to want to feed our selfish desires by trying to get more of this power, like Simon Magnus the magician did in Acts. We’re going to try and make it do things to get us what we want. But if the Spirit is a divine person, we are going to put ourselves in subjection to him and glorify him.
We’ll also take much comfort from him; which leads us to the next point. In this verse we not only see that the Spirit’s divinity and personality, we see his ministry.
III. His ministry
In this passage Jesus is telling his disciples that he’s sending the Spirit. And of course, he’s being sent for a particular purpose. The Spirit is going to minister to them and fill the void that is being left. Jesus is leaving, but the Spirit is going to take Jesus’ place.
Jesus wants these disciples to know that they are going to continue to be built up in the faith and supported, just like they were when he was with them. And Jesus gets at this by telling them three things that the Spirit will do.
A. Help them
Now, I recognize that our Bibles will use different words. Some bibles say helper, some say counselor, some say comforter, some say advocate. These are all ways to translate the Greek word parakletos. The Greek word literally “one who is called beside.” If you were charged with a crime, you’d call and advocate or lawyer. And he would come and stand by your side to defend your case.
If you were down in the dumps, you might call a friend who would come to your side and they would try to encourage you.
And a counselor is someone who you call alongside you to give you advice and help give you guidance to deal with your problems.
Now all of these have the idea of being there in your time of need. I think that’s why the ESV goes with Helper. It is that idea that we are in need. We are ignorant, weak, sinful, sullen, and miserable. But the Spirit will take care of all these things. He will give us strength to endure trials, wisdom to make it through difficulty, and encouragement to bear adversity.
Most of all, he is our helper when it comes to our need of grace and salvation. Jesus, don’t forget is the first helper. And what did Jesus come to do? He came to bring about our salvation. The Spirit is another helper: one like Jesus. So what does he do? He is involved in bringing God’s salvation to bear on our lives.
This is the first thing we know about the Spirit. He’s ministering to us by giving us help and eternal comfort. He’s constantly upholding you and giving your all that you need to live in this world and do battle against sin.
But not only is he your helper, he is your teacher.
B. Teacher (Spirit of Truth)
In verse 17 Jesus calls him the Spirit of Truth. Then, down in verse 26 it says that the Spirit of Truth will “teach you all things and bring to remembrance what Jesus has said.”
Now, you need to recognize that these words have a great deal of importance because these words give validity to the Bibles we have in our laps. The disciples had been drinking from a firehose, so to speak, for the last three years. Jesus has been teaching them and giving them a lot of information. And these men were responsible for transmitting these things to the next generation. These were the men who wrote our Bibles, mind you.
And the question becomes, how can we be sure our Bibles are correct? How can we be sure we are getting the truth and not being led astray? I mean, these were just men, after all, right? They were sinful men and uneducated men. How can we really trust what they wrote? How can we be sure that they remembered everything accurately and did not make any errors?
This is why, because they were not acting on their own. The Spirit of God was acting as their teacher. The Spirit of Truth was directing them in what they should say and write. He helped them to recall all the things that were necessary and he caused them to perfectly set down exactly what needed to be recorded so that we could walk with God.
He was their teacher, and he is our teacher too. The only difference is that he teaches us through the Scripture, and not through new revelation. He helps us to recall the things we have studied and enables us to be His witnesses in this world.
It all boils down to this: Truth is the main business of the Holy Spirit. And whether it be to our own lives or to the lives of others, the Spirit is working to minister truth to this world. That is one of His most important ministries.
The last thing we can say about the Spirit’s ministry, at least the last thing from this passage, is that the Spirit ministers to us by being with us. While he does help us and he does teach us, it’s important to know that he also dwells with us and in us.
C. Dweller
Look at the passage again and notice how much this is emphasized in two tiny verses. Verse 16 says “I will ask the Father and he will send you the Holy Spirit to be with you forever.” Then verse 17 says that the Spirit will dwell with you and be in you.”
Now, I want you to catch just how significant this would have been for the disciples. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of course, would regenerate and be in God’s people. There’s no doubt about that. But the Spirit was also seen as coming and going. He would swoop in and come upon a guy like Sampson and make him powerful enough to break ropes and rip up lions. But the Spirit would leave and Sampson would be a normal guy again. That happened from time to time in the OT.
And then there’s that time when the Israelites were in the wilderness and there was a group of men who started to prophesy. A couple guys ran to Moses and reported the incident and ask Moses if they should make these people stop. Moses replied, “I wish that all God’s people would share in the Spirit.”
It is my belief that Jesus is referring to this new and weightier dwelling of the Spirit. Ever since Pentecost, I believe, the Spirit indwells his people in a different way: a richer and fuller way. I believe that this is what Jesus is referring to.
And I believe that this is what we can take away from it: that we now should have a greater confidence and a bolder witness, a deeper trust and a fuller experience of the saving work of Christ.
If anything, we can say this: God is with us. Here is that Imanuel Principle of Christmas. God is with us. Christ is being glorified in us. And the Spirit is dwelling within us and working powerfully to renew and strengthen us in our walk with Christ.
This is not an exhaustive explanation of what the Spirit does. We will likely talk more about his work in the coming weeks and months, but that’s a good start. We can take it to heart that he helps us and teaches us and dwells within us. That’s his ministry to us.
But there’s one last thing to note about the Spirit. We’ve seen his divinity. We’ve talked about his personality. We’ve just looked at his ministry. We should not miss that this passage also says something about his invisibility.
IV. His invisibility
Verse 17 says, “The world neither sees him nor knows him.”
Of course, the Spirit is a spirit, so he cannot be seen by any of us. But there is a portion of the world’s population that has really no sense whatsoever when it comes to the Spirit. They are completely oblivious to the Spirit and his work. He is utterly invisible in every sense. They have no perception at all, be it with their eyes or their souls.
And this is just a reminder to us that we are unique in this world. We have the blessed opportunity to enjoy the Spirit, to know him, and to receive the blessing of his ministry.
But we can also know that the unbelieving will stand in opposition to us because of it. They won’t understand us. And yes, they many times will not even tolerate us. It is because they do not share what we do.
Conclusion
Well, we’ll have more opportunities to study the Spirit as we go through this Upper Room series. It is my hope this morning just to give you a little introduction to this third person of the Godhead. We can know just from these two verses that The Spirit is very God of very God and very personable. He is a he (not an it) and he has been sent to minister to us while Christ is away.
_____________________________
[1] Should You Believe in the Trinity?, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1989, pages 14, 20.
We’ve noted in our study of the Upper Room that Jesus has been seeking to comfort his disciples. He’s about to leave them. They are going to feel very much abandoned as their master is ripped away from them. But in this passage Jesus comforts them by letting them know that He isn’t going to leave them all alone. He’s going to send the Holy Spirit to be with them and He’s going to pick up right where Jesus left off.
It is a great couple of verses and I want to dwell on them with you this morning. So let’s read John 14:16-17.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
Let's pray...Amen.
Introduction
One of the things I love about this series that we are doing is that we get to focus a lot on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. That’s because the Holy Spirit is spoken of more in these 4 chapters than almost anywhere else in the Bible. There are three different times in this section of Scripture. We find it here in John 14. He’s mentioned again at the end of chapter 15 and then again there’s a lengthy section in chapter 16. So there is a lot of material here about the Holy Spirit.
It’s great because sometimes we in the Reformed world are accused of not giving much attention to the Holy Spirit. And, there may be some good reason for that. We don’t talk about him much. If we are dedicated to expositional preaching like we are, we don’t come across a ton of passages that deal with the Spirit. I know that throughout my 15 years of ministry, I haven’t gotten to talk about the Spirit much at all.
And sometimes we may shy away from talking about it because of some of the excesses that are out there. When we think of the Holy Spirit, we typically think of Pentecostals and ecstatic gifts and people running around or falling over. I personally was involved in the Pentecostal church and I was drawn to it because the people there talked about the Holy Spirit and they demonstrated a lively, Spirit filled life. Having come out of a dead mainline church, that was a real attractive thing.
But over the course of time I got to learn more and more about the Spirit. And a lot of my views began to change because I learned what the Bible did say about the Spirit.
And that’s why I’m excited about getting into passages like this one. It’s really a wonderful opportunity to get to know the Spirit.
And that’s what I’d like to do this morning. I’d like to introduce you to the Spirit. I’d like us to get to know 4 things about the Spirit. The first of which is his divinity.
I. His divinity
This is really important because a lot of people do not recognize the Spirit as truly divine and a distinct person within the Godhead. They see him as a force or power stretching forth from God. That may be due partially to his being called the “Holy Spirit.” That can be a hard concept to grasp, especially if you think of him in terms of a ghost or spiritual force.
There was also a heresy in the 4th century called “Macedoniansim.” They were also called the Pneumatomachians or spirit fighters. This group of people denied the deity of the Holy Spirit. They believed that the Spirit was created by the Son. So he was considered a lesser god. He may be higher than an angel but not equal to Christ or the Father.
So, historically, you have some misgivings regarding the Spirit. But our passage tells us that the Holy Spirit is 100% divine; 100% God, equal to the Father and the Son.
You can see that in verse 16 when Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper.” The Greek here is very interesting because there are two Greek words for another. There’s one word that means “another of a different kind.” That’s the Greek word “heteros.” Then there is an additional word that means “another of the same kind.” That’s the Greek word “allon.” Jesus uses that word. He’s saying that he’s going to ask the Father to send a helper of the same kind.
He’s not a different helper (that’s what the Mormons would believe). He is the helper who is of the same sort. Jesus is, of course, God. He is the Wonderful Counselor, which all the ancient Jews knew to be God himself. And the Spirit is another counselor of the same kind as Jesus. So that’s pointing out the fact that the Spirit is very much divine, just as much as Jesus.
And let’s understand that we must acknowledge this, not only to be orthodox, but also to ensure that God is not defamed or in any way distorted. We worship the only true God. And to do that we must acknowledge the divinity of all three persons of the Godhead.
Now that we understand that the Spirit and Jesus are akin to each other in terms of their divinity, let’s talk about the Spirit’s personality.
II. His personality
That is to say, the Spirit is a personal being with whom we fellowship and commune. I want you to notice the pronouns that Jesus uses in reference to the Spirit. Look at verse 17. It says that the world does not “see him or know him. But you know him for he dwells with you.”
Notice that this does not say, “the world does not see it or know it.” Jesus does not call the Holy Spirit an “it.” Why does he use the word him and he? Why does he use these masculine pronouns rather than the neuter pronouns? It’s because the Spirit is a personal being.
But that is the way a lot of people think about the Holy Spirit. They think of him as an “it.” That is to say, they believe that the Holy Spirit is merely a force or power, kind of like the Star Wars movies. You have Luke Skywalker using the force to pick up his lightsaber or do some Jedi trick.
This is actually what the Jehovah’s Witness believe. They believe that the Holy Spirit is much like electricity that can be adapted to perform a great variety of uses.[1] They would say that Scripture uses personification when talking about the Spirit.
But the Spirit isn’t an “it.” He isn’t just a power or force out there. This isn’t personification. This is an expression of who the Spirit is. And it is telling us that he is personal, and therefore is personable. You fellowship with the Spirit. You enjoy his presence. As a matter of fact, as it says here, He communes with you and lives with you. You can’t do that with an it. Luke Skywalker does not fellowship with the Force. He manipulates it and uses it to his advantage. You don’t do that with the Spirit of God.
There are a lot of other the Scripture shows the personality of the Spirit. The Spirit can be grieved, he has understanding (he searches and knows the mind of God). He has a will (1 Cor. 12:11 – gives gifts to people as he determines). There are a lot of things like this in Scripture that show you that he is more than a force or a power. But we merely want to point out here that he is personal.
And I emphasize this so that I can reiterate what RA Torry has said. If we think of the Spirit as a force or a power, we’ll likely ask, “How can we get more of it?” But if we think of him as a person, we’ll ask, “how can He have more of me?” You understand what Torry is saying: If the Spirit is thought of as a power, we’re going to want to feed our selfish desires by trying to get more of this power, like Simon Magnus the magician did in Acts. We’re going to try and make it do things to get us what we want. But if the Spirit is a divine person, we are going to put ourselves in subjection to him and glorify him.
We’ll also take much comfort from him; which leads us to the next point. In this verse we not only see that the Spirit’s divinity and personality, we see his ministry.
III. His ministry
In this passage Jesus is telling his disciples that he’s sending the Spirit. And of course, he’s being sent for a particular purpose. The Spirit is going to minister to them and fill the void that is being left. Jesus is leaving, but the Spirit is going to take Jesus’ place.
Jesus wants these disciples to know that they are going to continue to be built up in the faith and supported, just like they were when he was with them. And Jesus gets at this by telling them three things that the Spirit will do.
A. Help them
Now, I recognize that our Bibles will use different words. Some bibles say helper, some say counselor, some say comforter, some say advocate. These are all ways to translate the Greek word parakletos. The Greek word literally “one who is called beside.” If you were charged with a crime, you’d call and advocate or lawyer. And he would come and stand by your side to defend your case.
If you were down in the dumps, you might call a friend who would come to your side and they would try to encourage you.
And a counselor is someone who you call alongside you to give you advice and help give you guidance to deal with your problems.
Now all of these have the idea of being there in your time of need. I think that’s why the ESV goes with Helper. It is that idea that we are in need. We are ignorant, weak, sinful, sullen, and miserable. But the Spirit will take care of all these things. He will give us strength to endure trials, wisdom to make it through difficulty, and encouragement to bear adversity.
Most of all, he is our helper when it comes to our need of grace and salvation. Jesus, don’t forget is the first helper. And what did Jesus come to do? He came to bring about our salvation. The Spirit is another helper: one like Jesus. So what does he do? He is involved in bringing God’s salvation to bear on our lives.
This is the first thing we know about the Spirit. He’s ministering to us by giving us help and eternal comfort. He’s constantly upholding you and giving your all that you need to live in this world and do battle against sin.
But not only is he your helper, he is your teacher.
B. Teacher (Spirit of Truth)
In verse 17 Jesus calls him the Spirit of Truth. Then, down in verse 26 it says that the Spirit of Truth will “teach you all things and bring to remembrance what Jesus has said.”
Now, you need to recognize that these words have a great deal of importance because these words give validity to the Bibles we have in our laps. The disciples had been drinking from a firehose, so to speak, for the last three years. Jesus has been teaching them and giving them a lot of information. And these men were responsible for transmitting these things to the next generation. These were the men who wrote our Bibles, mind you.
And the question becomes, how can we be sure our Bibles are correct? How can we be sure we are getting the truth and not being led astray? I mean, these were just men, after all, right? They were sinful men and uneducated men. How can we really trust what they wrote? How can we be sure that they remembered everything accurately and did not make any errors?
This is why, because they were not acting on their own. The Spirit of God was acting as their teacher. The Spirit of Truth was directing them in what they should say and write. He helped them to recall all the things that were necessary and he caused them to perfectly set down exactly what needed to be recorded so that we could walk with God.
He was their teacher, and he is our teacher too. The only difference is that he teaches us through the Scripture, and not through new revelation. He helps us to recall the things we have studied and enables us to be His witnesses in this world.
It all boils down to this: Truth is the main business of the Holy Spirit. And whether it be to our own lives or to the lives of others, the Spirit is working to minister truth to this world. That is one of His most important ministries.
The last thing we can say about the Spirit’s ministry, at least the last thing from this passage, is that the Spirit ministers to us by being with us. While he does help us and he does teach us, it’s important to know that he also dwells with us and in us.
C. Dweller
Look at the passage again and notice how much this is emphasized in two tiny verses. Verse 16 says “I will ask the Father and he will send you the Holy Spirit to be with you forever.” Then verse 17 says that the Spirit will dwell with you and be in you.”
Now, I want you to catch just how significant this would have been for the disciples. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of course, would regenerate and be in God’s people. There’s no doubt about that. But the Spirit was also seen as coming and going. He would swoop in and come upon a guy like Sampson and make him powerful enough to break ropes and rip up lions. But the Spirit would leave and Sampson would be a normal guy again. That happened from time to time in the OT.
And then there’s that time when the Israelites were in the wilderness and there was a group of men who started to prophesy. A couple guys ran to Moses and reported the incident and ask Moses if they should make these people stop. Moses replied, “I wish that all God’s people would share in the Spirit.”
It is my belief that Jesus is referring to this new and weightier dwelling of the Spirit. Ever since Pentecost, I believe, the Spirit indwells his people in a different way: a richer and fuller way. I believe that this is what Jesus is referring to.
And I believe that this is what we can take away from it: that we now should have a greater confidence and a bolder witness, a deeper trust and a fuller experience of the saving work of Christ.
If anything, we can say this: God is with us. Here is that Imanuel Principle of Christmas. God is with us. Christ is being glorified in us. And the Spirit is dwelling within us and working powerfully to renew and strengthen us in our walk with Christ.
This is not an exhaustive explanation of what the Spirit does. We will likely talk more about his work in the coming weeks and months, but that’s a good start. We can take it to heart that he helps us and teaches us and dwells within us. That’s his ministry to us.
But there’s one last thing to note about the Spirit. We’ve seen his divinity. We’ve talked about his personality. We’ve just looked at his ministry. We should not miss that this passage also says something about his invisibility.
IV. His invisibility
Verse 17 says, “The world neither sees him nor knows him.”
Of course, the Spirit is a spirit, so he cannot be seen by any of us. But there is a portion of the world’s population that has really no sense whatsoever when it comes to the Spirit. They are completely oblivious to the Spirit and his work. He is utterly invisible in every sense. They have no perception at all, be it with their eyes or their souls.
And this is just a reminder to us that we are unique in this world. We have the blessed opportunity to enjoy the Spirit, to know him, and to receive the blessing of his ministry.
But we can also know that the unbelieving will stand in opposition to us because of it. They won’t understand us. And yes, they many times will not even tolerate us. It is because they do not share what we do.
Conclusion
Well, we’ll have more opportunities to study the Spirit as we go through this Upper Room series. It is my hope this morning just to give you a little introduction to this third person of the Godhead. We can know just from these two verses that The Spirit is very God of very God and very personable. He is a he (not an it) and he has been sent to minister to us while Christ is away.
_____________________________
[1] Should You Believe in the Trinity?, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1989, pages 14, 20.