Five Things You Should Know About the Holy Spirit

by R.  Hamman

1. The Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity.

There has been a lot of debate over this point. Many people believe that the Holy Spirit is like the Force in Star Wars or something that’s more like a conscience. Neither of these ideas line up with the Bible.

What does the Bible say? Matthew 28: 19 mentions the Holy Spirit in the same sentence as God the Father and God the Son (or Jesus Christ). We cannot go into detail here about the workings of the Trinity, but it is enough to say that the Holy Spirit is fully God, but He is not a separate God from God the Father and God the Son. John 16: 13-15, Acts 5: 3-4, I Corinthians 2: 10-12. The Holy Spirit is the One in the trinity who leads people to a knowledge of God and who teaches Christians about the Bible and about God and Christ.

2. The Holy Spirit in Old Testament Times (before Christ.)

In the Old Testament, (the first half of the Bible) the Holy Spirit had a slightly different ministry among men than He does now. He empowered people and bore men along to write scripture just as He did with the apostles II Peter 1: 21. But before Christ came to earth, the Holy Spirit did not indwell anyone constantly in the manner in which he lives in believers today. He always came and went as He pleased. A good example of this is found in Judges 13: 24-25. David also pleaded with the Lord, asking that He wouldn’t remove the Holy Spirit from his life in Psalm 51: 11.

3. The Holy Spirit in Relation to Christ.

Matthew 3:16 shows us on a small scale what the Holy Spirit’s relationship with Christ was like. In John 1:33, the Spirit of the Lord not only descended on Christ at His baptism, but remained. The Spirit of the Lord filled Christ and guided Him all of His life on earth (Luke 4:1). On the other hand, Jesus Christ also had authority to give the Holy Spirit to anyone He chose as John the Baptist said in Matthew 3: 11. So Christ was driven by the Spirit, but He also had authority over the Holy Spirit. After the resurrection, He gave the Holy Spirit to his followers as John 20: 22 states.

4. The Holy Spirit Today.

John 20:22, as mentioned above, references a turning point in the role of the Holy Spirit. Since then, the Spirit that filled Christ while He walked the earth, the same Spirit that empowered Samson in the Old Testament - is given to all Christians. Every person who accepts Christ as his or her personal savior has the Holy Spirit. The book of Acts tells us that, at the Jewish feast of Pentecost, The Spirit of the Lord came upon all who believed in Christ.

A few other ministries of the Holy Spirit include convicting those who don’t believe, as Acts 28:16 says; guiding and teaching believers, found in I Corinthians 2: 12-16; and overcoming evil, as taught by Paul the apostle in Galatians 5: 16-21.

5. The Gifts of the Spirit.

There is some discussion regarding what exactly the gifts of the Spirit represent. Some stick to a strict list of a specified number gifts while others claim that any ability a Christian has is a gift of the Spirit, whether it’s useful in a ministry or not. In reality, spiritual gifts are divine “enablements” provided to us by the Lord Jesus Christ through the ministry of the Spirit.  They are far more than simple human talents.  Examples of these gifts are found in I Corinthians 12: 4-11. Though some of these gifts are not observable today, the fact is that the Spirit gives different gifts to different people, and that all of those gifts must add to the unity of believers and glorify God. Additionally, all of those gifts will be in keeping with the ministry of one Spirit, the Holy Spirit.  Those who claim to exercise spiritual gifts today which are not in keeping with the nature and character of the Holy Spirit who provides them, are being deluded.

All quotes are from the King James Bible.

Sources of research include:

Systematic Theology, by Schaffer