The Holy Spirit: Does What We Know About Him Actually Matter? (Part 1)

May 25, 2010 in Holy Spirit by jls | 7 comments

DoveXPThe importance, nature and work of the Holy Spirit is not well understood by many Christians today. And in that category, I definitely include myself.

Since my college days, I have belonged to an independent church that emphasizes textual Bible study, prayer and evangelism. Over the years, we have constantly spoken of God and Jesus, and in passing we have often mentioned the Holy Spirit. We formally uphold the doctrine of the Trinity. But in-depth discussion of the Holy Spirit has been rare. As far as I can tell, this experience is common among evangelical Christians, especially those of the non-Pentecostal variety. The implicit message seems to be: If you believe that Christ died for your sins, that is enough to make you a real Christian. But is it enough?

Discerning who is a real Christian is not something that I will attempt.  That is a task that is best left up to God.

However, I am convinced that “Christ died for our sins” is an incomplete presentation of the gospel. It is a necessary part of the message for sure.  It is a genuine, true message through which God has worked to bring many to faith in Christ. But it falls far short of the message proclaimed by the apostles and recorded in the New Testament. And I do not think it is not an adequate long-term basis for a healthy, growing Christian faith.

The gospel message is rooted in historical events that unfolded over a sequence of four days: Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the day of Ascension, and Pentecost. Each of these days was anticipated in the Old Testament. Each of these days is necessary to understand what God has done through Jesus Christ.

It is not enough to say that Christ died for our sins. A Christian must believe that he was raised from the dead. If Christ was not raised from the dead, our faith is futile, and we are still in our sins (1Co 15:17).

And is not enough to believe that Christ was raised from the dead. The message that energized the early Church, the declaration that spread like wildfire and transformed the lives of all those who accepted it, was encapsulated in three words: Jesus is Lord. That was the punchline of the apostles’ first evangelistic message (Acts 2:36). The Lordship of Christ was sealed when the risen Jesus ascended to heaven and was seated at the right hand of the Father (Ac 2:34-35; Ps 110:1).

And that message that Jesus is Lord would have fallen on deaf ears had it not been for the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was repeatedly promised by Jesus (Jn 7:37-39, 14:16). It is the Holy Spirit that brings our dead souls to life, who enables us to believe in Christ and be regenerated (born again) into God’s family (Jn 3:5). It is the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the resurrected Christ living within his disciples, that makes the Church the Body of Christ in the world today. If we are real Christians, then we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit; if the Holy Spirit is not in us, then we do not belong to Christ (Ro 8:9-11).

We urge people, “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior.” But one cannot accept Jesus as Savior without also accepting the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not an accessory to the gospel. He is a lead actor in the gospel and an essential part of who Jesus is.

The two major titles that we apply to Jesus, Christ (Greek) and Messiah (Hebrew), are equivalent; both mean “the Anointed One.” That word, anointed, refers to a ceremonial application of oil. It was the divinely commanded act by which the nation of Israel ordained her High Priest (Lev 8:12) and designated her King (1Sa 16:13).  The anointing oil is an Old Testament image or picture of the Holy Spirit, whom God the Father poured out on Jesus to designate him as our High Priest and King.

The Jesus depicted in the four gospels is a human being — a truly ordinary person — who was anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit at every stage of his life and ministry. He was conceived in the womb of his mother, the virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35). When he was baptized in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove, and that is how John the Baptist recognized him as the Messiah (Lk 3:21; Jn 1:33). When Jesus preached his first sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth, he quoted from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18-19). When Jesus taught, he did so by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:18). When he healed the sick and cast our demons, he did so by the power of the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:18).

The unbreakable connection between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is found in the earliest presentations of the gospel. When the Apostle Peter preached his first gospel message to the Gentiles, he said, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit” (Ac 13:16). When Peter preached his first message to the Jews, he said that the risen Jesus ascended into heaven, received from the Father the gift of the Holy Spirit, and poured out this gift on his disciples on the day of Pentecost (Ac 2:33).

Does any of this really matter? Is knowing about, believing in and understanding the Holy Spirit relevant to our practical lives and to our experience of God today? Or is all of this stuff just abstract theologizing that should be left to those pointy-headed scholars in their seminaries, which,  as we all know, are little better than cemeteries?

Sorry, that’s a badly worn-out joke. If you understand where I am going with this, you will realize that I do not think that seminaries are cemeteries. On the contrary, I am becoming convinced that our theology of the Holy Spirit is truly important. If it were not,  then why did Peter take time to present it to non-believers and seekers in his evangelistic messages? 

Surely the Holy Spirit is present among many people who do not know or understand him. But that is not a good reason to delight in ignorance. Many have believed in Jesus and experienced the authentic work of the Holy Spirit with little or no theological understanding. But without this understanding, Christians tend to misinterpret what is happening to them. If we fail to compare our experiences to Scripture, we tend to draw incorrect conclusions and make inaccurate generalizations about the Holy Spirit which, over time, keep us from maturing and lead to unhealthy beliefs and practices. Sooner or later, the chickens of Spirit-ignorance will come home to roost.

That’s my opinion. But what do you think? Was the Holy Spirit an indispensible part of the gospel that you accepted and believed? Have you been experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit in your personal life and in your church? If so, how? If not, why? On a scale of 1=total ignorance to 5=deep understanding, how well do you think you know the Holy Spirit, and is your present knowledge going to be enough to sustain your spiritual health and growth in the years ahead?

I will try to post more articles about the Holy Spirit in the next few days. But before I do, I would really like to hear from you guys to know what you are thinking.

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  1. Michelle on May 25, 2010 at 12:17 pm

    Sadly, I learned very little about the Holy spirit in the church in which I was raised. Though I accepted Jesus as my savior at 5, I didn’t understand anything about discipleship until I became involved in Young Life in high school. Even so, the first memorable experiences I had with the Holy Spirit were in college when I got to know friends who were determined to experience the work of the Spirit in their lives. I was involved in a ministry on campus that wanted to know the Word, and we studied it quite in-depth. But my experiences with the Spirit came mostly outside of that realm. After reading Richard Foster’s Streams of Living Water, I realized that I was very weak in the charismatic, Spirit-driven “stream” of Christianity, and have begun to seek that out more on my own.

    I have definitely been experiencing the work of the Spirit in my life. In the past week, I’ve seen several miracles…impossible things that happened through prayer, a woman knowing things about me that I didn’t tell her, and God speaking to me in very intimate ways. Random people (not connected to each other) have been saying the same things to me as I try to process decisions in my life; and I attribute that to the work of the Spirit. I would say, on a scale of 1-5, I know the Spirit as a 2.5. I have much more to learn, and I appreciate the things you are writing here!

  2. Joe on May 25, 2010 at 5:50 pm

    Hey Michelle,

    Glad you’re reading. Congratulations on the approval of InterVarsity at Penn State. I hope that your arm and wrist are getting better.

    Your first word was “Sadly.” In my case, I could say the same thing; I wish that I had begun to learn about the Holy Spirit earlier. But on secind thought, I’m not sure that it would have worked. Perhaps we need to experience the work of the Holy Spirit first to know that he is real, and then later we (hopefully) begin to understand what we have experienced in light of Scripture. God reveals himself to us over the course of our lives, and whatever the shortcomings of the church in which you were raised, it was God’s providence to place you there, and I am sure that you learned many important things that are bearing fruit now.

  3. Mary on May 25, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    I remember learning as a kid that the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit was comparable to an apple. The outer layer, the fruit part and the seeds were all parts of the apple –who is God…. but the two layers are a distinctly separate part, meaning Jesus and the holy spirit were independent but all are still one apple and are all connected to God who is a complete being. And thus is the Trinity.

    I’d say my understanding is around a 1.45. It’s only that high because I gave myself credit for acknowledging the existence of the Holy Spirit and the belief & faith that the Spirit does indeed work among my friends and family.

  4. Joe on May 26, 2010 at 5:47 am

    Hi Mary,

    You have mentioned something very interesting. There are many simple analogies that have been used to illustrate the three-persons-in-one-God aspect of the Trinity. I have never heard the one about the apple before.

    St. Patrick was said to have used the shamrock (three-leaf clover), but rather than making me think about the Trinity, it evokes images of corned beef, cabbage and green beer.

    Here is another common one. Someone says, “The Trinity is illogical. If the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct, then you are saying that there are three Gods rather than one.” Then you reply, “It’s not like 1+1+1=3. It’s like 1×1x1=1.”

    These analogies, which are very childlike, can help a young person settle in his or her mind that the Trinity is plausible. So they are useful, but only to a point, because they are quite unlike the descriptions of God found in the Bible. There are subtle dangers associated with these analogies. First, some people hold on to them and begin to think that they really do understand the Trinity (i.e., they have it “figured out”) which they do not, because the Trinity is ultimately a mystery. This attitude can keep them from pondering further. Second, some people begin to think that their favorite analogy really does capture the essence of God, that God really is like the shamrock or apple or whatever, when many elements of the analogy do not apply.

    Some of the analogies out there suggest that the three persons are three different attributes or God, or three different forms (modes) in which God interacts with people and works in the world. For example, some have compared the Trinity to ice, water and steam; they are three different ways that the same compound, H2O, appears to us under different conditions. That idea — that one God is appearing to us and working in three different forms, is an ancient heresy called modalism. That idea, and many others, were rejected by the ancient ecumenical councils because they don’t correspond to what the Scripture actually says about God. Christian who hold on to them are not necessarily harming their faith, at least not in the short term. But over time, wrong-headed ideas about God to tend to adversely affect Christian beliefs and practices — how we pray, worship, study and teach the scriptures, etc. — in ways that are subtle at first, but eventually become problematic.

    Scot McKnight, who is a widely respected, openminded and solidly orthodox Christian scholar, recently wrote about this. He pointed out that evangelical Christians profess to believe in the Trinity, and we quickly denounce the faith of anyone who doesn’t (Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc) as false religion. But in practice we ourselves do not envision God or speak to or about him in Trinititarian ways. So he concluded, “Most of Western evangelicals are functionally heretical.” You can see Scot’s comments here:

    http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/05/great-is-the-lord-4.html

    I’m sure that you remember when John Armstrong spoke to us about worship last summer. After his message, we followed up with about 1-1/2 hours of praise and worship. Part of that worship was explicitly Trinitarian — praise, song and prayer offered to the Father, then to the Son, then to the Holy Spirit. Some of our church members found this uncomfortable. They wondered whether it was okay to pray to the Holy Spirit. Some felt it was strange to speak directly to Jesus, because that is not how we ordinarily do it. (We usually pray to the Father in Jesus’ name.) John is a very openminded and generous person. He interacts with Christians from a wide variety of churches and denominations who worship in many different styles, and although he has his own personal ideas and preferences, he is very careful never to try to impose his ideas on anyone else, unless he thinks they are truly fundamental to the essence of the Christian faith. The one thing that John said to me after our conference, the only thing that came close to a suggestion or recommendation for us, was that we strive to become more Trinitarian in how we speak of God and interact with him. I think that was very good advice.

  5. Shelly on May 26, 2010 at 11:49 pm

    This article really provoked a lot of interest to me because although talking about the holy spirit has happened, I still feel like I barely have a 2 out of 5 on my understanding. Like Mary, there were many analogies that we were taught in Sunday School and Children’s messages, although sometimes those left me more confused.

    I don’t believe that it was until I entered Catechism and we were studying the appostle’s creed that I was begining to understand who the Holy Spirit was and what he was doing in my life.

    Luther says in his small catechism response that the third article:

    “I believe that I cannot come to my Lord Jesus Christ by my own intellegence or power. But the Holy Spirit called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with her gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as she calls, gathers together, enlightens and makes holy the whole Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus in the one, true faith. In this Church, she generously forgives each day every sin committed by me and by every believer. On the last day, she will raise me and all the dead from the grave. She will give eternal life to me and to all who believe in Christ. Yes, this is true! ”

    From this almost “textbook” understanding, I have always believed that the Holy Spirit has been working in me and has been the reason that I keep with my faith because my own strength is not strong enough. And like most of my knowledge, I have quite a lot more to understand fully.

  6. Joe on May 27, 2010 at 4:12 am

    Hi Shelly,
    It is very interesting to me that the teachings that helped you were not the simple analogies — the attempts to make the spiritual “relevant” — but the ancient teachings of the Apostles Creed and Luther’s catechism.

    Did Luther really call the Holy Spirit “she”? If so, I wonder why.

  7. Shelly on May 27, 2010 at 3:21 pm

    I can’t figure it out. I just looked it up online, so I don’t have my book copy. I found both he and she. I would have to look in the originial version to understand which he actually used. Here’s where I pulled it off of creeds.net
    http://www.creeds.net/ancient/luther_on_apostles.htm

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