Article 6

We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that he does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of its guilt. He makes sinful people alive to God through faith in Christ, and through the Spirit they are baptized into union with Christ and adopted as heirs into the family of God. He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips, and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service.

God's gospel is applied and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

(This commentary is based on a book, entitled Evangelical Convictions: A Theological Exposition of the Statement of Faith of the Evangelical Free Church of America. The exposition I have adapted from that book is shorter and re-drafted to fit the Statement of Faith we are proposing at LAC. I am thankful to my theologian friends—Mike Andrus, Bill Jones, Bill Kynes, David Martin, Ruben Martinez, and Greg Strand—both for the work together and for the opportunity to post this material. Though many contributed to the commentary, the writing was done mainly by Dr. Greg Strand and Dr. Bill Kynes. Your pastor accepts responsibility both for the abridging and for the re-focusing of the commentary now being made available to us.)

Commentary

Our Christian faith is anchored in history. Reflecting the Apostles’ Creed, our SOF declares that Jesus was crucified “under Pontius Pilate” (Article 4). The mention of a first-century Roman governor may seem out of place in a broad formulation of essential truth in most religions— but not in the Christian faith. Instead, it situates the gospel at a particular place in the chronicle of human events. In that way, it is consistent with the Bible’s own emphasis. The climactic event of the Bible, the coming of God into the world, is rooted in history (see Luke 1:1-4). The Scriptures tell us that a Jewish baby named Jesus was born in a village called Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago. We are provided with actual eyewitnesses to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Bible declares that this story is actual history.

But a question arises naturally from this claim: How does all of this relate to us? How could something so far away in space and time affect our lives here and now? How could what happened in the particularity of this one man in that one historical moment have significance that transcends space and time?

Jesus himself anticipated that question in his final words with his disciples on the night before he died (see John 14:15-27). He was departing from them, and in one sense, he would no longer be with them. But he assured them that they would see him again (John 14:19), he would continue to love them, and they would know that love (14:21). Furthermore, because he lived, they, too, would live (14:19). In other words, Jesus is promising a relationship with his followers after his departure.

What is the nature of the relationship Jesus describes here? How can he be with his disciples even after his death, resurrection and ascension? The answer is largely found in Jesus’ words of promise: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth” (John 14:15-16). This Counselor, this Spirit of truth, is none other than the Holy Spirit (cf. 14:26). Jesus is assuring his disciples that though he will be leaving them physically, he will be forever with them spiritually through the personal presence of the Holy Spirit. We believe that this Spirit, this other Counselor, still unites us with Jesus the Son and so draws us into a personal relationship with God as our Father. In this way the barriers of space and time are overcome, and the life of the one man, Jesus, touches our lives today. God’s gospel is applied by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I. Who Is the Holy Spirit?

Unlike God the Father or the Son, many have found God the Spirit difficult to imagine in a personal way, and many conceive of the Spirit as some impersonal power at work in the world, not unlike gravity or electricity. So, quite simply, how does the Bible describe the Holy Spirit?

He is powerful: This is one of his primary characteristics. Frequently, we read in the Old Testament of the Spirit of the Lord coming upon a person in power, enabling the fulfillment of some God-given task.[1] The Spirit was active in creation (Gen. 1:2), in the revelation of God’s word to the prophets (Ezek. 2:2; cf. 8:3; 11:1, 24), and in the empowering for craftsmanship and administration in Israel (Exod. 31:3-5; Zech. 4:6; Num. 11:25; Deut. 34:9).

This emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit continues in the New Testament. Jesus’ conception in the womb of a virgin is attributed to the Spirit’s power (Luke 1:35), and at his baptism by John, the Spirit visibly descended upon him, empowering him in his ministry (Luke 4:14; Acts 10:38). Jesus announced himself as one “anointed by the Spirit” (Luke 4:17-21, citing Isa. 61:1-2). It was “by the Spirit of God” that Jesus drove out demons (Matt. 12:28). In a final act, the Spirit’s power raised him from the dead (Rom. 1:4).

Before his ascension to the Father, Jesus promised his disciples, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). On the Day of Pentecost, the Spirit did come in power, and the apostles performed many miraculous deeds. All believers are promised the Spirit’s power at work within them (Eph. 3:16; Rom. 8:11; 15:13).

He is personal: The Holy Spirit is powerful, but it is important to recognize that the Spirit is also personal. In his farewell discourse (John 14-16), Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as the “Counselor.” The Greek word paraklêtos used here refers to one who comes alongside another to act on his behalf. However the word is translated, it refers to a person and not a thing, one providing personal services. A paraklêtos helps, guides, advises, and encourages.

The personhood of the Spirit is reinforced when Jesus speaks of giving his disciples “another Counselor” to be with them (John 14:16). As Alice observed at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, you cannot be offered more tea unless you have drunk some already. So Jesus'’ promise implies that his disciples already had a Counselor, and the assumption is that Jesus himself is that Counselor.[2] The Spirit is as personal as Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is personal in Christian experience. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Spirit acts in very personal ways: he can be grieved (Eph. 4:30), he acts with volition (1 Cor. 12:11), and he has affections (Acts 15:28). This Counselor, the Holy Spirit, is not an impersonal force but a person.

He is a divine person: Several lines of evidence support this. First, references to the Holy Spirit are sometimes interchangeable with references to God. Most notably, in Acts 5:3-4, Peter accused Ananias of lying to the Holy Spirit, and then, in repeating that accusation, he said that Ananias did not lie to men but to God.[3] The Holy Spirit also possesses the attributes of God, such as omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10-11; cf. John 16:13) and eternality (Heb. 9:14), and he performs acts commonly ascribed to God, such as creation (Gen. 1:2) and resurrection (Rom. 8:11). Finally, the Holy Spirit is set alongside the Father and the Son in a way that assumes their equality (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 12:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2). He is fully God, one of the three persons of the divine Trinity.

Only this understanding of who the Holy Spirit is enables us to appreciate what he does.

II. What Does the Holy Spirit Do?

The Holy Spirit Glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ.

On the night before his death, as he prepared his disciples for his departure, Jesus said, “Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:6-7). Jesus must go so that the Spirit may come. Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross in taking away our sins and his victorious resurrection from the dead made possible the coming of the Holy Spirit in a new way in the lives of God’s people.

Jesus promised his disciples that the coming Counselor, the Holy Spirit, would be with them forever: “You know him for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:17). He then spoke of that time after his departure when “you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (14:20). How will we be “in him” and he “in us”? By the Spirit. This is how these words were understood by John, for he wrote in his first epistle, “We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). Christ dwells in us through the Spirit. The Spirit makes Christ personally present in our lives.[4]

We must be careful when we speak this way because the Spirit is not just Jesus in another form. We maintain a real distinction between the persons of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not simply different modes of God’s being, like an actor playing different roles or putting on different masks. The triune God is really three distinct persons in one God. The Spirit is another Counselor. But in a mysterious way, the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person who somehow joins us to Christ, allowing us to “know Christ” (Phil. 3:8) and all his benefits. The Spirit bridges the gulf created by time and space and unites us today to the savior who lived in Palestine so long ago.

For this reason, Jesus said, “It is for your good that I am going away” (John 16:7). During Jesus’ earthly ministry, his presence was limited to those who came into physical contact with him, and he impacted them from the outside. But because he went to the Father and sent the Spirit to us, Jesus’ presence can extend beyond that small circle of followers in Palestine and expand across the whole world. Indeed, according to the Bible, it can penetrate into the depths of our souls.

The Spirit’s role, then, is not to magnify himself but to bring glory to Jesus Christ. “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me,” Jesus said (John 15:26). “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (John 16:14).

Supremely, the Holy Spirit will bring glory to Jesus Christ by making his saving work effective in the lives of sinful people. God’s gospel — his gracious purpose to redeem a people for himself —originates in the eternal plan of the Father, which addresses our deepest human need. This gospel is accomplished by the earthly work of the Son, and this gospel is appliedby the power of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit glorifies Christ, first, in evangelism by convicting sinners of the truth; second, in conversion by bringing about a spiritual birth in which we are joined to Christ and are adopted into God’s family; and third, in discipleship by empowering believers to be transformed into Christ’s likeness so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

A. The Holy Spirit Glorifies Christ in Evangelism

Jesus came to his people preaching, teaching, and performing miracles, but he was ultimately rejected and delivered to the Romans to be crucified. After his resurrection, he called his followers to continue his mission to the world. But one might well ask, “What chance of success could they possibly have? If their Messiah had been rejected, why should people believe them when they declared that he had actually died not as a sinner, but as a sacrifice for sin? If people didn’t believe in Jesus when he walked among them in the flesh, why should they believe in him now, when he was nowhere to be seen?”

But people did believe. In fact, in the first public preaching of the gospel, Peter spoke to the same crowd in Jerusalem who had once cried, “Crucify him!” Peter proclaimed the very last thing they wanted to hear: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). One might have expected a mob to lynch Peter there on the spot, but instead, “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart” (v. 37), and about 3,000 people responded that day (v. 41).

What could explain this reaction? Jesus had assured his disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8), and on the Day of Pentecost that Holy Spirit had come. The Spirit gave power to Peter’s preaching, and hardened hearts became receptive to the message of the gospel.

The Holy Spirit Convicts the World of Its Guilt

We believe that, in glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ in evangelism, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of its guilt. Peter’s preaching as recorded in Acts and the subsequent history of the church testify to this work of the Spirit, but our conviction rests ultimately on the promise of Jesus himself. In preparing his disciples for his departure, he declared plainly, “When he [i.e., the Holy Spirit, the Counselor] comes, he will convict the world of guilt with regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8).

The Greek word for “Counselor,” paraklêtos, had legal associations in its secular usage. A paraklêtos was someone who would come alongside you in a court of law. But in 16:7-8 he appeared not as a counselor for the defense but as a prosecutor seeking a guilty verdict. The “conviction” suggested by the word used here, however, refers to more than just the judge’s decision. It also refers to the guilty defendant’s perception of that verdict. The defendant is to see that he is guilty by having his sin exposed and in that exposure to feel ashamed. Jesus is promising that the Spirit will work in that way when we act as his witnesses in the world. “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.”

Sin, righteousness, and judgment are unfashionable moral categories in our world today. Our world would rather speak of psychological disorders, cultural differences, or genetic determinations. But the Bible declares that we are sinful, unrighteous, and under God’s judgment, and until we are convicted of that fact, we will never turn to the one who alone can free us from the bondage that guilt entails. But Jesus promises the power of the Holy Spirit to be at work as we declare the gospel, convicting the world of the truth. In this way, Christ is glorified in evangelism, for he is revealed as our gracious savior.

B. The Holy Spirit Glorifies Christ in Conversion

We believe that our faith is not only a call to find forgiveness from past sins. We also have a strong conviction that the message of the gospel must change us by making us alive to God. This conversion to a new life with God is made possible by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

1. The Holy Spirit Regenerates Sinners

Christianity is more than a self-help program. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3 reject that view. In entering God’s kingdom, self-help is useless, for in our fallen state we are helpless and even lifeless. We need God’s life-giving power at work within us, something which can be described only as a “new birth.”[5] We need more than moral instruction; fallen human beings need spiritual power.

And that spiritual power for a new life with God is what the prophets had promised.

“The time is coming,” declares the Lord,

“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel…

I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jer. 31:31-34).

The God of the old covenant, who came to rule over his people through his Old Testament law, would come in his Son Jesus to live alongside them, and then he would come by his Spirit to dwell in their hearts. “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart” (Jer. 24:7).

This was the promise of a new covenant to be brought by Messiah —a covenant with the power to bring life. This work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating sinners, causing us to be born again spiritually, is what we mean by the word “conversion.” People who previously followed their own ways (and are thereby dead in sin) are turned around to become spiritually alive worshippers of God (1 Thess. 1:9). This is essential for a right understanding of the gospel and its work in our lives.

2. In the Holy Spirit: Sinners Are Baptized Into Union With Christ

How do the benefits of Jesus Christ flow into our lives? How can the spiritual achievement of the one affect the many? The Bible speaks of a spiritual union of Christian believers and Jesus Christ such that what is true of him becomes true of us.

Our union with Christ is captured in that simple prepositional phrase “in Christ,” used by Paul in one form or another 164 times. Only as we are “in Christ” are we chosen, called, regenerated, justified, sanctified, redeemed, assured of the resurrection, and given every spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:4,7; Rom. 6:5; 8:1; 2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 1:3). This union with Christ spans space and time— so that Paul can say that the Christian has died with Christ (Rom. 6:1-11; Gal. 2:20), the Christian has been resurrected with Christ (Eph. 2:5-6; Col. 3:1-2), the Christian has ascended with Christ to share now in his reign in the heavenly places (Rom. 5:17; Eph. 2:6), and the Christian is destined to share Christ’s coming glory with him (Phil. 3:20-21). No wonder some call our union with Christ one of the central messages of the New Testament. Theologian John Murray called it “the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation.”[6]

The Bible provides a variety of images that help us gain some insight into this “profound mystery” (cf. Eph. 5:32). The New Testament speaks of a branch in John 15 (with Christ as its vine), a body in Ephesians 1 (with Christ as its head), a building in 1 Peter 2 (with Christ as its foundation), and a marriage in Ephesians 5 (with Christ as the groom). In Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul taught that human beings have solidarity either with the first Adam or with the second Adam (i.e., Jesus). He said, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man (Adam), the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man (Jesus Christ), the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). (See the longer discussion in Article 5’s commentary.)

One final image takes us to the very nature of God himself. Jesus told us that our relationship with him is in some sense a reflection of his own relationship with his Father in heaven. We are united to Christ in a way that reflects the mysterious union of the divine persons of the Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In his great prayer in John 17, Jesus addressed the Father on behalf of his disciples. He prayed “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me” (John 17:21-23). This is indeed a profound mystery!

The Holy Spirit’s work brings us into this spiritual union with Christ: “We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13). In this “Spirit-baptism”[7] the Holy Spirit bridges the chasm of space and time. He takes what happened then — the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus — and brings its saving power into our lives now by uniting us in a spiritual way with Christ. By the Spirit, Christ lives in us and we in him. By the Spirit, we are now joined to Christ as a vine and its branches, as a body and its head, as a building and its foundation, as a husband with his bride, and as the new humanity in Christ Jesus. The Spirit himself unites us with Christ and so applies all his saving work to our lives. “We know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13).[8]

3. In the Holy Spirit: Sinners are Adopted as Heirs into the Family of God

One of the central benefits of our union with Christ is our adoption as heirs in the family of God. In our union with the Son of God we share in a new family relationship with God as our Father. Moreover, when we have a relationship with God, we discover that the Holy Spirit brings us into a familial relationship with all who have been made right with God. In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul made it clear that God has had a plan since before the creation of the world to establish a family made up of all who come to Christ in faith and to make each family member complete in Christ (see 1:3-8; 2:8-10, 11-22; and 3:14-21). It is apparent from Paul’s words to the Ephesians that, although the believers in Jesus were quite satisfied to know God as Father, they were not as happy to be in a family including both Jew and Gentile. In Eph. 1:11-14, Paul said that one ministry of the Holy Spirit is to seal all who follow Jesus together into one family and to guarantee that God would complete his work of redemption among all who are in the family — both Jew (called those who were the first to hope in Christ) and Gentile. We will all together be “to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:14; 3:21).

Contrary to common conception, the Bible does not speak of God as the Father of all humanity. In the Old Testament, Israel is described as God’s son, his firstborn (cf. Exod. 4:22-23; Jer. 31:9, 20; Hos. 11:1).[9] In the New Testament, Jesus, the Son of God, becomes the means by which sinful human beings are brought into a new relationship with God as Father (cf. John 14:6; Matt. 11:27, 29). Though Jesus’ teaching is rich with the message of God’s fatherly love and care, it is only to his disciples that Jesus speaks in this way.[10]

Living as a child of God is not our natural condition; it is a supernatural gift. It is not a result of our birth but of our new birth — the regenerating work of the Spirit. John described it this way, speaking of Jesus: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13). We are sons and daughters of God not by nature, but by grace, as we come into a relationship with Christ the Son by faith. Paul wrote in Galatians, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal. 3:26-27).

The Apostle Paul spoke of this relationship as an adoption: “In love [God] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5; cf. Gal. 4:6-7; Rom. 8:15). As such we enter into a new status, for as adopted children we have “the full rights of sons” (Gal. 4:5) and become heirs of all the promises of God: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17; cf. Gal. 3:29-4:7; Eph. 3:6; Titus 3:7). The Holy Spirit himself becomes the down payment of our inheritance, “a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14).

But it is not just a new status that we receive in this spiritual adoption. We also enter into a new experience of God. By the Spirit’s work within us, we can know the love of the Father personally. Paul wrote, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Rom. 8:15-16). The very expression Jesus used in his own prayer to the Father, “Abba, Father” (cf. Mark 14:36), is now ours. The Spirit helps us realize with greater clarity what it means to be God’s son or daughter in Christ and leads us into a deeper response to God in that relationship. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 Jn. 3:1).

C. The Holy Spirit Glorifies Christ in Discipleship

The Holy Spirit works powerfully to bring glory to Jesus Christ. He works powerfully in evangelism to convict the world of its guilt. He works powerfully in conversion to effect spiritual birth, uniting sinners to Christ so that we are adopted into God’s family. And the Spirit works powerfully in the lives of believers in the process of discipleship, so that we might be conformed to the image of Christ.

1. The Holy Spirit Indwells Believers 

Our SOF presents a variety of ways the Spirit works in the lives of believers in a list that is by no means exhaustive. We affirm simply that the Holy Spirit indwells all believers, for Paul asserts that if a person does not have the indwelling Spirit, “he does not belong to Christ” (Rom. 8:9; cf. 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 12:13; 2 Cor. 1:22; Gal. 4:6).[11] By the Spirit Christ lives in us (cf. Rom. 8:9-10). By the indwelling Spirit the believer enters into a new life, one that will come to fulfillment when Christ returns. In this sense, through the Holy Spirit, God has “set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Cor. 1:22; cf. Eph. 1:13; 4:30).

This indwelling of the Spirit can be distinguished from the “filling” of the Spirit, for Paul spoke of the former as a fact true of all Christians and called for the latter in an ongoing command: “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). This suggests that this filling can occur repeatedly in a believer’s life. Though the filling of the Spirit can occur as God equips believers for particular circumstances (Luke 1:5-8, 41, 67; Acts 4:8; 7:55) or to fulfill certain tasks (Luke 1:15-17; Acts 9:17), in Ephesians 5 Paul is refers to the filling of the Spirit that ought to be the norm for healthy Christians (Acts 6:3, 5; Act 11:24; 13:52). The context of Paul’s command (Eph. 5:18-21) suggests that the filling of the Spirit entails a growing submission to God resulting in a heart desiring to worship the Lord gratefully and to love others humbly. Paul describes the qualities of character brought forth by the Spirit’s work in the believer’s life — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — as “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23).

2. The Holy Spirit Illuminates Believers

The indwelling Spirit is at work restoring the corrupted image of God in every believer. That work involves a transformation of our minds as we are enabled by the Spirit to understand and apply God’s truth to our lives. The same Spirit who inspired the Scriptures now illuminates us as we hear, read and study them.  The illuminating work of the Holy Spirit enables us to overcome the blinding effects of sin so that we might see the truth of God’s Word to us. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). The Spirit takes away the veil covering our hearts, Paul says (2 Cor. 3:15-16). As believers we have received the Spirit “that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Cor. 2:12). By the Spirit, God himself testifies to the truth of what he has revealed, so that our knowledge has a divine warrant (1 John 2:20).

But the Spirit not only impacts our minds, enabling us to understand the truth of God’s word. He also moves our hearts so that we may see that truth as a glorious thing, full of grace, goodness, and beauty. By the Spirit, God shines his light in our hearts “to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). For that reason, the Apostle Paul prays for the Spirit’s work in the lives of believers so that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:18) and that “you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Eph. 3:17–18). By the Spirit’s illumination, God’s glorious truth is experienced and applied personally — we taste the Lord’s goodness and love. That truth becomes knowledge sealed upon our hearts as well as revealed to our minds.

For this reason, our study of Scripture can never be a mere academic exercise. It must be accompanied by meditation and prayer with a humble and submissive heart eager to receive what God reveals.[12] The Spirit’s illumination turns what seem to us mere words of men into a living word from God.

3. The Holy Spirit Guides Believers

As our Counselor, the Holy Spirit also guides the believer. First, the Bible speaks of the Spirit guiding us morally, as “being led by the Spirit” is contrasted with “living according to the sinful nature” (Rom. 8:12-14; Gal. 5:16-18). “Live by the Spirit,” Paul said, “and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Gal. 5:16). Instead, you will bring forth the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23). The Spirit guides us into the purity and holiness of Christ.

The Bible also describes the Spirit guiding believers practically. Jesus himself was “led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:1). While the disciples were worshiping the Lord and fasting in Antioch, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2; cf. Acts 15:28). And Paul declared that he was “compelled by the Spirit” to go to Jerusalem, knowing the danger that awaited him there (Acts 20:22-23; cf. 11:12; 13:4). The Spirit can guide us in practical ways by an inward prompting, which is spiritually discerned, or by simply leading us into godly wisdom through an understanding of the Word of God (cf. Eph. 1:17; 6:17). In other words, the Spirit of God may lead as he will in ways consistent with Scripture.

4. The Holy Spirit Equips Believers to Edify the Community of Faith

The critical work of the Spirit in uniting believers in the new community of the church will be discussed in the following chapter (Article 7), but here we briefly mention the Spirit’s role in equipping believers for their service in that community. He does that through the distribution of spiritual gifts.

Paul began 1 Corinthians 12 with the words “Now about spiritual gifts,” with the assumption that his readers knew what he was talking about. Unfortunately, the apostle never defined the term, and we are left to understand it by its use. In five different lists (1 Cor. 12:8-11; 1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:6-8; Eph. 4:11; 1 Peter 4:11) some twenty distinctive gifts are referred to in the New Testament (some refer to capacities, others to offices or people). No single gift occurs in all five lists, and thirteen occur in only one of the five lists, so it is likely that these are not exhaustive in scope.

The purpose of these gifts is the edification of the church (cf. 1 Cor. 12:7; 14:26; Eph. 4:12; 1 Pet. 4:10). The Spirit equips every believer (1 Cor. 12:11; 1 Pet. 4:10; Eph. 4:7) so that in some way he or she may serve in the body of Christ. The gifts are diverse — several relate to speaking (prophecy, teaching, exhorting); others refer to practical help (service, mercy, administration). They are distributed to each as God chooses (Heb. 2:4; Rom. 12:6), yet each gift is important and useful, just as the various parts of a body work together as a whole (1 Cor. 12:12-27). It is helpful to distinguish spiritual “gifts” from spiritual “graces” (or virtues) — that is, the marks of godly character. As the experience of the Corinthian church illustrates all too well, these two do not necessarily coincide. Without love, all gifts are of no ultimate value (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

Regarding the exercise of spiritual gifts, as our Article 2 affirms, the Scriptures remain our authority on all matters of faith and practice —any exercise of gifts must be done under the direction of the Word of God,[13] and all of our experience must be understood in the light of the teaching of that Word. Nevertheless, we affirm that the Spirit of God still is present and at work in the lives of individual believers and in the church. Therefore, we believe that miracles still happen in the world and among God’’s people.

5. The Holy Spirit Empowers Believers: for Christ-Like Living and Service

Both the gift of the Holy Spirit and his gifts are presented in the New Testament as signs of Christ’s victory, the fruits of the triumph of his life, death, and resurrection (John 7:39; Acts 2:32-33; Eph. 4:8-10). By the Spirit, that victory is made effective as Jesus himself is made known in the world and people turn to him in repentance and faith. The Spirit convicts the world of its sin, regenerates sinners and unites them to Christ, and empowers believers to become conformed to the image of Christ.

The work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer is perhaps the most distinctively new feature of the New Covenant. Instead of simply addressing his people from the outside through his law, God now works powerfully by the Spirit to change the heart: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezek. 36:26-27). In exalting the ministry of this new covenant that has now come in Christ, Paul declared that we “are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). In Christ, Paul declared, God has “condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4).

“He will bring glory to me”—that is how Jesus characterizes the work of this coming Counselor, the Holy Spirit (John 16:14). J. I. Packer described it as the Spirit’s “floodlight ministry.” Like the floodlights that illuminate the Washington Monument at night, displaying its beauty in the best possible way, so the Spirit throws his light on Jesus, allowing us to see his glory, to hear his word, to go to him and receive life, and to taste his gift of joy and peace.[14] He applies the redeeming work of Christ to our lives by uniting us to our Savior, and, by dwelling within us as the down payment of our future inheritance, he begins our transformation into conformity with the image of Christ. 
 

To God's glory alone,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor