Theology Thursday: Who is God the Holy Spirit?

Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him.

Welcome to Theology Thursday!

Today’s question:
What is God the Holy Spirit's role in the trinity? Who is the Spirit of God?

Pastor Brady’s thoughts:
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. - John 4:24

Ok, we’ve introduced the idea of the trinity, as well as God the Father and God the Son, Jesus. Now we come to God the Holy Spirit.

This is the one that often causes consternation and confusion for many Christians; some churches seem to mostly ignore the theology and work of the Holy Spirit, while others seem to make it the thing they emphasize above everything else. This leads to much disagreement and even distrust amongst congregations and between denominations and groups.

Understanding and applying an accurate theology of the Holy Spirit matters a great deal, because we learn from scripture that we can know whether a person is saved or lost by the presence of the Spirit in his or her life.

Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. - Romans 8:8-9

Our goal is to properly recognize the Holy Spirit in our theology (our beliefs) and our practice. Let’s give it a shot.

In his book Holy Spirit: Filled, Empowered, Led, church pastor and Bible scholar David Young gives this helpful summary:

“The Spirit of God is the creative power and the life-giving essence of God. The Holy Spirit is the personal force of God beneath, behind, and within the universe that holds it all together and gives it its purpose. God himself is a spirit, but he also has a Spirit - who is one person of the Trinity - distinct from the Father and the Son yet also completely one with them. The Spirit is above us, beneath us, around us, and if you are a believer in Jesus, within you. He is the presence of God hovering over creation. He animates the universe, motivates it, and shapes it. He is the life-giving and world-transforming presence of God, permeating every crevice of creation…

…But the Spirit does not point to himself. Rather, the Spirit’s work is to point us to Jesus.”

Here’s another way of saying it: the Spirit’s main goal in the life of Christians is to empower us to be more like our savior, Christ Jesus.

How does the Spirit accomplish this? In three primary ways:

First, through the Word of God, our holy scripture.

In the Old Testament, the Spirit gave physical strength and leadership abilities to certain God-ordained individuals. Alongside those gifts, he also gave them the words of God through prophecy - he communicated the specific aspects of God’s will to humans. In short, he inspired and enabled the writing of the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament. Take, for example, 1 Samuel 19:23: For the Spirit of God came even on him, and walked along prophesying.

Other examples can be found in 2 Chronicles 24:20, Isaiah 59:21, Ezekiel 11:5, and Zechariah 7:12. Many verses in the New Testament support these claims that the Old Testament writings come directly from God through his Spirit (Matthew 5:17-20; Acts 1:16; 4:25, Romans 7:12).

In the New Testament, the Spirit is the inspiration and initiator for the teachings, actions, and writings of the disciples and apostles.

Jesus promised the apostles that the Spirit would guide them in truth (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13; 16:15), in 1 Corinthians 14:37 Paul claims to be speaking the very words of God because he has the Spirit of God, and in Ephesians 3:5 Paul says that the Word of God “has been revealed by the Spirit” to the apostles.

From Young’s book, again: “The Scriptures are fully trustworthy because they are “God-breathed,” a term that literally means “Spirited-of-God” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Word of God is described as the Spirit’s sword (Ephesians 6:17). Peter says that the Scripture came to us by prophets who were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

In other words, we do not come to know and follow Jesus merely by examining ourselves or meditating on a “higher power.” We need the Bible to show Jesus to us and guide us in his way, and the Spirit provided the Bible.  

Second, the Spirit empowers believers to be more like Jesus by enacting the providence of God.

Now, this side of things can get a bit sticky, because here is where the debates begin on things like signs, wonders, and powers. On the day of Pentecost (the event where the Spirit of God came down on the believers in Acts chapter 2), the Christians spoke in “tongues” (unknown and perhaps unknowable languages), and we know that Jesus’s disciples - not just Jesus himself - performed miracles of physical healing and something like exorcisms or the “casting out” of “demons.”

Are these types of miraculous gifts still present and available to Christians today, or were they concluded with the close of scripture after John wrote Revelation? This is a matter of much debate throughout church history and continues even now.

For our purposes today, we can say with confidence that our God is an active God, and he acts through his Spirit to move in believers and accomplish his mission of making disciples everywhere in the world.

The Spirit moves in us to make us more like Jesus, and through us to enable us to show others the way to his Kingdom as well.

Third, the Spirit moves within believers to convict us of sin.

God has given us his written commands in scripture, but we need the Spirit’s power in our hearts in order to obey it. We need the movement of the Spirit to say NO to the temptations of this world that draw us away from God’s design for our lives, and to say YES to his call to ceaseless discipleship.

The Spirit’s quiet, prompting voice is how God seeks to lead, guide, and fill us (Galatians 5:18, 5:25; Ephesians 5:18).

And praise God for this! Can you imagine trying to do this on our own?

One last thing: so far, we’ve focused on the Spirit’s work in us as individuals. But the Spirit also works through us as a corporate body of believers - as a church - to realize the will of God. As each of us are drawn to Jesus, together we reflect his light in our church, broader community, and world.

Related Resources:
Article - What Does It Mean to Walk in the Spirit?
Book - Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? 4 Views

Next week: Why does the Bible have authority?

To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.