Tag: the Holy Spirit

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God Behind the Scenes

The Holy Spirit is the silent partner in the Trinity. He does his work behind the scenes. The Spirit is, Jesus said, like the wind, invisible, yet powerful. We see the effects of his ministry, but we do not see him.

Any interest in the Holy Spirit is a good thing because of the worldliness and weakness of the church in our day. Many of us are dissatisfied with the condition of our spiritual lives. We hunger for a deeper and fuller experience of God’s Spirit working through us. Many of us pray for revival in our churches and in our nation.

If we say, as the Apostles’ Creed does, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” we are not merely reciting an abstract theory of theology. We are talking about what happens when God goes to work in the lives of people like us, when he makes himself known in the life of his church.

I have observed this in a large church in Seoul, South Korea, as I joined a gathering of over a thousand worshippers who met at five o’clock in the morning to pray for spiritual awakening in their nation. I experienced the same thing at Ambaricho Mountain in Ethiopia where over fifty thousand Christians met for an all-day prayer gathering. They were there to pray for the progress of the gospel in their land and for spiritual renewal in their lives.

These devoted followers of Jesus in Asia and Africa had a spiritual urgency that we desperately need here in America. They believe in the Holy Spirit and they are hungry for his fullness. In the words of Ray Stedman, “Ministries that genuinely touch the world can be traced to the movement of the Holy Spirit. This is a truth that seems lost to today’s church.”

Paul brings this to our attention in 2 Corinthians 3. He mentions the Holy Spirit seven times in that passage. He practically shouts, “I believe in the Holy Spirit!” He wants us to recognize the necessity of the role of the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives.

In 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 he wrote, “Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us ministers of a new covenant — not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

The Holy Spirit may be invisible, doing his work behind the scenes, but he is the Spirit of God. He is eternal. He has been at work in this world since the creation. Jesus said he has been sent from God to help, encourage, and strengthen believers (John 16:7; 14:17, 26). It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to live for Christ. “Our competence comes from God.” “The Spirit gives life.”

William Temple illustrated it this way: “It is no use giving me a Shakespearean play like Hamlet or King Lear and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it. I cannot. And it is no good showing me the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that. Jesus could do it. I cannot. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like that! And if the Spirit of Jesus could come and live in me, then I could live a life like that!

That is what Paul was writing about in 2 Corinthians 3. It is not possible to live up to the holy standard of God’s law (the letter). We could die trying but we are simply not competent to do so. That is why Jesus has given us the promised New Covenant and the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is his life in us that gives us the ability to live for him.

John Stott had a thriving ministry as a pastor in London for over 25 years. His church, All Souls, was packed every Sunday with young professional people and students. Someone asked him, “John, what do you think of as you walk to the pulpit, knowing that a thousand people will be hanging on your words?” He replied, “As I make my journey to the pulpit, I just say over and over again, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit.'”

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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The Virgin Birth Really Matters

I know this is not the Advent season but in our examination of the Apostles’ Creed we have come to the phrase concerning the Lord Jesus: “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” This matters. From the very beginning, Christians have believed in the sinless deity, miraculous conception, and the virgin birth of Jesus.

This is because it is what the Bible teaches. There are skeptics who say it doesn’t really matter whether or not Jesus was born of a virgin. But they must concede that the early church, the earliest creeds,  and the New Testament taught these things. When Christians affirm their faith in the virgin birth of Christ, it is not with fingers crossed or with mental reservations. It is because we believe Luke who recorded what the angel Gabriel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

Luke was a physician. But he was not writing on the basis of his medical experience. This was not a case study for peer review in a medical journal. What he was describing is a great miracle of the Holy Spirit. He wants us to draw certain conclusions.

First, Jesus was fully human. He had a human birth. While his conception was supernatural, his birth was according to natural processes. This agrees with the idea that in Jesus Christ, the human and the divine are united in one person.

Second, Luke implies that Jesus was without sin. This is taught repeatedly in the New Testament. Here our Lord is spoken of as “the Holy One.” It is inconceivable that God could be incarnated in human flesh if it involved sin. This is attributable to the Holy Spirit and to Jesus’ divine pre-existence.

A third conclusion is obvious from Luke 1:35. We are told that this Holy Child “will be called the Son of God.” As Mary’s son, he was fully human. As the Son of the Most High, he was divine. How could he be the Son of God if he had a human father? The virgin birth really matters. It involves the entrance of God into the stream of humanity. It highlights our Lord’s absolute uniqueness. He is “Immanuel, God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

To deny this is to deny the supernatural character of the gospel. It is the story of a great miracle. If one denies the miracle of the virgin birth of Christ, it is only a short step toward denying the many miracles, the resurrection, and the second coming of Jesus Christ as well.

The trustworthiness of the Bible is at stake. Let’s just say it plainly. If Jesus had a human father, the Bible is not true. It comes down to this: can we trust the Bible? Were Matthew and Luke and the other writers of the New Testament guilty of falsifying their testimony about Jesus? If the virgin birth is open to question, so is everything else the Bible teaches.

On the other hand, if the Bible is truthful and trustworthy, then we can accept the fact that it contains the record of supernatural events that are beyond our comprehension and must be accepted by faith.

When we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we acknowledge that God used miraculous means to bring his Son into the world. This was a special act of his love in providing a Savior who “was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.”

This matters. It means that Jesus was, and is, human like us. He understands our problems and needs. This also means that Jesus is divine. He is the powerful Son of God who is able to save and sustain all who put their faith in him.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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Certainty

In my fifty year pastoral ministry I have had occasion to be with folks who lacked certainty about their relationship to God. Some of them were troubled emotionally about this and yearned for inner peace and assurance. Others lived in blithe indifference, happily unconcerned about their need for Christ, and unaware of their spiritual peril. They seemed to believe that certainty of eternal life was not even possible.

For those who really care to know, the book of Romans, chapter eight promises eternal security. It affirms the unshakable promise of God that those who belong to him through faith in Christ are given the hope (assurance) of glory. In this chapter, Paul, “the apostle soars to sublime heights unequalled elsewhere in the New Testament,” wrote John Stott. He said, “Romans 8 is without doubt one of the best-known, best-loved chapters of the Bible.”

It is not hard to understand why this is true. The inspired words of Romans eight promise the certainty of deliverance from eternal condemnation, the certainty of the resurrection of the dead, the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, and the Spirit’s witness that they are God’s children.

Further, the eighth chapter of Romans describes how God works to achieve his good purposes in the lives of his children, even (especially) when they encounter hardship and suffering. It declares the certainty of God’s love and his eternal purpose in calling his own people to himself.

This chapter stands in shining contrast to the doubts, introspection, and discouragement that colored Paul’s mood in chapter seven. It provides a ringing answer to the plaintive, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Romans 7:24). Romans seven is about the work of the law in imposing death. Romans eight is about the power of the Holy Spirit in giving life through the gospel.

The chapter opens with the declaration that there is “no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The word “condemnation” is derived from the courts of law. It is a metaphor Paul uses to teach about the believer’s judicial (legal) acceptance before a holy God. It is different from the tone of self-condemnation in chapter seven. The words “no condemnation” reiterate the doctrine of justification which has been Paul’s theme in the opening chapters of Romans. It means the believer is declared “not guilty” on the basis of faith in Christ.

Romans eight also tells about the Spirit’s role in helping believers live life as God intended. The Old Testament law was powerless to make us right with God or to give us the ability to live righteous lives. God did what the law could not do through his Son’s sacrifice on the cross and through the indwelling Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. Right living is now possible through Spirit-enabled obedience to God’s will. The requirements of the moral law are thus fulfilled as we live under the guidance of the Spirit (Romans 8:4).

In this chapter the Holy Spirit is mentioned nineteen times. The Spirit supports the testimony of our human spirit that we believers are indeed God’s children (Romans 8:14-16). The Spirit helps us to pray as we ought to pray, even when we do not know how to frame our prayers (Romans 8:26-27). The Spirit enables us to call on God as a loving and compassionate Father (“Abba,” v. 15). The Holy Spirit is said to be the firstfruits of our future inheritance (Romans 8:23).

Paul does not sidestep the reality of suffering in this present life. There is no escapism in his description of living on earth. Yes, believers are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, but that does not mean that life will be free of trouble. In fact, Paul says that it is precisely because we are in Christ that we “share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:17). 

Suffering is common to all humanity. All of creation groans in anticipation of its renewal. Like Jesus (Matthew 19:28), Peter (Acts 3:19,21), and John (Revelation 21, 22), the apostle Paul foresaw the liberation and restoration of the whole of creation. This, he says, will happen in conjunction with the future glorification of all of God’s children. For now, we who believe are to live in anticipation of the resurrection and the completion of our redemption (Romans 8:18-25).

As we live in this in-between time, we are given the rich assurance that God is for us and no power in the universe can stand against us. In a beautiful and powerful series of rhetorical questions Paul answers uncertainty with certainty, doubt with assurance, and fear, with a bold statement of the believer’s eternal security in Christ (Romans 8:28-39). In the words of Zane Hodges, we are given here “a superbly elegant paean of praise to the permanence of God’s love in Christ.”

Read these verses aloud to yourself and let them feed your certainty of God’s good purpose for you.

Pastor Randy Faulkner