Questions You May Have About the Holy Spirit
1) Who is the Holy Spirit? How does he ‘fit’ in the Trinity?
This is a hard question, but a great one. The Trinity is a hard concept to grasp, which makes sense, because it’s about the nature of an infinite God. However, grasping it is vital for two reasons: first, it’s the teaching of Scripture, and God holds us responsible for knowing his word. Second, to love and worship God as we are commanded we must know who it is we are worshiping.
Let’s start with this statement. The word Trinity is not found in the Bible. That doesn’t mean it’s not true! The word isn’t in the Bible because the word is a summarizing description of the truths about God that are in the Bible.
What are those truths? First, there is only one God. Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one!” Isaiah 44:6: “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no God.’”
Second truth: that one God is made up of three distinct persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What do we mean by persons? The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each have their own wills and actions. Though they always agree, since ‘they’ are one ‘he,’ they each have their own wills. And that also explains what we mean by ‘distinct.’ The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Father is not the Spirit. Yet each one is God, they are distinct, and there is only one God.
Your head spinning yet? Perhaps the best way to see this is to see this is to see these truths particularly about the Holy Spirit.
We see that the Holy Spirit is God many times throughout Scripture. He is referred to as God’s Spirit and Christ’s Spirit – and the Spirit of a being must have the nature of that being. We also see him having attributes and doing things that only the Sovereign God can do – like giving life, controlling events, etc.
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of the Holy Spirit’s being God is in Acts 5. Two people lie to Peter, one of the people that God created to write Scripture. And Peter says that they have lied not to men, but God. And he also says they’ve lied to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is God.
Furthermore, this shows that the Holy Spirit is a person. You can’t lie to a force.
How does the Holy Spirit relate to God the Father and Jesus? In John 15:26, Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father…” So Jesus sends the Spirit to the Church (the community of everyone who is learning to obey Jesus), and the Spirit is from the Father as well.
In Romans 8:9 and 1 Peter 1:11, the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ. And in John 14:26, we see the Father sending the Spirit. And there are many places in Scripture where we see all three distinctly, including the one we just looked at.
Notice something else about these passages. The Spirit is ‘sent’ by Jesus and the Father. That means that there is an authority structure between the persons who are the one God. The Spirit is the one who is acting now on earth. He is God, and he is at work on the earth now.
Next, we’ll address this question: “What is the Role of the Holy Spirit?”
2) What is the role of the Holy Spirit?
To put that another way, “What is the Holy Spirit doing?”
There’s a simple answer to that question. Jesus said in John 15:26, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” So, the Holy Spirit bears witness about Jesus.
Jesus said, about the Spirit, in John 16:14, “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” So the Holy Spirit gives witness about Jesus and glorifies Jesus. That in essence means the same thing. The Spirit is at work in the world to glorify Jesus.
That’s the simple answer. The longer answer is to this question: how is the Spirit glorifying Jesus?
First, he gave the apostles to the Church to write the New Testament – God’s words. That’s what the rest of John 16:14 means. Remember here that Jesus was specifically talking to the apostles. We also see this in 1 Corinthians 2:13, where Paul says that his job as an apostle is to impart God’s wisdom “…in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit…”
Second, the Holy Spirit gives Christians understanding of the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 2:13, Paul goes on to say that he is “interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” And then he goes on to say, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… (but) the spiritual person judges all things.” So, the Spirit gives Christians an understanding of what he’s written in the Bible, though this understanding is something that grows over time.
Third, the Holy Spirit gives people new minds/hearts/souls/selves/desires/wills. What I mean by that, is the Holy Spirit takes people that are spiritually incapable of obeying God from the heart, and makes them people that are characterized by the love of God. The Bible calls this ‘regeneration’ or being ‘born again.’ The overall idea is that the old you who couldn’t obey God ceases to exist, and is replaced with a new you who does desire to obey God.
Jesus said, in John 3:3, “…unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God” and in John 3:5 “…unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” For the sake of clarification, being ‘born of water’ is a reference to an Old Testament prophecy about a time when God would cleanse his people from their sins – Jesus wasn’t here talking about doing something with literal water. He’s talking about how the Holy Spirit gives one a completely new self – a new life – hence, being born again.
Later in the same passage (John 3:20-21), Jesus distinguishes between those who are born again and those who are not. Referring to himself as the light, he said, “everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light… but whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
In other words, those who are not born again cannot come to Jesus. They cannot do things that are pleasing to God, but are wicked in his sight. But when the Spirit does give someone a new life, that is, regenerates them, they come to Jesus, and thereafter their lives are characterized by obedience to God.
Fourth, the Holy Spirit guarantees a person’s entrance into the Kingdom of God (the new heaven’s and new earth) in the future when they are born again. Ephesians 1:13 says that when we heard the Gospel and trusted in Jesus, we “…were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” A seal in the ancient world was a mark of ownership. So we’re owned by God.
Then Paul goes on to say that the Spirit is the “guarantee of our inheritance.” In other words, because those who have trusted Christ have been given new life by the Spirit (and that’s why they have faith – the Spirit gave it to them), the Spirit guarantees their entrance into God’s Kingdom.
Fifth, the Holy Spirit produces obedience in the lives of those who have been born again. You can look back at John 3:21 for that. And I’d encourage you to read Romans 8:1-17 as well. There are only two kinds of lives – lives that are producing obedience to God by the Holy Spirit and have been given eternal life – and lives that are controlled by sin and are under God’s wrath. Or in other words, there are only two kinds of lives – Christian lives of growing obedience, and non-Christian lives of sin against God.
That does, by the way, mean, that one who once ‘prayed a prayer’ or gone up to the front of a service or something - but whose life has not changed (in God’s sight, not ours!) is not really a Christian.
Sixth, the Holy Spirit equips every believer to participate in the building up of the community that follows Jesus, the Church. In Ephesians 1:21-22, God is telling us about his whole community of people – the Church – and he says that, in Christ, “…the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
In other words, the Spirit dwells among God’s people in community and creates growth and maturity and service between community members and makes his presence known – which results in Jesus being made known.
Ultimately, this is through the preaching of the Scriptures, which the Holy Spirit wrote, of which the Holy Spirit gives his people understanding, and in which the Holy Spirit points us to the glory of Jesus, who is the visible image of the invisible God (See Colossians 1).
This may lead one to ask the question: how does the Spirit interact with believers individually in their daily lives?
3) What does it mean to be ‘filled’ with the Holy Spirit?
We’ve got to realize at the start of this discussion that the Holy Spirit doesn’t ‘fill’ something the way that physical things do. I can fill my mug with coffee. But the Holy Spirit is a spirit – not a substance. He is everywhere. We have to realize that being ‘filled’ with the Holy Spirit is a word picture with a point.
So what’s the point? Well, if I do fill my mug with coffee, do I say that I’m carrying a mug or that I’m carrying coffee? Coffee, right? The mug is a inconsequential. You don’t really notice the mug. You notice the coffee.
That’s the idea with filling. The Holy Spirit takes control of a person in such a way that they are showing off the character of the Holy Spirit. And what’s the Holy Spirit do? He bears witness to and glorifies Jesus.
A verse that’s often quoted about this subject is Ephesians 5:18, which says, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit”. The command ‘be filled,’ in the original language, means to be continuously be being filled – that is – continuously characterized by the Holy Spirit’s work in giving us the power to glorify Jesus.
It’s worth noting here that this text actually gives some description of what being filled with the Spirit looks like in verse 19 and following. “…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ…”
So can somebody be more or less filled with the Spirit? Well, let me ask you this: can someone be more or less thankful? More or less selfless? More or less talking about God’s truth with others? More or less singing to God from the heart?
So yes – one can be more or less filled with the Spirit. The Scriptures even sometimes talk about filling as an event – when the Spirit does something really obvious and massive in peoples’ lives. However, as we saw previously, someone who is a genuine Christian will always have some obedience that’s produced by the Holy Spirit in his life. And we should realize this: ‘be filled’ is a command that only the Spirit can cause us to obey!
This probably raises the question in your mind, “how can I continue being filled with the Spirit?”
4) How do I become filled with the Holy Spirit daily?
Well, first realize that it’s not a daily thing; it’s a moment-by-moment thing.
Second, notice ‘be filled’ is a command. That means that we have to respond with our wills. In other words, we simply have to choose to be filled.
“How,” you might ask. Well, you may be forgetting that the command isn’t to flip on a light switch – as if you’re filled one minute and not the next and you have to flip the switch back on. It’s to remain in a state characterized by the control and power of the Holy Spirit.
“Okay,” you might say, “but how do I maintain that state? How can I keep on being controlled by the Spirit?”
There are some clues in Ephesians 5. First, we have to choose to be filled with the Spirit. Then, we have to realize how the Spirit works! What does he use to grow his people? First – Scripture! God starts this section with this command that is the foundation for being filled with the Spirit: “Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.” In other words, there are truths about God and how he relates to us that we need to remember to act like his children. And how do we remember them? Scripture. That’s why, according to the previous chapter, there are preachers.
And what characterizes Scripture? What’s it about? Jesus and how he has saved sinners. We’re to look at those truths from Scripture.
And that verse says we are children of God. We have to remember the things that Jesus’ death and resurrection have done for us.
So we’ve got to remember what Scripture says about God and life and reality and salvation in the person of Jesus Christ.
And then, as we remember that it is he who is our Savior – who governs all things according to his will, we are to rely on him to produce real change in ourselves. We can’t do it. Only the Holy Spirit, God himself, can produce what glorifies God. He’s God and we’re not. So we’re to rely on him to do so.
And then, we’re simply to obey. The Scriptures have a repeating refrain: this is how God has saved you through Jesus Christ; this is who you are now as a result – a born again person; so act like it.
And to do that, you make a choice. It’s nothing mystical. No ritual. No spiritual ‘experience’ to rely on or something like that.
We’re simply to recognize our need for the Spirit to glorify Jesus, choose him, remember what God has said in Scripture, rely on him, and obey what he’s written.
Or in other words, remember what the Bible says about how Jesus has given us new life through the Spirit, and act like who the new people he’s made us into.
One other thing to take note of here, by the way, is that all the descriptions of ‘filling’ in Ephesians 5:19 take place in community. And Ephesians 2 told us that the Spirit is present in the new community that he’s creating. So we’re to be in that community, hearing the Scriptures preached, speaking the Scriptures to each other, responding in worship to God, partaking of the Lord’s Supper and baptism, praying to God, thanking God, and serving each other.
So it’s about Scripture. It’s about community. It’s about the Church. And it’s about choosing to believe what Jesus said and obey him as a result of what he’s done.
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