FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

The Holy Spirit Ministers To Believers

“When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” – John 16:13-14.

Before Jesus’ passion, He promised that the Father and He would send his disciples “another Counselor” (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). The Counselor or Paraclete, from the Greek word parakletos (meaning one who gives support), is a helper, adviser, strengthener, encourager, ally, and advocate. Another points to the fact that Jesus was the first Paraclete and is promising a replacement who, after He is gone, will carry on the teaching and testimony that He started (John 16:6–7).

Paraclete ministry, by its very nature, is personal, relational ministry, implying the full personhood of the one who fulfills it. Though the Old Testament said much about the Spirit’s activity in Creation (for example, Genesis 1:2; Psalm 33:6), revelation (for example, Isaiah 61:1–6; Micah 3:8), enabling for service (for example, Exodus 31:2–6; Judges 6:34; 15:14–15; Isaiah 11:2), and inward renewal (for example, Psalm 51:10–12; Ezekiel 36:25–27), it did not make clear that the Spirit is a distinct divine Person. In the New Testament, however, it becomes clear that the Spirit is as truly a Person distinct from the Father as the Son is. This is apparent not only from Jesus’ promise of “another Counselor,” but also from the fact that the Spirit, among other things, speaks (Acts 1:16; 8:29; 10:19; 11:12; 13:2; 28:25), teaches (John 14:26), witnesses (John 15:26), searches, determines (1 Corinthians 12:11), intercedes (Romans 8:26–27), is lied to (Acts 5:3), and can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). Only of a personal being can things such as these be said.

The divinity of the Spirit appears from the declaration that lying to the Spirit is lying to God (Acts 5:3–4), and from the linking of the Spirit with the Father and the Son in benedictions (2 Corinthians 13:14; Revelation 1:4–6) and in the formula of baptism (Matthew 28:19). The Spirit is called “the seven spirits” in Revelation 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6 partly, it seems, because seven is a number signifying divine perfection and partly because the Spirit ministers in His fullness.

The Spirit, then, is “He,” not “it,” and He must be obeyed, loved, and adored along with the Father and the Son.

Witnessing to Jesus Christ, glorifying Him by showing His disciples who and what He is (John 16:7–15), and making them aware of what they are in Him (Romans 8:15–17; Galatians 4:6) is the Paraclete’s central ministry. The Spirit enlightens us (Ephesians 1:17–18), regenerates us (John 3:5–8), leads us into holiness (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:16–18), transforms us (2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 5:22–23), gives us assurance (Romans 8:16), and gifts us for ministry (1 Corinthians 12:4–11). All God’s work in us, touching our hearts, our characters, and our conduct, is done by the Spirit, though aspects of it are sometimes ascribed to the Father and the Son, whose executive the Spirit is.

The Spirit’s full Paraclete ministry began on Pentecost morning, following Jesus’ ascension (Acts 2:1–4). John the Baptist had foretold that Jesus would baptize in the Spirit (Mark 1:8; John 1:33), according to the Old Testament promise of an outpouring of God’s Spirit in the last days (Joel 2:28–32; compare Jeremiah 31:31–34), and Jesus had repeated the promise (Acts 1:4–5). The significance of Pentecost morning was twofold: it marked the opening of the final era of world history before Christ Jesus’ return, and, as compared with the Old Testament era, it marked a tremendous enhancing of the Spirit’s ministry and of the experience of being alive to God.

Jesus’ disciples evidently were Spirit-born believers prior to Pentecost (John 20:22), so their Spirit-baptism, which brought power to their life and ministry (Acts 1:8), was not the start of their spiritual experience. For all who have come to faith since Pentecost morning, however, beginning with the Pentecost converts themselves, the receiving of the Spirit in full new-covenant blessing has been one aspect of their conversion and new birth (Acts 2:37; Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 12:13). All capacities for service that subsequently appear in a believer’s life should be seen as flowing from this initial Spirit-indwelling, which vitally unites the sinner to the risen Christ.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: Habakkuk 3:2-6; 17-19

In the midst of horrid circumstances tainted with implication that God somehow caused the pain as a means of judgment, Habakkuk is singing, and his song says he will rejoice in the Lord anyway, not in what has happened, but in the Lord. His song says he will be joyful, not in the pain caused by the difficulties, but in God, the source, of his salvation. That, my brothers and sisters, is an amazing statement of confidence in God, and it is only in this way that he can hope to lean upon God for strength. God has the power to be the source of strength; that is established as fact for Habakkuk. God is capable of acting in mercy even toward disobedient children; that, too, is established as fact in Habakkuk’s mind. Whatever else might be said or thought of God, these facts settle for Habakkuk that God is the real source of strength in life’s strained, confusing, and painful times: “The Lord God is my strength” (verse 19).

“The Lord God is my strength.” Habakkuk concludes that God is his strength because, in addition to God’s mercy, Habakkuk finds the feeling of safety and security in his relationship with God: “He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places.” – Psalm 18:33. The deer, also known as the “hind,” was known for its speed and surefootedness. Habakkuk felt secure in the face of insecurity because of what he knew that God could do for people. He felt this security as a deer was secure in its ability to leap rocks and streams and to move with agility through precarious mountain passages. In the heights, no harm could come to the deer, and in the same way, Habakkuk felt safe because God sustained his life as if in high places.

Can we ourselves come near such a confidence in God’s power? Remember Paul’s writing reminds us that our confidence in God cannot rest on human wisdom, our ability to figure how and why, but must rest in the fact of God’s power alone. (See 1 Corinthians 2:5). With all the questions and reservations in his mind, Habakkuk still comes to this moving confession: “The Lord God is my strength.” It is not unlike the eloquent conclusion reached by the nineteenth-century poet, John Greenleaf Whittier. In his poem, “The Eternal Goodness,” Whittier wrote:

I see the wrong that round me lies,
     I feel the guilt within;
I hear, with groan and travail-cries,
     The world confess its sin.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
     And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
     I know that God is good!

I know not what the future hath
     Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
     His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
     To bear an untried pain,
The bruis’ed reed He will not break,
     But strengthen and sustain? ¹

The Lord God is our strength also. If we believe it, we will believe it because of God’s mercy, a fact about which we will have become convinced through inner conversation with God as our Father. But, we will always have to believe it in spite of our reservations and possible confusions about the why of evil in the world and how it relates to our own pain. Even so, let it be our praise as well:

Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls—
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength. – Habakkuk 3:17-19.

¹ Roy J. Cook, compilation One Hundred and One Famous Poems (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1958).
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.