Believing the Truth: The Holy Spirit

Hi, I’m David Feddes, and this talk is about believing the truth about the Holy Spirit.

The Christian Leaders College and Institute Statement of Faith says: The Holy Spirit gives new birth, unites us to Christ, assures us of His love, forms us in His character, equips us with His gifts, and empowers us to be His ambassadors.

Everything the Holy Spirit does is to draw us to Christ, to fill us with Christ, to glorify Christ, to make us like Christ, and to help us do Christ’s work. The Holy Spirit—so wonderful, the Third Person of the Blessed Holy Trinity. And we want to think just a little bit more about the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit Is God

The Nicene Creed says: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

So the Holy Spirit is definitely God. He’s divine. He’s the third person of the Trinity, proceeding eternally from the Father and the Son and sent by the Father and the Son to fill the lives of those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s to be worshiped and glorified as God.

He is the Life Giver of all that is. You might remember that in the book of Genesis, at the very beginning, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. And Psalm 104 says that when God sends His Spirit, then things are created, and He renews the face of the earth. From the very beginning of God’s creation, the Holy Spirit has been the Life Giver of those whom God has made.

Five Areas of the Spirit’s Mighty Impact

Let’s think about five areas in which the Spirit has a mighty impact: life, union, truth, holiness, and power.

1) Life (New Birth and Living Water)

He’s the giver of life. Jesus says you can’t enter the kingdom of God unless you’re born of water and the Spirit. Water refers to your natural birth, but the Spirit refers to being born of the Spirit. Jesus said, You must be born again, echoing Ezekiel 36 where God promised, I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you.

Being reborn means receiving a new heart and receiving the Spirit of God and His life right inside you. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives faith to trust in Jesus in the first place—we would all reject Jesus unless the Holy Spirit were already stirring and winning us over on the inside.

He gives eternal life, abundant life. Jesus said, I’ve come that they may have life and have it to the full. He gives streams of living water—Jesus’ great image for the Holy Spirit, the Life Giver. Just as there is no life in a desert unless there is water, so there is no life in us unless there is that living water of the Holy Spirit. That life lasts forever. When you have the Holy Spirit living in you, you cannot be lost, because you have life that never ends.

At the same time, the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as a down payment. We don’t yet have the absolute, total fullness of life that will come in the new creation, but we do have the first installment by His Spirit. If we already have the down payment, then we can be sure that even greater blessings will be with us and in us in the new creation.

2) Union (Indwelling, Assurance, Prayer, and Worship)

The Holy Spirit brings union—fellowship with the Trinity, fellowship with the Father and the Son. This is not just fellowship between separate beings; the Holy Spirit comes right within us. God lives right within us. Christ in you, the hope of glory. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. I’m in Christ; Christ is in me. This is brought about by the Holy Spirit.

He gives assurance of God’s love. Romans 5:5 says God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us. Romans 8 says that when we cry, Abba, Father, it’s the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are God’s children. When I talk to God as my Father, it’s not just me talking; the Holy Spirit helps me to trust Him and love Him as Father.

This union involves communion—our prayer and worship. Sometimes we don’t know how we ought to pray. Romans 8 says the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans beyond words, and He who searches hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit always intercedes for the saints according to God’s will. We have the Holy Spirit praying within us when we think we don’t even have a prayer to offer. Those prayers are heard by Jesus the Son, who is interceding for us, and by God our Father, who knows what we need.

We are temples. The church as a whole is God’s temple, and each believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit. From within, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God, worshiping and praying in the Spirit.

This union with God also unites us with other believers. We may have many differences—male, female, old, young, different nations and languages and shades of skin—but we are one in Christ. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. We’ve been baptized by one Spirit into one body. Jesus says people will know we are His disciples by our love for one another, and He prays that we would be one in a oneness that reflects the oneness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that the world may know that God sent Jesus.

3) Truth (Inspiration, Illumination, Discernment, Guidance)

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. Jesus said He will lead you into all truth.

How? First, by inspiration of the Bible. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is God-breathed. The Spirit gave human words so we could hear God’s voice in human language.

Second, by illumination. Having inspired Scripture, He opens our minds and hearts to grasp it, to love it, to savor it, to see light in it. The Bible—wonderful and inspired—would be of no value to us unless the Holy Spirit is working within us, shining His light in our hearts so that we can understand.

As He does this, the Bible even speaks of having the mind of Christ or the mind of the Spirit. When the Spirit lives in you, more and more your thoughts are His thoughts at work in your mind; your attitudes are His attitudes formed in you. So we can truly say, We have the mind of Christ. And then we are told, now have the mind of Christ—live it out. If your attitudes are out of line, get in tune with Him.

The Spirit of Truth also exposes lies. He helps us see when Satan is trying to fool us. He applies Scripture to our daily lives and helps us see pitfalls so we’re not ignorant of Satan’s schemes. He also gives personal direction and direction to churches—sometimes in striking ways that clearly change our path; more often by giving wisdom as we pray and weigh decisions. You can count on the Spirit to guide you—sometimes with a strong inner sense, sometimes simply through Spirit-shaped thoughts.

4) Holiness (Freedom and Christlikeness)

He is the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of holiness. He brings separation from a wicked world; we are different from the world around us. He gives victory over sin’s power. The old nature—the flesh—still struggles in us, but the Spirit sets us free. The law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into the same likeness. This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Ultimately holiness means becoming like Jesus—Christ formed in you. The fruit of the Spiritis love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. What a blessing when Christ and His fruit are being formed in you by the Holy Spirit.

5) Power (Gifts, Boldness, Victory, Revival)

He is the Spirit of power. He equips us. Scripture speaks of spiritual gifts that come from the Holy Spirit. Some are extraordinary—miracles or prophecy. Some are service gifts—mercy, helping, leadership, administration, giving, teaching. Every Christian has special gifts from the Spirit. A gift is something you’re good at that God enlists by His Spirit in a way that goes beyond your own power. He electrifies it and makes it effective.

He energizes us with boldness. Spirit-filled people are bold. When Peter and John confronted those who had opposed Jesus, their boldness astonished them, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. That boldness was Jesus still living in them by the Holy Spirit.

He gives victory over the enemy. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. If you want to defeat the powers of darkness, you need the might of God’s Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit produces real results. Our efforts alone won’t produce true and lasting fruit. We need the Holy Spirit’s power for our own lives and for ministry to others. Sometimes the Spirit works in a huge and rapid way—we call that revival. We pray for revival, for wide and far-reaching changes that only the Holy Spirit can bring. God will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.