India #8 The Holy Spirit

INTRODUCTION JOHN 14:16-31.

The Bible is very clear, there is one true God who exists in three persons.

God the Father.

God the Son.

God the Holy Spirit.

All three are co-equal, co-eternal, sharing one life, nature and essence.

As I said of Jesus, I now say of the Holy Spirit, He is homoousious.

Homoousious means of the same substance.

And that is where we shall begin in our study of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus has been telling the disciples that He must die, and that He must go away.

This has left them very upset.

But Jesus wants them to know, that it is a good thing that this takes place.

John 16:7 LSB

“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

You see Jesus was with them, but the Holy Spirit would be in them.

That is very much better.

In John 14, Jesus begins to teach the disciples about the Holy Spirit.

First, the Holy Spirit is homoousious.

Second, the Holy Spirit is truth.

Third, the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity.

OF THE SAME SUBSTANCE

This treatise on the Holy Spirit begins with Jesus praying for the Spirit to come.

In a sense we see the same subordinate role of the Spirit as we have seen in the Son.

The Son asks, and the Father will send forth the Holy Spirit.

Notice the language used to describe the Holy Spirit.

First is the word another.

One of the reasons Greek was chosen by God as the language of the Bible is because it is so specific.

In Greek there are two different words that are translated another in English.

The first is “heteros.”

Heteros means another of a different kind.

In English there are dozens of words that begin with heteros, but the most common is heterosexual.

Heterosexual means you prefer a human of a different kind.

Men who prefer women are heterosexual, because women are humans of a different kind.

Heteros simply means another that is simalar, but of a different kind.

The second Greek word for another is “allos.”

Allos means another of the same exact kind.

If you had one red chicken breed and bought another red chicken of the same breed, it would be allos, another of the same exact kind.

The word used here to describe the Holy Spirit is allos, another of the same exact kind.

This is a tremendously important distinction.

What this means is that the Spirit of God is of the same substance, nature and essence as the Son.

For the first 400 years of Christian history, this was hotly debated among theologians with regard to both Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Modalism emerged, and this denied the Trinity.

Modalism teaches that there is one God who sometimes appears as the Father, sometimes appears as the Son, and at other times appears as the Spirit of God.

But at no time is God present in more than one form at the same time.

Thus, they deny the Trinity.

This is why “allos” is such an important word.

Allos teaches us that the Spirit of God has the very same substance, nature and essence as the Son.

Which is why we who are Trinitarian see the Spirit of God as the third person of the Trinity.

Jesus always claimed to be God.

Jesus made the claim that YHWH was His Father, in saying that Jesus was announcing that I and the Father are of the same substance, essence and nature.

Sons are of the same substance and nature as their fathers.

Substance speaks of all that makes God who He is.

People are made up of two substance, body and Spirit.

But God is Spirit, one substance.

And apart from the incarnation, the Father and the Son were of the same substance, Spirit.

As God, Jesus was of the same substance, Spirit.

When Jesus says, that the Spirit is another, allos, it means that the Spirit is identical to me in substance.

Therefore the Spirit is just that spirit.

This speaks of what theologians call the simplicity of God.

God is One, who exists in three perfectly unified persons.

Furthermore, being of one substance reminds us that God is not the result of two substances coming together to form God.

God always was and will always be, of one substance, Spirit.

Jesus becoming a man did not do damage to His substance.

As God, Jesus was in His essence, Spirit.

Paul would write of Jesus, that He is the image of the invisible God.

God is invisible because He is Spirit.

But in the incarnation, God became visible as God the Son took on the flesh of a man.

Remember to be the image of God meant that Jesus was a perfect copy or representation of God.

We already covered that truth.

But here in John we see that the Spirit is exactly like the Son.

If the Son is exactly like the Father in substance, essence and nature, the Spirit is exactly like the Son in the same substance, then the Spirit is also of the same substance as the Father.

If Jesus is exactly like the Father, and the Spirit is exactly like Jesus, then by necessity we must conclude that the Spirit is exactly like the Father in essence.

What does this mean for us?

First, the Spirit of God is co-equal.

As the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit is fully God.

The Spirit of God possesses all the attributes of God, just as Jesus possesses all the attributes of God.

Primarily we can say, the Spirit is omnipotent, He is all powerful.

WE could say the Spirit is Almighty God.

There is nothing the Spirit cannot do.

The Spirit is omniscient, knows all things.

There is nothing the Spirit does not know.

The Spirit knows our thoughts before we do.

The Spirit knows the beginning from the end.

The Spirt is omnipresent, He is everywhere.

David wrote of God’s omnipresent in Psalm 139:7-12

Psalm 139:7–12 LSB

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I lift up the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will bruise me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not too dark for You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.

The conclusion is this, God is everywhere, as the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

This is what we call the transcendence of God.

God is outside of time and space, He is not bound by the limitations of time and space.

As such, He is beyond our full comprehension.

We cannot fully grasp all that God is because we are finite beings and He is infinite.

This is also true of the Spirit.

Second, the Spirit of God is co-eternal.

Genesis 1:1 is a great place to start in order to understand this.

Genesis 1:1 LSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The word for God is Elohim, and it is plural.

Thus in the very first verse of God’s word, the Trinity is hinted at through the name God chose to first reveal Himself.

In choosing this word Elohim, the Bible is saying, that in the beginning, Trinity.

In the beginning the Trinity existed, actually pre existed.

It is easy for us to see that God the Father was in the beginning.

But then in verse 2 we see the Spirit moving over the surface of the waters.

Then in Colossians 1:15-17 we learn that Jesus was the agent through which the Father created.

The point is this, all three persons of the Trinity were in the beginning.

They were all three there, in existence, prior to anything being created.

They are all three equally the Creator God.

Now hold that thought, and turn your attention to Moses and the burning bush.

In that encounter, Moses was concerned that the people would not listen to him.

Moses was being sent to speak for God, but how will they know You sent me was what bothered Moses.

Therefore Moses said, what is they say what is God’s name, what shall I say to them.

Exodus 3:14 LSB

And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

I AM is YHWH.

This is an important word to hold up alongside Elohim.

Both words teach us that God is eternal.

I AM, not I was, not I will be, but I AM.

This teaches us that God has simply always been.

There is not a time when God was not.

There will never be a time, when shall not be.

He simply is.

Throughout His ministerial life, Jesus claimed that title for Himself.

Jesus claimed to be I AM.

The best of which was when Jesus said “before Abraham was, I AM.” John 8:58.

YHWH is always I AM, present tense, eternally existent.

No beginning and no end, He simply is.

Now if Jesus is the great I AM, and the Spirit is exactly like Him, then the Spirit is also the Great I AM.

The Spirit is co-eternal.

No beginning, and no end, He simply always is and will always be, as the third person of the Trinity.

To sum it up, when Jesus says the Spirit is exactly like Me, we can conclude that all the attributes of Jesus were also present in the Spirit of God.

He is fully God, just as Jesus is fully God, and worthy of all worship, praise, and honor.

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS WITH YOU FOREVER

The Spirit exactly like Jesus is substance, nature and essence, but unlike Jesus, the Spirit will be with them and us, forever.

This is in part why Jesus said it is to your advantage that I go away and send the Spirit.

I mentioned this earlier, Jesus was with them and that is good.

But the Spirit of God will indwell them, and that is better.

And it will be forever.

This is another one of those great statements of eternal security.

In Ephesians 1:13-14 the apostle Paul speaks to this issue.

Ephesians 1:13–14 LSB

In Him, you also, after listening to the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

The Spirit of God is given to the believer as a pledge of our inheritance.

This is a beautiful picture that describes the great grace of God and affirms our eternal security.

A pledge is the first payment on something.

In my country if you buy a house you pay a pledge, a down payment on the house.

If you change your mind and back out of the deal, you forfeit your pledge, lose your money.

What this is saying to us is that the Spirit of God is YHWH’s down payment to us concerning our inheritance.

Therefore, if YHWH were to fail to bring us to heaven and give us our full inheritance, He would forfeit His Spirit.

In other words, YHWH is promising our eternal security by putting His Spirit up as the guarantee of the promise.

The beauty is this, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, are one, and cannot be separated.

Therefore, the promise of eternal life is secure because it is bound up in the promise and person of God.

The truth is this, our salvation is secure, not because of anything we do, but because of everything YHWH has done for us.

Some people think we are secure as long as we hold on to God, but Jesus told us in John 10:27-30 that we are secure because of the Father’s grip on us.

John 10:27–30 LSB

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish—ever; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. “I and the Father are one.”

You are secure in your salvation because the Father has a grip on you, and one reason this is true is because He has put forth His Spirit as the pledge.

Notice in Ephesians 1:14 that this pledge is given with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession.

You belong to God is the idea here, and He is going to do everything He needs to do to keep you.

Which is why in John 14 Jesus said the Spirit will be with you forever.

Forever, nothing will ever separate you from the Spirit of God that indwells you.

It is a forever relationship.

The indwelling of the Spirit of God in the child of God is an amazing reality.

We do not become divine as some cults teach.

But in some sense the very life of God comes to live within us so that we are correctly called the sons and daughters of God.

But how does the indwelling of the Spirit of God take place, why does it happen?

First, the Spirit of God indwells you because of the electing choice of YHWH to choose you for salvation.

The very essence of salvation is a union with God.

That union is accomplished in that God now lives in you.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking only the Spirit of God lives in You.

John 14:23 LSB

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.

Believers have the fullness of the Godhead living in them.

Take note, Jesus said we will come and make Our dwelling with him.

The “We” is the Father and the Son.

But remember, Jesus has already told us the Spirit would be with us forever.

So the reality is, the fullness of God lives in the Believer.

The Spirit is the power of God in us for a variety of reasons that will be discussed in the next meeting.

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS TRUTH