Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Mentioned this morning the fact that the HS is a person, and used several scriptures in (, , ) to show that to be the case.

And one of the reasons that is important is because if the HS is indeed an individual with the ability to think, and exists apart from God the father and God the Son, then He is on equal footing with God the Father and God the Son.

Whereas if He is a thing that merely belongs to God, then that makes what Christianity has long believed to be the truth of the Godhead pretty impossible.

There’s no way that the Godhead could consist of God the father, God the Son, and Father’s possession of a thing called a “Holy Spirit”

So showing this morning that the Holy Spirit is a person.

A Few more characteristics if you would like to write these down and study them later, But the scriptures show that the HS has:

a mind ()

That he Speaks ()

That he teaches ()

That he testifies ()

That he bears witness ()

That he can be grieved ()

and that he can be tested ()

And so since the HS is indeed spoken of by Jesus Himself as a person, What must we do with that information?

He’s clearly not a human, that is seemingly obvious, and so we are left with Him being an angel, or part of the Godhead.

Holy Spirit as God

Perhaps you are familiar with the Christian phrase “the trinity”

While it is certainly true that the word “trinity” is never mentioned in scripture, it does convey scriptural truth regarding the three distinct persons of what we often prefer to refer to as the “Godhead”

We prefer this term because of our desire to call Bible things by bible names, but in reality there is no agreed upon one word that captures the idea of the trinity, or the Godhead.

Turn with me to

Now if you are reading from ASV, the KJV, or the YLT, you’ll see Godhead here, but for me in the ESV, I have Divine Being.

Though the words might be different, the idea is the same.

The characteristics of the three persons of the Godhead, or the divine being, are in view here.

And they are not like what?

STUFF! they are not “it” but instead are living and have personal characteristics.

So with that in mind, someone might say “OK, but to have a plurality of the Godhead, you only need two.”

This is true enough, but I let’s look at some scriptures that I think beyond a doubt show that the Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the HS.

Now in both Matthew and 2 Corinthians, wouldn’t it be odd to include something less than God alongside God the Father and God the Son?

I think it would absolutely be absurd.

Jesus is is telling his disciples to baptize them by the authority of the father, the Son and the spirit.

Let’s say you go in tomorrow and your boss gives you a Job to do, let’s say he says to clean the floor in his office.

Well what if you are afraid

And if anyone tries to stop you tell them you are authorized to do it by me, the CEO, and this lamp!

No, the HS obviously has authority, because he is a member of the Godhead.

And lastly, perhaps the strongest evidence is found in...

- Ananias and Saphira

So since the HS is God, it’s a great question to ask, what did he do during the OT?

The HS in the OT

Well as we discussed this morning, the HS was there during creation and it appears that He was active in the creation of the world and everything in it.

And so we might say that God the Father was the architect, and Jesus (the word) was the means through which the architect built our world.

But what did the HS do?

He was there

Well it seems that the Spirit made order out of the Chaos, and it is my believe that it is the Spirit of God that gives and sustains life.

It seems no coincidence to me that what it took to animate mankind, and I believe all living creatures on the earth, was God breathing the breath of life into man.

This is another reason why it is important to know the HS as a HE and not an IT.

I believe that from Creation no life has ever come to existence on this Earth that has not come from another LIVING creature.

For all our science, for all our learning, for all our advancements, we cannot form life in a lab.

We cannot figure out how to put the basic building blocks for life together and to impart it with the Ruach, the Pneuma that it needs to become more than that.

I think the HS role in creation was to initiate and sustain life, to order the chaos, and to make things live.

27 - These all,

Leviathan

All the creatures of teh sea

the lion, the birds, the men, every beast of the field

in short, every living creature relies on ruach from God.

And so the HS animated the world, brought life out of the chaos, formed life where there was none, and that is something that we cannot do, and I don’t think we ever will do.

But in the OT he also gave his people certain abilities.

The first person that we read about the Spirit working through is Joseph, is is given the ability to interpret dreams as recorded in 1:38

Next we see that Bezalel the son of Uri was filled with the Sprit of God and given the ability to create artistic designs and endowed with amazing craftsmanship to work with God, silver and bronze to make things for in the Tabernacle of God.

And the Spirit of God would continue to temporarily come upon individuals during the history of the Jews, Priests, and Judges and kings.

And most notably, the spirit of God would come to the prophets and He would allow them to see the world and the situation of God’s people as God saw it, and the Spirit gave them insight into what was to come in the future.

- Dry bones becoming whole

The spirit that gives life will be poured out on a spiritually dead people, and they will be born anew.

Brought back from spiritual death, and begin to live according to a new covenant as it states in .

That was the hope of first century Jews living during the time of Jesus.

And with that in mind, next week we will begin looking at the Holy Spirits Role in the first century church, both during the time of Jesus, and during the growth of the church.