The Trinity Part 3

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Introduction

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

This will be our third week in our series on the Trinity, and this week I want us to focus in on what the Scriptures teach concerning the Holy Spirit. My goal in this series is to argue for biblical trinitarianism, and what I mean, is that I always want our theology to find it’s origin in the Scriptures, I want you to see it in the text for yourself. I want you to see that the doctrine of the Trinity is not a doctrine contrived by men, but instead that it’s a doctrine derived from the mind of God and revealed to us in his Word. This is why I spent most of our time last week surveying the Scriptures that teach us about the nature and person of God’s Son. And it’s also why we’ll be doing the very same thing today concerning the nature and person of the Holy Spirit.
And more than that, my desire is that you would ultimately be stirred to a greater affection for God by what He has revealed about himself in the Trinity. My hope is that this doctrine would deepen your worship, reform your worship, and that we might grow in knowing God rightly, in order to worship him truly.
Now, after we survey what the Scriptures teach concerning the Son and the Spirit, next week we’ll look at how we are to understand these truths together, or as a whole. How do we reconcile them while affirming everything that God teaches about himself. Because, as I said in the beginning, God is a far more complex being than we are, not to say that anything about him is contradictory, but that because of God’s complexity in being we must take special care to affirm everything that he has revealed about himself no matter how much it stretches our feeble and finite minds.

Experiential trinitarians

Now, for this morning, I want to emphasize, again, that when we read about the Trinity in the Scriptures, specifically in the NT, the Trinity is typically assumed by the NT writers. For the disciples the Trinity was revealed to them first-hand in the incarnation - they’re experiential Trinitarians. Peter walked with Jesus, he heard the voice of the Father at the Transfiguration, and he was indwelt by the Holy Spirit - Peter experienced these realities. And out of these experiences the Apostles taught and wrote the NT. So, as we survey the Scriptures keep these things in mind.

Person and divinity

Now, throughout the NT we’ll see two primary assertions that rise to the surface concerning the Holy Spirit 1) the the Holy Spirit is treated and assumed to be a person, and 2) the Holy Spirit is treated and assumed to be God. Now, unitarians deny both of these claims and argue that the Holy Spirit is merely a power or a force. So, as we survey the NT I want you to ask yourself whether what we read fits their assertion, that the Holy Spirit is only a power or impersonal force, or is what we read indicate that the Spirit of God is a person and identified as God himself.

The person of the Holy Spirit

We’ll go ahead tackle whether or not the Holy Spirit is a person, first. And we’ll demonstrator this the same way we would demonstrate whether or not the Father or the Son is a person. “Does the Spirit exhibit personality by speaking, using personal pronouns, and doing other things that only persons can do?” (The Forgotten Trinity, James White, p. 141)

Personal pronouns

Probably the clearest indication of the Spirit as a person is when he speaks about himself. In other words, he proves his personhood when he speaks of himself using personal pronouns, like “I” or “me.” For instance, in Acts 13:2, when the Holy Spirit sets apart Barnabas and Saul, he refers to himself in this way, we read,

2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

We see this again in Acts 10:19-20 when the Apostle Peter is pondering a vision that he’s received from the Lord, we read,

19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.”

Who sent them? The Spirit sent them. Now, whenever we instinctively ask a question beginning with the word “who” we’re immediately inquiring about a person.

Jesus says he’s a person

When Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit he treated him like a person also. In John 15:26 Jesus says,

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.

then in John 16:13-14, when speaking of the Spirit’s ministry, Jesus says,

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Jesus not only acknowledges him as a person but he says that the Spirit speaks, that he guides, that he hears, and that he glorifies the Son. These attributes can only be associated with a person.

Personal attributes

And we see these same kind of personal attributes attributed to the Holy Spirit elsewhere in the NT. In the Book of Acts, when Philip runs into the Ethiopian eunuch, we witness the Spirit speaking,

the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.”

In Galatians 4:6, the Apostle Paul writes to the church that,

because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

In Paul’s letter to the church in Rome he says that the Holy Spirit helps, groans, intercedes, searches, and has knowledge. He writes in Romans 8:26-27,

the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The Holy Spirit also has a will.

The Spirit loves

Later in Romans chapter 15, verse 30, Paul says that the Spirit loves us. He writes,

30 I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit,

and back in Romans 5:5 that,

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Can love be poured into our hearts by electricity or an impersonal force? No, the very nature of love is deeply personal, which indicates to us that the Holy Spirit must be a person.

The Spirit can be blasphemed

If you were here when we studied Matthew chapter 12 together you may recall the incident Jesus had with the Pharisees over the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus heals a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute, and when the people ask, “Can this be the Son of David?” the Pharisees said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” And immediately Jesus tells them that they’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit, and that such a willful and blasphemous rejection of the Spirit’s miraculous works will not be forgiven. Jesus says in verse 31 that,

every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Jesus not only makes a clear distinction between himself and the Holy Spirit but he tells them that they’ve blasphemed him, that they’ve lied about him, and slandered him. And we all know that an impersonal power or force cannot be slandered or blasphemed, only a person can be.

The Spirit can be outraged, grieved and resisted

In the book of Hebrews the writer also says that the Spirit can be outraged and insulted. In chapter 10 when speaking of those who profess faith, but continue to sin deliberately, he says these scathing words,

29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

And likewise, the Holy Spirit can be grieved. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:30,

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

And in Acts 7:51 Stephen, just prior to being stoned to death, makes these condemning remakes to the Jewish people,

51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.

So the Spirit can be outraged, insulted, grieved and resisted. All of these things bear witness to the personhood of the Spirit.

The Spirit has a will

And finally, as I mentioned earlier, briefly, the Spirit has a will. We see this most clearly in 1 Corinthians 12:9-11 when we’re told that the Spirit gives gifts to believers within the church. Paul explains that the sole source of these gifts is the Spirit himself. And as he’s listing the many of gifts he says this,

9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

Notice that last phrase, “as he wills.” Our gifts are not given to us at our discretion but at the discretion of the Spirit himself - he chooses how to dispense the gifts. The Spirit of God has a volition or a will, and if there’s anything that’s definitional to personhood it’s a will.
All of these texts, together, bear unanimous witness that the Holy Spirit is a person, just like the Son is a person and just like the Father is a person.

The Holy Spirit is God

Now let’s tackle the second assertion that the Scriptures make concerning the Holy Spirit, the assertion that the Holy Spirit is treated and assumed to be God. In the same way unitarians deny the personhood of the Holy Spirit by claiming that he is merely a power or force, they also deny his deity, or that he is God. But listen with me to what the Scriptures say.
One of the most interesting texts on this subject, about all of the persons of the trinity, including the Spirit is found in Matthew 28, verse 19. If you would, please turn with me there. These last few texts I want you to see first-hand.

One divine name

Most of us are all very familiar with this passage, known famously as the great commission, where Jesus has appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and commissions them to go and make disciples of all nations. These are some of his last words to his disciples before he ascends into heaven to be seated at the right and of the Father in heaven. But what’s particularly interesting about this text, and applicable for us today is verse 19, where Jesus says,

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

What I want you to notice first is that the Holy Spirit is named among the other two persons of the Trinity. Only persons have names, therefore we see another affirmation of the Spirit as a person, but there’s more! Notice that the word “name” is singular and not plural. Jesus does not say, “baptizing them in the names of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” instead he says, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He treats the three persons as one. In other words, the Spirit shares the one divine name with both the Father and the Son! If you’re not a trinitarian why else would you write like this or talk like this? Jesus doesn’t see the slightest problem, in both, affirming the person of the Spirit, and with the person of the Spirit sharing the same divine name with him and the Father. If Jesus was a unitarian he wouldn’t speak like this, if Matthew was a unitarian he wouldn’t have recorded it like this.

Lying to God

This text alone should settle the issue of the Spirit’s divine nature, yet there’s more. If you would, turn with me to Acts 5:3. Many of us are acquainted with this story also. A man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira approach the Apostle Peter to offer some of the proceeds of the property that they had recently sold. This was a time when many of the early church members were selling their belongings to take care of one another. It was a great testimony to love that they had for one another. And while no one was required to sell everything they had to give to the church, Ananias and Sapphira decided to follow suit, however, they decided to hold back some of the proceeds from selling their property while pretending, though, to have given all of the proceeds. And when they had laid the money at the apostles’ feet Peter said to them,

“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

When you lie to the Holy Spirit you’re lying to God.

Spirit’s words are God’s words

You might also recall the famous OT text in Isaiah 6 during the prophet Isaiah’s commissioning. Isaiah is given a vision of Yahweh (or God) sitting on his heavenly throne with angels all around him, worshipping him. Then he hears the voice of the Lord saying,

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;

keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’

This is a judgement text, and the Lord commissioned Isaiah to declare these things to Israel as a pronouncement of judgment against them. And what’s relevant about this text is that Paul uses it much later in Acts 28. Paul was speaking with the Jews about Jesus. And we’re told that from morning till evening he explained to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and the from the Prophets. And while some were convinced by what he said, other disbelieved, so Paul quotes to them from Isaiah 6 and says,

“The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet:

26  “ ‘Go to this people, and say,

“You will indeed hear but never understand,

and you will indeed see but never perceive.”

Aside from the fact that these are some seriously sharp words by Paul, what’s incredible to notice is that Paul attributes the words of Yahweh in Isaiah 6 to the Holy Spirit here in Acts 28. Yahweh’s words in the OT are assumed to be the Spirit’s words in the NT. The Apostle Paul sees no contradiction in saying this, because the Holy Spirit is Yahweh.

Conclusion

The Father is Yahweh, the Son is Yahweh and the Spirit is Yahweh. And next week we’ll see how this is possible, while affirming both the monotheism of the Bible and the distinctions of these three persons revealed to us in the NT. But for now, what I want us to begin to see is that as of the NT, we now know that all the persons of the Godhead (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) are definitional to who God is. Therefore to reject the deity of the Spirit is to reject God himself, or to reject the deity of Christ is to reject God himself. This why the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to historic and biblical Christianity. Let us not grow weary of or neglect what God has revealed to us about himself. My prayer is that we would have a renewed zeal to know God as revealed in his Word.

Prayer

Help us to understand these thing
Holy Spirit lead us into all truth, keep us from error
Lord, give us zeal for your name to know and worship you, to glorify you
Give us a sense of awe as we revel in the testimony of your Word of who you are
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