(4) The Spirit and the Young Lord Jesus

The infancy and childhood of the Lord Jesus

The Spirit’s Role in Creation - Order from Chaos

The Spirit’s Role in the Old Covenant

The Spirit Unveils the Face of God

The Spirit is working to reveal the face of God that we might find security and grace in the Lord. Throughout the Old Testament there are revelations of the face of the Father as the Spirit does in the Old Testament the kinds of things a father does for his children.

The Spirit and his relationship with the Lord Jesus

How the Father works through the life of the Lord Jesus in the companionship of the Holy Spirit. In the gospels there are four points in the 33 years of his ministry that this is especially seen. His birth and infancy, his inauguration to public ministry, during this public ministry and his work, his passion, his resurrection, his ascension.

The infancy and childhood of Jesus

Luke 1:31-35 tells us that the Holy Spirit was engaged in the life and humanity of Jesus. The Spirit came upon Mary and overshadowed her. The last in a series of childless women that the Spirit enables to conceive and this is not a barren woman but a virgin woman. The language reminds us of Genesis 1:2 and the darkness of the created mass and the Spirit does its most significant work where prying eyes can never see. Creation, the conception of Jesus, the resurrection, regeneration of believers. He loves to do things in personal secrecy. This is part of his humility and modesty. He is beginning a new creation. He brought order out of disorder, fullness out of emptiness at creation and now he comes to a disordered world with no capacity to save itself, a world of emptiness and barrenness that can contribute nothing to its salvation, to a virgin girl who has no capacity to give birth to a savior. He has come to the humanity of Mary , he has brought to conception the sinless son of God. There is an echo also of the Shekinah glory cloud hovering over the exodus. He now hovers over the virgin to signal another deliverance, this is the one who brings the true exodus, not just physical but an exodus from spiritual bondage. Jesus’ first sermon is pointing to the Spirit. The Spirit was the companion of the Savior from his very conception. The Spirit was personally there with Jesus. The Spirit given to me was the Spirit who knew the Lord Jesus from conception.

Luke 2: Jesus in the Temple. Jesus was not with his parents and the last place they look is the Temple. Luke 2:48-49. Jesus, I must be in my Father’s house. Why is it that Jesus not being disobedient when he says this to his parents. His parents had taught him that the place where he would see the face of God was the Temple. Ps 27:8, your face do I seek. The Spirit unveils the face of the Father and so Luke makes clear in v 52 that the Spirit was upon Jesus who increased in favor with God. This means that Jesus was walking step by step in fellowship with the Spirit who gave him wisdom as Isaiah promised. The relationship between Jesus and the Spirit is described by John as the counselor, the paraclet, the companion, the supporter, the guide, the friend. The Spirit was his nearest and dearest companion.

His Inauguration to Public Ministry

The second phase was at his baptism and temptations. Luke 4:1 was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days. At his baptism he was filled with the Spirit and then led by the Spirit. His baptism and temptations are a unique work of the Spirit in Jesus’ life. We speak of the Spirit helping us to avoid temptation but with Jesus the Spirit strengthened Him in temptation.

The Spirit Dwelling Within

The Spirit gives gifts and empowers us, but to focus on who the Spirit is we need to actually get to know the Spirit. Paul in the apostolic benediction of 2 Cor 13:14 mentions the communion of the Spirit, communion with the Holy Spirit. We sometimes mistakenly think that the Spirit came to give glory to the Son but not to himself. The Son came to give glory to the Father, and thus we glorify the Son. In like manner, when the Spirit glorifies the Son we should love the Spirit, trust Him, worship him, honor him, glorify him. Few hymns mention that we are to know and glorify the Spirit. We want to know him better. The OT text, Deut 29:29 should be on the heart of every believer. The things revealed belong to us. We need to focus on the things revealed since God reveals himself as he really is. As he reveals himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit we are convinced in scripture that this is how God is. This may not be everything God knows about himself but we need to fix our eyes on the revelation that the Lord has given us. Biblical thinkers, not speculative thinkers. Not, the way I like to think of Jesus or God but how is God himself revealed in scripture. How does the Spirit reveal himself. Just as Jesus is the access to knowing God as Father, Jesus is also the access to knowing the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ baptism and temptation

The baptism reveals God is three persons. Not one person who manifests himself in three different ways, this is modalism. At the baptism we see Jesus baptised as the Son of God, we hear a voice from heaven that isn’t Jesus, we see the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove. Three distinct persons.

In terms of what the Holy Spirit is teaching us about himself in the baptism, there is an element of Genesis 1:2. The Spirit was hovering over the water. The baptism is connected to creation. The genealogy of Jesus is inserted when Jesus is 30 years old, not at the beginning. But Luke’s genealogy traces Jesus back to the first man Adam. We are witnessing the Spirit hovering over the water and Jesus emerging from the water is God creating something new. Paul in 2 Cor 5:17, if we are in Christ we are a new creation. The Holy Spirit was engaged in the first creation and is now engaged in the new creation. The Spirit hovering over the waters of the Jordan comes in the form of a dove. This reminds us of Noah in whom the people believed they might find rest, Noah the savior, Noah who emerged from the ark after the dove was sent out. In Jesus, the disappointed hopes of Noah’s people will be fulfilled in Jesus. The Spirit of God comes upon him to fulfill his ministry. The Jordan was the river the people passed through on their way to the promised land. This land was a symbol of a greater land, of the whole earth that Messiah would inherit. Jesus is the one who will lead people into the land of rest, into the glory of salvation. Jesus is anointed by the Holy Spirit.

In the OT were pictures of this. There were individuals anointed with oil as a symbol of the Spirit’s anointing. Prophets, priests and kings. Prophets could know the secret of the Lord and sharing it with the people, priests would enter into the presence of God and make sacrifices for and praying for the people. Kings were anointed in order that they might reign over the people. Jesus is baptized and then anointed by the spirit so that he might be God’s prophet (hear God’s voice), God’s priest ( a sacrifice), God’s king (Jesus will be anointed to reign over the whole earth). The Holy Spirit is now bringing Jesus onto the stage of history. The Spirit is taking Jesus by the hand and saying this is the way forward, trust be implicitly and I will equip you for the minister that the Lord has called you. That’s why the next event is the temptation.

We must not try to say, how is my experience like Jesus’. No, in what way is Jesus’ experience unique? Mark uses the term “thrown out.” The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. When we are tempted, temptation comes and we are to flee. But Jesus is marching into temptation. Surrounded by wild beasts. Adam was tempted in a garden surrounded by tame beasts but Jesus is surrounded by wild beasts. Jesus is in a wilderness not a garden. No food but barrenness. Fasting 40 days. This is a crucial part of his ministry. Jesus is going to change the chaos and sin of Adam. He is reversing the Fall. When he is most dependent and weak he will overcome. Satan fled until he could find a more opportune time to attack again. Empowered by the Spirit Jesus is overcoming Satan. This is wonderful because Jesus has done it. It tells us wonderful things about the Holy Spirit, his intimacy with Jesus and Jesus’ intimacy with the Spirit.

What does this mean for me? As believers it means that the Holy Spirit who put Satan to flight is the same Holy Spirit that empowers us and can put Satan to flight in our lives. When tempted, it is the same Spirit who overcame through the Lord Jesus who is able to make you overcome. The hymn, Think what Spirit dwells within me… (https://hymnary.org/text/jesus_i_my_cross_have_taken_all_to_le)

The Spirit who made Jesus prophet, priest and king empowers you to speak as God’s prophet, to enter into God’s presence and to live as a living sacrifice and as Paul says in Romans, to reign in life by Christ Jesus. Not what does this teach me about me, but what does this teach me about Jeus and the Holy Spirit? It teaches me more about the Spirit.

John 14:7 - you know him for he dwells with you and in you.

Passages in the NT that underline for us that the Holy Spirit who equipped Jesus was with him and empowered him throughout the course of his work. Luke 4:14 - returned in the power of the Spirit.

Jesus preaches in the synagogue 4:16 and unrolls the scroll and reads form Is 61 - the Spirit of the Lord. Fulfilled in your hearing. The sermon that created the shortest first ministry. Waiting for the Spirit filled and empowered messiah to come. I am he.

The passage that Jesus fulfilled during his ministry. In the power of the Spirit, he healed, he forgave, he gave assurance, he brought restoration, he came like the new man, the second Adam. He comes to those who are broken and bruised by the Fall, the blind, the deaf, the lame. In the words of Warfield, he turns on the light temporarily and partially, revealing what will happen fully at the end of the age. He delivers those who are oppressed, possessed by demons. Setting them free from the bondage created by Satan since the Fall. There are few references to demons in the Bible. Most of them are found in one small land in the course of three years. There was a legion of demons in Legion. Because Jesus was there, demons were there. There is demonic activity in the holy land during the period of Jesus’ public ministry. Their last chance to destroy the messiah. Their master is defeated and so they join against Jesus. Luke 11:20, he has done these things in the power of the Holy Spirit. If it is by the finger of God, another way of speaking of the Holy Spirit. If it’s by the finger of God that I cast out demons then the kingdom of God has come. Here is the King empowered by the Holy Spirit and defeating all of his enemies. What he does in his ministry he does as the second man and the last Adam. Not by transferring powers from his divine person to his human nature. That would have made him not true man but some kind of mixture of God and man. By his perfect dependence on the Spirit his Father had given him so that he could be empowered to be our Savior. This is another reason to love the Spirit. The Spirit has empowered Jesus to set us free.

Luke 10:21 - Jesus has sent out the disciples, a larger group than the apostles, and they are thrilled by what they have done. Even the demons are subject to us in your name. Satan fell from heaven. You have power over the enemy. But rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Power gifts are not necessarily signs of saving grace. In that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. I thank you Father that you have hidden… Suddenly Jesus brings us into a different order of being. He has heard of the power of the Spirit in the disciples. He rejoices. The relationship hidden under the gospels suddenly bursts forth. We don’t need to explain ourselves to the closest of friends. The Spirit has been present since the moment of his conception. He’s marvelling at what the Holy Spirit is doing. He thanks the Father for this. A moment when Jesus is in communion with the Spirit experiencing joy and in communion with the Father. The Father has worked through the Spirit to bring people to faith in the Lord Jesus. This gives Jesus joy and thankfulness. Ferguson calls this a moment of moments within the gospels.(5 - 15:16)

Luke 12:10 - Jesus will say that it’s one thing to speak against the Son of Man but to speak against or blaspheme the Spirit will not be forgiven. That resistance to the ministry of the Spirit that refuses to recognize that the power of the kingdom of God has been released in the Lord Jesus. We are to yield to and to trust in the Lord Jesus. Jesus has thanked the Father for the Spirit is doing. He is rejoicing in what the Spirit is doing. When one resists the Holy Spirit one is resisting God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and refusing to allow the Lord Jesus joy. The simple difference between being a believer and not a believer. We have as believers a longing that our lives should bring joy to the Lord. To refuse joy to the Lord Jesus is a heinous sin since bringing joy to the Lord Jesus is what the heavenly Father most wants. Hebrews 12, for the joy set before him Jesus endured the cross and despised the shame. God has exalted him and given him a name above every other name, every knee should bow and tongue confess. The Father’s desire is that Jesus should have inexpressible joy and to resist the Spirit who seeks to bring that joy to Jesus by bringing us in faith and in humility to Jesus is to commit that blaspheme against the Spirit that will never be forgiven. In Luke 2:52 Jesus grew in favor with God and man. As greater temptations, greater challenges came his way, as Jesus in the power of the Spirit overcame these challenges he grew more and more and more in favor with his heavenly Father. The Spirit was saying I am going to enable Jesus in his humanity, so to fulfill all obedience and all faith that the Father will be able to say, Lord Jesus you are growing in favor with me. The love that a young married couple has for each other is a shadow of the love they will have years later. We love the other with all our hearts but as we get to know them we have more and more reason to love them even more. Jesus himself says that the Father’s love for him and favor for him as the Holy Spirit sustained him in his obedience was never greater than at that point when the Father’s smile was turned away from his Son. John - the reason my Father loves me is because I lay down my life for the sheep. This is the point where, if said humanly, with a breaking heart the heavenly Father would say, “If ever I loved thee, my Jesus tis now.” This is what the Holy Spirit is promoting, not just that Jesus should be able to accomplish our salvation but that the relationship that has existed since before all eternity among the Father, the Son and the Spirit, would be the “unbearable ecstasy in mutual devotion in love. That it should actually be manifested in the lord Jesus so that in him we see the wonder of the relationship between the Father and the Son because of the power of the Holy Spirit. And we begin to see the intimacy of the Lord Jesus with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit’s intimacy with the Lord Jesus that fill us with awe and wonder when we remember that this is the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus has given to us. His meekness, his grace, the way that he loves (1 Cor 13), the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5) is really a description of the Lord Jesus because the Spirit who was there at the very beginning of the incarnation of Jesus and who sustained him through infancy and childhood and anointed him for ministry and sustained him every moment. Watching over him while he slept and when he woke allowed him to be in conscious communion with the Father because Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and he went about doing good because by the Spirit Jesus is good. In the Chronicles of Narnia, is Aslan safe, no, but he is good, he’s very good. That’s the fruit of the Spirit in the Lord Jesus. And that’s why we love the Spirit. May we be able to say that by the Spirit our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus.

The Spirit in the Life of Jesus as Sustainer

The fourth point in Jesus’ ministry. Sustaining him. The Spirit was present at his conception, his baptism, his temptations and ministry and at the end of his life and ministry. Hebrews 9:14 - the blood of animals symbolically represented the forgiveness of sins, “that Christ through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God”. He was sustained by the Holy Spirit. The relationship of the Father and Son in Psalm 22:1, forsaken, the Spirit was sustaining Him. The mystery of Jesus, even as he was under the judgment of God as our sin bearer, he was being sustained by the Spirit. What is true of his crucifixion and sacrifice on the cross is also true of his resurrection. Romans 1:4, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. Paul is saying that Spirit was also involved in the resurrection of Jesus in addition to the Father. The Spirit sustained Jesus in his weakness but now in his resurrection the Spirit engages him in extraordinary transforming power and he is raised from among the dead. In his ascension something happens, Acts 1:8, Jesus says that they will receive power. A cloud takes him out of their sight. This cloud is the glory cloud of God, in the Exodus, in the transfiguration, that symbolizes the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. The Spirit who has been Jesus’ constant companion is now “the chariot driver” taking Jesus home to Glory. Psalm 24, who is the King of glory? And the answer is given by the Host of Heaven as Jesus ascends in the Elijah like majesty. The Spirit is saying, “open up the gates and let the King of Glory come in.”

Jesus is conceived by the power of the Spirit, he is sustained by the power of the Spirit, he is succoured on the cross by the Spirit, he is vindicated by the power, he is taken home in glory by the power.

Paul reflects on the inner significance of all of these aspects of the relationship between the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit. In 1 Cor 15:42-49 Paul speaks of the nature of the resurrection body. Sown perishable, raised imperishable, sown in dishonor, raised in glory (from the resurrection of Jesus). Sown in dishonor, died under the curse of God on the cross of Calvary. Sown in dishonor, raised in glory, Sown in weakness, raised in power. Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life giving Spirit so as the man of the dust (Adam) and as is the man of heaven (Jesus). We bore the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. 2 Cor 3:16-18 - When one turns to the Lord the veil is removed. The whole Bible has been pointing to Jesus. With unveiled face we behold the glory of the Lord. This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Paul is saying that throughout the course of his life Jesus has been the companion of the Spirit and the Spirit the companion of Jesus. There was complete harmony, so much so that Jesus that when Jesus sends the Spirit it is like sending Himself.

God has embedded in his created order hints of this harmony. How long until we understand why these people married each other? Married people look like each other. Owners look like their dogs. There’s no need to explain, they both think the same. If it’s true for us, imagine the intimacy between the Spirit and the Savior. And this harmony has been eternal. Father, will you give them the Spirit that you gave to me? At Pentecost Jesus sends his own Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Christ. John 14:17 - you know you for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. More than resurrection, I will come through my own Holy Spirit who will dwell in your life. He will be with you forever.

The ministry of the Spirit in the life of Jesus. How many Holy Spirits are there? One. We have the Spirit, Jesus was filled with the Spirit. The Spirit who comes is one and the same Spirit that came in the womb of Mary and was with Jesus and is with Jesus. As believers, we are all indwelt with the same Holy Spirit. We must never treat another believer in an ungodly way.

We don’t focus our attention on us but on what the Holy Spirit means to the Lord Jesus.