Sermon Tone Analysis

HOLY SPIRIT AND THE TRINITY

As Christians, we embrace the historic formula about God’s being.

We say, “God is One in essence and three in person.”

In other words, God is triune; He is the Trinity.

This means there are three persons within the Godhead.

These persons are understood in theology as distinct characters.

The differences among the three, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are real differences but not essential differences.

In other words, there is only one essence to the Godhead, not three.

In our experience as human beings, each person we meet is a separate being.

One person means one being, and vice versa.

But in the Godhead, there is one being with three persons.

We must maintain this distinction lest we slip into a form of polytheism, seeing the three persons of the Godhead as three beings who are three separate gods.

None of us can plumb the depths of the Trinity comprehensively, but we can take some small steps to understand it better.

The words existence and subsistence can help us here.

Does God exist?

Theologian and Christian pastor and author RC Sproul says no.

To exist comes from Latin meaning to stand out of – and to exist means to at some point not exist as well.

God is not a creature bound by time and space and nature.

God is eternal and thus does not exist in normal terms but theologians use the word subsistence – existence under something else – an implied concept of the Trinity – three distinct persons that subsists with the being “God.”

The Bible and Christians state a lot and know a lot about the first 2 personhoods of the Godhead – God the Father and God the Son.

Less is said and know of the 3rd – God the Spirit – the Holy Spirit.

Share the story of RC’s wife when they were engaged –

· He became a Christian after being engaged

· She thought he lost mind

· He finally decided that if she were not a real believer, he would have to call off engagement

· Bible Study and spent the night in the girls form

· The next morning she stated that she could not sleep - Now I know who the Holy Spirit is,” not, “Now I know what the Holy Spirit is.”

In her conversion, she made a transition from understanding Christianity in an abstract sense to understanding it as a personal relationship with God.

And one of the first truths she grasped was that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a thing.

Today we start a 3 part series on the Holy Spirit, the first part several weeks we will cover who He is and what He does, the second part on each of the Fruit of the Spirit, and finally, 4 weeks on gifts of the Spirit.

Let us Pray.

ACTS 1:4-5 – 4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

ACTS 2:1-4 – When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.

2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The Holy Spirit and the Trinity

Luke 24:48-49 – 48 You are witnesses of these things.

49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.

But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

I. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS GOD

Note these characteristics:

A. Eternal—Hebrews 9:14.

He has always existed.

Hebrews 9:14 – how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

B. Omnipresent—Psalm 139:7–12.

He is everywhere.

Psalm 139:7-12 – Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you.

C. Omniscient—1 Corinthians 2:10.

He knows everything.

1 Corinthians 2:10 – 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?

So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this

D. Omnipotent—Acts 10:38.

He is all powerful.

ACTS 10:38 – 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power

E. Holy—1 Corinthians 6:11; 1 Peter 1:2.

The holiness of the Spirit purifies Christians.

1 Corinthians 6:11 – 11 And such were some of you.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God

1 Peter 1:2 – 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

F. True—John 14:17.

The Holy Spirit is truth as Christ is the truth.

(See 1 John 5:6.)

John 14:16-17 – And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you

1 John 5:6 – 6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.

And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

G. Self existent, yet one with God and Christ—Romans 8:2.

(Note also 2 Corinthians 3:3, the Spirit of the living God.)

Romans 8:2 – For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

2 Corinthians 3:3 – And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

H. Glorious—1 Peter 4:14.

He is the “spirit of glory and of God.”

1 Peter 4:14 – 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you

II.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND GOD

A. Spirit of God—Genesis 1:1, 2; 1 Corinthians 3:16

Genesis 1:1-2 – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

1 Corinthians 3:16 – Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

B. Spirit of the Lord—Judges 3:10; Isaiah 11:2

Judges 3:10 – 10 The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel.

He went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand.

And his hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim.

Isaiah 11:2 – And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

C. His Spirit—Isaiah 48:16

Isaiah 48:16 – 16 Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.”

And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.

D. My Spirit— Nehemiah 9:30, Galatians 5:16-17

Nehemiah 9:30 – 30 Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets.

Yet they would not give ear.