The Deity of the Holy Spirit

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:05
Well, as we began last week on the study of pneumatology, I gave you a overview of what that means.
00:16
And just for those who I know weren't here, I want to just very quickly reiterate what it is we're studying.
00:22
This is not a word that most people are used to using.
00:29
It's not part of regular vernacular, and it's certainly something that is not often even mentioned in the church.
00:37
Big words and big concepts are oftentimes frowned upon or outright just turned away from because we're afraid of those things that we might misunderstand or not understand at all.
00:52
And really though, we all have to deal with this because pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit.
00:59
Pneumos is the Greek word for air or breath or spirit.
01:03
And so the study of the pneumos is actually the study of the hagios pneumos, the Holy Spirit.
01:11
Hagios is the Greek for holy, and it actually would be pneuma.
01:16
So it'd be hagios pneuma would be the Holy Spirit.
01:19
And so the study of pneumatology is the study of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
01:27
And I don't know how many of you remember this, but there was an old, it's actually an ancient Christian symbol.
01:35
And in fact, not that I wanna go too far off because I could go, there's a lot of symbols that people don't realize were old symbols like this symbol, you've probably seen this, right? That's called the Chi Rho, it's the Greek letters Chi and Rho, which are the first two letters in the name of Christ in the Greek.
01:56
And so that symbol became early connected with Christ.
01:59
There was this symbol, which is the fish.
02:03
I drew it kind of funny looking, but yeah, I messed up my loop there.
02:06
But you've seen the Jesus fish on the back of cards.
02:09
It's actually a very old ancient symbol used associated with the church.
02:14
In fact, does anybody know one of the oldest symbols? Yes, go ahead.
02:17
No, no, no, never, go ahead.
02:19
Okay.
02:19
One of the oldest symbols was actually found, wasn't used by the church, but it was used by the Romans to attack the church.
02:27
And it was a picture of a cross with a man hung on the cross with the head of a donkey.
02:32
And it was an attack against Christianity.
02:34
It was saying that you're serving your God as a donkey or the worst, worst term.
02:40
Yeah.
02:41
But that's, so we see these ancient pictures, but one of the older pictures that you will see is the three circle.
02:53
And this is meant to represent the Trinity, but oftentimes you won't see it as three circles because it will take away the circle and it becomes the three fold picture of the Trinity where one is meant to represent the father, one is meant to represent the son and one is meant to represent the spirit.
03:15
Now, certainly this can be misunderstood as some type of trifeism or three God ism.
03:21
So we have to be careful when we think about this symbol.
03:23
But one of the things that I do like to point out about the symbol is it reminds us that from the very earliest of our faith, it was understood that God was in three persons and the three persons shared any quality within the Trinity.
03:40
As often I think the worst thing about the Holy Spirit in the study of the spirit is that he gets relegated to second class citizenship in the Godhead.
03:53
Oftentimes Christ gets relegated to second class citizenship too, but sometimes I almost think people are by Ninnians rather than Trinitarians or Binitarians instead of Trinitarians, meaning they think of the divinity of the father, they think of the divinity of the son, but they see the spirit as sort of like a lesser deity, a lesser divinity, sort of a lesser God.
04:15
And part of the thing we need to understand as we study the Holy Spirit is we are studying God, the Holy Spirit, God in his fullness of the spirit, and we are not studying a lesser God.
04:32
And I point that out because tonight we're gonna finish up what we started last week, was on the personality of the spirit.
04:39
That was the first thing we looked at was that the spirit has personality.
04:44
And the focus on that was that he is a he, not an it.
04:50
The spirit has personality, he, not it.
04:56
Almost always, I've heard great theologians make that mistake when preaching.
05:03
They'll be talking about the spirit and they'll say, and it will come upon you or something like that.
05:08
That is never how the Bible uses the language.
05:11
The Bible always uses the language of the personal pronoun of he.
05:17
And it's always masculine.
05:20
Even though Numa is neuter in the Greek language, it always ties the masculine pronoun to the Holy Spirit to identify him as he rather than it.
05:34
So that's when we talk about personality.
05:37
That is what we're gonna finish up tonight.
05:39
But under nature, there's also two other headings that you see on your sheet.
05:43
There's deity or divinity.
05:48
And the last one is what I've entitled representations.
05:55
And really the reason for all this is because we're studying the nature of the Holy Spirit.
06:01
We wanna look at the fact that he is personal by nature.
06:05
He is divine by nature.
06:08
And we understand his nature by how he is represented in Scripture.
06:13
That is how we relate.
06:15
If you wanna write next to representations, you could write how we relate to the work of the Spirit.
06:22
Because that's what it is.
06:23
God gives us pictures of the Spirit, a dove, a seal, a clothing.
06:27
All of these things are how we understand, how wind is a picture of the Spirit.
06:32
And so these are how we relate to what the Spirit does and how he does it, right? So that's what we're gonna look at.
06:40
And we're gonna focus tonight on the last two of Roman numeral one.
06:45
So we stopped after the works.
06:48
We're gonna look now at his position.
06:50
So we're gonna go to his position, confirms his personality.
06:55
And by the way, what I'm saying here is I sought to prove that those of you who were here last week, you know, I'm seeking to prove that he's personal.
07:03
The cults make their business.
07:05
Out of a very simple argument, that Jesus is not divine and the Spirit is not a person.
07:12
They'll say, Jesus is a person, he's just not a divine person.
07:15
And the Spirit is divine, but he's not a person.
07:19
He's the power of God, not a person.
07:24
He's the electricity, he's the energy, he's the outflow.
07:26
He's what pours out, but he's not a person.
07:29
And I sought last week to show you his identity, his attributes and his works all prove his personality.
07:36
Well, tonight, we're gonna look at his position and how that proves his personality.
07:39
Let's look at a few scriptures.
07:45
Look at Matthew chapter 12.
07:48
Now, I'm gonna tell you, as soon as I read this, you're gonna wanna talk about it because everybody wants to talk about this passage.
07:58
But I'm gonna give you a hint.
08:01
We're gonna talk about this later in more detail.
08:04
So if I don't answer all your questions, don't get too upset as this is not the subject of tonight, this is a subset of the subject.
08:12
Matthew chapter 12, passage you're probably very familiar with, verse 32.
08:17
Jesus has been having the Pharisees who are saying what he has done and they say that he is demon-possessed.
08:25
The Pharisees say Jesus is demon-possessed.
08:28
Verse 31, therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
08:37
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.
08:47
Now, that typically is referred to as the unpardonable sin or the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
08:55
I will, in a few weeks, address at length how I understand that passage and what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is.
09:01
But my point tonight is simply to argue that how do we understand his personality? His position is one that can be blasphemed against.
09:10
You can't blaspheme a force, it's a person.
09:13
So again, what am I doing? I'm arguing for his personhood.
09:15
So right now his position is one who is God because you can't blaspheme someone who's not God.
09:23
You understand? So by the very nature of this action of blasphemy being attributed to the Spirit, one, it proves he's personal, and two, I would say it also argues for his divinity.
09:35
So that's one right there, he can be blasphemed.
09:39
Now turn over to Acts chapter 7.
09:41
Again, this is more like a sword drill, so forgive me, but we jump around a little bit.
09:47
Acts chapter 7.
09:49
Acts chapter 7.
09:54
This is when Stephen is speaking to the Sanhedrin.
09:58
In verse 51, he says, I'll give you a second to get there.
10:04
I'm gonna write, first we said he can be blasphemed.
10:12
Now he can be, number two, we'll see what it says in verse 51.
10:17
Verse 51, it says, Stephen is speaking to the Sanhedrin.
10:20
You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you.
10:28
So what does that tell us about the Spirit? He can be resisted, thank you.
10:33
So he can be blasphemed, he can also be resisted.
10:39
That, again, refers to personality.
10:42
His position can be resisted.
10:45
Now, you good Calvinists probably have heard the phrase irresistible grace.
10:50
This is one of the passages that's often used to argue against irresistible grace because he just said you can resist the Spirit, irresistible grace says you can't resist the Spirit, so there we've proven Calvinism wrong.
11:00
Ha ha, no we haven't.
11:01
Because the argument Stephen is making is the actual truth of it all, is we always resist the Spirit.
11:08
It is the very nature of man to resist the Spirit of God.
11:11
It is the very nature of total depravity that we would always resist what God calls us to until such time as God sees fit to give us a new heart, one that is in line with what he wants us to do.
11:21
So yes, I would say if somebody says do you believe people can resist the Spirit, I'd say they can't do anything else unless God gives them a new heart.
11:30
So yes, men resist the Spirit of God, and that is their very nature.
11:35
And so that's the second one.
11:36
The third one is just two chapters over, chapter five, Acts chapter five.
11:44
This is a story that I think should cause many of us to get a little unnerved, and that is the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
11:54
What did Ananias and Sapphira do? But whom, to whom did they lie? They lied to the Holy Spirit.
12:04
That's verse four, or verse three, rather.
12:07
It says, but Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart? To lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back yourself, keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land.
12:17
So he can be lied to.
12:19
He can be lied to.
12:21
Now, if there's anybody in the world that it's dumb to lie to, it's God.
12:25
Just so you know.
12:26
I go up into heaven, you are there.
12:28
I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
12:30
I can't escape your Spirit.
12:33
And yet men try to hide from God, right? We hide things in closets, under mattresses, and everything else.
12:38
We try to get things away from God so that nobody can see it but us, thinking that we're somehow hiding from the living God.
12:46
It's foolishness, but it's the nature of man.
12:48
Not only do we resist, but we lie and we hide from God.
12:51
What did Adam and Eve do as soon as they realized they had sinned against God? They covered themselves.
12:59
Hide, to hide themselves.
13:02
Shame.
13:03
Start playing the blame game.
13:04
Oh, yeah, well, yeah.
13:04
Then they shame, then blame.
13:07
And I love how Adam looks at God and says, the woman whom thou hast given me, he blamed God.
13:15
The woman whom thou hast, he pointed his finger at God.
13:20
You gave her to me, it was your fault.
13:25
What a man, what a man.
13:27
What a, our forefather.
13:32
So the Spirit can be lied to.
13:35
But there's also a flip side to this.
13:37
It's also good.
13:37
Since we're in the book of Acts, go ahead and turn to Acts 10.
13:43
Acts chapter 10, go to verse 19.
13:51
This is the story of Peter.
13:53
He's been called to the house of Cornelius.
13:59
Verse 19, it says, and while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you.
14:04
Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.
14:08
Remember, the Spirit's talking.
14:11
That, again, take away all doubt that he's personal.
14:13
He's speaking.
14:14
But it goes on to say this.
14:17
And Peter went down to the men and said, I am the one you're looking for.
14:20
What is the reason for your coming? Then it goes on to say that he went with them.
14:25
The Spirit gives a command and it is obeyed by Peter.
14:30
So not only can he be resisted, he can also be obeyed.
14:35
You say, well, that's obvious.
14:37
Not so much.
14:41
The Spirit commands.
14:44
People resist.
14:46
The Spirit commands.
14:47
God can give the ability to obey.
14:49
In fact, God is the one who gives the ability to obey.
14:51
But all of these demonstrate his position as God and his position as person.
14:58
He is person.
15:00
In fact, I don't have it written down.
15:03
I've got a passage in Isaiah, but you don't have to go there.
15:06
I'll quickly pull it up.
15:07
Isaiah 63, 10 relates to a passage in Ephesians where it says, but they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.
15:16
Therefore, he turned to their enemy and he himself fought against them.
15:20
We see that again in Ephesians, talks about the Holy Spirit can be grieved.
15:24
So that's one more, if you just wanna add to that.
15:26
It's Isaiah 63, 10.
15:28
I think it's Ephesians 4, 30, but I don't have it written down.
15:31
But is it Ephesians 4, 30? Can be grieved.
15:36
So he can be blasphemed, he can be resisted, he can be lied to, he can be obeyed, and he can be grieved.
15:41
All of those things are testimonies to his personality.
15:46
And again, if you were here last week, we did this over and over and over.
15:50
I'm building the case to say that the Holy Spirit should not be considered an it, but a he.
16:00
All of these things could only be said of a person.
16:04
Last, his designations.
16:06
His designations.
16:07
And this, you don't have to turn to a lot of places, just go to one place.
16:10
Go to John 15.
16:15
Just gotta get something to drink here real quick.
16:23
In my devotional reading, I just happen to be here going through the Bible this year, and we just happen to be in John 15 and 16 today.
16:33
And it's such a lovely reminder of Jesus promising the Spirit, promising us the coming of the Spirit, John 15 and John 16.
16:42
John 15, look at verse 26.
16:49
But when the Helper comes, who's the Helper? Holy Spirit, what's the word there, you may remember? Huh? Perikletos.
16:57
Perikletos, yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:58
Yeah, Periklet.
16:59
Sometimes the English derivative, they'll say Periklet.
17:04
No, no, no, you got it, you're right.
17:07
Pronunciation is a secondary, because we don't really know how they talk.
17:11
It's a dead language, so we have to kind of arrive at it by guess.
17:18
Perikletos, that's the word for Helper.
17:20
I like the King James Comforter, but I think I like what that means too, but we'll talk about that another time.
17:27
But when the Comforter, 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.
17:36
All right, what's the focus here? When I say the focus, because we're on letter E, designations, you say, well, what do I mean by designation? Designation is the pronoun he.
17:49
The designation is the pronoun he.
17:51
Look again at verse 26.
17:55
When the Helper comes, who I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
18:03
It is he.
18:07
Now, just keeping that in your mind, look one page over at chapter 16, verse 13.
18:14
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all 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.
18:26
He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
18:33
There's like seven he's.
18:36
Yeah, so we have there a designation of the personal pronoun, which to me, again, proves the point that we've made.
18:46
We have his identity, his attributes, his works, his position, and his designation all prove to us that he is personal.
18:53
So we can check that one off the list.
18:57
We have proven from scripture the personality of the Holy Spirit.
19:01
No more its, no more its.
19:05
Okay, so now I'm gonna erase this stuff and we're gonna move on to the divinity, because this part, I would have to look at the New World Translation, I'm not sure.
19:21
I don't know if they just translated it.
19:23
I do know that the doctrine of the Jehovah Witness is that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force, like that of lightning.
19:32
And so he is the emanation of God or the force or power of God.
19:38
And if they did use personal pronouns, I imagine their argument would be this is referring to the Father and that this is the Father's spirit.
19:48
You understand the how, that's the only way I could, again, I don't have, I got a copy of the New World Translation in my office.
19:54
I could look it up.
19:54
In fact, maybe afterwards I will, just to see, because I'm curious now that you asked.
19:58
Because they do make several very, very particular changes.
20:04
And that may be one of them.
20:05
They may just say it.
20:07
Did I see a hand? Yes, sir.
20:08
It's directly in the action.
20:12
Yeah, it says lied to the spirit.
20:14
First of all, it says he lied to the spirit and then he's true.
20:19
You're jumping ahead of me, I'm getting there, because now we're getting to divinity.
20:24
You are very right.
20:29
So Richard Dunn gave it away.
20:30
No, but he's right.
20:32
He's right though, because that's my second argument, is now we've said, is he personal? The answer's yes.
20:40
But just because he's personal doesn't mean he's divine.
20:45
Now we have to prove divinity, right? Because as I said, we're talking about nature, right? Nobody questions whether or not the Father's divine.
20:52
Nobody questions whether or not the Father is personal.
20:54
The question is whether or not Christ is divine.
20:56
Nobody questions whether or not he was personal.
20:59
It's the opposite for the spirit.
21:01
Nobody questions whether he's divine.
21:03
It's just, is he a unique person or is he the Father's spirit or some other kind of derivative? We've argued and proven, I believe, that he's personal.
21:12
But now, is he divine? And I think the proof is in the text.
21:17
Is the spirit divine? The deity of the spirit is inextricably bound to the doctrine of the Trinity.
21:25
And so if we do deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit, we are denying the Trinity.
21:31
That's something to point out.
21:33
But I want to simply look at a few of the titles of the spirit.
21:38
And that's letter A on your sheet, the titles of the spirit.
21:42
First of all, the titles of the spirit.
21:45
First, you don't have to go there.
21:47
You may remember this by memory.
21:49
Genesis 1, 1 says.
21:53
No, that's Genesis 1, 2.
21:54
Genesis 1, but you're right.
21:57
Genesis 1, 1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and void.
22:03
And this spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.
22:06
So yes, it says that, but it builds up.
22:08
It says the spirit of God, right? So he, in that, is referred to not as the spirit of a lesser God, but he is the spirit of God.
22:21
And so that is a title that is used throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
22:27
The difference is, in the Old Testament, we are not given fullness of understanding regarding the Trinity.
22:38
Some people say that we are.
22:40
Some people say the Trinity is found in the Old Testament.
22:43
Here's my response to that.
22:45
I think the Trinity is veiled in the Old Testament.
22:50
I do believe it's there.
22:53
But I do think that it was intentionally veiled.
22:59
And you say, well, why would God intentionally veil anything? Well, the Bible says even the gospel itself was a mystery, and there's, God had a purpose in what he did in revealing things, what we call progressively, or progressive revelation.
23:15
And we don't really see the fullness of our understanding of the divinity of Christ and all of those things until the New Testament.
23:22
The New Testament and the person of Jesus.
23:24
Yes? Would you say that like measures had never dwelt? Yeah, actually, we're gonna talk about that in the next section on your sheet, which is the works of the spirit.
23:38
I'm gonna talk about the difference between how the spirit worked in the Old Testament and how he works in the New Testament.
23:45
The promise of the new covenant is a new administration of the Holy Spirit.
23:51
And so I do believe that the Old Testament saints experienced the Holy Spirit, but I think that the promise of the New Testament is the baptism, indwelling, and filling, which are different than the- Like Joel? Yeah, I mean, there are men in the Old Testament who were filled with the spirit, and there are people who were given the spirit for certain things and certain actions.
24:13
Like Saul? Yeah, and Saul had the spirit removed from him.
24:15
That's another different administration.
24:17
I would say in the New Covenant, the spirit is given and not taken.
24:20
But in the Old Covenant, we see the spirit given and taken.
24:25
And David even cried out to God, take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
24:28
So there are times where I would say there are differences.
24:33
But the question then becomes, did the Old Testament saint be regenerated? And I would say, yes.
24:39
And so when we get there, like I said, now we're a few weeks ahead.
24:44
Richard got us a paragraph ahead.
24:46
You got us a mile ahead, but that's okay.
24:49
I wanna deal with it.
24:50
The Holy Spirit has always been administrating God's purposes among his people.
24:58
So that has to be understood.
25:00
The Holy Spirit is present, but we don't see the understanding of the distinction.
25:06
I think John 15 is such an important passage, John 15 and 16, where Jesus talks about, I and the Father are gonna send the spirit.
25:16
If anybody ever has questions about the Trinity, I think that's a good place to start because you're talking about two different people talking to each other, the Father and the Son, and they're doing something with the third person, the paraclete or the spirit, who is the third.
25:29
And there's this action where these two are gonna send this one.
25:33
And I can't go, or he can't come until I go.
25:38
Because there's an administrative responsibility here where he's gonna come once I leave because he's gonna come to be my vicar.
25:47
He's gonna come to be the one who stands with you because I'm there.
25:52
And so there's this administration of the threefold office, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
25:57
And it's so important that we understand that that's not an Old Testament thing.
26:03
Even though it was true in the Old Testament, it's not something that's clearly expressed in the Old Testament.
26:08
Even though we do have passages like let us make man in our image, that's plural.
26:13
Obviously that can be a veiled reference to the Trinity.
26:15
Even when the Bible talks about God is one, Deuteronomy 6, when it talks about, behold the shema, hear O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one Lord.
26:27
That word one actually means a unity.
26:32
And so there's unity.
26:34
It's not a strict, it's not the number one.
26:36
It's a unity, it's the word for unity.
26:38
And so we know that's what the Trinity is.
26:40
It's three in one and one in three.
26:42
And there's a unity in the Trinity and Trinity in unity.
26:44
And that's even what our creeds say.
26:46
We worship God in Trinity and unity in that Trinity.
26:50
So it's important that we see he's there, but he's not clearly understood until the New Testament.
26:59
All right, so we've seen the titles, of course, of the Holy Spirit.
27:03
He's called the Spirit of God.
27:06
But I also wanna show you, again, Richard, you got us, Acts chapter five, because if we're talking about titles, Richard is right, but I do wanna point it out to you what he was saying in case some of you may have missed it.
27:22
When Ananias is brought before Peter, and by the way, Ananias did not die because he didn't sell his property.
27:30
He died because he lied.
27:32
Peter very clearly says, it was yours to do with what you will.
27:37
Why did you lie? And let me stop for a second and just say something about that.
27:48
Integrity means your yes is your yes, and your no is your no.
27:54
Jesus said, we don't need to give a vow, or not a vow, a oath.
28:03
Why don't we have to take oaths as Christians? It's not because we can't.
28:07
Some people think it's a sin to like get sworn in or something like that, but it's unnecessary.
28:16
The Christian should be a person whose yes and no are trustworthy.
28:27
And so that's the picture here.
28:28
It says, a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property.
28:32
With his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet.
28:39
But Peter said, 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 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 men, but to God.
29:01
The Holy Spirit in this passage is called God because the antecedent of that God or the connecting to that use of the word God is right up.
29:11
He said, you lied to the Holy Spirit.
29:13
In verse three, he said, you lied to God.
29:15
In verse five, it's obviously connecting the two together.
29:18
So the Holy Spirit is called God.
29:28
The Spirit receives several titles, but certainly the title of God should lead us to have no questions about his divinity.
29:40
He's called many other things.
29:42
He's called the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Knowledge, the Spirit of Might, the Spirit of Truth, and the Spirit of Grace.
29:52
All of those things are pictures of his divinity, but calling him the Spirit of God or calling him God certainly should remove all doubt.
30:03
So we see his titles.
30:04
Now let's look at his attributes.
30:07
Look with me at Romans chapter eight.
30:31
Romans 8, one should be one of our favorite Bible passages.
30:35
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, amen? But then it goes on.
30:46
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
30:54
The Spirit here is called the Spirit of life.
31:00
That is a divine attribute.
31:02
It is the Spirit who gives life.
31:06
And I would go on and say it is the Spirit who gives new life.
31:10
That is the Spirit who gives regeneration.
31:13
And you might say, well, that's just a passing statement.
31:17
But think about what he's being called.
31:19
He's called the Spirit of life.
31:22
What a tremendous reality to call him the Spirit of life.
31:28
That is a divine attribute.
31:32
You do not have life in you outside of what God gives you.
31:38
And you cannot give life to anyone else.
31:42
Mothers can give birth, but you don't give life.
31:47
You could give a kidney or a piece of your liver and give someone the gift of life in their sense of sustaining life, but you cannot give life.
31:59
And you certainly cannot give new life.
32:02
I know Brother Andy would agree with me if I had the power to give new life when I preach, to grant the ability.
32:12
Wouldn't that just be amazing? Wouldn't sleep.
32:15
Wouldn't, yeah.
32:17
I would just always be preaching, right? I would just be, everybody.
32:22
We don't have that power when we preach.
32:24
All we have the power to do is ask the Spirit to give life.
32:28
He is the only one who can do it.
32:30
We can preach until we're blue in the face, and we can preach until we're out of breath.
32:35
And preaching is like a marathon.
32:36
I tell you, on Sunday morning, I go home, it's like I ran a race.
32:41
Because it's just so, it's a marathon of the heart.
32:45
You really are concerned about the souls of men.
32:47
But at the end of the day, you leave it in the hands of God because only the Spirit of life can give life.
32:53
So that's a reality there is Him being called the Spirit of life, I believe is a reference to His divinity because it's a reference to that which only God can do.
33:02
Only God can give life.
33:04
The second one is, and we looked at this last week.
33:08
If you wanna go there, you can.
33:09
But 1 Corinthians 2, verse 10 through 12, it talks about the Spirit knowing the mind of God.
33:17
And it says, no one knows the mind of a person except the Spirit of that person.
33:21
And no one knows the mind of God except for the Spirit of God.
33:24
Remember, we talked about that.
33:25
And we talked about the fact that the Spirit knows things.
33:27
He has a mind.
33:28
But here's the point I wanna make.
33:30
The Spirit, by being able to search out and know the mind of God the Father, demonstrates His omniscience.
33:37
We're looking at attributes here.
33:40
So 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 to 12, I believe prove He is not only the Spirit of life, but He is the Spirit of knowledge.
33:49
He knows all things.
33:50
He is omniscient.
33:55
Now this one I will probably have you go to.
33:57
Hebrews 9 and verse 14.
34:10
Actually, we'll read verse 13.
34:13
Remember, we're looking at attributes right now.
34:15
We're looking at attributes.
34:16
For if the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? I misread that.
34:38
It says who? Through the eternal Spirit.
34:40
The point here is the word eternal Spirit.
34:45
The Spirit of God is eternal.
34:49
So we've said He's the Spirit of life.
34:52
He is omniscient.
34:57
And He is eternal.
35:00
When I say He's the Spirit of life, He has life in Him, in Himself, which is actually an attribute only God has.
35:11
Only God has life in Himself.
35:13
We receive life and we live life and we are dependent on God, but God is dependent on no one.
35:19
That's why we say He has life in Himself.
35:21
He is the I am without any qualification.
35:23
He has life in Himself.
35:25
So He is life, He is omniscient, and He is eternal.
35:28
He is the eternal Spirit.
35:31
Now, we don't have to turn there because we just were there, but Matthew chapter 12, this is the next attribute.
35:36
He is holy.
35:39
You say, well, that's obvious because He's called the Holy Spirit, duh.
35:46
But in Matthew 12, 32, His holiness cannot be mocked.
35:52
Jesus said, say what you want about me, but know that if you speak against the Holy Spirit of God, it is not to be forgiven, right? Why, because He's holy, because He's holy.
36:08
Only God is holy.
36:10
The Spirit is holy, therefore, by simple deductive reasoning, the Spirit is God.
36:17
If only God is holy and the Spirit Himself is holy, then the Spirit must be God.
36:28
Another attribute that the Spirit possesses, and I'm glad He does, is the spirit of love.
36:35
Or the attribute of love, not the spirit of love, the attribute of love.
36:40
I'll read this one to you, Galatians 5, 22.
36:44
Galatians 5, 22, you probably remember it.
36:52
It's the fruit of the Spirit.
36:55
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, seven things.
37:06
It's really not seven things.
37:09
It's one.
37:11
The fruit of the Spirit is love, which is demonstrated in peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control.
37:22
That's what love is, according to 1 Corinthians 13.
37:24
Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, love does not boast, it does not seek its own, it does not keep a record of wrongs.
37:32
The Spirit is the spirit of love.
37:34
Genuine, true, and real love is a work of the Spirit of God, and He is love.
37:42
The Bible says God is love.
37:45
I think sometimes we can get away from that, especially when we focus too much on the intense intellectualism of our faith.
38:02
And there's a rigorous intellectual pursuit, and I'm not against it.
38:06
I love to study, I love to learn, I love to be challenged, but the Bible says that knowledge puffs up and love builds up, and there is a point at which if we're learning without loving, it's useless, and it's not far better, it's far worse.
38:31
So His attributes we see are life, omniscience, eternality, holiness, and love, and truth.
38:38
Last one is truth.
38:40
It's not His last attribute, we could go all night, but the last of my list.
38:44
He's called the Spirit of truth, John 14, 17.
38:53
These are the attributes of the Holy Spirit of God.
38:56
And by the way, these are the attributes of the Father too.
39:00
These are the attributes of the Son too.
39:03
You can't take and say, okay, well, the Son is this, and the Spirit is this, and the Father is this, not when it comes to attributes.
39:09
The only attributes that the Son has that the Spirit and the Father do not have is the attribute of humanity, which He took on at the incarnation.
39:18
The Spirit did not become a man, and the Father did not become the man.
39:21
That is a false teaching called patri-passionism.
39:24
It believes that the God is one person, and the Father indwelled Jesus, the person, and it was an ancient heresy.
39:34
It's also referred to as modalism or sabellianism, and it's a false teaching, yes.
39:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah, patri-passionism means literally the Father suffering.
39:46
Passion is the suffering, and patri is the word for Father, so patri-passionism is the idea that the Father suffered for our sins, which is not correct.
39:56
So we can say there are attributes that the Son has now that are unique to the Son, but the attributes that are divine, the divine attributes are these and many others, and the Spirit is seen as having them all.
40:13
So let us now look at the works of the Spirit, the works of the Spirit.
40:20
Again, we're looking at His divinity, His titles.
40:23
He is called the Spirit of God.
40:25
He is called God.
40:26
His attributes, He has life, omniscience, eternality, holiness, truth, and love, and now let's look at His works.
40:32
We've already talked about this a little bit.
40:34
We don't have to go there, but the fact that He was at work in creation.
40:40
The Spirit is at work in creation.
40:43
So under works, if you're making little notes off to the side, you could say one, and Genesis 1-2, obviously, but there's also a Psalm.
40:52
I think, did you mention Psalm 104, brother? No.
40:55
Tonight, was it? Okay, I, sorry, I must have misunderstood, misheard, but Psalm 104 mentions the Spirit's work in creation.
41:09
Verses 24-26, it says, O Lord, how manifold are your works and wisdom.
41:14
Have you made them all? The earth is full of your creatures.
41:17
Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things, both small and great.
41:22
There go the ships, the Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.
41:26
Now, that's verses 24-26, to prove the bigness of the earth.
41:30
Look at how big it is.
41:31
Even the Leviathan plays in your oceans, right? But then now to verse 30.
41:35
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created.
41:41
The they there is referring back to 24-26.
41:44
This whole world was created by an act of the power of God, and it was the triune majesty of God.
41:51
The Bible says in the New Testament, Jesus was active in creation, the Father was active in creation, and the Spirit was active in creation.
41:59
We see that right here in verse 30.
42:01
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created.
42:06
So the Spirit is active in creation.
42:09
And here's a book we don't go to often, at least probably not often enough, the book of Job, the book of Job.
42:20
Go to Job 26.
42:34
All right, go to verse 13.
42:38
Now, this is one we're gonna have to probably talk about for a minute, because it doesn't use the word Spirit in the ESV.
42:44
ESV, by his wind, the heavens were made fair.
42:51
His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
42:55
Now, that's the ESV.
42:57
Brother, what do you have? By his Spirit.
43:00
By his Spirit.
43:00
What translation, if you don't mind? New King James, by his Spirit.
43:05
Who here has it by his Spirit? Who here has it by his wind? Who here's not looking? No.
43:15
Was there another word? Yeah, by his breath.
43:19
Okay, there you go.
43:21
What did we talk about last week at very meaning of Numa? Air, breath, or Spirit, right? So this is one of those passages that you could say, well, is it talking about the breath of God when he spoke things into existence, or is it talking about the Spirit of God? I tend to believe in the context of this, it's the Spirit.
43:43
And we're gonna see that the wind is one of the representations of the Spirit.
43:48
Jesus says, the wind blows where it wills, and so is the work of the Spirit.
43:52
Yes, sir, George.
43:56
I have to look.
43:57
I didn't take a chance to look it up.
43:59
I'd have to know for sure.
44:01
I'm not sure, but I think so.
44:15
Oh, okay, yeah.
44:17
I'm not sure, so I have to look.
44:19
I should've known, but I don't know.
44:21
Yeah, right off.
44:22
And I don't have a Hebrew with me, so I wouldn't know.
44:26
But I know that, again, the word here can be translated wind, breath, or Spirit.
44:33
And I'm tending, even though it goes against the translation that I'm using, ESV, I'm tending toward the Spirit because of the Spirit's action.
44:40
Not just to prove my point, but to simply what I think the text is trying to get across.
44:45
God's Spirit is active in creation.
44:49
Now, God's Spirit also works, or God's Spirit also works in the action of the incarnation.
45:01
You don't have to go there, but you can write this down.
45:04
Matthew chapter one, verse 20.
45:08
You remember, Mary is told, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the one that is born within you will be called the Son of the Most High.
45:16
You know, this passage.
45:17
And the Spirit is the one who's going to impregnate Mary.
45:22
Not through any type of a crass, literal action, which is what is believed by Mormons.
45:28
Mormons believe that Elohim came in a physical man form and had intercourse with Mary, and through that intercourse action gave her Jesus.
45:40
That is a crass and over-literalized understanding.
45:46
But I will say this.
45:48
In fact, I want to quote from our Moody Handbook.
45:51
This is a good quote.
45:53
It is too often assumed that Mary, the mother of Christ, contributed His humanity, and the Spirit contributed His deity.
46:01
But a moment's reflection would disclose that the deity of Christ was His own from all eternity, and therefore was not originated at the time of His birth.
46:08
He became incarnate when His eternal person took on the human form.
46:11
The Spirit caused the humanity of Christ to originate, and that is His act of generation.
46:18
The Spirit is causing the fertilization of the physical egg.
46:25
He's providing what is necessary to cause birth.
46:32
That's a big deal.
46:33
I mean, that's an act, because there weren't no seed before the Spirit overshadowed her.
46:40
This, again, is an act of generation.
46:42
We talk about God's spontaneous generation creating ex nihilo, which means out of nothing.
46:49
God creates by speaking.
46:51
The Holy Spirit created the seed, which impregnated the egg, which caused the birth.
46:57
He didn't just provide the holy, divine part of Jesus, because Jesus already had that.
47:05
He provided the physical by the act of generation.
47:12
So the Spirit has the power to create, and He has the power to incarnate, or not incarnate, but to create what's necessary for the incarnation, the seed.
47:20
He creates the seed, which is necessary for the incarnation.
47:25
Another work, inspiration, inspiration.
47:33
2 Peter 1.21, if you just wanna write that down, says that the scriptures were given by the Holy Spirit as He carried men along.
47:42
Holy men were carried by the Spirit in the giving of scripture.
47:46
And so, He works in creation, that's a divine action.
47:51
He works in the incarnation by creating something out of nothing, that's a divine action.
47:54
And He works in inspiring scripture, that is a divine action.
48:01
I'm sorry, I'm just really thirsty tonight.
48:04
He also works in regeneration, regeneration.
48:09
I'm trying to get through these, not just trying to rush, but I think I made my point, so I don't wanna belabor it.
48:17
So He works in regeneration, that's Titus 3.5.
48:20
Titus 3.5, I'll read that to you, because you're probably unfamiliar with that passage.
48:26
Titus 3.5 says, "'He saved us not because of works done by us "'in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, "'by the washing of regeneration "'in the renewal of the Holy Spirit.'" When you are saved, it's an act of the Holy Spirit washing you and regenerating your soul.
48:51
And later in this, we're gonna talk about baptism, and we're gonna talk about the baptism of the Spirit.
48:58
So we'll deal with that more later, but this passage will come up again to talk about the baptism of the Spirit.
49:05
All right, another work of the Spirit is intercession.
49:09
Intercession.
49:13
You say, wait a minute, I thought Jesus was the intercessor.
49:15
He is, but Romans 8.26 says, "'The Spirit prays for us "'when we don't know what to pray with groanings.'" Right? He prays for us when we don't understand.
49:29
Praise God, because there's a lot of times, especially for things that go on at the church, I just look up to God and I say, I don't know.
49:36
I don't know what to do.
49:38
I don't know what to say.
49:40
I don't know how to do, how to be.
49:44
God, Spirit, pray for me.
49:48
With groanings too deep for words.
49:51
So the Spirit prays, and the Spirit sanctifies.
49:54
It is the work of sanctification.
49:57
Sanctification.
50:02
The work of sanctification.
50:06
Second Thessalonians 2.13.
50:07
Second Thessalonians 2.13.
50:18
"'But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, "'brothers, beloved by the Lord, "'because God chose us as the firstfruits to be saved "'through sanctification by the Spirit "'and belief in the truth.'" Sanctification is a work of the Spirit.
50:31
It's a divine work.
50:34
These are works of the Spirit.
50:41
Finally, we see the divine procession of the Spirit.
50:44
This is the letter four on your sheet, letter four.
50:47
And again, it goes back to John 15.26.
50:50
"'When the Helper comes, "'whom I will send you from the Father, "'the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, "'He will bear witness about me.'" I want to read from our handbook.
50:59
"'The relationship of the Holy Spirit "'to the other members of the Trinity "'is expressed by the term procession.'" Procession.
51:08
Procession.
51:12
They said, what does that matter? Well, I'll go on to say, "'In dictating, the Holy Spirit came forth "'from both the Father and the Son.
51:22
"'He proceeds.'" How many of you grew up in churches where you used the Nicene Creed? Great, okay.
51:31
That's okay.
51:32
We have not used it here for a long time, but there have been times where I've pulled it out and used it for teaching.
51:39
And I do appreciate the work that went into the Nicene Creed.
51:42
It was written in 325 by what we believe to be over a group of 300 Christian leaders.
51:50
Came together at the first ecumenical council under Emperor Constantine to try to deal with the division that was happening in the church regarding the nature of Jesus.
52:01
And the question was whether or not he was of the same essence of the Father, or whether he was of a different essence or substance with the Father, or whether it was similar.
52:09
It was homoousia, homoousia, heteroousia.
52:14
That was the argument that happened at Nicaea.
52:17
Well, later, they had the Nicene Creed.
52:22
Later, the question became about the Spirit.
52:26
Because the argument was not about the Spirit in Nicaea.
52:29
The argument was about Christ.
52:30
But later, the issue came up about the Spirit.
52:33
And so there was a rewriting of the Nicene Creed and a reestablishing of it.
52:38
It was in 381, and then there was later some more things that were changed.
52:42
But the creed that we normally use today that is called the Nicene Creed says the Son is eternally begotten of the Father.
52:55
And the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.
53:03
And so the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit has, for the last two millennia, been understood as the Father begets the Son, and the Father and the Son send forth the Spirit.
53:23
Or he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
53:28
Now, how many of you have ever heard of the Great Schism? Great Schism? Great, it's sometimes called schism.
53:36
It's actually pronounced schism, but the Great Schism happened in 1054.
53:43
That is when the Western Church, represented by Catholicism, separated from the Eastern Church, typically called the Orthodox Church.
53:52
That entire division was brought on by what was called the Filiocli Clause, or the clause which stated that the Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son.
54:10
Because up until then, it said the Spirit proceeded from the Father.
54:15
But the Roman Catholic Church added the short line and the Son, the Filiocli, Latin for the Son.
54:26
The Filiocli Clause became the point of doctrinal division.
54:32
It wasn't the only thing that divided them.
54:34
In fact, the main thing that divided them was the fact that they made that decision without consulting them.
54:44
It was an act of power from the Roman Catholic bishops and the Pope himself.
54:49
It was a power play.
54:52
We can make a change to this creed without your authority.
54:56
And the bishops of Constantinople, or the bishops of the East, no, boom, there's a division and it's over.
55:03
And that division still stands today.
55:06
So my point is, this is not a small issue, but, and you may be surprised to hear this, I think that the West was right.
55:16
I do think that in our creed, it is proper to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, because Jesus says, look with me again, John 15, when the helper comes, who I will send, who proceeds from the Father.
55:41
So Jesus makes the statement there, he's proceeding from the Father and the Son.
55:45
Now, am I gonna stand and die on that hill? No.
55:50
But I stand with the Western church on that.
55:53
Even though I think they went about it the wrong way, and we're gonna talk about that in the history class.
55:58
But as far as the doctrine, I don't think it's wrong to say the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
56:04
But it is an eternal procession, in much the same way that Christ is eternally begotten.
56:10
He did not come into time at some point, but he has always been with the Father in the relationship as the begotten Son.
56:17
As much as the Spirit proceeds from the Father, the Spirit has always been with the Father and the Son, eternally proceeding from them.
56:23
And thus we have a relationship within the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit.
56:28
Let's pray.
56:29
Father, I thank you for this time to study.
56:32
Pray that it's been fruitful for your people.
56:34
Thank you for their attentiveness, Lord, and God bless them for it, in Christ's name, amen.