THE WORK AND ROLE OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT
"And I will pray the Father, and He will
give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever; "the Spirit
of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor
knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. --
John 14:16-17
"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to
your remembrance all things that I said to you. -- John 14:26
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth,
has come, 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 tell you
things to come. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and
declare it to you. "All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I
said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. -- John 16:13-15
Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His
eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son,
that Your Son also may glorify You, "as You have given Him authority over
all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given
Him. "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. "I have glorified You on the
earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. -- John 17:1-4
God Accomplishes His Will Through The Holy
Spirit
So he answered and said to me: "This is
the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by My
Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts. -- Zechariah 4:6
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth,
has come, 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 tell you
things to come. -- John 16:13
The Holy Spirit Guarantees Our Inheritance
In Him you also trusted, after you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having
believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the
guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession, to the praise of His glory. -- Eph.1:13-14
The Holy Spirit Is Our Earthly Advocate
"Now when they bring you to the synagogues
and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should
answer, or what you should say. "For the Holy Spirit will teach you in
that very hour what you ought to say." -- Lu 12:11-12
Our Faith Or Trust Is To Be In God And His
Spirit Working Through His Ministers
And we have such trust through Christ
toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything
as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us
sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the
Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. -- 2 Cor 3:4-6
The Holy Spirit Can And Will Make God's
Will Known To Us
While Peter thought about the vision, the
Spirit said to him, "Behold, three men are seeking you. "Arise therefore,
go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them." -- Acts
10:19-20
The Holy Spirit Calls Individuals to Serve
the Church
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted,
the Holy Spirit said, "Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work
to which I have called them." -- Acts 13:2
SANCTIFICATION,
THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
od the Holy Spirit is working to deliver
us from things remaining from our 'self-life' through sanctification. We
needed a way to tell the difference between walking in the Spirit and
walking according to the 'flesh patterns' we retain from our former
identity. We need to be able to recognize 'flesh patterns’ from our past,
and know that Christ completely took care of the problem on the Cross.
We also need to learn of the freedom we have and completely relax in the
finished work of the Cross. We can learn to receive these things from God
with thankfulness.
As we trust God to move us away from our
resources to meet our needs, and allow Him into our life, we will find
emancipation. The freedom we gain will motivate us to worship God deeply
with praise and thanksgiving for His divine provisions through Christ's
atonement.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one who could atone for our sinful nature. Once we receive the
benefits from His death, we no longer feel we have to perform for our
approval with God. We know that Jesus satisfied God's righteous wrath
against us completely since we receive His Spirit. Only Christ could meet
the requirement because He was born from above.
When Christ said "It is finished!" Jesus
was referring to redeeming what is intrinsically wrong with us, our former
identity. Yes, the remedy is transitional in that Christ not only paid
for our sin but for the sanctification of our mind. When we experience,
through the trial of our faith, and understand that we are part of a new
creation, we can enter into the promised rest. The Good News of the
Gospel comes clearly into focus when we take time to see that we were
sinners both in our makeup and by behavior. The finality of God’s
solution is seen in the atoning death of Christ and our progressive
sanctification.
Understand this, God set us free from our
sinful nature or character. Thus, He set us free from the power of sin
and our sinful behavior through our co-crucifixion with Christ. As we
celebrate our co-crucifixion with Christ we will be able to accept the
fact of our freedom and begin to live passionately trusting God deeply
enough to allow Jesus to be our life. Then we will be aware in our souls
that God is setting us free to live selflessly.
As Christ begins to reveal God's
character through our life, we will begin to experience His Spirit
empowering our life. The fruit of the Spirit will manifest in us since we
are in Christ and One with Him in the Father.
When Jesus died for our sins, He
completely destroyed what was wrong with our humanity, and placed the
blame squarely on the 'self-life'. The self-life is who we were before we
died vicariously on the cross. Jesus made it perfectly clear when He
said, "Ye must be born again!". The truth is that our old man is the
problem. The Good News is that Jesus set us free to enjoy our freedom in
Christ to fulfill God's law. We are no longer a captive to the power of
sin and death, or, the selfish nature life that possessed our body.
The opposition to walking in
faith comes from a major problems many Christians have at this point in
their walk. The first problem is that we do not understand and apply the
truth that our ‘old man’ is dead. The carnal nature is dead along with
the power of sin. The second problem is that most Christians do not
understand the flesh as a former identity, and cannot die to something
they do not understand. By not dying to the flesh, giving up on their old
identity, they strive to serve God through their resources. This prevents
them from saying with Paul in Gal. 2:20, ‘I have been crucified with
Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved
me and gave Himself for me.’
he renewal of the mind is progressive. It
takes time to undo the games we have learned in defense of self (our old
nature, the old man, the flesh). Fortunately Christ has given us a new
nature (a renewed heart and spirit) that desires to serve God in newness
of life (2 Cor. 5:17).
Sanctification is a lot like
decontamination. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He will not violate our
free will when it comes to this process. When God exposes a problem, we
are free to be obedient to God’s Word and deal with the problem or reject
the truth and continue in the deception. However, we can no longer claim
deception because He exposed us to the truth. Today is going to be one of
those days if you want to continue to grow in the knowledge and
understanding of God’s grace as revealed in Jesus as your life.
The Word of God is sharper than any
two-edged sword ... it exposes the thoughts and intents of the heart. The
heart of man was deceitful before the Old Man’s co-crucifixion. The
carnal nature we had is no longer in power. We sin when we allow
ourselves to be manipulated by past memories that cause us to use our old
flesh patterns to try to meet our needs. This is how our still corrupt
nature responds when we rely on our strength instead of God. The corrupt
nature is left after being ‘born again’. We don’t have to rely on the old
way of doing things. The work of sanctification is a progressive process
to eradicate any symptoms of self-reliance. The labors of sanctification
continue through the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. He teaches us to
rely on God’s strength as we learn to overcome temptations. The Holy
Spirit is God and in direct communication with the Father. Jesus seated
at God’s right hand intercedes for us directly as our Advocate. He is our
faithful High Priest and is faithful to intercede for our present needs.
Sanctification is the process God uses to conform unto Jesus image or
character by relying on God through His Word. God wants us to be His
children in behavior too.
SANCTIFICATION - THE INWARD
WORK OF THE WORD
And do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is
that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. -- Rom 12:2
... for the kingdom of God is not eating
and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. --
Rom 14:17
... clearly you are an epistle of Christ,
ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living
God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the
heart. -- 2 Cor 3:3
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding
as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same
image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. -- 2 Cor
3:18
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control. Against such there is no law. -- Gal 5:22-23
... that He would grant you, according to
the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit
in the inner man, -- Eph 3:16
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that
works in us, -- Eph 3:20
... that you put off, concerning your
former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful
lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the
new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and
holiness. -- Eph 4:22-24
... not by works of righteousness which we
have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, -- Ti 3:5
The Holy Spirit indwells us and
infills us. We are transformed through the washing of the Word. We have
a new nature with a revitalized heart and spirit. The Holy Spirit changes
us, here and now! Through the sanctifying effect of the Word of God, He
begins to heal us. The healing begins through an inward healing of our
moral and spiritual nature. We are all under construction: a renovation
of the imperfections of living in a fallen world and the product of our
environment.
One of Luther’s finest works,
“The Bondage of the Will”, said it well concerning the fact that human
nature inherited a bent toward sin. Our doctrine of “original sin” should
not blur the fact that human nature was created very good, “Then God saw
everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening
and the morning were the sixth day.” -- Gen 1:31 Adam and Eve were
not total degenerates after the fall.
We must not identify the person
as the problem. We need to learn to identify the symptoms that thrive on,
or in, or with the person but never identify the person as the disease.
The old man, corrupt nature or flesh and the individual must not be
identified as one and the same.
For the sake of clarity,
understand that fallen mankind does not have any goodness or merit to
effect conversion. In the light of God creating mankind good in pre-fall
conditions; we can agree with Gen. 1:31 that the true nature of man was
virtuous. Mankind’s corrupted nature did not obliterate the goodness God
created within us. Upon conversion we begin a new life in Christ that
works to restore that which was lost in the Garden through the processes
of sanctification as the grace and truth of God is revealed to the inner
man over time. Holiness is the restoration of a relationship knowing God
as Spirit, God as Light, and God as Love. We escape God’s righteous wrath
and justice through His mercy upon us. Only when we come to know God in
Spirit, in true Light, and the depth of His Love for us can we know who
true holiness is.
This is the message which we
have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no
darkness at all. -- 1Jn 1:5; "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him
must worship in spirit and truth." -- John 4:24; He who does not love
does not know God, for God is love. -- 1 John 4:8
The starting point of inwrought
holiness is at conversion. At that point in time God justifies us through
our faith (the gift of God) in the atoning death of Jesus Christ.
Holiness is not instantaneous sinless perfection but the imputation of
holiness begins an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit known as sanctification
that works inwardly to conform us into the image and likeness of Christ.
Our holiness may be seen in the degrees of behavioral change through the
transformation of our mind and is always based on our relationship of
being ‘in Christ’.
Adam was created in the image of
God, Gen. 1:27; “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God
He created him; male and female He created them.” After the fall we lost
the true image of God. Upon conversion we are ‘being renewed after the
image of Him that created Him. -- 2 Cor 3:18. We are called to live a
Holy life before God our father. This we see in 1 Peter 1:13-17;
“Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope
fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the
former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you
also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I
am holy." And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges
according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of
your stay here in fear;” In verse thirteen we see that the key to our
hope rests fully upon the grace that is to be brought to us at the
revelation of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ we find the revelation of the
character of God. Jesus revealed the moral likeness of God. Jesus alone
is the revelation of Spirit, Light, and the Love of God. Jesus defines
the character of God in the teachings of the Bible. This is confirmed in
Revelations 19:10; And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to
me, "See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your
brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony
(revelation) of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." We look to Jesus as
the author and finisher of our faith (trust) in God. The revelation of
Jesus life through the Holy Spirit within us will bring about the change
to conform us into the image of God’s Son.
The extent and means of our
sanctification which leads to inwrought holiness comes through experience
and is reflected in disposition. The work of our sanctification is
exclusive of the Holy Spirit working with the God the Father; “... for it
is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. --
Phil 2:13; and to the Son; “...And you, who once were alienated and
enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the
body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and
above reproach in His sight; -- Col 1:21-22.
The Father and the Holy Spirit are working
together; “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is
the width and length and depth and height; to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of
God. -- Eph 3:16-19.
We may understand the truth more
clearly as we look at what the Holy Spirit does for us in light of what
Jesus did for us. Our conversion, regeneration, and sanctification is the
work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus covered the judicial work of justification
and reconciliation in regards to our position and relationship with God
the Father. The Holy Spirit Himself covers the moral and spiritual
regeneration through the work of sanctification which relates to our
condition and renewal of our mind. What Jesus achieved gave us our legal
standing before God; while the Holy Spirit is doing the vital work of
renewal by transforming and developing our character, image.
The imputation of holiness is
given to us to create a residence for the Holy Spirit through
justification. Conversion is a transformation of the soul while
sanctification is a transformation of character and wrought by the Holy
Spirit. The transformation of character is inwrought by the Holy Spirit
in the ongoing sanctifying work of character-development. The workings of
experiential sanctification is a deeper work of the Spirit Himself. He
performs the work within us to effect our nature. The transformation
occurs within the soul, changes to the personality. The infilling of the
Holy Spirit brings on imparted holiness, whereas the inner working of the
Holy Spirit brings about an inwrought holiness by changing my own nature.
The unhealthy flesh patterns are decontaminated.
The infilling is only the
beginning work of the Holy Spirit. Inward renewal and transformation
within continues, otherwise, the holiness within would remain His. He
comes into a believer’s life to change their nature, Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor.
3:18; and Eph 4:23. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring fullness of
moral and spiritual health. The evidence of holiness (abundant moral and
spiritual life) is seen in character and conduct. Our every day behavior
is transformed too.
Our sanctification is appropriated by
faith and expresses itself in obedience to divine law. Faith and works
walk hand in hand, we cannot have a healthy moral life without a healthy
spiritual life, one does not occur without the other. The Holy Spirit
will heal us and we will reveal the inwrought work through obedience to
the ministry of reconciliation that we have been given by God. When we
begin to walk through the works God has prepared beforehand for us to
experience life to the full.
Holiness in not spiritual
maturity. It is imparted to us. If we look at ourselves set apart from
the “old” life to abound in the “new” life, we will see the works of
obedience that follow conform to the will of God and the Holy Spirit’s
leading. We abound toward every good work God prepared for us to walk
into. We are transformed - body, soul, and spirit to walk in fullness of
His Spirit as we yield our whole being to Christ.
The Holy Spirit’s infills us which effects
inward renewal and is directly seen in the outworking of
character-transformation. The works of the Holy Spirit done in Jesus name
will bring fullness of joy; “Until now you have asked nothing in My name.
Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” -- John 16:24
The central idea behind holiness is
sanctification of our entire being - body, soul, and spirit; “Now may the
God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit,
soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. -- 1 Th
5:24. We are to become blameless.
Holiness is not like being seen in a
divinely appointed position. It is not received because God placed us ‘in
Christ’. Sanctification of the believers heart and spirit are the work of
the Holy Spirit. Our ongoing sanctification differs from a believer’s
immediate justification through faith. We received Christ’s righteousness
through imputation and were baptized with the Holy Spirit, and thereby,
receive a holiness through His indwelling.
Remember, positionally we are holy because
we are ‘in Christ’. While the Holy Spirit Himself in us works our
inwrought holiness through the work of sanctification. The work of
sanctification is one of restoration and regeneration. He transforms us
and works in us a holiness regenerating our very nature and character.
Total dependence on the Holy Spirit Himself keeps us abiding in Christ.
Sanctification brings a fullness of joy as change in moral and spiritual
health come from trusting God alone to accomplish the work of faith.
The rest of which the Scripture
speaks is one of trusting in the ability of God to complete the work He
began in us; “... being confident of this very thing, that He who has
begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
-- Phil 1:6. Again we read, “There remains therefore a rest for the
people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased
from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter
that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of
disobedience.” -- Heb 4:11.
Little children do not be dismayed. This
is not a new teaching. Total surrender to God is the key to every
believer who walks in the victory of Christ. Jesus said, “It is
finished!” He completed the work He began and the Spirit Himself bears
witness to the truth through the anointing which you have received. His
Word is truth! Let God have His perfect way with you and enter His rest
by totally surrendering to Him now. Amen.
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