Study 9: The Holy Spirit and New Creation

The Holy Spirit & New Creation (ix)

Through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.

                       (Gal.5:5)

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you.

(Rom.8:11)

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

(Titus 3:5-7)

It took me a while to get the structure of the Creed.  Not just the Trinitarian rhythm of it, but those bits at the end.  For a long time, I thought it was just four or five ‘random’ affirmations tagged on to the main body of the Creed.  But then I realised that each of them are pointing us to different facets of the ministry of ‘the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life’, who we have just confessed.  He is the One who unites the Church; and sanctifies her; and keeps her faithful to the Apostolic teaching; who brings the benefits of Christ’s death to us through the sacraments… and it is the Spirit who actualises the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.  Given the creedal nature of our belief here it is worth spending some time thinking it through!

When we think about the Holy Spirit, the temptation is to get theological ‘mushy’, as if ‘the Spirit’ is the place where things get vague and undefined.  In part this is an accident of language.  Our culture talks of ‘spirituality’, and it often means precisely that ill-defined sense of well-being and fulfilment, and perhaps the values we seek to live by.  This is of course all very fluid, and relative.  When the Bible talks of the Spirit, there is nothing of this cultural furniture in the frame.  Rather, as we have seen, the Spirit is very specifically the Spirit of Christ, and is the Spirit through whom Christ is present and at work in His world bringing to fruition His own life and ministry.  Far from legitimising any and every kind of spirituality, the Spirit is calling people away from such egocentric mysticism, and into a very concrete relationship with the living God through Christ.  His whole focus is on Jesus and His agenda, and so it isn’t a surprise that the return of Christ is very much on the Spirit’s agenda, and with it the New Creation.

In our Creation we read of the LORD God breathing into humanity the Breath of Life (Gen.2:7; Job 33:4; Ps.104:30).  We were created to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, and when we lose His presence in the in them catastrophe we call the fall, we become mere flesh, returning to dust (Gen.3:19).  Yet as is so often the case, human sin becomes an arena for God’s grace and redemption, and in John 20:21-23 Jesus again breathing His Spirit into this now New Creation humanity.  It is this New Creation that has just come into being through Jesus’ own resurrection.  The Spirit has been involved in this, raising Jesus from the dead (I Pet.3:18; Rom.1:4; I Tim.3:16).  As ‘the Giver of life’, enmeshed in the creating of this age, it is little surprise to realise that He is intimately involved in the inaugurating of the Age to come.  We find this dramatized for us in the story of Noah.  As the ‘new’ creation breaks forth from the waters of chaos and destruction (echoes of Gen.1:1-3), Noah send forth a Dove.  Jesus Himself evokes the same image as He comes out of the waters of judgement, and the Spirit again hovers over the water, descending on a Second Noah who will at last bring true rest to a cursed world (Matt.3:16, see Gen.5:29 / Matt.11:28-30).

And as Jesus ascends, this same Spirit is now poured into the life of the Church, and the New Creation life is birthed in our experience.  We mustn’t overestimate this: we are standing at the thin end of the wedge; we have only begun to taste of that life.  This is a ‘first instalment’.  But neither should we underestimate it: the Spirit within us is Himself the seal and pledge of our inclusion in the New Creation into which He Himself will resurrect us (II Corr.1:21-22; Eph.1:13-14). 

Some of the Church’s most ancient theologians speak of the Spirit as the One who sustains life in such a way as to perfect creation, ‘to bring to completion that for which each person or thing is created’ (Basil of Caesarea).  It is in this role that He sustains and preserves us, bringing to completion our experience of salvation most fully in the Age to Come.  This should engender in us a posture of unshakeable optimism as we pilgrimage through this age.  ‘The Spirit never departs from the soul He has once occupied (Smeaton, 237, see Rom.5:5, Eph.1:13-14).

Questions

Could God take His Spirit from a Christian? ...or cast a Christian from His presence (Ps.51:11)?  Does this undermine the Spirit’s being a guarantee?

What does Jesus mean by ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mk.3:29)? 

Read Eph.1:13-23

Paul links our receiving of the Spirit with our being included in Christ by believing the Gospel (1:13-14).  What would you say to the idea that the Spirit is at work in / through other religions?  …or that non-Christians can know the Spirit?

How would you identify the presence of the Holy Spirit in yourself (or in someone else)?  How does that presence give you confidence in the future God has for you?  How does that affect your discipleship (inc. within the context of Church)?

What is ‘our inheritance’ that is being guaranteed by the Spirit?

Why does Paul seem to think we are only ‘redeemed’ in the future?

The ‘Spirit of wisdom and revelation’ seeks to achieve three things in us: that we may know [God] better (v.17); that we may know the hope to which He has called us (v.18); and that we may know His power at work to realise that hope (v.19f).  With this in mind, what would you think about someone who said they didn’t really understand the Bible?

What would you conclude about someone who didn’t seem to have much hope in the New Creation?  What would such a hope look like? 

Do you have any experience of the power of the Spirit at work to preserve you in your discipleship?  Why is it significant that Paul links this to the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus?

How do you think Paul anticipates God answering his prayer? 

Memory Passage:

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.  Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

II Cor.1:20-22 

For further reflection:

The idea that the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit is generally under-appreciated and under-experienced is nothing new.  Thomas Goodwin wrote about it in the 17th century:

There is a general omission in the saints of God, in their not giving the Holy Ghost that glory that is due to His person, and for His great work of salvation in us, insomuch that we have in our hearts almost lost this Third Person.  We give daily in our thoughts, prayers, affections and speeches, an honour to the Father and to the Son; but who directs the aims of his praise unto God the Holy Ghost?  He is a Person in the Godhead equal with the Father and the Son; and the work He doth for us in its kind is as great as those of the Father and the Son.  Therefore, by the equity of law, a proportional honour from us is due to Him. 

Or as our Creed puts it: ‘With the Father and Son He is worshipped and glorified’.  But the question of our worship of the Spirit is perhaps slightly more nuanced than that of our worship of the Father or Son.  The worship of any one Person is the worship of all Three.  And yet the Spirit seems reluctant to take centre-stage.  His delight seems to be to direct our gaze to the Son, that we might put our faith in Him.  As Jesus puts it: ‘He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you’ (Jn.16:14).

Perhaps the closing thought in our studies on the Holy Spirit can be left with the aged Polycarp, one-time disciple of the Apostle John, and later Bishop of Smyrna.  His last act of worship before his martyrdom in 156 AD was recorded: For this and for all things I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, Thy Blessed Son with whom, to Thee and to the Holy Ghost, be glory, both now and through all ages to come, Amen.

Study 8: The Holy Spirit and Suffering

The Holy Spirit & Suffering (viii)

I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.  However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

                       Acts 20:23-24

You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

I Thess.1:6

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

Heb.9:14

The emotional life of Jesus is part of His incarnation, part of the authenticity of His humanity.  But un-numbed by sin, His capacity to feel is qualitatively different from ours.  Even the richest aspects of what we call our emotional life is a flattened and impoverished compared to the depth and vigour of what is felt by Christ.  This takes a sobering turn when we consider that Jesus is a man of suffering, and familiar with pain (Is.53:3).

As we have done several times in these studies, we remember that Jesus is the Christ, the One supremely anointed by the Holy Spirit.  As such He endured His suffering in the context of the joy of the Spirit (see e.g. Lk.10:21; it may also be part of what lay behind the accusations of Lk.7:34; Gal.5:22).  Warfield speaks of Jesus as having thus ‘sounded the ultimate depths of human anguish’, an anguish that assailed Him at every level of His humanity.  Yet His suffering never became an excuse for anger at His Father, nor doubt, nor disobedience.  But for our purposes in this study, it is sufficient to note the connection between His suffering and the presence of His Holy Spirit.  We can observe this at a general level, in that everything Jesus experiences as a human He does so in relationship with the Spirit; but more specifically we see that it is the Spirit who both exposes Jesus to suffering and sustains Him in it.  It is the Spirit who leads Jesus in to the wilderness to face the suffering of deprivation and temptation (Lk.4:1-2); it was precisely because of His Spirit-enabled ministry that He evoked such hostility, and faced persecution (Lk.4:18); and ultimately, the Spirit who has exposed Him to, and sustained Him in the midst of suffering in life, is present exposing Him to and sustaining Him in His suffering of death (Heb.9:14).  We mustn’t imagine this relating strictly to the cross, but as incorporating His Passion as well.  The Spirit is undergirding the finite humanity of Jesus throughout His suffering: ‘In the difficult hours of Gethsemane and all the decisive moments leading to the cross, the Holy Spirit faithfully ministered to Christ’ (Walvoord, The Holy Spirit, 100-101).

Just as Jesus promised the “Comforter” to his disciples, we find the Spirit sustaining, strengthening, and comforting Jesus to and through the cross.  This has direct bearing on us.  As we have noticed, Jesus promised the same Spirit to us.  And with Him will come the same division from the world (Jn.14:14), and the same exposure to and sustaining in the midst of suffering as we testify to Christ (Jn.15:18 & 26, Prov.29:10; I Jn.3:12-13).  Jesus’ promise is not that the Spirit will protect us from suffering, but that in the midst of persecution and hostility, He will enable us to remain faithful to Christ, and to bear witness to Him (Lk.12:11-12). 

This seems to be borne out by the experience of the Church in the Book of Acts.  It’s strange how often we talk about the Church in Acts as ‘Spirit-filled’, or ‘Pentecostal’ and harbour a desire to ‘go back to the experience of the Early Church’, but somehow don’t acknowledge the persecution and suffering that litter the Church’s experience throughout that time (Acts 4; 5; 7; 8; 9; 12; 13; 14; 16; 17; 18; 19; 21-23).  It is hardly an accident that Stephen is singled out and presented to us as ‘a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit’ immediately prior to his martyrdom (Acts 6:5 & 9-10; 7:54-60). 

None of this was seen as outside of the will or knowledge of God, and the Church isn’t represented as seeing this as a theological conundrum to be negotiated (quite the opposite, see Acts 4:24-28).  Rather they saw it as a privilege and an honour to suffer for the Name of Christ (e.g. Acts 5:41); they worshipped God in the midst of such suffering (Acts 16:25); and refuse to allow (the prospect of) such suffering to silence their proclamation of the Gospel (Acts 14:22).  Such an attitude demands an explanation that transcends merely human categories. Perhaps this is why the Church Father, Tertullian exclaimed, ‘The man (sic) who is afraid to suffer cannot belong to Him who suffered’ (see Rom.8:17).

Questions

Do you think Tertullian is right (see above)?

Do you think ‘suffering’ presents a theological problem for Christians?  Why / why not?  How would you answer the question of why God allows suffering?

Read I Peter 4:1-2 & 12-19

What is the ‘same attitude’ Peter is speaking about in I Pet.4:1?  How can we arm ourselves with it?

How does Peter think our suffering impacts our growth in Christlikeness (v.2)?  How does this work?  It is often suggested that God values our holiness above our happiness.  Do you agree?  How does your life reflect this?

Do you think suffering for Christ should be ‘the norm’ (v.12)?  If so, how would you explain the British Church’s lack of such a ‘fiery ordeal’?  Can you think of teaching from Jesus Peter might have in mind in writing these verses?

Is Peter advocating a kind of spiritual masochism?  How are we supposed to ‘rejoice’ (v.13) in the midst of suffering?  Why might we be tempted to feel ashamed (v.16)?

I Peter 3:17 has already taught us that it can be God’s will that we suffer.  He reiterates the point here in 4:19.  How do you think we can discern when our suffering is God’s will and when it isn’t?  How would ascertaining this change our approach to and experience of suffering … if at all?

In this passage, and from your knowledge of the Scriptures more generally, why do you think God would expose us to suffering?  What might be His purpose in our suffering?  Does this mean we should seek suffering?

In what sense can Christians still expect to be subject to judgement (v.17)?  How does this shape our response to suffering in the cause of Christ? 

Memory Passage:

But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

I Peter 3:14-18

For further reflection:

Do Christians have to suffer in the cause of the Gospel?  In 1684 John Bunyan (of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ fame) wrote a booklet called Advice to Sufferers, in which he addresses the question:

Thou mayest do in this as it is in thy heart. If it is in thy heart to fly, fly: if it be in thy heart to stand, stand. Anything but a denial of the truth. He that flies, has warrant to do so; he that stands, has warrant to do so. Yea, the same man may both fly and stand, as the call and working of God with his heart may be. Moses fled (Ex.2:15); Moses stood (Heb.11:27). David fled (1 Sam.19:12); David stood (1 Sam.24:8). Jeremiah fled (Jer.37:11-12); Jeremiah stood (Jer.38:17). Christ withdrew himself (Luke 19:10); Christ stood (John 18:1-8). Paul fled (2 Cor.11:33); Paul stood (Acts 20:22-23)... There are few rules in this case. The man himself is best able to judge concerning his present strength, and what weight this or that argument has upon his heart to stand or fly. . . Do not fly out of a slavish fear, but rather because flying is an ordinance of God, opening a door for the escape of some, which door is opened by God's providence, and the escape countenanced by God's Word (Matt.10:23).

Yet, perhaps nothing exposes the poverty of our experience of the Holy Spirit so much as our unwillingness, perhaps even our incapacity, to suffer in the cause of Christ.  There is no such thing as noble suffering.  We should not glamourize suffering, but nor should we fear it, or see it as a mark of defeat.  In fact, the defeat is seen precisely in our fear, and in our unwillingness to suffer.

Study 7: The Holy Spirit and Unity

The Holy Spirit & Unity (vii)

He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

                       (Eph.1:9-10)

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body … and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  And so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

(I Cor.12:12-14)

Have you ever noticed how when we say ‘the Grace’ (II Cor.13:14) we pray to experience the ‘fellowship of the Holy Spirit’?  We are being taught to pray after Christ who Himself prayed (and still prays?) for our unity, and for a genuine depth of relationship that expresses and maintains that unity (Jn.17:21-23).  The Church is the one place in this fallen world where the will of God for the unity of ‘all things’ is beginning to find expression.  This is no small thing.  Remember how in Study 1 we were thinking about the fact that we live in a world characterised by hatred (Titus 3:3), with all its consequent division and disunity?  To redeem us from such a state of affairs and to build us into a united people, drawn from a myriad of different cultures, ethnicities, classes, and statuses, may well prove to be one of the most phenomenal demonstrations of God’s power the world has seen.  Like a show home standing amongst the rubble of a building site, there is this one – albeit still incomplete – example that gives us a sense of what the New Creation will one day look like.  And as ever, God executes ‘the mystery of His will’ through His Executor, the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is deeply committed to our expressed unity (as opposed to unity as a theoretical concept).  It is therefore deeply ironic, that the life and ministry of the Spirit in the Church has been the cause of such division and acrimony.  The goal and aspiration of the Spirit is that ‘we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’ (Eph.4:13).   With this in the background, we begin to appreciate the NT’s harshness with those who habitually threaten that unity.  We are to warn such people, then have nothing to do with them (Titus 3:10); such people do not have the Spirit (Jude 19).

Our unity with Christ, and therefore with each other finds liturgical voice in our celebration of Communion (the clue is in the name). ‘Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body…’ (I Cor.10:17).  Here we not only give expression to our unity, but discover that the Spirit is at work in our midst, building it into our experience, as we together participate in the cross.  Something often missed is the purpose of unity in the death of Christ (Eph.2:14).  One of the most dangerous things we can do is to undermine the unity of the Church whilst breaking bread.  In I Corinthians 11, Paul is staggered that ‘there are divisions among you’ (v.18).  To eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ (i.e. the unity of the Church) is ‘eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and ill, and a number of you have fallen asleep’ (vv.29-30).  If nothing else does, perhaps this gives us a sense of the importance of the topic before us.

Such unity is not a cold, process-driven and mechanical thing.  Still less is it motivated by fear.  It is born out of a Spirit-inspired love that draws us inexorably to others with whom we have a shared experience of Christ.  Our being reconciled to Him inevitably means our reconciliation to other Christians.  We cannot speak of loving God without demonstrating love for our brothers and sisters in Christ (I Jn.4:11-12).  The two are inextricably linked, and it is hard to convey the spiritual dissonance that exists when people say they love God, yet are distant from the Church.  We are saved into the people of God.  We cannot envisage spiritual life without reference to our relationship with other Christians.  We cannot love Christ, and not love those who also love Him.

All of this comes to a head for Paul in the letter to the Ephesians.  I vividly remember being struck by the fact that when Paul turns his attention to apply all he has outlined in Chap.1-3, the first thing that he gives his attention to (and that as a Spirit-inspired Apostle) is our responsibility to preserve the unity of the Church.   Actually Paul speaks of it as ‘the unity of the Spirit’ (4:3).  That gives us clarity, for not all unity – not even amongst Christians – is holy or good.  Unity is not an end in itself.  Spirit-inspired unity is a means to a great and more glorious end: that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.15:6).

Questions

Under what circumstances do you think it would be legitimate to leave a Church?  How would you advise someone who was thinking of leaving MIE?  What sort of reasons to people give for leaving Churches?

Have you ever left a Church?  Would you be prepared to share the story?  How do you feel about it now?  

Do you think MIE should leave the Church of England?

How can we cultivate a deeper sense of fellowship at MIE?

Before you read Eph.4:1-6, if someone asked you what it meant to ‘live a life worthy of the Lord’, how would respond?

Read Eph.4:1-6

What does complete humility look like?  How can we develop this?

How can we be gentle, patient and bear with one another when they behave in ways that frustrate us, hurt us, and provoke us?  What does it mean to bear with someone?  What if they don’t change?  How long should we be prepared to behave this way?

Is Paul saying we can’t confront or challenge someone who is behaving in ways that annoy us?   When should we raise this issue with the leadership of the Church? 

Paul lists seven things there are ‘one’ of in vv.4-6.  How does each of these motivate and inspire us in our efforts to ‘keep the unity of the Spirit’?

Memory Passage:

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!  It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe.  It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.  For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life for evermore.

Ps.133:1-3

For further reflection:

The unity of the persons of the Church is of course inevitable given the God we worship.  As we must never tire of confessing, our God is not an isolated being, existing in some kind of existential solitary quarantine.  He is the living God, who from all eternity has enjoyed glorious and intimate relationship within His own life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  He has unity and fellowship, harmony and coherence built into the very fabric of His being. 

In the language of the creeds: as the Son is eternally begotten, so the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son (so, Article 5, The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory, with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God).  The Church confesses the Spirit to be a fully Divine Person, as wholly embedded in the life of God as the Father and the Son (Eph.3:18; II Cor.13:14; Matt.28:19).  And these Three enjoy an eternal one-ness… a one-ness that is to be reflected in the life of the Church (Jn.17:22-23). 

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition of the Church, this communion is understood to be the Being, or Nature of God.  His relationships between Father, Son and Holy Spirit are so intense they are the One-ness of God.  In this light we might be able to understand Peter’s expectation that through the promises of God, we might ‘participate in the divine nature’ (II Pet.1:4).  Our being caught up into the life of God, and being drawn by the Spirit a one-ness of relationship that is comparable to the relationship between the Father and Son, would embed us in the nature of the God we worship.  This is a breath-taking possibility.  And of course cannot be interpreted in an individualistic sense.  We – the people of God – will together participate in His Nature.  Strong motivation to work hard at this here and now at MIE!

Study 6: The Holy Spirit and Revelation

The Holy Spirit & Revelation (vi)

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

                       (II Tim.3:16-17)

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things.  For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

(II Pet.1:20-21)

It is one thing to say we are conformed into the image of Christ – but how do we know who this Christ is?  We confess that we will need the Spirit to show us, but how will He do so?  As we keep reminding ourselves in these studies, the Spirit does not bypass the means and agencies that He has established, but rather works through them.  And the means He has fashioned to convey to us a full and reliable vision of Christ is the Scriptures.  And as in all works of the Spirit, the focus is Christ (John 5:37-47).  His desire is to fix our eyes on Him, to inspire our love for and devotion to Him.  The role of the Scriptures then holds an unrivalled priority in our Christian life.  If we don’t really know who Jesus is, how authentically Christian is our response to Him?  The less we know the more vulnerable we are to receiving a different Jesus, a different Spirit and a different Gospel, albeit unawares (II Cor.11:4).

Both the life and ministry of the Son is linked to the Spirit, but also the recording and proclaiming of that life and ministry in a faithful and accurate manner.  The inspiration of the Scriptures is a humbling of the Spirit similar to the Son (Phil.2:8), a limiting of the Spirit to human capacity of speech.  Yet the Spirit’s superintendence of the Bible ensures that while it is so limited, it remains unerring and trustworthy.  In our Creeds we confess that the Spirit ‘has spoken through the prophets’.  This is compelling and unambiguous, and resonates deeply with the Bible’s own view of itself.  When the prophets speak, the Spirit speaks (see e.g. Acts 4:25; Heb.3:7; 10:15).  Whilst recognising the integrity of the human authors, the Bible sees itself as a human book only in a radically secondary sense.  The Church has always confessed the Scriptures primarily as the work of the Holy Spirit. In speaking of the Bible in this way, the Church is following the teaching of the Lord Himself.  Jesus understood the Scriptures to be the result of the direct ministry and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.   In Mark 12, for example, Jesus introduces a citation from Psalm 110 with the words, ‘David, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared…’

But the Spirit’s work doesn’t stop once the inspiration of the Scriptures is completed (e.g. Jn.16:12-15).  It isn’t even finished in preserving those Scriptures.  He is at work in us as we read.  We need Him to confirm to us that the Scriptures are in fact what they / He says they are.  Whilst there are many intellectual and historical arguments that uphold the integrity of the Scriptures, it is only the witness of the Spirit through the Scriptures that can truly convince us.  As Westminster Divines put it:  The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God (Chap.1, iv).

Then we need illumination to understand and to accept what is written.  Our mind, and the faculties of our understanding – like the rest of us – remain damaged from the fall.  The Spirit must open our minds, and support them and guide them if they are to recognise and navigate the truth about Christ that is held within the pages of the Scriptures.  Indeed, our ability to recognise and engage with the inspired truth of the Apostles is the defining characteristic of the work of the Spirit (I Jn.4:5-6, also I Thess.2:13).

And finally we need His work in us to shape our response to what is written.  One of the most dangerous things we can do with the Bible is read it, but not act on what we have discovered there (Matt.7:24-27; Jas.1:22-25).  But as we have seen in earlier studies, our capacity to respond to, and to obey the teaching of the Spirit is utterly dependant on the Spirit. 

All of this should give us pause for thought.  We ought to be so grateful as we reflect on the Spirit’s grace as He works with us through the years.  We ought to be humbled as we acknowledge our dependence.  We ought to be prayerful as we read the Word of God.  Prayerlessness is the articulation of presumption… of self-reliance.  Such an attitude would prove deadly in our reading. 

Questions

How did Jesus know who He was, and what it was the Father had sent Him into the world to do?

What would you conclude about a Church that didn’t want the Bible taught, or that claimed they couldn’t understand the Bible when it was taught?  how could the situation be remedied? 

Do you think education is important in our ability to understand the Bible?

Read I Cor.2:6-16

Read through I Cor.1:18-2:5.  Paul has been contrasting the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world.  What strikes you from that passage?   How does it set up what Paul has to say about the wisdom of the Gospel in 2:6f?

Why has God hidden His wisdom from the world (2:7)?  Wouldn’t it make more sense for Him to display it publicly?

Paul is claiming that not just what he teaches, but also the very words he uses to teach are ‘taught by the Spirit’.  Do you think this is true for all the Biblical authors?  If so what should be our attitude to the Biblical text?  Do you think this is something that characterises MIE?

Why does Paul say we need the Spirit of God to understand the things of God?  Do you agree with him?  Based on this passage, what would you say to someone who said they didn’t understand the Bible?

Why does Paul think we are not subject to ‘merely human judgements’?  What does he have in mind?  How can we become more convinced about this for ourselves?

Why does Paul think ‘we have the mind of Christ’ (2:16)?  What does he mean by this phrase?

Memory Passage:

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.  Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees.  With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.  I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.  I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.  Be good to your servant while I live, that I may obey your word. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.

Ps.119:11-18

For further reflection:

What happens when we read the Bible without this context of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit?  The result is error.  It is always a problem when Christians believe the wrong thing, but it become a hugely significant issues when those Christians get into pulpits.  Peter addresses this head on: [P]rophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies… Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute (II Pet.1:21-2:3).

There is a long history of false prophets in the Bible.  The LORD exposes and disowns them (e.g. Jer.23:21), and warns us that they will continue to plague the Church throughout this age (Matt.24:24, note the use of signs and wonders).  As Christians we are called to discernment (Matt.7:15-20), and to avoid false teachers when they are recognised.  Pastors are called to confront and silence false teachers wherever they are found (I Tim.1:3; Tit.1:11 etc.).  Jude calls the whole Church to join in contending ‘for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people’ (1:3). 

Such might seem unpalatable in our contemporary climate.  In fact, it has never been fashionable.  But it remains a necessary consequence of our Spirit-wrought conviction that ‘This is the Word of the Lord’.  It is something of inestimable value, and must be protected from those who would presume upon it, and exploit it for their own ends.

Study 5: The Holy Spirit and Evangelism

The Holy Spirit & Evangelism (v)

God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins.  We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

                       (Acts 5:31-32)

Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong [convict] about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

 (Jn.16:7-11)

Before the disciples are to go and make disciples, they are to wait in Jerusalem until they are ‘clothed with power from on high’ (Lk.24:49).  This ‘clothing’ is a means to the end of mission.  Pentecost is not the birth of the Church…  it is the empowering of the Church for the spread of the Gospel.  It is part of the Spirit’s desire for the glory of Christ that He wants people to come to Him, to trust in His work of redemption and to bow before Him as Lord and Saviour.  To this end, He leads the Church to proclaim the Gospel that is ‘the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes’ (Rom.1:17).  Indeed, it is only when the Gospel is proclaimed under the anointing of the Spirit that the message is endued with such power.  Otherwise it is an empty form of words.  Paul is under no illusions.  If the effective, it is because of the Spirit’s involvement.  ‘we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction’ (I Thess.1:4-5).

But the Spirit works through His appointed means and agency.  And so it is on the disciples that the Spirit will come, and through them that He will work.    ‘You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses…’ (Acts 1:8).  Jesus’ confidence that His disciples would get to the ends of the earth, and that they would do so faithfully proclaiming the Gospel, is rooted in His sending the Spirit.  He knows His Spirit will guarantee, even compel the Apostles until they have fulfilled Jesus’ commission.

What does this mean for us in our evangelistic endeavour? Does it mean we have to wait until we feel powerful before we obey God's call to mission or to witness?  In Acts, the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit just as they were given opportunity to speak (Acts 4:8, 31; 13:9).  They were unaware of His power for mission until they spoke, then the Spirit worked.  As they put their confidence in the message of Christ crucified, and obeyed the command to witness, they discovered the Spirit was with them, making their efforts effective.   The power of the Spirit is latent in every believer, because the Spirit is present, and He is inherently powerful.  But our experience of that power will only come to the fore when we seek it as we open our mouths in witness.  The seeking of the Spirit’s power is what we do when we pray; the sense of that power is what we experience when we talk to people about Jesus.  If those two components are not in place, our mission is fatally compromised.

But the Spirit is orchestrating far more than our speech.  A casual read through Acts 8:26-40 lifts the veil on the Spirit’s methods.  First is the re-iteration of the fact that He uses people.  He doesn’t speak directly and mystically through the Bible passage; He doesn’t use the angel of v.26; nor does He speak directly and audibly (though apparently He does so to Philip in v.29).  The moment of evangelism is entrusted to mortals, although the circumstances are choreographed by the Spirit.  I doubt that all ‘those who had been scattered [and who] preached the word wherever they went’ (8:4) were aware of the Spirit’s activity in this manifest way, but their lack of awareness doesn’t mean He wasn’t working.  The point of the story is not to drive us into passivity, crippled in mission unless an angel turns up!  It is rather to give us confidence that as we step into mission, the Spirit is at work.  In that context (Philip was already engaged in evangelism, 8:5) we may find the Spirit leads us in unexpected ways at times.

This should give us unprecedented confidence as we go about sharing Jesus in a whole spectrum of ways with those we know.  We know the Spirit is at work.  Of course this also leads to a profound humility in the acts of evangelism.  We must be marked by a dependence on Him, and a sensitivity to His leading…  we must be marked by humility when it ‘works’ and a confident resilience when it doesn’t seem to.  Either way, we are dependent on Him. 

Questions

Why do we find evangelism so intimidating?  How does thinking through the role of the Spirit help us… if at all? 

Why is so much of our evangelism today powerless?  Is there anything we can do to cultivate the experience of the power of the Holy Spirit?  How can we encourage one another to do that?

Have you ever known the power of the Spirit at work in you in the context of evangelism?  Could you share that with your group?

Read Acts 2:1-12 & 37-41

Why is it significant that this happens on the Day of Pentecost?  How would describe the significance of the Day of Pentecost for the Church?

What is the symbolism of the ‘violent wind’ and ‘tongues of fire’ seeking to convey about the life of the Spirit?

How would you describe the gift of tongues / languages, based on what you read in this passage?  Why is this gift given?  Do you think this is the same as the gift of tongues that Paul speaks about in I Cor.14:1-25?  Why / why not?

Do we need another Pentecost? 

In 2:38, why is baptism so important?  Should we insist on it in the same way today?  Do you think you could be saved without baptism? …and if so, why does Peter make a point of it here?

What does it mean to ‘receive the gift of the Spirit’?  Is it the same as being baptised in / with / by the Holy Spirit? How would you know if you have?

Why does Peter make the point that this promise is for them and for their children?  Is this always the case when preaching the Gospel?

Memory Passage:

When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

I Cor.2:1-5

For further reflection:

What are we to talk about when we discuss Jesus?  Actually Jesus teaches us in Jn.16:7-11.  It is one of the passages at the top of this study.  When the Spirit leads He will want to focus on sin, righteousness and judgement (see Acts 24:25).  There might be other aspects of the Gospel we prefer to talk about, or think will win a better hearing, but we dismiss Jesus’ teaching at our peril. 

The Spirit wants people to convict them about sin, righteousness and judgement.  Notice the way in which sin is defined in terms of belief in Jesus.  Anything in life that is not driven by, shaped by faith (belief) in Christ is sin.  Paul puts it like this, ‘For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin’ (Rom.14:23).  This means of course that people are far more sinful than we would ever believe possible.  The Spirit wants to confront the world with its need of a Saviour.

He also wants to convict the world about righteousness – and again this is relentlessly defined with respect to Jesus.  He alone is righteous, and His righteousness has been tested and vindicated through His ascension.  He has stood in the glory of God and His righteousness has proved adequate.  We need to be clothed in that righteousness if we too are stand before the thrice holy God.  We need Jesus to deal with our sin, and to provide our righteousness.

And finally: judgement.  The world (governed by Satan) is condemned in the cross, and is vulnerable to the coming judgement because of its rejection of Christ. 

This is the message through which the Spirit will make people Christians.

Study 4: The Holy Spirit and Indwelling

The Holy Spirit & Indwelling (iv)

“I myself will be a wall of fire around it,” declares the Lord, “and I will be its glory within.”

(Zech.2:5)

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives among you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

                       (I Cor.3:16-17)

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the Spirit he has caused to dwell in us?

(James 4:4-5)

The question of the Spirit’s relationship with the Church in the Old and New Testaments is a difficult one to navigate.  If we have an evolutionary model of ‘progressive revelation’ we may end up suggesting that the people of God did not know God was Trinity, or that there was a Spirit (or, I suppose, a Son).  They (thought they) experienced God as merely One.  When people read the Bible with these assumptions you hear them talking about how the Spirit wasn’t around much in the OT.  He rests on perhaps a handful of prophets, priests and kings, but the majority of the Church had no direct experience of Him.

Over against this more recent way of handling the Bible, we have a very different view.  For example, George Smeaton declares: ‘The same Spirit filled the heart of believers whether they lived before or after the advent of Christ (II Cor.4:13).  The Trinitarian relations were the same, the Divine perfections in the matter of salvation were inhabited in the same way’ (274).  Smeaton argues that we could construct and entire theology of the Holy Spirit solely from the writings of Isaiah the prophet (36).  Perhaps when we get to Isaiah in our Bible Read Through (July), we can keep a pen and paper handy and see if he is right![1]

Paul suggests that the covenant with Abraham included the promise of the Holy Spirit (Gal.3:14); and indeed it is difficult to imagine how anyone can have the faith by which the righteous shall live without the operation of the Holy Spirit.  And yet there clearly a sense in which the Spirit is given in the NT in a way that He wasn’t in the Old.  John’s side note in John 7:39 is a case in point: ‘By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified’.

Although the Spirit is dwelling within the OT Church (through the covenant of Abraham, not that of Moses), and though He is known and experienced in many of the ways we see in the NT, there is also a sense of discontinuity.  Something new is happening.  And it is linked to the Ascension of Jesus.  The dynamics of Jesus’ own relationship with the Spirit seem to change at this point.  He shifts from being the One who receives the Spirit, to the One who gives Him.  This is not to say that the Spirit hadn’t been given before.  But now He is being given to facilitate the global mission of the Church. There seems to be the expectation that the Spirit’s influence within creation will change again at the return of Christ and the regenerating of Creation (e.g. Is.32:15).  Apart from these changes in role, the Church’s experience of the Spirit remains constant.

The Spirit’s indwelling the life of the Church (Eph.2:22; I Cor.3:16; II Cor.6:16), is the means by which the Father and Son come to us, and through which we are able to come to Them.  He is the Spirit of Adoption who enables us to call God Father (Gal.4:6), and to participate in the communion with God that Jesus Himself experienced as the Son.  These are staggering claims, and it is no surprise that throughout the Apostle’s writings this relational proximity of God by His Spirit is the grounds for several appeals to reverence, dedication and purity, as well as a carefulness in our dealing with the Church.  That we could rediscover the sense of this nearness of God.  It is in many ways a reclaiming of what was lost in the Fall.  In Gen.2:7, we see the LORD God breathing the Breath of Life into humanity.  In our redemption we become home again to the same Spirit, whose intimacy is as uncompromising as it is unrivalled (Ps.139:7; Rom.5:5 etc.).

Question:

In the ‘further reflection’ section I talk about times when the nearness of God becomes evident.  What aspects of Christian experience do you think come to the fore in such seasons?  What would it be like to live through a revival?  What do you think would be the effects in the Church? … in the surrounding community?

After this discussion you might want to stop and pray….

Read John 14:15-27

How can we cultivate the sense of the Spirit living with us and being in us, and through Him the Father and the Son (vv.17 & 23)?

What do you make of Jesus saying the world does not know the Spirit, and cannot accept Him?  What does this mean for other religions and the spiritualties of people who aren’t Christians?  Are you comfortable with drawing such hard lines?

In the light of what Jesus says here (e.g. v.18), how do we make sense of periods when God seems absent; of what is sometimes known as the Dark Night of the Soul, or the Eclipse of God?

Why is our love for Jesus linked so closely with our obedience to His teaching (v.15; 21; 23, and negatively in v.24)?  Does this coupling make you feel threatened?  Do you think it is meant to?

Another aspect of the Spirit’s indwelling is His teaching and reminding us of everything Jesus has said (v.26).  How does this work in your experience?

Why doesn’t Jesus show Himself to the world (v.22)?

Memory Passage:

Through [Christ] we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Eph.2:18-22

For further reflection:

There have been seasons in the history of the Church when the indwelling of God has become more immediately apparent, an undeniable reality.  These times have come to be known as ‘Revivals’.  Older theologians have seen them as intrinsic to the life of the Church.  Jonathan Edwards, who himself ministered trough several Revivals captured this sense of rhythm when he wrote: ‘It may be observed that from the fall of man to our day, the work of redemption in its effect has mainly been carried on by remarkable communications of the Spirit of God.  Though there be a more constant influence of God’s Spirit always in some degree attending His ordinances, yet the way in which the greatest things have been done towards carrying on this work always has been by remarkable effusions at special seasons of mercy’ [JE, History of Redemption, Period 1, part (i)].  Such a season, Edwards went on, ‘is God coming near His people a visitation of His Spirit, giving them a glance of His everlasting glory…’

“The coming of the LORD amongst us has been with such majesty, glory and irresistible power that even his avowed enemies would be glad to hide themselves somewhere.  It is an easy and delightful thing to preach the gospel here in these days…  Divine truths have their own infinite weight and importance in the minds of the people.  Beams of divine light, together with irresistible energy, accompany every truth delivered.  It is delightful indeed, to see the stoutest heart bended and the hardest melted down with fire form God’s altar.  For the word comes in power and in the Holy Ghost, and is made mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Thomas Charles, Bala, North Wales, 1791

[1] Helpful references relating to the HS in the OT (not from Isaiah!) include: Gen.1:2; 6:3; Ex.31:3; Num.11; Jdgs 3:10, 6:34 etc.; I Sam.10; II Sam.23:2; Neh.9; Job 33:4; Ps.139:7; Ezek.3; Micah 3:8 etc.  see also Acts 1:16; 4:25; 7:51; I Pet.1:11 etc.

Study 3: The Holy Spirit and Prayer

The Holy Spirit & Prayer (iii)

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

                       (Eph.6:18-20)

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

(Jude 20-21)

The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. It was Jesus who told us that when the Spirit comes He would glorify Him.  He longs to bring people to Jesus and for people to be like Jesus.  When we consider Jesus – the Man anointed by the Spirit (Is.11:1-3; 42:1; 48:16 etc.) – one of the things that strikes us is His experience of prayer.  We noted in a previous study that everything Jesus does, He does by the Spirit.  His life of prayer too was shaped by and inspired by the Spirit.  There is a great deal we could say about Jesus and His experience of prayer, notably how much time He gives to it.  He spends entire nights in prayer, and often withdraws from teaching and performing miracles in order to pray.   We can surmise certain things Jesus prayed about, but much of what was spoken between the Son and the Father in prayer remains discreetly hidden.  One notable exception is recorded for us in John 17 (…there is a series of sermons on John 17 on the MIE website).

It is remarkable that the disciples approach Jesus to ask Him to teach them to pray (Lk.11:1).  It is the only recorded instance in the Gospels of the disciples asking Jesus to teach them anything!  The impact of witnessing (or perhaps joining) Jesus at prayer was so compelling, the disciples longed for something comparable in their own experience.  Note that Jesus finishes responding to the disciples’ request by teaching them about the necessity and role of the Holy Spirit in their experience of prayer (Lk.11:13).  Possibly Jesus had Zechariah in mind, who refers to the Spirit as ‘a spirit of grace and supplication’ (Zech.12:10); supplication being the action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly.  John Owen, commenting on this verse points out that the word is only ever used of vocal prayer (The Spirit and the Church, part 3, chap.2).  He goes on to explain that Zechariah is referring ‘to the Holy Spirit working in believers to produce gracious inclinations to the duty of prayer … enabling every believer to pray according to His mind and will’.  And it is this same Holy Spirit who is poured into the life of the church at Pentecost.

We should be anticipating this same Spirit to lead the Church – the community of the Spirit – into this same terrain.  As a Spirit-filled Church is one focussed on Jesus, and growing into the likeness of Jesus, so it follows the example of Jesus (i.e. in this context, His example of prayer).  And given the Spirit’s delight in fellowship and unity, the prayer life of a Spirit-filled Church will have a strong corporate dynamic (see Acts 2:42, where the prayer here is corporate).   That this is the case requires only the most cursory read through the book of Acts (4:23-31, 12:12 etc., though not exclusively so, e.g. 9:40; 10:9f.).

In the economy of God, failure in prayer – whether individually or corporately - is failure everywhere.  It is only as we pray ‘in the Spirit’, allowing Him to teach us from His Word what to pray and how to pray, can our prayers be anything other than empty words devoid of power.  To cite Smeaton once again: ‘Unless this fresh baptism is maintained in its intensity, or repeatedly renewed, declension will certainly ensue; for to be content, like many declining Churches to merely hold a form of sound words when the Spirit is forfeited or sinned away, is in the last degree, delusive…’ (Smeaton, Second Division, Lecture 6).

Before we become too despondent and discouraged, we do well to remember that Jesus is still praying.  It is a remarkable thing to think that Jesus is interceding for us (Rom.8:26-27); and that He is mediating our prayers to the Father (I Tim.2:5; Heb.4:14-16 & 8:6).  So close is communion with us to the heart of the living God, however, that we don’t only have Jesus praying for us, but the Spirit praying in us and through us too.  So critical is this in the life of the believer that God is not willing to leave us alone in it!  Both the Son and the Spirit are deeply and intimately involved in our life of prayer.  This should give us tremendous confidence and hopefulness as we turn to prayer.  It should also give us a sense of the importance of praying in way that is shaped by the Scriptures.  As the Book inspired by the Spirit, it remains for us an authoritative guide to our life of prayer. 

Questions

On the basis of our experience of the Spirit in prayer, do you think MIE is a Spirit-filled Church?  Why / why not?  What – if anything - needs to change?

How would you summarise Jesus’ response to the Disciple’s request that He teach them to pray (Lk.11:1-13)?  How does this shape your own life of prayer?

Do you think it is OK for Christians to not go to their Church’s prayer meeting?

What do you think is the relationship between the Holy Spirit and liturgy?  In what way is the absence of liturgy a sign of the absence of the Holy Spirit?

Read Rom.8:14-19 & 26-27

What does it mean that we are adopted as children of God (v.15)?  Do you think Paul is being (unintentionally? …or culturally?) sexist in talking about ‘adoption to sonship’ (v.15)? 

How does the Spirit’s work of assuring us ‘that we are God’s children’ (v.16) shape our experience of prayer?  How do you think the Spirit testifies with our spirits?  What would it be like to have this happen?  How would spiritual insecurity affect our life of prayer?

Do you agree with Paul that ‘we don’t know what we ought to pray for’ (v.26)?  How does that shape your approach to prayer? 

What does Paul mean when he talks about ‘wordless groans’ (v.26)? 

Who is ‘He who searches our hearts’ (v.27)?   How does this put our experience of prayer within the life of the Trinity?

What do you think the Spirit prays for us?  If the Spirit intercedes for us, then why do we need to pray at all (v.27)?

Memory Passage:

Restore us again, God our Saviour, and put away your displeasure toward us.  Will you be angry with us forever?  Will you prolong your anger through all generations?  Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?  Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation.  I will listen to what God the Lord says;  he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants—but let them not turn to folly.  Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.  Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.

Ps.85:4-11

For further reflection:

The Kingdom of God cannot be advanced by merely human effort, by our own wisdom, structures, administration, money, counsel, planning or strategy.  Let me be so bold as to suggest that we are so used to operating without the manifest presence of the Spirit, that it might sound strange even to intimate that something (better: Someone) is missing!?  Indeed, we may find the idea that our Church is not filled by the Spirit offensive.  But let me press the question.  Is the Spirit gloriously present to work in our midst?  Would we know?  How?

It was A.W. Tozer who once rhetorically wondered whether there would be any discernible difference in the life of our Churches if the Lord withdrew His Holy Spirit from amongst us.  What percentage of Church activity would carry on regardless?  Perhaps nowhere is this a more penetrating question than in the arena of our life of prayer, by which I mean, corporate prayer.  One of the most important things I think we can do as a Church is to plead together (supplicate) with our Father, for His Spirit.  My own conviction remains that the first evidence He had answered our prayer would be the revival of our prayer meetings.  We may look for many different phenomena to satisfy ourselves that the Spirit is in our midst.  Such may prove unreliable guides (Matt.24:24; II Thess.2:9).  But one that would be sure and certain, would be the revival of our life of prayer.  A Spirit-anointed Church is a praying Church.

Study 2: The Holy Spirit and Holiness

The Holy Spirit & Holiness (ii)

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.  He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

                       (II Thess.2:13-14)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

(Eph.1:3-4)

It is a well worn coin of wisdom that our experience of the Holy Spirit can be (indeed inevitably is) better than our understanding / theology. We are constantly in danger of speaking of His work in ways that are off-balance, and that are ‘not true enough’ (Packer).  One of the ways this is most evident is in the spiritual sleight of hand which leads us to speak long about the Holy Spirit before we speak of His most precious work in us: His transforming us from one degree of glory to another (II Cor.3:18), until we are at last, like Jesus.

‘Every born again Christian has a passion or holiness implanted by God.  It is natural and normal for Christians to want to be like Jesus’ (Packer, 79).  This is our spiritual centre of gravity, and in past generations the quest for holiness throughout our life and character had an intensity that we might consider faintly unhealthy in our ‘creation-affirming’ generation.  We struggle to understand, let alone justify, the quaint, old idea of ‘worldliness’ as something to be opposed and strained against with all our might.  We are infatuated with our culture, even though the world cannot receive the Spirit (Jn.14:17).  There may be a connection between this and the sense of doctrinal and moral implosion that overshadows the British Church in the 21st Century.  As Winslow said almost two centuries ago: ‘Reader, have you obtained victory over the world, or has the world obtained victory over you?  One of the two is certain…’.

The battle for holiness is empowered by the holiness of the Spirit who is God and who indwells us and works in us (Ps.143:10).  He is the Spirit of the Christ who Himself lived a Spirit-inspired righteousness, and died as much for our holiness as for our forgiveness.  And such is our renewed nature that our joy and satisfaction is now found most deeply in our pursuit of the righteousness for which we have been claimed and set aside (the root meaning of ‘sanctify’).

The methods of the great Sanctifier of our souls are many and various.  He will expose the depths and complexity of our sin; strengthen the divine life of the soul, fortifying us in our battle against temptation; He will cause us to endure affliction as discipline, and will fan into flame the refiner’s fire.  He reveals the emptiness of all that sin, world and devil would offer us; He will draw us again and again to the cross of Christ; He will clothe us in Christ’s righteousness, unite our whole person to His whole Person, and instil in us a confidence in Christ’s intercession; and stirs up in us a love for Him and a desire for His likeness.  This and more until He has conquered us and conformed us again to the Image of Christ (Rom.8:29; Eph.4:24), and we have been re-gifted with all that we were created to be.  For this Christ sanctified himself (Jn.17:19; Heb.2:11), and for this the Spirit longs and labours.  Younger Christians tend to exaggerate their progress and older Christians to minimise it.  But without any such progress, all claims to the Spiritual experience are judged spurious.

This last point is significant.  Packer makes the point that we often mis-interpret the purpose of Christianity, and re-style it in a way that is focussed on us realising our potential, or having a better family life, or a deeper satisfaction in life more generally.  Much teaching in Churches can easily be pop-psychology ‘with a veneer of Bible verses to hide its hollowness’.  It is egocentric, not Christ-focussed, and can be little more than a spiritualised self-absorption.  In this context much of our talk about the Spirit focusses not on the question of Christ-likeness, but on our experiences, our giftings, our fulfilment as a Christian.  We become pre-occupied with controversy about certain spiritual gifts and focus on the extraordinary and the spectacular, rather than the question of character; and the forming of holy habits through which the Spirit slowly recreates us.

The ancients had an altogether healthier, and more Biblically informed focus.  As the Church taught her children in years gone by, Westminster Shorter Catechism Qu.35: What is sanctification?  Ans: Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.

Questions:

Robert Murray McCheyne, a Scottish minister of a previous generation (1813-43) once wrote in his journal: My people’s greatest need is my own personal holiness’.  What do you think he meant?  Do you agree?  Do you think that your greatest need is the personal holiness of your minister?  Why / why not?

What do you think Wesley meant when he wrote the line: ‘He breaks the power of cancelled sin’ (from the hymn: O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing)?  Do you think he was right?  How can we support each other towards a more consistent experience of this truth?

Read Gal.5:13-25

What place does the Law of have in shaping our vision and experience of holiness?  How does this connect with our freedom (v.13-14)?

What does it mean to be ‘led by the Spirit’ (v.18)?  What would that feel like?  Is it possible to be a Christian and not to live by the Spirit (v.16)?

What is the difference between an awareness of sin (even a sorrow for sin) and repentance?  How are these two experiences similar?  Does Paul think we can continue to sin as Christians (v.21)?

Can’t anyone be loving, joyful, patient, kind etc..?  Why does Paul think that we need the Holy Spirit to live this way?

Why do we not make more progress than we do in cultivating the fruit of the Spirit in our lives and character?  How like Jesus can we become in this life?

What does it mean to have ‘crucified the flesh’?  Is this part of your thinking about being a Christian?   How would you go about doing this?

Memory Passage:

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.  You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.

Rom.8:5-9

For further reflection:

Much thinking about the Holy Spirit has become focussed on the ‘spectacular’ and the extraordinary.  We easily assume that a sign of the Spirit working is that what is planned, prepared, and expected is interrupted, and that something spontaneous, impulsive and unanticipated is now happening.  Bizarrely, I’ve found myself in situations where the spontaneous is being planned for, in an attempt to ensure we are being led by the Spirit. 

But the wisdom of the Church – and in this I believe we were more Biblically informed – long pointed in a different direction.  The Spirit works through agency and means.  Whilst these might provide a context for heightened experiences, they are not to be dismissed because of that.  Years of incremental development are not to be disregarded because a teenager suddenly goes through a growth spurt.  The power of the Spirit is not demonstrated by His constantly interrupting the means of grace, the spiritual disciplines, He has built into the life of the Church, but rather in His making those means effective to change us.  Being taught the Bible, breaking bread with the Church, prayer, fellowship, self-reflection, the struggle against temptation…  it is such as these that provide the arena in which the Spirit works to cultivate an increased sensitivity to the life and character of God, and to align us to His holiness.

That we might be like Jesus remains the deepest desire of healthy discipleship, and of the Spirit.  Indeed, because it is the deepest desire of the Spirit, it becomes the deepest desire of those who are Spiritually mature.

Study 1: The Holy Spirit and Conversion

The Holy Spirit & Conversion (i)

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

                       (Gal.3:14)

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

(I Cor.6:11)

As we step into this new JCL term, considering together the life and work of the Holy Spirit, we’ll need to constantly remind ourselves that we have already spent time reflecting on the relationship of the Spirit to the Father and the Son.  Particularly in our series on the Person and Work of Christ we studied the Bible’s teaching on the bond between Jesus and the Spirit.  All of that is assumed as we turn our attention more particularly to the third Person of the Trinity.  We are also anticipating future JCL terms.  When we consider what it means to become a Christian, or to grow in holiness, or our future hope, we will be revisiting subjects of our studies here.  A term looking at what we believe about the Church will inevitably lead us again to the life of the Spirit. 

But there is an even more delicate issue to negotiate.  The question of whether the Spirit indeed wants to be the focus of our attention at all.  We’ll come back to this question in a moment, but for now let’s simply note that (at one level) there is an issue here.  Packer, in his brilliant book ‘Keep in Step with the Spirit’ unpacks a helpful analogy of a spotlight shining on a Church building.  The spotlight itself is hidden discreetly out of view.  It throws it’s light on an object other than itself.  This, Packer suggests, captures the heart of the Spirit.  He doesn’t – so to speak – want to be the focus of our attention.  His desire is to fix our eyes on Jesus.  A Spirit-filled Church is a Jesus centred Church.  Nevertheless, He remains gloriously part of the life of God.  ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life…’.  And as One who is fully God in Himself, He is utterly worthy of our attention, and indeed our worship.  And so we sit in the midst of this tension.  We cannot worship God without worshipping Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We cannot speak of Christ (the Anointed One) without speaking of the Spirit as ‘His inseparable Companion … All the activity of Christ was unfolded in the presence of the Holy Spirit’ (Basil of Caesarea,330-379, so Is.11:1; 42:1 etc.).  He is present throughout the Bible, albeit at times slightly out of sight.  That does not in any way undermine the sense of reverence and seriousness with which we should think and speak of this Divine Person.

Certainly we cannot speak of our own experience of Christ, or of our relationship with God through Christ, without reference to the Spirit of Christ.  He is the way God actively engages with His creation – including the parts of that creation that are you and me.  The Spirit is the One through whom the love of God comes, and by whom the work of Christ – provoked as it is by that love – is carried into our experience. ‘As to Divine works, the Father is the source from which every operation emanates, the Son is the means through which it is performed, and the Holy Spirit is the Executive, by which it is carried into effect (Smeaton, 4).

And so we come to the question of the role of the Spirit in our salvation.  We begin with Jesus.  It was the Spirit who enabled the Incarnation (Lk.1:35); through whom Christ preserved his human righteousness (e.g. Lk.4:1-13).  It is through the Eternal Spirit that Christ ‘offered Himself unblemished to God’ (Heb.9:14).  Even such a representative survey alerts us to the realisation that there would be no salvation for us to enjoy without the Holy Spirit involvement.  But it is also the Holy Spirit who catches us up into the work of Christ.  It is through the Spirit – the Executive of God – that we receive the life of Christ. 

Humanity was created to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit (Gen.2:7).  Fallen humanity is Spirit-less, and destitute of the Spirit we are merely ‘flesh’ (Rom.8:5; Jude 19).  It is a defining characteristic of the Christian that they have received afresh the Spirit of Christ (Rom.8:9).  Our conversion is simultaneously achieved through the Spirit, and marked by the reception of the Spirit. We are the people of the Spirit.  Without Him we could not exercise faith (II Cor.4:13), nor utter the most basic Christian confession (I Cor.12:3).  Without Him, our mind cannot know or love the things of God (I Cor.2:14), nor our will be subject to the Law of God (Rom.8:7-8); we cannot be born of God (Jn.3:3-6), nor can we grasp the most infantile of spiritual privileges (Rom.8:15).  Everything we can say about being a Christian is done in us, to us and through us by the Sovereign Spirit (Jn.3:8).  This is by no means the last work of the Spirit, but His uniting us to Christ is central in our experience and is foundational for all that follows.

Questions

If someone asked you to explain to them what it means to become a Christian, and to help them become one, what would say and do?

What would you say to help someone who wasn’t sure whether they were a Christian or not?   Do you think it is possible to be a Christian and not be sure?

What would it look like if you tried to do Christianity without the Spirit?

Read Titus 3:3-8

Do you agree with Paul’s assessment of life before Christianity (v.3)?  …or do you feel Paul is being a bit extreme?  Does it match your own experience? … or your experience of people you know who aren’t Christians?  How does understanding this about people make you feel and think?

How would you feel if you brought someone to an evangelistic event at MIE, and we described non-Christians in these terms?  If this is what people are like, what motivates God in saving people? [note 2:11]

What do you think Paul means by ‘the washing of re-birth’? … and by ‘the renewal (better: regeneration) by the Holy Spirit (v.5)?

Why do you think Paul makes the point that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on us generously by / through Jesus?  If this is the case, should we ask God for ‘more’ of His Spirit? 

Why does Paul connect our regeneration with our becoming heirs, having the hope of eternal life?

How does vv.3-7 motivate us to devote ourselves to doing what is good (v.8)?  What do you think Paul has in mind?

Memory Passage:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from your idols.  I will give you a new heart and will put a new Spirit within you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees, and be careful to keep my laws.

Ezek.36:25-27

For further reflection:

We will return to the question of what it means to become a Christian in a later JCL series – and in doing so, will revisit the work of the Spirit in ‘regeneration’.  It is as all-pervasive in its effects (indeed more so) as those of the Fall (Gen.6:5; Jer.17:9).  The Spirit achieves in us nothing short of the genesis of a new creation, and He will carry that work through to its completion (II Cor.5:17; see study ix).  In His conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus is clear that such a supernatural feat is exclusively the prerogative of God (Jn.3:5-8).  We cannot control or predict the Spirit’s powerful working; we can only see its inevitable consequences.  Ezekiel’s famous vision of the valley of dry bones is a powerful picture of the spiritual realities involved when new life is given (37:1-14, note the promise of the Spirit).

This sense of the Sovereignty of God is found in the Articles of the Church of England.  Article 10 captures Anglican conviction: The condition of Man (sic) after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God…  How then does anyone become a Christian?  By the work of the Spirit, bringing the grace of Christ to bear.  This doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  A recurring theme in our studies over the next few weeks will be the idea of the Holy Spirit working through God-ordained means. 

In this instance, the Spirit’s favoured means tends to be the Word of God.  Peter celebrates that ‘You have been born again … through the living and enduring Word of God’ (I Pet.1:23).  James concurs: ‘He chose to give us birth through the Word of Truth’ (Jas.1:18, see also Jn.15:3).  Through His Word (see study 6), the Spirit achieves a direct (re-)creative act, which the Bible calls new birth.  It is evidenced by the ongoing presence and work of the Spirit, and nothing less will do.