TEXT: Acts 19:1-2

SUBJECT: The Holy Spirit #1: His Person

The topic of this year’s Family Camp is The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. I chose it after much thought and prayer, for three main reasons:

Firstly, we don’t think very often about the Holy Spirit.

Every day, we pray to God the Father in the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ. But how often do we pray in the Spirit?

When we go to church, what are most of the sermons and hymns about? Mostly, they’re about the Father and the Son. And very seldom are they about the Holy Spirit. I thumbed through the Trinity Hymnal the other day to see how many of the songs are about the Spirit: the answer is nine! (I know He comes up under different headings, but only nine of the hymns are, you might say, devoted to Him). This compares to 114 on God the Father and 129 on God the Son. Doesn’t this seem a bit off to you? Of 253 hymns on God, only 9 of them are on God the Holy Spirit!

I don’t believe this is a conspiracy, but it is a symptom of something wrong. Not just wrong with the men who compiled the Trinity Hymnal or of the people who sing from it, but something wrong with the Whole Church worldwide and over the ages. We have not paid enough attention to the Holy Spirit!

I do not support the Charismatic Movement, but I have to admit: it thinks a lot about the Holy Spirit! Some of its thoughts are wrong—I’m sure of that—what I’m not so sure of is if wrong thoughts are worse than no thoughts.

The man who gives his wife a vacuum cleaner for their 25^th anniversary may not be as thoughtful as he should be, but he’s still better than the man who forgets their anniversary!

This, I fear, is what we’ve done to the Holy Spirit: we have forgotten Him. He’s still in our Bibles and in our Creeds, but He’s not in our minds or in our hearts. We don’t think very often about the Holy Spirit.

We know very well what the Spirit does not do! If we get into a debate with a Pentecostal, we can prove that the Holy Spirit is not giving the gift of tongues anymore, that He’s not giving revelations, visions, dreams, and prophecies. He’s sure not behind the Holy Laughter or the Holy Barking that’s now going on. We’re all experts on what the Holy Spirit is not doing in the world!

But when it comes to what He is up to in the world, we clear our throats and shuffle our feet and soon remember that we’ve got to get home and wrap our Christmas presents!

If the Spirit is not giving miraculous gifts any more, what is He doing? And why haven’t we thought as long and hard on this positive question as we have on the negative one? We don’t think very positively about the Holy Spirit.

Finally, we don’t think very currently about the Holy Spirit.

We know what the Holy Spirit used to do. He used to inspire the Bible. He used to give the gift of tongues. He used to cast out devils. He used to do a ton things. But what does He do now? The list of what He does now is far shorter than what He used to do.

The Spirit has quit doing some things He used to do because they don’t need doing any more. He doesn’t need to, for example, fill the Tabernacle in the Wilderness with His glory because there is no Tabernacle in the Wilderness any more. He doesn’t need to inspire the Bible any more because the Bible is complete. And so on.

But to say He’s not doing everything He used to do is far different than saying He’s pretty much retired. The Holy Spirit is not taking it easy; He is as alive and involved and active as ever!

Back in the 1^st Century there were a dozen disciples living in Ephesus. They knew all about God and Christ, about sin and it’s forgiveness. But when asked about the Spirit, they said, We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. We are a little better than they were. But not much. What Martin Luther said of the Father applies equally to the Spirit,

While the Psalmist could not get away from the Holy Spirit, we can hardly find Him. But find Him, we must, and love Him too. This is what I hope to do with our Family Camp sermons. To present the Holy Spirit to you and to help you love Him with all of your heart, soul, and mind.

But I’m not up to it. Not mentally, not spiritually. So I can only pray with another helpless man,

The three sermons will be, God willing: (1) The Person of the Holy Spirit, (2) His Work in the World, and (3) His Work in the Church. So let’s get to it, and may the Holy Spirit do what the Bible says He will do--guide us into all truth.

Is the Holy Spirit Personal or Impersonal, a He or an It? The Bible compares the Spirit to some impersonal things such as Water and Fire, Wind and Breath. But it never says the Spirit is these things! Because He isn’t. He’s not a bucket of water or, for that matter, a Moral Influence, a Cosmic Energy, an Evolutionary Process or a Divine Power. He is a Person!

The Bible ascribes personal qualities to Him. The Spirit thinks—It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28); He speaks—Separate unto Me Barnabas and Saul for the work I have called them to do (Acts 13:2); He feels—Grieve not the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30); He acts—The Spirit caught Philip away, The Spirit did not allow them to go (Acts 8:39, 16:7).

The Bible links Him to other Persons: The grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

But, most of all, the Bible says that He can replace another Person. My dad used to joke that he could replace me with a nail! As a carpenter, he could: a nail was often a better helper that I was! But, though a nail could do my job at work, it couldn’t replace me. Because no thing can replace a person. A million dollars in life insurance can’t replace a dead husband. And an influence, an energy, a power, a process can’t replace the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the Holy Spirit can. And He does.

The Apostles were not worse off without the Lord Jesus Christ alongside of them. They were better off, because the Holy Spirit was now inside of them. Only a person can replace a person. But the Holy Spirit replaces Christ. Therefore, He is a Person; the Spirit is a He, not an It.

Some people don’t feel comfortable with this doctrine. They say, Person is a human category, and the Holy Spirit is beyond personality. That sounds reverent, but when you press them to explain what they mean by more than a person, the Spirit ends up being less than a person. C.S. Lewis said He becomes something like a gas! Trying to guard the Spirit from being something like a man, we make Him into something like oxygen!

The Holy Spirit is a Person, a Person you can know and talk to, a Person you can love and serve or hate and disobey. But, whatever we do with Him, let’s be clear we’re doing it for or against Him and not It!

If the Holy Spirit is a Person, we have to then go on to ask, What kind of person is He? A great deal can be said here, but I’ll say only two main things about it.

Firstly, the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person. The Spirit of God is God!

The attributes of God are applied to Him. For example, He is the eternal Spirit (Hebrews 9:14). This sets Him apart from all created things because—by definition—created things were once created, and therefore, once were not. But the Spirit has never been not. He was not born or created and He will not die or go out of existence. This means He is God. He is also Omnipresent—everywhere at the same time and fully there. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me (Psalm 139:7-19). Notice, He doesn’t follow the Psalmist from one place to the other—but wherever the man goes, the Holy Spirit is already there. Because He’s everywhere! Because He’s God.

The works of God are applied to Him. He shares in the Creation (Genesis 1:2); in Providence (Psalm 104:30); and in Salvation (John 6:63). Though God could do everything all by Himself, He shares the load with His creatures—some of the load, that is. But He doesn’t share Creation, Providence, or Salvation with us. These things are of the Lord only. And of the Holy Spirit, because He is Lord!

One short story in the New Testament is worth telling here. It’s a sad one about Ananias and Sapphira. You can read it in Acts 5. People in the church are selling all their goods and giving them to the Apostles to pass out to the needier disciples. Ananias and Sapphira have some property and they want to do the same. When they go to sell it, however, it’s worth more than they thought it would be. So, they came to Peter with the expected price, while squirreling away the rest. Keeping some of the money was not wrong, but doing it while saying you’re giving your all is. Peter calls them of it,

Two phrases need underlining: ‘Lie to the Holy Spirit’ and ‘Lied to God’. Doing one is the same as doing the other, for the Holy Spirit is God.

Being God, the Holy Spirit shares in all the Divine Nature. He is not a Junior Partner in the Trinity, but equal to the Father and Son in every way.

Secondly, the Holy Spirit is a Holy Person. Because He is fully Divine, you’d think the Bible would call Him a number of things: Almighty Spirit, Loving Spirit, Wise Spirit, and so on. Such words are used once in a while. But most of the time, He’s called the Holy Spirit. Whatever else we think of Him, the Apostles want us to think of His holiness.

Why? I can’t be dogmatic about this, but I’ll tell you what I think: Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This is true personally—the Holy Spirit is in you and me and each believer, and also collectively—the Spirit is in the Church. Thus, both the Christian and the Church are Temples of the Holy Spirit (cf. I Corinthians, chapters 3 and 6).

And if it is the Holy Spirit who is in us, we’re to be holy. Holy in body because my body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, wherever I happen to be—at home, at work, in bed, watching TV. Our church meetings are to be holy because the Spirit is there with us.

If the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, He must be grieved with our sins, and He must be the One behind every holy impulse. Thus, we’re to yield ourselves to the Spirit for holiness.

If the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, how does He relate to the other Divine Persons, God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ?

My answer is a bit subtle, but it’s also true. So listen carefully: By Nature, the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and Son in every way. He is every bit as powerful, wise, holy, and loving as the other two Persons. But By Choice, the Holy Spirit has submitted Himself to the Father and the Son.

It was not the Holy Spirit who sent the Father or poured out the Son. It was the Father who sent the Spirit and the Son who poured out the Spirit. Furthermore, the Son does not bear witness to the Spirit, but it is the Spirit who bears witness to the Son. In a certain way, therefore, the Holy Spirit is the servant of God the Father and His Son, our Lord. But only in a certain way.

And what is that certain way? It is for our salvation that He has submitted Himself to do the will of Christ.

This is not splitting hairs! It is good theology with a good effect: it makes us love the Holy Spirit more than we have. If we love Christ for becoming the Servant of Jehovah, we ought also to love the Spirit for becoming the Servant of Christ.

Finally, what is the Holy Spirit’s relationship to us? In a word, He is Lord. He is the Lord because He is God. He is Lord because it was He who inspired the Bible, which is the Word of God. He is Lord because He is in us, moving us to do God’s Will and moving us away from doing our own will and the will of Satan and the world.

This means we ought to submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit, as He teaches us in His Word and leads us by His gentle prompting. It also means we ought to worship the Holy Spirit, and not leave Him a mere word in the Doxology or the Benediction. Finally, it means we ought to love the Holy Spirit, for the Highest Law God ever issued is what the Jews call, Shema,

By the Lord your God, the Shema includes the Holy Spirit. So love Him, as He loves you. Amen.