John 16:13a
I have a confession: I never used to like the Holy Spirit very much.
I grew in my appreciatIon of God the Father, even though he
sometimes seemed harsh in the Old Testament.
There were just too many other passages which told of his unfailing love,
mercy and compassion for me to doubt his goodness. And, of course, in the New Testament it
became clear that God’s plan all along was first to let us clearly demonstrate
our inability to perfectly obey him, and then to send his own Son to do for us
what we were incapable of doing for ourselves. In other words, God had a plan
to meet his own requirements and take his own punishment in order to save us. How
could I not love a God like that?
And then, of course, there was Jesus. He is the one who agreed to come and carry
out this rescue plan. He is the one of
whom all scripture speaks. He is the one
who came in the flesh to live that perfect life which I, in my flesh, had no
hope of living. He is the second Adam
who allows me a do-over on being born so that I can swap families. He is the one who took me with him from death
to life, so that I now stand before God, with my debt stamped “paid in
full”. He did all of this for me as a
free gift. There was nothing I could do to earn it or deserve it, and there is
nothing I can do to repay it; that is called grace. It is a story I did not truly know or
understand until I was in my thirties, and once I knew it and believed it my
life was never the same.
But then there was the Holy Spirit. My picture of the Holy Spirit was of someone whose job it was to make me into a better person. I saw him as someone who wanted to
help me but couldn’t, because I was apparently too stupid and/or too stubborn
to accept his help. I was keeping him from doing his job, and I was pretty sure
the Holy Spirit was exasperated with me.
When I heard the Good News of who Jesus really was, what he
really did and why he really did it, my life was turned upside down, in a
very good way. That was when my true
love for God the Father and Jesus began, but my confusion about the Holy Spirit
lingered.
I still heard mixed messages: Jesus came to do for me what I could not do
for myself, and now the Holy Spirit was
going to come and help me become what I could not become by myself. In my head I heard the sound of screeching
brakes as the Good News train seemingly came to a halt. I waited, hopefully, to see if I had become any
better about letting the Holy Spirit help me, now that I knew the gospel, but I
couldn’t see much difference. Actually,
the very fact that I was watching to see if I was better seemed to be counter to the gospel.
I decided to focus solely on
Jesus and what he did for me and to put the question of the work of the Holy Spirit
off to the side. Looking back, I’m
certain the Holy Spirit helped me to make that decision.
Ultimately, I came to an understanding of the work of the Holy
Spirit which, for me, is in harmony with what I know to be true about God the Father and
Jesus. This understanding came primarily from the book of John in four passages where Jesus himself talks about the coming Holy Spirit and what he
would do.
The first is found in John chapter 14, verses 16-17: “I will ask the Father, and
He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of
truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides
with you and will be in you.”
These verses are found in the middle of a
conversation Jesus was having with his disciples, preparing them for the fact
that he would soon be leaving them. Jesus
tells them that he will be the one making the request for the Holy Spirit to be
sent; this was his desire and he, personally, would ask the Father. The request had not yet been made because Jesus
had to complete his earthly mission by dying on the cross and securing salvation
for all who would believe in him before he could make this request.
He tells them that the Father will send “another”
Helper. The word “another” in the Greek
is “allos”, and implies something or someone of the same type or kind. Jesus was telling them that, after he secured
our salvation he was personally going to ask his Father to send us someone who
would help us in the same way he helped us.
The Greek word used for “Helper” is
“Parakletos” and in general means "an aid", with the underlying idea of comforting,
encouraging and exhorting. Greek writers
used the word to mean a legal counselor, or advocate, who comes forward on
behalf of and as the representative of another.
If you look at different translations of this verse, you will see that
some use “Helper”, some use “Advocate” and some use “Comforter”. The word encompasses all of those
meanings. So, this verse tells us that,
after Jesus secured our salvation he was personally going to ask his Father to
send us someone else, like himself, who would help us, advocate for us and
comfort us. Jesus says this Helper will forever be in and with those who believe in him.
I was always erroneously taught that when the Holy
Spirit came, the focus shifted from Jesus to me. No one was crass enough to say it exactly that
way, but the implication was clearly that after Jesus did his work, my work,
through the strength of the Holy Spirit, began.
But scripture teaches that, because of what Jesus did, we should now
rest from our works. Hebrews 4:9-10
says, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the
people of God; for anyone
who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,
just as God did from his.” If
the coming of the Holy Spirit wasn’t intended to shift the focus from Jesus to
what the Spirit was going to do in me, then what was its intention?
The loving Father sent Jesus to rescue us,
and now Jesus, after completing the rescue, asked the Father to send the Spirit
of truth to continually and forever remind us of and apply the truth of that
rescue. We see that in these verses:
“These things I have spoken to you while I
am still with you. 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 that I have said to you” John 14:25-26.
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send
to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he
will bear witness about me.” John 15:26
The job of the Holy Spirit has never been to
draw attention to himself, or to us, by making our improvement the central
focus. His primary purpose has always
been to illuminate, clarify and apply what Jesus
did.
The fourth passage in John gives us further
insight:
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is
to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not
come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And
when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and
judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in
me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the
Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning
judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” John 16:7-11
The Holy Spirit’s job is to convict the
world that all are sinners, unable to reach the required standard of goodness,
and that our only hope is to believe in Jesus who offers us his righteousness
which he secured for us through his life, death, resurrection and ascension. As a result of what Jesus accomplished for
us, the power of the ruler of this world (Satan) has been broken; he stands
judged. If we accept Jesus’ work on our behalf we no longer stand judged and
condemned before God. The work of the
Holy Spirit is to tell the story of Jesus over and over!
The Holy Spirit calls to us, just like a
loving parent with arms open calls to a crying or lost child. He calls us to come and be comforted with the
good news that Jesus has rescued us. He encourages us to be like Jesus—full of
love and compassion, extending the same grace we have received to those around
us; and, when we fail, he comforts us with that same good news. He tells us we do not have to be afraid,
because God’s opinion of us is already secured and He is well pleased with us
because of Jesus. He constantly reminds us that our salvation is not dependent
on our success; it is dependent on Jesus’ success. He assures us that we are free to try and fail
and try again. That is the work of the Holy Spirit within us, to tell us the
good news of what Jesus has done for us until it works its way into every fiber
of our beings and that Good News changes us from the inside out.
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