Who exactly is the Holy Spirit and what does He do in and for the Christian in their life?
The Trinity
Who exactly is the Holy Spirit and what does He do in and for the Christian in their life? The Bible is full of references about the Three Persons of the Trinity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:18-20). Baptizing people is to have them be identified people with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. To be sure, each Person of the Trinity is involved in our salvation and is inseparable for our salvation. The Father draws or calls, the Spirit quickens and reveals Christ to us and sanctifies us, while Jesus saves to the uttermost for eternal life.
You could put it this way: The Father initiates, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit applies. In the beginning of creation, God has said “Let us make man in our image,” meaning, there are more than One. Note the use of “our image.” The word Elohim is actually plural (Gen 1:2, 26-27). The Hebrew language has a specific word for two (like we have, a pair, a couple), but in the Hebrew language, the “im…” at the end of something means it is plural. God’s name in the first two chapters of Genesis (and elsewhere) is plural, meaning there is more than one. Jesus even spoke about the Holy Spirit in the form of a personal pronoun, meaning He capitalized the Spirit’s name (i.e. Comforter, Advocate, and Helper). That’s why the Lord even spoke of the Third Person of the Trinity, saying, “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” (John 16:7).
Grieving the Spirit
Did you realize that God the Holy Spirit grieves just as humans grieve, although in somewhat different ways? And, like a human being, the Holy Spirit can be silenced if suppressed for a long period of time (Rom 1:23-24; 2 Cor 6:2; Heb 6:4-6). The Apostle Paul warns us to “not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph 4:30), meaning it is possible to grieve Him. How do we do this? It is by living in unrepentant sin. The Holy Spirit’s symbol is a dove, meaning He is sensitive to sin and it doesn’t take much to grieve Him and put Him to flight. Sin will suppress or even quench the Spirit if we’re not careful.
Truth from the Spirit
Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” and He “will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13-15). What is His? Read the gospels, for it’s all His! He will speak through us at times, and at times, to our surprise! He will reveal the truth of Scripture and the truth about Christ.
Praying in the Spirit
Have you ever felt like your prayers are hitting the ceiling and then stopping there? Then realize that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom 8:26-27). If you’re so desperate about praying for something or someone and you can’t even come up the right words, that’s when “the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Have you ever been there…at a loss of words? I have. That’s when the Spirit steps in to help us pray and communicate it to the Father (Rom 8).
The Quickening Spirit
Before we were saved, we were the walking dead; dead in our sins. We had no more chance of saving ourselves than Lazarus had of raising himself from the dead, but we were quickened by the Holy Spirit. Paul says that “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. And we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:1-5). Dead men can only choose to decay, but if born again, then “you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). The Spirit gives life.
The Convicting Spirit
The Holy Spirit will speak to your conscience. He will tell you when you’ve blown it and need to apologize. He will tell you to avoid going to certain places and hanging out with certain people because of the potential to sin. Paul told us to “not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19) but walk in the Spirit. Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit “comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). When I sin, the Spirit taps me on the shoulder, so to speak, and I have to break down and confess it before God. And that conviction is good, because then you can have a clear conscience, having confessed all your sins and been forgiven. That always feels pretty good.
The Sanctifying Spirit
Second Thessalonians 2:13 says “But we should always thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth.” Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:7). The Spirit of God sanctifies us by His Spirit and by the Word of God. James wrote that “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation” (James 1:18). Paul stated in Ephesians 5:6 that God’s desire for the church is “to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.” The Spirit of God opens up the Word of God so that we can be cleansed by the truth of God.
The Working Spirit
As you may know, sanctification is a lifetime process. To be sanctified is to be “set apart for holy use.” One holy use is being a witness for Jesus Christ. A witness of God shares the Word of God then the Spirit of God births a child of God. That’s why I believe the Holy Spirit has a special name for a very special reason. He is just as holy as God the Father and God the Son, so why don’t we call them Holy Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit? I think it’s because of the work the Holy Spirit does in us and through us…striving to make us holy. The Holy Spirit helps us to make us more holy and to bear fruit for Jesus’ and the Father’s glory. He prompts us to do good things for others while convicting us of doing things we shouldn’t have done. He keeps us out of sin by reminding us of Jesus’ words (Scripture).
The Sealing of the Spirit
The Holy Spirit sanctifies us and then finishes this off but sealing us for eternity. Paul said that “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph 1:4-5). Jesus comes back with 100 sheep after He seeks the one that was lost (like we were), so we have security in our salvation. Our Lord doesn’t settle for 99 out of 100. Paul says that, “in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:11-14). Notice Paul says we “we have obtained,” and that is in the past tense. We have already obtained our inheritance. What God seals, stays sealed, and that seal is as unbreakable as the promises of God, thanks to the Holy Spirit’s seal upon us.
Summary
The Holy Spirit convicts of us our sin.
The Holy Spirit prompts us to do good when opportunity arises (Eph 2:10).
The Holy Spirit brings to light the things of Christ.
The Holy Spirit helps us pray, when we can’t even express it with words (Rom 8:27).
The Holy Spirit, Who is God, will never leave us nor forsake us, even when we forsake Him for a time.
Conclusion
I pray you have put your trust in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If that has not happened yet, my friend, you are in real danger of hell fire. And I mean, in immediate danger. You’re one breath, one heartbeat…one accident away from eternity when it will be too late to repent. Today is the best day to believe (2 Cor 6:2) since tomorrow is no guarantee. If Jesus Christ came today, here is your fate (Matt 7:21-23). This is why I plead with you as you read this, repent today…and I mean right now. Put your trust in Jesus Christ. If you do not, you will face God’s judgment after death guaranteed (Heb 9:27) or at Jesus Christ’s appearance (Rev 20:12-15), which could happen at any moment.
Here is some related reading for you: Who is the Holy Spirit? A Bible Study
Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), Crossway Bibles. (2007). ESV: Study Bible: English standard version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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