Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word podcast, where we share the big ideas of the New Testament chapter by chapter. As you may have noticed, Paul broke up chapter 8 into two parts in order to give a more in-depth insight on the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Trinity and the Spirit of God. Great information and insight. Let’s listen in. Romans 8, Part 2. Meet the Holy Spirit.

I realized, as I was thinking about Romans chapters 6, 7, and 8, this whole section where we’ve been talking about believers having an ongoing conflict with sin in our old nature, that the Apostle Paul has not up until now said much about the Holy Spirit in this regard. In fact, in chapter 6, the Holy Spirit is not mentioned once. In chapter 7, only once. But then in chapter 8, the Spirit of God is mentioned 21 times. This also made me question if we’ve ever spent any real time discussing the Holy Spirit, his person and role. And I honestly can’t think of ever doing so in our series.

So while we are at this chapter, which has so much to say about the Holy Spirit, and since Share the Word is not just for Bible scholars but a place to learn for anybody interested in the big ideas in the New Testament, probably overdue that we pause and do kind of an overview on the Trinity, and especially the third person of the Trinity, as he’s often called, the Holy Spirit of God. Then we’ll focus in specifically on what Paul says about the Holy Spirit in Romans chapter 8, where we are currently. The concept of the Trinity is admittedly difficult for us to wrap our minds around, yet this is how God presents himself to us in the Scripture. Some deny that God is a Trinity, I think mostly because they can’t visualize or imagine it. By Trinity, here’s exactly what we mean: that God eternally exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each is equally and fully God.

And yet there is only one God. Huh? That almost sounds like a riddle, doesn’t it? It’s very hard to imagine this because it’s outside of our experience. In our experience, one being is always one person. The fact that the Bible presents God differently as one being in three persons, that’s probably good evidence in itself that that’s the way He really is, because frankly, no human author would make that up, much less all the authors in the Bible whose language requires us to understand God that way.

From the very opening lines of Genesis, we read things like this, Genesis chapter 1, verse 26: And God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image.’ And again, after Adam and Eve’s sin at chapter 3, verse 22, now man has become like us, knowing good and evil. The text references God, not gods, and then uses plural pronouns. In the New Testament, one of the clearest demonstrations of the Trinity is at the baptism of Jesus. As we saw in the Gospel of John, Jesus repeatedly claimed to be God, used the personal I am name of God for Himself. Yet, when He as a man went out to be baptized by the prophet John the Baptist, it says in the Gospels, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended on Him in the form of a dove, landing on Him.

And then a voice was heard from heaven which said, ‘This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ All three persons of the Trinity, God the Father speaking from heaven, the Son in the form of Jesus being baptized in the river, and the Holy Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove, all three persons of the Trinity interacting at that one event. I’ve heard over the years many attempts to try and adequately explain the Trinity with some kind of illustration or analogy we’re familiar with, such as one of the favorite ones I’ve heard is water being able to exist in three forms as liquid, and then as a solid as ice, and then as a gas in steam. Well, that’s interesting so far as it goes, but the same water cannot exist as all three at the same time, and that’s what God is like.

All such attempts to fit God into some kind of thing we can easily understand falls short in one way or another. The truth is that God is absolutely unique and way, way, way above us as a being. As he says through the prophet Isaiah, I am God, and there is no one like me. I am God, and there is no other. And the Bible clearly shows us the three persons of the Trinity in different roles. And by persons, I mean each of them is shown to have the attributes of personality, like a mind of their own, a will of their own, emotions.

It also shows us each one of them having attributes that only God has. They all are omniscient, eternal, omnipotent, and so on. And yet throughout the Bible, it insists there is only one God, as in Isaiah 45 where it says, I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. Or on Israel’s famous Shema, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart. In the New Testament, the apostle James writes, You believe that the Lord is one, and you do well to believe that, but even the demons acknowledge as much.

So, although it’s hard for us to imagine, to visualize, to conceive of, Christians must accept this Trinitarian view of God. He is a being far beyond us. We believe that he exists somehow in three persons, that each of the persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are fully God, and yet God is one. Of the three, I think the Holy Spirit is certainly the most mysterious. In the old King James Version, he was always called in writing the Holy Ghost, which frankly scared me as a child. But that was just common at the time in the 17th century.

It was a common way of saying spirit. So maybe that contributed to the mystery about the Holy Spirit. Many of him think still today of him as being an it, not an he. By that I mean an unseen force of some kind, not as a person. But in the New Testament, although the word spirit is neuter in the Greek language, when the Holy Spirit is referred to, it’s always with the masculine personal pronoun he. You might remember, too, our episode from Acts chapter 5 when we learned about Ananias and Sapphira, husband and wife team who wanted to appear generous and make a show of selling a piece of property for the benefit of the poor people in the Jerusalem church, but who held back part of that price.

The Holy Spirit confronted them through the apostle Peter, and he said to them, Why are you lying to God the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is a personal being that can be offended, and in that case, he certainly was. The members of the Godhead, another word for the Trinity, are equally God. That does not mean that they are interchangeable. In other words, each of them has a position, and each of them has different roles. As we see each of them in action on the pages of Scripture, we see God the Father as the leader, and the Son, who became Jesus for a time, as willingly subordinate to the Father, as also is the Holy Spirit.

The Father sent the Son into the world to become our Savior, we’re told, and when Jesus’ work was done, the Father sent the Holy Spirit into the world with ministries for him to undertake. Remember, Jesus told his saddened disciples the night before he was crucified, he tried to encourage them by saying, It’s really to your advantage that I go away because then the Holy Spirit will come. And he did, as we saw on the day of Pentecost in 33 A.D. Since then, the Holy Spirit has been involved in many beneficial things in our world, although he is content to be kind of the behind-the-scenes player, if you know what I mean. He’s not out front, drawing attention to himself. He’s not in the spotlight.

So what kind of things does the New Testament tell us the Holy Spirit has done or is doing in the world right now? One thing that he has done that is very valuable was produce the Word of God through its human authors. Jesus promised his apostles that when the Holy Spirit came, he would lead them into all truth and bring all things back to their remembrance. The reason we can trust the Bible is because it’s not just the ideas of John and Paul and James and the others. We are told repeatedly that when they wrote, it was under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. We refer to that as the inspiration of the Scripture.

If you’d like to learn more about that very important topic, we have a whole series of articles in a blog called Why Trust the Bible. You can check it out on our website, sharetheword.org. With regard to humanity in general, Jesus also said that when the Holy Spirit came, He would convict the world of its sin, of God’s righteousness, and of coming judgment. It’s John chapter 16, verse 8. So when someone shares the truth of God’s Word, as we’ve been doing lately in Romans, for example, about our sin and how incompatible it is with God’s righteousness, and how that’s leading toward a day of judgment, it’s the Holy Spirit’s role to convince people who hear that that that’s the truth, that they need to respond to the gospel message. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, something keeps prompting you, Hey, that’s the truth.

What that guy is saying, listen to this. You should respond to that. That’s what Jesus called the Holy Spirit’s conviction. You should value that dearly because that is God Himself drawing you toward a relationship with Him. But most of the ministries of the Holy Spirit in our world are for the benefit of believers. For example, if you’re a believer, did you realize that it is the Holy Spirit who regenerated your spirit and reconnected you to God when you accepted Christ?

Chapter 3, verse 5 of the little book of Titus says this: God saved us not because of righteous things we’ve done, but because of His mercy. And he washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. This was exactly what Jesus told Nicodemus, who was confused when he was told he had to be born again. Jesus said, Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You shouldn’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ In other words, your parents produced your physical birth, but the Holy Spirit is the one who can produce a spiritual rebirth in you that you need in order to be reconnected to God and born into his family.

But that’s just the beginning. The New Testament teaches the Holy Spirit actually then takes up residence in the lives of believers. We say he indwells us. The apostle Paul had to scold some Christians in the Corinthian church who he heard were behaving badly, and he did so in these words: What? Don’t you realize that your bodies are now temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, who has been given to you by God? Right in our chapter, Romans chapter 8, Paul mentions a couple times the fact of the Holy Spirit dwelling in believers.

In fact, he says at verse 9, Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So what is the Holy Spirit who’s indwelling us trying to do in us? We talked briefly a lesson or two ago about sanctification, which is just a big word that means the process of becoming more and more of who God wants us to be. Remember that? I think it was in terms of the Holy Spirit trying to renew in us the image of God that we’ve lost because of sin. We also saw in Galatians, Paul urged those early Christians to follow the Spirit rather than their old sinful nature.

He said, The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in your life: love, and joy, and peace, and patience, and kindness, and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Hey, have you been cooperating with the Holy Spirit as He tries to develop these qualities in you? Another work of the Holy Spirit is that He is our ultimate teacher. He helps us understand and apply God’s truths accurately in our life. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 11 and 12, Paul writes, No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit, so we can know the wonderful things that God has freely given us.

Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth. He told His disciples in John 14, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper who will abide with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. So I’m a teacher. I do my best to explain things in the Bible and help you see how they apply. But the one who says, Hey, that’s the truth. Listen to this.

The one who makes it real and drives it home to you, the one that says, Embrace this. Do this. That’s the Holy Spirit. Do you hear Him? This is a big topic that we’ll get into much more at another time. But the Holy Spirit is also the one who gifts us so we can contribute to building up the body of Christ, building up the kingdom of God, whether it’s in how we serve through our local church or in other ways beyond that.

1 Corinthians 12 also says, To each of us a manifestation of the Spirit has been given for the common good. For the common good means for the benefit of others. If you are a Christian, you should realize that you’ve been gifted by the Holy Spirit in certain ways. And the question is, do you know what those gifts are, and are you using them for the benefit of others? That’s something you might want to look into. And as I said, we’ll talk about it more when we get to First Corinthians in particular.

Here’s an interesting question. Will the Spirit of God subjectively guide me if I am attuned to Him? I think He often will, if our choices matter to God. Some choices, obviously, are very mundane, inconsequential, like my big decision this morning between frosted flakes or mini wheats, mini wheats or frosted flakes. I didn’t bother praying for direction about that. But other decisions are very consequential in our lives, and we should pray about them for guidance.

We should get advice from people who are wise counselors. We should be attentive to how the Holy Spirit might be directing us. I noticed, as we went through Acts, how the Apostle Paul at times was clearly directed by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it was through circumstances, as we would say, doors opening and closing. Other times, more directly by a persuasive voice within, or a vision, or a dream. Many of our life decisions can be decided by principles in the Word of God as to which choice is more in keeping with what God desires.

And the Holy Spirit will bring those things in God’s Word to our mind if we know God’s Word. But sometimes it just seems like a toss-up, like something the God’s Word does not speak on, something personal. We should certainly pray about all these important decisions and be attuned to how the Holy Spirit may be trying to direct us. In Romans chapter 8, in particular, beyond reminding the early Christians that the Holy Spirit is indwelling them, Paul also stresses that He can empower us to become overcomers, to win at the battle going on inside of us between our higher nature that’s connected to God and the world, the flesh, and the devil. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you.

And the Spirit gives you life because you’ve been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by the same Spirit living within you. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation any longer to follow the flesh and do what your sinful nature urges you. For if you live by its dictates, you will be in death. But if you live in the power of the Spirit, you will put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, and you will live in life.

For all of you are led by the Spirit of God and are children of God. There’s a lot there, but one thing there for sure is the fact that because the Holy Spirit indwells believers, we have in us, Paul says, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. It’s the power that he says one day will also raise our bodies from the dead. And in the meantime, that power, the Holy Spirit’s power, should be used in our lives to help us please God. Remember what we talked about, putting on the new nature every day. It’s a resource we need to tap into.

We’re told in the New Testament that we can quench and grieve the Holy Spirit in our lives by deliberately choosing to do wrong things. I remember hearing about a missionary who was working with primitive tribes who told about a local pastor who was teaching about this internal battle, about yielding to sin versus yielding to the Holy Spirit. And the way he explained it to his people was, I have a black dog inside of me and a white dog inside of me, and they are vying for control. They are fighting with one another. And the one who wins is the one I feed. Who wins these battles inside of you?

The one we feed the most. If you’re in tune with the Holy Spirit within, you know what is good to watch. You sense what is good to listen to, to participate in, and you know what is wrong, what feeds your old nature, your sin nature. Use the Spirit’s influence and power to gain mastery over those wrong things. That’s how you walk in the Spirit and keep from fulfilling the wrong desires of the flesh, as Paul puts it. I have time to briefly cover two more ways the Holy Spirit benefits our lives as believers.

Romans 8, verses 26 and 27 say, And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. For example, when we don’t know how we should pray, the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that can’t be expressed in words. And the Father, who knows our hearts, knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. Well, that’s good to know, isn’t it? When I’m too down or too confused to even know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit is inside of me interceding for me to God. He knows what is best for me, what is in God’s will for me, even when I’m too spiritually weak to have a clue.

Thank God for that. I’d like to mention one more in our overview of the Holy Spirit’s ministry, and it’s a great one to close on, I think. At verse 16, Paul writes, For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God’s glory. God’s Spirit in us is the guarantee that we will see and enjoy God’s glory, that is, heaven, and inherit all the good things He has prepared for us there.

Paul’s even more explicit about this in Ephesians 1. Listen to verse 14. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that He will give us the inheritance He has promised and that He has purchased us to be His own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify Him. The very literal New American Standard Version translates it, The Holy Spirit is the first installment of our inheritance. First installment.

Down payment. That’s the idea of giving someone some hand money as a guarantee of good faith, a down payment. I can’t tell you how many cars I’ve bought from people in my lifetime. Many, many, many. If it’s a car I really want when I see it, I always have on me some hand money to make sure the buyer knows I’m serious. I want that vehicle.

I give him a hand money down payment, enough money that he knows I will be back to pay in full and complete that transaction. That’s exactly what Paul says here God’s Holy Spirit is in us. He is God’s down payment and His guarantee that He is coming to complete the deal, keep His promises to us when Jesus comes back, resurrect our bodies, save us from judgment, give us a home in heaven, and all the wonderful things He has planned for us to enjoy in eternity. So, unless you think God is the kind of person who would renege on a deal, put a down payment and never show up again, then these things are ours who believe. They are ours for sure. Although the Holy Spirit doesn’t like the spotlight, He is certainly involved in a lot of things in our world, as you’ve heard, more than we’ve mentioned, actually, and especially in our lives if we are believers.

A little different than our usual lesson today, but I hope this survey was helpful, and you have more appreciation now for the valuable ministry of the Holy Spirit of God. This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. I can’t help but think that there are so many people out there that take the Holy Spirit for granted, and I hope that this episode gave you a greater understanding of who He is. The Holy Spirit is known by many names and titles: the Comforter, the Counselor, Advocate. He’s the Author of Scripture, the Spirit of God, Teacher, and Guide, and so many more.

He dwells within us when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. But I do have a question for you. Have you been passing on the good news of the Gospel? Remember, this program is a Great Commission project, and we hope that you join us in sharing the Word. And if you’d like to support us in our efforts, please, you can make a contribution of any amount simply by going to sharetheword.org and click on Give. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.