The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is self-evidently righteous and is experienced internally. If you know Him you know that you can trust Him, because He is only good.

There's an apparent difference between God's spirit indwelling a person and God's spirit resting upon a person, although the latter is not as beneficial to a person I would think.

Tellyontellyon said:

Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit would be a sort of teacher?

What are the roles and function of the Holy Spirit? Do you feel the Holy Spirit working in you?

Please describe your experience of the Holy Spirit?

Diolch yn fawr.

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It is interesting to me that in maybe all your posts where you ask such things, you ask for our experience of it, as though one's point of view was relevant to the facts.

Tellyontellyon said:

Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit would be a sort of teacher?

What are the roles and function of the Holy Spirit? Do you feel the Holy Spirit working in you?

Please describe your experience of the Holy Spirit?

Diolch yn fawr.

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The Holy Spirit is part of God's triune character.
One of the most amazing characteristics of the Spirit is that he contains the wisdom of God.
The best way to discover the Holy Spirit is to go humbly before Father God yourself, and ask that he pours out the Holy Spirit on you.
That's what Jesus said the Father would do for those who asked.

I challenge you to do that.

I started doing that back in the 70s, and have been doing so ever since.

I see the initial pouring of the Holy Spirit (accompanied with gifts and signs) as a temporary picture of what awaited the establishment of the kingdom (Heb 6:5) .

I see the fruits of the Spirit described in Galatians as more character improvements.

Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

I feel that the Holy Spirit has done this in my life. However, it might not be that discernible for others who do not know how far back I started.

Tellyontellyon said:

Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit would be a sort of teacher?

What are the roles and function of the Holy Spirit? Do you feel the Holy Spirit working in you?

Please describe your experience of the Holy Spirit?

Diolch yn fawr.

Click to expand...

This is an example of where English translation of Scripture can sometimes be confusing. Modern English lacks a distinction between "you" singular and "you" plural. English used to have this distinction, along with more complicated distinctions between subject/object and formal/informal.

So in John 16:13 we read Jesus saying, "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 guide you into all truth" is ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς εἰς πάσαν τῆν ἀληθείαν (hodegesei hymas eis pasan tes aletheian) "[He]-will-guide you(plural) into all the truth"

"and He will declare to you the things that are to come" is λαλήσει καὶ τὰ ἐρχόμενα ἀναγγελεῖ ὑμῖν (lalesei kai ta erchomena anaggelei hymin), "[He]-shall-speak and [He]-announces/reports what-shall-come to you (plural)"

So here it's important to understand that grammatically the Spirit guiding "you" to all truth (etc) does not mean "you" individual person all by yourself. Jesus is not saying the Holy Spirit will guide me, specifically me, to all truth.

But even more context is necessary, this entire episode is couched with Jesus very specifically talking to His apostles, it is part of Jesus talking about how He is about to leave them as this was Jesus' final hour before His arrest. The point is that this is actually a pretty intimate conversation Jesus is having with His apostles, they had celebrated Christ's Last Supper, and Christ has washed their feet declaring them clean, He talks about how He will be going away, and that after He is gone the crud is going to hit the fan; but He won't be leaving them helpless, He will be giving them another Helper, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. Christ will continue to be present through the Spirit, and the Spirit will remind and instruct the apostles, and thus also the whole Church, all that is still necessary to know.

The obvious example of this is the existence of the New Testament itself and its contents. How does St. Paul speak of having a word from the Lord concerning the future resurrection of the dead where the living saints are also transformed and taken up together with the formerly dead and now resurrected saints to meet the Lord Jesus in the air? The answer is the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who continued to teach, instruct, illuminate, and reveal the things of God after Christ's ascension.

The "all truth" that the Spirit guides His Church into is the already revealed truth of the Gospel, as we see written about in the New Testament, and which is received and confessed by the Church down through the ages.

It's not about, and it's never been about, the Holy Spirit personally instructing me and individually guiding me--but the Spirit personally present in the Church, guiding and holding the Church together in the truth of Christ. It isn't about me, it is about all Christians together, united together in faith in Jesus, confessing the word of truth received from the beginning, from Christ and His Apostles.

The Spirit guides me into the truth through His Church, by keeping me in the word, by holding me in true faith--confessing what has always been confessed. The Spirit does this through Word and Sacrament.

If one were to compare the Holy Spirit to electricity for the sake of an analogy, it's the difference between thinking that your kitchen appliances will just magically do their job without plugging them into a wall socket and recognizing that the kitchen appliance will only work when plugged in. Jesus' disciples, Christians, are the kitchen appliances. We have a job to do, our own particular jobs--and we have the Spirit to empower us to do it--but without being plugged into the power grid, nothing happens.

It is only when we are plugged in and receiving what we need from God through His Church that the Spirit is working in us, on us, and through us. Because the Church is where the Spirit is indeed working and working powerfully through Word and Sacrament.

-CryptoLutheran

I do think there is an individual aspect to it also in that our conscience cooperates with Holy Spirit when we strive to keep the Lord’s commandments ( John 14:15-18). I think an example of this is explained by St. Paul in Romans 8:26-28.

ViaCrucis said:

This is an example of where English translation of Scripture can sometimes be confusing. Modern English lacks a distinction between "you" singular and "you" plural. English used to have this distinction, along with more complicated distinctions between subject/object and formal/informal.

So in John 16:13 we read Jesus saying, "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 guide you into all truth" is ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς εἰς πάσαν τῆν ἀληθείαν (hodegesei hymas eis pasan tes aletheian) "[He]-will-guide you(plural) into all the truth"

"and He will declare to you the things that are to come" is λαλήσει καὶ τὰ ἐρχόμενα ἀναγγελεῖ ὑμῖν (lalesei kai ta erchomena anaggelei hymin), "[He]-shall-speak and [He]-announces/reports what-shall-come to you (plural)"

So here it's important to understand that grammatically the Spirit guiding "you" to all truth (etc) does not mean "you" individual person all by yourself. Jesus is not saying the Holy Spirit will guide me, specifically me, to all truth.

But even more context is necessary, this entire episode is couched with Jesus very specifically talking to His apostles, it is part of Jesus talking about how He is about to leave them as this was Jesus' final hour before His arrest. The point is that this is actually a pretty intimate conversation Jesus is having with His apostles, they had celebrated Christ's Last Supper, and Christ has washed their feet declaring them clean, He talks about how He will be going away, and that after He is gone the crud is going to hit the fan; but He won't be leaving them helpless, He will be giving them another Helper, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. Christ will continue to be present through the Spirit, and the Spirit will remind and instruct the apostles, and thus also the whole Church, all that is still necessary to know.

The obvious example of this is the existence of the New Testament itself and its contents. How does St. Paul speak of having a word from the Lord concerning the future resurrection of the dead where the living saints are also transformed and taken up together with the formerly dead and now resurrected saints to meet the Lord Jesus in the air? The answer is the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who continued to teach, instruct, illuminate, and reveal the things of God after Christ's ascension.

The "all truth" that the Spirit guides His Church into is the already revealed truth of the Gospel, as we see written about in the New Testament, and which is received and confessed by the Church down through the ages.

It's not about, and it's never been about, the Holy Spirit personally instructing me and individually guiding me--but the Spirit personally present in the Church, guiding and holding the Church together in the truth of Christ. It isn't about me, it is about all Christians together, united together in faith in Jesus, confessing the word of truth received from the beginning, from Christ and His Apostles.

The Spirit guides me into the truth through His Church, by keeping me in the word, by holding me in true faith--confessing what has always been confessed. The Spirit does this through Word and Sacrament.

If one were to compare the Holy Spirit to electricity for the sake of an analogy, it's the difference between thinking that your kitchen appliances will just magically do their job without plugging them into a wall socket and recognizing that the kitchen appliance will only work when plugged in. Jesus' disciples, Christians, are the kitchen appliances. We have a job to do, our own particular jobs--and we have the Spirit to empower us to do it--but without being plugged into the power grid, nothing happens.

It is only when we are plugged in and receiving what we need from God through His Church that the Spirit is working in us, on us, and through us. Because the Church is where the Spirit is indeed working and working powerfully through Word and Sacrament.

-CryptoLutheran

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So, here we have a Buddhist asking a question about the Holy Spirit, and you fob him off with a load of theological and intellectual nonsense?
Do you even know the Holy Spirit, because it doesn't sound like it.

In my view, the Buddhist OP @Tellyontellyon has got a better handle on the subject than you have.

Francis Drake said:

So, here we have a Buddhist asking a question about the Holy Spirit, and you fob him off with a load of theological and intellectual nonsense?
Do you even know the Holy Spirit, because it doesn't sound like it.

In my view, the Buddhist OP @Tellyontellyon has got a better handle on the subject than you have.

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May your day be pleasant, and may God's mercies renew you each morning.

-CryptoLutheran

Tellyontellyon said:

A point of view is not the same thing as an experience.
Believing in the holy spirit is one thing, being touched by it is another surely?

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Certainly it is different. But the point of view is, always, affected by one's experience. My subjective view of that touch is not the objective fact of it. It may 'contain' objective fact, but it is far from the whole of what has happened, and even farther from the objective fact of who/what the Holy Spirit is.

Tellyontellyon said:

A point of view is not the same thing as an experience.
Believing in the holy spirit is one thing, being touched by it is another surely?

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The way the Church historically talks about the Spirit is based upon the Church's experience of the Spirit--an experience that goes back two millennia to what is recorded in the New Testament.

It's not about individual spiritual experiences; but the corporate experience of the Church.

The danger of relying on personal spiritual experiences over and against the corporate experience of the Church is that it very quickly and very easily leads to false spirituality, spiritual delusion, or what the Eastern Orthodox refers to as prelest.

My private and personal and individual experiences are not, and should not, be what defines God the Holy Spirit. And that is essential here: The Holy Spirit is not a power, He is not a sensation, He is not an experience: He is God. He is God the Holy Spirit, Third Person of the Holy Trinity, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified as very real and true God.

The Holy Spirit is not a private experience of interior spirituality. He is truly and really and very God, who proceeds from the Father and is given to us by the Father and the Son in accordance with the promises and words spoken by the Son, Jesus Christ who says "I will ask and the Father will send another Comforter".

Men in their sin crave experiences; we desire the sensational, we look for signs, wonders, and signs of power and deep wisdom. So we are naturally drawn away from true spirituality found solely from God by His grace and toward false spirituality.

So man, in his disordered passions mistakenly thinks the Spirit is invisible power in invisible things; rather than that the Spirit is Himself giving and creating life in us through the very ordinary and visible things which are received from God: namely His Word and Sacraments.

If you want to know what the power and work of the Holy Spirit looks like, just observe the Rite of Holy Baptism being performed, as the person is born again of the Spirit through ordinary, mundane, visible means of water connected with God's word: St. Peter full of the Holy Spirit declared in Acts of the Apostles 2:38, "be baptized all of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And Jesus Christ Himself in John 3:5 has said, "Indeed I tell you truthfully, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

With natural sight Baptism looks like someone getting wet. But with spiritual eyes it is the power of God in which the word of God is true: Whoever receives Baptism has been crucified, dead, and buried with Christ and now lives with the new life of Christ by the Spirit. Even for the tiny infant brought to the baptismal font. The words and promises and things of men may fail, but the word of God never fails. And his word is true: Whoever is baptized is baptized into Christ and has put on Christ (Galatians 3:27).

The Spirit is not found in meaningless spectacle. He is present in in the ordinary things of God. It is the Holy Spirit who grants us the grace to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus, loving our neighbor as ourselves.

-CryptoLutheran

Tellyontellyon said:

We can only go by reality as we experience it... even if it's not 'objective fact'... How could anybody know what objective fact is? You can't divorce being touched from the experience of that touch. How can you know anything otherwise? How can you declare anything as fact if you have not any experience of it.

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We can go by more than what we experience, if we have information available. Even in science, this is so. We have not, subjectively nor objectively, experienced much that science by plain logic and math has deduced. Objective fact, if we cannot know it, is still objective fact —a principle, if you will, that we know of, however theoretically it be that we know of it.

Tellyontellyon said:

If you believe what somebody else says... well, they are still only reporting their experience.

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What someone says is often true, even if it is only opinion.

Tellyontellyon said:

The gospel writers are telling us their experiences.

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So here you are giving an opinion, not necessarily fact. And, if indeed the Holy Spirit is the author of the Word of God, you are in error categorically denying the ability and/or claim of the Holy Spirit of plenary verbal inspiration. You yourself, then, are basing your belief on mere opinion —not on experience. You are basing it, (if you say it IS based on experience), on your prejudiced use of your subjectively understood experience.

Tellyontellyon said:

Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit would be a sort of teacher?

What are the roles and function of the Holy Spirit? Do you feel the Holy Spirit working in you?

Please describe your experience of the Holy Spirit?

Diolch yn fawr.

Click to expand...

The Holy Spirits role is to be the promise that Jesus will return for us. He left his presence the Holy Spirit to be with us, to comfort us to encourage us and so we can feel Gods love .
God also uses his Spirit to communicate with us with a sense, an inner knowing about certain personal things between us and God. Also to convict us and alerts us with discernment to what displeases him or also to give us a message for others either to pray for or help them and sometimes to warn us away from people.
Basically The Holy Spirits Gods presence, an ever present friend and Father.

Nvm

Tellyontellyon said:

The church as a whole experiences the Holy Spirit? So everybody has a shared experience you mean?

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Yes, but probably not in the way you are meaning "experience".

Like upstairs in the house on Pentecost?

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What happened on Pentecost "inaugurates" the life of the Spirit in the Church. But the experience I'm talking about isn't anything mystical or sensational, or some kind of repeat of the historical event that happened on Pentecost. Namely it's what we see St. Peter say while full of the Holy Spirit, "Repent and be baptized all of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins" (Acts of the Apostles 2:38).

Every person who has been baptized has experienced the regeneration and rebirth of God's grace, they have been born again. They have received the Holy Spirit, they have received the renewal and regeneration that comes by the Spirit, being made alive to God by faith.

Baptism--plain, regular, ordinary Christian Baptism--is a definitive and real experience of the Holy Spirit. That's Him, He's there, He's doing the work. He's doing the renewing and transforming. That's the very real supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.

Without the Holy Spirit I could not believe in Jesus, it is the Holy Spirit who gives me faith to believe. I could not even confess Jesus as Lord without the Holy Spirit. The fact that I have faith, that I believe, that I confess Christ as Lord is the power and work of the Spirit. That is the experience and power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer--they are believers.

It is the Holy Spirit who brings what is written in Scripture to me and makes it real in my life; that God's love for me in Jesus Christ claims me, it takes hold of me and accomplishes the very thing that it says. It says Christ died to save sinners, and I am a sinner, that Gospel brings me that very same salvation. That salvation I have received in the preaching of the Gospel, in my baptism, in the Lord's Supper, etc. The Holy Spirit is there, He is there actually taking these real external things I hear and read and eat and drink (etc) and makes them real in me.

And since then? How does the Church experience the Holy Spirit today? Do you take part in that communal experience yourself? Are you part of the Church if you don't share in that corporate experience?

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The same as the Church has always experienced the Holy Spirit--through the Church, through our hearing of the Gospel, through the ever-present reality of our baptism, in the Lord's Supper, in Confession and Absolution, in our love for one another, in our peace toward one another, in the love that we are to extend toward others and the peace we extend toward others.

It's not sensational. It's better than that, it's real. The Holy Spirit is real, He's real. And He is really present and working in the lives of Christians in every generation and all over the world. He is there being the Holy Spirit, healing and restoring and renewing and holding the entire Body of Christ together in faith, hope, and love.

And yeah, in and through all that I have found peace that surpasses reason, a healing comfort for my troubled heart, I have found that rest that Jesus said He offers. My conscience is not burden down with endless guilt on account of a myriad sins I commit each and every day; I acknowledge and confess my sin and strive against it through sincere contrition and repentance--but I am not destroyed. My conscience is rightly troubled when I error, but I am not destroyed by it. I have genuine freedom in Jesus, freedom that I don't have anywhere else. Freedom to think about this world and my place in this world as the opportunity to try Jesus' subversive way of being human.

Do I hear voices? No.

Do I see myself being an objectively morally better person? No. I mean I'd love to sit here and tell you that I'm less a sinner now than I was 30 years ago, but that'd be a lie. Do I struggle with the same sins today I did when I was 10 years old? Well no, life changes and life experiences means new circumstances, new temptations. And yet I find myself just as tempted as I ever have been, different temptations, but still the same old fiddle tune really.

Do I see visions or get dreams or experience uncanny supernatural experiences? Not really.

I don't have anything other than what I'm promised in the Gospel. Which is far superior to anything else. This is the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price, etc.

What can a vision, a dream, or seeing fire from heaven, or any other thing I can imagine provide me that I don't already have in the Gospel? The Gospel declares, and makes me, God's own child. I belong to Jesus Christ. That is the Treasure of treasures, and the Gift of gifts.

-CryptoLutheran

Tellyontellyon said:

You reckon they aren't telling us of their experiences?

The church as a whole experiences the Holy Spirit? So everybody has a shared experience you mean? Like upstairs in the house on Pentecost?
And since then? How does the Church experience the Holy Spirit today? Do you take part in that communal experience yourself? Are you part of the Church if you don't share in that corporate experience?

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In general, the church's shared experience is a bit like the Catholic church's notion of transubstantiation. You look at the communion wine, and it looks like wine and tastes like wine. You drink that wine and magically inside you, it changes to blood, the blood of Jesus. You have to believe it because you have been told it's true, even though you know it's nonsense.
The same with the wafer, that also changes inside to become the flesh of Jesus. Mmmm?

So for the last few hundred years, the church is told the Holy Spirit enters them when they get baptised or, depending on the denomination, at some other time when you join the church.
But asked what their experience is, errr, mmmm ............

Basically, everything that Jesus promised when the Holy Spirit fell, has been ditched by the church in favour of liturgies, services, theologies, confessions, communions, absolutions etc. ie. everything that the priesthood can control.

Prophecy, dreams, visions, and other gifts, all defenestrated, tossed out the window by royal authority. We want none of that in our church, far too disturbing, too uncontrollable. Nope, no thanks.

@Tellyontellyon, I can assure you that the power and presence of the Holy Spirit is as active today as he was at Pentecost, and as it was then, can be fully experienced completely outside the institutional system they call church.

As I said in post No4 (&8) instead of asking for everybody's opinion, I challenge you to start asking the Lord to fill you because he promises to do that for anyone who asks.

Then you will have first hand experience of God's love flooding through you.