The Holy Spirit is "another Helper." The implication is clear: Although Jesus would be leaving them, He would send them the Holy Spirit to guide them and empower them. This is clearly the function of a personal being.
Other Bible passages also make it clear that the Holy Spirit is a Person. Paul spoke of the "love of the Spirit" (Rom. 15:30). He also told us not to "grieve the Holy Spirit of God" (Eph. 4:30). Only a personal being can love and be grieved.
In addition, the Holy Spirit leads and guides (Rom. 8:14), teaches (John 14:26), and calls and commissions (Acts 20:28).
Moreover, this Person is named with the Father and the Son in passages like Matthew 28:19. The apostle Peter expressly declared the Holy Spirit's deity when he confronted a sinning husband and wife. He asked them why they had conspired together to "lie to the Holy Spirit" (Acts 5:3). Then he told them that in so doing, they had "not lied to men but to God" (v.4).
Who is the Holy Spirit?According to the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is a Person who rightly shares with the Father and the Son the title and the glory of the Most High God.
DO CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN THREE GODS OR ONE?
The Bible definitely teaches that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God. It also shows that each has a distinct personality. That adds up to three Gods, right? Yes, if we are working with mathematics or thinking of three separate people. But we are dealing with a God who is revealed in the Bible as one God, who has existed eternally as three distinct (not separate) Persons.
God is one Being, not three. It follows that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three separate Persons. We can distinguish between them, but we cannot separate them.
As distinct Persons, each functions in His own unique manner. The Father is the Originator, the Son is the Agent, and the Holy Spirit is the Administrator or Applicator. Each lives with the other two in an I-You relationship. Each Person is self-conscious and self-directing. Yet one Person never acts independently of the others or in opposition to them. The mind, will, and emotions of each Person is in perfect unity with the mind, will, and emotions of the other two.
All three Persons were involved in the creation of all things. It was "by Him" (Jesus Christ) that God created all things (Col. 1:16). The creation story in Genesis 1:2 portrays the Spirit of God as "hovering over the face of the waters."
In salvation, "God [the Father] so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16). After Christ's resurrection and ascension to heaven, both He and the Father sent the Holy Spirit (John 14:16; 16:7).
The distinction between the three Persons in the Godhead was clearly in evidence at the time of our Lord's baptism. In Matthew 3:16-17 we see the Son coming up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and we hear the Father in an audible voice declaring, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
Jesus affirmed the Trinity when He commanded His disciples to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).
One God in three Persons! He is the God Christians worship and serve. In this God we have a heavenly Father who loves us with parental love and at great cost sent His one and only Son to die on the cross for our salvation. In this God we have Jesus Christ, a brother who became one of us to take the punishment we deserved, who understands our pain, and who isn't ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters even though we continue to be weak and imperfect. In this God we have the Person of the Holy Spirit as our Helper--a divine Comforter who lives in us to strengthen us and give us victory over sin.
This triune God hears us when we pray. He understands us and feels with us when we suffer. He will be with us at the time of death to see us safely home. How important and how comforting it is to believe in the triune God of the Bible!
If Jesus is God, why did He say, "My Father is greater than I"? (John 14:28).
In His humanity, having voluntarily laid aside His glory as God, He had made Himself temporarily "lower than the angels" (Heb. 2:9). In this state of humiliation, He could speak of the Father being greater than He. He would not have said this before the incarnation, nor would He say this today in His state of exaltation.
Why did Jesus seemingly deny that He claimed deity for Himself by pointing out that the Old Testament prophets applied the term "gods" to human judges?
The incident to which this question refers is found in John 10:31-39. The Jewish leaders were about to stone Him for saying, "I and My Father are one" (v.30). At this moment, He called to their attention the fact that Psalm 82:6 says of human judges, "You are gods." But Jesus was not putting Himself on the same level as these mere humans. He set Himself apart from them by affirming that He had been uniquely sent from heaven. However, He didn't proceed to explain clearly His absolute deity because these people were not ready for this truth.
Therefore, just as Jesus had used parables to reveal truth to those who were ready for it, and to conceal it from those who were not ready (Matt. 13:10-17), He now spoke in terms that would both reveal and conceal. The prejudiced people did not understand. As a result, it was possible for Peter a few months later to address people who had agreed to Christ's crucifixion and say, "Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers" (Acts 3:17). In short, Jesus did not deny His deity. He simply referred to it in such a way that He didn't anger those not ready to receive it.
If Jesus is God, why does 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 tell us that at the end of time, He will deliver the kingdom to God the Father and become subject to Him?
In this passage, Paul told us that the time is coming when Jesus will have completed His work as Messiah and Mediator. While here on earth, He fulfilled the law for us, paid the price for our sin, and broke the power of death. Today He is the head of the church. Sometime in the future, He will call the church to heaven at the rapture (1 Thess. 4:13-18). Then He will return to earth to rule as depicted in many Old Testament passages (Is. 2:1-4; 11:1-9; Jer. 23:5-6). After His reign of 1,000 years, He will crush one final rebellion (Rev. 20:7-10), purge our present earth-system with fire, and bring out of it the new heavens and new earth (2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 21-22).
Paul declared that at this time, Jesus Christ as the God-man Mediator will leave His place in the center of the stage, subject Himself to God the Father, and resume His original place within the Trinity as before His incarnation. The only difference will be that He shall, throughout all eternity, retain His glorified humanity.
Can we use any illustrations to explain the doctrine of the Trinity?
Probably not. I've seen people hold up an egg and say, "The yolk, the white, and the shell make up the egg. This is three in one."But the yolk is fat, the white is albumen, and the shell is calcium--no real unity there. Some have said that water can exist as ice, liquid, and steam. But in any form, it is just water--not three in one. Aminister thought he had a remarkable illustration when he said, "I am a
father to my family, a
pastor to my church, and a
citizen in my community--three in one." But he was actually repeating the heresy that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three characteristics or modes or relations of the Godhead--three ways God works.
The closest analogies probably can be found in these clusters of three: (1) in the universe--space, time, and matter; (2) in matter--energy, motion, and phenomena; (3) in time--past, present, and future.
But these analogies add little light to the subject of the Trinity. At best they may only
reflect the three-in-oneness of the Creator.
We must learn to live with a God we cannot fully comprehend. As C. S. Lewis has written: "If Christianity was something we were making up, of course, we could make it easier. But it isn't. We can't compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We're dealing with fact! Of course, anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about" (
Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1944, p.19).
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
Why put so much emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity? What if a person has faith in a personal God, views Jesus as the highest of all created beings, believes He died for sinners and arose from the grave, and is trusting in Christ for salvation? Isn't that faith adequate for salvation? Yes it is, but that person will believe in the Trinity when it is presented to him. It is one of the most basic and most life-related teachings of the Bible.
To underscore its importance, we will see how it impacts the most well-known verse in the Bible:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
If you don't believe in the Trinity, you would have to say that this verse teaches that God sent the first created being to die that we might be saved. But why is sending one created being (even the first one) to save other created beings such a big deal? What makes that a supreme demonstration of God's love?It's nothing more than God sending one of His creatures to save others.
But if you do believe in the Trinity, you accept this verse as a declaration of a breathtaking truth. It tells us that God loves us so much that He, in the Person of Jesus Christ, came to share our pain and provide salvation at great cost. The apostle Paul declared that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19). This statement makes Calvary the supreme manifestation of God's holiness and love.
We often speak of what Jesus suffered on the cross. But what of the Father? What of the Holy Spirit?If a mother and father suffer as they watch their child endure pain, why not the Father and the Holy Spirit?The relationship of the Persons within the Godhead is closer than that of family members.
We have a triune God who has shared, and still shares, the pain of His creatures. He who chose to create and give His moral creatures freedom to sin, and thus bring pain and death into His world, also chose to share our suffering and sorrow.
We serve a God who in Christ suffered for us, a God who in Christ conquered death for us, a God who in Christ understands our pain, a God who because of what He did in Christ will someday bring all of His children into a world where there will be no more suffering, death, or tears.
KNOWING GOD
A professor who realized that because he had clashed with certain leaders he would never receive academic advancement said to J. I. Packer, "It doesn't matter, for I've known God and they haven't." To Muslims and many others this sounds blasphemous. They think of God as so great and so different from us that all we can expect to do is know His will and surrender to Him the best we can.
Yes, God is so different from us and so awesomely great that we cannot comprehend Him fully. He is incomprehensible. But He is knowable!
Why? Because He has reached down to us. He made Himself known to people during past ages by supernatural appearances and audible speech. Then about 2,000 years ago, He made Himself known in the Person of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:2 tells us that "in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son" (NIV).
You can know God by looking to Jesus and believing on Him. Read the portrait of Him in the Gospels. Pay attention to His words. Set yourself to obey Him. Jesus promised, "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether My teaching comes from God or whether I speak on My own" (John 7:17 NIV). When you see that He is indeed "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) and receive Him as your Savior, you will become God's child (John 1:12). Before long, you too will be able to say, "I have come to know God."
Warrior For Christ, Jeff
