Eternity

Hey, great to have you back! I hope your week has so far been full of wonder and goodness. As we edge closer toward the end of this series, I look back and I’m thankful to God for His grace to carry me through all this. It has been my prayer that each and every person who reads through this series, or even a single post within it, will be led to seek Jesus and get to know of His amazing work and His desire for us to know Him as He does.

Earlier this week, my friend Jay shared on sanctification; how we are to consistently put the works of our former dead, sinful self away from us and progressively become like the author of our faith, Jesus Himself. Somewhat, it may have seemed like a hugely impossible task; we are still clothed in our bodies which are drawn to do those things we ought not to, and do not want to, yet still are expected to walk in the light (1 John 1) and forsake these very deeds of darkness.

No doubt about it, it’s impossible. There’s no way in our own effort can we come to grown into the likeness of Jesus. We can try, yes, but in one way or another, we’ll fail. The greatness of such a task can cause one to lose hope, and even think of the walk as salvation as futile.

Thankfully, God, who is the initiator of salvation, has already set up ways, in this case, a Person of His being, to guide us in the walk. Amazing, isn’t it? The same God who creates us, then offers up Himself as the pardon for our own failure, and gives of Himself to guide us in the walk is indeed a reflection of the great love with which He loves us.

The one who is to guide us in this is the Holy Spirit, the third Person in the Godhead (we shall look at this in the next post; stay tuned!). Before we look at what exactly He does, let’s see who He is. The ‘Holy Spirit’ is what is used to refer to God’s personal presence, the Hebrew word being ruach (literally, wind, breath).

First and foremost, the Holy Spirit is God, meaning He shares the same attributes with the God we looked at earlier in the series; He is all-powerful, holy, eternal, unchangeable. In Psalm 139:7-8, the Psalmist refers to the Spirit as ever-present, a definitive attribute of God;

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

Psalms 139:7-8 ESV

Judging by the use of the pronoun ‘He’, the Holy Spirit is a Person, just as we saw God is. Even though the word ruach gives a sense that He is simply a force, He isn’t. As a Person, it means He has a mind which can think and know (1 Corinthians 2:10), emotions as evidenced by the term ‘grieving the Spirit’ (Ephesians 4:30), and a will through which He makes decisions (1 Corinthians 12:7-11). The fact that He was present at creation (Genesis 1:2) goes further to strengthen this fact; a person must be present for a work to be done.

Now that it’s settled that He is a Person, we can now place Him in the line of all that we have been seeing from the beginning of this series; God reconciling man back to Himself. We saw God as the initiator of salvation, and Jesus, His Son, as the one who carries out this plan of salvation. The Holy Spirit then carries out the sustenance of salvation. When we looked at sanctification, we saw that through the help of the Holy Spirit are we able to progressively grow into the likeness of Jesus.

This is why Jesus promised His disciples that He would ask God His Father to send them a helper (John 14:6) who would perform the functions He Himself would do if He was with them personally, because along the way, we will definitely need help and comfort, encouragement and exhortation.

The Holy Spirit aids us in attaining the holiness (set apart-ness) God intended for us through many ways, but we shall look at four of these.

Conviction of people in regard to righteousness

The Holy Spirit is what helps men everywhere come to the realisation of their sinfulness, that is, their failure to attain God’s requirement of being holy as He is (John 16:7-11) by applying the truths of God to their minds. Even though we are so far fallen and wretched, there’s still the conscience within us that make us know that we are flawed and wrong. When we hear the truths of God’s word spoke to us, or when we read them ourselves, we then are presented with the reality of our wrongs and He causes us to turn to God for forgiveness.

Reveal the truth, most importantly of who Jesus is

Jesus said the Holy Spirit would ‘guide us into all truth’ (John 16:13). Essentially, He will guide us in knowing what is right and what’s wrong, what the entire counsel of God is, and making all things that God intends to be plain and clear. He convinces us of Jesus as the Son of God, His life, death and suffering, as well as His exaltation as the judge of all men (John 15:26, 1 Corinthians 12:3). Without Him to guide us in truth, we would be prone to error and accepting comforting lies.

Fruit producer

Galatians 5:22-23 give some of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, attributes that form in us as He lives in us and shows us the model image of Jesus; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Seal of the eternal pledge as God’s children.

Once saved, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, as evidenced in Romans 8:9;

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Romans 8:9 ESV

The Holy Spirit is God’s own personal presence, which is always by our side to not only guide us in truth, but to also assure us of our eternal state as God’s children.

Nothing is more comforting than the knowledge of this; that we have done nothing to accord God’s grace towards us, and even though we deserve to be punished and justly rewarded for wronging Him, He still calls us His own. How amazing is that?

These are not the only roles He plays in our lives, but I felt that those were worth sharing in this little white page I have. It’s such a great thing to know that the God who has set up the path of salvation for us has also given His very own personal presence to guide us, comfort us and assure us of the truths in Scripture. A helper indeed.

The whole Bible is full of explanation of who the Holy Spirit is and what He does, and there are tons of resources available to answer your questions. Two I’ve found of great value are Got Questions and The Bible Project; find out more by clicking the links.

Next week, we shall look at the last two posts in this series; one on the triune nature of God (big word there) and another on three of the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are said to ‘remain’. Fingers crossed!

Have a great week(end) ahead.