Word of Salvation – July 2018
B.C.11 – The Holy Spirit: God Within Us
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Bible readings: John 14:15-31 & 16:1-14
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.
Introd: The accusation has often been made that churches like ours neglect the Holy Spirit.
I’ve even heard it said that in our churches the Holy Spirit is the forgotten person of the Trinity.
It is fashionable in some circles to see this as the root cause of all problems in the church.
If only churches would give the Holy Spirit His proper place…!
Then there would be a revival and a renewal of the Christian Church.
The Belgic Confession has an article on the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity.
So it’s appropriate for us to consider some of those questions.
Have we done the person and work of the Holy Spirit an injustice?
Should we give far more attention to Him than we do and copy some Pentecostal churches?
Should we look for those special experiences of the Spirit
that some people claim have given them a fresh view of faith and life?
A] THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE THIRD PERSON OF THE TRINITY.
1. When we consider the Holy Spirit we face two problems.
One of them we also faced last time when we considered Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
That is the problem of the relationship of the Holy Spirit
to the other persons in the Trinity… are they each truly, fully and eternally God?
That was an important question when we talked about Jesus, the second person of the Trinity
because we saw that many do not accept this vitally important truth.
Arius, in the early church denied that Jesus was fully and truly God.
So do some groups that call themselves Christian… like the Mormons and J.W.’s.
We believe they do not do justice to Jesus being fully and eternally God.
The same thing happens when we now talk about the Holy Spirit.
There are those who are not prepared to accept that the Holy Spirit is totally God.
And that is a denial of the clear teaching of the Scriptures.
In John 14:16 we read:
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth”
Notice that Jesus says: ‘another Counsellor’.
It’s interesting that the Greek language has two words for “ANOTHER”.
There is ANOTHER – meaning: another of the SAME kind.
There is also ANOTHER – meaning: another, but of a DIFFERENT kind.
When Jesus speaks of another Counsellor He means another Counsellor of the same kind.
IOW – all that Jesus has been to the Disciples as Counsellor, a Companion and Leader…
that is what the Holy Spirit will be to them too.
And if He is another Counsellor of the same kind and Jesus is God then the Holy Spirit too is God.
Other Scripture passages are even clearer.
In Acts 5 the Apostle Peter confronts Annanias and Sapphira.
He not only accuses Annanias of lying to the Holy Spirit but in the same breath adds:
“You have not lied to men… but to God”.
Today we could look at numerous passages of Scripture that teach this.
The Holy Spirit shares the names of God…. He possesses the character of God.
And the glory given to God is also shared by the Holy Spirit.
So our Confession rightly stresses that the Holy Spirit is…
“…of one and the same essence and majesty and glory with the Father and the Son.
He is the true and eternal God, as the Holy Scriptures teach us.”
So let me ask: Do you worship God the Holy Spirit along with the other persons of the Trinity?
If not then you are neglecting the third person of the Trinity.
2. However… there is another problem we face in our thinking about the Holy Spirit.
A problem we did not have to worry about when dealing with Jesus – the 2nd person of the Trinity.
No one denies that Jesus is a person…. it would be ridiculous to do that.
But many of the so-called “Christian” cults deny that the Holy Spirit is a person.
To the J.W.’s the Holy Spirit is “the invisible active force of Almighty God”.
To them He is not a person but an impersonal force.
Of course it’s relatively easy for us to criticise others about this.
To take our stand on this 11th article of the confession and so reaffirm the teaching of Scripture.
Yes, we believe the Holy Spirit to be a person… the third person of the Trinity.
And yet…? I wonder how much this actually features in our thinking.
On most Sundays we stand up and confess in the Creed: I believe in the Holy Spirit!
But what does that really mean to you?
It’s easy to leave this confession of the Creed hanging mysteriously up in the air.
It says little to us… except probably when we celebrate Pentecost in a few weeks time.
Then we remember that the Holy Spirit was poured upon the church.
But how does the Holy Spirit feature in our thinking, our faith, our worship for the rest of the year?
Let me put it this way:
If the Holy Spirit is a person… then it is possible to relate to Him PERSONALLY.
If He is the Counsellor then He must be the One who counsels you.
Jesus said a few other things about the Holy Spirit in John 14 & 16.
He told us that the Holy Spirit does things only a person can do.
14:26 – He will TEACH you all things.
16:13 – He will GUIDE you into all truth.
16:15 – He will make things KNOWN to you.
Those are not things that can be said about an impersonal force.
Those things are carried out by a person.
So let me ask you: In your Christian life are you being TAUGHT by the Spirit of God..?
Do you consciously know yourself to be LED (guided) by Him?
Is He leading you into increasingly greater knowledge of Jesus Christ?
If you cannot say “yes” to all those questions
then maybe you are not doing justice to the Holy Spirit….,
maybe in practice He is, for you, just and impersonal force.
In Acts 19 when Paul came to Ephesus he asked the Ephesian Christians:
“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptised?”
They had to admit they hadn’t even heard about the Holy Spirit.
And the tragedy is that today there are many Christians like those disciples at Ephesus…
they are hardly aware that the Holy Spirit exists
and they certainly don’t know Him as a Person at work in their lives.
Is it surprising then that their faith is more of a drudgery than a joy?
Should we wonder if their lives show little of the Spirit’s power and if there is little assurance?
If these things are true for you then you need to pray that the Spirit of God will take hold of your life.
That His personality will infiltrate the whole of your being.
The Holy Spirit is God…. and the Holy Spirit is a person.
3. In some ways we could even say that the work of the Spirit is the climax of the Gospel.
In the O.T. God shows us that He is God the Father – the God who is FOR us.
God is on our side – He has made that agreement of grace with His people.
Then in the Gospels God shows us that He is God the Son – God WITH us.
God is the Emmanuel who has come to us in the person of Jesus.
And in Jesus of Nazareth He came as close to us as a brother.
But in the event of Pentecost God shows us that He is God IN us.
God is the Holy Spirit poured out upon the church and into the believers.
And as the God IN us He fills us with all the blessings of God.
As God in us, the Spirit calls us to live in the consciousness of His indwelling power.
That work of the Holy Spirit is the climax of God’s blessing in our lives.
I find it interesting to notice how Paul spells out God’s blessings to the Galatians.
You’ll find it if you turn to Galatians 3.
He spells out there the gospel blessings… but he does so in terms of the outpoured Holy Spirit.
<<< READ GAL. 3.14 >>>
Notice that Paul begins by saying that it all stems from the covenant of grace.
God gave to Abraham great blessings when He made that covenant with him.
But now – because of the gospel – the doing and dying of Jesus we receive that blessing.
But what’s the blessing? The blessing we receive by faith is the promised Holy Spirit.
So the climax of the covenant promise is God IN us – in the person of the Holy Spirit.
And if you are unaware of those riches that are yours in Christ
then you have a few things to sort out regarding the person of the Holy Spirit.
B] TWO FATAL MISTAKES REGARDING THE HOLY SPIRIT.
1. I can just imagine some of you still having some questions at this point.
You might even wonder whether I’m moving in the direction of the Pentecostal friends.
All this stress on the Holy Spirit… isn’t that rather one sided and unhealthy?
I once spoke to someone about these things and he jokingly remarked:
Well, it might be Biblical… but it’s not Reformed!
And I wonder whether some of you are perhaps thinking that.
OK – all you’ve said about the Holy Spirit being fully and eternally God…
and all you’ve said about Him being a Person is there in the Bible.
but is it Biblical to now ask us to personalise all this?
Must I live out of a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit…?
Must I worship Him and be daily conscious of His presence and power?
By way of answer let me draw your attention to two equally dangerous mistakes.
One is to overemphasise the work of the Holy Spirit.
The other is to ignore or play down His person and work.
Did you know that the first major split in the Christian church was a split over the Holy Spirit?
It was a huge schism that took place in 1054 AD.
The churches of the west always taught what is in our confession.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father… but also from the Son.
It based that on these teachings in John’s gospel.
Jesus tells the disciples that HE sends the Holy Spirit as well as the Father sending the Holy Spirit.
Both are taught here.
However the churches of the East (the Orthodox churches) denied this.
They taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father.
Unfortunately that had some practical results.
It now became possible to separate the work of God the Son and the Work of God the Holy Spirit.
The work of the Spirit was no longer seen as inseparably connected to the gospel
and to the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Many commentators and historians have suggested that no other Christian church
has had as much trouble with those two problems I mentioned earlier.
OTOH they have often overstressed the work of the Holy Spirit.
So the Orthodox Churches have often focused on mysticism.
That the Holy Spirit speaks to us directly apart from the Word and the gospel of Christ.
OTOH there has often been a problem with a basic neglect of the Holy Spirit.
So it is also a church in which there has been much barren and sterile religion.
It was a faith that held to Christian teaching – but was often powerless and ineffective.
2. Of course we don’t have to look only at the Eastern Orthodox churches to see this problem.
The divorce between the work of the Spirit and the work of Christ is seen in many other ways.
Today in many Christian circles there is an unhealthy over-emphasis on the Holy Spirit.
And theologically these folk may agree that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.
But in practice they do not always do justice to that.
The result is that in some circles there is far more stress on the Holy Spirit
than there is on the Lord Jesus Christ and His saving work.
It led one preacher to remark that the Holy Spirit is the most important person of the Trinity.
I am genuinely concerned about such Christians who constantly talk about THEIR experiences.
So much of their faith centres, for example, around what “God has told them”.
There’s a stress on direct revelations from the Holy Spirit;
An emphasis on visions and dreams… and on the power of the Spirit in extraordinary ways.
People like that should read how the apostle Paul speaks of his experiences.
In 2 Cor.12 he hardly dares to say that he has experienced something.
Paul knows how easily these things in themselves can detract from the sovereign grace of God.
That’s why Paul was also given a thorn in the flesh; to keep him humble about his experiences.
It would be easy for me to say a great deal about this problem.
An excessive stress on the Holy Spirit… with all the emotionalism and ecstatic experiences.
Many caught up in that movement still want to honour and glorify Jesus as Saviour and Lord.
But I have been to meetings where it was just not happening.
Where the experiences of people obscures the gospel and the work of the Saviour.
We may never forget that the Holy Spirit was sent by Jesus. He is the Spirit of Christ.
In fact Jesus indicates in John 16:13,14 a kind of self-effacement on the part of the Holy Spirit.
He deliberately moves into the background so as to shine the spotlight on Jesus.
The Spirit’s goal always… is to glorify Christ.
Think again, for example, of that verse of Paul’s in Galatians.
Paul too cannot talk about the gift of the Spirit apart from the redeeming work of Christ.
Today the modern unbiblical mysticism found in many Evangelical Christian circles
does not always honour the fact that Jesus sent His Spirit into the world to glorify Him.
3. OTOH we don’t have to look only among the Orthodox to see a neglect of the work of the Spirit either.
Today we can very easily neglect the Holy Spirit and finish up with lifeless Christianity.
We can have our theology all neatly worked – our teaching, ‘spot-on’.
But somehow there is just no life and no joy in it.
Again we theologically agree that Jesus sent His Spirit into the world.
But somehow we do not do justice to the fact that it is the Spirit and He alone
who takes the work of Jesus and applies it to our lives…
and that it is He and He alone who produces in us the joy that is the fruit of the Spirit.
I find it a great pity… and a distortion of Christianity
that some Christians have an unhealthy preoccupation with the Holy Spirit’s work
that somehow plays down His central task of glorifying Jesus.
But I find it even more tragic that there are people who can go thru the motions of being religious
who nod agreement to all Christian teaching about the Spirit of God
but for whom it is a lifeless and dead orthodoxy.
We can come here today and worship the triune God
but tomorrow and this week fail to live out of the Spirit’s power
or even worse – be the kind of people who have never felt His renewing influence.
And then we wonder why our Charismatic brothers and sisters call us ‘the frozen chosen’.
It’s a pity that we Reformies are often more concerned
about the perceived charismatic excess of others
rather about a lack of spiritual vitality amongst people in our own congregation.
That is just as much a distortion of the Spirit’s person and work.
Conclusion: It’s marvellous when the Holy Spirit who is God IN us leads us into wonderful experiences of God.
There is nothing wrong with that.
In fact, is it not God’s purpose – every Sunday again – in our prayers, praises and preaching
to lead all of us repeatedly into a personal encounter with Him through His Spirit?
There is something wrong with us if we just sit thru it all leaving us unchanged… unimpressed.
God the Spirit IN us wants to enrich our lives thru spiritual experiences.
And don’t ever let anyone put you down for what you by the grace of God have experienced.
However let us also ask whether those experiences really renew our wonder and appreciation
for what God has done for us in Jesus… thru His life, death and resurrection.
If your experiences don’t make you stand in awe of God’s mighty deeds in the gospel of Christ
then you need to put a few question marks behind your experiences.
The role of God the Holy Spirit… the third person of the Trinity… is especially to glorify Christ in us and thru us
so that thru Jesus… the second person of the Trinity
we may come afresh to our Father in heaven and be blessed by Him.
If that has been your experience today then to our TRIUNE God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit
be all the glory and praise… now and forever.
Amen!