SERIES: The Gospel of John
Just Who Is the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: The Holy Spirit has sometimes been called “the forgotten member of the Trinity.” That’s strange, because the Apostles’ Creed, affirmed by every branch of the Christian Church—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant—clearly affirms, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” But to many who profess Christianity that affirmation is little more than words. People speak today of the Spirit of God in the same way they talk of the “spirit of Christmas” or the “spirit of brotherhood.” It is a synonym for “a noble influence.”
In Acts 19 the Apostle Paul asked some disciples in Ephesus, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They responded, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” Paul lost no time in introducing them to the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, in countless churches today professing Christians know little more about the Holy Spirit than did these Ephesians, despite the fact we have the extensive teaching of the NT to dispel our ignorance. Our Scripture text today—John 16:5-11—speaks clearly of two major ministries of the Holy Spirit. But before we examine this important passage, allow me to put it in context and explain why we are studying it today.
As many of you will recall, we began a chapter-by-chapter exposition of the Gospel of John in September of 1992, and we continued in that study for nine months, taking us up to the 16th chapter. Last June we interrupted that series for a study of the OT book of Job, which in turn was followed by a series on Finding Financial Freedom and a month-long Advent series. Today I want us to return to John’s Gospel, where it is my intention to focus our attention from now through the Easter Season. Of course, I made this decision to return to John before reading the article in yesterday’s St. Louis Post Dispatch informing us that Jesus didn’t say any of the things attributed to Him in John’s Gospel!
We left the Fourth Gospel at the point where Jesus was delivering what is commonly called “the Upper Room Discourse,” which was actually more of an intimate chat with His eleven disciples (Judas having already abandoned ship). This chat, held on the last night of Jesus’ life here on earth, covered a wide range of subjects critical to the spiritual survival of these dear friends, as well as ourspiritual survival. And no subject He broaches is more critical than that of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit not just once during the Upper Room Discourse but three times—once in chapter 14, once in 15, and again in 16.
Turn back to chapter 14 and verse 15, if you will: “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” Some of you remember the excellent sermon Brad preached on this text last May. He talked about how Jesus, whose departure by death was imminent, promised that the Holy Spirit would come to show His followers how to live victorious and obedient lives.
Then in chapter 15:26 we read, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” This instruction is found in the middle of a strong warning about the inevitability of persecution for Jesus’ disciples, but it is designed to encourage them. They will not be left alone to witness in the face of vicious opposition; the Holy Spirit will testify about Jesus through them.
Now in chapter 16 we find further elaboration of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, focusing on His ministry, first to the Church, then to the world. Let’s start, however, by introducing the Holy Spirit. Just who is He?
Introducing the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is a person. The first truth we need to clarify is that the Holy Spirit is a Person, not a “thing” and not an “it.” Unfortunately, the mistake of viewing the Holy Spirit as a “power” or an “influence” rather than as a person is as old as Christianity. The story of Simon the magician is found in Acts 8:9-24. He professed faith in Christ through the preaching of Philip at Samaria, for we read that he “believed and was baptized.” But he knew little about Christianity and quickly fell into the mistake of thinking of the Holy Spirit as a power to be purchased. He even offered the disciples money in order to receive “it.”
It is a grievous error in God’s sight to consider the Holy Spirit as merchandise to be added to our religious repertoire. It is grievous because of its practical effect. If we begin to think of the Holy Spirit as a mysterious power, our thought will naturally tend to be, “How can I get more of the Holy Spirit?” But if we think of the Holy Spirit as a person, which He is, our thought will more appropriately be, “How can the Holy Spirit have more of me?”
Now, how do we demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is a person? I will suggest four lines of evidence.
1. He has the essential characteristics of a Person, namely intellect, emotions, and will. He knows all things (1 Cor. 2:11), He can be grieved (Eph. 4:30), and He distributes gifts just as He wills (I Cor. 12:11).
2. He acts like a Person. He teaches (John 14:26), He prays (Rom. 8:26), and He performs miracles (Acts 8:39).
3. He is specifically and emphatically referred to as a person in the original Greek of the NT. The Greek term for “spirit” is pneuma, from which we get such English words as pneumatic and pneumonia. Pneuma is a neuter noun and according to proper Greek grammar, any adjectives and pronouns which refer to it should also be neuter. Yet when pneuma refers to the Holy Spirit in the NT, masculine adjectives and pronouns are used with the term. This constitutes bad grammar but good theology. It shows that the NT writer was going out of his way to stress the personality of the Holy Spirit.
4. The fact that the Holy Spirit can be sinned against proves His personality, for one can’t sin against an influence or a power. One need only look at the case of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 where Peter says to Ananias, “How is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?”
The reasons just given should establish for us that the Holy Spirit is a Person. I hope we will be careful to never refer to the Holy Spirit as “it” but always as “He.”
A second important truth we need to introduce us to the Holy Spirit is that …
He is also God. We have seen throughout our study of John’s Gospel that Jesus is God. He claimed it and He demonstrated it. But the same is true of the Holy Spirit. Proof can be offered along three lines:
1. Attributes which belong exclusively to God are ascribed to the Holy Spirit: Omniscience (I Cor. 2:11,12), omnipresence (Ps. 139:7-10), eternality (Heb. 9:14), and holiness (John 14:26).
2. Works which are exclusively the works of God are attributed to the Holy Spirit: creation (Ps. 104:30, Gen. 1:2), regeneration (John 3:5,6), and resurrection (Rom. 8:11).
3. He is called God. (Act 5:3-4).
Now, how important is the deity of the Holy Spirit? Very important, for if we know and constantly recognize that He is God, we will be much more likely to rely on Him rather than upon our own limited resources.
So far we have tried to answer the question, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” And our answer is that He is a person and He is God. Our text today in John 16 assumes both these truths and then elaborates by telling us of two very important ministries of the Holy Spirit, the first of which concerns His ministry to believers.
The Holy Spirit as advocate: His relationship to the Church
Let’s read together John 16:5-7:
“Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”
Jesus has just announced His imminent departure to His disciples, and their reaction is stunned silence and uncontrollable grief. Jesus tries to console them with the news that it is for their benefit that He is leaving, for His leaving means the Holy Spirit is coming. But put yourself for a moment in the place of these disciples and grapple with these words, “It is for your good that I am going away.” You have abandoned your career for this person. Jesus has been the source of all your teaching, your encouragement, your strength. He is the only one you have been able to trust without disappointment. You have heard Him speak of this Holy Spirit, but you’ve never met Him and you don’t really know what He’s like. You’d much rather stick with what you know. But now your friend Jesus is telling you that it is to your advantage that He leave you.
I imagine these disciples felt something like my son Eddie felt some fifteen years ago when I stood over his bed just outside the operating room of Wesley Hospital in Wichita and said, “Eddie, it’s best for you that I leave and that you go with this nurse. If I don’t leave the doctor can’t come and take out that nasty appendix.” He wanted to believe what I was saying, but his response was to grip my hand all the tighter and to bite his lip.
These disciples are bewildered and grief-stricken men. All they can think about is that they are going to lose their leader. But the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, will more than make up for His absence. Here’s why: while Jesus was ministering in His human body, He could not be everywhere with them. It was always a case of greetings and farewells. In His human nature He was limited by space and time. But there are no limitations with the Spirit. Everywhere the disciples go, the Spirit will go with them. The coming of the Holy Spirit would be the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”
Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit here as “the Counselor” or “the advocate.” In Greek the word is paraclete. It comes from two roots, para which means “alongside of” and kaleo, which means “to call.” So, the basic idea of the word is “to call along side of” or “to call in for aid.” The Greeks used the word to speak of a lawyer who is called into plead the case of one charged with a serious crime. They also used the word to describe an expert called in to give advice in some difficult situation. And they used “paraclete” to speak of a person called in when a company of soldiers was depressed and dispirited to inject new courage into their minds and hearts. Always a paraclete is someone called in to help in time of trouble or need.
Probably the most accurate translation of paraclete in English would be this: “one who enables us to cope.” I occasionally hear people complain that they can simply no longer cope with the circumstances of their lives. Well, this is precisely the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer: to take away our inadequacies and help us to cope.
But don’t forget that when the Lord says in John 14:16 that He is sending a helper to us, He says another advocate. That is because Jesus Himself is the first advocate and the Holy Spirit is the second. So, we have two advocates, two attorneys: both are on Retainer for us, both are praying for us, both are available to encourage us, both are anxious to help us become all that God wants us to be.
The Holy Spirit as advocate—that is His relationship to the Church. But our brief passage goes on to talk also about …
The Holy Spirit as prosecutor: His relationship to the World
Listen to how Jesus describes the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the world in John 16:8-11:
“When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.”
In summary, the work of the Holy Spirit in respect to the world is to wake the unbeliever up to the fact that he is estranged from his Creator and stands convicted and guilty before God. The goal of this conviction is, of course, to get men and women to seek the solution to their guilt through Christ’s work on Cross.
Now let’s look at the three areas of conviction Jesus spells out.
He convicts the world of the sin of unbelief. “When he comes, the Holy Spirit will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me.” There are several important points here. First, the sin in the unbeliever’s life that concerns the Holy Spirit above all other sins is that of unbelief, not gambling, or adultery, or drunkenness or pride or stealing. This is not because these other things are not sinful and do not call for repentance. Instead, it is because all of these other sins are really only symptoms of the root sin—the sin of unbelief. Until that sin is resolved, the worldly person has neither the motivation nor the power to make significant lifestyle changes.
When I was in graduate school at SMU, the chairman of the Philosophy Department and my own thesis advisor was Dr. Robert Jung. While well-educated and possessing great potential as a professor, he was caught up in an extremely reprobate lifestyle, which led to his being denied tenure my last semester. He was crushed at the prospect of being out of work at the end of the semester, and I had the opportunity to speak to him at length. He was quite convinced of his sins of drunkenness, immorality, and general debauchery, and when I shared with him that Jesus Christ died for his sins, he was at first deeply moved. But then his phony intellectual defenses went up, and he said in essence, “How could I ever be a respected philosopher if I became a Christian?” Dr. Jung committed suicide the next year. He had acknowledged his sins, but not his sin of unbelief.
Let me show you a startling example of the difference the Holy Spirit makes when He convicts the world of the sin of unbelief. It’s found in Acts 2. When the Jews crucified Jesus, they did not believe they were sinning. In fact, I’m convinced that most of them believed they were doing God a favor. But then the Holy Spirit went to work on them through the powerful preaching of the Apostle Peter. Here’s what he said, as recorded in Acts 2:22:
“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. (Now move down to verse 36, where we find the conclusion to Peter’s sermon). Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
Now these people to whom Peter was preaching are the same people who just 50 days earlier had screamed, “crucify Him.” They could just as easily turn on Peter and demand his crucifixion. The only factor different now is that the Holy Spirit has been sent to take Jesus’ place, to empower His disciples (even a coward like Peter), and to convict the world of the sin of unbelief. Look what a difference the Holy Spirit makes (verse 37):
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.’ With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”
Isn’t it amazing that thousands of people in Jerusalem that day, and millions more all over the world today, should put their trust for all eternity in a crucified Jewish peasant? Don’t ever underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit to convict the world of the sin of unbelief!
A second important fact about conviction of the sin of unbelief is that it is not something we can accomplish—It is the Spirit’s work. God may use our preaching, our witnessing, and our lifestyles to bring conviction of sin, but we must never rely on our cleverness or our brilliance. The reason we cannot convict a person of the sin of unbelief is that the unbeliever doesn’t view unbelief as sin. If anything, he regards it as a mark of intellectual sophistication. If conviction is to come to such people, it must be the work of the Holy Spirit.
The second work of the Holy Spirit with the world is that …
He convinces the world of the need for righteousness. “When he comes, the Holy Spirit will convict the world in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer.” It is one thing to obtain an accurate understanding of sin and quite another to understand righteousness. But both are necessary. You see, the forsaking of sins does not necessarily make a person righteous. We’ve all known people who have embarked on some self-help process and have conquered some degrading, sinful habit. The change may have helped them smell better or made them easier to live with, but it didn’t necessarily bring them closer to God. For a person to become a child of God, he not only needs to get rid of his sin; he also needs to quit relying upon his human righteousness and receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Now, while Jesus walked on this earth, there was no question about what constituted true righteousness, because He lived it perfectly. He not only committed no sin; He also omitted no righteous deed. But Jesus was leaving. Without Him here, how is the world to know what true righteousness is? Well, this verse tells us that because the Lord Jesus Christ is no longer with us here on earth, it takes another divine personality, the Holy Spirit, to create this awareness for the world. When the Holy Spirit convicts a man, He not only brings about an absolute sense of guilt for sin, but He also creates in the sinner an awareness of the need to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ added to his account.
So the Holy Spirit convicts of the sin of unbelief and convinces of the need for Christ’s righteousness. The third and final area of conviction accomplished by the Holy Spirit is that …
He convinces the world of the certainty of coming judgment. (16:11). “When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” No one wants to believe in eternal judgment. In fact, man has searched for all kinds of ways to avoid the implications of judgment. Some emphasize that God is a God of love and judgment is contrary to love (which it is not). Others suggest that judgment is only temporal (you know, “the only Hell we will ever experience is the Hell we make for ourselves here on earth”). And even those who believe the biblical warnings about judgment often take comfort in the fact that God does not judge immediately (out of sight, out of mind).
But this is very dangerous thinking. God may be longsuffering in His judgments, but His judgments will come eventually and inevitably. The wheels of God’s justice grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine. If the individual will not come to Christ, then he will experience judgment. You can count on it because God said it. “He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18).
You can also count on it because judgment has already started. As Jesus puts it, “the prince of this world now stands condemned.” That is a reference to the fact that Satan’s power was broken at the Cross and his sentence was handed down—eternity in the Lake of Fire. If the leader of the opposition is judged, so will be his followers.
Conclusion: In closing my message today, there are two very important lessons I wish to drive home—one for believers and the other for unbelievers. For believers I want to draw a crucial implication from the Spirit’s convicting work relative to our witnessing. If the Holy Spirit is working to convict and convince sinners of the sin of unbelief, and the need for Christ’s righteousness, and the certainty of coming judgment, and if no sinner will accept these truths without the Spirit’s conviction, then we dare not attempt to witness without full reliance upon the Holy Spirit.
To try to argue someone into becoming a Christian or even to speak to them about their spiritual need without praying for the Spirit’s conviction is utterly useless. Apart from the Holy Spirit a sinner cannot know the truth and he cannot be saved.
We have all heard sermons, in which every doctrinal “t” was crossed and in which the oratory was superb, but no one was moved because the Holy Spirit was not at work. On the other hand, we have perhaps also been in situations where the speaker was quite unpolished and his knowledge quite limited, yet people were all but begging to receive the Savior. The difference can be attributed onlyto the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray for the Spirit’s power on our preaching, our teaching, our sharing, and our living.
But I have a closing word also for those who have never received Jesus as Savior. I plead with you not to turn a deaf ear to the convicting work of God’s Spirit. If you can feel Him tugging at your heart, don’t resist! Don’t believe Satan’s deceitful appeals for you to maintain your intellectual skepticism. Don’t let him convince you that you have plenty of time to get right with God. Don’t believe his lies to the effect that God wants to take all your fun away and make your life miserable.
Some time back newspapers carried the story of a young fellow named William, who was a fugitive from the police. The teen-ager had run away with his girlfriend because the parents had been trying to break them up. What William didn’t know was that just after his disappearance an ailment he had been seeing the doctor about was diagnosed as cancer. Now here was William, doing his best to elude the authorities lest he lose his love, while they were doing their best to find him, lest he lose his life. He thought they were after him to punish him; they were really after him to save him.
Tragically, there are countless men and women and young people running away from God as if their lives depended on it, while in reality, their only hope for life is to surrender to Him. If you’ve been running from God, why not stop today and receive His gift of eternal life, as well as the gift of His Holy Spirit? His arms are open to you!
DATE: January 9, 1994
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Holy Spirit
Trinity
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