The Holy Spirit is the third Person in the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is never a "The" and always a "He". When talking about someone, we don't say "Bob is a random citizen, and it is a tomato," we would say "Bob is a random citizen, and he is a tomato." We don't say "The Bob," its just "Bob." "Holy Spirit" is His name. He is the third Person in the Trinity. A lot of people try to explain the Trinity so that we can understand it. I'm not going to do that here. All of the examples we could come up with are, well, heretical. Here's the explanation I think is best: Consider the world. Its massive. Now think about the solar system. Way bigger. Now consider that astronomers have seen, by telescopes and math, that our solar system is just one of the millions of solar systems in the Milky Way galaxy. Moreover, the Milky Way is just one of the billions and trillions of other galaxies. And God created All Of It. Which means that He is more than it is. Now imagine that this infinite expanse of space is about the size of a softball. God can hold that softball in the palm of his hand because he is transcendent, that is, God is separate from His Creation and above it. He doesn't fit within our natural environment. We can't understand the Trinity because the Trinity doesn't fit in the only environment we can understand, which is the world around us. Trying to fit the Trinity, or any aspect of God, really, is like trying to put a watermelon in a soup can; it doesn't fit, and if you do get some of in there, you've got a mess everywhere else. It would be like trying to describe the smell of coffee to someone who's never smelled it before.
"What does this 'coffee' smell like?"
"Um, well... Coffee."
God is just too big, too holy, too... perfect to fit in our realm of understanding.
The Holy Spirit is often abused and neglected He is NOT the "Emotion Machine." All things have come of the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches us Truth. :We can only know the Truth by the Holy Spirit, except for the people blessed by being able to see and hear Jesus teach directly, men can only learn Truth if the Holy Spirit reveals it to them. John 16:5-6 is Jesus telling His disciples that He must leave, and that He knows that they are disheartened, but that His leaving is to their advantage. How is His leaving going to be better than Him staying with them? If he leaves, then the Helper will come. Only so many people could be with Jesus at once, but the Helper, or Holy Spirit, is with every believer simultaneously.
In verses 8-11, Jesus tells us exactly what Holy Spirit is here to do. He is here to:
Convict the world of sin (because they do not believe in Christ)
Call the world to righteousness (because we can't know righteousness except through Christ)
Warn the world of judgement (because the ruler of this world, Satan, is judged)
In John 6, Jesus says (paraphrase) "No-one comes to the Father unless he is drawn." Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, yes, you have to understand it, yes, but Holy spirit has to draw for true conversion.
Missionaries have seen Holy Spirit working powerfully in the world everywhere, BUT:
Japan
Australia
Western Europe
North America
That's not to say He's not working there, but it's not as much.
The church has received Holy Spirit, if it has received power, it has received the power of Holy Spirit to:
Overcome our own sin
Shine for God as His lights in the world
Glorify God
No comments:
Post a Comment