Transcription downloaded from https://yetanothersermon.host/_/trinitybcnh/sermons/101150/the-holy-spirit-part-1/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] All right, friends, let's go ahead and begin. So, we're getting a little bit of a late start because of the rain, but it's great to see you all this morning.

[0:10] Welcome to our class on the Holy Spirit. Let me pray for us, and then we will dive in. Father in heaven, we come to you with boldness through your Son, our Lord Jesus, and in the presence and power of your Holy Spirit because of all that he has accomplished for us.

[0:30] Thank you for this morning when we can open up your word and learn more about who you have revealed yourself to be as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Help us to know you better through our time together this morning.

[0:43] Help us to love you more. Help us to know real repentance and faith in deeper ways and obedience to you and joy in you and all the fruit of your Spirit, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.

[0:56] All right, friends. Well, if you don't know where you are, you're in a class on the Holy Spirit. Welcome. So, what are we going to do in this class on the Holy Spirit? I put a lot of...

[1:06] This is what we're going to cover today. Okay, so if you just want to take a picture of this, then you can go get a cup of coffee. You'll be done. That's all good. Oh, look, you can get a cup of coffee in the back. You don't even need to leave for it.

[1:17] So, let me just lay out a couple things as we get started. So, as we're learning about the Holy Spirit, you may run across this word. This is a fun word. Pneumatology, which is just a fun word that means the study of the Holy Spirit.

[1:32] Spirit. So, this word here, pneuma, is a Greek word that means spirit. And this little word here is from the root logos, which means kind of, at its most basic level, it means the word.

[1:48] But it also means kind of disciplined, reasoned discourse about. So, that's where we get study, right? So, pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we'll talk about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

[1:59] What is a doctrine? A doctrine is what Scripture teaches and what the church affirms on the basis of the Bible about something. So, when we talk about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we're just talking about all that the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit.

[2:14] Now, why study the Holy Spirit? Why should we spend time studying the Holy Spirit? Well, why do we study any topic in theology?

[2:26] Why do we go to Scripture and try to understand what it says? Well, I think the reason why we study theology is to know and love God more and more, right?

[2:37] And what we're going to find out in this class is that the Holy Spirit is God. So, very directly, we are learning how to know and love God more and more as we study the Holy Spirit.

[2:49] And do you remember that moment in Acts 19 where, I think it's Apollos at that point in the story, Apollos runs across some disciples of John the Baptist.

[3:02] And do you remember how the interaction goes? Maybe it's Paul at this point, too. Paul says, hey, have you been baptized? And they're like, yeah. They're like, baptized how?

[3:14] Well, we were baptized with John's baptism. They're like, well, have you been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? They're like, we didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit, right? So, and it's this wonderful moment where the gospel comes and it completes their kind of, their incomplete knowledge based on the Old Testament preaching of John the Baptist, right?

[3:34] Of who God is. It's this wonderful moment that if we don't know the Holy Spirit, we don't really know the fullness of who God is. So, hopefully by the end of this class, over the course of the next, you know, nine, ten weeks, none of us will be able to say, we didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit.

[3:52] Okay, that's kind of why we want to study any topic in theology, right? To know and love God more and more. Are there specific reasons we would want to focus in on God the Holy Spirit, on the person of the Holy Spirit?

[4:02] Well, I think there are a couple reasons why it's worthwhile to spend devoted time to the Holy Spirit specifically. One, I think is, I think of two reasons.

[4:14] One is, I would call it distance, and the other I would call it division, right? When we think about the Father, God the Father, or God the Son, right? Isn't there kind of a, even just those terms, right?

[4:27] Isn't there kind of a personal, almost warmth to relating to God as our Heavenly Father, who's powerful and loving, and the Son who has come and laid down His life for us.

[4:39] But then we come to the Holy Spirit. And spirit language doesn't convey that same kind of personal closeness and warmth as Father and Son language does, does it?

[4:49] Sometimes we can think of the Holy Spirit as sort of enigmatic, or sort of distant, or even impersonal, right? So I think we want to study the Holy Spirit specifically, because the New Testament presents our relationship to God the Holy Spirit with the same kind of warmth, passion, clarity, and depth of experience as our relationship with Father and Son.

[5:12] So it's going to help us grow in our experiential relationship to God the Holy Spirit as we study Him. Second, why study the Holy Spirit specifically?

[5:23] Division. There's a lot of confusion sometimes about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Some matters related to the Holy Spirit's ministry can even sometimes be controversial, right?

[5:35] What is the Holy Spirit's role in our conversion, right? Christians can differ on that. What is the Holy Spirit's role in spiritual gifts today, right?

[5:45] These things can sometimes be controversial and cause some division. Now, thankfully, I think in our day, there's probably, I mean, it's hard to speak in generalities, I think there's probably less division, actually, over the work of the Holy Spirit today than maybe there was 20, 30 years ago in the sort of height of the sort of third wave of the charismatic movement or the second wave of the charismatic movement.

[6:06] But there's still some confusion, at least. And I think studying the Holy Spirit will hopefully help us to grow in our warmth of experience with God and also in our unity as we follow God together.

[6:22] I mean, the other thing to consider, too, as we think about reasons for studying the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit is all over the New Testament, right? Consider John chapters 14 through 16, right?

[6:34] What did Jesus teach his disciples before his death, resurrection, and ascension, right? Remember John 14 through 16? It's that time when Jesus is teaching his disciples in the upper room.

[6:46] Sometimes we call it his farewell discourse before he goes to the cross, completes his work, rises again, ascends. What is sort of the main theme or one of the key themes of what he's teaching in John 14 through 16?

[6:58] It's the Holy Spirit, right? Clearly, Jesus thought this was really important, right? And then when Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father, like we saw last week in Acts, right? When Jesus ascends to the Father, is enthroned as king, fully God and fully human at the Father's right hand, when he ascends so that he might be present to all creation with his ruling and reigning power, what's the first thing that the ascended Jesus does?

[7:25] He pours out the Holy Spirit! Yeah, he pours out the Holy Spirit, right? So New Testament Christianity is not just knowing the truth about Jesus, right?

[7:37] It's not just knowing the truth, right? But experiencing and living that truth in and through the ongoing agency and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Okay. So this is why we want to study the Holy Spirit.

[7:51] How do we go about studying the Holy Spirit? Well, classically, we've kind of divided or organized the study of the Holy Spirit into two parts.

[8:05] The person of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit, right? So verse is simple, right? When we think about the person of the Holy Spirit, we're looking to Scripture to understand who the Holy Spirit is, right?

[8:17] Who is he? And when we talk about the work of the Holy Spirit, we're asking the question, what does he do? This is similar to when we study the person of Christ, right? Or the work of Christ or what we call Christology, right?

[8:30] Which would be the study of Christ. We think about the person of Christ. Who is he? And then we think about the work of Christ. What did he do? Same thing with the Holy Spirit. So this is what's going to kind of organize our class together is we're going to spend a few weeks looking at the person of the Holy Spirit.

[8:47] And then we're going to spend the rest of our class actually looking at the work of the Holy Spirit. So over the next three weeks, what I'd like to do is, quite simply, is I want to look at the person of the Holy Spirit today in the Old Testament, next week in the New Testament, and then the third week, hopefully, we'll look a little bit of, this is historical theology.

[9:10] How did the church kind of unpack and unfold and articulate its doctrine of the Holy Spirit, of the person of the Holy Spirit, in the early years of the church? So that's where we're going.

[9:21] We're going to look at the person of the Holy Spirit over the next three weeks, and we're going to start with the Old Testament today. Now, I'm going to begin, as we think about the person of the Holy Spirit, I'm going to jump right to the end, so you know where we're going.

[9:36] You can see our destination, right? And what is our destination when we think about articulating what the Bible teaches about the person of the Holy Spirit? Well, in 381 A.D., many years ago, in 381 A.D., at a church council, at a gathering of church leaders in a city called Constantinople, the church, after hashing this out with people who had different views and disagreements, some very far afield from what Scripture taught, the church gathered and summarized and stated the biblical teaching about the person of the Holy Spirit at that council in 381 in Constantinople.

[10:15] And what they did was they articulated in good, tight sentences, and then they added those words to the creed that was written about 60 years earlier in Nicaea that was all about who Jesus was, right?

[10:30] And when we put the 381 statements and the 325 statements together, together, we have what we call today the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed, which more accurately, the version that we all know and recite sometimes in our churches, is called the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed, right?

[10:49] Because it was completed at Constantinople in 381. Anyway, we're going to get more into that in a couple of weeks, but this is what the church affirmed and stated and proclaimed with joy about who the Holy Spirit is on the basis of Scripture.

[11:05] The part of the creed says this, We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life giver, who proceeds from the Father, who is to be worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son, and who spoke by the prophets.

[11:23] Now, if you know your church history, you know that a couple hundred years later, there was a little clause added to that, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. We'll get to that. But do you see what our forebearers in the church were affirming about the Holy Spirit when they said, We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who is to be worshiped and glorified together with the Father and Son.

[11:45] Well, they were affirming three things, and these are the three things that are going to kind of guide our journey through Scripture to look at the person of the Holy Spirit. They affirm that the Holy Spirit is a distinct, divine person of the Triune God.

[12:00] A distinct, divine person. Now, when we get to the New Testament next week, those things are really going to bubble up in a lot of clarity. Right? But today, we're going to look at the initial kind of launch of this in the Old Testament.

[12:16] Okay? Now, as we think about coming to the Old Testament, we should keep in mind that it should be no surprise to us, as we study the Old Testament, asking about the person of the Holy Spirit, it should be no surprise to us that the picture of the Holy Spirit that we get in the Old Testament awaits the New Testament for its full expression.

[12:40] Right? What do we believe about Scripture? God reveals Himself progressively throughout Scripture. Right? Just as the full deity of God the Son is only fully revealed in the New Testament, so too with the Holy Spirit.

[12:51] Right? So, we're going to see the initial lines take shape here in the Old Testament, but it's going to wait for the New Testament to come out in all of its fullness. Now, because the fullness of who God the Holy Spirit is comes to sort of clarity in the New Testament, that doesn't mean that the Old Testament is useless.

[13:10] Right? You know? Instead, the Old Testament provides the kind of important groundwork for the unfolding of that more complete revelation of the person of the Spirit in the New.

[13:24] Okay? So, with all that being said, what does the Old Testament teach about the person of the Holy Spirit? Well, I wonder if you'd turn with me to Genesis 1.

[13:38] Okay. Finally, Nick's going to stop talking. We're going to look at the Bible. Genesis 1. Would someone please read verses 1 and 2?

[13:58] Sebastian, do you have it? Go ahead. Read verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1. Great. Thank you.

[14:17] And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. We're two verses into the Bible, and there is reference to something called the Spirit of God.

[14:30] Right? Now, Spirit is a wonderful word in the Old Testament. Here's the Old Testament word that we translate Spirit. Ruach. Right? Ruach.

[14:41] This kind of CH at the end there has that kind of like guttural sound in the back of your throat that's really fun to make if you're like a German speaker or you speak Arabic. Anyone here speak Arabic? Anyone here speak Hebrew?

[14:53] Ruach. Right? It's not ruach. That's not how you pronounce that. So, there you go. Pro tip. If you do any, you know, teaching in the future. Ruach. So, that's the word for spirit in the Old Testament.

[15:05] And it comes up a lot, actually. This word comes up nearly 400 times in the Old Testament. And it can refer to a lot of things. The Spirit of God language comes up about 100 times in the Old Testament.

[15:19] But what does this word mean when we look at all these instances of ruach in the Old Testament? What does it mean? Well, interestingly, what the word ruach means is something like wind or breath.

[15:35] But sometimes when we think of wind and breath, we can think of sort of like a gentle breeze. Right? My daughter in band, they played a song in sixth grade called Gentle Winds.

[15:47] And it was horns. Do you know this song, Sebastian? It's Gentle Winds. Oh, it was something else. Lots of horns. You know, sixth grade horns are so delightful. Gentle winds.

[15:58] Right? We think of that or breath. Right? It can feel like soft. However, that is not what this Old Testament word means in most of its occurrences.

[16:10] Ruach in the Old Testament is air in motion. It's energy. It's activity. It's wind. It's storm. It's the life breath of a human.

[16:22] It's the life breath of animals. Right? And this is immediately so helpful for us. Because often when we, as sort of like, you know, late modern Westerners, when we use spirit language, right, what do we often mean by that?

[16:39] What comes to mind when you think of the language of spirit? Right? Go ahead. Fire away. Ghosts. Ghosts. Right? And what do we think of ghosts? It's a person.

[16:53] That's right. Yes. He's a person. Not a ghost. Right? But aren't ghosts in our thinking or spirit in our thinking? Isn't it kind of like ephemeral or sort of fleeting? It's immaterial.

[17:04] You can't get your hands on it. It's there one minute. It's gone the next. You're not sure about it. Right? You know? This is what we think of when we think of spirit in our language. And yet that is not the biblical conception of this word ruach of spirit.

[17:19] Right? It doesn't mean something that's ephemeral or fleeting or immaterial. Actually, the Hebrew Bible does have a word for that. And we encountered it a hundred times in our series in Ecclesiastes a year ago.

[17:32] That word is hevel. Right? Hevel means like smoke that kind of like flitters away. Right? But ruach means something powerful.

[17:44] So when we talk about God's spirit, we're not talking about God as sort of immaterial or fleeting or there sometimes and not others. The emphasis is on God's power and God's presence and God's energy.

[18:00] Right? Listen to this verse from Micah 3.8. Micah 3.8 says, But as for me, I am filled with power with the spirit of the Lord.

[18:12] Right? There it is. It's God's powerful presence. Right? Or Isaiah 59.19 says this, So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun.

[18:27] For he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind, literally the spirit of the Lord drives. Right? Or listen to this contrast in Isaiah 31.3.

[18:42] This contrast. The Egyptians are man and not God. Their horses are flesh and not spirit. Spirit. Right? Interesting.

[18:54] We would sort of think like, oh, it's just spirit. It's not real. It's not like, blah. But it's the opposite in the Bible. Right? They're mere flesh. But God is spirit. Right?

[19:04] It's power. It's energy. It's activity. Right? Now, given this understanding of the Old Testament kind of connotations of this word ruach, it's not surprising then that as the spirit of God starts to work, right, it's in keeping with that nature.

[19:28] Right? It's power. It's energy. It's presence. When the spirit of God comes on individuals, they're raised into action and able to do things they wouldn't normally be able to do in the Old Testament.

[19:39] Well, what do we see? As we're kind of thinking about the person of the spirit in the Old Testament, let's look at a little bit of what he does to sort of think about his person. Okay? And that's, this is the sort of what I have here, the general work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.

[19:52] Now, I know I said we're looking at the person and not the work this morning, but in the Old Testament, we're going to look at some of what the spirit does to capture kind of who he is. Okay? So, the first thing we see about this kind of personal power of God himself, this energy that's being exercised in creation, right, we see kind of at least like seven areas if we kind of looked at them all and grouped them together.

[20:16] First thing we see the spirit doing, the spirit of God doing, is creating and sustaining the universe and all things, right? We just looked at Genesis 1 and 2.

[20:29] What's true of the creation in Genesis 1 and 2, right? God has created all things, but it's formless and void, right? Until the spirit comes and by God's word, the spirit of God, right, begins to shape and fashion and bring it into its fullness and existence, right?

[20:49] Or Psalm 33, 6. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth, there's that spirit language, by the breath of his mouth, all their host, okay?

[21:04] Second thing, the Holy Spirit is at work controlling nature and history, not just bringing things into being and sustaining them, but also controlling how they go, right?

[21:18] Listen to this from Psalm 104, 24 through 30. It's a little bit of a longer one. I'll read it for us. Oh Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all.

[21:28] The earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things, both small and great. There go the ships and Leviathan, which you formed to plan it.

[21:38] These all look to you to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up. When you open your hand, they're filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed.

[21:50] When you take away their breath, they die and return to dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the ground.

[22:02] Right? There it is. Yes, Julia. Yeah, yeah.

[22:21] We're going to get into all those great things. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. No, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. So you can see here that, notice this contrast in this passage where it says, when God hides his face, his like personal regard, his face, things wither.

[22:37] When he sends his spirit, they spring to life. Right? Interesting moment where we see that whatever the Old Testament means by the spirit of God, as we're seeing, it's not something that's detached from God's personal presence.

[22:49] Right? Because it's there compared with God's own face. So this is God's personal activity in creation. Right? Okay. We see the spirit of God controlling nature and history.

[23:01] We also see the spirit of God revealing God's messages to his spokesmen. Right? We see this in the prophets, of course. The spirit of God comes and the word of God comes. Listen to this from 2 Samuel.

[23:14] Here's one example of this from 2 Samuel 23, verses 1 through 2. 2 Samuel 23, verses 1 through 2 says this. It says, now these are the last words of David.

[23:26] The oracle of David, the son of Jesse. The oracle of the man who was raised on high. The anointed, the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. And here's how it begins. The spirit of the Lord speaks by me.

[23:38] His word is on my tongue. Right? But David had a very self-conscious sense that God's spirit was active in him and was prompting him to speak. Right?

[23:50] And you see this in many places in the Old Testament. It's the spirit that comes and brings these words of God through God's spokesmen to his people. Right? The spirit also teaches by these revelations the way to be faithful and fruitful.

[24:06] This is number four. Right? I'll go a little quicker through some of these. Psalm 143, 9 through 10. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord. I have fled to you for refuge.

[24:17] Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on level ground. Right? The spirit is the one who's not just creating, sustaining, speaking, but also guiding us, leading us.

[24:31] Right? Teaching us the way to be faithful and fruitful, even in the Old Testament. Right? And the spirit is the one, this is number five, who's eliciting these personal responses in God's people, eliciting personal responses to God of faith and repentance and obedience and openness to God's instructions and prayer.

[24:49] Classic example of this, Psalm 51, 10 through 12. Created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

[25:04] Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. So there's David. David is praying there for, he's not praying like, oh, I don't want to lose my salvation.

[25:15] Right? But he's praying for the ministry of the Holy Spirit in his life to continue to be active. And that doesn't just equip him for a leadership role. Right? But it also restores to him joy.

[25:27] Right? The ministry of the Holy Spirit restores the joy of his salvation, upholds in him a willing spirit, leads him to repentance. Right? Okay. Then six, we see the Holy Spirit.

[25:38] This is a very common theme in the Old Testament. We see the Holy Spirit equipping God's people, or certain people within the people of God, for leadership. The Holy Spirit's equipping people for leadership, for governing.

[25:52] We see this in Numbers 11. Now, if you were here over the summer for our Numbers series, you might remember this passage, right? Where? Well, I'll read it. Verses 16 and 17. The Lord said to Moses, Gather for me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you.

[26:12] And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them. And they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.

[26:25] Right? There, God the Spirit is being distributed on certain leaders within the people so that they can govern, so that they can lead well. Right? Again, we see that a lot.

[26:36] Think about the book of Judges. Right? The Spirit comes on a judge, and he leads, he governs, he conquers. Right? He saves the people. Right? Or the Spirit coming on Saul, and then eventually leaving.

[26:50] Right? The Spirit coming on David. Right? The Holy Spirit is active equipping people for leadership. And then last thing, the Holy Spirit equips people with skill and strength for creative work.

[27:03] With skill and strength for creative work. Listen to this passage from Exodus 31. Remember what's happening in Exodus? God's just liberated the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. They're out in the middle of the wilderness, and God says, I want you to start building these beautiful things.

[27:16] I want you to build this beautiful tent. I want you to build these beautiful tables and altars and lampstands and all this sort of stuff. I want you to build all these things. And can you imagine what the people were thinking at that moment?

[27:26] They're like, we've made bricks for generations and generations and generations. Now you're telling us to create all these beautiful things? How do we do it? Right? Exodus 31. 1 through 11. The Lord said to Moses, see, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.

[27:42] And I filled him with the spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, and in cutting stones for setting and in carving wood, to work in every craft.

[27:54] And behold, I've appointed with him a holy hab, the son of Ahissamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I've given to all able men ability that they may make all that I've commanded you.

[28:05] The tent of meeting, the ark of testimony, the mercy seat that's on it, all the furnishings of the tent, the table, the utensils, the pure lampstand with all of its utensils, the altar of incense, and the altar of burn offering with all its utensils, and the basin and the stand, and the finely worked garments, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments for his sons, for their servants his priest, and the anointing oil, and the fragrant incense for the holy place.

[28:25] According to all that I've commanded you, they shall do. So all that God commands them to do, that seems so outside of their grasp, God says, I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit. I'm going to send my spirit, and that is going to enable you and equip you and empower you to do what I've called you to do, right?

[28:43] Okay, so who is the Spirit of God in the Old Testament? As we've kind of done this whistle-stop tour, the Holy Spirit is the powerful presence of God bringing God's plans of creation and new creation to fruition, right?

[29:03] The Spirit of God hovers over the formless creation, and through the Word of God brings it into order and beauty. The Spirit of God acts in the midst of God's people to bring about new creation, empowering, ordering, ordering, governing, directing, equipping.

[29:20] Okay, but at this point, as we've kind of looked through all these things that the Spirit of God does in the Old Testament, and we've looked at what spirit even means in the Old Testament, it's a fair question to ask when we look at the Old Testament, right?

[29:35] Whether these references to the Spirit of God, right? Do they describe simply a kind of mode of God's presence in the world?

[29:46] Is it sort of a way of talking about God's activity in the world, right? Or are they actually talking about a distinct person within the being of God, what later we will call the third person of the Trinity, right?

[30:00] How crisp and how explicit is the revelation of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament? Well, a theologian named Sinclair Ferguson wrote a book called The Holy Spirit, and he, looking at the Old Testament, asks these helpful questions, I think, right?

[30:18] When we think about what we see about the Spirit in the Old Testament. He asks, is the activity of God the Spirit, of the Spirit of God, divine activity? What do you think? See, yeah, that seems, yeah, it seems like whatever the Spirit of God is, it's God doing it, right?

[30:35] Is the activity of the Spirit in the Old Testament personal activity, God's personal activity? What do you think? Yeah, it seems so, right? It doesn't seem like the Spirit isn't in some way personally God at work in these ways, right?

[30:53] Now, here's the third question. Is the activity of the Spirit, here's a fun word, hypostatically distinct? What do we mean by hypostasis? Hypostasis is a technical term, when we think about God the Trinity, for the distinctness of the divine persons, right?

[31:10] The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In the Old Testament, is the person of the Spirit presented as a distinct person from Father and Son, fully God, and yet relationally distinct.

[31:25] Well, that's where there isn't a lot of clarity in the Old Testament, right? The action of the Spirit in creation, in exodus, in kingdom governing through the leaders is certainly both personal and divine, but that sort of full expression of the distinct personhood of the Spirit hasn't quite come to full clarity.

[31:50] The closest the Old Testament comes to what we see fully in the New Testament is found in Isaiah 63. This might be a good passage to turn to, actually. Isaiah 63.

[32:01] Isaiah 63, verses 7 through 14. It's a little bit of a longer passage, but I'd like to read it for us. Isaiah 63 says this, I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord.

[32:18] This is verse 7. I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel, that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

[32:33] For he said, Surely there are my people, children, who will not deal falsely. And he became their Savior. In all their affliction, he was afflicted. And the angel of his presence saved them.

[32:44] In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. What a beautiful picture of God saving, redeeming, keeping work of his people in the Old Testament.

[32:56] And verse 10 says this, But they rebelled, and they grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned to be their enemy, and he himself fought against them.

[33:07] Then he remembered the days of old of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths?

[33:28] Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble. Like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name.

[33:42] Notice how the Holy Spirit is spoken of in this passage. I mean, it does start to become clear that the Holy Spirit feels very distinct from the Lord, right?

[33:53] He put his Holy Spirit there. They grieved the Holy Spirit. He put his Spirit in the midst of them, right? But the Spirit in this sense is certainly divine. It's the one who's leading them, right?

[34:04] Into pasture, saving them. And yet, very personal, right? The Holy Spirit is someone who can be grieved, according to verse 10. So, I think B.B. Warfield is helpful here.

[34:18] He was an American theologian in the 19th century, talking about the Trinity, really, in the Old Testament. But this applies, I think, to the Holy Spirit. He says this. He says, The Old Testament may be likened to a chamber, richly furnished, but dimly lighted.

[34:35] You kind of love when you read old things and they use the word like chamber, right? Meaning like your living room, right? Like where you sit. The Old Testament is like a chamber, richly furnished, but dimly lighted.

[34:47] The introduction of light brings nothing into it, which was not there before. But it brings out into clearer view much of what was in it, but was only dimly or not at all perceived, right?

[35:01] You walk into your living room, everything's there, but you can't see it because there's no light on you. Turn on the light. Oh, what do we see? So much. Warfield goes on to say, The mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament, but the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament revelation, and here and there almost comes into view, right?

[35:23] Like that passage from Isaiah. Thus, the Old Testament revelation of God, it's not corrected by further revelation, which follows it, but is perfected, extended, and enlarged.

[35:37] So when we come into the Old Testament, all the richness of who God is is there, but the lights haven't yet fully been turned on so that we might see the fullness with clarity of all that God is, His Father, Son, and Spirit.

[35:50] And here's what we see. It's very interesting that in the Old Testament itself, there are indications that this would be so, right?

[36:05] There are indications that a time was coming when the fullest work of the Spirit, of God the Spirit, would come about. That the people in the Old Covenant were looking ahead to a day.

[36:18] So when we think about the general work of the Spirit, we see all these things, but as the Old Testament canon continues into the prophets, the work becomes more and more specific, right? It becomes more and more focused.

[36:30] And what does it become focused on? It becomes focused on the prophetic expectation that a Messiah will come, and what will be true of this King, this truly anointed one?

[36:40] He will have the Spirit in full measure. He will be the one, the man of the Spirit par excellence, right? Think about a passage like Isaiah 11.

[36:54] Isaiah 11 looks forward to this coming King and says, There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his root shall bear fruit, and the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

[37:09] And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear. And then it goes on to describe his righteousness, and his saving power. And all that comes because the Messiah will be the one who is full of the Spirit, right?

[37:24] Or think of Isaiah 61, 61 verse 1, where this kind of coming Messianic servant says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

[37:37] He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, the opening of the prison to those who are bound, right? Now remember, in the Old Testament, the Spirit would come upon leaders and equip them, right?

[37:52] Equip them to do what they needed to do, empower them sometimes in quite magnificent ways, right? That was true of prophets, that was true of priests, that was true of kings.

[38:02] But in the Old Testament, there's an anticipation that the Spirit will come in full measure in the Messiah to do a saving work like none could ever do. So you see, from the perspective of the Old Testament itself, the work of the Spirit and the full presence of the Spirit won't come to fullness until the Messiah comes.

[38:23] So it's looking to a day when we'll know the Spirit in fullness because the Messiah has come full of him, right? That's the first thing we see. The second thing we see as the Old Testament rolls on is that the Messiah is going to pour out his Spirit on his people in new covenant fullness.

[38:41] Not only will the coming King be full of the Spirit, but all the people connected to that King will be full of his Spirit, right? That we'll know experientially the Spirit in a totally new way when the King comes and completes God's work of salvation and inaugurates the new covenant.

[38:59] Listen to Isaiah 32, verse 14 through 17. It begins like this. The palace is forsaken. The populous city deserted.

[39:10] The hill and the watchtower will become dens forever. A joy of wild donkeys. A pasture of flocks, right? A picture of God's people just worn down, worn out, empty.

[39:24] Until, until the Spirit is poured out from us. Sorry, until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high. Then, the wilderness becomes a fruitful field.

[39:36] The fruitful field is deemed a forest. And justice will dwell in the wilderness. And righteous abide in the fruitful field. And the effect of righteousness will be peace. And the result of righteousness will be quietness and trust forever.

[39:49] You see what Isaiah is seeing there. The Messiah is going to come and accomplish His work and the Spirit that was coming and going and active and moving in the Old Testament will come in a richness and a fullness like we could never imagine.

[40:02] And it will bring true flourishing to God's people. And eventually, through them, to all of God's creation. Isaiah 59, 20 through 21 says, And a Redeemer will come to Zion to those in Jacob who turn from transgression declares the Lord.

[40:18] And as for me, this is my covenant with them says the Lord. My Spirit that is upon you and my words that I've put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouth of your offspring or out of the mouth of your children's offspring says the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

[40:33] So when the Redeemer comes, the Spirit's going to be on all of us and never leave. And that leads us to a text like Joel 2, which is a very important text.

[40:44] And we're going to see that in the book of Acts, right? Joel 2 says, The days are coming when the Spirit will be poured out and everyone will be full of His ministry and everyone will speak those words of upbuilding, encouragement, edification that we call prophecy, right?

[41:03] So in this sense, the event of Pentecost was the fulfillment of all this Old Testament expectation that the Messiah will pour out His Spirit on His people in new covenant fullness.

[41:14] And what does that mean? That means if we really want to understand the person of the Holy Spirit, we have to go to the New Testament and learn more about Him there, which is what we're going to do next week.

[41:26] Okay. That is the person of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. We've got like five minutes for questions or thoughts or whatever else you want to talk about. Any questions?

[41:36] Yeah, Julia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm.

[41:51] Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

[42:01] Yeah. what you say yeah that's right yeah everything is the spirit that's right yeah yeah yeah the whole time by god's word god right right it's true in the spirit absolutely yeah absolutely that's why we know you know david whatever he did is a spirit right everything yeah yeah this is it's so true what we're going to see as things unfold is that all of god's works all of god's works are works of the father son and spirit that the father plans the son accomplishes the spirit applies and brings to fruition so we can't get away from the work of the spirit which is such a wonderful truth if the spirit is god's empowering presence and he's at work in us and through us what a wonderful what a one what wonderful news yeah yeah and and you have it on your side so he's no everything right good any any other questions before we wrap up yeah beth i'm glad julie brought that up because my question was um prior to pentecost yeah how do you think about god's people experiencing the personal yeah presence of the holy spirit as we see in that song yeah that's right that's a really great question uh different or set apart in some way yeah right right right yeah if you think about the holy spirit's work in the old testament kind of in two categories right one there is sort of what we might call the official work of the holy spirit where he's sort of anointing prophets priests and kings who fulfill a very distinct leadership role within the old testament people of god a lot of that work is fulfilled in jesus right that he becomes the anointed one par excellence he is the prophet he is the priest he is the king right so that work of the holy spirit in sort of equipping leaders which felt sort of like powerful and yet temporary right that was sort of all of a shadow of what will be true of jesus the true anointed one the messiah right um however what you also see in the old testament is that one people are believing in god's promises right so sinners are being made alive by god's grace to believe god's promises and be saved just like abraham just like all the old testament saints and what we know is is that that is a work of the holy spirit so saints in the old testament were born again they were regenerated right how else could they believe if they hadn't been brought from death to the life by the holy spirit i think what we see in the new covenant though is that one our depth of assurance of boldness and access to god are this sort of fullness of his gifts empowering all the people of god for ministry are at a very significant degree higher in the new covenant age which is what we live in right so there is continuity right the spirit was regenerating people and helping them to understand his will allowing them to have a relationship with god and steadfast love in the old testament but in the new testament you see that all that just higher goes higher and deeper right because now all that they were anticipating has been fulfilled and it gets poured out right interesting that language of pouring right that's what happens at pentecost and that's what's true of every christian since then that we've been baptized in the spirit every believer right so i think there's a there's a there's a there's a depth and a fullness and a richness of our experience of god by the holy spirit that is not i mean it's you it's certainly quantitatively distinct in the new testament yeah any anyone else anyone else hold on one second julia let's see if anyone else has has a question yeah jeff maybe maybe i'm a little bit different in the old testament you see uh language for god god is

[46:07] spirit we must worship him in the spirit and truth yes you see the language of elohim god most high yeah and referring to god but you don't see god most high referred to as rock uh uh uh uh so how what's the distinction in terminology since god is one he's spirit yeah how do you why the difference in terminology in the old testament yeah yeah is elb you so much yeah yep with regard to the holy spirit or something i mean spirit doesn't you remember the spirit oh yeah yeah is your question when the the old testament never says the spirit is god something like that i don't know i just wonder why yeah yeah yeah sure right so elohim is a very general term for god in the old testament in fact it was elohim right is actually a term that's that's um i mean yeah technically elohim is a plural in hebrew it means gods right it could be used for any divine being in the context of the old testament they're always referring to the one true god right elohim that's why we translate it as god god right what you see then as the old testament continues is that elohim and you know this stuff right like god reveals his personal name right which is you know this yud he vav he right which which we pronounce adonai right because of the of the vowel points that the masoretic scholars and and the jews but right but this is this is lord right so lord becomes the covenantal personal name of god right so and what you see is is that this elohim this lord is active in creation right and you see a lot of ways that's described the arm of the lord the wisdom of god the spirit of god these sorts of things right so there's lots of different ways in which that one god is active in creation right and spirit of god in many times becomes one of those ways we see god's powerful active presence in creation right so it's using different language to try and show some of the distinct nature of god that's not all that's right yeah maybe maybe that's part of what they're trying to express what's inexpressibly difficult well we're going to get to that next week with the trinity right yeah but it is when you're reading the old testament i think what we shouldn't do is every time we see spirit of god think oh the new the old testament authors intended to communicate the third person of the trinity sometimes they're just speaking about the powerful active gushing presence of god right it's not until we get to the new testament that we it's much like the angel of the lord stuff right angel of the lord man is it god is it not god is it an agent of god man we don't know right um you know or even the messiah language about the messiah right the messiah is clearly a human and yet the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until i make your enemies a footstool for your feet and you think what is true of this messiah something similar is happening with the particular language around spirit of god right the reality is is that if we didn't have the new testament i don't think we'd look back at the old testament and say oh the spirit of god's the third person of the trinity just like if we didn't have the new testament we wouldn't look back the old testament and think a fully divine son is going to come and fulfill the fulfill the old covenant promises and inaugurate the new so we sort of need that last chapter to really look back and understand does that kind of answer your question yeah yeah it is it's it's to pick up different aspects and different characteristics and different sort of pictures of of god's activity in the world right because when we think of like the wisdom of god right the way and sometimes wisdom is personified in the old testament the wisdom of god set all the boundaries and firms right that has a different kind of connotation than the spirit of god rushed

[50:12]  upon off neil and he you know or you know came upon the judge and he picked up a jawbone and slayed 300 people right and he didn't know it yeah right right right yeah yeah okay guys we we uh thank you so much we need to break because church is starting in two minutes come back next week we'll look more at the distinct divine person of the holy spirit uh and then as the class continues we're going to look at all that the holy spirit does in this wonderful new covenant age that we live in in light of jesus