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[0:00] Good. Well, what a wonderful prayer to start our time. You know, what strikes me from this psalm is when he says, the Lord will complete what he has done for us. Your kindness, O Lord, endures forever. The Lord will complete what he has done for us.

[0:20] Isn't that true of what we're looking at in this class, which is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit? So, welcome back. If you're looking for the class of the Holy Spirit, you found it. You're in the right place.

[0:32] So, let me just say briefly where we were last week. I know we had a lot of rain and some of us couldn't make it. So, last week we said that this class is going to be all about pneumatology or the study of the Spirit, the study of the Holy Spirit.

[0:47] And we said that kind of the classic way to approach the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit is to look at his person, who he is, and then to look at his work, what he does.

[1:00] So, we've been, we started last week by looking at the person of the Holy Spirit, who he is. And we looked in particular at the Old Testament. How does the person of the Holy Spirit come to the fore?

[1:13] How does the Old Testament begin to reveal who the Holy Spirit is? And does anyone kind of remember any highlights from last week about the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit? I know it's early. Anybody want to jump in?

[1:26] The flood. There was a, it was, yes, the Holy Spirit. Say more, Jonathan. It was raining very heavily. Yeah, it had nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. It was raining super heavily. Yeah, that's right.

[1:37] Which the flood of rain remind us of the flood of the Holy Spirit that comes down in power in our midst. Yeah. Well, we said, remember what we talked, we talked about the word ruach, which is that Hebrew word that we translate spirit.

[1:50] The root of that we talked about was sort of wind or sort of powerful air in motion, right? Sometimes it can be used for more gentle manifestations of the wind, but often it's a very powerful thing.

[2:01] So, so this language of ruach or spirit, when I'm talking about God's spirit, right, was God's kind of powerful presence active in his creation. And we saw how God's powerful presence, God, the Holy Spirit, was at work in creation?

[2:16] Was at work in redemption in the Old Testament? Was at work equipping God's people? But we also saw in the Old Testament that the Old Testament kind of pointed forward to two interlocking things.

[2:28] One was the Old Testament pointed forward to the Messiah, who would sort of be the person of the spirit par excellence. He would be completely filled with the spirit and he would usher in the age of the spirit when all of God's people in the Messiah, in the Christ, would be filled with the spirit.

[2:48] And God wouldn't just sort of intermittently give his spirit to some, but pour out his spirit on all. We also sort of reflected on the person of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and thought, it's certainly the Holy Spirit seems to be this personal presence of God at work, but is the Holy Spirit a sort of distinct divine person?

[3:11] And then we said that, remember, that the fuller revelation of who God is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit awaited the unfolding of the New Testament when the Christ came, when Jesus came to show us who God truly is in all of his fullness.

[3:29] But we also look back at the Old Testament and remember the quote we used from B.B. Warfield, where he said, you know, the Old Testament's kind of like a richly furnished room, but the lights are dim. So all of the furniture's there, but the lights haven't come up yet for us to see.

[3:44] So within the Old Testament, all of the triune God's fullness is there at work, and yet our eyes haven't quite been enlightened to see it all. So that was last week.

[3:56] That was our summary of last week, kind of pushing forward to the New Testament. Today, we're going to do just that. We're going to go to the New Testament and look at who God reveals himself to be, God the Holy Spirit reveals himself to be there.

[4:09] And remember, we said last week that where our conversation is going is this, that the Holy Spirit, I'm going to abbreviate, is a distinct divine person.

[4:25] And we're using person there in Trinitarian way, right? That he is one of the persons of the Godhead, along with Father and Son.

[4:38] So what I want to do is I want to just look at lots of passages in the New Testament this morning that show us who the Holy Spirit is as a distinct divine person.

[4:52] So we'll start then by looking at the Holy Spirit as a person, the personhood of the Holy Spirit. It's very easy when we even, even the language of spirit, right, sort of makes it feel like the Holy Spirit is less than personal, doesn't it, at times?

[5:12] The Holy Spirit is kind of like a force or like a gas that like pervades a space, right? Okay. But that is not what we see in the New Testament.

[5:23] The Holy Spirit isn't merely kind of a force or even sort of a personification, but it's everywhere assumed that the very personhood of the Holy Spirit is assumed. So the first thing we see, I'll make a little list here.

[5:36] So we're thinking about the Holy Spirit first as person, right? The first thing we see is that there are very personal actions ascribed to the Holy Spirit.

[5:53] So maybe the way we can do this is I'll read some verses. You don't have to look them up because we'll be flying all over the New Testament. But let me just read some verses and maybe we can call out like what the Holy Spirit's doing there that feels kind of personal.

[6:05] So this is John 14, 26. Jesus says, But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. So what's the Holy Spirit doing in this passage?

[6:17] It's teaching, right? That seems like a kind of personal activity. Teaching, yeah. John 15, 26. But when the helper comes, remember, we'll get into helper language in a minute. This is Jesus' way of referring to the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John in John 14 through 16.

[6:30] But when the helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. So here the Holy Spirit is bearing witness, right?

[6:42] How about this? John 16, 8. Another passage from the Gospel of John. And when the helper comes, when the Spirit comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, right?

[6:56] I've never had a force convict me of anything, right? And maybe that's sometimes why we like to think of God maybe as impersonal, right? Because an impersonal force can't really engage with me at that level, right?

[7:08] It sort of keeps me safe from conviction. What's conviction mean? Anybody want to take a stab at that? Conviction?

[7:22] Yeah, Ivor, convict. Well, conviction is you better deal with the rest. There's a kind of pressure on us, right? We're feeling pressure for something.

[7:33] Yeah, yeah. I think it's something that by the Spirit leads to the end. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Conviction, right? The image is almost of a spotlight coming in and making things clear, but convincing us in a way that we have to do something, right?

[7:50] We have to do something about it. Yeah, which is, you know, the pressure that we feel, as Ivor says, is, Jeff, as you point out, it's turning, right? It's repentance, yeah. But again, these are personal language, right?

[8:01] Let's keep going. We'll go a little more quickly. Acts 2.4. Acts 2.4 says, And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

[8:11] What's the Spirit doing here? He's giving them utterance, right? He's giving them words to say, right? Yeah, you know? It's like when I tell, you know, I tell my kids, like, go tell this to Mom, you know?

[8:26] I'm giving them utterance. Just kidding. I don't do that a lot, do I, Jack? Yeah. Acts 8.29. And the Spirit said to Philip, Go over and join this chariot. What's the Spirit doing here?

[8:38] Guidance. Giving personal guidance to someone, right? Yeah, that's good. Acts 13.2. And they were worshiping the Lord and fasting. The Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them.

[8:51] Again, giving very clear instruction and guidance here, right? Speaking. A very personal thing. Acts 16.6-7. And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

[9:05] And when they had come up to Mycenae, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them, right? So here the Spirit's not only guiding, but restraining, right?

[9:16] Telling them to go somewhere else. How about this one? Romans 8.14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. What's the Spirit doing in this passage?

[9:29] Leading us, right? He's leading us. Good. Let me jump down. We'll do another one. Here's Romans 8.26-27. We're going to come back to a lot of these verses as we go.

[9:39] Likewise, Paul says, The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

[9:51] And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Pretty clear what the Spirit's doing here, right?

[10:01] What's he doing here? Interceding for us, right? Interceding for us. He's praying for us. Yeah. Good. Good. Let's do one more.

[10:14] This is from Revelation, kind of the end of the New Testament, Revelation 2.7. John writes, he says, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And this will happen again and again in Revelation 2.

[10:26] Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, right? The Spirit there personally speaking, communicating. Good. Okay. So the Holy Spirit is revealed as a person in the New Testament through these personal actions that he is doing.

[10:41] Here's another one. We see the personhood of the Holy Spirit through the fact that the Holy Spirit, he can be lied to.

[10:52] He can be grieved. That's a D. Last week I wrote these in advance. I should have done that this week. He can be lied to.

[11:03] He can be grieved. He can even be blasphemed. Right? Let's look at two of these.

[11:18] Acts 5.3. Remember this episode with Ananias and Sapphira, perhaps. Peter says, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart? To lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land.

[11:31] Remember the episode is where Ananias and Sapphira sell a field and they give part of the money to the church and then they lie about it and say they gave all of it because they wanted to seem great in the midst. They wanted to seem more generous than they were.

[11:43] Peter says, You didn't just lie to us. You lied to the Holy Spirit. Right? The point here, though, is that the Holy Spirit is personal. He can be lied to or he can be grieved. Right? Ephesians 4.30.

[11:53] Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Holy Spirit can be grieved. So we start to see then that the Holy Spirit has as he's presented in the New Testament.

[12:09] These kind of what we might call attributes of personality. Right? How would we think about our human personality by analogy?

[12:23] Right? Well, we have a mind. Right? We have emotions. We have a will. Right? These are all things that kind of make us up as persons.

[12:35] Right? Like, stones don't have emotions. Right? Trees don't have a will. Gases don't have a mind.

[12:46] Right? But the Holy Spirit has all of these. We just saw how the Holy Spirit has emotions. He's grieved. Right? But how about, and we also saw how the Holy Spirit has a will.

[12:58] Right? He's directing. He's guiding. He's speaking. But also a mind. Right? Romans 8.27. He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the inner spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

[13:11] Or 1 Corinthians 2.11. For who knows a person's thought except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is a knowing, willing, feeling, we might say, person.

[13:27] Person. Okay. Now, just to drive home the point even further, we see that the Holy Spirit even at times is distinguished from mere power.

[13:40] Right? Distinguished from just being mere power. I read the Holy Spirit can be said our sin we can learn our sin our sin we do something bad the Holy Spirit cry.

[13:58] Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's a bit of what Paul's getting at when he talks about grieving the Holy Spirit. Right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So we see there are a couple moments in the New Testament where the Holy Spirit is even distinguished from just mere power.

[14:10] He's the one who kind of brings it. Right? Right? This is Luke 135 when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary. It says, and the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

[14:24] Therefore, the child will be born, to be born, will be called Holy, the Son of God. Or a little later in Luke's Gospel, Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and a report went out through all the surrounding country.

[14:36] Wayne Grudem sort of, I think he's trying to be funny. Wayne Grudem's a theologian. His book of theology is quite good. His writing style is a little dry. But every once in a while he has these brilliant moments where he says, you know, look, if the Holy Spirit were just a power, this verse would be redundant because it would be Jesus returned in the power of the power to Galilee that a report went out through all the country.

[14:54] Right? No, but it's the Spirit and the Spirit has power, but he's not identified with it. Okay. You get the point. Any questions about the personhood of the Holy Spirit?

[15:06] I think this is pretty clear in the New Testament. Yeah? So I'm thinking just to hone in on one of them, lying to the Holy Spirit.

[15:18] Mm-hmm. I'm wondering about some of these attributes, whether they could apply to other beings, even non-animate beings.

[15:28] So, for example, I'm not a peddleman, but could I lie to my dog? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not so sure. Yeah.

[15:39] But I'm willing to hear what pet owners have to say. Yeah, the distinction between animal life and sort of human life or then even God's divine life is a really interesting one, right?

[15:51] We sort of see that there are certain ways in which animals do in a material, earthly way. They think, they respond, you know, I think my dog is sad when I correct them, you know, things like that.

[16:03] But I think what's different about animals, right, is that they're just in the immediate of the moment, right? They're working by instinct, right? There isn't what we might call sort of a higher spiritual reason or will or understanding of the transcendent in animal creatures, right?

[16:20] But by analogy, yeah. So, I can just follow up. Yeah. So, if we say the Holy Spirit is personal, is a person, right? Yeah. Can we say all spirits are persons?

[16:36] Yeah. Well, we're going to keep developing this, right? We're going to keep developing this through the rest. So, we'll see, right? But there is, like, what we need to say is that when we use personhood language of God, right, we are speaking analogously, right?

[16:51] We're using an analogy, right? Because God's personhood, the way God is a person, obviously, like any attribute of God, right, exceeds and transcends that, right?

[17:03] However, probably a better way to put it is, God is personhood in its infinite and best degree, right?

[17:15] And insofar as humans are persons or even animals kind of share some sort of person likeness, right, we're receiving it as a gift from God, right? But of course, in our finitude, we can never totally grasp what it means that the Holy Spirit or the Father or the Son is a person, right?

[17:32] It'll always be limited in our minds. So, let's keep going, though, for sake of time. And maybe we can follow up more afterwards, Richard, if you have more questions about that. The other thing we want to see is that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person, right?

[17:43] Distinct here, we mean from the Father and the Son, right? The Bible never treats the Holy Spirit as the same person as the Father and the Son, but always distinct, right?

[18:00] The Spirit does different roles that are distinct from the Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Son. The Holy Spirit prays to God the Father. The Holy Spirit glorifies the Son, right?

[18:11] We always see that there is a distinction between the three. It's not as if the person of the Spirit is just sort of a way of speaking about how the Father goes about His work or how the Son goes about His work, right?

[18:24] That there is a distinction between them, that the Spirit is not the Son and the Spirit is not the Father just as the Father is not the Son. Where do we see that? Well, a great passage where we see that is at Jesus' baptism, Right?

[18:42] Where we see the distinction between the three persons. So Luke's account of Jesus' baptism goes like this. Now when all the people were baptized, again, by John the Baptist, when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were open and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove and a voice came from heaven.

[19:03] You are my beloved Son. With you, I am well pleased. So what do we see here? Right? There's the Son and the Spirit descending on Him.

[19:18] Right? And the Father's voice speaking from heaven. All distinct in this moment. Jesus Himself taught this when He talked about the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost when He looked ahead to that day.

[19:36] In John 14, 16, Jesus says, I will ask the Father, so there's the distinction between the Son and the Father, and He will give you another helper to be with you forever, referring to the Holy Spirit.

[19:47] So there, the Son, distinct from the Father, also distinct from the Holy Spirit. Right? Here's another one, Acts 2, 33. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and receiving from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, this is Peter preaching at Pentecost, Jesus has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

[20:06] Right? So here, Peter is saying, the Son has ascended to the Father, and together, the Son through the Father, the Father through the Son has sent the Spirit.

[20:17] Right? Distinct. Good. I think this is pretty clear. We can usher a lot of examples of this in the New Testament where we see the distinction between the three, but I think that's pretty clear.

[20:36] So the point here, again, is that the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is not just the sort of, the way of speaking about the Son doing some things or the way of speaking about the Father doing some things, but he has a distinct, what we might call a distinct identity, a distinct personhood from the Father and the Son.

[20:54] Okay. Now, up till this point, we might be fine. Right? Be like, okay, well, the Spirit's sort of this distinct! is his relationship to the Son and the Father.

[21:10] Right? And this is where we get into, oh, maybe I'll just spin this around, actually. The Holy Spirit isn't just a distinct person, but he's a distinct divine person.

[21:23] Right? So we need to look at the Holy Spirit's divinity. Now, as we come to this, thinking about the Holy Spirit as a divine person, as a member of the Trinity, we have to admit that when we look at the New Testament, right, when we look at the New Testament, it's very explicit, right, that the Son is God and the Father is God.

[21:45] Right? There's kind of an explicitness about that. It comes right out of the open. The Trinitarianism of the New Testament is a bit more implicit at first. Right?

[21:58] There's very little doubt in the New Testament that Jesus is the focus of worship, that he is God to come into our midst. So many times, Jesus is called the Lord, right, in the New Testament.

[22:11] Even at times, called God. Right? But the Spirit, we sort of see that kind of develop and emerge in the New Testament. It's true, but it's kind of not hitting us right in the face like the divinity of Jesus is.

[22:24] But we do see it very clearly as we look at the New Testament. So, let's take a look at the ways in which the New Testament presents the Holy Spirit as God.

[22:39] Right? So, one of the ways that happens is we see the Holy Spirit kind of working alongside Father and Son.

[23:00] What we might say equally. Right? He's sort of equated in his working with Father and Son on par with them.

[23:14] So, think about this. The Son and the Spirit are often talked about side by side. Right? Listen to this passage from Acts 9.31. So, the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit and multiplied.

[23:37] Right? The Lord and the Spirit right alongside one another in this work. Seemingly no kind of difference of honor or importance there.

[23:49] Or, think about the way in which the Son and the Spirit are sort of seen as working in tandem in Romans 8, 9 through 11. Paul says, you, however, are not in the flesh, speaking of believers here, but in the Spirit.

[24:00] If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

[24:12] If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. You see Paul here sort of bouncing around, right?

[24:24] The Spirit is the Spirit of God. The Spirit is also the Spirit of the Son, right? Why does Paul talk about them that way, right? Not because, as we mentioned before, not because the Spirit sort of is the Son, right?

[24:36] But because their work is so united, right? So we see that the Spirit sort of working alongside the Son, showing his sort of equality to the Son in his divinity.

[24:54] So here's another one, Romans 15, 30 says, I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf. Right?

[25:05] How about 1 Corinthians 6, 11? Paul talking about how the Corinthians have been saved, how they've been brought into God's people. He says, and such were some of you, you lived a life apart from God.

[25:17] But he says, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Okay? So what's the point I'm trying to show here is that we start to see the Spirit's divinity as we see how the Bible talks about him working right in tandem with the Son.

[25:39] As if there's no sort of like difference in their importance or their honor that they should receive. I think the second thing we start to see is not just the Holy Spirit working alongside the Son, right?

[25:54] But we start to see what are sometimes called triadic passages in the New Testament. Where not just the Holy Spirit's work with the Son is incredibly united, but with all three members of the Trinity.

[26:09] The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit seems working as one. Right? So, if you look at, let's look actually at Ephesians 3.

[26:22] Turn with me to Ephesians 3 actually. Let's look at that passage together. Not Ephesians 3. Ephesians 1, 3 through 14. Chapter 1, verse 3.

[26:50] So, Paul begins, he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

[27:00] even as he, right, the Father, shows us in him, Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he, the Father, predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he's blessed us in the beloved.

[27:23] So, who's the kind of main actor of verses 3 through 6 here? who's doing a lot of the acting here? The Father, right?

[27:33] The Father's choosing us, right? He's predestining us. Okay, now, verse 7. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

[27:44] Who's the him here? Pretty obvious. Christ, right? The Son. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the purpose of his will, the mystery of his will, excuse me, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

[28:09] Okay, who's the main actor in this second part? The Son, right? The Son. The Father has planned, right? The Son has accomplished through his life and death and resurrection, right?

[28:22] Now, 11 through 14. In him, again, this is Christ, in him we've obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

[28:36] In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

[28:54] So, as the accomplished work of Christ is then declared to us and we believe and we are saved and we are included in this great plan and purpose of the Father accomplished by the Son, who is at work?

[29:10] The Holy Spirit, right? The Holy Spirit is the one who applies the accomplished work of Christ to believers and out into the rest of creation. So, you see here that and what's interesting in Ephesians is that this is one long continuous sentence, right?

[29:27] One long continuous sentence where Paul, praising God, speaks on equal terms of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the accomplishment of our redemption, right?

[29:42] This is just one, this is probably one, this is one of many passages where we see this, these triadic sort of things happening in the pages of the New Testament. Let me just kind of look through a couple more of them.

[29:55] I'll just read these for you. Let's see, how about 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 through 14? Paul says, but we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in truth.

[30:17] To this he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So there you see God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and God the Son all working in one to the end of our salvation.

[30:30] Here's another one from Titus 3, verses 4 through 7. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

[30:56] One last one from Peter. First Peter 1 and 2. Peter starts his first letter by saying, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

[31:18] Right? Now, now consider, right, what implicitly are the New Testament authors saying about the Holy Spirit as they put him on par with Father and Son in the work of redemption?

[31:37] Right? It would be sort of like this, like imagine, so do you all know that LeBron James is going to play for the 76ers this winter, right? Some are shaking your head now.

[31:50] Right. So LeBron James is going to play for the 76ers. We'll see what happens. But, you know, if I was like, hey, you know, thanks to LeBron James and Maxie, who's their super fast sport card, and me, the fan in the stance, we're going to win the championship this year.

[32:08] You're like, I don't, that doesn't quite, I think you're putting yourself on a little too high of a level, Nick, right? Like, I don't think you really have that role to play in the working of the championship.

[32:21] But without skipping a beat, almost every New Testament author just says the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all at par, right? The Spirit is not the fan in the stands cheering it on, right?

[32:36] He is God applying applying and bringing to completion what the Father has planned and the Son has accomplished. Yeah. There you go, good.

[32:49] Yes, I'm winning you over. That's right, that's right. Yeah. Good. All right, let's keep going because I want to leave a little time for questions at the end.

[33:01] Three, the New Testament does at times equate the Holy Spirit with the Lord of the Old Testament. Oh man, my hand rang so bad.

[33:14] Sorry guys. We talked a little bit about this word Lord last time. The Holy Spirit is at times equated, is a Q, equated with the Lord of the Old Testament, right?

[33:27] He's also called holy numerous times, right? And who is holy in the Old Testament but God himself, right? God alone is the Holy One.

[33:38] Glory, which is reserved for the Lord, right? The Spirit is the Spirit of glory in the New Testament, right? Peter says, if you're insulted for the name of Christ, this is 1 Peter 4.14, you're blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you, right?

[33:58] Also, how is the Spirit sort of equated with the Lord? Well, the Spirit is the one who gives life and life is something that only God can give, right? Life is something that only the Lord gives in the Bible and yet the Spirit is so many times called the Spirit of life, the one who gives life.

[34:17] Look at how this plays out in the Gospel of John, for example. John 5.21 says, for as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. So there we see that the Son is being equated with the Father, right?

[34:29] Just like the Father gives life, which is something only God can do, so the Son gives life, which is something only God can do, so the Son is God. Again, for as the Father has life in himself, so he's granted the Son also to have life in himself, so there's the Father and the Son, right?

[34:45] But then listen to John 6 a little later in that same chapter, in the next chapter. What does Jesus say? It's the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all.

[34:56] The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. It's the Spirit who gives life. Now, Romans 8, 2, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Jesus Christ from the law of sin and death.

[35:12] Or 2 Corinthians 3, 6, where Paul says, God has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, this new covenant not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, right?

[35:26] The Spirit is the life giver. There are even times in the New Testament where the Holy Spirit is kind of referred to as God.

[35:38] These aren't as kind of explicit but they happen, right? Here's an example of this equated with the Lord of the Old Testament called God. So again, back to the episode with Ananias and Sapphira.

[35:53] Let's read the rest of that. So Peter says, Ananias, why has the Spirit filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? Peter goes on and says, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?

[36:05] After it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you've contrived this deed in your heart? You've not lied to man but to God. You see what Peter does there almost just naturally, right?

[36:19] Ananias says, yes, lied to the church. He's lied to the Holy Spirit and in lying to the Holy Spirit, who has he lied to? To God, right? Again, this isn't something that would just sort of stumble out, right?

[36:31] If I was like, Zerion, you lied to me and in lying to me, you lied to God. Now, there's a sense in which that's true, right? All falsehood is an offense against God but not me personally, right?

[36:43] Like, I'm not God being lied to but according to Peter, lying to the Holy Spirit is indeed lying to God himself, right? We won't look at these in detail but we could look through the rest of the Old, the rest of the New Testament and see where the Holy Spirit is described as having the attributes of God.

[37:08] Attributes of God. the Holy Spirit is the one who is presented as omnipotent. He's active in creation, right?

[37:19] He's the one who can cause even a virgin to give birth, right? To conceive, right? The Holy Spirit is omniscient. The Spirit searches everything, 1 Corinthians 2.10 says, even the depths of God.

[37:35] Friends, if the Holy Spirit knows the depths of God, what does he not know? The only one who can know God fully is God, right?

[37:46] The Holy Spirit is also presented in the Bible as omnipresent. Psalm 138, where can I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? Holy Spirit doesn't just have the attributes of God, right?

[37:56] But we saw this a little bit in these triadic passages. He does the works of God, right? He does the works of God.

[38:09] He creates creates in Genesis 1. He preserves in Psalm 104. He does miracles in Matthew 12. The Holy Spirit is the one who causes sinners to become alive in regeneration.

[38:20] That's John 3, right? The Holy Spirit is the one who sanctifies us, who continues to make us holy in 2 Thessalonians 2. And the Holy Spirit is the one who will resurrect us, right?

[38:32] Now, I'm skipping over those pretty quickly because we're going to circle back around in the second half of this class when we look at the work of the Holy Spirit and talk about each one of those things, right? Lastly, think about this, that the Holy Spirit receives the worship of God, right?

[38:50] Think about this verse from Matthew 28 that we sort of just kind of say so easily in the church to become so familiar and so sweet to us. But think of how profound it is when Jesus says in Matthew 28, 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

[39:13] Into whose name, singular, one name, are we baptized? The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Is there any difference ontologically, theologically, between the Spirit and the Son and the Father?

[39:33] No, they are all the one God such that when we baptize people into the new covenant, into salvation, right? We are baptizing them into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

[39:47] Or think about this benediction that Paul gives at the end of 2 Corinthians 13, 14. You've heard this a lot if you've been at Trinity, right? Because we'll say it at the end of our services. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, referring there to the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

[40:07] When Paul wants to bless the churches, does he bless them just in the name of Jesus or just in the name of Jesus and the Father? No, the name of the Son and the Father and the Spirit.

[40:21] So, the Holy Spirit comes forth from the pages of the New Testament as a distinct, divine person. One with the Father and the Son.

[40:32] Co-equal with the Father and the Son. So, what does that mean real briefly? I think just two quick things and then we'll just talk a little bit about questions. I think the first thing is the Holy Spirit deserves our worship, our honor, and our praise.

[40:47] What does the Nicene Creed say that summarizes all these things for the church, right? We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the life giver, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

[41:00] That we'll get at it a couple hundred years later. Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who along with Father and Son is what? Worshipped and glorified, right? We are not idolaters when we worship the Holy Spirit.

[41:13] We are worshiping God because the Holy Spirit is God, right? So, we should worship, honor, and praise the Holy Spirit, right? You can even pray to the Holy Spirit.

[41:24] The New Testament has pictures of that, right? The second thing I'll mention when we think about the Holy Spirit as a distinct divine person, as we see his equality with Father and Son and the unity of God, of the triune God, we have to also say that the work of the Holy Spirit, which is what we'll start looking at in weeks to come, the work of the Holy Spirit must never be separated from Father and Son, right?

[41:51] That what the Holy Spirit does is bring to completion, bring to fruition, what the Father has planned, what the Son has accomplished, right?

[42:03] We mustn't think that the Spirit's sort of off doing his own thing, that he's sort of, he's gone rogue in the Godhead, right? No, no, no, no, no. The Spirit is always the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Christ, the one God.

[42:18] And we'll talk a little bit more about the implications of that in weeks to come. Okay. Um, one, any questions about the person of the Holy Spirit before we conclude?

[42:35] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[42:47] Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[43:01] He's with us. Always at the end of age. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[43:14] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to ask what Jesus intends there when he says, I'm with you always, even at the end of the age. Does he mean, I'm with you by the agency of the Holy Spirit whom I'm about to send?

[43:25] Or does he mean, I'm with you by virtue of my divine nature that when I ascend to the Father, like, we often think that, like, when Jesus ascended, he, like, went away, right?

[43:35] It's like, uh-oh, Jesus went away. And he did. In his human nature, he did, right? He's not here in his human nature, right? But the biblical understanding of heaven and earth, right, is that when Jesus ascends to the Father, he is now the ruler of all things, right?

[43:56] That heaven and earth overlap and interlock in ways that because Jesus is now enthroned in heaven, he and his divine nature literally is present to all things.

[44:08] That he is now, as Ephesians will say, he can, he's, he can fill all things, right? The fullness of him. The church is the fullness of him who fills all in all, right?

[44:18] So I think, you know, is Jesus personally present to us? Yes. Is that personal presence worked out by the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Yes. Yeah.

[44:29] Yeah. There's two other passages where Jesus said, yeah, I'll come in and suck with you. That's right. So that's a personal connection. Yeah. I forgot what the other one is.

[44:41] Yeah. Where two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Giovanni. I have a question related to the difference between the Holy Spirit and the Old Testament.

[44:53] Yeah, sure. Yeah. In the Old Testament, it seems like all living things are described as having the spirit of God. Yeah. As having the one of God.

[45:05] Yeah. But in the New Testament, it's very clear that only the believers receive the Lord. Right. So what's the difference between the spirit of God that gives life to others, all things, and the spirit of God that is considered only to the Lord?

[45:22] Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good question. What's the difference between the Holy Spirit's work, what we see in the Old Testament, his work in kind of creation and preservation and sustaining of all things, but then in this unique way in the New Testament where he is sort of present, active in believers in a particular way.

[45:37] And I think it's just that, Giovanni, actually. Right? I think it is true in Old and in New Testament. It is a truth of God, right? That the Holy Spirit is the one who preserves and keeps all things.

[45:50] Right? In so far as we have breath, right, it is given to us by means of God's sustaining work. God the Holy Spirit keeping us in existence as it were.

[46:03] Right? And yet, that work of creation and preservation is distinct from the work of redemption. Right? And you see that in the Old Testament as well. Right? That the Spirit's activity, though kind of limited in ways that it's not in the New Testament.

[46:17] Right? That work of, you know, falling on the craftsmen in Exodus and giving them skill to build the tabernacle. Right? That's a unique and different thing than the fact that the Lord gives breath and life to everything.

[46:29] Also, one other thing to be mindful of in the Old Testament is that, you know, this spirit language, when the Old Testament uses spirit language, it's not always talking about God the Holy Spirit. Right? Sometimes it's just our own life, our own life breath, our own life energy.

[46:42] Which, of course, we know theologically is upheld by God, preserved by God, is a gift of God, but it's not identical to God the Holy Spirit. So sometimes in those passages we have to be just thoughtful that spirit language can be used in multiple ways in the Old Testament.

[46:58] Yeah, Julia? That's correct. Yeah, that's correct. And that is right. Yeah. They're being preserved and kept in their existence by the Holy Spirit.

[47:11] Right? But they have not been born again. They have not been, they've been not given spiritual life. They've been not brought from spiritual death to spiritual life by the Holy Spirit as unbelievers. Yeah.

[47:25] Yeah. Apart from Christ, we do not. That is a fact. Yeah. Yeah. Jonathan. When two or more gather in his name, in some senses, present. Yeah. Is the idea that Jesus sort of present with them on earth or that people gather in some way are in a heaven-like or paradise-like state?

[47:44] Oh, that's a really good question. Yeah. You know, it's funny when you read how the church is described in the New Testament that it is described as a colony of heaven on earth.

[47:59] Right? That it is the outpost of God's kingdom work. Right? We're going to see this in less than 10 minutes in the service. Right? When Jesus ascends to the Father, right, he and his humanity, right, unites earth to heaven.

[48:14] Right? That the breach has been solved when the risen king sits in heaven. Right? This great divide that has happened between God and creation because of sin has been forged in the person of the Son.

[48:27] Right? So, when the king sits in heaven, what then happens? He sends his spirit from heaven to earth. Why? So that we can all get sucked up into heaven one day?

[48:39] Well, yeah, that's great news. Right? When we die, we go to be with the Lord. What wonderful news. But the whole plan, right, the whole plan is that heaven will invade earth and recreate it and become a new creation.

[48:49] Right? So when Jesus says, when two or three gather my name, there I am in the midst, it's kind of both and, Jonathan, actually. Yes, Jesus is here in our midst because the church, if we had eyes to see it, was meant to be this kind of advanced signpost of the new creation of heaven and earth reunited at last.

[49:09] Right? And of course, we do that imperfectly in this age, right? Because the work isn't complete, right? Jesus has not returned to be all in all, but the kingdom is advancing, right?

[49:21] So, yeah, Chris? in John 14, may Jesus That's right. I think that's a really good way of distinguishing that. You know, like anyone who has ever had saving faith in God, no matter under which covenant they lived, the Holy Spirit was working in them, right? Now, the Old Testament doesn't unpack the doctrine of regeneration that we're going to talk about in a couple of weeks as explicitly in the New Testament, but that is true, right? That is a theological fact, right? So it is true that those disciples who are believing in Jesus, yes, falteringly, yes, imperfectly, but we're still believing, right?

[50:23] The Holy Spirit was indeed with them, right? The distinction after Jesus' ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost is that at that moment, right, what is sometimes called the new covenant work of the Holy Spirit begins, right? Because Jesus, as the sort of crucified, risen King who's accomplished the work of redemption because he sits at the Father's right hand, now the Holy Spirit can come and begin applying that work in ways that the Old Testament just spoke of, right? And one of the ways the Old Testament talks, or the New Testament talks about that is that the Holy Spirit now indwells us, fills us in a way that was only seen in kind of partial ways in the Old Testament, right? So when Peter gets up, again, we're going to look at this in five minutes, you know, when Peter gets up at Pentecost and says, I don't know, we're not drunk with wine, this is what Joel talked about, the Spirit's going to fall on all flesh, right? And we're all going to prophesy, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's the kind of distinction between the preparatory work of the Old Testament and the fulfillment in the

[51:23] New. Yeah. Time for one more. Richard? I have a lot of the just question, actually, but like, the person of the Spirit, there are like also passages in the New Testament that sort of equate Jesus, the Lord, with the Spirit.

[51:38] Yeah, 2 Corinthians 3.16, the Lord is the Spirit, right? What's going on there? The Spirit of the Lord. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of, that is a really interesting passage, right? There are two ways that I think we can understand that passage in 2 Corinthians. I think probably what Paul is saying there, it is most common when we see Lord language in the New Testament, that the New Testament authors are applying the divine name, right, to the Son, to Jesus, right? That this happens so regularly in the New Testament that it almost becomes commonplace to refer to Jesus as Lord, right? However, it is true, sorry, you can't see this, the Father and the Holy Spirit, right, are Lord, right? The one God who revealed himself in the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit and is the Son and is the Father, they are all God, right? So one way of understanding what Paul's doing in 2 Corinthians is that he's not referring to Jesus there, but to the Old Testament name of God, Yahweh, which he's making a contrast between old and new there in that passage, right, to say the Spirit is the Lord. He is the one who opens eyes, right? The other way some commentators understand that is that it's speaking about the work of the Son and the Spirit in such tandem and in such unity that he's sort of just demonstrating their kind of joint work in this work of redemption and regeneration. So I think it's probably this one.

[53:14] Can't you tell from my scribbles that this looks more plausible, Richard? That is, that's probably the one passage where the identity of Son and Spirit seemingly, like one way of reading that passage, they look so close that maybe it looks like the Spirit is just like Jesus in action now, but man, every other passage, even the ones that talk about the Spirit of Christ and things like that, it's very clear from those passages that, that the Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ, right? Because what is the Spirit's work? One, he's not just sent by the Son, therefore he is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit that Christ sends, but he is the one who kind of fulfills and executes and applies the work that the Son has accomplished, right? So he is the Son's agent in the outfolding of redemption, right? So, yeah. Good. Okay, friends, we should stop there. Here's what I'm going to tell you all. Stay tuned to the weekly email this week because we may not have Sunday school next week.

[54:12] I will be out of town and I don't yet have a teacher lined up next week. So if we don't have someone to teach next week, we'll just skip and we'll pick up the following week. Whatever happens, we'll make it known in the weekly email. So watch the weekly email. Okay? Great. Okay. We'll see you next door.

[54:29]  Thank you. Thank you.