A STUDY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
How the Holy Spirit works
(Gene Wood)
These notes are not presented as comprehensive. So many New Testament passages deal with this subject (as well as the Old Testament) that it is beyond the scope of these notes to discuss them all. However, principles and examples given are, I believe, sufficient to explain the method of study by which every reference to the Holy Spirit can be understood correctly.
Certain aspects of the Holy Spirit are “stipulated” rather than introduced, proven or discussed, such as the fact that the Holy Spirit is one of three who are together God (Col.2:9 – “the Godhead”).
There are 10 things the NT says are the work of the HS. The question we’re dealing with in this paper is HOW the HS did/does these things.
The prevailing view of the Holy Spirit and the Christian seems to be that the Holy Spirit directly, literally inhabits a Christian in consequence of his/her baptism. Please consider the following facts that are pertinent to that, what I believe, is an incorrect understanding and unrealistic expectation that actual robs us of something.
2 Cor.5:19 – “….God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”
Note the statement that God was “in Christ”. What does that mean? Was the Father in some literal way inside the body or soul of Jesus? We see Jesus praying and teaching His disciples to pray “our Father WHO ART IN HEAVEN..” Not “our Father who art in us” or “our Father who art everywhere.” Yet, He is declared to be abiding in those who know and keep His commandments (Jno.14:23).
The Father is not only the creator of all that exists (except Himself and Jesus and the Holy Spirit – the eternal triune deity – but is infinitely with us - “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Yet, He is “Our Father who art IN HEAVEN”.
Jesus is also Creator (Col.1:16) and “in Him all things CONSIST….” (Col.1:17). Hebrews affirms of Jesus “…upholding all things by the word of His power..” (Heb.1:3) Jesus ascended to the Father in Heaven (Acts 1) where He “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High” (Heb.1:3) where He remains and from which He will return (Acts 1:11).He is in Heaven, but also “with us” and “in us” (Mt.28:20; Col.1:27).
Jesus’ statements to His disciples at the time He was on earth with them provide us insight into how all this worked and in an extended way works now with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.. He didn’t leave them in the realm of the mystical, but gave explanations to bring them understanding which would bring them comfort and consolation. He didn’t say “We will just put this presence inside you in some unknown way and you will just feel it.” After all, they had invested their entire lives into His work and teaching and deserved and received the teaching (explanation) on this subject as they had on so many other matters.
The Father and the Son are in Heaven and yet are also “in” us and “with us” as is affirmed in several New Testament statements: Mt. 18:20 says “I am with you always, even to the end of the earth” But, He also told His disciples “I am going away” (John 13:33). How could both things be true? Jesus then added, “the world will see Me no more, but you will see me…and “at that day, you will know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:19) adding also “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21) and “come to him and make Our home with him (Jno.14:23). So, Jesus promised some kind of presence of Himself with His disciples when He was gone. What was that?
At hearing those things, “Judas (not Iscariot)” asked Jesus “Lord,, how is it that you manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” (John 14:22). Jesus’ response was “:If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). He repeats the promise of presence while absent adding the significance of keeping His word.
Putting all these statements together leaves one with the inevitable conclusion that the Father and the Son are in Heaven, but in some way are also “with us” and “in us” and known by us to be present. Since they can’t be seen by the world, but are known by us in this intimate sense, it is by our faith and obedience that we have assurance of their “presence” in our lives.
Now enters the third person of the deity, the Holy Spirit into that teaching to those disciples hearing Jesus announce His departure. Jesus told them “where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward” (John 13:36), elaborating on that promise in John 14:1-4 once again adding “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” and “The Father DWELLS in me” (John 14:10).
Jesus comforts the disciples in the midst of the announcement of His leaving by saying “I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you” –speaking clearly of His coming to them in some fashion while absent from them - (John14:10). Also, “I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may abide with you forever” (John 14:16). By “forever” Jesus was saying the Helper would not have to leave as Jesus had just told them He must. The Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised the Father would send would come to stay on. (Interesting wording since the Holy Spirit had always been active in the world through the prophets (2 Peter 1:21) and had come upon Jesus at His baptism (Mt.3:16) and His power had been given to the disciples (Mt.10). Yet, in some sense the Spirit was coming and in some sense staying. Once again stating that “the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him or knows Him” (John 14:17), adding “He dwells with you and will be in you.” It’s the same language Jesus uses about Himself as He assures the disciples they aren’t being left alone to flounder.
Deity (Father, Son and Spirit) in man, abiding, dwelling in man is at the heart of Jesus’ repeated promise which the apostles, especially Paul, reaffirmed to those early disciples (Romans 8: 9-11; Col.1:27; John 14:23).
All those promises were made to the first disciples and the first churches during the miraculous age. We see the proof of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the “power” (“manifestation”) of those early disciples as well as Jesus. Are those same promises made to them and fulfilled in them promises that also were/are made to us? Or, are they promises made and kept to those early disciples from which we can learn and receive comfort, help and strength without being the direct recipients ourselves?
Well, it’s clear that much of a sense of God’s presence with man is a matter of seeing it through the eye of faith. We know of God’s extensive power and care for His people from SCRIPTURE! Thus. we know and sense it by faith. We are assured of the reality of God’s presence because it was proven miraculously in the first disciples’ lives and times. In that way, by looking at their record, we know what they knew about God and we feel the same assurances they felt when they received messages like “comfort one another with these words” (1Thess.4:18) because those words were God’s and had been proven to be so with the miraculous power that validated them (1Thes. 1:5; Heb.2:1-4; Mk.16:14-20).
We must remember the Bible was not written to us! It was written to them in their circumstances which when we read we find information that can be used to guide us, not to receive what they received, but act upon information and consolations that are found in what they were told. Misunderstanding this vital point is where the jumping off the rails occurs, when we read things written to someone else as if they were written a couple of days ago to us.
Are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit still with us, in us? Yes! But the question is not “are they” but “HOW are they?”
God is still God and does what He wills when He chooses because He can, thankfully, always from good, loving and pure motives.. Creation proves that. Biblical history proves that. The first century apostles, prophets and power endowed disciples prove that, not some inner mystical sensation. There is inner peace and comfort because of what we know. We do not know things because we have inner peace and comfort. Don’t confuse the cause and effect by getting them backwards.
The Holy Spirit did not leave those first disciples after a short period of time as had Jesus when His job here was finished. He continued, as had Jesus, until the job was done, throughout the apostolic age until the :part” became the “perfect” or the whole (1Cor.13).
Having completed the job, we now have “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) by which the Holy Spirit “leads”, “guides”, “dwells”. And because of its source and age lasting sustaining power (cf Rom.1:16) being the Holy Spirit, all of His works and effects are frequently referred to in the New Testament simply as the Holy Spirit Himself...This language is metonomy which you will learn about in subsequent notes. Just as the message of Jesus is described as Jesus Himself “you did not so learn Christ” (Eph:3:20).
There has arisen a prevailing view that the Holy Spirit uniquely indwells Christians in a way that is direct and different than the indwelling of the Father and the Son. The scriptures do not teach this and the response of those who believe that He does is something like “I just feel like I have the Holy Spirit in me giving me peace and strength and comfort.” They distinguish this from the Father and Jesus in us.
Of course you have those feelings of peace, strength and comfort, or should. The question is not do you have them, but HOW are they there with you? Is it the result of something infused in you at the time of your baptism (a misunderstanding of Acts 2:38) or is it information you have that was first given and validated by the Holy Spirit which you now know and believe thus making it part of who you are? It is the latter!
It’s the difference between infusion and ingestion. Waa the Holy Spirit infused in you or is the Holy Spirit (and the Father and Son) in your heart by ingestion? Did God put it there directly or by some means? By some means is the correct answer. It was in those who first received it by infusion (i.e. apostles, prophets) because it was not from human wisdom. That means is the word of God given and confirmed by the Holy Spirit. It’s not a matter of what but how that we’re dealing with here. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell in us, That’s a statement of what, but does not include the HOW that happens. That’s a separate question. And, the Bible has explanations of how. Of course, it’s easier to say, “well, God just GAVE those feelings to me directly when I was baptized.” Did He do it that way? Or did He use some other method than direct infusion? Did He maybe leave it to us to ingest it? Just as ingested food becomes us through absorption, God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) through His word come into us through ingestion. “We are (physically) what we eat” is the same as “we are (spiritually) what we believe” and, of course, we believe what we think and we can only think what we know (or think we know). And giving us the right things to think is the method of God (1Cor.1,2). Ingesting it (making it our way of thinking) depends on our knowing it, understanding it and believing it.
We human beings are spirits within a body (James 2:26). God is Spirit (John 4:24). His words (thoughts) revealed to us are “spirit” and thus “life” (John 6:63). So powerful are those thoughts of God that when they become our thoughts which we think after Him, the Bible describes that as God (Jesus and Holy Spirit) “IN US”. No other language would sufficiently convey the power of God’s thoughts in us than to say they constitute God Himself in us. That is the language of the Bible.
The language about deity being in us is somewhat like Jesus saying at the institution of the “Lord’s Supper” that “this is my blood.” It wasn’t fruit of the vine taken out of that Passover meal that had literally mystically been transformed into His blood which still flowed through His veins at the very time He said it. (Most of us know that in spite of some religious folks that believe the words of a priest spoken magically over the fruit of the vine makes it literally the blood of Jesus). We may show a picture of our spouse and say to someone seeing that picture, “This is my wife.” People understand that language. They know it’s not literally the person’s wife, but that’s how we say it.
That’s language called “metaphor” By faith we see the fruit of the vine each week and associate it with Jesus, His blood. We should be able to understand that kind of language in reference to the Holy Spirit as well as we do the previous two examples, “this is my wife” and “this is my blood”.
The Holy Spirit convicts me; the Holy Spirit dwells in me; the Holy Spirit leads me. The Father and Jesus are with us and in us. See the similarity in language? Why do we sometimes go all mystical about it?? The answer is that we believe things without adequate investigation just as the Jews believed Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah because they’d been taught incorrect expectations. Therefore, they stumbled over the language.
A perfect example of such stumbling is found in Acts 8. The 53rd chapter of Isaiah being read by the Ethiopian was a complete mystery to him in spite of his education, interest and the fact that he’d just been to Jerusalem where the great Jewish teachers had failed to understand and teach the passage correctly. Only when Phillip explained it did the light go on with the Ethiopian. I’m trying to help flip the switch on this subject, but I still sense a lot of darkness.
A corrected view of how the Holy Spirit dwells in the Christian may leave some who have thought He was infused at baptism feeling something has been taken away from them. It shouldn’t. It adds something. We now realize ALL of deity (Father and Son as well as the Holy Spirit dwell in us. Plus, we now realize we have control of the extent of their presence and help. We now know why it may feel that sometimes the Holy Spirit’s presence in us seems less powerful than at others and why some fellow Christians don’t have the same sense of His presence as we or someone else does. It’s ingestion, not infusion. It’s all three, not just one of what makes up God at our disposal to guide, strengthen and comfort.
The following pages set forth some essential matters relating to this subject. Please consider them carefully before dismissing them.
HOLY SPIRIT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH
People often make two mistakes when reading the New Testament. They think it was written recently and about them. It was written THEN and ABOUT THEM (the original recipients). ‘When passages about the Holy Spirit are read through this incorrect prism, today’s readers knowing they don’t have miraculous power, assume those statements are referring to a direct, literal, personal but non-miraculous indwelling of some kind. (Though they also often say they don’t understand it and can’t explain it.)
What did they (thee original recipients) understand when they heard or read “Holy Spirit”?
The miraculous works provided by the Holy Spirit permeated the first century church.
Preaching, called “prophesying” was direct from God as one of the 9 “spiritual (miraculous) gifts” in the church (1 Corinthians 12:7-11).
Songs were also sometimes given the same way (1Cor.14:26).
Prayer also (1Cor.14:14-17).
The 9 gifts varied from member to member and were therefore referred to in the whole as “the Holy Spirit” as people realized this meant all things that were miraculous were sourced in the Holy Spirit. (Metonomy – refer to handout #1).
Wherever the Holy Spirit (given by the laying on of the apostles hands – Acts 8/19 to those who had obeyed the gospel – Acts 5:32) worked in individuals or in the group (church) there were always ‘MANIFESTATIONS” – 1Cor.12:7.
“Manifestations” is found in the Greek N.T. in the form of two words:
1. EMPHANES –“to show, to exhibit” (W.E. Vine)
2. PANEROS -- “open to sight, visible” (Vine)
3.
There was no such thing as a non-miraculous, personal, literal indwelling with no manifestations spoken of or understood in the N.T,. although they all understand “Christ in you” (Col.1:27; Eph.3:17;Rom.8:10) “God among them” (1Cor.14:25) the Spirit “dwelling” and “leading” them (Rom.8:9-11) referred to the influence of deity through their words (John 14:23).
The church was thus informed of the apostles teaching (Acts 2:42) and so taught what God wanted believed and practiced individually and congregationally. In that way we are furnished a revealed and ratified model for life and church. That model was furnished them and known by us due to the mirculous revealing and ratifying of truth by the Holy Spirit in them.
“BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPRIT”
The degree of Holy Spirit influence (“dwelling” as spoken of often in the N.T.) is up to each person as noted in Ephesians 5:18
A. The verb “be filled” (plerousthe) has certain elements to it that were known easily and clearly by the first recipients of the letter. NOTE: We can only be sure how a passage should be understood by us by knowing what it meant to the first readers as intended by the writer, as the “gift of the Holy Spirit” in the context of Acts 2 would have been understand as miraculous).
1. The elements:
a. MOOD – Greek has four moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, optative
1) The mood in this verse is imperative – a command
b. VOICE - Greek has three voices: Active, Passive, Middle
1) The voice here is middle – action upon one’s self.
c. TENSE – Greek has six tenses: present, future, aorist, imperfect, perfect,
pluperfect.
1) The tense here is present – ongoing action.
B. This verb as written contained these facets: It is Imperative (command), Middle (action on one’s self), Present (ongoing action).
C. A literal expanded translation would be “keep on filling yourselves” with the Holy Spirit.
1. This indicates that the Holy Spirit’s presence in the Christian as referred to in this passage is under each Christian’s control rather than something imposed on them directly. (The command without any Greek knowledge says the same thing.)
WHAT, THEN, IS “THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT” - Acts 2:38,39
A. What would those who heard the promise have thought it was?
1. What had they just witnessed and heard?
a. They had seen miraculous language given to ordinary men (“tongues”)
b. They had just heard an explanation given for what they’d witnessed:
It was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as prophesied by Joel.
2. Wouldn’t they, thus, understand Peter’s statement to be a reference to miracles?
(As a metonomy, Holy Spirit referring to the miracles He gave.)
B. Could the promise have referred to something that was not joined to “remission of sins” promised to those who repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ?
1. Sometimes several things may be referred to in a statement which at first sounds like only one thing – e.g. Mt. 3:11-12.
a. It sounds like all who heard John were being promised “baptism” of the Holy Spirit. But, we know only one group (Apostles – Acts 2) ever received that. So, the promise John was making was not intended for all, but some.
b. It sounds like all who heard John would receive the “baptism of fire”, but verse 12 clearly shows that was a reference to condemnation which would, again, come to only some rather than all who were hearing John.
c. Peter qualifies who would receive that gift as being “as many as the Lord our God shall call”
1) God calls all through the gospel - 2 Thess.2:14
2) He calls some in a special way: 1 Corinthains 1:1 -
a called apostle”
MORE ABOUT “AS MANY AS THE LORD OUR GOD SHALL CALL”
The basic Greek word for “call” is KALEO. It takes many forms with various prefixes, etc., to provide shades of meaning which are quite often seen by examination of the context itself.
The word for the call of the gospel in 2 Thess.2:14 has the form that indicates it means to summons, invite, call out to – Lk.14:16 “he invited them”
The call of Acts 2:39 has a prefix and form that caused it to be translated in some versions as “call unto Himself”
The difference in the two calls could be summed up as the difference between:
“Ya’all come” and
“Come here, Jim”
God provides a call to salvation for all through the gospel.
He provided a call to miraculous gifts from the Holy Spirit through the laying on of the apostles hands - Acts 8::17,18 (The H.S. distributing to each one on whom hands had been laid as He saw fit – 1Cor.12:11)
NOTE: In Acts 8 a clear distinction is made between becoming a Christian and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit – Acts 8:14-16. They were two separate things just as we see in the case of the household of Cornelius in Acts 10.
The word “gift” in the New Testament in connection with the Holy Spirit is found five other times in addition to Acts 2:38. Every time it is a reference to the miraculous .
Acts 8:20
Acts 10:45
Acts 11:17
Ephesians 3:7
Ephesians 4:7
These aspects of the Greek text indicate that Paul was instructing the Ephesians to
Keep on filling themselves with the Holy Spirit.
It was within their control.
It was something that was continually in the process of being done.
The only thing that makes any sense is that Paul was telling them to keep on putting the words that were given by the Holy Spirit into their minds and hearts - that is the equivalent of filling themselves continually (present tense verb) with the Holy Spirit.
(The parallel passage is Col.3:16 where Paul writes, “Let the words of Christ dwell in you richly…” where in Eph.5:18 the words were “be filled with the Spirit.”
The filling of the Holy Spirit here was not a one time event as the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the apostles on Pentecost. Not was it the miraculous endowment from the laying on of the apostles’ hands. It was a process in which disciples in every age can engage.
When I referred to the words of Eph.5:18 being imperative, present, middle, I'm talking about the VERB (plerousthe) which is a single word translated "BE FILLED"
One does not need to make an analysis of the Greek word, however, to see the same thing in English. It's right there in the english translation "BE FILLED" which clearly is a a command to do something to oneself which is identified in Eph. 5:18 as filling oneself with the Holy Spirit (the language of metonomy - a word which one does not need to know to see the figure of speech in the english....this only escapes a person's notice if they have a preconceived and incorrect view of how the Holy Spirit works in the ordinary (non- apostolic or miraculously endowed first century) Christian.
Additional language notes:
The way we know about a structure of a word as described above is it's DECLENSION, i.e. the spelling (INFLECTION) of a word
For example: add an s to dog and you have a plural: dogs
add an ed to play and you have a change of tense: played
You probably have D.R. Dungan's book Hermeneutics which has a lengthy explanation of figures of speech.
On page 271 he discusses "metonomy of the cause" which is what we have in the language about the Holy Spirit in the NT.
He presents three cases of this:
Eph.4:20 - "you did not so learn Christ" clearly means learning the teaching of Christ, or about Christ
2Cor.3:14 - "which veil is done away in Christ" where the word Christ stands for the New Covenant of which He is the author.
Col.3:4 - "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" which means that Christ is our life in that we have life through Him. He is the cause of our spiritual life; He is named, but the effect of His word is intended.
Remember
A corrected view of how the Holy Spirit dwells in the Christian may leave some who have thought He was infused at baptism feeling something has been taken away from them. It shouldn’t. It adds something. We now realize ALL of deity (Father and Son as well as the Holy Spirit dwell in us. Plus, we now realize we have control of the extent of their presence and help. We now know why it may feel that sometimes the Holy Spirit’s presence in us seems less powerful than at others and why some fellow Christians don’t have the same sense of His presence as we or someone else does. It’s ingestion, not infusion. It’s all three, not just one of what makes up God at our disposal to guide, strengthen and comfort.
These aspects of the Greek text indicate that Paul was instructing the Ephesians to
Keep on filling themselves with the Holy Spirit.
It was within their control.
It was something that was continually in the process of being done.
The only thing that makes any sense is that Paul was telling them to keep on putting the words that were given by the Holy Spirit into their minds and hearts - that is the equivalent of filling themselves continually (present tense verb) with the Holy Spirit.
(The parallel passage is Col.3:16 where Paul writes, “Let the words of Christ dwell in you richly…” where in Eph.5:18 the words were “be filled with the Spirit.”
The filling of the Holy Spirit here was not a one time event as the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the apostles on Pentecost. Not was it the miraculous endowment from the laying on of the apostles’ hands. It was a process in which disciples in every age can engage.
When I referred to the words of Eph.5:18 being imperative, present, middle, I'm talking about the VERB (plerousthe) which is a single word translated "BE FILLED"
One does not need to make an analysis of the Greek word, however, to see the same thing in English. It's right there in the english translation "BE FILLED" which clearly is a a command to do something to oneself which is identified in Eph. 5:18 as filling oneself with the Holy Spirit (the language of metonomy - a word which one does not need to know to see the figure of speech in the english....this only escapes a person's notice if they have a preconceived and incorrect view of how the Holy Spirit works in the ordinary (non- apostolic or miraculously endowed first century) Christian.
Additional language notes:
The way we know about a structure of a word as described above is it's DECLENSION, i.e. the spelling (INFLECTION) of a word
For example: add an s to dog and you have a plural: dogs
add an ed to play and you have a change of tense: played
You probably have D.R. Dungan's book Hermeneutics which has a lengthy explanation of figures of speech.
On page 271 he discusses "metonomy of the cause" which is what we have in the language about the Holy Spirit in the NT.
He presents three cases of this:
Eph.4:20 - "you did not so learn Christ" clearly means learning the teaching of Christ, or about Christ
2Cor.3:14 - "which veil is done away in Christ" where the word Christ stands for the New Covenant of which He is the author.
Col.3:4 - "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" which means that Christ is our life in that we have life through Him. He is the cause of our spiritual life; He is named, but the effect of His word is intended.
Remember
A corrected view of how the Holy Spirit dwells in the Christian may leave some who have thought He was infused at baptism feeling something has been taken away from them. It shouldn’t. It adds something. We now realize ALL of deity (Father and Son as well as the Holy Spirit dwell in us. Plus, we now realize we have control of the extent of their presence and help. We now know why it may feel that sometimes the Holy Spirit’s presence in us seems less powerful than at others and why some fellow Christians don’t have the same sense of His presence as we or someone else does. It’s ingestion, not infusion. It’s all three, not just one of what makes up God at our disposal to guide, strengthen and comfort.