Spring 1973
The Holy Spirit

Norman Bardsley

What a remarkable privilege the disciples had in walking with the Lord Jesus for 3 ½ years. During that time they saw Him perform many remarkable works. Of even greater significance to them was the fact that He was their personal teacher and advisor during those years. Then, toward the end of that period, He began to talk about leaving them because He must die on the cross. This brought fear and dismay and sorrow to this group of men, and the Lord sought to comfort them.

This introduces us to the truth concerning the Holy Spirit, very much emphasized in chapters 14-16 of John. At one place the Lord said, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him to you.” The Lord Jesus described this other Comforter as “the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive. Because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” John 14:17

Paul teaches this same truth with regard to the presence of the Spirit and Christ in us. He says in Rom. 8:9-11, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” It is obvious from this that when we have the Spirit, we have Christ and the Father also. When we have one, we have all three.

One of the distinguishing marks of the Christian is his belief in the Holy Spirit as a person. In several ways, the Bible reveals to us that the spirit is a person. First of all, it attributes to him a mind, will and emotions, which are exclusively characteristic of a person. Impersonal objects of not have these qualities, but the spirit of God does.

Paul presupposes that the Spirit has a mind when he writes that “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him. Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. I Cor. 2:10-11. Here Paul ascribes to the Holy Spirit knowledge which an influence or power does not have, but a person does. The Bible also pictures the Spirit as possessing the personal quality of a will. Acts 16:7—“the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.”

In I Cor. 12:11, Paul tells us that the Spirit gave many gifts to Christians, “dividing to each one severally as he will.” As far as emotions are concerned, Ephesians 4:30 assumes that the spirit can have grief, for it commands us “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.”

Also, the Holy Spirit may be characterized as being omnipresent (everywhere). The Psalmist eloquently asks, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” In the New Testament, we read that the Spirit dwells in believers and the great number of Christians does not hinder him from being present in each one.

Yes, the testimony of the entire New Testament is unanimous in affirming the present reality of the new birth—here and now possession of eternal life, with a contemporary process of transformation and a guarantee of a glorious bodily resurrection by and by. All this is the work of God the Holy Spirit. Since the work of the third Person of the Godhead is so important in our redemption, let us not fail to recognize Him. Let us praise the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.