You Asked: Questions on the Holy Spirit, Part 2

This is the second of two posts, following up our Deeper event on the Holy Spirit. In the previous post I gave some answers to five questions that we were not able to address in the Q&A time. Here now are some answers to five more. Also, I am again including the video of the event. If you didn't attend, watching it will give you some context (and also will hopefully be an enjoyable experience).


Deeper #4 from Life Bible Fellowship Church on Vimeo.

1. If Jesus was 100% God, then why did he need the Holy Spirit to empower him?
During the Deeper event, we talked about the fact that the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus throughout his life. In Matthew 3:16 the Spirit descends on Jesus as a dove. In Luke 4:17-21 Jesus says that the Spirit of God has anointed him to proclaim the good news of God to the broken and needy. John 3:34-35 says of Jesus, "For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit." Jesus himself credited the Holy Spirit with the miracles that he did (Matthew 12:28). The Spirit clearly empowered Jesus during his life.
But why would Jesus, the eternal Son of God, need the Holy Spirit. The answer is both simple and complex. He needed the Spirit because he was human. That is simple enough. When Jesus took on humanity, he became like us in each way (Hebrews 2:14-18). As a man he became utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit for the fulfillment of his calling.
Many of us, however, want to cry out, "But he was God! Why would God need God?!" This just reflects the mystery and the wonder of the incarnation of Jesus. He didn't simply look like a human being. He WAS a human being. He took on full humanity. He modeled for us the Spirit-led life. And, food for thought, if the Son of God was dependent on the Spirit in order to fulfill his calling, how much more should we cry out in dependence on the Spirit for what God has called us to do!

2. What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
We need to think of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in two senses. (1) There was an event in which the Spirit baptized the church. (2) Anyone who comes to Christ is individually baptized by the Holy Spirit.
(1) In Acts
2 the baptism of the Holy Spirit takes place on a macro-level. He comes upon believers and they are miraculously empowered and transformed. This is the event to which Jesus pointed when he said in Acts 1:5, "For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Jesus also seems to prefigure this event in John 20:22: "And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" The Spirit, at Pentecost, came upon believers in order to indwell them forever.
(2) Many people came to Christ after Pentecost, but they did not miss out on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They missed the event of the Spirit's coming in power, but upon their conversion the Spirit came upon each of them. We see this happen from time to time in the book of Acts (8:15, 10:44, 19:5-6). And throughout the New Testament we are told that the Spirit indwells all believers.
This brings us to a point of definition. What exactly is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? In short, it refers to when the Spirit comes to indwell a believer, making them new and sealing their adoption into the family of God. At this point the believer is given spiritual gifts and empowered for boldness and godly living.
Some Christians believe that there is a "second blessing" related to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In short, they believe that a person becomes a believer and receives the Holy Spirit, but then later on the Holy Spirit comes upon them in power and seals their conversion. He gives them powerful spiritual gifts or brings dramatic change. This just doesn't seem to be something that Scripture supports. Certainly we do see plenty of cases when someone will have a post-conversion event that brings dramatic change into their lives, but we do not receive the Spirit in parts. Upon salvation, we receive him in full. We then live lives that are fully reliant on him, not waiting for him to come in a greater way in the future.
While I want to be respectful to other Christians who believe in the second blessing, I also want to give a warning. Those who embrace the idea of a second blessing sometimes also embrace the idea that the Spirit's presence in believers' lives is always accompanied by sign gifts, such as speaking in tongues. This is simply unbiblical. Not all believers have the gift of tongues. No believer has every spiritual gift. God does as he pleases in this area. We must not fall into the trap of looking to a specific gift of the Spirit in order to validate his presence. The greatest sign of the Spirit's presence if the fruit he brings (Galatians 5:22-23, Ephesians 5:1-21), not miraculous gifts.

3. What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
In Matthew 12, Jesus speaks of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and says that it is the sin that will not be forgiven in this age, or in the age to come. Some people have said that this sin is suicide. Others have said that it is simply rejecting Christ. What is the sin and can it be committed today?
For starters, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not suicide. Suicide is nowhere in the context when Jesus speaks of the unpardonable sin. Suicide is certainly wrong. It is a selfish decision driven by despair. When someone who seems to be a Christian commits suicide, it shakes us. But it would not be right to conclude that a person who commits suicide "loses" their salvation. It may make us question what was going on in their heart, but it is a never identified as an unpardonable sin.
In the context of Matthew 12 (as well as Mark 3 and Luke 11) Jesus is speaking to Pharisees who accuse Jesus of casting out demons in the name of Satan. When they make this accusation, Jesus says that they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Why? Because they saw the work of the Holy Spirit through him, and they identified it as satanic. But why would this sin be unpardonable? Probably because it was the point of no return. If they were going to come face to face with the work of the Holy Spirit and reject it as satanic, they were too far gone to return. It seems unlikely that Jesus was saying that if they repent and cry out for forgiveness, it will never be given.
But are we in danger of committing the unpardonable sin today? In one sense, probably not. Jesus seems to speak of it as something specific to his time, when people saw the Son of God doing the works of the Spirit. In another sense, though, there is a valid warning for us. The Pharisees were filled with competitive jealousy for Jesus, and so they called his works satanic. Likewise, Christians can be filled with jealousy against other "successful" Christians and ascribe their success to Satan. May we all be wary of putting ourselves in a position where we could be attributing the work of the Spirit to Satan. None of us want to go down that road.

4. When Jesus was on the cross, crying out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", did the Holy Spirit leave him?
This is a tricky one. I think we need to plead ignorance on a large part of what was going on during this time. When we read this, many of us conclude that the Father turned his face away from Jesus. While this may be the case, Scripture does not say this. Many of us might conclude that the Spirit departed from Jesus. Again, Scripture does not say this.
So, what was going on and why did Jesus say this? Let's start with what we do know.
While the cross and atonement are always debated, Scripture teaches that Jesus bore the wrath of God on the cross. He was punished for the sins of humanity. Does this mean that during those hours on the cross the Father and the Spirit turned away from Jesus? While this is possible, this is never explicitly said.
When Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he is quoting David from Psalm 22. In Psalm 22 David cries out to God in a time of great danger. He cries out that God has forsaken him, but it doesn't seem appropriate to conclude that, when David cried that, the Father had turned his face away from him and the Spirit had departed from him. David was simply looking at the horror of his situation--enemies closing in on him, friends abandoning him, physical pain imminent--and he wondered where God was. When Jesus was on the cross, his enemies had closed in on him, his friends had abandoned him, and he was experiencing excruciating pain. By all accounts, God had forsaken him. Instead of rescuing his servant, he had given him over to his enemies. Just as every human being has experienced the pain and horror of abandonment, Jesus was truly abandoned on the cross.
Again, this is tricky. I don't think we can be dogmatic that the Father turned his face away or that the Spirit left him. I think we can conclude that he bore the full weight of our sins, and that he experienced the full weight of being abandoned by everyone who could help him--including God himself.
While we can't know everything that went on while Jesus was on the cross, we can be confident that he carried the weight of all our sins and all our fears. He finished the work that was necessary to bring us to God. He was abandoned so that we could be included in God's family.

5. Does the Holy Spirit convict unbelievers?
The Spirit has always been at work. He indwells believers, but he is also at work in the world. In fact, he works to draw unbelievers to Jesus. When Jesus predicted the coming of the Spirit, he said, "When he comes, he will convict the world about sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8). The Spirit not only teaches and comforts believers. He convicts the world. While he doesn't indwell unbelievers, he is at work glorifying Christ to all the world.
So, if you are praying for someone who is an unbeliever, you can pray that the Spirit will convict him or her of sin and righteousness and judgment. You can pray that God will draw them to himself through his Spirit. While the Spirit dwells with believers in a special way, his work is much broader than us.

I hope these answers have helped. Feel free to interact, ask follow-ups, disagree, and engage in any way. The Spirit is at work in and through us. He is more powerful, more comforting, and more present than we realize. The more we keep in step with him, the more we will experience the risen life that Jesus brings.

Project "One-Thing-At-A-Time"

This past Sunday at Life Bible Fellowship Church, I encouraged believers to ask themselves if the Spirit was leading them to do something special in the month of August. We all want change in our lives, but we can get overwhelmed when we try to take on a new habit or practice indefinitely. But many of us can try something new for a month and see how God impacts us during that time.
I shared that I have felt led by the Spirit to try something for the month of August. I am calling it One-Thing-at-a-Time.

Sociologists have recently been talking about something called "Continuous Partial Attention." The idea is that, due to our phones, our computers, our televisions, our iPads, our iPods, and the many other devices that we have, we are rarely giving our full attention to any one thing. How many of us have seen a couple sitting across from each other in a restaurant, each on their own phone, not interacting with each other at all? Perhaps the more difficult question concerns how many of us have done that very thing.
I have found recently that I am rarely doing only one thing. If I am watching a movie, I am also playing a game on my iPad. If I am reading, I am also watching a television show. If I am watching sports, I am also playing some game on my phone. If I am playing with my sons, I am also checking the scores.
Sometimes it is unavoidable and harmless to multitask. We listen to music while we run. We talk on the phone while we in the car for our kids. We read a book while we eat. There is nothing evil about any of these. Frankly, there is nothing evil about the habits that I named above. But for me, these habits have made me ask questions about my contentment and my focus. More importantly, they have made me wonder if I am drowning out the voice of God's Spirit by surrounding myself with constant noise.
So, I don't feel that it is realistic to say that I will never again read while watching, or play a game while watching, or listen while playing. But I do think that I can try something new for a month and see what God does.
I share all of this partly for my own sake, and partly for the sake of anyone reading this. It is for my own sake so that I get concrete enough to follow through. It is for your sake so that it can possibly cause you to ask questions about your own habits and about how you can create more space for God's voice in your life.
So, here are some specifics during the month of August:
1. If I am reading something, I am reading. No music. No TV shows.
2. If I am watching something, I am watching. No reading. No playing a game on my iPad. No checking scores.
3. No more watching something on the iPad while I eat, get dressed, brush my teeth, etc. Fine to read while eating, but I want to break myself of the need of constant noise and entertainment. For goodness sake, I think I should be able to brush my teeth without needing to watch something while I do it.
4. If I am playing with my sons, or hanging out with my wife, no watching something in the background or constant checking of scores. Just be in the moment. Enjoy it. I won't regret it.
5. Listening the music while driving or running is fine. But there is no need to do it all the time. Some quiet space is good.
None of this is meant to be legalistic, but I know myself. Some of you are like me. If I don't get specific, I will let myself off the hook. I want to listen to God's voice in my life. I want to focus on what he has called me to do. I want to eliminate the background noise and see what happens.
What I am talking about here may resonate with you. If so, consider doing the same thing during August. I would love to hear how it goes. If this causes you to do something different for August, go for it. The Spirit leads us all in different ways. The most important thing is that we listen. As the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 5:25, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

The Trinity, Part 1

This past Sunday, we began a new series at Life Bible Fellowship Church on the Trinity. The goal of the series is not to solve the puzzle of the Trinity, but rather to draw near to the relational God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you want to check out the first sermon in the series, here is the link to it.
There were a lot of good conversations after the services, and a lot of people were excited to seek to know God in a deeper way.
Because the Trinity is the most profound mystery in all of Christianity, I recognize that our three-week series will be no means cover everything that can be said. So I thought it would be good to accompany the series with some posts in order to answer some questions and go a bit deeper. In this post I will address three questions that, in some way came up after the message.


Is the Water Illustration Helpful?
In the sermon, I was fairly dismissive of a couple of Trinity illustrations that sometimes make an appearance.
Some people say that the Trinity is like an egg. An egg has a shell, a white, and a yolk. There are three, but there is only one egg. This illustration is bad, to be blunt. It pictures God as either three gods, or a God with three parts. While each of those parts make up a full egg, none are fully an egg. The shell by itself is not "fully egg," while the Son by himself is fully God. The egg illustration is not one that is helpful.
But more people asked me if the water illustration is not helpful. The analogy is that H20 was be liquid, can be solid, and can be gas. Once again, I was pretty dismissive of this analogy. Just so that you can know that I am not simply off on my own in thinking the analogy is faulty, here is a quotation from Wayne Grudem in his book Bible Doctrine:
"The analogy of the three forms of water (steam, water, and ice) is also inadequate because (a) no quantity of water is ever all three of these at the same time, (b) they have different properties or characteristics, (c) the analogy has nothing that corresponds to the fact that there is only one God (there is no such thing as 'one water' or 'all the water in the universe'), and (d) the element of intelligent personality is lacking."
On top of this, the water analogy is, for all intents and purposes, modalism, a heresy condemned by the church. Modalism is the teaching that there is one God who wears three different masks. Sometimes he appears to us as the Father, sometimes as the Son, and sometimes as the Spirit. This is biblically inaccurate for several different reasons (just check out Matthew 3:16-17 to see how the baptism of Jesus shows that modalism is nonsense).
Trinitarian theologian Collin Hansen writes in a Christianity Today article, "One common but mistaken analogy of the orthodox Trinity depicts modalism. The same bucket of water may appear as ice, liquid, or steam. But that water cannot simultaneously exist in every mode. God, on the other hand, exists simultaneously as Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
Many analogies of the Trinity are helpful in illustrating one point of truth. But both the water and the egg analogy lead us in very wrong directions.

Is the Holy Spirit a Person or a Force?
In the sermon, I focused on the fact that the persons of the Trinity are presented in relational terms. There is an eternal relationship at the heart of the Godhead. Scripturally, it can be easy to see the relationship between the Father and the Son, but a bit more difficult to see the Spirit interacting in that relationship. This causes some to wonder if the Spirit is really personal, as opposed to being a force.
The Holy Spirit is a person, not simply a force or a power. He relates to us personally, just as the Father and the Son do. This is why it is so amazing and significant that the Spirit himself dwells within us. In the Bible, we learn that the Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). Forces are not grieved; persons are grieved. On top of this, the Spirit prays for us (Romans 8:26-27). On top of this, Peter rebukes Ananias for lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4). You don't lie to a force, but to a person. The Spirit empowers, sanctifies, reminds, and teaches us. He is fully personal, just like the Father and the Son!
Quick note on the Spirit. Some people remark that he is often the forgotten member of the Trinity. In many ways this is tragic because of his prominent role in our lives (2 Corinthians 3). At the same time, it is worth remembering that the Spirit is not clawing for attention. He brings glory to the Son and reminds of us of the words of the Son (John 14-16). If we are focused on Jesus, we are listening to the voice of the Spirit. The Trinity exists in perfect harmony, not jockeying for position, but rather honoring and glorifying one another.


Is a Right Understanding of the Trinity a Salvation Issue?

The doctrine of the Trinity is not a small matter. It is not like end-times beliefs or positions on sign-gifts. As a Christian, you cannot take or leave the Trinity. Over the history of the church, it has been considered a test for orthodoxy. Part of this is because it is so directly tied to the deity of Jesus. Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are not Christian denominations. They are cults. The reason for this is that they do not believe that Jesus, the Son, is fully God, and therefore they also do not believe in the Trinity.

None of this should cause us to take on an attitude of superiority, but it is important so that we recognize that if people have embraced these cults, we need to tell them to truth and urge them to embrace the true gospel of Jesus and not the cheap substitute that they have embraced.

Now, a person could read this and ask, "So, I must believe accurately about the Trinity in order to be a Christian? Does this mean that I was not a Christian if I just found out that my understanding of the Trinity for the past ten years was in fact incorrect?" It is a fair question.

If you had embraced the water analogy or thought that the Trinity means that God wears different masks at different times, this does not mean that you have not been a Christian. It means that you have had a faulty understanding of something really important. You now have an opportunity to be corrected by God's Word, and to embrace a more accurate (and, frankly, much more exciting and beautiful) picture of the Godhead. We all need to be careful about what we believe, but we also need to recognize that we all fall into error. This even happens with significant doctrines. Those who really embrace Jesus allow themselves to be corrected by his Word. Those who willingly embrace false doctrines do so to their own peril.

Frankly, there are probably many true believers in our churches who have a wildly misdirected understanding of the Trinity. This is partly the fault of many of us who are pastors and teachers and have not more faithfully and pro-actively taught these core doctrines.

So, if you find out that your understanding has been wrong, don't panic. Simply embrace the truth with which you have been presented. Joyfully embrace the truth about God, and draw near to the Trinitarian God who has drawn near to you.

More to come on this. If you can follow-up questions or comments, feel free to comment on this post, send me an email, or hit me up on facebook.