The Gospel Saves Podcast, Season 2, Ep 5 [powerpress] Basic Assumptions About the Bible I…
Category: Holy Spirit
1Cor. 3:16 “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” This, among other similar passages, teach us that the Spirit of God becomes a part of our lives in a unique and living way through salvation in Jesus Christ. Because the Holy Spirit is not of flesh, there is no way to sense His presence in us. It is through faith we know He is there.
Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? (Acts 19:2).
Paul encountered in Ephesus a group of disciples who believed in Jesus, but they had not received the Holy Spirit. Today’s conventional teaching on the reception of the Holy Spirit and salvation in Jesus’s name rests on the assumption that both are bestowed when one believes in Jesus.
Therefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envyings, and all evil speakings, desire the sincere milk of the Word, as newborn babes, so that you may grow by it; if truly you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” I Peter 2:1-3 I remember, since it was only 15 months ago, holding my firstborn, a daughter, for the first time and I hope never to be able to forget it. In my arms was a piece of me, sharing obvious genetic traits, probably predisposed to certain desirable and undesirable personality wiring as well. Yet, for all that, she was pure, untainted, more so than she ever would be again. I marveled as I beheld and studied her.
Occasionally I will hear people make comments referencing “the God of the old testament,” or “the God of the new testament.” Statements like these stem from the perception that God behaved differently, with different expectations in the old testament than he did in the new. Often the connotation is that the “old testament God” was an angry and vengeful God, while the “new testament God” is kind, forgiving and loving God. There are many examples to counter such ideas, one has but to look at the repeated cycles of forgiveness and redemption in the old testament or the ultimate punishment outlined in Revelation to see that God is kind, capable of righteous anger, forgiving, able and willing to exact vengeance, and loving.
There have been several articles posted on this site that have addressed aspects of the Holy Spirit and how He works in the lives of believers. As one contributor already pointed out, an exhaustive study on the Spirit is daunting for any one, single article. So that is not the aim of this piece. Rather, the intention is to briefly touch on how the Holy Spirit helps us overcome sin.
Where will you find the Word of God? A Jew will tell you the Torah. A Muslim will tell you the Koran. Many Americans will tell you you can find it anywhere and most people in the eastern hemisphere will tell you won’t find it at all. Based on my convictions as a Christian I understand the Word of God to be discovered in many places (creation – Psalm 19:1-4, conscience – Romans 2:14-15), but most importantly the Word of God is revealed through the Bible. The Bible is the manifest Word of God. These words are God’s word. The same master mind that created the world and set the universe in order wrote a book, and he wants you to read it. God wants be found and demands that he be understood to the extent that our human minds are able.
I’d like to continue our consideration of baptism which I began in my last article. Four times in the Gospel of John, Jesus promises His disciples a Comforter or Helper. John 14: 16, 26; John 15: 26 and John 16: 7 all promise this Helper. This comforter is none other than God’s Holy Spirit, called the Spirit of truth in Jn. 14. Jesus also says something both interesting and important in Jn. 14:7: “You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you (emphasis mine).”
Last week, one of our contributors wrote an excellent article entitled, “Faith vs. Reason”. Undoubtedly scientists create a false polarity by opposing faith with reason, particularly when so many scientific theories require a large measure of faith. As Thomas well pointed out, the religiously-minded who extract reason from faith often substitute feelings/emotion. These supposedly indicate or manifest human spirituality. If human spirituality is either defined as or confined to those terms, what makes us different than any other creature which manifests those feelings/emotions?