The Holy Spirit is first of all the Spirit of God. Jesus explains in John 14:25-26, “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
While other versions of the Scriptures use the term “helper”, the King James Version uses the term “Comforter”. This suggests a close relationship rather than a scientist searching for answers. In one of our lectures this week, the writer says, “Likewise, our study of the person and work of the Holy Spirit is not intended to make us masters of the doctrine. Our approach is not like scientists, determined to prove or disprove their hypotheses; but like lovers who understand the importance of both distance and intimacy” (Austin Lecture).
According to Jesus’s words, the Holy Spirit is the teacher, comforter, reminder of His Words, Holy Ghost which the Father will send in Jesus’s name.
Down through the ages different statements or creeds have been written to explain or defend what Christians believe. One of the first was the Nicene Creed formed in the year 325. Concerning the Holy Spirit, it says, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”
This statement seems unfinished. However, if we fast forward nearly two thousand years to The Manual of the Church of the Nazarene, it seems to finish what was begun in the fourth century. “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Triune Godhead, that He is ever present and efficiently active in and with the Church of Christ, convincing the world of sin, regenerating those who repent and believe, sanctifying believers, and guiding into all truth as it is in Jesus.”
We may not ever understand the Holy Spirit fully, but we do see His work and the effects it has on us inwardly and on the body of Christ outwardly. Jesus backs this up in His conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter 3. In verse 8, the Bible says, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Jesus also said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12 KJV).
So we see that the Holy Spirit may not be understood or physically seen. But He is always present and working, and we see His work in the lives of believers. Although we can read in the Scriptures about mighty things done by Jesus and His Apostles, we need only realize how He has kept us individually and corporately to catch a glimpse of His awesome power.
“The content of Jesus has gone into it, with the result that those who receive the Spirit in His fulness understood that not were they being given a special kind of power to carry on Jesus’s mission in the world, but they also were being transformed into a new existence that involved a through-and-through sanctification of their natures” (Dunning p. 410).
Not only were the disciples being transformed, they were also being empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry on Christ’s work here on earth. We who are believers are also empowered to carry on the work of Christ. When we come together in one mind and one accord and let the Spirit lead, we are being the hands and feet of Jesus. Thorsen puts it this way: “The Holy Spirit works for the collective as well as individual good of people, especially in and through the church” (p. 222).
Thorsen goes on with this thought and says that the Holy Spirit works communally. He works in the lives of the churches, which enables people for different aspects of the ministry, depending on their individual strengths. Basically, Jesus is working through the Spirit, so that His body, aka the Church will function as one.
The Apostle Paul brings up this topic in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Verse 7 says, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal” (KJV).
He goes on to say that the same Spirit gives to one person wisdom, while to another knowledge. To one person is given faith, and to another person is given the gift of healing. Some are prophets, some work miracles, some are given the gift of discernment, some speak in different languages, some have the interpretation of those languages. But all these gifts are given by one Spirit, and Paul sums up this thought with verse 12, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ” (KJV).
In conclusion, the Holy Spirit is of God the Father and from Him. He was promised by Jesus as the Spirit of truth, the Comforter, the Teacher who will remind us of Jesus’s sayings (John 14:26).
We do not have to try to fully understand the Holy Spirit; we need only believe. “Although not everyone agrees about the nature and extent of the works of the Holy Spirit, all agree about the importance of the Holy Spirit in every aspect of Christian beliefs, values, and practices” (Thorsen p. 218).Works Cited
Austin, Roy, The Person and the Work of the Holy Spirit, Lecture
Dunning, H. Ray, Grace, Faith, & Holiness: A Wesleyan Systematic Theology, Beacon Hill Press, 1988
Manual of the Church of the Nazarene 2017-2021 https://nazarene.org/who-we-are/articles-faith
Nicene Creed https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe
Thorsen, Don, An Exploration of Christian Theology, Baker Academic, 2008-2020
Shannon Wells 