Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple, Spotify, and those enjoying this on our YouTube video podcast format. If you're new to our ministry, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at ForTheGospel. And beyond giving to your local church, if you're looking for a ministry to partner with financially, we have a big vision and a very hardworking team that is determined to produce and provide free resources for people in need of the truth. And so you can go to forthegospel.org and click give for more information on that. And by the way, if you're one of those people who comes out of kind of a crazy background like I did, and you hear the word vision or big vision and go, uh-oh, let me just remind you, vision is a picture. And when you have a biblical vision, if you will, it's just a biblical picture of what we want to see this ministry be or become. Everybody involved is focused on the local church. We love to support the local church. We're all pastors in the local church. So when we say we have a big vision, it's just, hey, we're going to be ambitious like Paul the Apostle, to push the gospel as far as we can go with it, to get it to people who need it, and to use modern technology and the mediums we've been given to preach the same message and do the same things that faithful men and women, like Elizabeth Elliott and many missionaries, have done throughout the ages. And so we're excited to keep doing that. And you can learn more at forthegospel.org. We'd love to send you a gift as a way of saying thank you for supporting this ministry. So we also have a gospel patron program which sends you my new release books for free and other gifts to help you remember and represent what it means to live for the gospel. Okay, on today's episode, it's the second part of this series on the Holy Spirit. I have a forthcoming book called Knowing the Spirit, and I wrote it because there's a lot of bad teaching on the third person of the Trinity. So I wanted to help to highlight some of the troubling things being taught. But the book really is mostly focused on the truth, and it drives towards sound doctrine regarding the Holy Spirit. Aside from maybe the extremes of false teaching and all that, we also have folks in the reformed type world who, in an overreaction to the emotionalism and the hype, and the false teaching of the charismatic movement in its extreme forms. I'm not saying every Pentecostal is a heretic. Please don't hear what I'm not saying. But to overcorrect from excesses, there's a lot of people who now are kind of crippled when it comes to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. They're scared to believe the wrong thing. They don't want to slip into charismatic excesses. Some people I've talked to, you might laugh at this or think, come on, it's true. Some people are afraid to even say, you know, amen in the middle of a sermon, or they get excited about God's word, or they're just singing and worshiping Jesus, and they just raise their hands and might say, like, Lord, thank you for saving me, and they're just expressing themselves. And then they think, uh-oh, am I not supposed to do that? Am I starting to fall back into my old ways? Or maybe they've never even heard of some of the excesses, and they're just going, uh, I was told to kind of not make a big deal about the Holy Spirit. Well, we need to get his work right and we need to relish in it the right way. And last episode, we looked at some abuses on the Holy Spirit. In this episode, I want to talk about three essential beliefs about the Holy Spirit. So let's jump in. When it comes to his work, we need to make sure everything we believe lines up with scripture. I like the way Charles Spurgeon put it when he wrote, discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It's knowing the difference between right and then almost right. He also elevates the monumental need we have for the Spirit when he says, without the Spirit of God, we can do nothing. We are as ships without the wind, branches without sap, and like coals without fire, we are useless. And so you and I need to get the work of the Holy Spirit right. If we love the truth and we want to glorify Jesus Christ with our lives. Essential truth number one, the Holy Spirit is God. I said that in the last episode. You've probably heard it before. If you've been around church circles, how do we know he's God? Why do we say that he's God? Well, first and foremost, we would say he's an equal and active part of what we call the Trinity. And while very few people who claim to be Christians would argue against God the Father or Jesus being God, there's a lot of confusion regarding the divinity of the Holy Spirit. People ask, is he just an expression of Jesus in spirit form? Is he a less than divine force that God uses to express his power? Is he sort of like an angel? You know, what is or who is the Holy Spirit? The Bible answers these questions with absolute clarity. There are a number of passages in both the Old and New Testament that show us that He is an active part of the Holy Trinity and He is divine. He is God. Now, the Trinity, while the word Trinity is not in the Bible, the concept is just like many doctrines that we might name or call something, and you say, well, that word's not in the Bible, of course not, but the concept is, and it's named by that. The Trinity just means that God is three in one, three persons. He's not three people say expressions of the same God, or he's just three kind of personalities, or three substances that, you know, all of those things are erroneous ways to describe him. Three persons, one God. You say, that's kind of weird, or that's a paradox, or that's a mystery. If you're new to Christianity, you might think that just doesn't make sense. Well, you need to understand that when you think such a teaching is a contradiction to logic, the words of R. C. Sproul, who was a renowned theologian and a very eager and excited Trinitarian theologian at that, he would talk about the Trinity, preach about the Trinity. He wrote this the doctrine of the Trinity is not a contradiction, but a mystery. For we cannot fully understand how God can exist in three persons. The word Trinity is not found in the Bible again, but we use the word to describe the tri-unity of God because the Bible shows us a picture of three persons who are God. They are in action, they are equally divine, they are totally unified, and they are working across the board through Scripture. The Holy Spirit is seen as an equal and active part of the Trinity. We sometimes refer to him as the third person of the Godhead. Not that he's lower, but maybe in the order of the way we view things in salvation or in the practical outworking of the Christian life, we might say the Father called or elected, justified you. The Son, he came down and became man, and he bought you and atoned for your sin. That's Jesus. And then he ascended and they sent the Holy Spirit to fill us and baptize us into the body, to empower us, to gift us, to seal us, and to carry us through the Christian life bearing fruit. We would say the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in that order. Also the way that Jesus says baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So it's not to demean him, it's just simply the way that we express it. He is seen as God throughout the Old Testament. Some examples hovering over the waters before creation in Genesis 1 2, filling certain men under Moses, Exodus 35, verses 30 to 35, empowering Joshua to lead Israel in Numbers 27, coming upon Gideon in Judges 6, 34, then coming upon Samson in Judges 13, 25. We see him rushing upon David when he was anointed as king in 1 Samuel 16, verse 13. He departs from Saul in 1 Samuel 16, 14, and he is said to be carrying along the word of the prophets in 2 Peter 1, verse 21. In Ezekiel 2, 2, it is said that the Holy Spirit was enabling Ezekiel to prophesy. And in Isaiah 61:1, it is expressed as the Holy Spirit prophesying to one day rest upon the Messiah. He's prophesied as the one who is going to rest on the Messiah. We see the Holy Spirit all over the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, it is the same thing, if not even more in different ways. Now, in the Old Testament, he's described as mostly coming upon God's people, believers, of course, who are saved still by grace through faith, but a lot of coming upon, resting upon, or coming upon. There's some filling or there's some indwelling, but it's described as upon. And then in the New Testament, it's described as coming in or entering into believers under the new covenant through Christ. I would be so careful at delineating Old Testament saints from New Testament saints or saying, you know, it was a different spirit or a different expression or some way. It's just simple. The Bible in the Old Testament describes him as coming upon primarily, and God still working through his people and salvation still being by grace through faith. But then in the New Covenant, after the cross, the birth of the church, the explosion of the work of the Spirit through the people of God and the proclamation of the gospel, the Holy Spirit comes and indwells us. And that, of course, is because Jesus ascended and told his disciples in John 16, it's to your advantage that I go. Another one is coming, and he is going to do some work in you, fill you, empower you, guide you into truth, all those things. And so we would be a little bit on a slippery slope if you started to try to create sort of two versions of the Holy Spirit, or like some people will say, the God of the Old Testament is a different God, and he was angry and wrathful and aggressive. And then there's the God of the New Testament, and he either evolved or changed, or it's a different God. Yikes. Slippery slopes slash heresy. In the New Testament, real simple, a lot of evidence. He's mentioned almost a hundred times in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Matthew 120, he conceived Jesus in Mary's womb. That's divine. In Matthew 3.16, he was present at Jesus' baptism. So he's not some abstract expression of Christ. He is the Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit, who's equally and fully God. He was present at Jesus' baptism. Fourth, he was sent by the Father and the Son, John 14, 16. He teaches the disciples all things and reminds them of what Jesus taught, John 14, 26. He is God and believers are baptized in his name as well, Matthew 28, verses 19 to 20. Hebrews 9.4 says he is eternal. In Ephesians 4.30, we see that he has the power to seal believers, so nothing can steal their salvation. Also, Ephesians 2, there in verses 13 and 14, we see that he does his sealing work. Really powerful stuff that the Holy Spirit does in the Gospels and the letter of Ephesians make that clear. And then in Titus 3, 5, it's the Holy Spirit who's described as the one with power to make believers new and wash away our sin. It is not hard to find the Holy Spirit operating as God in Scripture. You could probably add, you know, maybe 10, 20 more items to each list that I just gave you in no time at all. But one of my favorite slam dung evidences for the Holy Spirit being God, Acts chapter 5, verses 3 through 4. Ananias and Sapphira put on this elaborate show of generosity. They actually lied to God about the money they were going to give. They thought they'd pull a fast one on the Lord. And at that time in the early church, everybody was going to give everything they had. They were going to help. And Peter confronts Ananias first and says, Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back some of the proceeds of the land? Then Peter goes on to say, You've not lied to men, but to God. That's in verse 4 of Acts chapter 5. Now, if the Holy Spirit was not equally God, why would Peter say that Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit and refer to the Holy Spirit as God? According to Scripture, our God is three in one. The Holy Spirit is equally God. He is distinctly God, if you will, meaning that he's not merely an expression of Jesus in spirit form. He is God himself as the person of the Holy Spirit. As you study the Holy Spirit in light of what the Bible teaches, you're going to find this is essential doctrine. And that's why we're covering it in this series. I want you to know the Spirit in a deeper way. Okay, essential truth number two that you need to understand, believe, and relish in. The Holy Spirit is not just God, the Holy Spirit is a person. As an equal part of the Godhead, and when I say part, I just mean member of the Trinity. As an equal in the Godhead, the Holy Spirit is a person and he is personal. The Father loves you and calls you his own. That's first John 3 1. The Son died for you and calls you to follow. John 11, 25 and 26 says that follow me. That's Jesus' call. And the Spirit fills you and transforms you as you follow Jesus. First Corinthians 6.11 makes that clear. He's done a work in us. Ephesians 5.18, he fills us. Obviously, there's more to God's work than the short summary I just gave you, but I want you to picture those as brush strokes, beginning to paint a picture that is clear of how God in three persons operates both in eternity past and still today. All three persons of the Trinity are active. Now the fact that the Holy Spirit is a person means that he most certainly is not an it. I don't say this to shame you if that's you, but I've lost count of how many times I've heard people and pastors refer to him as an it. And I'm certain not everyone means to depersonalize him in this way, and some may think I'm splitting hairs here, but this is an important truth. When we refer to the Holy Spirit as an it, we're treating him like sort of a mystical force or a distant power, not a relatable person. And the relatable person that he is. We would never call the Father an it. We would never call Jesus an it. Likewise, it's not respectful or biblical to call the Holy Spirit an it. In John 16, verses 1 to 15, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure. He's going to go back to heaven. This is after the resurrection. And in that passage, he tells them, I'm going to leave, but it's to your advantage. And I need to go. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. He's going to be your advocate, your comforter, your helper. The Greek word paraclete describes that. And when Jesus describes the Holy Spirit in this passage, he doesn't refer to a mystical force, but a person. And there's 13 pronouns that point to a person who functions in a personal, powerful, and very relatable way. And so we'll get into more of the Spirit's work throughout the series. Again, in the book, knowing the spirit that I wrote, it's coming out. There's a lot in his person herder's work, what he does, regeneration, sanctification, illumination, preservation, all of that's in there. But I want you to understand there are some historical heresies that we look at and we link to our heritage or our lineage, if you will, of sound doctrine. What do I mean by that? Well, we're not just picking on Bethel if we bring up Bethel Church and some of the weird stuff they teach, or picking on Michael Todd because we're, you know, hating on the latest popular influencer and all those things. We look back at church history and we see that Bethel didn't make this new stuff up. Michael Todd isn't the first to teach what he's teaching. No one's picking on anyone in some new way. But throughout church history, there have been confusing teachings that take a simple reality about God, whether it's the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, and twist it and spread it as a false teaching or heretical teaching that leads people away from God, away from heaven and to hell. One such teaching is called Sibelianism, and its namesake, Sibelius, taught that the Holy Spirit was not a person, but he was an impersonal force and just an expression of God. That's why I pushed so hard against the idea that he's just some abstract expression. That's heresy. Sibellianism taught that. According to Sibelius, God was one and simply expressed himself in three different ways. And again, if you uh watch the last episode and you watch the Michael Todd sermon called Why Wouldn't You Accept the Upgrade, he actually teaches this sort of thing that God is one and he's just expressing himself in different ways. And it gets really confusing, especially when you say, well, they're persons, but they're they're this, and they were, you know, the Holy Spirit is fashioned and created. A lot of weird language, and that's typically what false teachers do. They talk out the sides of their mouth, they can't get their story straight or their doctrine straight. And if people are well-intentioned in that and they're just ignorant, it's really simple. Get out of ministry, stop teaching, go to seminary or go get trained, and maybe get converted for some people, and then walk the road of sound doctrine. But there's no excuse for false teaching. We've been given clarity from scripture, church history pushes pretty hard. Sabellianism also held that God the Father was expressed in creation, God the Son expressed through redemption, and God the Spirit was expressed in sanctification, literally declared as heresy, because it denied the personhood of the Holy Spirit. The Son and the Spirit and the Father. They're not just expressions of one God. They're distinct persons. Really important. Another view that confused the early church was Arianism. Arianism denied the deity of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Arianism taught that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were both created beings and not the same substance of nature as the God the Father. And that's dangerous. It demeans Christ, demeans the Holy Spirit. If Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not seen as divine persons and equally God, how can they be worshipped properly? They can't be. And so Arianism was such a devastating doctrinal threat to the understanding of God in the early church that the Emperor Constantine called together a council of some 300 church leaders to discuss and clarify what all Christians need to believe about God, including Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This came to be known as the Council of Nicaea and has become one of the hallmarks of church history. Out of that council came the Nicene Creed, which many churches still use to clarify biblical doctrinal beliefs today. And the undeniable truth is that the Holy Spirit is a person, and he is someone we should want to have relationship with as God. We only need to think about the words Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit and how the New Testament speaks about him to realize that he is a person. A quick list that really doubles down on his personhood. Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as comforter, helper, an advocate. Those are personhood qualities. He has feelings, Ephesians 4.30 and Hebrews 10 29. He reveals, he searches, he indwells, 1 Corinthians 2, 10, 11, and 12. He teaches John 14, 26, and 1 Corinthians 2, 13. He helps and prays, Romans 8, 26 and 27. He speaks and he has a will, Acts 13 2, Acts 15, 28, and he bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God, Romans 8, 16. All of those are activities and characteristics that are the marks of a person. The Holy Spirit is divine, he is God, and he is a person. And since scripture reveals that he is a person, what does that mean for us? Not what does that mean to you, or what does that look like to you? Or like Jen Johnson said in that video in the last episode, you know, the Holy Spirit to me, you know, never mind what you think. This is what he is to me, and I can have this view of him, you of your own. What is he to you? That's not how we approach the scriptures. We might say, the Bible teaches he's God, that he's a person. And so, what does that mean for you and me? Essential truth number three that you and I should believe and relish in. He is approachable. You say that's essential. Why? Well, because you need to have a relationship with him. You need to be close to him, to know him, and to relish in his work and experience what he does in your life. He is approachable. He's not some weird mystical force that's out there and far away from you. You don't need to beckon him. Oh, please come. Just please come visit me. Come hang out. Oh, Holy Spirit, where are you? He's there. He's approachable. He's God. He's a person. And you can have a relationship with him and you can interact with him. The same way that you would say, I'm so thankful that Jesus is approachable. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The same way you would say God the Father is working providentially. What do we say God's providence is? If you ever heard that word, you say, What is that? Providence is defined as this that God the Father, who is powerful, all knowing, he is literally beyond anything your mind and I in my mind. Mind could comprehend is so personal. Providence is that he's intimately acquainted with every detail of your life. He knows the amount of hairs that are on your head. He knows everything. He's approachable. When you've been reconciled to him through Christ, he's your father. He's approachable. Well, we should think that the same thing about the Holy Spirit. Even though he's God and needs to be feared in a healthy way and respected, scripture presents him as approachable, relatable, and personal. The Bible teaches that we're filled with him. 1 Corinthians 6 12, and then chapter 6, verse 19 and 20 says, We're the temple of the Holy Spirit. Why should we not experience a close relationship with the Holy Spirit? Again, not a mystical, distant deity. You can pray to him, you can ask him for help. You could be honest with him about your sin, your need for strength, your need for wisdom, your need for healing and holiness. He's the sanctifier in your life. You can ask him, grow me spiritually, purge me of this lust or this greed or those thoughts, renew my mind. Help the word of Christ dwell within me richly as I read the Bible. Holy Spirit, help me retain scripture and hunger for it. You should be praying those things. I ought to be praying those things all the more and all the more. Approach Him, seek Him, implore Him, and trust Him. It doesn't need to be weird. A lot of times in modern evangelicalism, we've turned the approachability of the Holy Spirit into these worship leader, you know, music guy, sort of mystical fog kind of moments of, you know, God, we just ask you to come. And oh, Holy Spirit, you're just so amazing. We just welcome you. We want you to be here. It's all like uh emotive and weird. And and people go, is that I guess that's how I'm supposed to talk to him? And then like the Father, it's like, Father, very deep and strong, and father, we come to you. Or and Jesus, thank you. We love you. We're all excited because Jesus seems really approachable because he came as a man and and died and and he's our advocate. And then the Holy Spirit, again, is sort of like the fog machine in some of these churches. He's just floating around, and and we just kind of need to corral him, you know, and get him in our chimney so that he can flow. Listen, like a relationship with Jesus as your savior, and like a relationship with the Father as the perfect one who loves you. Approach the Holy Spirit as you do any member of the Trinity. Defend, depend fully on him. Now, it may take you some time to see him that way, because you're either a product of, you know, mainstream big Eva with its mushy lingo and everything's like music and goosebumps, or you hyper swung out of charismatic chaos into this reformed stoicism. And now there's there's not a lot of expression and there's a little bit of an awkwardness. You're like, what do I do with the Holy Spirit? I'm not really sure how much I'm supposed to talk to him or talk about him. I mean, he only exists to glorify Christ, so I don't want to make too big of a deal about him. Let's kind of put him in the corner over there. Both of those extremes are going to leave you confused, either misled or really uneasy and unnecessarily so. Perhaps you're a bit confused about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps you've ignored him in your prayer life, or you become disillusioned, or perhaps you've been using language to beckon and describe him that is just sort of conjecture. The Bible helps us greatly to see that he is an equal, an active, present, and approachable member of the Trinity. You can approach him and get answers from the Bible. You can approach him and get strength and wisdom for today. You can approach him and ask him to fill you for the glory of Christ today and he will. There's no weird, no need to get weird and mystical about it. It's real simple. We build our doctrinal beliefs on scripture. It's orthodoxy, that's right believing, and then orthopraxy. We engage with our methods or the way we live the truth according to scripture, and that works itself out from Scripture. And so you don't need to be confused or frustrated or indifferent about building a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Approach Him, learn from Him, ask Him for help. One of the most helpful things that you may find is turn off the opinions and the foolish fantasies and all this garbage out there from televangelists and pop culture preachers and these people that seem to present this special in they have with the Holy Spirit. They're manipulating their cult-like followings. And they're creating a sensationalistic and emotionalistic version of the Holy Spirit. And that's not really the way that he operates. Turn on the voice of God through the Bible. Turn on the lights, if you will, of understanding regarding the Spirit's work from scripture and scripture alone. Those three essential truths, he's God. Gotta believe that and relish in it. Go to him, pray to him. There's no need to look at him as some weird mystical thing out there that you gotta beckon in, and also kind of like the awkward guy in the corner that you're not really sure you should pay any attention to. Treat him like an equal in the Trinity. In the next episode, I want to help you apply what we've covered so far. And so we're gonna take a good look at three responses to the essential truths that I've walked you through in this episode. The next episode will be titled, The Holy Spirit is God, now what? And we're gonna look at the way we should live in light of these truths. I'm really excited to walk you through those. And thanks again for listening, for watching, for sharing, and for supporting for the gospel. I hope this series is used by the Lord to help you become a person who relishes in the Holy Spirit's work because you understand his work biblically. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.