July 25, 2025 • 53 mins
The Holy Spirit, the often overlooked but equally important member of the Trinity. Though spoken of less frequently than the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit's impact flows continuously through Scripture and history like an invisible current shaping everything He touches.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
When you come into the New Testament, they just
speak of this as like thenatural flow of events, not a
novel idea, but as somethingthat was already in place.
He says it's clear that as weread the New Testament, we're
not witnessing the birth of anew conception of God.
The doctrine of the Trinitydoes not appear in the New
Testament in the making, but asalready made.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
There is less said about the Holy Spirit of God in
the Bible than there is aboutthe Father and the Son.
This does not make him lesserthan either the other two.
He is truly an equal part ofGod, an equal member in the
Trinity, full of the same nature, attributes and character as
(00:53):
the Father and as the Son, buthe takes on a different role.
His role is in the background,motivating and moving forces and
people and time and history,encouraging and empowering,
restraining.
It is a less public, lessobvious role for the Holy Spirit
(01:14):
, but no less important.
Today we're going to dive intojust exactly who the Holy Spirit
is, what his role is, how heworks and how God describes him.
Much like the air that webreathe, he is unseen and yet we
feel his impact and effectseverywhere.
(01:35):
So, although he might not bespoken of as much, his impact is
amazing and continuous andthroughout the Bible and
throughout history.
So today we look into thislesser known but equally
important aspect of God the HolySpirit.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We have been working through the first event in the
New Testament, which is thebirth of the King, and it's been
going on for a while in the NewTestament, which is the birth
of the king, and it's been goingon for a while.
That's okay.
The doctrinal implications orrepercussions of the virgin
birth are very significant andwe've gone through, of course,
the most complicated person whoever came into the world.
It's the only person who's comeinto the world by means of a
(02:19):
hypostatic union, and that isthe Lord Jesus Christ.
So just the endeavor of tryingto understand the hypostatic
union and that is the Lord JesusChrist, so just the endeavor of
trying to understand thehypostatic union, is an endeavor
in itself, and so we spentquite a bit of time working
through that, and the nextdoctrine that works out of that
is, of course, the Trinity.
Some of these things we'vealready discussed, so I'm just
(02:40):
going to briefly go over them.
Last week we talked aboutTrinity in the Old Testament,
right, which many people thinkthere's not much, or not any
about the Trinity in the OldTestament, and what I tried to
show is that indeed, in fact,there's quite a bit of
information in the Old Testamentthat sets us up for a more
developed Trinity in the NewTestament, but that all the
pieces were there in the OldTestament.
(03:03):
So it's easy for the assemblyof these parts to be natural in
the New Testament and that'ssomething that we'll see.
I'll give you a quote here in amoment from a New Testament
scholar about Trinity and how itwas just a natural thing for
the authors to portray this.
(03:23):
They didn't go into some kindof great defense about it in the
pages of the New Testament, itwas just already there.
First of all, trinity in the OldTestament right, there are
Hebrew words for one, okay,several Hebrew words.
The one that's used of God,echad, is a word that allows for
diversity in the oneness.
(03:43):
This is a great trouble fornon-Trinitarians and for Jews.
In fact they are very upsetabout this to the extent that in
Jewish formulations theyreplace the word echad with the
word yachid.
Yachid means an absoluteoneness, because they don't want
any diversity in that oneness.
That Christians keep saying isin this word in Father, son and
(04:07):
Holy Spirit.
So the fact that echad is usedof God consistently and yakid is
never used has been quitesignificant and used by
Christians throughout thecenturies in apologetics, with
Jews and anti-Trinitarians.
Also plural names of God, likeElohim.
A plural name of God but usedwith singular verbs.
So very interesting that Godwould be referred to in the
(04:29):
plurality, but the verb thatfollows will be a singular,
indicating the oneness but alsothe plurality in God.
The passages on the angel ofYahweh.
So the angel of Yahweh isreferred to as someone distinct
from God, and in other passagesthe angel of Yahweh is referred
to as someone distinct from Godand in other passages the angel
of Yahweh is referred to asYahweh himself.
So very interesting he'sdistinct from Yahweh, yet he is
(04:51):
Yahweh.
So what does that imply orwhere does that point?
The word or wisdom of Yahweh,another concept of trinity or
multiplicity in Yahweh.
And then the explicit passagesIsaiah 48, 16, 61, 1, and 2.
Those are two passages thatactually talk about a threeness
in God, not three gods, but athreeness in the one God, right?
(05:14):
So those passages, you mightwant to memorize as to where
they are located so you canquickly pull them up.
Today we're going to get intoreally the Holy Spirit.
We're just going to talk aboutthe deity of the Holy Spirit and
the personality or person ofthe Holy Spirit.
We're not going to go into thedeity of Christ, because we
already did that and we're notgoing to go into the deity of
(05:35):
the Father, because nobody has aproblem with that.
Okay, so all we're going to dois elaborate on the third person
of the trinity.
But just so you know, we didn'tskip christ.
We've already dealt with thedeity of christ and I've just
summarized those three lines ofevidence that we discussed, I
don't know, a month or two ago.
The christ for yahweh namesubstitutions.
(05:56):
In other words, in the oldtestament a passage will be
talking about yahweh.
In the new testament, thatpassage will be quoted, and yet
Christ is inserted for Yahweh.
So what does that mean?
What is the implication of thatright?
Then you've got other passagesthat are Christ for Yahweh,
function substitutions, in otherwords, things that only Yahweh
(06:19):
can do as a function.
In the New Testament, christ issaid to do those things.
One example is forgive sins.
Remember the passage you knowJesus forgives sins and they say
gosh, he's making himself outto be God and anyway he goes on
to say well, which is easier todo?
Say I forgive your sins, or toraise this man, to heal this man
(06:41):
.
So the point is that he'sforgiving people, and yet the
Old Testament taught that onlyYahweh could forgive sin.
So where is that pointing?
And then explicit passages onthe deity of Christ Titus 2.13,.
2 Peter 1.1,.
Those both use the GranvilleSharpe rule, which is used 198
times in the New Testament andalways holds that when you have
(07:03):
that construction in the NewTestament and always holds that
when you have that construction,the two nouns I mean the two
descriptors refer to one and thesame person.
So Titus 2.13, our great Godand Savior, jesus Christ.
Who is our great God, jesusChrist?
Who is our Savior, jesus Christ?
Both God and Savior arereferring to the same individual
under this construction.
Hebrews 1a.
(07:24):
To which of the angels did heever say, you know?
And goes on to describe thesecond person as God, colossians
2.9,.
In him dwells all the fullnessof deity in bodily form.
So lots of and there's more,lots of passages on explicit
passages on the deity of Christ.
But today we want to focus onthe Holy Spirit.
As we go into this, rememberwe've got Father, son and Holy
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Spirit in one person.
This is the concept of Trinity,and I've got you up to speed
with the Old Testament.
So this is from a scholar fromseveral generations ago now BB
Warfield.
He said if they, that is, theNew Testament writers, but they
betray no sense of novelty.
(08:08):
And so, speaking of God as atrinity, this is undoubtedly in
part because it was no longer anovelty, so to speak of him.
In other words, when you comeinto the New Testament, they
just speak of this as, like thenatural flow of events, not a
novel idea, but as somethingthat was already in place.
(08:28):
He says it's clear that as weread the New Testament, we're
not witnessing the birth of anew conception of God.
The doctrine of the Trinity doesnot appear in the New Testament
in the making, but as alreadymade, which is super interesting
because most people they don'tthink the Trinity is in the Old
Testament.
They think, oh, that's the NewTestament, the New Testament
gave us that.
But no, the way the NewTestament authors speak of it is
(08:51):
something that's not reallynovel and they're not making
this doctrine.
They're showing that it'salready on the table and was in
the Jewish mindset.
They don't have a problem withit at all, which I find so
interesting, right, because Imean of all people you'd think
who would be like strictmonotheists.
You'd think of somebody likePaul, right?
Or Saul.
(09:12):
You know he was a Pharisee,right, yet he didn't struggle
with this.
In Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, itsays many of the Sadducees
believed.
I think this verse getsoverlooked.
Like the Sadducees, I mean, areyou kidding me?
These are the people who didn'teven believe in resurrection,
by the way.
And in Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, it says many of the Sadducees
(09:37):
believed.
That's kind of striking,because they would not be the
people you would expect tobelieve, and so to believe that
Jesus is the Messiah, they'dhave to be believing that he's
God.
They'd have to believe, ofcourse, in the resurrection.
So their beliefs were beingchallenged.
And yet these ideas werealready in the air.
(09:58):
The concepts of Trinity werealready in the air and they were
familiar with these concepts.
So it was not that great a leap.
Let's go into the person of theHoly Spirit and the deity of the
Holy Spirit.
It's an interesting discussion.
The reason we have to do this,especially about both
personality and deity, isbecause not all groups claim
(10:20):
that the Spirit is a distinctperson in the Trinity, claim
that the Spirit is a distinctperson in the Trinity.
Many groups claim that he isjust an impersonal force of God,
something that God uses toaccomplish things, but something
that is simply literally asimpersonal as gravity, and so
these would be non-Trinitarians.
(10:42):
They would also beanti-Trinitarians or Binitarians
.
Binitarians would just hold totwo members of the Trinity being
God, but groups like, forexample, jehovah's Witnesses or
Mormons, they don't believe thatthe Holy Spirit is a person.
They think of the Holy Spiritas a force from God by which he
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accomplishes things.
Now, the Spirit is not a force,as we'll show, but he is in the
background, which is veryinteresting, and this is
intentional.
It's intentional that he's inthe background and not at the
forefront or taking center stage.
Now, this is seen from thewords for Spirit in the Hebrew
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ruach and in the Greek pneuma,seen from the words for spirit
in the Hebrew ruach and in theGreek pneuma.
You know, if you have pneumonia, that's a problem in your what,
in your lungs, and that's wherewe breathe.
And we have a diaphragm thatyou know presses up on the lungs
to push the air out, the breath, the wind out, and then, of
course, the diaphragm allowsalso us to breathe in.
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But that's where we get ourword pneumonia from.
There's some the greek wordpneuma, so we have these two
words.
The hebrew word is translatedvarious ways.
Spirit doesn't always have to bethe holy spirit, right, it
could just be a spirit like ademonic spirit, or the human
spirit, or a good spirit, a goodangel, wind, of course, breath,
(12:08):
breeze blowing nothingness.
And of course I've put somepassages down here where it
refers to the Spirit of God.
That should be, I think,genesis 1-2, not Genesis 12-3.
Genesis 1-2, I mean he's in thesecond verse of the Bible.
I always find this amazing.
People think, well, how couldyou get Trinity out of the Bible
(12:30):
?
I mean, did you read the firstthree verses?
If you read the first threeverses and you actually know
some more of the Bible, you seeall three persons in the first
three verses.
In the beginning God, pluralElohim, created singular verb,
so unity and diversity.
Already he created the heavensand the earth and it says the
earth was formless and void anddarkness was over the surface of
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the deep and the Spirit of Godthere's, the Spirit in the very
second verse of the Bible wasmoving over the surface of the
waters.
And then God said, verse 3, letthere be light.
And that's word, that's speech.
Who is the word?
Who is the word?
Become flesh?
Who dwelt among us in the NewTestament.
(13:12):
Well, that's the second personof the Trinity, so you really
have all three members of theTrinity in hindsight in the
first three verses of the Bible.
But there it is ruach.
There in verse 2, the Spirit ofGod.
He's also used in Genesis 6,verse 3, where, just before the
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flood, the Lord said my spiritshall not strive with man
forever, because he's also flesh.
Nevertheless, his day shall be120 years.
So he was restraining prior tothe flood, but he would not go
on restraining forever Another120 years and then God would
judge, which he did.
(13:53):
But there are other usages ofrock just for our breath, for
example, job 4.9,.
For wind, psalm 78.39,.
For a cool breeze, job 7, 7.
But this is and we're going totalk about the influence and why
this word is used a word forbreath, wind, breeze, air, these
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concepts.
There's a very particularreason this word was chosen.
The New Testament word is theGreek word pneuma.
Again, it means similar thingslike air, blowing, something
that's moving, movement, wind,breath and spirit.
And the spirit, interestinglyand intentionally, is sometimes
(14:40):
referred to as a what.
What I mean is in the neuter,not as masculine, but in the
neuter, and other times he'sreferred to by the masculine.
Now, part of this is due to thefact that the Greek word pneuma
is a neuter word.
It's just a neuter word.
(15:03):
This seems intentional though,because, as I said before, he's
in the background, just likewind is in the background.
See, you don't see the wind,you see the effects of the wind,
right.
And so this is a setup for usto understand more about the
(15:24):
Holy Spirit and how he works.
So the fluctuation is reallyclear as far as him being
referred to in the neuter and inthe masculine, and you say this
is strange.
So let's just look at John 14,26.
John 14, 26.
John 14, 26.
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The reason some people say well, he's not a person, he's just a
force, is because of the neuter, and that's true on one side,
but there are also references tohim as the masculine, and
that's what keeps him as aperson.
We don't know entirely why Goddecided to do it this way, but
it does point in a direction.
I think that direction is theidea that he is in the
(16:14):
background.
John 14, 26,.
Jesus says but the helper, theHoly Spirit neuter okay, that's
neuter whom the Father will sendin my name, he masculine
pronoun will teach you allthings.
So there it is.
You've got neuter and you'vealso got masculine.
(16:35):
How about chapter 15, verse 26?
15, 26.
Also a reference to the helper,who we already know is the Holy
Spirit.
Now, when the helper comes,whom I will send to you from the
Father?
That is the Spirit of truth,neuter Spirit, who proceeds from
the Father, he masculinepronoun will testify about me.
(16:59):
When I say masculine pronoun, Imean it's in the Greek text,
it's masculine.
I don't mean here, it'smasculine, obviously here, it is
in the English, but I mean inthe original language, of course
.
Now, this verse is important,by the way, for another reason
that I want to mention thequestion who will send the
Spirit, who will send the Helper?
It says when the Helper comes,whom I will send?
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That's Jesus is saying thatright To you from the Father.
Okay, sent to you from theFather.
That is the Spirit of truth whoproceeds from the Father.
So, who sent the Spirit?
Well, the Father.
He proceeds from the Father,but he's also sent through the
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Son.
Okay, from the Father throughthe Son.
So both the Father and the Sonare involved in the giving of
the Spirit, what we call theprocession of the Spirit.
Why is this important.
You've heard people say thefirst, second and third members
of the Trinity.
This doesn't have anything todo with one being more superior
(18:10):
than the other.
You may wonder why they callthe Spirit the third, and why is
he not the first?
Or why is he not the second?
Why is Jesus not the first?
You may wonder about thesethings.
It's because of the order ofprocession, for example.
Who sends the Father?
Who sent the Father?
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No one.
No one sends the Father.
Who sent the Son?
The Father Did the Spirit sendthe Son?
No, the Father alone sent theSon.
Now then the question becomeswho sent the Spirit?
Well, the Father and the Son.
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And so since no one sent theFather, he's the first person.
Since the Father sent the Son,then he's the second person.
And since the Father and theSon sent the Spirit, then the
Spirit is the third person.
It's called the order ofprocession, and so that's what
those numerals 1, 2, and 3 areall about with reference to the
three members of the Trinity.
But anyway, he's referred toneuter and masculine.
(19:16):
He's a what, and he's also a he.
Now let's go to John 3.
We're in John, so there's beena lot in John, as you've noticed
with this section of theframework studying Trinity,
deity of Christ, a whole lot ofthis.
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In John we see that from thesecond line of evidence that
he's not a force is from theinfluence of a spirit.
So I just want to talk ingeneral about the influence of
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spirit, both in a wind sense aswell as in demonic sense, and,
of course, the Holy Spirit andthe sense of the Holy Spirit
himself, both in a wind sense aswell as in like demonic sense,
all these and, of course, theHoly Spirit and the sense of the
Holy Spirit himself.
So in John 3, we have the storyof Nicodemus, right, nicodemus
comes.
He comes when he comes at night, okay, well, he didn't want to
be seen, right?
And he has a specific question.
(20:24):
He's saying in verse 2, we knowthat you've come from God as a
teacher.
No one can do these signs thatyou do unless God is with him.
I mean, he recognized that thesigns that he was doing were
what we call messianic miracles,like they were not just
miracles on the order of thingsthat Moses was able to do.
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This is something beyond that.
Or, elijah, these are thingsbeyond that.
He recognized that and Jesusanswered and said to him.
Truly, truly, I say to you,unless one is born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God.
No entrance, unless you'reregenerated.
You have to be a regeneratedindividual to enter the kingdom
of God.
Okay, you know, no entranceunless you're regenerated.
You have to be a regeneratedindividual to enter the kingdom
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of God.
To see it, nicodemus said tohim how can a man be born when
he's old?
He can't enter a second timeinto his mother's womb and be
born.
Can he and Jesus?
Come on, guy?
Jesus answered, truly, truly, Isay to you, unless one is born
of water and the Spirit, hecannot enter into the kingdom of
God.
And we're not here to reflecton that concept.
But that's not water baptism,for whatever it's worth, that
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which is born of the flesh isflesh and that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be amazed that I said toyou, you must be born again.
And then he gives thisillustration with wind.
See, regeneration is a work ofthe Holy Spirit, right, and he's
just mentioned the Spirit.
That which is born of theSpirit is Spirit.
He says the wind blows where itwishes and you hear the sound
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of it, but you don't know whereit comes from and you don't know
where it's going.
So is everyone who's born ofthe Spirit.
In other words, the Spirit hasthis background work that is
illustrated by the work of wind.
Again, we don't know where windcomes from, we don't know where
it's going, but we see theeffects thereof, right.
Especially as this fall comes,we'll have some windy days and
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the leaves will blow off thetrees, and then everybody will
be out in their yards picking upleaves, right.
This is all due to thisbehind-the-scenes thing we call
wind, and so that's just anillustration.
Now let's go a little bitfurther and we'll turn to Daniel
, chapter 7.
Daniel, chapter 7.
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In the Bible, nations are set upas, basically, water.
We are viewed as water.
Water is something that's veryunstable, of course.
You know this from your ownexperience.
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But in the New Testament you'dhave the Sea of Galilee, and if
you've ever been there, you'llsee the hills on the east side,
and the winds will sweep overthose hills and down onto this
lake and cause quite a tumult onthe water, big waves, and
that's the story, you know.
Jesus is asleep in the boat andthey're like how can he sleep,
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you know?
And he wakes up and he rebukesthe winds, the spirits, and it
becomes perfectly calm.
The waters become calm, but thenations are viewed in the Bible
as like bodies of water, whichare very unstable and are easily
tossed right and caused to turninto confusion.
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And here's a section thatdiscusses that concept Daniel 7,
verse concept.
Daniel, chapter 2, or 7, verse 2, 7-2.
Daniel said I was looking in myvision by night and behold, the
four winds of heaven werestirring up the great sea.
The four winds of heaven werestirring up the great sea.
See, the great sea is a well.
What's the great sea?
Well, now you have verse 3.
Four great beasts are coming upfrom the sea and they're
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different from one another.
We know these if you've studiedthis chapter.
We know these four great beastsare the four great Gentile
kingdoms or empires Babylon,medo-persia, greece and Rome,
right that will rule during thetimes of the Gentiles and
they're viewed as coming up outof the sea, the seas themselves
being the nations of the world.
And so these are the four greatnations of the world rising up
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and they're being stirred up bythe four winds of heaven.
And then he goes on to describethese four beasts, and they're
all kingdoms that suppress manand oppress man and hurt man.
They're not good for man welive in.
So spirit influences or wheninfluences causing humanity to
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go through all sorts offluctuations.
We see these forces in theeconomy, in politics, in
military.
We just saw yesterday inmilitary, you know, if you ask
the real questions, what I callthe metaphysical questions,
that's, the questions aboutwhat's behind reality, that is
structuring the reality, that wesee the physics, the
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metaphysics behind the physicsthat we can see, what are the
forces behind?
You know the militaryengagement against Israel, for
example, which is, in Muslims'mind, war since 1948.
Not a bunch of separate wars,but they view it as war from
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1948.
What's behind all that, thismilitary maneuvers?
Is it just humanity?
Is it just what we see?
Or there are spiritual forcesof darkness behind the military
machine?
What about politics?
(26:00):
I think somebody almost laughed.
Is this just humans or is theresomething more?
Are there spiritual forces ofdarkness behind this as well?
Daniel 10 seems to indicatethere are spiritual.
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There's spiritual warfaretaking place between good angels
and bad angels over politicalrulers and nations.
Daniel chapter 10, over Iran,what we call ancient Persia.
Right, it's not just human.
These forces, these spirits areacting upon them, but they're
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unseen like the wind, but yousee the effects thereof.
I mean, who can predict theeconomy?
It's behind the economy.
Who can predict?
If all the people in financeand the market really knew what
they were talking about,wouldn't they all be
billionaires?
Which means what?
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They don't know what they'retalking about.
They can't predict the market.
Why not?
Is it because there are unseenspiritual forces that are behind
all the things that we see inthis world?
So there are these influences,what you might call metaphors,
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spirits, okay, and the humanrace is viewed like this
unstable body, water that'sbeing tossed to and fro, by the
way, we're told ephesians 4, 14.
So let's go there.
Very important applicationephesians 4, 14, in the section
on unity and the diversity ofspiritual gifts that are to
enforce unity.
There's one in the many in thischapter.
This chapter is all about onein the many, many different
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spiritual gifts that are toenforce unity.
There's one in the many in thischapter.
This chapter is all about onein the many, many different
spiritual gifts, but one body ofChrist.
Why all the different spiritualgifts?
So we can all be separate?
No, so we can all be unified.
And in verse 14, he says as aresult, as a result of what?
As a result of these speakinggifts that he's just discussed,
which are for the building up ofthe body of Christ to a full
stature of maturity verse 14,result we are no longer to be
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children tossed here and thereby waves and carried about by
every wind of doctrine.
There's the analogy between thewaves and being tossed by the
wind, and we're not supposed tobe tossed waves and being tossed
by the wind, and we're notsupposed to be tossed.
The world is tossed to and froby every idea that came down the
pike.
We're not supposed to be tossedto and fro.
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How do we avoid being tossed toand fro?
We know Bible doctrine, we knowtruth, we know what's going on
because we analyze the worldthrough the lens of the
Scripture, and the Scripturegives us the tools to understand
the world around us.
And if you don't know what theScriptures teach, then you're
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going to be tossed to and frobecause you don't know what is
going on.
That's why I think when peopleget into Bible doctrine, they go
to a content Bible teachingchurch, and this happened to me
when I started listening tocontent Bible teaching.
I was like I've been in achurch all my life and I haven't
heard any of this stuff.
What is all this stuff?
I had no rudder, so to speak,to keep me on course.
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I was being tossed to and froby all sorts of ideas.
This is why our young people,who aren't trained in most local
churches how to think, theydon't know Bible doctrine, they
don't know the word, they don'tknow why it's important, they're
thinking well, I don't needthis to make money, I just need
to get a degree.
And they don't understand thesignificance of this because
(29:43):
most of the time they're nottaught in local churches and so
they go to college, right, andthen what happens?
Oh boy, here they go, becauseyou know I mean, I've been on
the university campus way toomany hours One of my professors
wrote in a legal brief when Iactually was going to take him
(30:08):
to court over refusing to let mehave a recommendation for
medical school because I didn'tbelieve in the theory of
evolution hypothesis ofevolution, I should say.
He said that it is theprofessor's job to to
indoctrinate their students awayfrom the teachings of their
(30:35):
parents.
I have this, I have thiswritten in a legal document.
Yeah, it's very purposeful thatyou will be tossed to and fro
by all these doctrines thatyou're taught in secular
university.
It's there on purpose, okay.
So my point is there'ssomething more that's going on.
(31:00):
This isn't just people.
There is a complicated system,a spiritual realm that is deeply
involved and enmeshed in all ofour lives in this world, to the
extent that Paul says inEphesians 2.2, the prince of the
power of the air, who is inunbelievers, it doesn't say he
just impresses upon them orinfluences them.
(31:22):
He's in them, like he'soperating through them.
People aren't neutral, nobody'sneutral, but we're not to be
tossed to and fro by thesethings, because we keep our eyes
on Scripture, we learn theScriptures.
We go on and on.
By the way, you don't know itall.
You probably know very littleof it.
If you're honest with yourself.
If I'm honest with myself, Idon't know all the Psalms.
(31:47):
Do you?
Do you know Ezekiel?
Do you know Jeremiah?
Do you know Lamentations?
Have you read Lamentations inthe last decade?
If you're honest with yourself,you realize you don't know that
much.
The more you know, the biggeryour arsenal is.
(32:09):
And the bigger your arsenal isand the bigger your arsenal is,
the easier it is to not betossed to and fro, isn't it?
That's why you keep comingright, because you realize I
really don't know everything andI really have a lot to learn.
So, the spirit, right.
Another illustration be here atthis point that which God
(32:36):
created in man.
Right, we have a body.
He took the dust of the ground,he formed the body and then he
breathed into that body a spirit, the breath of life, and man
became a living soul.
Right, god breathed.
I just want you to just backaway from the Genesis 2-7.
It says this right, godbreathed into his nostrils.
(33:00):
What Did you ever actually thinkabout that statement?
Did it make you think, well,does God have a nose?
Does he have lungs?
Does he have a diaphragm?
Because it's using this conceptof breath and we know what that
is involved in with us.
But what is this a picture of?
Was this like CPR?
(33:22):
Another question to ask is wasthe spirit involved there?
The spirit himself?
I mean, god doesn't have a nose, we know that.
We know he doesn't have a mouth, we know he doesn't have lungs.
He's a spirit being.
But what is this conveying?
Was it the pre-incarnate Christ?
This is a question I began toask.
Was it the pre-incarnate Christwho carried this out in a
(33:43):
picture of like CPR, don't youwish you could have been there
to see this?
But see, there's an aspect ofyou that's not physical, it's
your human spirit.
It's where your personalitycomes from, it's where your
conscience is, it's the sourceof love.
I mean, those are the things,aren't things like your body,
(34:04):
where, if you don't, this is nota loving person.
Let's take him and get surgerydone, get the love organ put
back in this person.
You can't do that because it'snot a part of our material being
, another thing.
So then you ask yourself well,why do we have a mouth, nose,
lungs and diaphragm?
Why do we have those things?
(34:25):
Is it not because those thingsin some way reflect God as
spirit, as breath?
You know, like wind, like anentity like that, and without
the diaphragm, without the lungs, without the in and out process
(34:47):
of breathing, we don't reallyhave a concept of our spirit.
But this is giving us somethingtangible breathing in and
breathing out that reminds us ofthe intangible human spirit
that we are all essentially.
That's who we essentially are,right, that's who you are.
(35:07):
My wife will always say you seea person's spirit by looking in
their eyes, like that's theclosest you can get to seeing a
person who they really areseeing, their spirit.
I mean your eyes are physical,but you know what she means,
right?
You're detecting who they arethrough their eyes.
That's why, sometimes, whenyou're in conversation with
people, there's some people thatwon't look at you.
(35:27):
You have to wonder what are youhiding?
What are you hiding from?
Why do we think that?
Because we know intuitivelythat the eyes are where a person
really is.
That's where you're seeing them.
So if they're hiding their eyesfrom you, maybe it's because
they're hiding from you.
Now, I'm telling you this, butI'm giving you tools.
(35:50):
These are scriptural tools,though.
These are scriptural tools.
This is how you don't getdeceived, right?
You watch people, youunderstand, because you
understand these divine truthsthat we're talking about and
therefore you know what's goingon.
All this is because we're madein God's image.
So there's another aspect ofspirit your breath, a tangible
(36:13):
manifestation of the intangiblespirit that we all have.
Let's also talk a little bitabout the relationship of the
spirit and the Word of GodProverbs 1.23.
Let's turn to this one Proverbs1.23.
Just so you see, this wasn'tsomething new in the New
Testament.
This is an old idea, and ituses what's called Hebrew
(36:35):
parallelism, where you have twophrases and the two phrases are
parallel.
They essentially mean the samething, but the words are
different.
Notice Proverbs 1.23,.
Turn to my reproof, and then wehave the two phrases that are
(36:57):
in parallel.
Behold, I will pour out myspirit on you.
I will make my words known toyou.
So what does it mean?
I will make my words known toyou.
It means I will pour out myspirit on you.
What does it mean that I'llpour out my spirit on you?
It means I will make my wordsknown to you.
It means I will pour out mySpirit on you.
What does it mean that I'llpour out my Spirit on you?
It means I will make my wordsknown to you.
So those two clauses, clauseone and clause two, are parallel
(37:18):
.
They essentially mean the samething.
How do we pour out our Spiritbefore someone?
Just in everyday life, when youhave something on your heart
and you go to your loved one andyou start to pour out your
(37:41):
spirit before them, don't you?
What are you doing?
As you do that?
You're speaking word.
You're telling them what's onyour heart.
And so there's something veryintimate between the connection
of spirit and words, your humanspirit and your human words.
Same thing's true for the Bibleand the Holy Spirit, as we'll
(38:05):
see.
Ephesians 5.18,.
Let's go to that one.
Ephesians 5.18.
5.18.
Let's go to that one, ephesians5.18.
Right after Galatians.
If you see that, ephesians 5.18.
And you'll just hold your placethere, stick a little marker or
use your pinky, go over toColossians 3.
(38:27):
These two books were writtenabout the same time by Paul, one
to the church at Ephesus, theother to the church at Colossus.
These letters are very, verysimilar.
They use a lot of the samelanguage and they follow a lot
of the same structure.
In Ephesians 5, verse 18, hesays and do not get drunk with
(38:51):
wine, for that is dissipation,but be filled with the what, the
Spirit.
And then what does it say?
Speaking to one another inpsalms, hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melodywith your heart to the Lord,
always giving thanks for allthings in the Lord, and so forth
.
Okay, now hold your place andgo to Colossians, chapter 3,
verse 16.
And go to Colossians 3, verse16.
(39:14):
And notice what he says inverse 16.
Let the word of Christ richlydwell within you.
Okay, ephesians 5 was be filledwith the Spirit.
This is let the word of Christrichly dwell.
And then he says what?
With all wisdom, teaching andadmonishing one another with
psalms and hymns and spiritualsongs, singing with thankfulness
in your hearts, and so forth.
In other words, it's the samecontext, isn't it?
(39:36):
It's the exact same context.
Now, why in Ephesians did hesay be filled with the Spirit,
but in Colossians he said letthe word of Christ dwell richly
within you.
They're parallel expressions,aren't they?
They mean the same thing.
If somebody says well, whatdoes it mean to be filled with
the Spirit?
I mean, because that is alittle amorphous for us it's
like what, what is that?
I don't know what that is.
Well, you can just tell themthis it's letting the Word of
(39:58):
Christ dwell richly within you.
You mean that's the same thing?
Yeah, it's a parallelexpression.
I mean what's happening?
As you let the Word of Goddwell richly within you, are you
not letting the Spirit, whosewords those are, influence your
life?
Yes, that's what you're doing.
So, again, they're used inparallel the Spirit and the Word
(40:21):
.
How about Acts, chapter 2?
Most people don't think of thisone, and I actually forgot
about it.
That's why I say most peopleforget.
I forgot about this.
In Acts, chapter 2, the day ofof pentecost, you have this
event where the 12 are there andthen there's these tongues
distributing themselves likefire and they began to speak in
all these languages, right, thatthey had never studied.
(40:43):
But the people who were thereon the day of pentecost, from
all over the mediterranean world, they were hearing them speak
in their native dialects andtongues.
Right, how is it interpreted byPeter in Acts 2.33?
What was happening?
How was it that they werespeaking in tongues or languages
(41:04):
that they had never learned?
Well, he explains it in 2.33,that he has poured forth this,
which you both see and hear.
Well, he explains it in 233,that he has poured forth this,
which you both see and hear thatis the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was the one whoenabled them to speak in
languages they had never spokenand never studied.
(41:27):
So, another connection betweenpouring forth of the Spirit and
speaking words, speaking words.
There's nothing mystical aboutit, so to speak.
I mean the Holy Spirit is doingthis and it wasn't an ooh, I
mean it was an interestingmoment, but it's an evidence of
(41:48):
the Spirit speaking words andthat connection was well known.
Now, 2 Peter 1, 20 to 21.
2 Peter 1, 20 to 21.
Last one here.
But you know we don't spend alot of time on the Spirit, so
we're taking a little time todayto get better concept.
(42:12):
So we're taking a little timetoday to get better concept.
Another connection between theSpirit and the Word.
And I'm wanting to make thatconnection the Spirit working in
conjunction with the Word.
2 Peter 1.20.
Know this, first of all, that noprophecy of Scripture is a
(42:32):
matter of one's owninterpretation.
Why Verse 21,?
For no prophecy was ever madeby an act of human will.
But men moved by the HolySpirit spoke from God.
Men moved by the Holy Spiritspoke from God.
It's the idea of wind.
(42:53):
There's a nautical terms herethe moving.
This is a nautical term.
It's like a ship with sails andthat's the picture of the men.
And they're moved by the wind.
Right, like a ship is they'removed by the Spirit of God to
write what they wrote.
In other words, the Scripturesaren't just human ideas.
Humans didn't just come up withthis, they were moved by the
Spirit of God to write what theywrote.
In other words, the Scripturesaren't just human ideas.
Humans didn't just come up withthis, they were moved by the
(43:16):
Spirit of God to speak theseparticular words in the Hebrew,
aramaic and Greek languages andthen they were transmitted down
through time by careful copying.
Right Now we have over 25,000copies of the New Testament, not
full copies, but we have 5,700or so pretty thorough
manuscripts and beyond thatfragments, adding up to about
(43:39):
25,000 in all.
No ancient book has anywhereclose to that amount of copies
and things manuscripts.
I think Homer has the next mostin the ancient world, has about
800 copies.
After that it dwindles prettyquickly.
Aristotle, plato there areworks numbered less than 15 that
(44:00):
we have.
So you know, if people want toquestion whether we really have
the Bible, I'm like well, do youthink you really have Plato?
I mean, are you sure?
I mean you have almost nothingcompared to a biblical
manuscript Men, I mean, are yousure I mean you have almost
nothing compared to a biblicalmanuscript?
Men moved by God, though seespoke words Men moved by the
Spirit of God.
So the Spirit and the Word arealways connected and this is the
way it works in our life.
(44:21):
I mean you have to have theWord in you for the Spirit to
use the Word to produce thewonderful fruit of the Spirit.
Now, the last one I'll mentionis the Spirit testifies from
within us in words Romans 8, 16.
Remember, he's within us and hecries out from within us Abba,
father.
And the passage describes thissituation where we have the
(44:46):
Spirit of God indwelling us,uniquely during this age and
when we don't know how to pray.
Uniquely during this age, andwhen we don't know how to pray
because we are so troubled by acircumstance that we are facing.
I'm sure you've been there.
Something is heavy in your life, something has happened and you
don't even know how to prayabout it.
But here's the good news youhave the Spirit within you who
(45:10):
testifies and he prays on yourbehalf.
And it doesn't mean that hemoves your mouth, it just means
it's on a secret line.
That's the way it's described.
He's praying on a private line.
Do you think he has goodprayers?
Yeah, do you think they'll beanswered?
Does he ever pray outside thewill of God?
No, so this is to comfort us inthis passage.
(45:32):
Then we don't know how to pray.
Guess what?
We have the Holy Spiritindwelling us and he prays on a
secure line for us.
But again, notice, it'sconnected with words.
It's connected with words.
The Spirit prays.
Those are words he testifies.
Now let's move a little bit tothe personality of the Scripture
, because some people just sayhe's impersonal force.
(45:55):
Is he really a person?
Well, let me ask you a questionDoes a force testify?
See, that doesn't make anysense.
How about Acts, chapter 5?
Acts, chapter 5.
This is the story of Ananias andSapphira.
Really, it's a story.
(46:15):
It's not a story of Ananias andSapphira, it's a story of
Barnabas, ananias and Sapphira.
But people forget because thechapter break is unfortunate.
At the end of chapter 4, it'stalking about a man from the
island of Cyprus named Barnabas,who sold his property there and
he gave the proceeds to thechurch.
And then chapter five says but,and it begins to tell you a
story about a couple who did theopposite of Barnabas.
(46:39):
I mean, they sold theirproperty, right, but they went
to Peter and they said these arethe full proceeds of the
property that we sold.
But it wasn't so.
In other words, they lied right.
And so, in verse 3, peter saidto Ananias why has Satan filled
your heart?
(46:59):
To lie to the Holy Spirit andto keep back some of the price
of the land who had?
Ananias lied to the Holy Spiritand it was influenced by Satan,
right?
Can a believer be influenced bySatan to lie.
Well, yeah, there it is theworld, the flesh and the devil.
These are avenues of temptation, so sure enough.
(47:20):
So he lied to the Holy Spirit.
But look at verse 4.
Peter says while it remainedunsold, did not the property
remain under your control?
And after it was sold, was itstill not under your control?
In other words, it's your money, do with it what you want.
You don't have to give it to us, right?
No requirement there.
He says why is it that you haveconceived this deed in your
heart?
You've not lied to men, but youlied to who?
(47:41):
To God, no way.
He lied to the Holy Spirit,said in the previous verse.
But now it says you lied to God.
Well, yeah, because the HolySpirit is God.
Right, verse 9 just gives us alittle bit more.
Then Peter said to her, his wife, when she came in later why is
it that you have agreed togetherto put the Spirit of the Lord
(48:02):
to the test?
See, it's the Spirit thatproceeds from the Lord.
Order of procession is beingreferred to there, but obviously
the Spirit is a person.
Can you lie to a non-person?
Can you lie to a rock?
Can you lie to the water?
No, no, you lie to personalbeings and the Holy Spirit is a
(48:24):
personal being.
Lots of other passages hereabout the personality of the
Holy Spirit 2 Corinthians 3.17.
2 Corinthians 3.17.
2 Corinthians 3.17.
These just give us furthervindication that the Spirit is a
person and not just some kindof force from God, some kind of
(48:47):
impersonal thing.
2 Corinthians 3.17.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, andwhere the Spirit of the Lord is
, there's liberty.
Now, do non-entities,non-personal beings, give you
freedom?
I mean, these sentences don'tmake sense because they're silly
(49:08):
sentences.
Unless the Holy Spirit is aperson we know, there can't be
this concept of freedom.
It's not in existence without aperson.
Lots of other ones here.
Let's see Hebrews 10.15 alsotalks about he testifies with us
.
How about Romans 5.5?
Since we're pretty close, justturn back to the left and then
(49:30):
we'll stop with this one.
All we're trying to do here isshow that there's a third member
of the Trinity, a third personwho is God.
Romans 5, 5.
Talking about the results ofjustification, some of the
benefits that we have, one ofwhich verse 5, hope does not
(49:53):
disappoint.
Hope is something future, afuture expectation.
Right, hope does not disappoint.
Why?
Because the love of God hasbeen poured out within our
hearts through the Holy Spiritwho he's given to us.
Do impersonal beings pour loveinto our hearts?
No, no, no.
(50:14):
It has to be a personal being,because love is a personal thing
.
And what is the fruit of theSpirit?
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
You nailed it.
Singular, right, interesting,because then it goes on Joy,
peace, patience, kindness,gentleness, self-control,
faithfulness, etc.
But the fruit of the Spirit islove.
(50:34):
Again, that's personal, andthen all the manifestations of
love are then clarified Joy,peace, patience and so forth.
But just to show that he reallyis a person, romans 5.5,.
The love of God has been pouredout within our hearts through
the Holy Spirit who was given tous.
He personally has taken upresidence in the believer.
This is different from hisomnipresence.
(50:57):
Is he omnipresent, meaning, ishe in all places, at all times,
completely present?
Yes, well then doesn't thatmean he's in unbelievers?
No, no, we're misunderstandingthe point.
Omnipresence doesn't mean thathe is material around us.
It means he's alongside as asixth dimension and in that
(51:21):
sense, has taken up residence inus.
He's not your liver, okay, andhe's not going to make it quiver
.
You do that by eating somethingyou shouldn't eat.
Okay, god, okay, doesn't.
He's not material.
You don't knock on God and say,are you in there?
He's alongside of space that welive in and, in a very personal
(51:48):
way, the Holy Spirit has takenup residence in us.
If you don't have him, romans 8and 9 says you don't belong to
him, you don't belong to God.
All believers have hisresidence in us.
Okay, and that's a basis forliving the Spirit-filled life
and having the fruit of theSpirit produced through us,
which is love, and it'sextremely personal.
(52:08):
It's extremely personal.
There's nothing almost morepersonal than love.
Love is almost the height ofwhat it is to be a person, but
of course there's many othermanifestations that are also
very personal and show us theimage of God.
So all that just to show theperson, see and the deity of the
(52:30):
Holy Spirit.
I hope you don't question thatright.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(52:53):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
When you come into the New Testament, they just
speak of this as like thenatural flow of events, not a
novel idea, but as somethingthat was already in place.
He says it's clear that as weread the New Testament, we're
not witnessing the birth of anew conception of God.
The doctrine of the Trinitydoes not appear in the New
Testament in the making, but asalready made.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
There is less said about the Holy Spirit of God in
the Bible than there is aboutthe Father and the Son.
This does not make him lesserthan either the other two.
He is truly an equal part ofGod, an equal member in the
Trinity, full of the same nature, attributes and character as
(00:53):
the Father and as the Son, buthe takes on a different role.
His role is in the background,motivating and moving forces and
people and time and history,encouraging and empowering,
restraining.
It is a less public, lessobvious role for the Holy Spirit
(01:14):
, but no less important.
Today we're going to dive intojust exactly who the Holy Spirit
is, what his role is, how heworks and how God describes him.
Much like the air that webreathe, he is unseen and yet we
feel his impact and effectseverywhere.
(01:35):
So, although he might not bespoken of as much, his impact is
amazing and continuous andthroughout the Bible and
throughout history.
So today we look into thislesser known but equally
important aspect of God the HolySpirit.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We have been working through the first event in the
New Testament, which is thebirth of the King, and it's been
going on for a while in the NewTestament, which is the birth
of the king, and it's been goingon for a while.
That's okay.
The doctrinal implications orrepercussions of the virgin
birth are very significant andwe've gone through, of course,
the most complicated person whoever came into the world.
It's the only person who's comeinto the world by means of a
(02:19):
hypostatic union, and that isthe Lord Jesus Christ.
So just the endeavor of tryingto understand the hypostatic
union and that is the Lord JesusChrist, so just the endeavor of
trying to understand thehypostatic union, is an endeavor
in itself, and so we spentquite a bit of time working
through that, and the nextdoctrine that works out of that
is, of course, the Trinity.
Some of these things we'vealready discussed, so I'm just
(02:40):
going to briefly go over them.
Last week we talked aboutTrinity in the Old Testament,
right, which many people thinkthere's not much, or not any
about the Trinity in the OldTestament, and what I tried to
show is that indeed, in fact,there's quite a bit of
information in the Old Testamentthat sets us up for a more
developed Trinity in the NewTestament, but that all the
pieces were there in the OldTestament.
(03:03):
So it's easy for the assemblyof these parts to be natural in
the New Testament and that'ssomething that we'll see.
I'll give you a quote here in amoment from a New Testament
scholar about Trinity and how itwas just a natural thing for
the authors to portray this.
(03:23):
They didn't go into some kindof great defense about it in the
pages of the New Testament, itwas just already there.
First of all, trinity in the OldTestament right, there are
Hebrew words for one, okay,several Hebrew words.
The one that's used of God,echad, is a word that allows for
diversity in the oneness.
(03:43):
This is a great trouble fornon-Trinitarians and for Jews.
In fact they are very upsetabout this to the extent that in
Jewish formulations theyreplace the word echad with the
word yachid.
Yachid means an absoluteoneness, because they don't want
any diversity in that oneness.
That Christians keep saying isin this word in Father, son and
(04:07):
Holy Spirit.
So the fact that echad is usedof God consistently and yakid is
never used has been quitesignificant and used by
Christians throughout thecenturies in apologetics, with
Jews and anti-Trinitarians.
Also plural names of God, likeElohim.
A plural name of God but usedwith singular verbs.
So very interesting that Godwould be referred to in the
(04:29):
plurality, but the verb thatfollows will be a singular,
indicating the oneness but alsothe plurality in God.
The passages on the angel ofYahweh.
So the angel of Yahweh isreferred to as someone distinct
from God, and in other passagesthe angel of Yahweh is referred
to as someone distinct from Godand in other passages the angel
of Yahweh is referred to asYahweh himself.
So very interesting he'sdistinct from Yahweh, yet he is
(04:51):
Yahweh.
So what does that imply orwhere does that point?
The word or wisdom of Yahweh,another concept of trinity or
multiplicity in Yahweh.
And then the explicit passagesIsaiah 48, 16, 61, 1, and 2.
Those are two passages thatactually talk about a threeness
in God, not three gods, but athreeness in the one God, right?
(05:14):
So those passages, you mightwant to memorize as to where
they are located so you canquickly pull them up.
Today we're going to get intoreally the Holy Spirit.
We're just going to talk aboutthe deity of the Holy Spirit and
the personality or person ofthe Holy Spirit.
We're not going to go into thedeity of Christ, because we
already did that and we're notgoing to go into the deity of
(05:35):
the Father, because nobody has aproblem with that.
Okay, so all we're going to dois elaborate on the third person
of the trinity.
But just so you know, we didn'tskip christ.
We've already dealt with thedeity of christ and I've just
summarized those three lines ofevidence that we discussed, I
don't know, a month or two ago.
The christ for yahweh namesubstitutions.
(05:56):
In other words, in the oldtestament a passage will be
talking about yahweh.
In the new testament, thatpassage will be quoted, and yet
Christ is inserted for Yahweh.
So what does that mean?
What is the implication of thatright?
Then you've got other passagesthat are Christ for Yahweh,
function substitutions, in otherwords, things that only Yahweh
(06:19):
can do as a function.
In the New Testament, christ issaid to do those things.
One example is forgive sins.
Remember the passage you knowJesus forgives sins and they say
gosh, he's making himself outto be God and anyway he goes on
to say well, which is easier todo?
Say I forgive your sins, or toraise this man, to heal this man
(06:41):
.
So the point is that he'sforgiving people, and yet the
Old Testament taught that onlyYahweh could forgive sin.
So where is that pointing?
And then explicit passages onthe deity of Christ Titus 2.13,.
2 Peter 1.1,.
Those both use the GranvilleSharpe rule, which is used 198
times in the New Testament andalways holds that when you have
(07:03):
that construction in the NewTestament and always holds that
when you have that construction,the two nouns I mean the two
descriptors refer to one and thesame person.
So Titus 2.13, our great Godand Savior, jesus Christ.
Who is our great God, jesusChrist?
Who is our Savior, jesus Christ?
Both God and Savior arereferring to the same individual
under this construction.
Hebrews 1a.
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To which of the angels did heever say, you know?
And goes on to describe thesecond person as God, colossians
2.9,.
In him dwells all the fullnessof deity in bodily form.
So lots of and there's more,lots of passages on explicit
passages on the deity of Christ.
But today we want to focus onthe Holy Spirit.
As we go into this, rememberwe've got Father, son and Holy
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Spirit in one person.
This is the concept of Trinity,and I've got you up to speed
with the Old Testament.
So this is from a scholar fromseveral generations ago now BB
Warfield.
He said if they, that is, theNew Testament writers, but they
betray no sense of novelty.
(08:08):
And so, speaking of God as atrinity, this is undoubtedly in
part because it was no longer anovelty, so to speak of him.
In other words, when you comeinto the New Testament, they
just speak of this as, like thenatural flow of events, not a
novel idea, but as somethingthat was already in place.
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He says it's clear that as weread the New Testament, we're
not witnessing the birth of anew conception of God.
The doctrine of the Trinity doesnot appear in the New Testament
in the making, but as alreadymade, which is super interesting
because most people they don'tthink the Trinity is in the Old
Testament.
They think, oh, that's the NewTestament, the New Testament
gave us that.
But no, the way the NewTestament authors speak of it is
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something that's not reallynovel and they're not making
this doctrine.
They're showing that it'salready on the table and was in
the Jewish mindset.
They don't have a problem withit at all, which I find so
interesting, right, because Imean of all people you'd think
who would be like strictmonotheists.
You'd think of somebody likePaul, right?
Or Saul.
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You know he was a Pharisee,right, yet he didn't struggle
with this.
In Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, itsays many of the Sadducees
believed.
I think this verse getsoverlooked.
Like the Sadducees, I mean, areyou kidding me?
These are the people who didn'teven believe in resurrection,
by the way.
And in Acts, chapter 6, verse 7, it says many of the Sadducees
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believed.
That's kind of striking,because they would not be the
people you would expect tobelieve, and so to believe that
Jesus is the Messiah, they'dhave to be believing that he's
God.
They'd have to believe, ofcourse, in the resurrection.
So their beliefs were beingchallenged.
And yet these ideas werealready in the air.
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The concepts of Trinity werealready in the air and they were
familiar with these concepts.
So it was not that great a leap.
Let's go into the person of theHoly Spirit and the deity of the
Holy Spirit.
It's an interesting discussion.
The reason we have to do this,especially about both
personality and deity, isbecause not all groups claim
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that the Spirit is a distinctperson in the Trinity, claim
that the Spirit is a distinctperson in the Trinity.
Many groups claim that he isjust an impersonal force of God,
something that God uses toaccomplish things, but something
that is simply literally asimpersonal as gravity, and so
these would be non-Trinitarians.
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They would also beanti-Trinitarians or Binitarians
.
Binitarians would just hold totwo members of the Trinity being
God, but groups like, forexample, jehovah's Witnesses or
Mormons, they don't believe thatthe Holy Spirit is a person.
They think of the Holy Spiritas a force from God by which he
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accomplishes things.
Now, the Spirit is not a force,as we'll show, but he is in the
background, which is veryinteresting, and this is
intentional.
It's intentional that he's inthe background and not at the
forefront or taking center stage.
Now, this is seen from thewords for Spirit in the Hebrew
(11:22):
ruach and in the Greek pneuma,seen from the words for spirit
in the Hebrew ruach and in theGreek pneuma.
You know, if you have pneumonia, that's a problem in your what,
in your lungs, and that's wherewe breathe.
And we have a diaphragm thatyou know presses up on the lungs
to push the air out, the breath, the wind out, and then, of
course, the diaphragm allowsalso us to breathe in.
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But that's where we get ourword pneumonia from.
There's some the greek wordpneuma, so we have these two
words.
The hebrew word is translatedvarious ways.
Spirit doesn't always have to bethe holy spirit, right, it
could just be a spirit like ademonic spirit, or the human
spirit, or a good spirit, a goodangel, wind, of course, breath,
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breeze blowing nothingness.
And of course I've put somepassages down here where it
refers to the Spirit of God.
That should be, I think,genesis 1-2, not Genesis 12-3.
Genesis 1-2, I mean he's in thesecond verse of the Bible.
I always find this amazing.
People think, well, how couldyou get Trinity out of the Bible
(12:30):
?
I mean, did you read the firstthree verses?
If you read the first threeverses and you actually know
some more of the Bible, you seeall three persons in the first
three verses.
In the beginning God, pluralElohim, created singular verb,
so unity and diversity.
Already he created the heavensand the earth and it says the
earth was formless and void anddarkness was over the surface of
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the deep and the Spirit of Godthere's, the Spirit in the very
second verse of the Bible wasmoving over the surface of the
waters.
And then God said, verse 3, letthere be light.
And that's word, that's speech.
Who is the word?
Who is the word?
Become flesh?
Who dwelt among us in the NewTestament.
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Well, that's the second personof the Trinity, so you really
have all three members of theTrinity in hindsight in the
first three verses of the Bible.
But there it is ruach.
There in verse 2, the Spirit ofGod.
He's also used in Genesis 6,verse 3, where, just before the
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flood, the Lord said my spiritshall not strive with man
forever, because he's also flesh.
Nevertheless, his day shall be120 years.
So he was restraining prior tothe flood, but he would not go
on restraining forever Another120 years and then God would
judge, which he did.
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But there are other usages ofrock just for our breath, for
example, job 4.9,.
For wind, psalm 78.39,.
For a cool breeze, job 7, 7.
But this is and we're going totalk about the influence and why
this word is used a word forbreath, wind, breeze, air, these
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concepts.
There's a very particularreason this word was chosen.
The New Testament word is theGreek word pneuma.
Again, it means similar thingslike air, blowing, something
that's moving, movement, wind,breath and spirit.
And the spirit, interestinglyand intentionally, is sometimes
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referred to as a what.
What I mean is in the neuter,not as masculine, but in the
neuter, and other times he'sreferred to by the masculine.
Now, part of this is due to thefact that the Greek word pneuma
is a neuter word.
It's just a neuter word.
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This seems intentional though,because, as I said before, he's
in the background, just likewind is in the background.
See, you don't see the wind,you see the effects of the wind,
right.
And so this is a setup for usto understand more about the
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Holy Spirit and how he works.
So the fluctuation is reallyclear as far as him being
referred to in the neuter and inthe masculine, and you say this
is strange.
So let's just look at John 14,26.
John 14, 26.
John 14, 26.
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The reason some people say well, he's not a person, he's just a
force, is because of the neuter, and that's true on one side,
but there are also references tohim as the masculine, and
that's what keeps him as aperson.
We don't know entirely why Goddecided to do it this way, but
it does point in a direction.
I think that direction is theidea that he is in the
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background.
John 14, 26,.
Jesus says but the helper, theHoly Spirit neuter okay, that's
neuter whom the Father will sendin my name, he masculine
pronoun will teach you allthings.
So there it is.
You've got neuter and you'vealso got masculine.
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How about chapter 15, verse 26?
15, 26.
Also a reference to the helper,who we already know is the Holy
Spirit.
Now, when the helper comes,whom I will send to you from the
Father?
That is the Spirit of truth,neuter Spirit, who proceeds from
the Father, he masculinepronoun will testify about me.
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When I say masculine pronoun, Imean it's in the Greek text,
it's masculine.
I don't mean here, it'smasculine, obviously here, it is
in the English, but I mean inthe original language, of course
.
Now, this verse is important,by the way, for another reason
that I want to mention thequestion who will send the
Spirit, who will send the Helper?
It says when the Helper comes,whom I will send?
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That's Jesus is saying thatright To you from the Father.
Okay, sent to you from theFather.
That is the Spirit of truth whoproceeds from the Father.
So, who sent the Spirit?
Well, the Father.
He proceeds from the Father,but he's also sent through the
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Son.
Okay, from the Father throughthe Son.
So both the Father and the Sonare involved in the giving of
the Spirit, what we call theprocession of the Spirit.
Why is this important.
You've heard people say thefirst, second and third members
of the Trinity.
This doesn't have anything todo with one being more superior
(18:10):
than the other.
You may wonder why they callthe Spirit the third, and why is
he not the first?
Or why is he not the second?
Why is Jesus not the first?
You may wonder about thesethings.
It's because of the order ofprocession, for example.
Who sends the Father?
Who sent the Father?
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No one.
No one sends the Father.
Who sent the Son?
The Father Did the Spirit sendthe Son?
No, the Father alone sent theSon.
Now then the question becomeswho sent the Spirit?
Well, the Father and the Son.
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And so since no one sent theFather, he's the first person.
Since the Father sent the Son,then he's the second person.
And since the Father and theSon sent the Spirit, then the
Spirit is the third person.
It's called the order ofprocession, and so that's what
those numerals 1, 2, and 3 areall about with reference to the
three members of the Trinity.
But anyway, he's referred toneuter and masculine.
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He's a what, and he's also a he.
Now let's go to John 3.
We're in John, so there's beena lot in John, as you've noticed
with this section of theframework studying Trinity,
deity of Christ, a whole lot ofthis.
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In John we see that from thesecond line of evidence that
he's not a force is from theinfluence of a spirit.
So I just want to talk ingeneral about the influence of
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spirit, both in a wind sense aswell as in demonic sense, and,
of course, the Holy Spirit andthe sense of the Holy Spirit
himself, both in a wind sense aswell as in like demonic sense,
all these and, of course, theHoly Spirit and the sense of the
Holy Spirit himself.
So in John 3, we have the storyof Nicodemus, right, nicodemus
comes.
He comes when he comes at night, okay, well, he didn't want to
be seen, right?
And he has a specific question.
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He's saying in verse 2, we knowthat you've come from God as a
teacher.
No one can do these signs thatyou do unless God is with him.
I mean, he recognized that thesigns that he was doing were
what we call messianic miracles,like they were not just
miracles on the order of thingsthat Moses was able to do.
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This is something beyond that.
Or, elijah, these are thingsbeyond that.
He recognized that and Jesusanswered and said to him.
Truly, truly, I say to you,unless one is born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God.
No entrance, unless you'reregenerated.
You have to be a regeneratedindividual to enter the kingdom
of God.
Okay, you know, no entranceunless you're regenerated.
You have to be a regeneratedindividual to enter the kingdom
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of God.
To see it, nicodemus said tohim how can a man be born when
he's old?
He can't enter a second timeinto his mother's womb and be
born.
Can he and Jesus?
Come on, guy?
Jesus answered, truly, truly, Isay to you, unless one is born
of water and the Spirit, hecannot enter into the kingdom of
God.
And we're not here to reflecton that concept.
But that's not water baptism,for whatever it's worth, that
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which is born of the flesh isflesh and that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be amazed that I said toyou, you must be born again.
And then he gives thisillustration with wind.
See, regeneration is a work ofthe Holy Spirit, right, and he's
just mentioned the Spirit.
That which is born of theSpirit is Spirit.
He says the wind blows where itwishes and you hear the sound
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of it, but you don't know whereit comes from and you don't know
where it's going.
So is everyone who's born ofthe Spirit.
In other words, the Spirit hasthis background work that is
illustrated by the work of wind.
Again, we don't know where windcomes from, we don't know where
it's going, but we see theeffects thereof, right.
Especially as this fall comes,we'll have some windy days and
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the leaves will blow off thetrees, and then everybody will
be out in their yards picking upleaves, right.
This is all due to thisbehind-the-scenes thing we call
wind, and so that's just anillustration.
Now let's go a little bitfurther and we'll turn to Daniel
, chapter 7.
Daniel, chapter 7.
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In the Bible, nations are set upas, basically, water.
We are viewed as water.
Water is something that's veryunstable, of course.
You know this from your ownexperience.
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But in the New Testament you'dhave the Sea of Galilee, and if
you've ever been there, you'llsee the hills on the east side,
and the winds will sweep overthose hills and down onto this
lake and cause quite a tumult onthe water, big waves, and
that's the story, you know.
Jesus is asleep in the boat andthey're like how can he sleep,
(23:21):
you know?
And he wakes up and he rebukesthe winds, the spirits, and it
becomes perfectly calm.
The waters become calm, but thenations are viewed in the Bible
as like bodies of water, whichare very unstable and are easily
tossed right and caused to turninto confusion.
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And here's a section thatdiscusses that concept Daniel 7,
verse concept.
Daniel, chapter 2, or 7, verse 2, 7-2.
Daniel said I was looking in myvision by night and behold, the
four winds of heaven werestirring up the great sea.
The four winds of heaven werestirring up the great sea.
See, the great sea is a well.
What's the great sea?
Well, now you have verse 3.
Four great beasts are coming upfrom the sea and they're
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different from one another.
We know these if you've studiedthis chapter.
We know these four great beastsare the four great Gentile
kingdoms or empires Babylon,medo-persia, greece and Rome,
right that will rule during thetimes of the Gentiles and
they're viewed as coming up outof the sea, the seas themselves
being the nations of the world.
And so these are the four greatnations of the world rising up
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and they're being stirred up bythe four winds of heaven.
And then he goes on to describethese four beasts, and they're
all kingdoms that suppress manand oppress man and hurt man.
They're not good for man welive in.
So spirit influences or wheninfluences causing humanity to
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go through all sorts offluctuations.
We see these forces in theeconomy, in politics, in
military.
We just saw yesterday inmilitary, you know, if you ask
the real questions, what I callthe metaphysical questions,
that's, the questions aboutwhat's behind reality, that is
structuring the reality, that wesee the physics, the
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metaphysics behind the physicsthat we can see, what are the
forces behind?
You know the militaryengagement against Israel, for
example, which is, in Muslims'mind, war since 1948.
Not a bunch of separate wars,but they view it as war from
(25:38):
1948.
What's behind all that, thismilitary maneuvers?
Is it just humanity?
Is it just what we see?
Or there are spiritual forcesof darkness behind the military
machine?
What about politics?
(26:00):
I think somebody almost laughed.
Is this just humans or is theresomething more?
Are there spiritual forces ofdarkness behind this as well?
Daniel 10 seems to indicatethere are spiritual.
(26:21):
There's spiritual warfaretaking place between good angels
and bad angels over politicalrulers and nations.
Daniel chapter 10, over Iran,what we call ancient Persia.
Right, it's not just human.
These forces, these spirits areacting upon them, but they're
(26:43):
unseen like the wind, but yousee the effects thereof.
I mean, who can predict theeconomy?
It's behind the economy.
Who can predict?
If all the people in financeand the market really knew what
they were talking about,wouldn't they all be
billionaires?
Which means what?
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They don't know what they'retalking about.
They can't predict the market.
Why not?
Is it because there are unseenspiritual forces that are behind
all the things that we see inthis world?
So there are these influences,what you might call metaphors,
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spirits, okay, and the humanrace is viewed like this
unstable body, water that'sbeing tossed to and fro, by the
way, we're told ephesians 4, 14.
So let's go there.
Very important applicationephesians 4, 14, in the section
on unity and the diversity ofspiritual gifts that are to
enforce unity.
There's one in the many in thischapter.
This chapter is all about onein the many, many different
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spiritual gifts that are toenforce unity.
There's one in the many in thischapter.
This chapter is all about onein the many, many different
spiritual gifts, but one body ofChrist.
Why all the different spiritualgifts?
So we can all be separate?
No, so we can all be unified.
And in verse 14, he says as aresult, as a result of what?
As a result of these speakinggifts that he's just discussed,
which are for the building up ofthe body of Christ to a full
stature of maturity verse 14,result we are no longer to be
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children tossed here and thereby waves and carried about by
every wind of doctrine.
There's the analogy between thewaves and being tossed by the
wind, and we're not supposed tobe tossed waves and being tossed
by the wind, and we're notsupposed to be tossed.
The world is tossed to and froby every idea that came down the
pike.
We're not supposed to be tossedto and fro.
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How do we avoid being tossed toand fro?
We know Bible doctrine, we knowtruth, we know what's going on
because we analyze the worldthrough the lens of the
Scripture, and the Scripturegives us the tools to understand
the world around us.
And if you don't know what theScriptures teach, then you're
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going to be tossed to and frobecause you don't know what is
going on.
That's why I think when peopleget into Bible doctrine, they go
to a content Bible teachingchurch, and this happened to me
when I started listening tocontent Bible teaching.
I was like I've been in achurch all my life and I haven't
heard any of this stuff.
What is all this stuff?
I had no rudder, so to speak,to keep me on course.
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I was being tossed to and froby all sorts of ideas.
This is why our young people,who aren't trained in most local
churches how to think, theydon't know Bible doctrine, they
don't know the word, they don'tknow why it's important, they're
thinking well, I don't needthis to make money, I just need
to get a degree.
And they don't understand thesignificance of this because
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most of the time they're nottaught in local churches and so
they go to college, right, andthen what happens?
Oh boy, here they go, becauseyou know I mean, I've been on
the university campus way toomany hours One of my professors
wrote in a legal brief when Iactually was going to take him
(30:08):
to court over refusing to let mehave a recommendation for
medical school because I didn'tbelieve in the theory of
evolution hypothesis ofevolution, I should say.
He said that it is theprofessor's job to to
indoctrinate their students awayfrom the teachings of their
(30:35):
parents.
I have this, I have thiswritten in a legal document.
Yeah, it's very purposeful thatyou will be tossed to and fro
by all these doctrines thatyou're taught in secular
university.
It's there on purpose, okay.
So my point is there'ssomething more that's going on.
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This isn't just people.
There is a complicated system,a spiritual realm that is deeply
involved and enmeshed in all ofour lives in this world, to the
extent that Paul says inEphesians 2.2, the prince of the
power of the air, who is inunbelievers, it doesn't say he
just impresses upon them orinfluences them.
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He's in them, like he'soperating through them.
People aren't neutral, nobody'sneutral, but we're not to be
tossed to and fro by thesethings, because we keep our eyes
on Scripture, we learn theScriptures.
We go on and on.
By the way, you don't know itall.
You probably know very littleof it.
If you're honest with yourself.
If I'm honest with myself, Idon't know all the Psalms.
(31:47):
Do you?
Do you know Ezekiel?
Do you know Jeremiah?
Do you know Lamentations?
Have you read Lamentations inthe last decade?
If you're honest with yourself,you realize you don't know that
much.
The more you know, the biggeryour arsenal is.
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And the bigger your arsenal isand the bigger your arsenal is,
the easier it is to not betossed to and fro, isn't it?
That's why you keep comingright, because you realize I
really don't know everything andI really have a lot to learn.
So, the spirit, right.
Another illustration be here atthis point that which God
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created in man.
Right, we have a body.
He took the dust of the ground,he formed the body and then he
breathed into that body a spirit, the breath of life, and man
became a living soul.
Right, god breathed.
I just want you to just backaway from the Genesis 2-7.
It says this right, godbreathed into his nostrils.
(33:00):
What Did you ever actually thinkabout that statement?
Did it make you think, well,does God have a nose?
Does he have lungs?
Does he have a diaphragm?
Because it's using this conceptof breath and we know what that
is involved in with us.
But what is this a picture of?
Was this like CPR?
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Another question to ask is wasthe spirit involved there?
The spirit himself?
I mean, god doesn't have a nose, we know that.
We know he doesn't have a mouth, we know he doesn't have lungs.
He's a spirit being.
But what is this conveying?
Was it the pre-incarnate Christ?
This is a question I began toask.
Was it the pre-incarnate Christwho carried this out in a
(33:43):
picture of like CPR, don't youwish you could have been there
to see this?
But see, there's an aspect ofyou that's not physical, it's
your human spirit.
It's where your personalitycomes from, it's where your
conscience is, it's the sourceof love.
I mean, those are the things,aren't things like your body,
(34:04):
where, if you don't, this is nota loving person.
Let's take him and get surgerydone, get the love organ put
back in this person.
You can't do that because it'snot a part of our material being
, another thing.
So then you ask yourself well,why do we have a mouth, nose,
lungs and diaphragm?
Why do we have those things?
(34:25):
Is it not because those thingsin some way reflect God as
spirit, as breath?
You know, like wind, like anentity like that, and without
the diaphragm, without the lungs, without the in and out process
(34:47):
of breathing, we don't reallyhave a concept of our spirit.
But this is giving us somethingtangible breathing in and
breathing out that reminds us ofthe intangible human spirit
that we are all essentially.
That's who we essentially are,right, that's who you are.
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My wife will always say you seea person's spirit by looking in
their eyes, like that's theclosest you can get to seeing a
person who they really areseeing, their spirit.
I mean your eyes are physical,but you know what she means,
right?
You're detecting who they arethrough their eyes.
That's why, sometimes, whenyou're in conversation with
people, there's some people thatwon't look at you.
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You have to wonder what are youhiding?
What are you hiding from?
Why do we think that?
Because we know intuitivelythat the eyes are where a person
really is.
That's where you're seeing them.
So if they're hiding their eyesfrom you, maybe it's because
they're hiding from you.
Now, I'm telling you this, butI'm giving you tools.
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These are scriptural tools,though.
These are scriptural tools.
This is how you don't getdeceived, right?
You watch people, youunderstand, because you
understand these divine truthsthat we're talking about and
therefore you know what's goingon.
All this is because we're madein God's image.
So there's another aspect ofspirit your breath, a tangible
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manifestation of the intangiblespirit that we all have.
Let's also talk a little bitabout the relationship of the
spirit and the Word of GodProverbs 1.23.
Let's turn to this one Proverbs1.23.
Just so you see, this wasn'tsomething new in the New
Testament.
This is an old idea, and ituses what's called Hebrew
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parallelism, where you have twophrases and the two phrases are
parallel.
They essentially mean the samething, but the words are
different.
Notice Proverbs 1.23,.
Turn to my reproof, and then wehave the two phrases that are
(36:57):
in parallel.
Behold, I will pour out myspirit on you.
I will make my words known toyou.
So what does it mean?
I will make my words known toyou.
It means I will pour out myspirit on you.
What does it mean that I'llpour out my spirit on you?
It means I will make my wordsknown to you.
It means I will pour out mySpirit on you.
What does it mean that I'llpour out my Spirit on you?
It means I will make my wordsknown to you.
So those two clauses, clauseone and clause two, are parallel
(37:18):
.
They essentially mean the samething.
How do we pour out our Spiritbefore someone?
Just in everyday life, when youhave something on your heart
and you go to your loved one andyou start to pour out your
(37:41):
spirit before them, don't you?
What are you doing?
As you do that?
You're speaking word.
You're telling them what's onyour heart.
And so there's something veryintimate between the connection
of spirit and words, your humanspirit and your human words.
Same thing's true for the Bibleand the Holy Spirit, as we'll
(38:05):
see.
Ephesians 5.18,.
Let's go to that one.
Ephesians 5.18.
5.18.
Let's go to that one, ephesians5.18.
Right after Galatians.
If you see that, ephesians 5.18.
And you'll just hold your placethere, stick a little marker or
use your pinky, go over toColossians 3.
(38:27):
These two books were writtenabout the same time by Paul, one
to the church at Ephesus, theother to the church at Colossus.
These letters are very, verysimilar.
They use a lot of the samelanguage and they follow a lot
of the same structure.
In Ephesians 5, verse 18, hesays and do not get drunk with
(38:51):
wine, for that is dissipation,but be filled with the what, the
Spirit.
And then what does it say?
Speaking to one another inpsalms, hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melodywith your heart to the Lord,
always giving thanks for allthings in the Lord, and so forth
.
Okay, now hold your place andgo to Colossians, chapter 3,
verse 16.
And go to Colossians 3, verse16.
(39:14):
And notice what he says inverse 16.
Let the word of Christ richlydwell within you.
Okay, ephesians 5 was be filledwith the Spirit.
This is let the word of Christrichly dwell.
And then he says what?
With all wisdom, teaching andadmonishing one another with
psalms and hymns and spiritualsongs, singing with thankfulness
in your hearts, and so forth.
In other words, it's the samecontext, isn't it?
(39:36):
It's the exact same context.
Now, why in Ephesians did hesay be filled with the Spirit,
but in Colossians he said letthe word of Christ dwell richly
within you.
They're parallel expressions,aren't they?
They mean the same thing.
If somebody says well, whatdoes it mean to be filled with
the Spirit?
I mean, because that is alittle amorphous for us it's
like what, what is that?
I don't know what that is.
Well, you can just tell themthis it's letting the Word of
(39:58):
Christ dwell richly within you.
You mean that's the same thing?
Yeah, it's a parallelexpression.
I mean what's happening?
As you let the Word of Goddwell richly within you, are you
not letting the Spirit, whosewords those are, influence your
life?
Yes, that's what you're doing.
So, again, they're used inparallel the Spirit and the Word
(40:21):
.
How about Acts, chapter 2?
Most people don't think of thisone, and I actually forgot
about it.
That's why I say most peopleforget.
I forgot about this.
In Acts, chapter 2, the day ofof pentecost, you have this
event where the 12 are there andthen there's these tongues
distributing themselves likefire and they began to speak in
all these languages, right, thatthey had never studied.
(40:43):
But the people who were thereon the day of pentecost, from
all over the mediterranean world, they were hearing them speak
in their native dialects andtongues.
Right, how is it interpreted byPeter in Acts 2.33?
What was happening?
How was it that they werespeaking in tongues or languages
(41:04):
that they had never learned?
Well, he explains it in 2.33,that he has poured forth this,
which you both see and hear.
Well, he explains it in 233,that he has poured forth this,
which you both see and hear thatis the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was the one whoenabled them to speak in
languages they had never spokenand never studied.
(41:27):
So, another connection betweenpouring forth of the Spirit and
speaking words, speaking words.
There's nothing mystical aboutit, so to speak.
I mean the Holy Spirit is doingthis and it wasn't an ooh, I
mean it was an interestingmoment, but it's an evidence of
(41:48):
the Spirit speaking words andthat connection was well known.
Now, 2 Peter 1, 20 to 21.
2 Peter 1, 20 to 21.
Last one here.
But you know we don't spend alot of time on the Spirit, so
we're taking a little time todayto get better concept.
(42:12):
So we're taking a little timetoday to get better concept.
Another connection between theSpirit and the Word.
And I'm wanting to make thatconnection the Spirit working in
conjunction with the Word.
2 Peter 1.20.
Know this, first of all, that noprophecy of Scripture is a
(42:32):
matter of one's owninterpretation.
Why Verse 21,?
For no prophecy was ever madeby an act of human will.
But men moved by the HolySpirit spoke from God.
Men moved by the Holy Spiritspoke from God.
It's the idea of wind.
(42:53):
There's a nautical terms herethe moving.
This is a nautical term.
It's like a ship with sails andthat's the picture of the men.
And they're moved by the wind.
Right, like a ship is they'removed by the Spirit of God to
write what they wrote.
In other words, the Scripturesaren't just human ideas.
Humans didn't just come up withthis, they were moved by the
Spirit of God to write what theywrote.
In other words, the Scripturesaren't just human ideas.
Humans didn't just come up withthis, they were moved by the
(43:16):
Spirit of God to speak theseparticular words in the Hebrew,
aramaic and Greek languages andthen they were transmitted down
through time by careful copying.
Right Now we have over 25,000copies of the New Testament, not
full copies, but we have 5,700or so pretty thorough
manuscripts and beyond thatfragments, adding up to about
(43:39):
25,000 in all.
No ancient book has anywhereclose to that amount of copies
and things manuscripts.
I think Homer has the next mostin the ancient world, has about
800 copies.
After that it dwindles prettyquickly.
Aristotle, plato there areworks numbered less than 15 that
(44:00):
we have.
So you know, if people want toquestion whether we really have
the Bible, I'm like well, do youthink you really have Plato?
I mean, are you sure?
I mean you have almost nothingcompared to a biblical
manuscript Men, I mean, are yousure I mean you have almost
nothing compared to a biblicalmanuscript?
Men moved by God, though seespoke words Men moved by the
Spirit of God.
So the Spirit and the Word arealways connected and this is the
way it works in our life.
(44:21):
I mean you have to have theWord in you for the Spirit to
use the Word to produce thewonderful fruit of the Spirit.
Now, the last one I'll mentionis the Spirit testifies from
within us in words Romans 8, 16.
Remember, he's within us and hecries out from within us Abba,
father.
And the passage describes thissituation where we have the
(44:46):
Spirit of God indwelling us,uniquely during this age and
when we don't know how to pray.
Uniquely during this age, andwhen we don't know how to pray
because we are so troubled by acircumstance that we are facing.
I'm sure you've been there.
Something is heavy in your life, something has happened and you
don't even know how to prayabout it.
But here's the good news youhave the Spirit within you who
(45:10):
testifies and he prays on yourbehalf.
And it doesn't mean that hemoves your mouth, it just means
it's on a secret line.
That's the way it's described.
He's praying on a private line.
Do you think he has goodprayers?
Yeah, do you think they'll beanswered?
Does he ever pray outside thewill of God?
No, so this is to comfort us inthis passage.
(45:32):
Then we don't know how to pray.
Guess what?
We have the Holy Spiritindwelling us and he prays on a
secure line for us.
But again, notice, it'sconnected with words.
It's connected with words.
The Spirit prays.
Those are words he testifies.
Now let's move a little bit tothe personality of the Scripture
, because some people just sayhe's impersonal force.
(45:55):
Is he really a person?
Well, let me ask you a questionDoes a force testify?
See, that doesn't make anysense.
How about Acts, chapter 5?
Acts, chapter 5.
This is the story of Ananias andSapphira.
Really, it's a story.
(46:15):
It's not a story of Ananias andSapphira, it's a story of
Barnabas, ananias and Sapphira.
But people forget because thechapter break is unfortunate.
At the end of chapter 4, it'stalking about a man from the
island of Cyprus named Barnabas,who sold his property there and
he gave the proceeds to thechurch.
And then chapter five says but,and it begins to tell you a
story about a couple who did theopposite of Barnabas.
(46:39):
I mean, they sold theirproperty, right, but they went
to Peter and they said these arethe full proceeds of the
property that we sold.
But it wasn't so.
In other words, they lied right.
And so, in verse 3, peter saidto Ananias why has Satan filled
your heart?
(46:59):
To lie to the Holy Spirit andto keep back some of the price
of the land who had?
Ananias lied to the Holy Spiritand it was influenced by Satan,
right?
Can a believer be influenced bySatan to lie.
Well, yeah, there it is theworld, the flesh and the devil.
These are avenues of temptation, so sure enough.
(47:20):
So he lied to the Holy Spirit.
But look at verse 4.
Peter says while it remainedunsold, did not the property
remain under your control?
And after it was sold, was itstill not under your control?
In other words, it's your money, do with it what you want.
You don't have to give it to us, right?
No requirement there.
He says why is it that you haveconceived this deed in your
heart?
You've not lied to men, but youlied to who?
(47:41):
To God, no way.
He lied to the Holy Spirit,said in the previous verse.
But now it says you lied to God.
Well, yeah, because the HolySpirit is God.
Right, verse 9 just gives us alittle bit more.
Then Peter said to her, his wife, when she came in later why is
it that you have agreed togetherto put the Spirit of the Lord
(48:02):
to the test?
See, it's the Spirit thatproceeds from the Lord.
Order of procession is beingreferred to there, but obviously
the Spirit is a person.
Can you lie to a non-person?
Can you lie to a rock?
Can you lie to the water?
No, no, you lie to personalbeings and the Holy Spirit is a
(48:24):
personal being.
Lots of other passages hereabout the personality of the
Holy Spirit 2 Corinthians 3.17.
2 Corinthians 3.17.
2 Corinthians 3.17.
These just give us furthervindication that the Spirit is a
person and not just some kindof force from God, some kind of
(48:47):
impersonal thing.
2 Corinthians 3.17.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, andwhere the Spirit of the Lord is
, there's liberty.
Now, do non-entities,non-personal beings, give you
freedom?
I mean, these sentences don'tmake sense because they're silly
(49:08):
sentences.
Unless the Holy Spirit is aperson we know, there can't be
this concept of freedom.
It's not in existence without aperson.
Lots of other ones here.
Let's see Hebrews 10.15 alsotalks about he testifies with us
.
How about Romans 5.5?
Since we're pretty close, justturn back to the left and then
(49:30):
we'll stop with this one.
All we're trying to do here isshow that there's a third member
of the Trinity, a third personwho is God.
Romans 5, 5.
Talking about the results ofjustification, some of the
benefits that we have, one ofwhich verse 5, hope does not
(49:53):
disappoint.
Hope is something future, afuture expectation.
Right, hope does not disappoint.
Why?
Because the love of God hasbeen poured out within our
hearts through the Holy Spiritwho he's given to us.
Do impersonal beings pour loveinto our hearts?
No, no, no.
(50:14):
It has to be a personal being,because love is a personal thing
.
And what is the fruit of theSpirit?
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
You nailed it.
Singular, right, interesting,because then it goes on Joy,
peace, patience, kindness,gentleness, self-control,
faithfulness, etc.
But the fruit of the Spirit islove.
(50:34):
Again, that's personal, andthen all the manifestations of
love are then clarified Joy,peace, patience and so forth.
But just to show that he reallyis a person, romans 5.5,.
The love of God has been pouredout within our hearts through
the Holy Spirit who was given tous.
He personally has taken upresidence in the believer.
This is different from hisomnipresence.
(50:57):
Is he omnipresent, meaning, ishe in all places, at all times,
completely present?
Yes, well then doesn't thatmean he's in unbelievers?
No, no, we're misunderstandingthe point.
Omnipresence doesn't mean thathe is material around us.
It means he's alongside as asixth dimension and in that
(51:21):
sense, has taken up residence inus.
He's not your liver, okay, andhe's not going to make it quiver
.
You do that by eating somethingyou shouldn't eat.
Okay, god, okay, doesn't.
He's not material.
You don't knock on God and say,are you in there?
He's alongside of space that welive in and, in a very personal
(51:48):
way, the Holy Spirit has takenup residence in us.
If you don't have him, romans 8and 9 says you don't belong to
him, you don't belong to God.
All believers have hisresidence in us.
Okay, and that's a basis forliving the Spirit-filled life
and having the fruit of theSpirit produced through us,
which is love, and it'sextremely personal.
(52:08):
It's extremely personal.
There's nothing almost morepersonal than love.
Love is almost the height ofwhat it is to be a person, but
of course there's many othermanifestations that are also
very personal and show us theimage of God.
So all that just to show theperson, see and the deity of the
(52:30):
Holy Spirit.
I hope you don't question thatright.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(52:53):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
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