[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: So what we're going to do tonight is we had, we're kind of in the in the phase of the class where we're going over some questions that some people.
People sometimes have about the Holy Spirit. And so I didn't want to make that the focus of the class. I wanted to spend really a ton of time in scripture and that's what we've done most the weeks, really just trying to flesh out what is the scripture telling us about the Spirit. But there are some questions that people have and I think it's important to try to address those questions.
So we're kind of in that phase where we're trying to answer some of those.
We hit a couple of those last week, and there's a couple more that we're going to try to hit this week.
And then we'll kind of wrap things up with a summary and, and an overview.
Hopefully you guys have enjoyed it. I think I've had several people comment just about how much the Holy Spirit has talked about in scripture and just kind of our eyes being open to that. And that's definitely been one of my takeaways as kind of preparing for this class is just how much the Spirit has talked about in the Scriptures.
And then on top of that, a lot of symbology of the Spirit.
Even places where the word Spirit may not be there, but they're symbols of the Spirit throughout Scripture.
That's definitely been kind of one of my big takeaways from the class.
So we're going to move into this question. And like I said, I didn't want to answer this too early because I didn't want to put too much focus on this question. But it is a question that a lot of people have and so I want to address it directly because so many people do have this question.
But also I want to address it with some sensitivity because I do know that there are different opinions on this particular topic.
And I would say brothers within the church have disagreed on this for a while.
Some people have one opinion, others have a different opinion on this particular question. So I'm very, very sensitive to that.
I will say historically, we've kind of divided over a lot of things, but this is one of those that we typically haven't divided over. And I think that's a good thing. Within the church, we've typically not divided over the answer to this particular question.
And I'm thankful for that because I think we can study and maybe sometimes have different understandings.
So I don't think, while I think it's an important issue and an important question, I don't think it's something that we should lose fellowship over.
So particularly the question is, does the Holy Spirit only work through the Word? And. And the emphasis is on only as we go through that and try to answer this question.
So I want to give a little bit of an overview and a background.
So those that would say, yes, the Holy Spirit only works through the Word.
So first off, I would say, as with any question, there's a lot of variations. So I'm going to try to summarize kind of a viewpoint. But there may be variations of it. Some people may hold a slightly different view of that.
But the idea behind this is that the Holy Spirit only operates through the Word of God.
And then, like we've talked about before, since the time of revelation has ended, that means today that the Holy Spirit is only working through Scripture. So that's kind of the idea of this position.
Most people that hold that I think would say that Holy Spirit indwelling is done representatively.
It's not a personal indwelling.
It's basically as we read and understand the Word and we internalize the message of the Word. That's how the Spirit indwells us through our internalizing of the Word.
So then along with that, when we read about how the Spirit. All the things that the Spirit does, whether it's teaching, strengthening, sanctifying, and any of the other things that we've said that the Spirit does for us, people would say that that happens when we read and follow the Word.
So I do think there's some truth to that. So we'll kind of get into my position here a little bit. But you can probably start to figure it out pretty easily or quickly.
I don't think this is an accurate position, a scriptural position, like I said, I do think it's an important issue. So we'll kind of get into what I think the Bible teaches in the next couple slides just to kind of continue to flesh this out from a theological position standpoint. People that believe this would point out that the Spirit is the one that authors the Scripture. And I think that's exactly right.
And we've talked about that a fair amount, that the Spirit was the one inspiring the authors, he was the one inspiring the prophets and so on.
So that's certainly true.
Then I think they would carry it a little further and point out that what the Spirit does is also what the Word does. And I think oftentimes that's true. I think it's not always true, but I think. I think oftentimes it is.
So if the Spirit is the author of the Scripture, it makes sense that the things that the Spirit does is consistent with the Scriptures. Right? I mean, it would only make sense.
So I want to look a little bit at the history of that as well.
And so one of the things that we looked at last week is kind of a Calvinist idea that the Holy Spirit has to regenerate you before. Before you're able to even receive the Gospel.
It's something that happens to you before you have faith, before you become a Christian.
And so some of the early restoration teachers were arguing against that position.
So the terminology that they used is when you're hearing the Gospel, you're hearing the Word.
So God is working through the Word only he's not working.
And in a special way of the Spirit regenerating you to be able to receive the Word, you have the ability to hear and to understand the Word.
So that was kind of their emphasis. That's where that kind of word only phrase kind of originally came from.
Then I think as we got into the early 1900s and we talked about kind of the Pentecostal movement last week and how people were kind of abusing an understanding of the Spirit and basically the whole Pentecostal idea of the continuation of miraculous gifts, of the Spirit speaking in tongues and those kinds of things. So as people saw that and kind of reacted against that, I think they kind of overreacted to say, well, the Spirit doesn't do those things, so, you know, we need to.
So that kind of backed way away basically to a point where, in my view, the Spirit is not really personally active in the world anymore, but other than through the Word. So that was kind of the position, I think. So that's a little bit of the history.
I also want to look a little bit at.
So within the churches of Christ, what's. What's kind of a traditional teaching. And let me first say, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
Really, all that matters is what the scripture says. It doesn't really matter what the traditional teaching of the Church of Christ is on this issue.
But it is kind of interesting.
So when I was studying for this, and this was over a year ago, came across a book.
It was written by a man named Goble Music, kind of an interesting, unusual name. But he had put together a book, basically, where he compiled a lot of different preachers that were part of the restoration movement and compiled their position into a very large book.
And so I was like, that sounds like a book I'd be interested in having or reading. So I went online and tried to figure out how I could get it, and I found it on ebay, and it was like $2,000.
So said, well, that's going to be a problem.
No, we did not.
I was not moved to go spend $2,000.
So I thought, maybe there's got to be another way I can find this book. So I went and so I found a website where it would show you different libraries that had it.
And I found, like, nine libraries that actually had this book. And one of them was Freed Hardiman. And so I had a son at Freed. I was like, okay, Ben, you gotta do something for me. You gotta go check this book out. And so he did. And they're like, you can't check the book out because it's a reference book.
But he went and had a little talk with the librarian, and he was able to get it reclassified anyway. He was able to check it out.
He was able to check it out for me. And I appreciate that.
Yeah. So I did get to spend a little time with the book.
He was able to recheck it. So I had for, like, four weeks. I didn't make. It's like 1400 pages. I didn't make it through it, but I did read a few hundred pages of it, but it was really interesting.
So he kind of traced. So if you're ever interested and you can get your hands on that book, I recommend it if you're kind of interested in the history of this. But, you know, it was kind of overwhelming to me, the number of our preachers that believe in a personal indwelling of the spirit going all the way back to the beginning of the restoration movement.
All of our major college founders believed this.
And so, you know, like, I said, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, but it does kind of give you some confidence to me, kind of give you some confidence that,
[00:11:23] Speaker C: that
[00:11:25] Speaker B: I believe something that I think is a mainstream belief.
Repeat again what they believe, a personal indwelling of the Spirit, that the indwelling is not through the Word, only where you read the Word and internalize the Word. And that's how the indwelling is, but a personal indwelling of the Spirit.
And so there are some differences among those about what the Spirit actually does.
The indwelling spirit actually does, but they all believed in an indwelling spirit. So anyway, a lot of background. I probably spent more time on that than I meant to.
Alright. So I wanted to look at. So we're going to spend some time in scriptures and some scriptures we've already looked at, but I want to look at them in the context of this question.
And there's a number of scriptures that talk about the Spirit's work in the Christian being personal.
And several of these have to do with the idea of us being a temple that houses the Spirit.
So again, we've looked at a number of these, but we'll look at them again. First Corinthians 3, 16, 17.
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple.
And then 1st Corinthians 6:19 expresses a similar idea.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own.
So both of these present the idea that God and the person of the Spirit is dwelling in us as the temple.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: And even in chapter six, verse 19, he uses the word whom you have, indicating the person of the Spirit, not an object.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great point.
Yeah. So to me, these are very personal.
These are God describing himself dwelling in us in a very personal way.
Yeah, And I think that's emphasized by the personal pronoun there. Right? Yeah.
So 2 Corinthians 1:2122 is another one.
And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us His Spirit and in our hearts as a guarantee. So this idea of the Spirit being a guarantee that we talked about guaranteeing, guaranteeing or sealing, he's put his mark on us, but it's the person of the Spirit that does that and that Spirit is in our hearts.
Another one is 2 Corinthians 6:16.
It says, what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.
To me, when I read that, it sounds very personal.
This is God saying, I'm going to make my dwelling with them, I'm going to walk among them.
This is God's long ago promise that he wants to have a relationship with us.
He wants to live with us and dwell with us.
It's been the promise since the beginning of creation. It's been his desire and it's a promise that he's currently fulfilling through the Spirit in the person of the Spirit. It's. It's that personal, intimate relationship that we have with God.
And then Ephesians 2:22, in him, you're also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Again, the same idea.
I think this one is in the context of collectively as the church being the temple. I think most of the other ones are emphasizing our individual role as a temple. I think this one's emphasizing the collective nature of the church as the temple.
But either way it's the same idea and it's God again, God in a personal way, dwelling with us and doing that through the Spirit.
So when I look at all these, I see God. I see a very personal God, a very personal relationship fulfilling a promise again, made long ago, fulfilling prophecies that God said. You know, where God said he was going to do this, you know, I see this as a current fulfillment of all those things.
Alright, so I'll kind of pause and see what comments you have. Yes.
[00:16:38] Speaker D: So I was just going to say in Ephesians text in particular, it's interesting when you read through Ephesians, there's a lot about the Spirit.
And what's interesting is there's very little conversation about what we would call miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. Conversation in Ephesians is about you and I can live the godly life God's called us to. Ephesians 4 even says, I urge you as a prisoner of God to live a life worthy of the calling you've received. But the language all the way through it is you can do it by the power of God through the Holy Spirit who lives within you.
And that I think is what we definitely need to emphasize and believe with all of our hearts.
That you and I can say no to sin and temptation, that you and I can be bold and courageous to live for God the way we're supposed to if we put our trust in God and ask him to work in that way. But it's not about for Paul. Nothing in Ephesians is about about raising the dead, healing the sick, any of that kind of stuff.
But that's what some people tend to emphasize that. But Ephesians, I think is helpful for us to realize you can talk about the Holy Spirit in incredibly powerful ways and you're never stepping into that at all.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's very well said. Great point. And we talked about miracles, I think, a couple weeks ago, a little bit last week as well.
And I think it's really, first off, miracles were performed under the power of the Holy Spirit, clearly in the New Testament.
Like you said, it's not the emphasis, because those were a temporary thing. And Paul clearly says that in First Corinthians that you're emphasizing these things in error.
These things are temporary. And we talked about why they're temporary.
So first of all, we acknowledge that the Spirit provided that capability.
But when you look at the whole of the body of scriptures, and we've looked at a lot of scriptures this quarter, that is not the emphasis of the Spirit's work. The emphasis of the Spirit's work is on his transforming ability to transform us, to change us.
And that is where the emphasis should lie.
That's kind of why I didn't want to start answering questions too early in the quarter, because I wanted to spend time on what the scripture really is saying versus what it's not saying.
So hopefully that's come across in the quarter. But yeah, very well said.
Yes, sir, I'm the naysayer.
But how is he going to transform you?
And I commend you for giving homework, written homework, early in the course.
But many of those say that the work of the Holy Spirit is to teach, to instruct, to guide. How is he going to do that other than through the Word, whether it is a professed word or scripture work?
So that actually kind of leads us to the next slide.
So when we look at some of the old, and if I don't answer your question adequately, we'll come back to it for sure. But I'm going to try to answer that question and it's going to take a little bit.
So when we look at Old Testament prophets of the spirits, new work, it's very clear that God is saying that the Spirit is going to be working in a new way in the new covenant in a way that he was not working in the old covenant.
And some of these verses that we've looked at and we'll kind of hit the big ones. There's others, but we'll kind of hit some of the big ones.
Ezekiel 36:26 27 says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
And then in Jeremiah 31:31 33 it says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
My covenant that they broke though I was their husband, declares the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the lord, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And then in Joel 2:28 29 and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit.
So we talked about this last one earlier in the quarter, and the emphasis here is on the Spirit is going to be given to all of God's people, not just select few.
There's going to be signs when that happens, the prophecy, we shouldn't expect those signs to last forever. But there were signs and all that happened in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost.
But the emphasis here is that God is planning to work in a new way through His Spirit in the new Covenant, a way that he did not work in the old covenant.
All right, so let's hit the next slide and we'll start to see how that plays itself out.
So we see sanctification of the Spirit as a personal work, something that he does on us to us.
But we also see that that work, it's the distinct from the letter, it's distinct from the law or the words.
So we have this idea and they're kind of pitted against each other sometimes by Paul to emphasize a Point.
You have the way of the letter, or you have the way of the Spirit. The way of the letter in the way he's presenting it is us trying to follow God's word by our own power.
The way of the Spirit is us trying to follow God's word by the power of the Spirit. So those are the two things that he contrasts. And he really emphasizes the contrast between those two. Because when it boils down to it, that's the big difference between the old covenant and the new covenant.
The way that God is calling us to obedience.
One is by giving laws, and the other is by giving laws and by empowering us. Okay, so we'll kind of look at some of these verses. So Romans 7:6 says, but we are now released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
So again, this contrast between trying to follow the law under their own efforts versus trying to follow the law through the power of the Spirit.
And then so also in 2 Corinthians 3, and we'll look at verses 6 through 11, and then we'll jump down and hit 17 and 18, it says, God has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Now, if this ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?
For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.
Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it.
For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
Alright, then jumping down to 17, it says, now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Okay, so Paul is again emphasizing this contrast between a way of the letter versus the way of the Spirit. And he uses some pretty strong language.
He says, the old way, the way of the letter. It was a ministry of death.
And so did Paul not have respect for the law? Did he not have respect for God's Word.
Of course he did.
That's not his point.
The reason it was a ministry of death is because of our own weakness, our own inability to keep it. It's not that there was a problem with the law or God's instructions.
The problem was with us. We couldn't keep it.
So he's pointing out that there's now a new way. And that new way is through the Spirit that gives life.
It's through being transformed by the Spirit.
He says this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Alright, so I kind of have a little note down here.
It says the Word presents the truth and the standards of God.
That's the law, the letter, the statutes, the rules.
It's talked about in different ways, different things.
But God's rules don't empower us to keep the rules. Okay? They present the standard. They present what is God's rules and his standard for behavior, but they don't empower us to keep it.
It's the Spirit that does that.
That's the new way of the new covenant.
That's what God was talking about through the Old Testament of I'm going to change your heart. I'm going to give you a new heart. I'm going to put my Spirit in you so that you can keep my statutes.
Does that mean we can achieve perfection in this life? No, but it's a process. It's a work that will eventually be completed in the age to come, in the resurrection.
[00:28:21] Speaker C: Okay, both of those are necessary.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: Right.
I think part of it, I mean, you said here it's distinct from the letter, but I think there's maybe a little more to it. This passage gives a distinction between the letter and spirit.
John. And you said earlier that the Spirit was the author he inspired.
But John in John chapter one clearly defines the word as not the Spirit, but as Christ. He became the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: And so the authorship by the Spirit, or the revealing or the inspiration, and that to me, the best way I can understand it is the Spirit was the intermediary that took the words of Christ and passed them along to the biblical authors to say, here is the Word as defined by John.
I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you translate it into the written word, the inanimate word, so to speak.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: We tend to, in the Spirit, working through people to achieve that.
[00:29:35] Speaker C: Another thing that along this idea of personal.
We were up in McMinnville over the weekend and in our Bible class we talked about this and we looked at the passage in Acts chapter five. It's very interesting. I never thought about it from a perspective of the indwelling. But in Acts chapter five, it talks about the story of Ananias and Sapphira. And it said, you know, they. They came and lied. But if you look in verse two, Peter said, ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?
And it made me think, if the lie starts internally first, who is the first one that's going to know about it besides me?
It's gonna be the indwelling spirit that knows. And I think that's because it's interesting. He says, you lied to the Holy Spirit. And then he goes on, and in verse four, he said, you have not lied to man, but to God. So he equates. Yeah, right. God living in us.
That's the first one that's gonna know is the Spirit that indwells us. Right?
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
I think that's exactly why Peter emphasized the spirit. Yeah, I think that's exactly, exactly right. Yeah.
So let me give an analogy or metaphor. I don't know which one it is. It's one of the two.
Some of you English people correct me.
So it's one we've kind of used before, but I want to throw it out again. So we've kind of described our Christian walk as a journey. We've described it that way a number of times.
So let's say you were going on a journey, and it's a treacherous journey, difficult journey, and you're given a guidebook that says, all right, if you follow this guidebook, you will reach your destination.
Excellent.
So how many people have followed that guidebook and reached the destination?
Well, none.
Okay, all right.
A little concerning, right?
So for us, it turns out there is one who has done that.
There is one who's followed that guidebook and he's reached the destination, and that is Jesus.
But what we have. So what we have is a little different. We don't just have the book, the guidebook. We have the guidebook that tells us, but we also have the guide, the one who wrote the book, who's going to be on the journey with us. So we have something much better than what they had in the Old Covenant. They had the instructions and were told to follow them, and it was for their blessing. It was for their benefit. And we talked about that earlier, but ultimately they couldn't do it.
But we have something much better in that we not only have the guidebook, the word, but we also have the one that wrote the Word there with us personally helping us.
And he says that he's going to ensure that we reach the destination.
And again, that doesn't happen.
Just to clarify, that's not to say we're going to be perfected in this life.
It's a process. It's a lifelong process.
And when I talk about the journey, it's really a transformation of our heart. That's really what the journey is.
It's really a striving to live according to God's will. That's what this journey is.
We're not going to achieve perfection in this life, but God is helping us along that journey and he's guaranteeing that he's going to.
That we're going to succeed in the end, in the resurrection. He's going to complete it.
But anyway, so hopefully that metaphor helps.
Yeah.
So kind of go back to your. I think I've answered the question hopefully. But you know, I see it as a very different way that God's working in the New Covenant compared to what we had in the Old Covenant. That's how I would sum it up.
Other Comments so the question is, does the Holy Spirit only work through the Word or does he personally work? Can I make a comment? Does the devil only work through. I mean, does.
Does Satan have an influence on us today? I think the answer is yes. So do you think God would leave us hanging? I don't think so.
[00:34:03] Speaker C: I think he would act in a
[00:34:05] Speaker B: similar, but obviously better, more powerful way. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: Often wondering if Jesus had stayed.
I don't think any of us would be averse to having him right here with us.
And then he said, I'm going to
[00:34:27] Speaker B: leave you a comforter.
[00:34:28] Speaker C: I got to go back. I got to leave you a comforter.
Why not embrace that?
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Well, not only did he say that, but he also said it's going to be better for you if I leave and give you the comforter than if I were here personally. That's to me, that's amazing.
What could be better than having Jesus here personally?
Well, he says it's better that I leave and I give you the Spirit, the comforter.
That's better for you that I do that. That to me, is an amazing statement.
[00:34:59] Speaker C: So I asked Mike this question here a few weeks ago about in his missionary journeys, has he run into other cultures and how do they view this? And I'm interested if Brother Smith has some stories that he could share along.
You know, I think we do a disservice when we think that we have all the answers and we can teach other people and they don't have anything to give back to us.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:35:23] Speaker C: You know, I bet these guys have some things that they could share with us that are helpful along that front, you know?
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I know. I know. Just when I went to Peru, I was amazed at their faithfulness and their knowledge of the scriptures and. Absolutely, yeah, I'd say they would agree very strongly with what you're saying. The spirit definitely involves us, is very active.
[00:35:51] Speaker E: Yeah, I would just say amen to that.
Times that African people have shown me that the Spirit is alive in their lives, and I'm not talking about miracles and things like that. Just the numbers of times is overwhelming. It's overwhelming.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:16] Speaker E: They don't have. As you were just saying, Craig, so few of them have exposure to the amount of scripture that we read and study and know.
I mean, the overwhelming majority of them, if they have a Bible, it's an app on their phone, if they have it.
So it's what they've heard. It's what they've heard someone speak and talk.
And that doesn't make it right.
That doesn't make it accurate or correct or whatever, but it's just the examples of seeing the Spirit living in those people.
Let's just say that I teach differently than I used to.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:01] Speaker F: I'm in chiropractic school now. And we even talk about. We had a whole class last my first trimester about they call it the innate intelligence of the body. And like this. There's like two sides of medicine. There's like one without it and then one with it. And they. They don't know what to call it. But when we're sitting there talking about it, I leaned over one of my friends and I was like, isn't this just the Holy Spirit we're talking about right now?
Because that's how they, like, think of it. They're like, when you have this. You have this guide that helps you to think certain ways to, like, make choices, helps in one direction versus not having it, and then you're just dead. Like, that's what they.
So even people that don't know what to call it are thinking about it.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:41] Speaker E: We have a brother in Christ that I know in Africa that's been a member of the church about 30 years. Very, very mature man.
And you elders know who it is. And the man's dying of kidney failure and they can't afford dialysis.
So he told me last week that the Spirit is leading me Back to the village.
I know what he means by that.
He's going back to the village because that's what they do when it's time to die. And he has no, it wasn't, you know, poor pitiful me or it had nothing to do with that. This is what God is leading me to do. It's not right for me to ask other people to pay to keep me here.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I would obviously haven't experienced anything like that. But I would think there's a certain comfort and satisfaction in knowing you've lived a life for God as you face that. Right.
Alright. So a few things I want to kind of leave you with.
If I had to say one thing about the Spirit, if I could describe the Spirit in one way, I would say the Spirit is the one that gives life.
We see that in his very name.
His name is literally breath.
And it comes from that idea that our breath comes from God and our life comes from God.
So we see the Spirit as the one that gives us life, literal physical life. We can see that in the creation, but also spiritual life as well.
And those are probably a lot more connected than we realize.
So the Spirit is the giver of life, but he's also the giver of eternal life.
And we talked about eternal a little bit last week, how it does mean immortal, everlasting. But it also has a lot richer meaning, has a lot richer meaning than that.
It's eternal is a life that is fit for the age to come, is the way we should literally understand that.
So when we say he gives us life and he gives us eternal life, rolled all up in that is sanctification and transformation.
Those are the things that the Spirit is giving us life by transforming us, by sanctifying us, by giving us the kind of life that we should be living.
And like I said, it's a process that happens over the course of our life, but it's something that's going to be completed when Christ returns.
The next thing I wanted to say is we talked about this a fair amount.
The next big thing I would want to say and leave you with in terms of the Spirit is throughout the Old Testament we saw the prominence of the temple.
But we should see that as a temporary symbol for what God is doing and achieving in his creation. And that is the presence of God in His creation.
So we should understand first off that Jesus is the new temple of God, that all that temple activity throughout the Old Testament was just a symbol. It was pointing to Christ.
Maybe that impacts our politics. So we shouldn't be looking for a new physical temple that would be a step backwards. We already have the new temple in Christ.
But then follow on to that is we as Christ's followers, as his church, we are also that temple. We as his body, as Christ's body, we are also that temple. And that is through the Spirit that dwells in us.
And then we look forward to still a day when the entire creation is God's temple. So God's presence is fully there. We're face to face. We fully experience that in an unlimited way.
So one last slide and we'll end this. Philippians 1:6 For I am certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
I think that sums up there's so much in that verse.
First off, I'm certain we can be absolutely certain in our salvation that God who began a good work in us, it was God who saved us, it was God at our at our baptism who began that work.
He's continuing that work. He continues to work in us.
But we also look forward to the day when he's going to finish that work and we're going to be fully transformed. And that day is when Jesus Christ returns. So much in that verse. I love that verse and we thought that would be a good way to end on this quarter.
Anyway, I've enjoyed it, loved all the discussion, appreciate all your comments.
Hopefully this has been beneficial to you. Alright, thank you.
