WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?
Prayer: Almighty God, You command us to pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit: We ask You, through Jesus Christ, our Advocate, to grant us Your Holy Spirit, that He may be the Giver of Life to us by the power of Your Word, and lead us into all truth, that He may guide, instruct, enlighten, govern, comfort, and sanctify us unto everlasting life. Amen.
Sermon Text: St. John 15:26-27, 16:5-7. “But when the Comforter comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. … But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to Your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth; Your Word is truth. Amen.
This portion of the Nicene Creed is expounded in the sermon, with the Bible text:
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ, who promised to send the Holy Spirit, and told His apostles to wait for Him, calling the Spirit the Gift of the Father: Grace and peace to You from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
The third and last part of the Nicene Creed is about the Holy Spirit, who is known as the third Person of the Holy Trinity. When you say you believe in God, the true God, it isn’t complete until you know the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes we don’t feel as connected to the Holy Spirit. God the Father feels personal because God gives us fathers. The Son of God – Jesus – feels personal because He took on human flesh, He has a face, He ate and drank and slept and could be hurt like us. You feel that you can get a hug from the Father, or from Jesus. But it feels different with the Holy Spirit. Just even saying “the Spirit” seems to lack that personal, accessible feeling.
But the fact is, none of it with God is about if He feels personal, even for Jesus and the Father. The fact is, the Father and the Son – and the Spirit – each actually is a Person of the Trinity. Each ispersonal, the Holy Spirit too.
The Father loves you. Jesus loves you. It’s also true that the Holy Spirit loves you. When we hear, “God is love,” that includes the Holy Spirit! Jesus wants you to think of the Holy Spirit in this personal way, to know Him just as personally as you know Jesus and the Father. We especially learn this on this Sunday after the Ascension, and a week before Pentecost, this in-between Sunday. It’s also known as “Waiting Sunday.”
Jesus told the apostles to wait. We don’t like to wait. Waiting feels like suffering. It’s certainly that way for children: waiting is the worst! But it’s that way for all of us. Waiting for something good is hard. Waiting on the Lord to show you good, to keep His promises, is hard. The devil fills the time of waiting with other things and tempts you to give up. He tempts you to be impatient and restless. He tempts you to be afraid. He tempts you to be sad. He tempts you with hints of what you don’t have. He offers you something else. He offers instant gratification. This is our problem.
Another part of it is that the apostles could see and touch Jesus. They couldn’t see the Holy Spirit. We trust what we see and know by experience. But the Holy Spirit is about giving us what we can’t see. We get impatient with that. But as we’ll see, this is necessary. You can’t have Jesus or the Father without the Spirit. Jesus says: “Wait for Him, the Holy Spirit!”
He gave this message in the Upper Room on the night of His Passion. The disciples were feeling sad as Jesus kept telling them that He was going away. He said, “But now I go away to Him who sent Me” – that’s the Father – “and because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to Your advantage that I go away.” And then He told them about the Holy Spirit.
It’s one thing to say: “Wait for this really good gift, this wonderful being, the Holy Spirit.” But what you need is to know Him, to know something about Him and why to look forward to Him. So listen as Jesus teaches the apostles – and us – who the Holy Spirit is.
Jesus calls Him “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,” really “from the Father’s side” or “bosom.” Jesus also said: “I shall send Him to you from the Father,” and “if I depart, I will send Him to you.” So we say in the Nicene Creed, “He proceeds from the Father and the Son.”
Here Jesus repeatedly calls Him by this name that is translated “the Comforter” or “the Helper”or “Advocate.” This name for the Holy Spirit reflects His connection to us poor sinners who live in the midst of troubles. He will come to comfort, to encourage, to exhort – as we’re singing in our hymn of the month, He comes “to gladden each sad heart,” to “heal every wound,” to give “peace when deep griefs overflow,” to “cheer us this hour.”
Jesus said: “When the Comforter comes,” so He would definitely come. He said: “If I do not go away the Comforter will not come to you.” Forty days after Jesus rose from the dead, when He was about to ascend into heaven, He told them once more they were to “wait for the ‘Promise of the Father,’” (Ac 1:4), and in the next breath named Him as “the Holy Spirit.” It’s a beautiful name for the Holy Spirit: “the Promise of the Father.”
Jesus’ words that the Holy Spirit is “of the Father,” and that He “proceeds from the Father’s side,” teach that He is true God. As the Bible says, “the Lord is the Spirit” (2Cor 3:17). He is with the Father and the Son equally, from eternity. So we also say of Him what we said of Jesus and the Father: the Holy Spirit has the same will.
This is the very thing we struggle with: we want to know God’s will for us. We wonder in great agony about this. You can feel abandoned, alone or forsaken. Sometimes due to the actions of others. Sometimes because things don’t work out as you wish. Sometimes it’s your own doing. You may ask: “Why did God bring me to this place? Why did He put me in this situation? Why doesn’t He help me out of it or help me more than He is? Why did He let me do what I did? What’s the way forward for me? What’s His plan for me?”
This is wondering about God’s hidden will. God doesn’t answer all our questions in this area. But there is also God’s revealed will: His desire for you that He doesn’t hide, but reveals it and makes knowable. His revealed will is found in His written word, the Bible. It’s also the truth, as we heard Jesus call Him “the Spirit of truth.” He and His Word never lie to you.
We say in the Nicene Creed: “He spoke through the prophets.” In 2 Peter it says it this way: “Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (1:21). King David said, in his psalms “the Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His Word was on my tongue” (2Sam 23:2). God’s Word, the Bible, is the Holy Spirit’s book. He inspired every word. In it He’s speaking to you.
Your salvation is written there. That’s what the whole Bible is about: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (Jn 20:31). The Holy Spirit inspired these words, caused John to write this down in his gospel. It was for you! It shows His will: for you to have life in His name. This is the reason we say the Holy Spirit not only is the Lord but “the Giver of life.”
This is so great. There are two words for life in Greek that show up in the Bible and in Christian theology. One is bios, from which we get words like biography, biology and biosphere – it has to do with only this life, the one that comes to an end. The other word is zoé – which means the life that never ends, eternal life. When Jesus says “the Spirit gives life” (Jn 6:63), and we call the Holy Spirit “the Giver of life,” it’s the same word, it’s the zoé-life, the eternal life. That’s the life the Holy Spirit gives, He gives it to you.
This is His fervent desire and will: for you to have this. It’s why the Holy Spirit gives faith, through baptism, His Word, and the Lord’s Supper. That’s why! For Him to give you nothing less than the zoé-life, the eternal life, for you to have it, to have life. “He who has the Son of God has life,” the Holy Spirit inspired St. John to write. How do you have Jesus and thus have life? By the Holy Spirit bringing Him to you, in the Word and in the Supper. This is what we heard Jesus say the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, would do: “He will testify of Me.” You have life, zoé-life, eternal life, by having Jesus by the Holy Spirit bringing Him to you.
This is a carrying-out of the fervent desire and will that is the exact same will and the exact same fervent desire that the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have, to save you, and for you to have life, the zoé-life that never ends.
See how it isn’t complete without the Holy Spirit. The Father planned it, Jesus carried it out, and the Holy Spirit brings it to you. It’s He who makes sure you aren’t alone. See His compassion! The Holy Spirit tirelessly works to bring it to you, because He sees you in your sins, He sees what they do to you, He sees you being alone and without hope in the world apart from Jesus, apart from the Father, sees you wondering how God feels about you, if He cares, what His plan is for you – so the Spirit always comes alongside you with the comfort of His Word, bringing love from the heavenly throne.
So when we say together, “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son,” we are speaking of a great act of love on God’s part. The Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son is love proceeding to you from the one God in three Persons. Why would He bother with you? Because He loves you. He wants nothing else than for you to know His love and to have His life, the zoé-life, the zoé-love if you will, the love and the life that never ends, and to share it with Him and all His loved ones, whom He makes your loved ones, forever. Amen!