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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Who
Is The Holy Spirit? I've heard many people
mistakenly refer to the Holy Spirit as an "it." Look
at what John 16:7 says. "But
very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless
I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him
to you." The
pronoun "him" in John 16:7 tells us that the Holy Spirit is a
personality, not an "it." Jesus
called Him "the Advocate," "parakletos" in the Greek text.
Parakletos refers to one who is called alongside of another, and
usually for a reason. The Holy
Spirit, then, is a spiritual personality who is called alongside the
Christian for his or her benefit, but there is more.
Read an excerpt from John 14:16 through 20. "I
will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and
be with you forever—the Spirit of truth ... you know him, for he lives
with you and will be in you. I
will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you ... On that day you will
realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." Jesus
had just told His apostles that He was leaving them, so to make up for His
absence, the Father would send them another Advocate (parakletos) who was
the Spirit of Truth. Like
Jesus Himself, who is pure truth (John 14:6), so the Advocate is pure
truth. To
comfort the apostles in their time of perceived loss, Jesus told them that
He would return to them, which in context does not refer to His second
coming to earth. It refers to
"that day," the day when they would realize that they are in
Jesus, and here's the astonishing thing, that Jesus would be in them.
Did you get that? On
that day, Jesus would come to live, not with them, but inside of them.
Jesus, then, is the Spirit of Truth, is the Advocate, is the Holy
Spirit. When
Acts 2:4 states that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, they
were in fact, filled with Jesus, although in Spirit form.
The very man who they followed alongside for three plus years, as
of the Day of Pentecost, now lived inside of them.
How powerfully and strangely astonishing was this reality. Romans
8:9 is one of a few verses that confirms the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
God, is the Spirit of Jesus.
"You,
however, are not in the realm of the flesh
but are in the realm of the Spirit,
if indeed the Spirit of
God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit
of Christ,
they do not belong to Christ." The Holy Spirit is not
an "it." He is Jesus
in Spirit form, and if you are a genuine Christian, the same historic
Jesus who walked the dusty roads of Galilee, healed the sick, raised the dead, and all of the rest, actually lives
inside of you. Think about
that for a while. Let it sink
into your soul, where it will form the conviction whereby you live.
Post Script According to Romans 8:9,
if Jesus does not live in you, then you are not a Christian, a Biblical
truth that has been lost in much of what we call church.
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