Knowing the Holy Spirit

Introduction

            The Holy Spirit is perhaps the most mysterious member of the Trinity. All too often, the church talks about the Son and the Father and overlooks the Spirit. Whether it be because they do not believe in the equality of the Holy Spirit or just because they themselves do not know, they do not teach how to develop your relationship with the Spirit in the way they do with the other members of the Trinity. Seeing as the Holy Spirit is our advocate and our helper, this lack of direction within the Church can have a negative impact on believers and impair their ability to fully connect with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; fortunately, there are ways in which we can know the Spirit.

Scripture

            The first way to know the Holy Spirit is through Scripture. God revealed Himself in His Word to us, that we may know Him and have a relationship with Him. The clearest depictions of the Holy Spirit come in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels and the book of Acts. The work of Jesus is intertwined with the work of the Holy Spirit, so throughout the entirety of the Gospels you can see the Spirit right alongside Jesus and see Him work in many ways.

One of the earliest mentions of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is at Jesus’ conception when Mary is told by the angel that she will bear the Son of God. “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; He will be called Son of God.’”[1] Just a few verses later, Mary goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, and “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”[2] We can see the Holy Spirit’s first work in Jesus’ earthly life in this passage. The Holy Spirit made it possible for Jesus to be born holy, so that He could go on to live a blameless life and be the salvation of the world; He then began the work of guiding John the Baptist, who was still in the womb, to prepare the way for Jesus.

It would be a misconception to believe that the Holy Spirit does not exclusively appear in the Bible until the New Testament; even in the Old Testament, people were led by and filled with the Holy Spirit and He was at work. “The earth is full of Your creatures… when You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the ground.”[3] In this praise to God in Psalms 104, we can see that the Holy Spirit breathes life and creation flows through Him. In the book of Judges, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel and led him to judge Israel.[4] This is just one of the many examples in the book of Judges where the Holy Spirit comes upon them and gives them the power to deliver Israel.

The Son and the Father

            We can also learn more about the Holy Spirit by knowing the Son and the Father. They have a unique relationship that reveals the Spirit to us, just as Jesus reveals the Father in His life. The more we develop our relationship with and understand the other members of the Trinity, the easier and clearer our understanding of the Spirit will be. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism and leads Him throughout His life on earth, empowering Him to perform many miraculous healings and exorcisms and giving Him the wisdom to succeed in His mission.

            By understanding how the Holy Spirit helped Jesus in His time on earth, we can understand how He helps us in our God-given missions as well. Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirt of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, because He abides with you, and He will be in you.”[5]

Experience

            One more way we can know the Holy Spirit is by His personal work and testimony in our own lives. He lives with us and in us, and He gracefully goes before us to prepare the way just as He did with Jesus and John the Baptist. The Wesleyan concept of prevenient grace is the first experience anyone has with the Holy Spirit, whether they recognize it as such or not. The word prevenient comes from the Latin words prae (before) and venire (to come); together, they form the word praevenire, which means to come before.[6] Thus, prevenient grace means the grace that comes before. As Joe DiPaolo puts it in his article on prevenient grace, “By this grace which comes before, we become aware of God’s nature; we acquire a basic knowledge of right and wrong; and we become aware of our need for a Savior.”[7] The Holy Spirit makes it possible to know and to choose God; without His gracious work in our lives, we would remain lost and depraved due to our sinful nature.

Conclusion

            Some Christians may believe that it is impossible to know the Holy Spirit, others that it is unnecessary, but the truth is that the Holy Spirit is a vital person of the Trinity and plays a key factor in enabling us to attain not only salvation, but also a relationship with the One True God. Without Him, just as is the case without the Father or the Son, restoration would be impossible. Mystery is a part of God’s divine nature, so it may be the case that we can never achieve a complete understanding of the Holy Spirit in our time on earth; however, He has the grace to reveal Himself to us despite our foolishness and ignorance. As followers of God, we ought to strive to use the sources He gifted us to know Him the best we can, that we may become closer to Him and live in Him, as He does in us.

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Bibliography

DiPaolo, Joe. “Reflection on Prevenient Grace.” Wesleyan Covenant Association. September 13, 2018. Accessed March 10, 2021. https://wesleyancovenant.org/2018/04/18/reflection-on-prevenient-grace/.

“Prevenient (adj.).” Index. Accessed March 10, 2021. https://www.etymonline.com/word/prevenient.

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[1] Luke 1:34-35.

[2] Luke 1:41.

[3] Psalms 104:24,30.

[4] Judges 3:10.

[5] John 14:16-17.

[6] “Prevenient (adj.),” Index, |PAGE|, accessed March 10, 2021, https://www.etymonline.com/word/prevenient).

[7] Joe DiPaolo, “Reflection on Prevenient Grace,” Wesleyan Covenant Association, September 13, 2018, |PAGE|, accessed March 10, 2021, https://wesleyancovenant.org/2018/04/18/reflection-on-prevenient-grace/)