Holy Spirit part 3

Part 3

The Holy Spirit:  The Giver of Life 

John 6:60–65 (ESV) — When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you  take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who  did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 

John 17:3 (ESV) — “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom  you have sent.” 

This month we continue our study of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. In previous months we’ve laid some preliminary groundwork for this discussion. 

In my first article, I talked about the tension involved with this study: We have to maintain that the  character of the Holy Spirit (who is God) is unchanging, and yet, at the same time, we have to recognize  that something apparently changes between the Old Testament and the New. Basically, because the Holy  Spirit is God, we have to be careful not to teach that He has changed or evolved His character, since that would be heresy. We also, though, need to understand His work as it’s presented in Scripture, because we  need to understand His work in our own lives. So in my first article, I separated His “being” (other names  for “being” would be character, ontology, personhood) from His “Work” (other words for “Work” could be  works, economy or activity).  

Then last month, I further complicated everything. I argued that there is a third category, in between  ontology and economy (“being” and “works”) that we need to teach. I called this third category “mission”,  and I attempted to define this category as “the over-arching goal of all His works.” Finally, I pointed to John 6:63 and claimed that this is Jesus explaining the mission of the Holy Spirit to us, and I stated that the church catholic (again, notice the small, not capitalized “c”) recognized this as the Holy Spirit’s mission as  long ago as 381 B.C. with the universal agreement and confession of the words “The Lord, The Giver of Life” in the Nicene Creed. The Creed itself does not say “The mission of the Holy Spirit is to make and give life,”  but, I argued, since the creed uses a verbal-noun (a participle) to describe the Holy Spirit as the “Maker  and Giver of Life”, this should be understood as a confession of what He does as a reflection of His  character. Basically, this is what the Holy Spirit is always doing. He is always making and giving life. His character and being are that He is the one “who makes life”, and since that is His character, this is always  what He is up to.  

His mission in the world is to make and give life. 

What is life? 

Now comes an important question: What is life? This seems like an unnecessarily philosophical or pedantic question because we are all apt to assume that we know what life is. It turns out, however, that it is critical that our idea and definition of what life really is must align with Jesus’ definition. If it doesn’t, all of  our ideas about the Holy Spirit and His work will be in error. 

The word “life” is used in such a wide array of ways that some intentional thought about this is healthy.  Mostly, when we think about “our life,” we just consider the things we have to do to stay alive. When things are going really well, we get to take a break from thinking about survival and get to spend a little more  time thinking about how to enjoy ourselves. And that, for the most part, is how our society defines and  thinks about “life”. We think “life” is the content of our schedule.  

Jesus actually rebukes this narrow view. Luke 12:22–25 (ESV) — And [Jesus] said to his disciples,  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you  will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither  sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value  are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  

Understanding Life by Understanding Death 

Life is more than a long string of work and toil to “survive.” One way we can come to understand this more is by understanding the converse of “life”, which is “death.”  

Genesis 2:16–17 (ESV) — And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree  of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you  eat of it you shall surely die.” 

God promised that the day that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they would die. Then a funny thing happened: Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Yet, despite God’s promise that the same day they ate they would also die,  Adam and Eve kept on breathing, continued moving and walking, and even continued speaking with God.  They did not immediately tip over and return to the ground. If “life” is merely biological activity like  respiration and awareness, or if “life” is merely the activities we do to continue our material existence on  this planet (activities like eating and sleeping and taking care of our daily responsibilities) then Adam and  Eve’s life did not end that day. A narrow definition of “life” make’s it very hard to understand what God  meant when He said, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  

Life, as Jesus is talking about in John 6:63 and 17:3, is way more than just biological activity or continued  material existence. Those things are only a small part of life, and that’s obviously not the small part of life that Adam and Eve ceased to possess on that day.  

Then just what life, exactly, did Adam and Eve lose? Jesus defines it in John 17:3. John 17:3 (ESV) — And  this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  

Life was always meant to be eternal. We were created to live without ever dying, God’s whole redemptive plan involves returning us to a state where we can never die (Revelation 21:4). Death is accidental to creation and life. Death is an intrusion into God’s intended life with us.  

Adam and Eve fell away from their eternal life (and into death) when they sinned. Sure, they continued to  have a pulse and an awareness of the world they lived in, but their sin separated them from God. They were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Formerly they spoke face to face with God Himself, now they were  separated by the Angel with the fiery sword. Formerly they were uncovered and unashamed, both in front of each other and in front of God. Now they had reason to be ashamed and required covering. Formerly,  they knew God in a close and intimate way, but now that relationship was severed. They no longer knew the one true God. They had fallen out of their eternal life.  

The Holy Spirit’s mission is to make life, which means (going off of John 17:3), the Holy Spirit’s mission is  create a relationship between us and God.  

Body and Spirit 

Adam and Eve’s death was a spiritual one. We were created to be souls with a body and a spirit. If you remove the spirit from the body, the body dies (James 2:26). And yet, a spirit can be “dead”, but still animate a body (Ephesians 2:1, Colossians 2:13). Since the fall, all humans are born into the world  spiritually dead. To be alive, we have to be made spiritually alive through the forgiveness and justification of our sins (Colossians 2:13-14).  

So we have bodily life and we have spiritual life. We were created to have both and after the general  resurrection, all believers in Jesus will have both       (1 Corinthians 15:46-49).  

So life is not only a biological concept, nor is life only a spiritual concept. The Holy Spirit is the Maker of  Life, both physical and spiritual. 

You can be dead physically and very much alive spiritually. This is currently the state of the thief on the  cross whom Jesus promised paradise, as well as all the rest of the saints who have passed on before us yet still await the general resurrection and their new bodies (Revelation 6:9-11).  

You can also be dead spiritually and alive physically. That is the state of most of the world. Christians alive in the world today are spiritually and physically alive, though it must be said, we still are not physically alive in the way we some day will be (Isaiah 25:6-9, 1 Corinthians 13:12, Philippians 3:20-21, Romans 6:5,  Revelation 21:1-4, and many more).  

When the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is the maker of life, it means that He is the creator of all things  necessary to life. All bodily things and all spiritual things were made by the Holy Spirit. This means all  things material, all things biological, and even all things spiritual (like your salvation) were made and  given by the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit’s Playground 

This simple combination of two Bible verses (John 6:63 and John 17:3) yields an astonishing realization for  us: the purpose of material creation is for you and I to have a place to have a relationship with God. God  wanted to make these amazingly complex creatures (us) and have a loving relationship with them, but to  do that, He needed a place for them to actually be and live.  

This calls for a massive recalibration of our understanding of the world. The universe is gigantic, and so,  this leads us very easily to think that we are a very small and ancillary part of the universe. The definition 

of life turns that idea on its head. The definition of life (life is a relationship with God) tells us that the  purpose of all things material is to facilitate a loving relationship with your creator. The fact that your  mass is infinitesimally smaller than the mass of the Sun, which is an order of magnitude much smaller  than other stars in our own galaxy, really doesn’t matter. The center of God’s attention is not on the Sun.  The center of God’s attention is you. The Holy Spirit’s whole mission is to give you life.  

The Sun (which is perfectly sized to foster life) was assembled and ignited by the Holy Spirit so that you  could have life. (By the way, I’m not describing a scientific process here, rather, I’m explaining in further  detail the meaning of Genesis 1:2). As scientists continue to study more and more of our universe, we’ve  come to understand more and more that everything is exactly the way it needs to be to foster life, and yet,  

so far we’ve only found life here. Basically, the heavens themselves declare that the center of the  universe, as least according to discernable design, is right here where we live.  

The stars that are literally light years away from here were hung exactly where they are to foster your  relationship with God. That is the meaning and purpose of creation: to host life. The Spirit is the maker of life. That means that all this creation is simply a playground that He has built for us to experience life in.  And it’s the Holy Spirit who is the maker of life. All of this is His playground, His domain, but He built it all  simply to have a relationship with you.  

Not Ignoring the Father 

Now, I’ve little doubt that this idea of creation and the Holy Spirit’s role in it feels a little bit foreign to many of you. It might feel like I am minimizing the Father. I think we are accustomed to reading Genesis 1  as mostly the work of God the Father, while the Holy Spirit was there sorta pitching in around the edges. Then we toss John 1 in there, and we start to think about “Oh yeah, the Word was there too” and we end up  with this imagery of God the Father working on stuff while the Holy Spirit and the Son are looking on. All of a sudden we are thinking about it like God the Son was holding the other end of the measure tape and  the Holy Spirit was holding the flashlight at just the right angle, but it was really God the Father doing all  the work. 

I don’t think that’s the correct imagery. That type of image makes the Son and the Holy Spirit demigods. We confess that they both emanate from the Father, this is true. But we also passionately declare that the Son and Spirit are both fully God and co-equal in power and majesty. If we think God the Father was doing  most of the work of creating, and the other two persons of the Trinity were just the errand boys, then we  are in need of correction. The Father is indeed the creator, but so also are the Holy Spirit and the Son.  

Consider these testimonies from Jesus about His Father 

John 5:37 (ESV) — And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have  never heard, his form you have never seen, 

John 6:46 (ESV) — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the  Father. 

Furthermore, consider the Scriptural testimonies to God’s hiddenness- 

Isaiah 45:15 (ESV) — Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior. Exodus 33:20 (ESV) — But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”  Colossians 1:15 (ESV) — [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 

The Father’s role in creation is actually to be the God who isn’t known inside creation. God the Father is  “The invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) that cannot be seen by any man (Exodus 33:20).  

Theologians often speak of the “creator/creature distinction.” Scripture demands that we acknowledge God as beyond us.  

Isaiah 55:8–9 (ESV) — For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares  the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my  thoughts than your thoughts. 

There is some way in which God must transcend creation in order to be the actual God of it. Any creator  must have an independent existence outside of material creation. The Trinity, as hard a concept as it is to  wrap our brains around, is the only concept of God that allows there to be a person of God that is both  entirely transcendent (God the Father), while also entirely and completely imminent and with us (God the Holy Spirit). God the Holy Spirit should be thought of as the hands of God in material creation. God the  Father spoke the Word and sent the Spirit from outside of creation, and God the Spirit did the work of  making creation and life. All of the work necessary for life that God has done inside creation has been  done by the Life-Maker: The Holy Spirit.  

Not Ignoring the Son Either  

There are also numerous testimonies to the Son’s presence and full activity in both creating and  maintaining everything, so I want to make sure to acknowledge that as well.  

John 1:2–4 (ESV) — He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 

John 1:9–10 (ESV) — The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in  the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 

Colossians 1:15–17 (ESV) — [The Son] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by  him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in  him all things hold together.

In Genesis 1 the Holy Spirit is spoken of as being there with God before the creation of the World. The same is spoken of the Son in John 1. So, the Son who is called the Word of God is clearly also active with the Holy Spirit in creating the material world. The Son’s activity is also shown in Genesis 1 because there we read  that God “spoke”. Genesis 1 actually speaks of God’s Word going out, even while it displays the life-making  power of the Holy Spirit.  

External Works Undivided  

God, being fully God in all three persons of the Trinity, does not divide Himself when working. The three  persons of the Trinity have a unique relationship to each other inside the Trinity. They even have some  unique functions outside of the Trinity (only the Son died for our sins, the Holy Spirit and the Father did not die, and could not, as they have not taken on human flesh). Still, the external works of God (God’s work outside of Himself toward anyone else) are undivided. Anything God does is something that all of God does. 

God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all involved in the creation of the universe as a place that we  could have life. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all involved in the sacrificial death of the Son,  which enabled us all to pass from death to life. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all are alive and  watching over you at this very moment.  

God the Son is always the Word of God who comes to us in Human form and yet provides all the meaning  and order that holds life together. God the Father remains outside of creation in His Heavenly dwelling  place where no man can see Him and live. God the Holy Spirit is always working to make, give and restore  life.  

Holy Spirit: Giver of Life 

Psalm 104:30 (ESV) — When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the  ground. 

The mission of the Holy Spirit is to create and give life. Furthermore, if you see God doing anything in the world, it’s always the Holy Spirit doing it (with the Son at the Father’s command). Wherever God is at work, the Word and the Spirit of God are at work making life and giving a relationship with God. This is a much  more expansive and powerful role for the Holy Spirit than we sometimes think. I encourage you to ponder this and apply it to your life. Next month we will apply it to our understanding of individual works of the  Holy Spirit.