WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT

Acts 1:4-8
"And being assembled together with them. He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father "which" he said "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
Acts 2:1-4
"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
John 14:25-26
These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."

For our lesson today, I would like to divide our study into three specific areas of thought. First, let us consider the Holy Spirit as a person, the third person of the Trinity. Secondly, let us seek to understand the work of the Holy Spirit in His regenerating work in our lives as a believer. Thirdly, let's explore what the work of the Holy Spirit is in the life and ministry of the Church.
In His farewell discourse, Christ made it clear that just as His own advent was foretold by prophets and angels, He now announced that advent into the world of another, coequal with Himself, His divine successor, His other self in the unity of the Godhead. Jesus said in John 16:12-16: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
However, when He, the Spirit of truth has come. He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.
All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a

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little while, and you will see Me; and "because I go the Father."
In John 14:16, Jesus said: "And I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." Verse 26 continues: But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."
When the universe was created God the Father spoke the powerful creative words that brought it into being, God the Son was the divine agent who carried out these words.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him and with Him, nothing was made that was made" (John 1:1-3). Speaking of Christ, Paul writes in Colossians 1:13-17: "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him."
In the creation of the world, God the Holy Spirit was active "moving over the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:2). All three members of the Trinity are equally and fully divine and they have all existed for all eternity.
When Scripture discusses the way in which God relates to the world, both in creation and in redemption, the persons of the Trinity are said to have different functions or primary activities. We have noted these different functions in relation to the creation of the world. In the work of redemption, God the Father planned redemption and sent His Son into the world. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 3:38-40)
After Jesus ascended back to heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son to give redemption to us.
Jesus speaks of "the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name" (John 14:26), but also says that He Himself will send the Holy Spirit, for He says, 'If I go, I will send Him to you (John 16:7), and He speaks of a time "when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth" (John 15:26).
It is especially the role of the Holy Spirit to give us regeneration or new spiritual life, to sanctify us and

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to empower us for service.
In general, the work of the Spirit seems to bring to completion the work that has been planned by God the Father and begun by God the Son.
Let's consider for a moment the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a mere "something," but a divine SOMEONE! If He were only a mere influence or force, the scriptural method of describing Him would be contradictory and unintelligible. Once the truth of the Spirit's personality and work are realized, they open up to one a life of blessedness and power.
The Holy Spirit possesses the true elements of personality. As we usually associate personality with a body, it is somewhat difficult to comprehend the Spirit's personality seeing He does not have a material form made up of hands, feet, eyes and mouth. What we are apt to forget is that these parts of the human frame are not characteristics of personality, although they are channels of such; they simply represent corporeity, that is, they belong entirely to the body.
Personality is made up of distinctive features or elements known as heart, mind and will. "Personality," it has been said, "is capacity for fellowship. The very quality which was most singularly characteristic of Jesus manifests itself in the Spirit, only more universally, more intimately, more surely." Being able to think, feel and will, the Spirit has the capacity for fellowship, which is not possible without personality.
The heart is the seat of affection. With it, we love or hate, persons and things. Paul speaks of "the love of the Spirit" (Romans 15:30). Without a heart, comfort is not possible. Early saints could walk "in the comfort of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31). Grief is also an element of the heart. The Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30).
The mind is the source of intelligence, reason, knowledge. With our minds we think, plan, devise, comprehend. That the Spirit has a mind is evident from a study of His manifold activities. There is a beautiful precision, thought, order, plan, intelligence in all His works. The incomparable Scriptures, for example, prove His perfect mind. Paul refers to the "mind of the Spirit" (Romans 8:27), and what a mind He has as "the Spirit of Wisdom!" We speak of a person as having a mind of his own. The Spirit has a mind of His own, indicating thought, purpose, decision (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).
With our wills we act, decide, giving expression thereby to our thoughts and feelings. And true personality consists in preserving the balance between the heart and mind and will. When we study the Book of Acts, we note the will of the Spirit more than any other phase of His personality. For example, it was the Spirit who commanded and removed Philip (Acts 8:29,39). It was the same Spirit who exercised authority over Peter (Acts 10:19-20). It was this Spirit who restrained and constrained Paul (Acts 16:6,7).
Personality then, is essential to our conception of the Spirit, as it is of those of the Father and Son.

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So, we conclude that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, active in the creation of the world, and possessing all the characteristics of personality. Please remember that the Holy Spirit can be grieved, blasphemed against, insulted, and lied to. If the Spirit of God is simply an influence, then, there is no need to concern ourselves about man's treatment of Him, for influence is incapable of recognition, feeling and action.
But believing Him to be one of the Persons in the Godhead, "we must treat Him as a Person, applying ourselves to Him as a Person, glorify Him in our hearts as a Person.
Now, consider the Holy Spirit's work in us...first, as sinner, then as a believer. His work with us as a sinner is the work of REGENERATION. Regeneration is a secret act of God in which He imparts new spiritual life to us. In the work of regeneration, God takes the first step toward us as sinners...it is all of God! Exactly what happens in regeneration is mysterious to us. We know that somehow we who were spiritually dead have been made alive to God and in a very real sense we have been "born again." "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:1-6).
But we don't understand how this happens or what exactly God does to us to give us this new spiritual life. Jesus says: "The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes, so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).
Scripture views regeneration as something that affects us as a whole person. "If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Because regeneration is a work of God within us in which He gives us new life, it is right to conclude that it is an instantaneous event.
It happens only once. At one moment we are spiritually dead, and then at the next moment we have new life from God! Sometimes this moment happens when we were young, for others of us, we came to faith later in life. But for all of us, it is the moment to remember forever.

Regeneration comes before saving faith. However, when we say that it comes "before" saving faith, it is important to remember that they usually come so close together that it will ordinarily seem to us that they are happening at the same time. Regeneration is the work of God that gives us the spiritual ability to respond to God in faith.

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When talking about regeneration with Nicodemus, Jesus said, "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). We enter the kingdom of God when we became Christians at conversion. But Jesus says that we have to be born "of the Spirit" before we can do that. Our inability to come to Christ on our own, without an initial work of God within us, is also emphasized when Jesus says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father, who sent Me, draws him" (John 6:44). This inward act of regeneration is described beautifully when Luke says of Lydia, The Lord opened her heart, then she was able to give heed to Paul's preaching and to respond to faith.
The idea that regeneration comes before faith is not always understood by evangelicals today. Sometimes people will even say something like, "If you believe in Christ as your Savior, then (after you believe) you will be born again." But, new birth is viewed by Scripture as something that God does within us by the Holy Spirit in order to enable us to believe.
Genuine regeneration must bring results in our life.
John says, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" (1 John 5:1). Prior to this verse, John says, "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains him and he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God" (1 John 3:9). Here John explains that a person who is born again has the spiritual "seed" (that life-generating and growing power) within him, and that this keeps the person living a life free of continual sin. This does not of course mean that the person will have a perfect life, but only that the pattern of life will not be one of continuing indulgence in sin.
As the Spirit of God takes residence in our heart and life, our life-style and attitudes change. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law" (Galatians 5:22). Regeneration results in justification. Paul clearly teaches that justification comes after our faith and as God's response to our faith. He says that God justifies him who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26), and that "a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law." (Romans 3:28). He says, "Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which He (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ's righteousness as belonging to us, and (2) declares us to be righteous in His sight. Now, this is the work of the Holy Spirit in the life and heart of a believer.
Paul writes in Romans 8 these words: "Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and death.
For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh [the entire nature of man

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without the Holy Spirit]. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin the flesh [subdued, overcame, deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice].
So that the righteous and just requirements of the Law might be fully met in us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit.
For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and pursue those things which gratify the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and seek those things which gratify the Holy Spirit." (Romans 8:1-5).
So, the work of the Holy Spirit in the life and heart of the believer is to empower for godly and righteous living. "But you shall receive power (ability, efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8).
Paul tells the Christians in Ephesus: "Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but ever be filled and stimulated with the [Holy] Spirit." (Ephesians 5:17-19).
The work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a sinner is to draw that person to Christ, reveal the plan of salvation and give faith to believe. That is the work of regeneration. The Holy Spirit's presence and fullness in our hearts provides the power to overcame sin and live a godly and righteous life that pleases God.
Paul warns: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [do not offend or vex or sadden Him], by Whom you were sealed (marked, branded as God's own, secured) for the day of redemption (of final deliverance through Christ from evil and the consequences of sin).
One translation has it..."It is the Holy Spirit that will mark you present on that eternal day when you arrive in the presence of Christ."
Jesus gives us another solemn warning: "Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy (every evil, abusive, injurious speaking, or indignity against sacred things) can be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not and cannot be forgiven" (Matthew 12:31).
Before we leave this phase of our study, please know that all born-again Christians have the Holy Spirit indwelling in them and they need not seek for the coming of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Some teach that we do not have the Holy Spirit even if we are Christians unless we have experienced the "baptism of the Spirit."
Some say that we must speak in tongues before we are filled with the Spirit. This is error and heresy!
"But you are not living the life of the flesh, you are living the life of the Spirit, if the Holy Spirit of God really dwells within you [directs and controls you]. But if anyone does not possess the Holy Spirit of Christ, he is none of His [he does not belong to Christ, is not truly a child of God]." (Romans 8:9).

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Now, we have arrived at the closing subject of our study and it has to do with the work of the Holy Spirit in the life and ministry of the Church, the Body of Christ. Regarding the association between the Holy Spirit and the Church, these aspects can be noted.
(1) THE SPIRIT BROUGHT THE CHURCH INTO EXISTENCE!
Pentecost is spoken of as the birthday of the Church, and it was then by the Spirit that it commenced historically. Hitherto, believers were as units, independent one of another but through the Spirit's agency they were all fused into the mystic body, "The Church of the Living God." They were baptized into one body. "For just as the body is a unity and yet has many parts, and all the parts, though many, form [only] one body, so it is with the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).
For by [means of the personal agency of] one [Holy] Spirit we were all, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, baptized [and by baptism united together] into one body, and all made to drink of one [Holy] Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).
(2) THE SPIRIT IS THE SOURCE OF CHURCH UNITY.
There is only one Church of which Christ is the Head, and all true believers form "one man in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27). And Paul writes to the Ephesians: "I therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, appeal to and beg you to walk (lead a life) worthy of the [divine] calling to which you have been called [with behavior that is a credit to the summons to God's service, living as becomes you] with complete lowliness of mind (humility) and meekness (unselfishness, gentleness, mildness), with patience, bearing with one another and making allowances because you love one another.
Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of [and produced by] the Spirit in the binding power of peace.
[There is] one body and one Spirit—just as there is also one hope [that belongs] to the calling received—[there is] one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of [us] all. Who is above all [Sovereign over all], pervading all and [living] in [us] all." (Ephesians 4:1-6)
But while we are all one in Christ, such unity does not mean uniformity, but unity with diversity with each member of the body fulfilling his own particular purpose. "For in fact the body is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased." (1 Corinthians 12: 14-18).
(3) THE SPIRIT FASHIONS THE CHURCH INTO HIS TEMPLE.
What a solemn truth it is that the Holy Spirit looks upon the Church as His Temple, as "the habitation of God"! "Do you not know that your body is the temple (the very sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit Who lives with-

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in you. Whom you have received [as a Gift] from God? You are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19). Each believer is like a Temple of the Spirit, a living stone built into a spiritual house." "Since you have [already] tasted the goodness and kindness of the Lord, come to Him [then, to that] Living Stone which men tried and threw away, but which is chosen [and] precious in God's sight. [Come] and like living stones, be yourselves built [into] a spiritual house, for a holy (dedicated, consecrated) priesthood, to offer up [those] spiritual sacrifices [that are] acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:3-5).
(4) THE HOLY SPIRIT BESTOWS HIS GIFTS UPON THE CHURCH.
As the members of the human body are so placed that each of them may exercise their proper function, so in the Body of Christ, each believer has a particular gift of the Spirit's choosing.
"Now about the spiritual gifts (the special endowments of supernatural energy), brethren, I do not want you to be misinformed.
You know that when you were heathen, you were led off after idols that could not speak [habitually] as impulse directed and whenever the occasion might arise.
Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking under the power and influence of the [Holy] Spirit of God can [ever] say, Jesus be cursed! And no one can [really] say, Jesus is [my] Lord, except by and under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Now there are distinctive varieties and distributions of endowments (gifts, extraordinary powers distinguishing certain Christians, due to the power of divine grace operating in their souls by the Holy Spirit) and they vary, but the Holy Spirit remains the same.
And there are distinctive varieties of service and ministration, but it is the same Lord [Who is served], And there are distinctive varieties of operation [of working to accomplish things], but it is the same God Who inspires and energizes them all in all.
But to each one is given the manifestation of the [Holy] Spirit [the evidence, the spiritual illumination of the Spirit] for good and profit.
To one is given in and through the Holy Spirit [the power to speak] a message of wisdom, and to another [the power to express] a word of knowledge and understanding according to the same Holy Spirit.
To another [wonder-working] faith by the same Holy Spirit, to another the extraordinary powers of healing by the one Spirit;
To another the working of miracles, to another prophetic insight (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose); to another the ability to discern and distinguish between [the utterances of true] spirits [and false ones], to another various kinds of [unknown] tongues, to another the ability to interpret [such] tongues. All these [gifts, achievements, abilities] are inspired and brought to pass by one and the same Holy Spirit, Who apportions to each person individually [exactly] as He chooses" (1 Corinthians 12:1-11).
What an immense subject, but I trust this study will have helped you to understand the Holy Spirit better.