The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Holy Spirit Assignment
There is a lot of confusion regarding the Holy Spirit. Different churches preach different things about the third member of the Trinity. But Scripture teaches us that God gives each believer the Holy Spirit who dwells in us (1 Pet. 1:12) and functions in a number of ways within us. Here are three of those functions.
First, He is one of the “two immutable things” of the Hebrews 6:17-18 discussion about the oath of God:
“Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb. 6:17-18).
The word “immutable” means unchangeable. The first unchangeable thing is God’s promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:2-3) which is connected to salvation in Galatians 3:7-8. The second is the Holy Spirit given as a pledge and witness to confirm God’s promise and to transmit God’s Word into the hearts of God’s people:
“Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after He had said before, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,’ then the Lord said, ‘I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb 10:15-17).
Second, He teaches us how to live now that the Holy Spirit abides in us:
“Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:22-23).
Finally, Scripture tells us the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to open up our understanding of things that are beyond human comprehension:
“But as it is written, ‘Eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”(1 Cor. 2:9-12).
Since the assignment of the Holy Spirit includes the on-going revelation of spiritual truth to believers, think about this. What the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles was poured out on paper (scrolls made of stretched and tanned animal skins at the time the apostles lived) for us to learn from some 2000 years later – not legalism, but grace-borne truth revealed by the Holy Spirit to early Christians to share with those who came after.
