The Old Testament, particularly, uses the Holy Spirit to account for the skill of craftsmen and artists, the authority of kings and leaders, the inspiration of prophets and all good men and true. As a famous hymn puts it:
O Holy Spirit, God,
All loveliness is Thine;
Great things and small are both in Thee,
The star-world is Thy shrine.
But it is in the New Testament with the coming into the world of God’s eternal Son, Jesus Christ, that the Holy Spirit reveals His most personal activity of applying to our lives the redeeming and transforming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit could be described as God in action in our human lives and relationships manifesting the saving power of God’s love or grace.
Now the Biblical word grace or in Greek, charis means God’s love or favour towards unlovely or undeserving creatures of which we, as human beings, in all of creation are the most undeserving of all – that is in God’s sight. God’s grace is therefore, offered to us, as undeserving sinners, as a gift which we must accept by faith and in a spirit of repentance, or genuine sorrow for our sins. Hence the derived word, charismatic is used to describe our personal experience of the work of the Holy Spirit in making our lives more akin to the life of Jesus Himself. To use the word charismatic to describe any unusual or outstanding human qualities of personality or accomplishment whether in sport or politics or whatever, is grossly to misuse the word.
On the human plane, Jesus is the supreme example of a truly charismatic person. We are told that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin, Mary. At His baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, figuratively as a great white dove from Heaven and, throughout His ministry, all His works of teaching and healing and conquering evil were achieved through the power of the Holy Spirit. All His knowledge of the truth and all His conquests of love were by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But what is even more significant and exciting is the fact that Jesus promised to His disciples and to all who would come to faith through their ministry the presence and power of the same Holy Spirit in their lives. Jesus also told them that the Holy Spirit would continue His general work in the world by convicting people of their sinfulness, of their failure to live according to God’s righteousness and of an impending judgement of their character and conduct (see John 16 verses 8 to 11). In other words, by the work of the Holy Spirit, God is able to diagnose our deepest human need and then to prescribe the answer to that need, and this answer constitutes the Good News of the Gospel. So the Holy Spirit is really God Himself working, as it were, in the background of Creation to sustain and to enrich it, and in our lives personally to set us free from sin and to establish the joyous and blessed rule of His love or grace. And all this transforming work is brought into focus for us through the life, death upon the cross and glorious resurrection of His own Son, Jesus Christ. So one could speak of the Holy Spirit – the third Person of the Trinity, as God’s backroom boy, at work behind the scenes, producing the goods and making everything work.
Now because of the (to some extent) hidden work of the Holy Spirit there is naturally a mystery attaching to Him and consequently the Holy Spirit has been either: much misunderstood or: neglected except in some formal sense. Amongst Christians and within the Church there has emerged in recent times a new and vital awareness of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit – often described as the Charismatic Movement. This awareness has brought much spiritual renewal and enrichment to the lives of many individual Christians and churches. The fact that the Holy Spirit not only opens our eyes to our personal need of a Saviour, but also endows us with gifts which enliven our prayer-life and worship and also make more effective our ministry to others has been a mighty revelation to many oppressed and jaded Christians.
The downside to all this, for some people, is for intense feelings and emotions to get the better of scriptural truth and wisdom and for judgmental attitudes to be adopted towards fellow-believers whose lives have not instantly displayed some of the more esoteric gifts of the Spirit. Some people, perhaps in their understandable zeal and enthusiasm, have lost sight of the fact that both the greatest gift and fruit of the Holy Spirit is love. Paul’s 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians should have made this clear, once and for all.
But, having said that, God in His infinite grace does pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, that people may see Jesus and live. We need that Pentecostal power today as never before. And the challenge is to the People of God in the words of the Old Testament from 2Chronicles 7:14, : if my people, who are called by My name (says the Lord) will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Finally let us summarise the work of the Holy Spirit as follows:
And: the words of an old hymn link together the creating
and recreating aspects of the work of the Holy Spirit:
Creator Spirit; by whose aid
The world’s foundations first were laid;
Come, visit every waiting mind,
Come pour Thy joys on human kind;
From sin and sorrow set us free,
And make Thy temples worthy Thee.
Douglas Graham May 2002