I have spent a lot of time studying Christianity. Most of this study involves reading the Bible……..the owners manual. There are three general areas of Christianity that I have tried to understand:
God…..the Father
God is the creator of everything, the physical world, the spiritual world (including heaven and hell). God is the pinnacle of everything. I can understand a little bit about God. But, much of God’s nature, perhaps most of it, is beyond my capacity to know. I will learn more after I die. But, I doubt that I will ever fully understand God. Even the Bible reveals very little about God. He has expectations. He rewards obedience. He punishes disobedience. But, he intentionally creates a certain distance between himself and us. We can like him…..or not. We can accept his reality……or not. But, he is in charge and we don’t get to negotiate. Even Jesus didn’t fully know what God was and is up to. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament give us glimpses of God’s nature.
Jesus…….the son
Jesus is a manifestation of God. He is a reflection of God’s character. Jesus serves God. Jesus is the clearest image of God’s nature that we have. He is fully God. He is fully human. Because Jesus is human, he speaks a language and lives a life that we can understand. Most of what we do as Christians centers around our relationship with Jesus. The Old Testament gives us a few veiled references to Jesus. The New Testament fleshes this out……literally. We focus on Jesus because we can understand him. We like Jesus because he is one of us………in addition to being one with God.
The Holy Spirit……..the “helper”
At least for me…….this is where the wheels start to come off. The spirit is non-tangible. Our mind is designed to operate in a physical world. We just can’t get a grip on a being who is completely non-physical. But, as hard as the spirit is to understand, the spirit is at the core of life in a “post Jesus” world. Please don’t misunderstand. Jesus was and is and will be. Jesus teaches us how to live. Jesus invites us into an ongoing relationship. Jesus requires us to accept him as God incarnate in the same way that we accept God……as God…….non-incarnate. But, at Pentecost, things changed. Jesus ascended into heaven. He left the physical world. He is, no doubt, still active in our world…..but, for the most part, in a non-physical form. When he left, he sent a non-physical replacement…….the Holy Spirit. The best way that I can understand the spirit is as a non-physical manifestation of both God, the father, and Jesus, the son. The Holy Spirit informs our minds. He guides our decision-making. He teaches us right and wrong. The right and wrong that he teaches are absolute. There is no negotiation. The spirit is often at odds…….at war……with our appetites. The spirit arrives in us when we accept God and Jesus.
There is a corollary:
Those who reject God and Jesus do not receive the spirit.
Those who reject the father and the son are ruled by…….are at the mercy of…….their appetites. They do not hear the Holy Spirit. This goes a long way toward explaining the behaviour of about half of our society.
Furthermore, it is entirely possible to identify as a Christian, receive the spirit, and yet completely ignore the spirit. This explains the large number of nominal Christians who allow their appetites to govern their actions. They straddle the gap between spirit led Christianity and appetite led secular humanism. I worry that they are like the guy with one foot on the dock…….and one foot in the boat.
The Holy spirit comes from God, the father. It descended on Jesus at his baptism. Jesus passed it on to his followers at Pentecost. If you are a Christian, the Holy spirit has been passed on to you. The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God’s plan for your life. It is the manifestation of God’s authority………God’s sovereignty…..over your life……..every corner of it.
So far, so good. But, there is the problem of free will. Just before his crucifixion, as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed “not my will…..but your will be done”. Jesus had free will too. He could have walked away from the crucifixion. But, he didn’t. I believe that he listened to the guidance of the holy spirit. He submitted to the sovereignty of God, the father.
And that is our daily walk.
Thousands of times every day we make a choice:
We submit to the demands of our appetites.
Or
We submit to the sovereignty of God.
The Holy spirit is the being…….who lives inside of us…….who guides us in our choice:
The sovereignty of God
Or
The dictatorship of our appetites.
Jesus chose wisely……..we should too.
But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
Jesus explaining the holy spirit, John 16: 7-13. ESV