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Enjoying God Blog

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The New City Catechism: 52 Questions & Answers for Our Hearts & Minds was published earlier this year by Crossway. A companion volume, The New City Catechism Devotional (239 pages), with an Introduction by Timothy Keller and under the general editorial oversight of Collin Hansen was also published by Crossway. Part Three of the Devotional is devoted to short chapters on the theme of Spirit, Restoration, and Growing in Grace. I was asked to contribute the devotional chapter on the Holy Spirit. Here it is. Continue reading...

The New City Catechism: 52 Questions & Answers for Our Hearts & Minds was published earlier this year by Crossway. A companion volume, The New City Catechism Devotional (239 pages), with an Introduction by Timothy Keller and under the general editorial oversight of Collin Hansen was also published by Crossway. Part Three of the Devotional is devoted to short chapters on the theme of Spirit, Restoration, and Growing in Grace. I was asked to contribute the devotional chapter on the Holy Spirit. Here it is.

Rarely does a Christian struggle to think of God as Father. And to envision God as Son is not a problem for many. These personal names come easily to us because our lives and relationships are inescapably intertwined with fathers and sons here on earth. But God as Holy Spirit is often a different matter. Gordon Fee tells of one of his students who remarked, “God the Father makes perfectly good sense to me, and God the Son I can quite understand; but the Holy Spirit is a gray, oblong blur.”

How different this is from what we actually read in Scripture. There we see that the Spirit is not third in rank in the Godhead but is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and Son, sharing with them all the glory and honor due unto our Triune God. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal power or an ethereal, abstract energy. The Spirit is personal in every sense of the term. He has a mind and thinks (Isa. 11:2; Rom. 8:27). He is capable of experiencing deep affections and feelings (Rom. 8:26; 15:30). The Spirit has a will and makes choices (Acts 16:7; 1 Cor. 2:11) regarding what is best for God’s people and what will most glorify the Son.

We see even more of the Spirit’s personality when he is described as being grieved when we sin (Eph. 4:30). The Spirit, no less so than the Father and the Son, enters into a vibrant and intimate relationship with all whom he indwells (2 Cor. 13:14). The Spirit talks (Mark 13:11; Rev. 2:7), testifies (John 15:26; 16:13), encourages (Acts 9:31), strengthens (Eph. 3:16), and teaches us, especially in times of spiritual emergency (Luke 12:12). That the Spirit is personal is seen in that he can be lied to (Acts 5:3), insulted (Heb. 10:29), and even blasphemed (Matt. 12:31-32).

Above all else, though, the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9). His primary role in us, as the temple of God in whom he dwells (Eph. 2:21-22), is other-directed or other-oriented as he ministers to direct our attention to the person of Christ and to awaken in us heartfelt affection for and devotion to the Savior (John 14:26; 16:12-15). The Holy Spirit delights above all else in serving as a spotlight, standing behind us (although certainly dwelling within us) to focus our thoughts and meditation on the beauty of Christ and all that God is for us in and through him.

As we prayerfully meditate on the person and work of the Spirit and give thanks for his powerful presence in our lives, we would do well to consider the words of Thomas Torrance who reminds us that “the Spirit is not just something divine or something akin to God emanating from him, not some sort of action at a distance or some kind of gift detachable from himself, for in the Holy Spirit God acts directly upon us himself, and in giving us his Holy Spirit God gives us nothing less than himself” (Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, T & T Clark, 191).

 

5 Comments

As a professing Christian, I do not see the fullness of the Holy Spirit in my own life commensurate with what I would expect of the genuine Christian experience as it appears when reading the New Testament. Might you pray that God would expose any ways in which I am quenching, grieving, suppressing, or otherwise imposing barriers from receiving the seal and down payment of the Holy Spirit, the love poured out, the Abba-Father cry, the power to witness boldly..., which the NT speaks of?

Excellent perspective on the person of the Holy Spirit. In future, it might be wise to rethink your intro. "Rarely does a Christian struggle to think of God as Father. And to envision God as Son is not a problem for many. These personal names come easily to us because our lives and relationships are inescapably intertwined with fathers and sons here on earth." All you have to do is counsel a few Christians who are fatherless, were abused by those in the father's role, or have other problematic relationships to their earthly fathers to know that thinking of God as Father can actually be one of the biggest struggles for many believers. Just a thought.

I would like to get a copy of this so I can reread it often . Let me know.

This comment is also not related to the excerpt from the New City Catechism, to which I am posting a link on my blog, but to the preceding comment. Elizbeth's objections to the Puritan movement were largely political. She saw the movement as a threat to her throne. The Roman Catholic Church had declared her to be illegitimate and therefore to have no right to the English throne. The pope had excommunicated her and called upon the Roman Catholic monarchs of Europe to topple her from the throne. He also declared that any faithful Roman Catholic who assassinated her would not be guilty of the sin of murder and regicide. Elizabeth's main concern was maintaining the peace and stability of the realm and preserving her own life. What alarmed Elizabeth most about the Puritans was their political views, which were intertwined with their theological views. They advocated the establishment on a theocracy in England organized along the lines of the theocracy in Geneva. John Knox had written The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, attacks female monarchs, arguing that rule by females is contrary to the Bible. Elizabeth had taken offense at what Knox had written about female rulers and his work would influence her perceptions of the Puritan movement, as would its agitation for the formation of theocracy in England. . She came to suspect the Puritan preachers of preaching sedition and the Puritan classis system of promoting it.

Hi Sam,
I wanted to comment on your reformation post but the comments were closed!
So, I hope you don't mind if I add something here - remove it by all means.
I liked what you wrote. The one thing I would have added was the ecclesiola in Ecclesia phenomenon (i.e. the extensive presence of the Puritans) that came into being during Elizabeth's reign, due to the unwillingness of Elizabeth, supported in particular by A/Bs Whitgift and later Bancroft, to agree to any further reformation of the Church beyond her settlement imposed at the commencement of her reign.
The Puritan movement was quite extensive, dominating in the Universities at Oxford and Cambridge with particular strongholds in London, East Anglia, Suffolk, Northamptonshire, etc. It was a movement encompassing all classes of society.
Arguably the unwillingness of Elizabeth, and A/B Whitgift to make space for the Puritans within the national church was a major failure as far as securing a comprehensive national church and led eventually under the hapless Charles 1, together with other other factors to the Civil War, followed by the 1662 Restoration, but now a nation truly divided by religion (in the 1851 census there were roughly equal numbers attending the parish churches and the non conformist chapels).
Cheers
David Palmer

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