French L. Arrington, Author
Some important aspects of the personal ministry of the Holy Spirit include His provision of strength and guidance for spiritual pilgrims, His bestowment of spiritual gifts such as tongues, interpretation and prophecy, and His assistance in prayer. These are all part of the beauty and symmetry of the ministry of the Spirit, but His supreme ministry is to bring to light the truth of God and to communicate it to mankind.
The Holy Spirit is the Revelator, the divine Communicator of truth to man. It is God’s nature to communicate. He took the initiative to share Himself with others by sending His Son into the world, and by providing the gift of His Spirit. The coming of His Son is the basis of the Christian faith, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit is a matter that is true to Christian experience.
The mission of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness consistently to the truth about life and God, about the Scriptures and man, and about what pertains to godliness. The truth revealed by the Holy Spirit does not have its basis in the intellectual discovery of man. The Christian does well to think for himself and give deep and diligent thought to what God has done in Christ. But the fact is that only God is a sufficient witness to Himself. The human mind fails to grasp the inmost significance of God’s revelation and needs the aid of the Holy Spirit.
What is crucial, therefore, is not what we have discovered through the strenuous activity of thought, but what the Spirit has revealed. His witness leads us to say “Jesus is the Lord”
(1 Corinthians 12:3). He leads us to say “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). He enables God. The Spirit is the inner witness, testifying within our hearts to the truth of the Word of God, to the saving work of Jesus Christ, and to our new status as sons and daughters of God.
I. THE SPIRIT’S WITNESS TO THE TRUTH OF SCRIPTURE
The testimony of the Holy Spirit causes the Word of God to touch our hearts. The Scriptures teach that the gospel comes in word and in the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:5).
The Holy Spirit and the Written Word. The Spirit takes this Word, the gospel, and makes it a personal reality in our hearts. In Ephesians 6:17 the Word of God is graphically described as “the sword of the Spirit.” The Holy Scripture is the Spirit’s instrument, and the Scripture is effective only as the Holy Spirit wields it. God wills that we use “the sword of the Spirit” but not on our authority or in our power.
We are to be completely open to the direction of the Holy Spirit as we wield His sword. Unless the Spirit wields this sword, it is wielded to no avail.
To put it another way, the Holy Spirit is vital to the working of the Word, and the Word is vital to the working of the Holy Spirit. Through His powerful inward ministry in our hearts, the Holy Spirit works with the written Word and illuminates the truth of the gospel. Divine truth may come to us in song, in testimony, in sermon, or through spiritual gifts; but all such means take us back to the written Word. The bond of union between the Holy Spirit and the Word of God is strong. To isolate the Holy Spirit from sacred Scripture or sacred Scripture from the Holy Spirit is a mistake. The Spirit uses the Word to bring to us the knowledge of God’s saving truth. We are led to faith, to Jesus Christ, and to eternal life only as the Holy Spirit works along with Holy Scripture.
The Word of God is not an independent power separated from the Holy Spirit. Both Isaiah 55:11 and Hebrews 4:12 speak of the power of the Word of God, but these are to be interpreted in light of the union of the Holy Spirit and the Word. The Holy Spirit illuminates the Word and makes it powerful so that it does not return to God empty. By the Spirit, God gives life, power and light to His written Word and makes it powerfully persuasive in our souls. The Spirit’s role is indispensable in illuminating and in interpreting the divinely given writings. Only through the great Revealer, the Holy Spirit, do we come to grips with truth of Scripture.
The Spirit and the Preached Word. By no means does the witness of the Holy Spirit minimize the importance of our witness. He is the author of all witnessing and confronts us with the truth of God that we might bear witness to it. He made the apostles and prophets witnesses and through them created the written Word. Divine inspiration granted by the Spirit to the prophets and apostles was indispensable to their proclamation of divine truth.
Moreover, the understanding of the divine message as it is preached flows from the illumination of the Spirit. The preaching of the Word is effective only when it is accompanied by the teaching of the Spirit. The secret revelation of the Spirit and His gracious work in our hearts enable our minds to understand the preached Word and to submit our wills to its yoke.
The Spirit is the great teacher and revealer. He removes the veil from our hearts and enlightens the eyes of our understanding so that we can truly comprehend the truth of the written and preached Word. Only the divine light of Spirit can drive darkness away and reveal to us the deep things of God. This is precisely the teaching of scripture. “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). The Scriptures further state, revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. … 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 Corinthians 2:10-12).
What human intellect can fathom “the deep things of God’-His eternal love, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the plan of salvation, the perfections of the Godhead, the mysteries of divine grace and providence, and the glories of the world to come! Without the illumination of the Spirit, these are not within the grasp of the mind of man. But what the natural man cannot understand can be understood by a believer who is taught by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9 through 1 Corinthians 3:2).
The eternal and blessed Spirit penetrates all things, “even the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10), and reveals them to believers. No mortal man can comprehend heavenly and spiritual wisdom. None but the Holy Spirit himself. To be sure, this is the conviction of many of God’s people. They have testified that the Spirit has opened their minds to the truths of Scripture and has been their teacher. The Bible was a closed book to them when they first believed when compared with what they know now. Instructed by the Spirit, they have advanced in their understanding of the Word of God, and it has taken root in the depth of their hearts. Their minds have been opened to the light of revelation, and many teachings of Scripture once mysterious are now clear. They have not neglected the hearing of the preached Word and the studying of the Scriptures. Working with the preached and written Word, the Holy Spirit has deepened their life in Christ and led them more fully into all truth. In short, He has made the Word of God fruitful in their lives.
It is well to remember that there is no conflict or discrepancy between the witness of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. A Christian can misunderstand divine guidance and misinterpret Scripture, but the Spirit never misguides anyone. Only according to truth does He bear witness. He neither constructs revelations contrary to the Word of God nor belittles the Scripture. Any doctrine or teaching that is not in harmony with the gospel is not of the Spirit of truth.
II. THE SPIRIT’S WITNESS TO JESUS CHRIST
The Holy Spirit illuminates the Scripture and makes the revelation of God understandable, but the ministry of the Spirit as the revelator is especially marked by His witness to Jesus Christ. “When the Comforter is come,” said Jesus in the upper room, “he shall testify of me” (John 15:26). This promise, given by Jesus, had its first fulfillment in the experience of the apostles. After they reaffirmed to the Sanedrin that God had resurrected and exalted Jesus, they added: “And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts 5:32). As the Spirit of truth, He bears witness to Christ and thus reproves “the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8).
The Spirit Bears Witness That God Disclosed Himself in Christ. Christ has revealed God; He has declared on the earth what He beheld with the Father before the foundation of the world (John 3:32; 6:46; 826). Yet, this revelation of the Father is actually bestowed on us and directly revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. The powerful testimony of the Spirit centers on Jesus Christ. He speaks, proclaims, and bears witness that Christ has come in the flesh (1 John 4:1-6). He shows us that, in Jesus Christ, God the Father is seen and known and that, indeed, God is Spirit; infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.
Everything Jesus did while He was with His disciples was designed to help them to know the Father. On one occasion Philip requested: “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” To this Jesus replied: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, men looked on Jesus during this earthly life; and, if open to the witness of the Holy Spirit, they saw God himself. Their seeing involved more than merely seeing with the outward physical eye. By natural sight, man cannot see God: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18).
The simple truth is that Jesus was the ultimate revelation of God, but what He revealed about God far exceeds our finite powers of comprehension. Only by the aid of the Holy Spirit could men of the first century, and can men of today, come to understand God as Christ revealed Him. So, the Holy Spirit reveals the glory of the Son of God so that we may know what God is like and experience His everlasting love. The abiding ministry of the Spirit of truth is to make plain everything Jesus Christ revealed about God: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you (John 16:13, 15).
Where then can we find the supreme disclosure of truth about God? Only in Jesus Christ by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. As the revelator of truth, the Holy Spirit dis-closes, illuminates, communicates and makes plain to us the nature and the ways of God in Jesus Christ.
The Spirit Bears Witness to the Saving Work of Jesus Christ. As the Holy Spirit bears witness to Christ, He convinces the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8). The Holy Spirit does for the unbeliever what he cannot do for himself. He gives the unbeliever spiritual vision and sight, opening his heart and eyes, and unplugging his ears, so that he may come to rely on the saving work of Christ. It is, therefore, the work of the Spirit that illuminates the human heart and makes man aware of his sinful and unsaved condition.
The law of the old covenant, given at Mt. Sinai, condemned sin. It was written in tables of stone. But the new covenant written in the heart by the Holy Spirit, gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). This covenant is called the ministry of the Spirit (v. 8, NIV) and the ministry of righteousness (v. 9, NIV). The heart of the new covenant is the atoning death of Jesus Christ. It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to the all-sufficiency of Christ’s death and to impart to all who turn to the Lord spiritual life and righteousness. Only the Spirit can soften hard hearts and bring men to see “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19, NIV). He convicts the soul of sin, causing the law of God to expose the sinner’s spiritual bankruptcy and leading the guilty to the all-sufficient Savior. What a witness this is to the power and the readiness of Christ to save the vilest of men and women. The Spirit opens their understanding and leads them to Calvary. There He shows to them the mystery of redeeming love and urges them to plunge into the fountain of Immanuel’s precious blood that cleanses the sinner of guilt and lifts him to a new life.
No one can be free of the guilt of sin until he truly hears the testimony of the Holy Spirit that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). The blessed Spirit brings home to the soul the all-sufficiency of Christ’s death.
III. THE SPIRIT’S WITNESS TO OUR SONSHIP
Directly related to our standing as children of God is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Characteristic of the ministry of the Spirit is the testimony that He bears to the Scriptures and of Christ, but equally characteristic is the fact that He touches us in the deep places of our hearts and grants us assurance and a better understanding of our position as members of God’s family. This is what Paul had in mind when he wrote: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16).
Divine Assurance of the Pardon of Sin. By the Spirit we are convicted of sin and led to faith in Christ. The result is that we are acquitted of our sins and declared to be sons and daughters of God. Our past sins and guilt are completely wiped out. Debts against us for withholding obedience from God have been cancelled. Our past is past and done with.
The Spirit bears witness to the truth: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). None but God the Holy Spirit makes known to us that we have been cleared of all condemnation in the high court of heaven. The Spirit testifies that our sins and failures of the past have no claims on us. This means that no one, not even the devil, can lay any charge to us for our sins that God has forgiven. The devil may try to drag up our sins that God has blotted out and make us doubt that they have been put away. He delights in tempting us to look back on our former lives and in getting us to grieve over our past sins and failures that God has already forgiven and forgotten.
But the Holy Spirit bears good news. His testimony is that our sins have been put so far away from us that on the Day of Judgment God himself will not be able to find them. Our sins have been blotted out. That indeed is the message of Romans 8:33, 34: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”
Divine Assurance of Sonship. The spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of adoption. He testifies to “our spirit that we are the children of God” and assures us that we enjoy all of the rights and privileges of heirs of God and coheirs with Christ. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5.5). The witness of the spirit takes away our doubts and fears because of adversity and teaches as to rejoice in tribulation. Our assurance is prompted by the witness of the Holy Spirit. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but ve have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). And again, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6).
The spirit inspires our hearts with trust and confidence in the heavenly Father. He assures us that we are born of God and that we have the privilege of calling God “Father.” So when we are adopted into the family of God, the Spirit begins to touch our spirit and to testify that we are sons and daughters in Gods family. None other but the Holy spirit makes us aware of our right to call God by His close, intimate family name, which is “Abba, Father”
It is our blessed privilege to come boldly to the throne of our Father in times of distress and doubt and to cry out for help. The Spirit teaches us that this is our privilege. He himself bears witness of the great love the Father has for us and imparts to us blessed assurance that we have been forgiven, restored and redeemed. What a witness the Holy Spirit is? Indeed, He is the revelator.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. While worldly knowledge may be obtained through the spiritual knowledge?
2. Why is the illumination of the Holy Spirit of both the written and preached Word so vital to our comprehension of divine truth?
3. What relevance does the witness of the Spirit have to God’s revelation of Himself, Christ’s saving work, the blotting out of the believer’s sin, and the believer’s adoption into the family of God?
4. Do all believers have the same degree of spiritual discernment? Does this depend in any way upon habits of soul, study of spiritual things, faithfulness in prayer and openness to the Holy Spirit?
5. Of what practical value has this study been to you?