28: Summary of the Holy Spirit

He is the personal third member of the Trinity, proceeding from both the Father and the Son, eternally existent in relationship with the Father and the Son.

He was active in creation. He gifted human beings with His abilities, inspired the prophets, empowered God’s leaders, led and instructed God’s people, and when Christ came, He engendered the physical nature of the Son of God and empowered, guided and was sent by the Son to empower and guide his followers.

Being figuratively baptized in the Spirit (and figuratively drinking in the Spirit), his followers received all the blessings of the Spirit to help them, in Christ’s place, to become all Jesus intended us to be. We were made one body by the Spirit.

He affirmed our sonship, sealed us and became the guarantee of our future redemption, anointing us so that we were able to recognize truth, began sanctifying us, helping us in our praying, gifting us for service, filling us at special times for holy action, maturing (filling) us, and leading us.

He is the source of all the wonderful fruit of righteousness in our lives, and because His character is the essence of the Law, and because His power enables us to keep the Law, and because His word describes the Law we must keep, and because His leadership is always consistent with His Law, we have been made fulfillers of the Law, consistent with the promise of the New Covenant.

His presence in our lives has been a foretaste of the glory of life in the kingdom, where His life flowing in ours will mean absolute perfection of holiness and increasing growth forever. Like Jesus, we rejoice in the Holy Spirit.