Personal Salvation and Evangelism: Session 7

After forgiveness, the next great promise of the scriptures is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The third great promise, the gift of eternal life, is not mentioned in the base text (Acts 2:36-39) for our study sessions and we will not focus on it, but the gift of the Holy Spirit anticipates it.

The Holy Spirit does so many things in the lives of Christian believers that we are going to spend four sessions studying his work.

Confirming Our Salvation

First of all, the Holy Spirit is involved in every good thing we have discussed to this point in our study, initiating and/or confirming faith, repentance, baptism, and forgiveness.

Faith that God reigns

The Holy Spirit enables us to believe that God reigns and to live and minister in a way that demonstrates the kingdom. Jesus said that he could do no signs and wonders except what he saw the Father doing. The Holy Spirit is the One who enabled the divine Son operating in his human incarnation to see what his Father was doing. Further, Jesus explained what he was doing in his ministry by quoting Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to….” For just one example, Jesus explained his power as an exorcist by saying, “If by the Spirit of God (Matthew’s version; Luke’s version, finger of God, means the same thing in figurative language) I cast out demons, then the kingdom (reign) of God has come upon you.”

When Jesus wanted his disciples to cast out demons and heal people, he gave them the same power and authority he had exercised, the power and authority of the Holy Spirit (Luke 9:1-2 and parallels in Matthew and Mark; Luke 10:1, 9). Put another way, the Holy Spirit will help us do the things that Jesus did, and greater things yet (greater in the sense that what we do builds on what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection and what we do conveys the saving gospel to the whole world; John 14:12-17).

When the risen Jesus commissioned the disciples for their coming mission, he told them to wait until they had received power from on high (the Holy Spirit; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8) which they did receive on Pentecost Sunday (Acts 1:5; Acts 2:1-36 and the rest of The Acts of the Apostles, which could be called The Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles).

Faith that Jesus is Lord

The Holy Spirit is involved already in helping us believe that Jesus the crucified is risen Lord. In fact Paul says that no one can say (while understanding and meaning it) “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3b) We will discuss this passage more thoroughly when we consider discernment, but, for now the point is that the Holy Spirit enables us to understand what the world’s human and demonic rulers cannot understand, that the One they crucified is the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 1:18—2:16, especially 2:6-10). The Holy Spirit leads us into fullness

Faith that we can be born anew

The Holy Spirit gives us new birth as children of God (John 1:12-13; 3:3-8) and then assures us of our new status as adopted children and heirs of God, which is our hope of eternal glory (Romans 5:1-5; 8:14-17; Galatians 4:4-7). The Spirit is the One who enables us as newborn Christians to call the Creator of the universe Abba (Daddy, Papa) and to know that, as his children and heirs, we are no longer slaves to sin. [We will return to Romans 5—8 after we have completed the summary of how the Holy Spirit initiates and/or confirms faith, repentance, baptism, and forgiveness.

Repentance

The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and enables us to repent (John 16:7-11). Actually, it is the Holy Spirit’s convincing us of the holiness, love, and goodness of God in Jesus Christ that causes us to see our own actions as sin; the Holy Spirit then moves us from mere regret into the decision to turn toward the new life he enables in us.

Baptism

The Holy Spirit’s indwelling has an inherent connection with water baptism, but it is difficult to pin down or define the exact nature of the connection. John the Baptist taught that he baptized with water but that the Messiah would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Nevertheless, water baptism continues under Jesus and the apostles, no longer simply as a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in preparation for receiving the Messiah, but now as the dying to sin and coming alive to God that is made possible by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and that prepares us for receiving the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Prior to Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit could be given to people for the accomplishing of particular tasks (assuring of forgiveness for particular sins, prophesying, working miracles, performing feats of strength or courage, even sacred artisanship, etc.), but, until Jesus died and was raised, the Spirit could not be given to the people of God generally to indwell permanently (John 7:37-39).

Water baptism for Christians shows our entry into the death and resurrection of Jesus, the precondition for receiving the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s coming into our lives should be associated with water baptism in one way or another, but water baptism and Spirit baptism do not always occur in the same order and neither do they always occur in close proximity to each other. First of all, only the Spirit can enable faith, and so, if we are receiving believer’s baptism, the Spirit has already begun to act in our lives when we are baptized, although not necessarily to indwell us.

In Peter’s first Christian sermon, the order was faith, repentance, baptism, forgiveness, and the gift of the Holy Spirit and I believe that is the usual order. But there are exceptions:

When Philip’s preaching led to the conversion of the spiritually polluted Samaritans, there was a gap of time before the apostles came to lay hands on them so that they might receive the indwelling of the Spirit (Acts 8:12-24).

For the folks who believed Peter’s message in Caesarea-by-the-Sea at the house of Cornelius the Roman centurion, the Holy Spirit baptized them first so that the apostles would know that it was okay to offer water baptism to these Gentiles (Acts 10:44-48; 11:15-18).

When Paul found some Christian believers who had not been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus and who did not know that they could receive the Holy Spirit, he not only gave them Christian water baptism, but also laid hands on them that they might receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-7).

It strikes me that the biblical examples show us that we ought not get legalistic or dogmatic about order and timing, but that we ought to do our best to see that the full message and the full experience of life in Christ and life in the Spirit comes to everyone.

It seems that, in discussing water baptism, we must say that it is not complete until it issues in Spirit baptism.

1 Corinthians 12:13 is worth contemplating at this point.

Forgiveness

Christians are sometimes uncertain that they are saved from their sins and forgiven. They seek assurance. The Bible offers a number of ways of receiving such assurance. First of all, we are called upon to trust the promises of God’s word. Second, we are to examine the fruits of repentance in our lives, our gradual formation in the likeness of Christ. Third, we may have spiritual experiences that confirm the first two methods of seeking assurance.

This third method of gaining assurance is supplemental, but it is nonetheless important. It comes from the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. It is sometimes called the seal of our inheritance (2 Corinthians 1:21-2; Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30). A seal marked a letter or document as authentically from the person able to authorize a promised action. The Holy Spirit is the seal that marks us as destined for eternal salvation. The Father set his seal upon Jesus (John 6:27), probably at his baptism when the Spirit descended upon him and the voice of God declared him to be his Royal Son and Suffering Servant. The seal is set upon us when we are anointed with the Spirit as God’s children. The seal affirms that, if we confess our sins and turn from them, we will maintain our standing as God’s children.

How the Holy Spirit Leads Us into Assurance

The section of scripture that deals most profoundly with the Spirit’s work in leading us into assurance is Romans 5—8.

The section can be displayed with the following structure (Credit Moo, Osborne, and Toews, for ideas underlying this structure. I have re-worked it from their proposals):

A1. 5:1-11 Our assurance of future glory rests on the work of God in Christ, confirmed by the Holy Spirit.

B1. 5:12-21 Our death in Adam’s sin has been replaced by our life in Christ, the new Adam.

C1. 6:1-23 The problem of sin is addressed in our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, into his life.

C2. 7:1-25 The problem of sin is not addressed by the law which only convicts and condemns us, leaving us in bondage. We still struggle as Christians with doing what we know to be right, but God has given us the victory through our life in Christ.

B2. 8:1-13 The victory of our life in Christ finds its present content through our receiving and heeding the mind of the Spirit.

A2. 8:14-39 Our assurance of future glory rests on the work of God in Christ, confirmed by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit pours the love of God into our hearts. It matters little whether the love of God means God’s love for us (the initiating factor) or our love for God (the response). Most translations render it as God’s love for us. The Holy Spirit assures us of God’s love for us and enables us to respond with a deep love for God.

The Spirit’s outpouring of love into our hearts, a love that must become mutual, is evidence that something of immense significance has happened. Our hearts have been transformed.

The Spirit’s outpouring is the link between what went before (the atonement, justification, reconciliation, peace with God, forgiveness, etc., that was won by Jesus on the cross and conveyed to us through our faith) and what will come at the end (our glorification as children and heirs of God in a perfected new creation).

We dwell between that beginning (the promised forgiveness that covers our past) and the end (the glorification that describes our ultimate future). The promise that governs our present lives is the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, bringing us degree by degree toward the goal of Christlikeness. We have faith in what has been done about our past. We have hope (solid hope, not just wishful thinking) in what will be done about our future. But, for right now, we have the firstfruits (meaning about the same thing as seal) of the Spirit, pouring God’s love into our hearts, enabling us to cry out “Abba!” to our Creator, and transforming us so that we begin to think with the mind of the Spirit.

Our present lives may have all sorts of trials and temptations, but the Spirit takes every negative and turns it into a positive. Nothing that happens to us in the flesh can separate us from the love of God. The Spirit will use every tough experience to make us more like Christ. The Spirit will teach us how to pray through the tough times, even if the prayers are “groanings too deep for words.” Even groanings too deep for words can express our basic hope in the future that will come to fullness in our becoming co-heirs with Christ, our elder brother in the family of God.

Discussion Questions

1. Has the Holy Spirit acted in your life to confirm your faith, repentance, baptism, and forgiveness of sins?

2. Has the Holy Spirit poured God’s love into your heart so that you know that you are a child of God?

3. Is the Holy Spirit included when you tell people what Jesus has done for you and what he can do for them? How do you talk to people about the Holy Spirit?

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