The Holy Spirit - God's Spirit
E-book and Audio series
PART 2 - The Roles and Activities of the Holy Spirit
Chapter 16 - The Being and Nature of Christ & the Role of the Holy Spirit in His Life
Summary: It is a misconception to think, because Christ was God in the flesh and He performed a lot of miracles, that He had the power to do anything at anytime whilst He walked the earth. This is not the case. What role did the Holy Spirit play in the Lord's earthly life and ministry?
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Study Notes No. 16 - The Being and Nature of Christ, & the Place of the Holy Spirit in His Life and Ministry
(more details may be found in the audio recording)
In the last study, we looked at some prophecies made at the end of the Old Testament (in the book of Malachi), considered the lack of activity of the Holy Spirit during the Intertestamental Period, and read about renewed spiritual activity in the earliest days of New Testament times (by way of both angels and God’s Spirit). However, the Holy Spirit’s relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ was not really discussed. Our attention will now turn to this aspect for the next few chapters.
We come to a point in this series of studies that I find fascinating, informative, a bit perplexing in parts, but altogether wonderful, awe-inspiring, and yet another reason to offer praise and thanks to our God. This current series of studies is focussing on the Holy Spirit, and we have considered His work in the Old Testament and Intertestamental period. We are up to the point of considering His work during the Gospel period, and the central character of the Gospels is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ
For the purpose of observing the activities of the Holy Spirit during the Gospel period, I feel it is necessary to stop and remind ourselves of Who Christ was and is - not only because this is a good thing in itself to do every now and then anyway, but because our understanding of how God was interacting with mankind via the Holy Spirit at that time will be influenced by our understanding of Christ's being and nature at that time.
It is a misconception to think that because Christ was God in the flesh, and performed a lot of miracles that, when He came into the world, He had the power to do anything at any time. This is not the case.
Also, because of the great number of miracles performed by Christ, it has been said and implied by many people that the Holy Spirit was fairly inactive during the Gospel period. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s my contention that God's Spirit was abundantly active during the time covered by the Gospels. The Holy Spirit played a much bigger role in the Gospel times than many people are aware of.
So, our focus in this study will be more specifically on the Being and Nature of Christ, in order to better appreciate how and why God’s Holy Spirit played a role in His life and ministry.
Christ – "God in the Flesh", and Pre-existence
Let's start by reminding ourselves of a few key verses concerning who this Jesus of Nazareth was.
READ 1 Timothy 3:16 - God manifest in the flesh
READ Colossians 1:16 – a role in creation. As difficult as this is to understand, He had an existence in some form before His birth in Bethlehem.
John 1:1-3,14 - The Word was God ... The Word became flesh
For deeper consideration of this aspect: Read the article The Deity of Christ or listen to the audio series "The Pre-existence of Christ"
There is an idea of His existence before the birth in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Let’s read a few passages which reiterate this, as it has a bearing on our subject of the Holy Spirit's work.
READ again John 1:1 … 14 in the beginning was the word...the word became flesh;
READ John 3:13
READ 3:31 (John the Baptist speaking)
John 6:32-35 … 38 …46 … 48-51a
John 8:42 …56-59
When He came to the earth, Scripture tells us that... "In all ways He had to be made like unto His brethren" Hebrews 2:17
How did He do this?
Philippians 2:7 - He emptied Himself
The context may be seen by reading Philippians 2:3-7, which emphasises the humility exhibited in taking on a human form when He didn;t have to. Verse 8 goes on to talk about further humility, which led to the point of death.
Would YOU do this? Being all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent … would you choose to limit yourself? We don’t even like getting a sprained ankle limiting our mobility, so it is doubtful that any of us would place this sort of limitation on ourselves voluntarily.
Miracles enabled by the Holy Spirit
There is a common misconception that the Lord Jesus could perform miracles from birth. This is simply not so. There are no miracles recorded in His early life. Yes, He had a great knowledge of the Scriptures by age 12, when He is found debating the law with the teachers (Luke 2:41-50), but there are no miraculous displays of power recorded in His early life. Notably, and quite wrongly, the "spurious gospel accounts" tell of many supposedly wondrous deeds in the Lord's childhood; e.g. the Gospel of Thomas, an ancient document sometimes called “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas" speaks of many miracles Christ was supposed to have performed as a child. However, this is pure fantasy. There were no miracles recorded in His early life.
I am stressing this aspect because it is significant to understand that Jesus of Nazareth did not perform any miracles or begin teaching until AFTER the Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism. Even despite the fact that He was literally God's son in a "biological" sense, having been conceived via the Holy Spirit, He was nevertheless a limited human being, "made like unto His brethren". In order to perform the miracles, He needed to be enabled by the Holy Spirit, because He, even though being God in the flesh, had "emptied Himself" (Philippians 2:7) of those traits which were beyond human.
The Lord Jesus spent many years of His youth in Nazareth. Notice how, once enabled by the Spirit, the locals react to Him. READ Mark 6:1-5 .
People were surprised that this Jesus was was speaking with great wisdom and performing miracles. To them, He was the carpenter's son, and he wasn't doing these things before! Something had changed, and that "something" was the Holy Spirit coming upon Him and enabling this human to perform in rather super-human ways.
A Prophet
As a consequence of Him preaching God's truths and performing miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit enabling Him, Christ is referred to as being a prophet, too. He spoke not of Himself, but was sent from the Father, and only spoke what the Father would have Him say. This is almost identical to the method by which the prophets of Old Testament times spoke - "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Notice how the title of "prophet" is ascribed to the Lord Jesus in the Gospel accounts and Acts:
READ Matthew 13:57; 21:11,46 ; Luke 4:24; 7:16; Luke 13:33; 24:18-20; Acts 3:22,23.
Hebrews 1:1-3a ties together the ideas of His deity and His role as a prophet:
Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,
1:2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
1:3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person (hypostasis) and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high ...
He was still worthy of worship as God ([People should] “honour the Son, just as they honour the Father” – John 5:23), but He was limited in physical capacity unless enabled by God's spirit.
A Concluding Thought
READ Philippians 2:3-8 again - This passage was written, not only to tell us something of Christ’s being and nature, but, in the context of a practical epistle, specifically exhorting the reader to display humility amongst others. In this passage we are given the greatest example: "Let this mind be in you".
Let this mind be in us also.
(more details may be found in the audio recording)
In the last study, we looked at some prophecies made at the end of the Old Testament (in the book of Malachi), considered the lack of activity of the Holy Spirit during the Intertestamental Period, and read about renewed spiritual activity in the earliest days of New Testament times (by way of both angels and God’s Spirit). However, the Holy Spirit’s relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ was not really discussed. Our attention will now turn to this aspect for the next few chapters.
We come to a point in this series of studies that I find fascinating, informative, a bit perplexing in parts, but altogether wonderful, awe-inspiring, and yet another reason to offer praise and thanks to our God. This current series of studies is focussing on the Holy Spirit, and we have considered His work in the Old Testament and Intertestamental period. We are up to the point of considering His work during the Gospel period, and the central character of the Gospels is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ
For the purpose of observing the activities of the Holy Spirit during the Gospel period, I feel it is necessary to stop and remind ourselves of Who Christ was and is - not only because this is a good thing in itself to do every now and then anyway, but because our understanding of how God was interacting with mankind via the Holy Spirit at that time will be influenced by our understanding of Christ's being and nature at that time.
It is a misconception to think that because Christ was God in the flesh, and performed a lot of miracles that, when He came into the world, He had the power to do anything at any time. This is not the case.
Also, because of the great number of miracles performed by Christ, it has been said and implied by many people that the Holy Spirit was fairly inactive during the Gospel period. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s my contention that God's Spirit was abundantly active during the time covered by the Gospels. The Holy Spirit played a much bigger role in the Gospel times than many people are aware of.
So, our focus in this study will be more specifically on the Being and Nature of Christ, in order to better appreciate how and why God’s Holy Spirit played a role in His life and ministry.
Christ – "God in the Flesh", and Pre-existence
Let's start by reminding ourselves of a few key verses concerning who this Jesus of Nazareth was.
READ 1 Timothy 3:16 - God manifest in the flesh
READ Colossians 1:16 – a role in creation. As difficult as this is to understand, He had an existence in some form before His birth in Bethlehem.
John 1:1-3,14 - The Word was God ... The Word became flesh
For deeper consideration of this aspect: Read the article The Deity of Christ or listen to the audio series "The Pre-existence of Christ"
There is an idea of His existence before the birth in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Let’s read a few passages which reiterate this, as it has a bearing on our subject of the Holy Spirit's work.
READ again John 1:1 … 14 in the beginning was the word...the word became flesh;
READ John 3:13
READ 3:31 (John the Baptist speaking)
John 6:32-35 … 38 …46 … 48-51a
John 8:42 …56-59
When He came to the earth, Scripture tells us that... "In all ways He had to be made like unto His brethren" Hebrews 2:17
How did He do this?
Philippians 2:7 - He emptied Himself
The context may be seen by reading Philippians 2:3-7, which emphasises the humility exhibited in taking on a human form when He didn;t have to. Verse 8 goes on to talk about further humility, which led to the point of death.
Would YOU do this? Being all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent … would you choose to limit yourself? We don’t even like getting a sprained ankle limiting our mobility, so it is doubtful that any of us would place this sort of limitation on ourselves voluntarily.
Miracles enabled by the Holy Spirit
There is a common misconception that the Lord Jesus could perform miracles from birth. This is simply not so. There are no miracles recorded in His early life. Yes, He had a great knowledge of the Scriptures by age 12, when He is found debating the law with the teachers (Luke 2:41-50), but there are no miraculous displays of power recorded in His early life. Notably, and quite wrongly, the "spurious gospel accounts" tell of many supposedly wondrous deeds in the Lord's childhood; e.g. the Gospel of Thomas, an ancient document sometimes called “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas" speaks of many miracles Christ was supposed to have performed as a child. However, this is pure fantasy. There were no miracles recorded in His early life.
I am stressing this aspect because it is significant to understand that Jesus of Nazareth did not perform any miracles or begin teaching until AFTER the Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism. Even despite the fact that He was literally God's son in a "biological" sense, having been conceived via the Holy Spirit, He was nevertheless a limited human being, "made like unto His brethren". In order to perform the miracles, He needed to be enabled by the Holy Spirit, because He, even though being God in the flesh, had "emptied Himself" (Philippians 2:7) of those traits which were beyond human.
The Lord Jesus spent many years of His youth in Nazareth. Notice how, once enabled by the Spirit, the locals react to Him. READ Mark 6:1-5 .
People were surprised that this Jesus was was speaking with great wisdom and performing miracles. To them, He was the carpenter's son, and he wasn't doing these things before! Something had changed, and that "something" was the Holy Spirit coming upon Him and enabling this human to perform in rather super-human ways.
A Prophet
As a consequence of Him preaching God's truths and performing miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit enabling Him, Christ is referred to as being a prophet, too. He spoke not of Himself, but was sent from the Father, and only spoke what the Father would have Him say. This is almost identical to the method by which the prophets of Old Testament times spoke - "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Notice how the title of "prophet" is ascribed to the Lord Jesus in the Gospel accounts and Acts:
READ Matthew 13:57; 21:11,46 ; Luke 4:24; 7:16; Luke 13:33; 24:18-20; Acts 3:22,23.
Hebrews 1:1-3a ties together the ideas of His deity and His role as a prophet:
Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,
1:2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
1:3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person (hypostasis) and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high ...
He was still worthy of worship as God ([People should] “honour the Son, just as they honour the Father” – John 5:23), but He was limited in physical capacity unless enabled by God's spirit.
A Concluding Thought
READ Philippians 2:3-8 again - This passage was written, not only to tell us something of Christ’s being and nature, but, in the context of a practical epistle, specifically exhorting the reader to display humility amongst others. In this passage we are given the greatest example: "Let this mind be in you".
Let this mind be in us also.
