On the Spirit of Truth
On the Spirit of Truth.
THE HOLY SPIRIT: The eternal life-giving Third Person of the Holy Trinity; the intimate bond of divine love and truth shared by God the Father and God the Son; the dynamic power of God offered to every human being on earth; the supernatural Presence in the Community of God who is personal without being material; the invisible creative force with divine intelligence who truly knows the mind of God from the inside; the Spirit of God who thus has all knowledge and is present everywhere in the universe; the sacred energy streaming forth from the Father and the Son, pouring love into our hearts (Romans 5:5), producing virtuous qualities in us (Galatians 5:22-23), and gradually transforming each believer into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18).
God’s eternal Spirit was present at creation, of course, “brooding like a bird over the watery abyss.” (Gen. 1:1, MSG). No surprise there. All three Persons of God existed together eternally before creation began, and they will be intimate spiritual companions forever after the world’s recreation as well. At creation, the Spirit was like a mother bird hatching an egg, bringing beauty and order out of nothingness and chaos, waiting to take us under His wing.
Because the Triune God is united and inseparable, the Father and the Son is everywhere the Spirit us. If the Spirit dwells in us and alongside us, so does the Father and the Son. If the Father and the Son have promised to make a home in us, the Spirit is right there as well, arm-in-arm in their Trinitarian Presence, establishing a dwelling place in us. Since we are welcomed inside the relationship of the Trinity, the Spirit helps make that happen. Since we are adopted into God’s family as His children, we can be sure the Spirit was a part of that process. We can be assured the Spirit will work to sustain us in the Trinitarian circle and fellowship.
St. Paul’s Trinitarian blessing that closes his second letter to the Corinthians contains an interesting observation concerning the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14). After praying for them to be blessed in the grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God, Paul completes the blessing by praying that they would experience the “koinonia” of the Holy Spirit. Koinonia is another rich Greek biblical term, meaning communion, participation in, companionship, intimate partnership with, deep fellowship with. We are not only joined into the community of the Trinity through the Spirit, but we are plugged into a profound fellowship with other believers as well. There would be no communion with other people were it not for the source of all communion, the intimate unity of the triune God. We are one with other believers only because of our oneness with the Trinity. Believers are welcomed into the relationship of the Trinity, and through that spiritual source of oneness we have the possibility of intimate fellowship with fellow believers. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, along with the Father and the Son, and thus we are able to live inside the Trinity while the Trinity lives within us and we live within the community of believers. The Holy Spirit, our true Companion, our intimate Friend “who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).
“I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Helper (paraclete), to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, who the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him… When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, and He will bear witness to me… When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 14:16; 15:26; 16:13-15).
TRUTH: That which is merely common knowledge to God; the True Reality that has established reality; that which can never be changed or altered; that which is universally trustworthy; that which is established fact and filled with trueness; the fundamental essence of that which is indisputably real; God the Father is Truth, and God the Son is Truth, therefore the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth.
The longest conversation that Jesus had with His disciples is known as His Farewell Address, found in John 13-16. There is no doubt that Jesus chose His last words carefully and underlined them with special importance. He spoke of His leaving, among other things, which saddened His disciples very much. But then Jesus sought to encourage His disciples by declaring that when He leaves, He will be giving them a unique gift, the Gift of a lifetime, His Holy Spirit. Significantly, Jesus referred to His Spirit as the “Spirit of Truth” three times in His farewell words. We learned some fascinating and profoundly helpful aspects of the Holy Spirit in these words of Jesus near the end:
(1.) The Spirit of Truth will dwell within us forever. He will be accessible and helpful at all times, and will remain as close to each of us as our next breath;
(2.) The Spirit of Truth is largely unknown in this world, which is blind to the truths of God;
(3.) The Spirit of Truth is sent to us by Jesus from the Father. In other words, in this Trinitarian mystery, the Holy Spirit was commissioned by the Son and given to us directly from the Father;
(4.) The Spirit of Truth can only be released to us if Jesus returns to the Father in heaven. When Jesus goes, the Spirit comes and stays;
(5.) By revealing the Truth of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Truth, among other things, will convict of the truth of our sinfulness, of our need to look for Christ for our righteousness, and the truth of the eternal judgment of the evil one;
(6.) The Spirit of Truth will guide all believers into all the truth of Christ, into whatever special truths there are to know about Jesus. In this role of guide, He will teach and instruct us, will reveal and remind us of what is to be known of the Lord;
(7.) The Spirit of Truth submits to the Father and the Son and doesn’t even give Himself the authority to speak on His own. The Spirit speaks only of what He has heard from Christ. The Spirit is the ultimate listener, will hear the word of Jesus, and will declare those truths to us;
(8.) The Spirit of Truth is Good News for us! We are not abandoned or left alone to fend for ourselves. We don’t have to stumble blindly through the Christian faith trying to figure out what we are to believe, what we are to do next, how we progress spiritually, how we prepare for eternal life with God, what the Scripture has to say to us. Good News! The Spirit of Truth will live in us to do all that needs to be done, with our cooperation, as He takes us in triumph to the finish line! The fact is we can only understand spiritual truths when we are able to discern them through the Spirit of Truth.
(9.) The Spirit of Truth has already absorbed from Jesus what is in the mind of God by virtue of their intimate fellowship with each other. The Divine Three do not keep secrets from each other, and they all know what is on each other’s mind. They are so intimately in union that they are eternally indivisible, and somehow inside each other. The Spirit knows everything the Son knows, who knows everything the Father knows, who knows everything in the universe there is to know. What a wondrous mystery!
“The wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God previously hidden. It was to us God revealed these things by His Spirit. For the Holy Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given to us. We do not use words that came from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.” (1 Corinthians 2:7-13).