Healing Line

Healing Line

Who Is the Third Person of the Trinity?

by Nicky Gumbel
Summer 2014

I had a group of friends at university, five of whom were called Nicky! We used to meet for lunch most days. In February 1974, most of us came to faith in Jesus Christ. We immediately became very enthusiastic about our new–found faith. One of the Nickys, however, was slow to get going. He didn't seem excited about his relationship with God, with reading the Bible, or with praying.

One day, someone prayed for him to be filled with the Spirit and it transformed his life. A great big smile came across his face. He became well–known for his radiance — he still is, years later. From then on, if there was a Bible study, a prayer meeting, or a church in reach, Nicky was there. He loved to be with other Christians. He became the most magnetic personality. People were drawn to him and he helped many others to believe and to be filled with the Spirit in the way that he had been.

What was it that made such a difference to Nicky? I think he would answer that it was his experience with the Holy Spirit. Many people know a certain amount about God the Father and Jesus the Son. But there is a great deal of ignorance about the Holy Spirit. Some old translations speak of the "Holy Ghost" and this can make him seem a little frightening.

The Holy Spirit is not a ghost, but a person. He has all the characteristics of person–hood. He thinks (Acts 15:28), speaks (Acts 1:16), leads (Romans 8:14), and can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). He is sometimes described as the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9) or the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7). He is the way in which Jesus is present with his people.

What is he like? He is sometimes described in the original Greek as the parakletos (John 14:16). This is a difficult word to translate. It means "one called alongside" — a counselor, a comforter and an encourager. Jesus said the Father will give you "another" counselor. The word for "another" here implies "another of the same kind." In other words, the Holy Spirit is just like Jesus.

I want to look at the person of the Holy Spirit: who he is and what we can learn about him as we trace his activity through the Bible from Genesis 1 right through to the Day of Pentecost. Because the Pentecostal movement began about a hundred years ago, it might be tempting to think that the Holy Spirit is a relatively new phenomenon. This is, of course, far from the truth.

He Was Involved in Creation

We see evidence of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the opening verses of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters" (Genesis 1:1–2). Like a bird hovering over her nest, waiting, the Holy Spirit was about to bring something new into being. The whole Trinity was involved in creation (John 1:3).

We see in the account of the creation how the Spirit of God caused new things to come into being and brought order out of chaos. He is the same Spirit today. He often brings new things into people's lives and into churches. He brings order and peace into chaotic lives, freeing people from addictions and from the confusion and mess of broken relationships.

When God created human beings, he "formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew word implied for breath here is ruach, which is also the word for "Spirit." The ruach of God brings physical life to humanity formed from dust. Likewise, he brings spiritual life to people and churches, both of which can be as dry as dust.

Some years ago I was speaking to a clergyman who was telling me that his life and his church had been like that — a bit dusty. One day, however, he and his wife were filled with the Spirit of God. They found a new enthusiasm for the Bible, and their lives were transformed. His church became a center of life. The youth group, started by his son who had also been filled with the Spirit, experienced explosive growth and became one of the largest in the area.

Many are hungry for life and are attracted to people and churches where they see the life of the Spirit of God.

He Came Upon Particular People at Particular Times for Particular Tasks

When the Spirit of God comes upon people something happens. He does not just evoke a feeling of inner peace. He comes for a purpose, and we see clear examples of this in the Old Testament.

He filled people for artistic work. The Spirit of God filled Bezalel "with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts — to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship" (Exodus 31:3–5).

It is possible to be a talented musician, writer or artist without being filled with the Spirit. But when the Spirit of God fills people for these tasks their work often takes on a new dimension. It has a different effect on others. It has a far greater spiritual impact. This can be true even where the natural ability of the musician or artist is not particularly outstanding. Hearts can be touched and lives changed. No doubt something like this happened through Bezalel.

He also filled individuals for the task of leadership. During the time of the Judges, the people of Israel were often overrun by various foreign nations. At one time it was the Midianites. God called Gideon to lead Israel. Gideon was very conscious of his own weakness and asked, "How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family" (Judges 6:15). Yet when the Spirit of God came upon Gideon (v.34), he became one of the remarkable leaders of the Old Testament.

In leadership, God often uses those who feel weak, inadequate and ill–equipped. When they are filled with the Spirit, they become outstanding leaders in the church.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested for the first time in the 1950's, he was charged with driving 30 mph in a 25 mph zone in his hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. This petty arrest was the climax of a season of sustained harassment by a racist police force. Authorities in Montgomery wanted to do everything possible to quench the fire lit by the Montgomery bus boycott, the first event of the civil rights movement. The boycott, aimed at ending segregation on the city's buses, had been organised by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), of which King (a prominent clergyman in Montgomery) was president. After his arrest, King was released the same night. He returned home exhausted, but the phone rang immediately. It was yet another death threat.

Unable to sleep, King made some coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. "I was ready to give up," he said. He was on the verge of quitting his presidency of the MIA, recalling later, "I felt myself growing in fear." But as he sat there, his face buried in his hands, he felt compelled to pray. "Something said to me, ‘You've got to call on that something your daddy used to tell you about, that power that can make a way out of no way.'" King prayed, "Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. But I must confess that I'm weak now, I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage." At that moment King heard God's voice urging him to fight on. "He promised never to leave me." King was already a clergyman and preacher, and a doctoral student in theology. But it was only there in that kitchen in 1956 that "[he] experienced the presence of the Divine as [he] had never experienced Him before." From then on King said, "My uncertainty disappeared," and, "I was ready to face anything."

It was the Holy Spirit whom King experienced that night in the kitchen: "the power that can make a way out of no way."

Elsewhere, we see the Holy Spirit filling people with strength and power. The story of Samson is well–known. On one occasion, the Philistines tied him up by binding him with ropes. Then, "The Holy Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands" (Judges 15:14).

What is true in the Old Testament physically is often true in the New Testament, and in our lives today, spiritually. It is not that we are physically bound by ropes, but that we are tied down by fears, habits or addictions which take a grip on our lives. We are controlled by bad tempers or by patterns of thought such as envy, jealousy or lust. We know that we are bound when we cannot stop something, even when we want to. When the Spirit of God came upon Samson, the ropes became like charred flax and he was free. The Spirit of God is able to set people free today from anything that binds them.

We experience the Holy Spirit not just so that we have a warm feeling in our hearts, but so that we go out and make a difference to our world. Later on we see how the Spirit of God came upon the prophet Isaiah to enable him "to preach good news to the poor... to bind up the broken–hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners" and "to comfort all who mourn" (Isaiah 61:1–3).

We sometimes feel a sense of helplessness when confronted with the problems of the world. I often felt this before I was a Christian. I knew I had little or nothing to offer those whose lives were in a mess. I still feel like that sometimes. But I know that with the help of the Spirit of God, we do indeed have something to give. The Spirit of God enables us to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to bind up those with broken hearts; to proclaim freedom to those who are in captivity to things in their lives which deep down they hate; to release those who are imprisoned by their own wrongdoing; and to bring the comfort of the Holy Spirit (who is, after all, the Comforter) to those who are sad, grieving or mourning. If we are going to help people in a way which lasts eternally, we cannot do so without the Spirit of God.

Promised by the Father

We have seen examples of the work of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament. But his activity was limited to particular people, at particular times, for particular tasks. As we go through the Old Testament we find that God promises he is going to do something new. The New Testament calls this "the promise of the Father." There is an increasing sense of anticipation. What was going to happen?

In the Old Testament, God made a covenant with his people. He said that he would be their God and that they would be his people. He required that they should keep his laws. They realized that they were good laws. Sadly, the people found that they were unable to keep his commands. The Old Covenant was consistently broken.

God promised that one day he would make a new covenant with his people. This covenant would be different from the first covenant: "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33). In other words, under the New Covenant the law would be internal rather than external. If you go on a long hike, you start off by carrying your provisions on your back. They weigh you down and slow you up; but when you have eaten them, not only has the weight gone — you also have a new energy coming from inside. What God promised through Jeremiah was a time when the law would no longer be a weight on the outside but would become a source of energy from inside. But how was all this going to happen?

Ezekiel gives us the answer. He was a prophet, and God spoke through him, elaborating on the earlier promise: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you," he said. "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God was saying that this is what will happen when he puts his Spirit within us. This is how he will change our hearts and make them soft (hearts of flesh) rather than hard (hearts of stone). The Spirit of God will move us to follow his decrees and keep his laws.

Jackie Pullinger has spent over thirty years working in what was the lawless, walled city of Kowloon, Hong Kong. She has given her life to working with prostitutes, heroin addicts and gang members. She began a memorable talk by saying, "God wants us to have soft hearts and hard feet. The trouble with many of us is that we have hard hearts and soft feet." Christians should have hard feet in that we should be tough rather than morally weak. Jackie is a glowing example of this in her willingness to go without sleep, food and comfort in order to serve others. Yet she also has a soft heart: a heart filled with compassion. The toughness is in her feet, not her heart.

We have seen what "the promise of the Father" involves and how it is going to happen. Next, he tells us to whom it is going to happen. Through Joel, God says:

  I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days. — Joel 2:28–29
 


Joel is foretelling that the promise will no longer be reserved for particular people, at particular times, for particular tasks, but it will be for all. God will pour out his Spirit regardless of sex (sons and daughters…men and women); regardless of age (old men … young men); regardless of background, race, color or rank (even on my servants). There will be a new ability to hear God (prophesy…dream…see visions). Joel prophesied that the Spirit would be poured out with great generosity on all God's people.

Yet all these promises remained unfulfilled for at least 300 years. The people waited and waited for the "promise of the Father" to be fulfilled, until at the coming of Jesus there was a burst of activity of the Spirit of God. With the birth of Jesus, the trumpet sounded, and everyone connected with the birth of Jesus was filled with the Spirit of God.

— Reprinted by permission of HTB and Alpha International.


Nicky Gumbel Nicky Gumbel is a bestselling author, husband to Pippa, Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton Church, and pioneer of the well–known Alpha course. Summer 2014