The Real Change-maker – Essential Beliefs, #33

Who can cause a mountain to rise from the sea? Who can create something from nothing? Who can change an addicted, blaspheming murderer into a saint? A magician? A guru? A counselor? A scientist? A philosopher? No, only the Holy Spirit.

But before we consider the Spirit’s power and influence, let’s settle the fact that he is the third person of the Trinity with all the traits of personality. He is not an impersonal force or influence emanating from God. As Berkhof points out, “he searches, speaks, testifies, commands, reveals, strives, creates, makes intercessions, raises the dead” and makes an abuser into a flower of compassion.  

Jesus makes it clear. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans…The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:16-18, 26).

Not an orphan maker, the Holy Spirit is a comforter and family creator.

With the Father and the Son, this all-powerful, third person of the Trinity was “hovering over the waters” (Gen. 1:2), and joining with them in the creation of the universe. He is the one who generates life, imparts gifts and abilities, and who inspired the writers of the Bible. “I have chosen Bezalel…and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts” (Exodus 301:2). “For the prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). And, as Jesus explained in John 14 and Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, the Spirit helps us understand what the Spirit, himself inspired. “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us…words taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:13,14).

We live in a beautiful world, but a world tarnished by greed and self-righteousness, ingratitude and distrust.

Is there any hope? Can dark, stony, selfish hearts be changed? Only through the Holy Spirit. (I’ll explore his heart-changing work in the next post.)