God the Holy Spirit His Baptism

Well, today we're going to... You probably noticed we're not exactly following the... I hope you've been reading the chapters, though. We've kind of taken a little detour, if you will. We're covering these... And we start with His personality, the Holy Spirit's personality, His advent. And then from here, these last four chapters, we've kind of been covering those topics in a little bit different fashion. And our brother Hal kind of came up with this kind of outline, which I think is really great. So we're kind of following that outline. So, you know, read the chapters. We actually have already covered baptism as much as we're going to cover this in this go-around. I did a little summary here. I thought it might be worthwhile to see what we've kind of done so far.

And we looked at four aspects of the Holy Spirit in terms of... He has, in the past tense, He has shared Christ with every single believer. And we looked at kind of four things. Basically, Hal has done the first two, and I'm going to do the second two. So we looked at He has called you, you've been chosen, you've been regenerated, and you've been baptized. We covered those four aspects of the completed work of the Holy Spirit.

And that's what's called our position, what has been done at the moment we believe. Those have been accomplished for every single believer. And then last week, Hal looked at kind of the present ministry in terms of the church, in terms of his sharing the Lord Jesus Christ. And he went through that wonderful picture that he's done for many years, but I think I've learned a lot from that picture, in Romans 5 there, where hope and tribulation, the circle of dependence upon the Lord, where he takes you through trials and brings you back to hope.

And then at the last, he kind of covered the filling of the Holy Spirit, And today we're going to look at the fact that the Holy Spirit reveals the glory of Christ to us. And we're going to look at basically how that happens. How does he do that? How does he accomplish revealing who Christ is? And as we do that, the verses will contain things about how he guides us and teaches us. So it's his present ministry in our lives.

And one thing you might want to think about here, and I kind of The difference between sharing and revealing. Sharing is something that is a precursor in a way. You have to be a believer. You have to have the Lord in your life. You have the Holy Spirit working in your life for Him to really reveal who He is.

So one kind of follows the other. And we'll see more of that as we go along. Next week we'll look at the fact that once these things are in place, you can glorify the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ through your life, in you and through you. He is glorified. So this is just another picture of someone I said before. Basically this is the complete number of verses and we're only going to look at John 16 and 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and in that we're going to see his teaching and his guiding.

So the remainder of the time we're going to look at these two verses here. Now, what I did in your handout, I on the handout, let me just grab one here. At the bottom, we also notice that we have that this is a senior citizens version. We've I had some, you know, we enlarge it for easier reading.

Anyway, me included. OK. So anyway, at the bottom, I'm a great fan of Weiss. I don't know. I mean, now this is, you know, and I think he's he's very accurate to the original language. And since I'm not a Greek scholar or know Greek that well, it really helps.

So we're going to use this as we go through these verses to use the bottom part of the page. I included the same text in the week's translation in all four pages. So we're going to use that as we go through here. And before we start, it may be wise to go through and just read this passage in 1 Corinthians 2. Can I ask a volunteer? There's not many of us today. Someone volunteer to read 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 9-14. Okay, and could you continue on to 14 as well? Thank you. Great, thank you.

So I've kind of titled this passage, The Holy Spirit, He Reveals the Things of God. And I'll just tell you something that kind of, as I went through and looked at this, and I've kind of underlined the things, and we're going to kind of see this. This is going to kind of trace through both this passage and the passage in John 16. And we're going to see that the desire of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the things of God or the things of Christ.

So he starts out and he says that... He talks about the eye, the ear and the heart. He says that the eye is not seen and the ear is not heard and it hasn't really entered man's heart. And this idea of... Basically, it's the things of God. Can someone... There's a verse that I... that gives us some insight into the man before he knows Jesus Christ. It talks about where he's at. Of course, I thought that was a really very easy question to answer. Which one am I observing with the whole screen?

What I was thinking of, thinking about the fact that man in and of himself cares nothing for God. He may say, yeah, I think there's a God, but really, until God has convinced him of who Jesus Christ is and he's come to know him, he doesn't really, his eye hasn't seen, his ear hasn't heard, and it really hasn't entered his heart what God's all about.

But the second part of that verse is, it says, the things which God has prepared for those who love him. And I was thinking about the verse in 1 John, not that we love God, but that he loved us. He took the initiative first. So, and looking here, this idea of entering the heart of man, it talks about this idea, it didn't spring up, it didn't, in fact, actually in the Weiss translation, it, let me just read it here, in verse 9 it says, but even as it stands written, the things which the eye did not see nor the ear, I'm sorry, the things which eye did not see nor ear hear, and which did not arise within an individual's heart, so many things as God has prepared for those who love Him. So there's really nothing in man that can tell him about God. God has to take the initiative and has to reveal who He is to man for him to understand Him. And we're going to see these things labeled the things of God or things of Christ are kind of traced through here.

And actually this passage comes out of Isaiah. If you just turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 64. I'll just read that. It comes right out of the Old Testament. But it's been expanded into the New Testament. Isaiah 64. I'll just go ahead and read that. Isaiah 64.

Isaiah 64, verse 4, it says, For from of old they have not heard nor perceived by ear, Neither has the eye seen a God beside thee, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for him. So it has somewhat a similar idea, but in the New Testament, I think it's speaking about the fact that man doesn't really know what God is about. He doesn't really understand Him. And God desires, that's His purpose, the second part of that, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. Okay. Okay, so let's go on to verse 10.

It says, and now it kind of gives his methodology. God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit. Let me ask you a question, and it's kind of, you know, in the context, if you have your Bibles, go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, I think it's real important to see what the word them, God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit. In the context which I have, what would you say them is referring to?

Okay, good. Well, actually, and it doesn't mean, it's not in, yeah, and that's right, it's not in the original, that's true, that's why I, it seems to me that he's speaking of, in fact, actually, if you look at this passage, in many of the Bibles they'll talk about, this passage talking about wisdom, God's wisdom. You know, I first thought, well, that meant wisdom. But the more you look at this passage, I believe that's talking about, and it fits exactly with the whole flow of what he's talking about here.

God has revealed them, the things, unto us by his Spirit. So I think it's important to see that that's talking about the things, the things of God. And this idea of revealed, it's the idea to uncover or to unveil And it says that the Spirit is searching all things. And actually, the idea, if you look, and I'll just read Weiss again here, it says in verse 10, For to us God the Father revealed them through the intermediate agency of His Spirit. For the Spirit is constantly exploring all things, even the deep things of God. So the Spirit is constantly searching, All things, and that word all is the idea that it's inclusive, it includes everything.

There's not a thing that God doesn't want us to know about himself. I mean, that's a pretty incredible thing. And then it kind of goes even, takes another step beyond that. It's all things, and then it's even the deep things of God. And that's the idea of the profound things of God, the inscrutable things of God. And there's a verse, I think, that just really kind of captures that, these deep things or profound things of God.

Could someone volunteer to read Romans chapter 11, verse 33? Romans chapter 11. That's pretty impressive. So the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer is searching out the things of God, the things that are that we can't really grab a hold of. He's searching those out. And I believe that it has to be done from the basis of Scripture. There's no other source that we have. It has to be done from the basis of Scripture. As we look at God's Word, He shows us the things of God.

I don't know what it's been, maybe your experience as well, as you look at Scripture and you study it and take time, things that you didn't, maybe at first reading, never really occurred to you, but as you read it and look at it again, the Holy Spirit will show you and reveal to you the things of God, even the deep things of God. I've seen that verse nine today, that's often been used as the future. I know. Right.

Well, I have a little confession here to make before I started. I hadn't talked with you about this one, but I was thinking about that. And I said, wait a minute, it can't be future. I mean, there can be an aspect of future, but it just really it just really hits you when you see it in this context that he's talking about right now that wants to do this. There might be a future aspect of that. But I always thought that.

I said, boy, in glory, there's going to be these wonderful things we haven't seen or heard, and it's in our hearts, and that's very well going to be true. But I think it also speaks of right now. He wants to show us, and He wants to do it, especially with verse 10. He has revealed them unto us by His Spirit. I was exactly there. That's one of the things that kind of hit me as I went through this. Wow, look at this. He wants to do it right now. Okay. All right, so let's go on to verse 11. And this is sort of a digression in this passage.

He's going to give an example, compare the spirit of man with the spirit of God, and he says, Who knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man? The things of God no one knows except the spirit of God. So he kind of does a comparison there between The scripture talks about the man as being body, soul and spirit. Who knows you better than you inside of you? You know yourself. Now sometimes we're confused about ourselves. Why did I do this? Why did I do that? But no one else can really know you as well as you know yourself. So that's kind of the analogy here. Who knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man? the things of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

And there's an interesting thing that we're going to see here that is kind of neat. This word, know, it says, who knows the things of a man? In the original language, there are a variety of words for know. And it's interesting which words for know are used. There are two that are kind of really important as you read through the New Testament.

One is this idea of, it's It's called a progressive knowledge. It's sort of like on-the-job knowledge, if you will. Experiential knowledge. As you go out and start a job, you learn something. And that's this word, gnosko. The progressive knowledge, the knowledge of experience, to be taking in knowledge. And there's another word, oida.

And it's full knowledge, complete knowledge. And the word no, And both of these is this complete knowledge that you know yourself completely. Now, you may argue with that. With God, you probably have no question about that. And there may be some impediments. But it's interesting.

We're going to see in this passage that it talks about this complete knowledge, not this knowledge that's being gained. The things of God, no one knows. So the Spirit of God has, as you'd expect, the complete knowledge of God. And it kind of fits with the previous verse, that he has this complete knowledge of the things of God. And I want to show you an example of that. You know, you think, well, that's kind of hard to see. But let's look at John chapter 8. John chapter 8. And I'd like to read verse Let me read 54 and 55. John chapter 8, 54 and 55. It says, Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me. Of whom you say, He is our God.

And you have not come to know Him, but I know Him. And if I say that I do not know him, I shall be a liar like you. But I do know him, and keep his word. So if you have some kind of aid like this, and you don't read Greek, you can go into that passage and you can see what word is what, because they each have a different number in the original language.

I shouldn't say that. Someone has assigned a number to each one. One for Oida and one for Gnosko. So, using that, what would you think? Before I tell you, what would you think? What word is what? Which one would you think is Gnosko and which one would you think is Oida?

Which one is this on-the-job knowledge, so to speak, and which one is complete and full knowledge? When the Lord Jesus, He's talking to the to the Jews here right and about their claiming this is our God and he's kind of taking exception what they say so which one would you think it is in verse 55 which one of the there's actually four four times Noah's used in verse 55 so which one would you think is is Gdowsko the experiential knowledge and which one is the full and complete knowledge good Marilyn Excellent, excellent. And also, as you'd expect, the next two the Lord Jesus says are also Oido. So that's pretty, for me, this is what Bible study is all about.

I don't know, I get, you know, they go, Roger, you're a nerd, go in the corner of some place. But for me, this is just, when you understand the words and you go and look at a passage and you say, wow, it fits, it makes sense, and it's neat, you know.

He's telling the Jews, they haven't really come to know him. They may have some experience with him, but they don't really know him. He says, but I know him, speaking of his father, I know completely the father. And he says, if I said I did not, I'd be a liar.

That's pretty strong. That's really neat. So this is the kind of knowledge that the Spirit of God wants to reveal to us. He wants to reveal this complete knowledge to us of God. No, actually, actually, it says this. This says that we know ourselves completely.

And that's what I was arguing with. Personally, I don't feel I, you know, I and I think that I think maybe it may go ahead. You have a thought about that. OK. OK. Well, I think we, you know, if we don't know ourselves, no one else does. I mean, in a sense. Well, God knows.

Then you get into a lot of other issues with that. I don't know that path. But anyway, the problem that man has is, as we say many times, it's his sinful nature. That is a corruptive force in him understanding himself. I mean, until a person comes to know the Lord Jesus, I can speak from experience. I didn't know what I was all about. I didn't understand myself. We're getting a little bit outside of the realm of things here. But anyway, it's the same word. It's oido. It says that a man, who knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man? The things of God no one knows except the spirit of God. All right, so let's go on to the next part of the verse. We start in this section.

This is just a tremendous statement about... We talked about the fact that we're going through looking at the things that were accomplished for the believer at salvation. And verse 12 speaks of one of those things, basically the fact that we have received the Spirit of God. And it says, we have. In the original language, it's this idea of It's a past-completed action. It's a done deal. It's already happened.

We have received the Spirit of God. There are folks that teach, well, the Spirit kind of comes and goes, and I've got to grab onto Him when He goes by. I mean, God's Word. Anyway, it says we have the Spirit of God. And the reason we have the Spirit of God is this wonderful thing. that we might know the things that are freely given to us. I mean, these wonderful things, the deep things of God, this complete knowledge, the reason He's done that. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a clue. We couldn't be a believer. In fact, actually, that's one of the neat things here.

Let's look at Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. And let me just read for you verse 9. And it says, However, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. There are many, many other verses that speak about the fact that we have the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ. We have the Holy Spirit. And the reason we have it is that we might know these wonderful things about God. Actually, if you're wondering, that word know is oida.

He doesn't want us He wants us to know Him completely. Now, obviously, as Hal was showing us about his little funnel, there is an aspect of growth in our lives. But his desire is that he hasn't held anything back. He's provided everything. But there is a growth process. We learn more and more about our Savior as we walk in our Christian life.

Let's see here. And this idea about freely given, it's this idea of, it's this word charis, or it's grace, the word for grace, the root of that word is the word for grace, freely given. It's a grace bestowed to bestow a thing willingly, grant or permit something. Let's look at Philippians, just an example of that. Philippians chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1 and let me read verse 29.

It says, for to you has been granted, that's the idea of this bestowing or this idea of grace, for to you has been granted, for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. So, in addition to being granted to know the things freely given to God, it's by grace that we're given to believe in Him and to suffer for His sake.

Okay, now we come out of verse 13. And this one, this one I found a little bit difficult, but I think it kind of ties together. It says, which things, talking about these things again, these things of God, which things we also speak. And let me just look at, looking at Wiest again here.

It says that, It says, which things we also put into words, not words taught by human philosophy, but in words taught by the Spirit, fitly joining spiritually revealed truths with spiritually taught words. So, the believer is speaking, as he looks at scripture, we're speaking God's thoughts, right? the things of God, as we speak Scripture. I think that's part of what it was saying in the first part, which things we also speak. And Scripture is not human wisdom, it's God's wisdom. And then you come down to that third bullet, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, or actually, least has it, spiritually revealed truths with spiritually taught words.

I don't know, I struggle with this little phrase. I don't know, does someone else have a thought about this? What do you think he's talking about when he says there's this comparing process going on spiritual things? In the original, it's just spiritual things with spiritual. So what's this comparing process, do you think, going on here?

Well, I'm tying the spiritual things back to the things that we've been tracing through here for all these passages. It's the things of God, and the things of God we have here, right? We have God's Word. As we learn about that He is perfectly holy and just and righteous, the things of God are contained in God's Word. I'll tell you my thought, and I'm open to other thoughts, but what occurred to me was that as we look at God's Word, and we take a passage, and we look at another passage, and we compare those passages, good exposition of Scripture, we compare Scripture with Scripture, we say, this passage says this, and this passage says that.

That's what occurred to me. And actually, we've kind of He kind of alluded to that, but I didn't quite understand his fitly joining spiritual truths with spiritually taught words. I don't know if I could ask Dr. Weiss. I didn't know what he meant by that. We learn a truth. God is love, for example. And then we see the demonstration of his love at Calvary, right? So that's comparing, in my mind, that's comparing a spiritual truth with a spiritual truth. I mean, he demonstrated his love?

I don't know. Other thoughts? I found this is one of the toughest verses in this section of Scripture. I didn't really look at commentaries to see what other... I was going to look at some folks and I didn't get a chance to. Does someone have other thoughts?

Go ahead. Okay. Well, okay, from verse 12, it says, I'll just see verse 12. Why don't you read verses 12 and 13? He wouldn't mind. That's fine. OK. OK. Well, that's good. That's a good point. It's within. OK. OK. Good. OK. No, they're the same word, at least. Yeah. But that's a good point. That's a good point.

So your point would be that you're comparing the things of man's wisdom versus God's wisdom. OK. Right. Man's so-called wisdom, right, of himself, of Adam. OK, that's good. I don't know. That passage I find is a tough one. Okay. Yeah, okay. That's kind of, yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

Spiritual things with spiritual. Money for next week. I don't want to promise too much. I'll look at that again just to see if I can find something else out. But that's good. So we sort of have a couple of things. It's comparing possibly the human spiritual wisdom with divine spiritual wisdom versus comparing a spiritual truth with another spiritual truth. And that's kind of what Wiest has.

I don't know. At least it occurred to me. I don't know. Okay, and now verse 14. Now we're talking about the natural man or the unbeliever, basically. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Okay, I have a question for you here. In the third bullet, neither can he know them.

What word for know is that, do you think? In this case, it's experiential knowledge. And something to think about here. When I was going through this thing about know, the scripture uses know of the believer many times as well, to indicate that he has come to know God, not only that he's experienced God, that he's coming to understand Him and to know Him in an experience.

So what this is saying, I believe, is that the unbeliever can't know God in experience. He can't experience His comfort and His joy and His love because they are spiritually discerned. God has to be revealing the spiritual truths for him to understand them.

There's a parallel passage in Romans chapter 8 that I think is good. Could someone volunteer to read Romans chapter 8, verses 5 and 6? For those who are according to the flesh, let their mind set on the flesh. For those who are according to the Spirit, let their mind set on the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is eternity.

So here we have this contrast here. If you notice, it's using the things of the flesh versus the things of the spirit. You know, it's amazing, before the study, I never looked at the word things very much. But it's one of these things where God's Word is incredible. We're comparing Scripture, and we're going to see John here in a little bit. The things of God, that idea is carried through. So here it's comparing the things of the flesh versus the things of the spirit.

I understand. And that's what I was... In fact, I tried to find the Greek word for things and I don't... I didn't... I wasn't very successful. Anyway. I know you're right, Marilyn, we think of things as possessions, but here it's talking about the things being understanding, the things of God. It's not his possessions of God, it's who he is, right? It's who he is, the things of God. And we're going to see when we get into the passage in John, who he is, what he's done. Yeah, that's good. Yes. But in a way it seems like it, I don't know, that's a good question. That was my first thought, but Vani raises the point that we have the believers acting inconsistent with who they are, right? They're following after the flesh when they shouldn't be. The key word, according to the flesh, I need to see what that means. For those who fall into the love of the flesh, but those who are of the flesh. They're not a spiritual person.

Well, that was my first thought. My first thought was what you said. Well, and we shouldn't, but we do. And that's exactly, and that's actually the struggle between the old man and the new man. I mean, we're constantly, you know, we're tugged that way and we give in to it, we go down that path. All right. It's a good question. OK, well, let's go on here to the other other passage here. OK. OK. In John 16.

We see that. It's interesting. The context of John 16 is, I believe, he's in the upper room. This group of scriptures is called the Upper Room Discourse. So the Lord is talking with his disciples, and he's telling them he's going to leave, he's going to go away. He's going to provide a comforter, the Holy Spirit. So he starts out having... Actually, why don't we read it first? That would be a good idea. John 16. So in John 16, starting in verse 12, it says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

But when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine, and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine, therefore I said, that he takes of mine, and will disclose it to you. So in these set of verses we're going to see more information about the process of how the things of Christ, the things of God are shared. So he starts out first and he says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. And the idea of bear is that you really can't take hold of them. You really can't understand them.

I think he's referring to the fact that the Holy Spirit was going to be given and they really needed the Holy Spirit to help them understand even though they hadn't had the Lord physically there. People say many times, they say, well, the Christian life would be easier to live if I had the Lord sitting right beside me here, physically. Well, Scripture tends to say that's not the case, because the Lord says, it's to your advantage that I go away. It's a better arrangement that the Holy Spirit is given to you, as indwells you, that's going to be the way that you're going to live the Christian life. Not with me physically standing beside you there. That's not...

And so he's telling them they can't, they really can't... He has more things to tell them. I believe he's referring to the things about himself, but they can't, they really can't grasp them, they can't understand them. And then he comes down to 13 and he says that he, the Holy Spirit, will guide you into all the truth. And here's the thing, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, about the fact that the Holy Spirit is going to be this conduit, if you will, this intermediary between the Lord Jesus Christ and the believer. He won't speak on his own initiative. Even though he's God, he's not going to speak on his own initiative. He's only going to speak what, but as many things as he hears, he will speak. So the things that he hears from the Lord Jesus Christ, he will speak those things.

And what I thought was wonderful is that he's going to not only tell us, this is sort of talking about the few things that will come. I was kind of thinking about, isn't it marvelous we've been going through Revelation and learning about the things that are to come. You know, incredible. we understand things that are to come. We have a grasp on that. Many people scoff at that, but we know what's going to happen. That's pretty incredible.

And then the last two verses, These are two of my favorite verses. It says, He shall glorify me. He shall take of mine the things which pertain to me, the words you are speaking about, which pertain to me, and make it known to you. And I like what Weiss, his rendering of this. He says, that one shall glorify me because he shall take out from that which pertains to me and make it known to you. And then in verse 15, he shows us here that all things, he shows this oneness with the Father. All things the Father has are mine. And then he repeats the statement.

He shall take of mine the things which are attained to me, and shall make it known to you. Let me just point out one other thing in terms of that. That phrase, take of mine, is the idea that it's the things which the Lord Jesus possesses to take out of mine, out from all that I have, he shall take out from that which pertains to me and make it known to you, take out of all that I have, all the things that I have. So I saw a real consistency between this passage and the passage in 1 Corinthians just about how the process of revealing the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ is the primary focus of the Holy Spirit in terms of his ministry.

He wants to show us Christ. He wants to show us the things of Christ. He's not going to hold back. He's going to show us everything. He's going to show us all things, even the deep things of God. It's pretty incredible. Any thoughts or questions? I hope the thing with the no is exciting to you. It is to me. We can do more of that too. That's really neat. Let's go ahead and close then.

Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much, Lord. We thank you that you sent your Spirit and that your desire is that we know all things, everything, Lord. And we realize that we can't do that all at once, that it takes time for us to know the Lord Jesus. It takes trials many times. It takes difficulties. And we know that's your plan and that you, in a way, you tell us not to be surprised. And we thank you for that, Lord. We thank you that we can know our wonderful Savior who died for us. We ask it in His name. Amen.