The Holy Spirit: A Sermon Series

By Jennifer Anne Cox

The Holy Spirit: A Sermon Series is just that, a series of sermons on the Holy Spirit. The series covers a number of different aspects of the theology of the Holy Spirit: his deity and personhood; the indwelling Spirit and the church as the temple of the Spirit; the Holy Spirit and the Bible; the Holy Spirit and prayer; living in the Spirit as against the flesh; the Spirit of adoption; being filled with the Spirit; quenching the Spirit and blaspheming the Spirit; and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. The book approaches these topics from an evangelical perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Anne Cox
• Release date: Jul 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005204938

Jennifer Anne Cox

Jennifer Anne Cox has a PhD in theology and is the author of several theological books. Dr Cox seeks to provide theological resources that will help the church to understand the Bible and to put Christ at the centre of all things.

Book preview

The Holy Spirit

A Sermon Series

Jennifer Anne Cox

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2021 by Jennifer Anne Cox

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Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section 1: Divinity and Personhood

The Holy Spirit is God

The Holy Spirit is a Divine Person

Section 2: The Holy Spirit Indwells God’s People

The Holy Spirit Lives in God’s People

The Temple of the Holy Spirit

Section 3: Assurance

How Do I know That I Am Saved?

Excursion: The Holy Spirit and the Non-Christian Compared to the Christian

Section 4: The Holy Spirit and the Bible

Section 5: The Holy Spirit and Prayer

The Spirit of Adoption 1: God is a Good Father

The Spirit of Adoption 2: Praying to God as Father

The Holy Spirit and Prayer 1: God Helps Us to Pray

The Holy Spirit and Prayer 2: Praying in the Spirit

Section 6: Transformation—Flesh and Spirit

Unbelievers Are Dead in Sin; Only God Can Fix Our Problem

Unbelievers Simply Sin but Believers Struggle with Sin

Jesus Did What None of Us Can Ever Do

Sanctification Is Also by Grace

Don’t Sow to the Flesh

Section 7: Filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18)

Section 8: The Opposite of Filled

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

Quenching the Spirit and Grieving the Spirit

Section 9: Testing Prophecy

Old Testament Tests

Testing Prophecy Based on 1 John 4

Section 10: Baptism in the Holy Spirit

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 1—Fire

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 2: Pentecost is a Unique Event in the History of Salvation

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 3: Words Used to Describe the Baptism in the Holy Spirit

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 4: Tongues of Fire

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 5: Filled with the Prophetic Spirit

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 6: Is Speaking in Tongues the Sign?

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 7: What I Am Supposed to Do with My Pentecostal Experiences?

He Will Baptize You with the Holy Spirit and Fire Part 8: Normal Christian Experience

Conclusion

About the Author

Introduction

Towards the end of 2019, someone in church asked a question about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. A number people in this particular church have sat for many years under Pentecostal teaching, much of which was not biblically solid. Therefore, I thought it was a bad idea to leap into answering that question without first establishing a biblical foundation. At that time, I discussed with the pastor the idea of doing a series of sermons on the Holy Spirit, possibly culminating in teaching about Baptism in the Holy Spirit. This is what took place in 2020 and 2021. The church found these messages helpful and I thought they may be of value to others as well. Hence, I decided to put the sermons into a book.

This sermon series was limited in scope. For instance, it did not deal with spiritual gifts. Therefore, this book is not attempting to be a definitive book about the Holy Spirit and his work in the church and the world. That would probably require several books of this size. Please recognise that it was not my intention to say everything possible about the Holy Spirit in this one book. The topics covered include: the deity and personal nature of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Spirit, the work of the Spirit in Christian believers, the connection between the Spirit and the Bible, the Spirit of sonship, prayer in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, blasphemy against the Spirit, and finally the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

The church I attend is small and very interactive. People ask questions in the middle of the sermon. We often digress a bit if someone does not understand some necessary bit of background to the message. Disagreements over what a particular passage means are not uncommon. All of this is part of coming to grips with the Bible and what it says to us today. Consequently, many of the messages were not originally planned but resulted from the need to cover issues as they arose. The topic of assurance is a case in point.

Because this is a book of sermons, it is not the same as the usual books I write. However, these may not read as traditional sermons either. As my sermons were not written out in full, they are not transcribed. Instead, the main ideas are included along with the significant passages that were discussed. The sections are based on clusters of sermon topics. Some sections took only one week to cover, and others took several weeks to explore. Therefore, the sections of the book are uneven in size. It is always difficult to decide on an order for a series of sermons. The order was decided after much wrestling and rearranging of topics. In terms of reading this book, it is not necessary to read in strict order, but I recommend reading the sermons in each section in order.

Due to copyright restrictions, there is a limit on how many Bible passages I can quote in a book. I will make reference to many since many were included in the original sermons. I recommend you read these for yourselves as well as reading around the verses if possible because it will help you discern whether my understanding is correct in the context.

If you have read any of my other books, you will know that my goal is always for you to see that Jesus is central to the Bible and good theology. Jesus is central to understanding the person and work of the Holy Spirit also. The work of the Spirit cannot rightly be disconnected from the work of Christ. Naturally, then, there is frequent mention of Jesus and his work in this book.

Return to Table of Contents

Section 1: Divinity and Personhood

The Holy Spirit is God

You may well ask why I am starting here rather than going directly to the work of the Spirit in the church. I believe that it is vital to begin with a solid understanding of who the Holy Spirit is before we can rightly consider what he does among and in the people of God. Unfortunately, many things which are spoken by Christians and even taught in churches demonstrate that we often treat the Holy Spirit as less that divine and less than a person. How many times have you heard others or yourself refer to the Holy Spirit as it? This is a mistake that occurs way too frequently. For this reason, if no other, I have chosen to begin with the deity of the Spirit and the personhood of the Spirit in the next chapter.

When it comes to the Trinity, Christians are often confused. Many books, much larger than this one, have been written on the topic of the Trinity alone. My purpose here is merely to provide a basic understanding of the Trinity and to situate the Holy Spirit within it. The most basic way of explaining the Trinity is this. There is one God (Deut 6:4–5; Exod 15:11; 1 Kings 8:60; Isa 45:5–6; 45:21–22; Rom 3:30; 1 Tim 2:5; James 2:19). The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each fully and eternally God. The Father, the Son and the Spirit are each distinct persons. That is, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father and the Spirit is neither the Father or the Son.

When we want to try to understand the Holy Spirit, we find that there is less biblical material about the Holy Spirit than about the Father and the Son. There is thus some mystery involved in studying the Holy Spirit. It is good for humans to accept that we cannot know everything there is to know about God because he is God and we are creatures. We accept the mystery and we also search the Scriptures to find out what God has revealed about himself. In this case, we are looking to see what the Bible says about the deity of the Holy Spirit.

The early church first had to come to an agreement about the deity of the Son before they came to agreement about the deity of the Spirit. There was a large amount of work done in the fourth and fifth centuries to define and outline who Jesus is, his deity and his humanity. This is why the early Creeds of the church (e.g., The Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, The Chalcedonian Creed) have a lot to say about Jesus and not much to say about the Spirit. This does not mean that the Bible has nothing to say about the Holy Spirit, only that the church took time to explore the doctrine of the Spirit.

How do we know that the Holy Spirit is God? There are no Bible passages that say directly that the Holy Spirit is God. But there are several passages that imply this truth. In some passages of Scripture, the Holy Spirit is interchangeable with God.

One excellent example of this is Acts 5:3–4. Many of the early Christians had sold property and given the proceeds to the apostles to distribute to the poor. But Ananias and Sapphira had lied about the money they received for their property. "But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God’" (Acts 5:3–4; italics mine).

A second example is found in descriptions of the church as temple in 1 Corinthians. Paul describes the church first of all as God’s temple. Three times in 1 Cor 3:16–17, the church is called God’s temple. But later, in 1 Cor 6:19, Paul exhorts the people, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own (1 Cor 6:19). Plainly, the church is both the temple of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit, implying that the Holy Spirit is God.

In addition, the Holy Spirit has attributes which belong to God. He knows all things, even the thoughts of God (1 Cor 2:10–11) and all truth (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit is present everywhere, from the heights of heaven to the depths of Sheol (Ps 139:7–8). His power is the power of God (Luke 1:35; Rom 15:19). And lastly, the Holy Spirit is eternal (John 14:16; Heb 9:14) as only God himself can be. Any being with these qualities must be considered God.

There is still more evidence that the Holy Spirit is God. His activities are divine activities. He is an agent of creation, hovering over the primordial waters (Gen 1:2), creating God’s creatures and renewing the earth (Ps 104:30). The Holy Spirit can regenerate the human heart (John 3:5–8; Titus 3:5). Along with the Father and the Son, the Holy