The Holy Spirit, the forgotten Person of the Trinity

In an earlier post, I addressed the Master's plan to build His kingdom by indwelling believers in the Person of the Holy Spirit. It has been my experience that many believers are unfamiliar with the meaning of the indwelling of the Spirit of God.

We all have a concept of the existence of a Heavenly Father, a Creator God, whom no one has seen (John 1:18, 1 John 4:12) but who has manifested Himself to us through his creation (Romans 1). We find it relatively easy to understand that the Father sent His Son in human form (John 1:14), for, though fully God, He was a man and was seen and walked among us and experienced the things we do and addressed them during His earthly ministry.

But what about this Holy Spirit? This is a concept that is more abstract. The Father created us, the Son gave Himself up for us, so that we might have communion with the Father. What did the Holy Spirit ever do for us?

Jesus taught us that He, the Holy Spirit, "...whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." (John 14:26) So, it is only through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit that we can understand spiritual things. "[T]he natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Jesus further taught us that "...if I do not go away, the Helper [Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged." (John 16:7-11).

Remember, Sergeant, when the Light finally dawned on you, and you confessed your sin to God and repented and believed? How did you come to that moment? "He will convict the world of sin." That was the Holy Spirit prompting you.

So, now we come to the conviction of righteousness, "because I go to My Father and you see Me no more." Jesus Christ was the only man ever to live a sinless life. As such He was the only flesh and blood example of righteousness the world has ever known and could convict those around Him of righteousness by that example. But He doesn't walk among us in the flesh any longer. Instead, He has sent the Holy Spirit to indwell believers, and it is the Holy Spirit who convicts of righteousness by the example of those who walk in the Spirit and bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control." (Galatians 5:22) Notice that the verb in this sentence is the singular "is." The fruit of the Spirit is; not the fruits of the Spirit are. This is a package deal. When we walk in the Spirit, He gives us this all inclusive fruit. Just as the fruit of the grape is stalk, skin, exocarp, mesocarp, endocarp and pips or seeds, so the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Without all of the parts, the fruit is either not a fruit at all, or it is a defective instance of the fruit.

In future posts, I will look at each part of the fruit of the Spirit. In the meantime, soldier, let us resolve to know God better in all His Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.