Hanging out with Dave Rolph
I. The Holy Spirit is a person.
The Holy Spirit is a personal being just as the Father and the Son. The Spirit is not an impersonal “it” or simply an influence.
A. The Spirit has personal characteristics.
1. (1 Cor. 2:10-11) Various personal actions seen.
2. He has emotions (Eph.4:30 – “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit”).
B. The Spirit acts in personal ways.
1. He teaches us (John 14:26).
2. He commands (Acts 8:29). Tells Phillip to overtake chariot.
3. He intercedes for us in prayer (Rom.8:26).
C. The Spirit is described in personal terms grammatically. The Greek word for Spirit (pneuma) is neuter in gender, yet the Bible uses masculine pronouns (“He,” “Him”) to refer to the Spirit (John 16:13-14; 15:26; 16:7-8. To be grammatically correct, personal neuter pronouns (“it”) would be expected.
II. The Holy Spirit is God.
A. He has the names and titles of deity.
1. Yahweh – What the Lord (Yahweh) said in Is.6:8-13 is ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Acts 28:25-27
2. Spirit of God (Rom.8:9,14; 1 Cor.2:11; 12:3; Eph.4:30)
C. He performs incommunicable works (no one but God can do them).
1. Creation (Gen.1:2)
2. Resurrection (Rom.8:11)
3. Omnipresence Ps. 139
D. He is equated with deity.
1. Acts 5:3,4 – a lie to Spirit equals lie to God
2. 2 Cor.3:17,18 – “The Lord is the Spirit”
III. The Holy Spirit’s role in the OT.
A. He took part in creation (Gen.1:2; Job 33:4; Psalm 104:30).
B. He guided and protected Israel (Isaiah 63:10-14).
C. He spoke through prophets to produce Scripture (1 Peter 1:11: 2 Peter 1:20,21).
D. He selectively and conditionally indwelt certain people in the Old Testament (Joseph – Gen.41:38; Joshua – Num.27:18; Saul – 1 Sam.10:9,10; David – 1 Sam.16:13 etc.). The Spirit’s indwelling was specifically related to enabling someone to do a particular task. The Holy Spirit could cease to indwell a person because of their disobedience. The Spirit left Saul (1 Sam.16:14). When David sinned he pled that the Spirit not be taken from him (Psalm 51:11).
IV. The Holy Spirit’s role in the New Testament
A. He was the empowering Agent in Christ’s earthly life.
1. He was the Agent of Christ’s virgin birth (Luke 1:35).
2. He empowered Christ’s ministry (Matt.12:28; Luke 4:1,18).
3. He was the Agent of Christ’s resurrection (Rom.1:4; 8:11).
B. He is central in salvation (How people are saved).
1. He directs and enables evangelistic efforts (Philip/Ethiopian – Acts 8:26,29; Great Commission – Acts 1:8).
2. He convicts the unbeliever of sin (John 16:8-11).
3. He regenerates (saves) the person.
a. He cleanses the person from sin and gives them the new nature (Titus 3:5).
b. As He performs this spiritual “new birth,” the person enters “the kingdom of God” (eternal life – John 3:3-7,16).
4. He seals the person. The presence of the Holy Spirit is the “seal” or guarantee that a person is saved and will remain saved (Eph.1:13).
C. He is central in sanctification (How saved people grow).
1. He indwells believers.
a. The Spirit indwells all believers in this age (Rom.5:5; 8:9; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19). (unlike the Old Testament where the Spirit indwelt some)
b. The Spirit indwells believers permanently in this age (John 14:16). (unlike the Old Testament where the Spirit could depart)
c. The Spirit’s indwelling is the basis for His other ministries in believer’s lives. (He teaches/illumines us about scripture – John 16:13; He aids in prayer – Rom.8:26; He assures us of our salvation – Rom.8:16; He enables us to grow – see “filling” below – Eph.5:18).
2. He gives gifts to believers. Ephesians 4:8, 1. Corinthians 12:11
3. He fills believers. Eph. 5:18
D. He glorifies Jesus (Jn. 16:14)
Dave Rolph is the Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel Pacific Hills in Aliso Viejo, California, and is the Bible teacher for the radio program The Balanced Word. He has been at CC Pacific Hills for seven years, and prior to that he was an assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa for 25 years.
Wow! This is great, thanks Dave, this is going right on my desktop.
Wow!, this is Awesome! this is going right on my desktop. Thanks Dave.
Pastor Rolph, I thought you would be interested in this I found yesterday in internet:
The Turning Point
In 1970, the Jesus Movement was in its early stages in Orange County, where it would soon receive international attention in the secular media. While living in Covina, some 40 miles away from Orange County, we had not yet heard a thing about that growing, young revival, which was centered at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. On my first day at Orange High School, I noticed another new guy at the school named Michael Moore (no, not that Michael Moore), because, as new students, we had not yet suited-up for P.E. class, and we both wore wire-rimmed glasses (a rather rare style at the time, usually associated with hippies). Michael and I eventually became close friends—especially after I found out that he was a Christian. He invited me to go with him to his church, which happened to be Calvary Chapel. The original draw was that he and I were guitar-players seeking to start a band, and he told me there were lots of bands that played at his church, and that we might be able to play there too. Being new to the area, this seemed to be a good way to meet new Christian friends, so I agreed to go with him on a Wednesday night.
I will always remember my first visit to Calvary Chapel with fondness and awe. This small church building was quite off the beaten path, surrounded by many acres of farm land (the area is now all condominiums and shopping malls). It was a rainy night, and the church parking lot was not yet paved, so it was just a muddy mess, with cars angled into undefined parking spaces. Having sometimes attended the not-so-full midweek prayer meetings at our former Baptist church, I was surprised to see so many cars out on a Wednesday night, in such inclement weather (I soon learned that the situation at Calvary Chapel was the same six nights a week).
The church was designed to accommodate, I would think, about 300 people, though perhaps twice that number had somehow gotten crammed inside out of the rain. I think that a person looking down from the rafters at the gathering below would not have been able to identify the color of the carpeting because of the multitude of hippie-looking bodies sitting wherever it was physically possible to shoe-horn themselves into what seemed like a sea of humanity. The platform at the front was also covered with kids, and the most captivating music I had ever heard was being played by a band called “Love Song” with their acoustic guitars and four-part vocals. Upon hearing this amazing and anointed band, one of my first thoughts was, “If I had any delusions about my playing music on that platform, I can now see that the standards are much too high for me even to consider it” (as it turned out, the professional standards did not turn out to be consistently high, so I later was able to minister in music from that platform).
Entering the church, I was fortunate to find a spot to sit on the carpet in the foyer, amid perhaps fifty others. I happened to sit by a guy, who, like everyone else, looked like a hippie. He had a radiant smile and said, “Hey, Bro! Do you know the Lord?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Cool! How long have you known Jesus?” I said, “Oh, about twelve years, I guess.” “WOW!” he marveled. “I just met the Lord two weeks ago!” And he told me of how God has delivered him from his drug habits and had used him to lead his parents to Christ.
Now I was the one marveling! From his enthusiasm, it seemed to me that he had more of the reality of God in his life than I even knew was available to a Christian. Then he asked a question that perplexed me. He said, “What has the Lord been doing in your life?” I will never forget this, because of the stunned feeling I had when he asked. I felt like a deer in the headlights. I could tell that he would have been able to give a very good answer to that same question, had I asked him, but to me, the question was incomprehensible. If he had spoken the sentence in tongues (and I imagine he could have done so!) it could not have been more unintelligible to me at my then state of spiritual awareness. It had never occurred to me that the Lord works here and now in my life. I had only been taught that, if a person believes in Christ, he will go to heaven when he dies. The concept of divine providence and intervention in daily affairs was completely foreign to me. Yet I knew that it was an important question, and it led me to realize that I had come to know a great deal about God, without really knowing Him very well. I knew God, mostly (to use a phrase from Tozer) “by hearsay.”
In my youth, I had always been drawn to the occasional “revival weeks” at the Baptist church, and had always been delighted when a few people would respond to the “altar call.” However, nothing had prepared me for what I was to see this night. I heard a hippie preacher (Lonnie Frisbee), who was probably 90% illiterate, give as simple and compelling a gospel message as I had ever heard, and was thrilled to witness at least fifty people respond to the call to “come forward.” I later learned that this happened every night at Calvary Chapel, and that approximately a thousand young converts were being baptized every month. Being exposed to this revival made me aware of my own spiritual dissatisfaction and I felt an inner drive to know God better, like these people knew Him. So I returned to Calvary Chapel every night of the week for two years.
After a few visits to Calvary, I noticed a recurring theme in conversations with these people. They often spoke of something called “the baptism in the Holy Spirit”—a term with which I was not familiar. I began to research the subject at home in my Bible, discussing it with my sister and my parents, who also had begun attending Calvary Chapel regularly. One night I went to church determined to receive the baptism in the Spirit. After the service, the same hippie who had been preaching the night of my first visit, laid hands on my head and prayed for me to be filled with the Spirit. I was initially disappointed. From my studies in the Scripture, I had expected to speak in tongues, but I did not. I almost concluded that the attempt was a failure, but then my good ol’ Baptist upbringing (“God said it; I believe it; that settles it!”) kicked in. I thought, “God said that He would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13). I have asked. Therefore, I believe that He has given what He promised.”
http://www.thenarrowpath.com/
P.S. Acts 17:11
Dave – thanks for the cliff note versions… cannot make it every wednesday and this is much appreciated. God Bless – Isaiah 26:3