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THE HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. He is supernaturaL. Yet He is an important part of our relationship with God, though we live in the natural world. Our source of information about Him is the Spirit’s own revelation, the Bible. It is a book of directions on how to live in a natural world, not a supernatural world. It tells us first of all that the Spirit was involved in creating our world. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, tells about the creation, the first man and woman, and the beginning of our natural world, which God prepared for man’s habitat. The earth at first was “without form and void.” The text says, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The Spirit’s work was not random. It was specific. God began to speak and the natural world began to come into existence, starting with the creation of light.

Then there also had to be a breathable atmosphere, some dry land, water, light, warmth and food. Then there had to be a power to keep all this in place and functioning. Peter wrote that the power which created this world was the word of God and added that “the heavens and earth which are now (are) preserved by the same word…” (2 Peter 3:5-7) In Genesis 8:22 God made a promise to all flesh. “While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” This made permanent what we call the “laws of nature.” All humans are subject to them.

Later we find that the Holy Spirit was also involved when God appointed prophets in the Old Testament. He always did exactly what He was sent to do.  Peter said, “Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21) God’s will was delivered to the people in this way. But there was a problem. Peter said the corrupting factor was one that we will also experience. “But there were false (pseudo) prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you.” We have this problem. In the Bible a record is given of those “false prophets” who misled Israel, especially in Jeremiah. If we look at the features of them we can recognize such pseudo prophets when they turn up among us.

First, they appointed themselves. God said there, “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.” (23:21) Second, their message was not from God. Third, they used their own imagination and attributed it to God. At verse 16 God said, They speak a vision of their own heart.” At verse 31 He said, “Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who use their tongues and say, ‘He said.’” At verse 22 God said that if they had stood in His counsel and caused the people to hear His word, they would have turned them from their evil ways. Israel did not know the difference. 

Long before this God gave His people the method for determining whether a prophet is really of God. “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if  the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptiously.” (Deut. 18:22) This test would work because God always chose His prophets and to each He gave special powers to call down “signs” from heaven, to demonstrate that He was from God. But the people failed to apply the test. 

In the New Testament the Holy Spirit was sent to the apostles, to guide them into all truth and to give them miraculous “credentials.” Thus when the apostles called for a miracle to happen, it happened immediately. No one does that sort of thing today. An example is in Acts 3. A man who was born crippled and never had walked, was told by Peter, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” Immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength and he walked and even leaped. Just as in the case of the prophets, the apostles were given these powers. ”God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” (Hebrews 2:4)  This was God’s “signature” on the word being delivered. Anyone who claims “The Spirit of God told me this directly,” but cannot call down anything from heaven, is a fake. His only source of information about God is the same as for the rest of us, the Bible. In the New Testament God gives a similar command. “Test everything. Hold fast to what is good.” (1 Thess.5 :21) John cautioned, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God. For many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

It is remarkable that Satan could effectively cancel these divine orders and get religious people to accept a situation where it is considered unethical to ask anyone to prove anything. How does Satan confuse people about what the Holy Spirit is assigned to do now? Men preach things that contradict each other but each one says, “The Holy Spirit told me this.” People claim miraculous gifts and that God speaks to them, but when asked to demonstrate it they say, “God doesn’t do demonstrations.”

This is the height of gullibility in the face of all that God has said about it in the Bible. The real prophets of God did demonstrations. Elijah, for example, challenged the 400 prophets of Baal on the basis of “Can you call down fire from heaven?” When they could not and he did it resolved the matter. (1 Kings 18) Indeed, the very purpose of the “signs and wonders” done by the apostles was to demonstrate the authenticity of their message. Yes, God does demonstrations. The apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.” (2 Cor. 12:12) But Satan cannot meet this test so he wants to repeal it and have a situation where nobody proves anything. How could any Christian accept that and even want it that way? But many do. Common sense would tell us that anyone who does not want things to be proven is pretty transparent as a deceiver. The Bible tells us this many times also. 

For instance, In 2 Thess. 2:9-11 there are grave warnings about carelessness in this matter. It is the key to Satanic deception in the last days. “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they might believe the lie, that they all might be condemned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

No one is being inspired to write the Bible today and no one has the miraculous credentials of the apostles. Other articles on this web site will clarify more fully what the Holy Spirit does do among Christians today. Read them all in comparison with your Bible. These are very important matters.