Greetings Friends!
Some of you may not realize this yet, but I have subdivided much of this series already. So far here is where we have been and where we are going:
Week 1 - Pentecost What? An exploration of what Pentecost was/is and how that impacts our lives today.
Week 2 - The Fruits of the Spirit - How to listen to the voice of the Spirit in our lives.
Week 3 - The Guide of Life - Looking at the role of Holy Spirit as guide.
Those three have already been done. Here's what's next:
Week 4 - The HS as Counselor - looking at the concept of Paraclete in Scripture.
Week 5 - The HS as Teacher - How the HS helps us in our understanding of the Word.
Week 6 - The HS as Intercessor - The HS's role in prayer, particularly as interpreter to the Father on our behalf.
Week 7 - The Gifts of the Spirit - Moving in the direction of community and mission.
So that's the layout. Now for your input!
Here are some of the passages I am working on for this week on the HS as counselor:
John 14:15-18
15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
NIV
John 14:25-27
25 "All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
NIV
John 15:26-27
26 "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
NIV
John 16:5-11
5 "Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?' 6 Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10 in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
NIV
The Greek uses a very specific term (Paraclete), which could be translated counselor, comforter, encourager, or advocate. What are your impressions from these passages, and in particular I am interested in your thoughts on the final section where the Spirit is the convictor of guilt.
Thanks for your help.
Bless You!
2 comments:
Steve,
A couple of questions:
1) Somewhere in Romans, it says that God has put a conscience in each of us, his law is written on our hearts. Because of this, we all should know that we are sinful; we are conscious of our guilt. So when Jesus says that he will send us the HS, what does he mean by saying that the HS will convict us of sin, when we have had that since the beginning?
2) The HS will convict us of guilt in regard to righteousness because he is "going to the Father where you can see me no longer." Two sub-questions here. What does it mean to convict us of guilt in regard to righteousness? and Why would Jesus leaving produce this effect?
P
Hey Stephen,
Oh, man. I have many, many thoughts:
I had to go back and read earlier in the John 14 passage to get the context, and here’s what I found interesting: Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (v 15). He might be talking generally, but earlier in the chapter, he gives them one specific command (and uses that word): “Love one another.” If he’s talking about this particular command, he seems to be saying, “In order for you to be able to love one another, I am sending help.” Like, it’s really, really crucial that you guys get this right, but you can’t do it on your own. Thus, the HS.
Jesus calls it the Spirit of truth. I was talking with someone the other day about "principalities and powers" (as any system that becomes an entity unto itself, drawing us away from the Kingdom), and we were thinking about some of the main ones in the cultures we come from (he comes from eastern Europe). I started thinking about how my culture speaks, quite literally sometimes, about wealth and power, beauty and respect, prestige, self-fulfillment… and how all of these things encourage us to prosper at the expense of our brother (which is exactly against Christ saying, “Love one another”). So the Holy Spirit as a voice of truth is a powerful counter-influence that may be the only thing guiding us away from the voices that say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Holy Spirit helps us, contrary to the world, to see people not as means, but as ends.
About the phrase, “It is good for you that I am going away.” I was thinking that there’s a growth process in learning: to develop a skill, initially, you need someone to show you details and hold your hand or do it with you (strum a guitar, let you dance on their feet). Eventually, when you learn the basic actions of an activity, someone can stand to the side and coach you—without them holding your hand, you discover that you are able to do more, that your intuition kicks in. I think Christ’s life was the hand-holding of our discipleship, but we need the Holy Spirit to shift our steps from movement into a dance—we need to develop intuition, to let the actions become part of our nature. We become more mature followers when we’re not just painting by number.
(For the past several weeks, I’ve been struggling with whether to stay on another year here. I had such a strong sense of conviction and peace about coming here initially that I was waiting for the same sort of push from God. As I was thinking/praying at one point, asking God where my sign was, it was like God was saying, "That was before. You're a big kid, you know me. You don't need the signs and audible voices this time. You know how to make this decision." Incidentally, I am staying another year…)
On the last part: “He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment…” Based on this passage, and the explanations Jesus gives:
• Sin means believing in/giving allegiance to anything above Christ. The Holy Spirit, then, enables us to discern where we have put our allegiance and correct it.
• Convicting us in regards to righteousness means we no longer have our literal, living example of righteousness, so we need to be checked again and again in our spirits in order to live as Christ "would" (as opposed to "did"): it means the Spirit helps us live not as exact clones of Christ, but as imitators, people who are inspired by him, who follow his example rather than his every action.
• Judgment gets transformed because we base our right to judge others on the standards our cultures set. Sometimes they’re religious (we judge people who swear or listen to rap music), sometimes they’re class-related (we judge people because of their appearance or education), sometimes we judge them by our own emotional needs or condition (whatever criteria sets us apart, makes us superior and valued). But all these standards are set by the world, and if Christ’s life and death have overcome the Prince (or principalities?) of this world, then it nullifies our basis for judgment. It means those standards stand condemned.
The Holy Spirit, then, helps us own our own sin and false righteousness and judgment: and owning our guilt is the only way we, as the Body, can be a redemptive presence in the world. As long as we operate as though we are guiltless, we’ll never be able to love one another. Love comes from humility, and humility comes from accepting the truth––and the source of truth is the Spirit.
LOTS. Might not be sound. But that's where my brain went... :)
:Simone
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