3
The Work of the
Holy Spirit
It is to your advantage that I go away;
for if I do not go away, the Helper 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.
JOHN 16:7-8
The Work of the Holy Spirit
©laestioins fan This Section:
Does every human being have the potential to receive the Holy Spirit?
What was the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament?
Is there a difference between being baptized with the Holy Spirit and
being filled with the Holy Spirit?
Is there a difference between the Holy Spirit being with someone and
in someone?
Could you explain the baptism of the Holy Spirit that came upon the
hundred and twenty in the upper room after the ascension of Christ?
In Galatians 5, Paul makes the statement "Walk by the Spirit, and
you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." What does this mean?
What does the Bible mean when it talks about quenching the
Holy Spirit?
Does the Spirit ever lead in a way that's contrary to biblically
revealed ethics?
Scripture says that Christ stated the unforgivable sin as being
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Can you expand on that? How
should I pray for someone committing that sin?
Acts 13:52 says, "And the disciples were continually filled with joy and
with the Holy Spirit." Why is it that most Christians today aren't
"continually" in this state?
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The Work of the Holy Spirit
Does every human being have the potential to receive
the Holy Spirit?
There is a certain sense in which every human being already
has the Holy Spirit. Not in the redemptive sense — the sense
in which Christians normally speak about having the Holy
Spirit — but in the sense that they are alive. The Bible tells us
that the power for life itself is grounded in the Holy Spirit.
Paul said to those philosophers at Mars Hill, "In him we live
and move and have our being." In the history of Christian
theology it's been a virtually universal idea that the life princi-
ple in the world is the Holy Spirit, and no one can even be
alive without at least having the life source of God, the Holy
Spirit. But that's not the redemptive sense in which we talk
about having the Spirit by conversion or regeneration or
being indwelt with the Holy Spirit or baptized in the Holy
Spirit — these are distinguishable works of God the Holy
Spirit.
You ask, "Does every human being have the potential to
receive the Holy Spirit?" Let's talk about the Holy Spirit in
terms of his entering into a life to regenerate — to convert
a person and to dwell in that person in a saving way. Does
every human being have the potential to receive the Spirit
in that regard? Well, now let me sound like a confused
modern theologian by saying yes and no.
Yes, in the sense that every human being has the poten-
tial to receive the Holy Spirit insofar as human beings are
made in the image of God. Even though we're fallen, every
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R.C. SPROUL
human being has the capacity to be a receptacle of the
indwelling Holy Spirit. There's nothing about one person
or one group of people or one race or one sex that makes
them lack the potential to be visited by the Holy Spirit.
God the Holy Spirit can come and regenerate and dwell
within any human being he so desires.
Yes, there is this innate or intrinsic potential for every
human being to be filled with the Holy Spirit or regener-
ated by the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit goes where he
wills and where the Father sends him and where the Son
sends him, and I don't believe that God sends the Holy
Spirit to regenerate everybody. They will not be regener-
ated whom the Holy Spirit is not sent to regenerate. And
so if God does not choose to indwell a person by the Holy
Spirit, that person will not be indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
What was the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament?
The role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was not
principally different from the role of the Holy Spirit in the
New Testament. While there are some differences, there's
an essential unity between the two Testaments.
The Holy Spirit was active in many ways in Old Testa-
ment times. First and foremost was the Trinity's part of the
work of creation. In the act of creation itself, the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit were all involved. The Spirit
brooded over the water and brought order and structure
out of the yet unordered universe that we find in the open-
ing chapters of Genesis. People were regenerated in the
Old Testament just as they are regenerated in the New
Testament, and one cannot be regenerated except
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The Work of the Holy Spirit
through the influence of God the Holy Spirit. David
needed the regenerating power of God just as much as the
apostle Paul needed it in the New Testament.
We also know that the Spirit was very active charismatic-
ally; that is, by gifting certain people in the Old Testament
and equipping them for specific tasks. For example, the king
of Israel was anointed with oil, symbolizing his being
anointed by the Holy Spirit to be empowered to carry out
his vocation in a godly way. The same was true of priests.
The prophets of Israel, who were agents of revelation, were
inspired by God the Holy Spirit and equipped to be the
messengers of God to the people and to give us sacred
Scripture in the same basic manner that the apostles in the
New Testament were so endowed and superintended by
the Holy Spirit. So we see that the Spirit was active — regen-
erating, sanctifying, preserving, interceding for — doing all
of those things in the Old Testament that he does in the
New Testament.
What's the difference? In the Old Testament book of
Numbers, when Moses was complaining because the bur-
den of leading all the people had become so weighty it was
about to crush him, he pled for relief from God. God told
him to gather seventy of the elders of Israel in order to
take from the Spirit that was upon Moses and distribute it
to the seventy so they could help him lead the people of
Israel. That's exactly what the text said happened. God
then gave this charismatic empowering, this special gift, to
seventy other people, not just Moses, so that they could all
participate in ministry. That was not regeneration or sancti-
fication, it was an empowering for ministry given only to
select individuals. Moses' prayer was, "Oh, that all the
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Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put
His Spirit upon them!" (Num. 11:29). What Moses prayed
for became a prophecy in the pen of the prophet Joel,
who said that in the latter days that's exactly what would
happen. And on the Day of Pentecost it did happen. The
apostle Peter said that it was about this that Joel was writ-
ing, that now the Spirit to empower the church for minis-
try is given to everybody, not just to the leaders.
Is there a difference between being baptized with the
Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit? If so,
what is that difference?
At times when we read the New Testament record of those
who are baptized in the Spirit or filled with the Spirit, it
seems that these terms are used interchangeably, that they
refer to the same phenomenon. At other times there's a
little distinction that is not altogether clear in the text.
Sometimes it seems that to discern the difference requires
a knife sharper than the one I own.
Let's just go back and ask this question: What does the
Bible mean by the term "baptized in the Holy Spirit"? In
the New Testament there's a distinction between being
born of the Spirit — which is the work of the Holy Spirit to
regenerate us, to change the disposition of our hearts and
make us alive spiritually — and to baptize us in the Holy
Spirit. We read about the baptism of the Holy Spirit princi-
pally on the Day of Pentecost and subsequent events sim-
ilar to the Day of Pentecost in which those who were
gathered were baptized in the Holy Spirit. We understand
that the people who were baptized in the Holy Spirit were
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The Work of the Holy Spirit
already believers and they were already regenerated. So we
must distinguish between the Spirit's work in making us
spiritually alive and the Spirit's work in baptizing us, what-
ever baptizing means. Most churches would affirm that the
primary meaning of the concept of baptism in the Holy
Spirit is the work of the Spirit upon a human being to
endow that person with the power necessary to carry out
their mission and vocation as a Christian.
In the Old Testament that charisma, the gift of the
empowering of the Holy Spirit, was limited to certain indi-
viduals such as priests and prophets and mediators like
Moses. But the point of the New Testament is that the
whole body of the people of God is now being equipped
and empowered from on high to carry out its task. Notice
that Pentecost is tied very closely to the great commission.
Jesus said, "Go into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the out-
ermost parts of the earth, but before you go, tarry in Jeru-
salem. After the Holy Spirit comes upon you, then you can
go and carry out this mandate."
The "baptism of the Spirit" refers to being equipped or
empowered by God's Spirit to carry out the task that Jesus
has given the church. When the Spirit equips us or baptizes
us, we are immersed, as it were, in the Holy Spirit; some-
times the Scriptures refer to this as being filled with the
Holy Spirit. Other times the term "being filled with the Holy
Spirit" is used in the same way as being filled with love or
filled with joy — there's this sensation of superabundance of
the presence of God. I think that sometimes the Scripture is
speaking of something more than simply being equipped
for ministry, but having an awareness, a keen awareness and
consciousness, of the powerful presence of the Spirit.
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Is there a difference between the Holy Spirit being
with someone and in someone?
There is a difference, but I want to be careful about how
I explain it for this reason: I think too many people make
far too much out of the difference in the preposition. The
Bible is not precise enough to give us a whole doctrine that
is to be developed on the basis of "with" and "in."
The Holy Spirit can be said to be with a person who is
not regenerate; that is, he's not born of the Spirit, but the
Spirit can work with that person or be in that person's pres-
ence for a season — -just as he used Cyrus in the Old Testa-
ment, who was presumably not a believer. The Holy Spirit
can come and assist people in a common grace way in
many forms and functions in this world without indwelling
them as part of his permanent residency.
When we talk about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit,
we're talking about his actually coming into the very being
of a Christian in a salvific way that is a result of spiritual
rebirth.
However — and this may confuse everybody — in a certain
sense the Holy Spirit is in everybody. The Holy Spirit is not
only the Spirit of God dwelling in us for the purpose of
sanctification and redemption, but the Holy Spirit is also
ultimately the power source of all life. Without a certain
participation in the power and presence of the Spirit of
God, nothing in this world would exist. The world hangs
together through the power of the Spirit of God. If God
were to withdraw his Holy Spirit totally, everything would
die — believers and unbelievers alike.
Insofar as the Holy Spirit is the power supply or the
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The Work of the Holy Spirit
source of life itself, he's in everybody. We're making a dis-
tinction here between creation and redemption. He's not
working in people who are unregenerate in a spiritual way
to bring about their sanctification and their consequent
ultimate redemption; these activities happen only in those
whom he has regenerated. This is the basic difference.
Could you explain the baptism of the Holy Spirit that
came upon the hundred and twenty in the upper room
after the ascension of Christ?
To do that briefly would be to do a severe injustice to a
very important concept in the New Testament, but I will
try to give an adequate summary.
The New Testament interpreted that experience
through Peter's speech. The people asked what was going
on when they saw and heard the tongues of fire, the sound
of the mighty rushing wind, and the people preaching the
gospel in their own languages. Some people thought they
were witnessing a mass experience of drunkenness. Peter
responded by saying, "These are not drunk as you suppose.
This is that of which the prophet Joel spoke." Then he
referred them back to a prophecy in the Old Testament
that was written by the prophet Joel, in which he stated
that in the latter days God would pour out his Spirit upon
all flesh.
We have to understand this experience also in light of
Jesus' preparatory remarks before his ascension as he com-
missioned his disciples to go into the world and preach the
gospel to every living creature, to go "first to Jerusalem,
then tojudea, Samaria, and to the outermost parts of the
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earth." He told them, however, that before they embarked
on that task, they should tarry in Jerusalem to await the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He said, "You shall receive
power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you."
Historically every Christian denomination has had some
doctrine of the meaning of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
For the most part, the different churches agree that the sig-
nificance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an empower-
ing of the people of God to perform the ministry that
Christ has assigned to his church.
In the Old Testament the Spirit was given only to a
handful of people, namely the priests and prophets. The
rank and file did not participate. Even in the case of
Moses, as we read in Numbers 11, God came to Moses
and took of the Spirit that was upon Moses and distrib-
uted it to seventy other people. He gave it to the seventy
elders so that they could participate in the power to per-
form the ministry that was necessary. At that time Moses
uttered a prayer. He said, "Would to God that all of the
Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put
His Spirit upon them." That prayer became a prophecy in
Joel, and I think the book of Acts interprets that event,
saying that God has kept his promise. He has not just
poured out his Spirit upon the clergy, the priests, the
prophets, or the kings, but he has given his Spirit and
gifted all one hundred and twenty. All of the people of
God now receive the Holy Spirit not only in regeneration,
in rebirth, and in indwelling but also in the gift of the
ability to participate and function in the body of Christ in
Christ's ministry.
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The Work of the Holy Spirit
In Galatians 5, Paul makes the statement "Walk by the
Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the
flesh." It sounds so simple, but what does it actually
mean?
Whenever you see spirit and flesh set side by side in a
passage ("the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" or "the
spirit wars against the flesh," as Paul says here), we're talk-
ing about, not the warfare between the physical body of
man and his internal, mental, or spiritual inclinations, but
rather the conflict that every Christian experiences be-
tween his old nature — his fallen nature, which is corrupt
and is filled with desires that are not pleasing to God — and
the new nature within him that has been brought to pass
by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. .
Now, life becomes complicated once we are renewed by
the Holy Spirit (when we become a Christian); now we
have two principles at war within ourselves: the old inclina-
tions and the new inclinations. The old inclination is
against God, and the new inclination is to obey God and to
do that which is pleasing to him. In this Galatians passage,
Paul discusses the ongoing battle that all Christians experi-
ence. He admonishes us at one point and says, "Follow the
new principle; follow the new spirit, not the old pattern
that was characteristic of your original state of fallenness."
He's not saying that your physical body is at war with your
soul, but that your natural inclinations are at war with the
transformation toward which the Holy Spirit is constantly
moving you as a child of God. And that does involve a deci-
sion and an act of the will.
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What does the Bible mean when it talks about
quenching the Holy Spirit?
I think, first of all, we need to understand that the term to
quench in the New Testament is a metaphor; it involves a
figurative use of language. So often, the Spirit is conveyed
with the image of the burning, consuming flame of fire.
We know that the Holy Spirit is not fire. He is the third
person of the Holy Trinity and is not to be identified ulti-
mately with fire itself. We don't worship fire. But the New
Testament uses this imagery to describe the Spirit coming
upon us and indwelling us as Christian people. We are to
be, as it were, set aflame with a holy passion for the things
of God. Whatever it is that hinders or stifles our internal
cooperation with the indwelling Spirit of God is a kind of
quenching of the Spirit. Just as we would take a garden
hose to put out a fire in the backyard, we quench the
flames by smothering them under that water.
When the Holy Spirit initially comes upon us — when we
are born of the Spirit — I'm convinced that the first act of
the Holy Spirit is to come into our lives in a sovereign,
instantaneous, effective moment by which the Spirit brings
us to spiritual life. We don't cooperate with it. We are as
passive in it as we were when we were conceived and born
biologically. I'm convinced that this work of life by which
we are born of the Spirit (which the New Testament calls
quickening) is the sovereign work of God.
I once had the marvelous experience of meeting with
Billy Graham. We talked about many things in that meet-
ing. Billy told me how he came to Christ the first time.
Here's the greatest evangelist probably in the history of
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The Work of the Holy Spirit
the world — at least in terms of the number of people he's
reached — telling his conversion story to me with the same
excitement as if it had happened yesterday afternoon.
When he explained how God began to work in his life and
move in his heart, when he talked about being brought
from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light,
his final words were these: "The Holy Spirit did it all." I
couldn't agree more.
After that moment of being quickened to new life, of
regeneration, the rest of the Christian life is a cooperative
venture between the new person in Christ and the power
of the Holy Spirit, who dwells inside him or her. The more
we cooperate with the Spirit, the more we grow in grace,
but we can retard and hinder that growth by doing those
things that would put out the fire.
Does the Spirit ever lead in a way that's contrary to
biblically revealed ethics?
No, of course not. The Holy Spirit couldn't possibly lead
somebody to disobey the Holy Spirit's teaching. That
would be God acting against himself. I would think it
would be elementary and manifestly obvious to every
Christian that God the Holy Spirit will not give you as
an individual a leading to act in defiance of the written
Word of God.
I speak so strongly about this precisely because I run
into people all the time who tell me that God has given
them an inclination or a private leading that excuses
them from the moral obligations God has set forth. I've
had people tell me that they prayed about committing
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adultery and that God the Holy Spirit gave them peace
about it. How much lower -can you go? That's not blas-
phemy against the Holy Spirit, but that certainly grieves
the Holy Spirit. It also comes perilously close to blas-
phemy against the Holy Spirit to not only refuse to
repent of sin but to attribute the motivation and the
license for it to God himself. This is the propensity we
have, to call good evil and evil good.
I've seen otherwise devout and earnest Christians talk
in this manner. I've had biblical scholars look me straight
in the eye and tell me that the Holy Spirit gave them per-
mission to do something that God clearly prohibits in his
Word. This is one of the reasons the Scriptures tell us to
test the spirits to see if they are from God. How do we test
a spirit? How do I know if I have the leading of the Holy
Spirit? That can be a very whimsical and subjective type
of thing. I do believe that God the Spirit inclines our
hearts in certain directions and will help to lead us in the
living of this life, but we have to be very careful lest we
confuse the leading of the Spirit with indigestion or,
what's worse, the leading of the anti-Spirit, the leading
of the enemy himself, who would seek to lead us astray.
Remember that Satan disguises himself as an angel of
light.
If you believe that the Scriptures come through the
inspiration of God the Holy Spirit and that he is the Spirit
of truth and it is that truth that is embodied in the sacred
Scripture, then the easiest way to test any private inclina-
tion or group leaning that you get from other people is
with the written Word of God. I'm confident that there we
have the leading of the Spirit. There the Spirit is inspired.
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The Work of the Holy Spirit
The Spirit of truth has set forth for us in the propositions
of Scripture what is pleasing to God and in keeping with
his perfect will. I can't conceive of God the Spirit telling
me to disobey what God has spoken.
Scripture says that Christ stated the unforgivable sin
as being blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Can you
expand on that, and how should I pray for someone
committing that sin?
There's a lot of confusion over the sin that Jesus says
cannot be forgiven either in this world or in the world to
come. Some people think that the unforgivable sin is
murder because the Old Testament gives us such strong
sanctions against murder and says that if a person has
committed murder, even if he repents, he is still to be
executed. Others believe that it's adultery because adul-
tery violates the union of two people. As gross as these sins
may be, I don't think they fit the description here because
we see that King David, for example, who is guilty of both
adultery and murder, is forgiven.
I think Jesus is clear. He does identify it. He says that
the sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. What does
that mean? First of all, let's understand that blasphemy is
a sin that can only be done with words. It's a sin that you
commit with your mouth or with your pen — it's a verbal
sin. It has to do with saying something against the Holy
Spirit. You remember that the religious leaders — the
clergy, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees — were the ones
who were constantly being hostile toward Jesus and stir-
ring up a conspiracy to do him in. They plotted to kill
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Jesus, and they were constantly attacking him and charg-
ing him with this and that/ On one occasion they said
that Jesus was casting out Satan by the power of Satan. It's
almost as ifJesus said, "Hold it right there, guys. I've been
patient with you, I've been tolerant with you, I've been
long-suffering, but you are coming perilously close now
to making an accusation against me that's going to wipe
you out now and forever." He said that any sin against the
Son of Man can be forgiven, but if you blaspheme against
the Holy Spirit (to ascribe the work of the Holy Spirit to
Satan, or to equate them), you've had it. Notice also that
when Jesus is on the cross, he prays for those very men
who have put him there: "Father, forgive them
—
" Why?
" — for they know not what they have done." And on the
Day of Pentecost when Peter gave his ripsnorting sermon,
he talks about those who killed Jesus, that they would not
have done it had they known. After the Resurrection, the
Holy Spirit raised Jesus up and declared him to be the
Christ with power. If you read the book of Hebrews, you'll
see that the distinction between blaspheming Christ and
blaspheming the Holy Spirit falls away.
As for those who have committed "the sin unto death,"
the Bible says that we are not required to pray for those
people. We are to pray for people who are committing
any other sin, but if we see a person committing the sin
unto death, we are not required to pray for them. The
Bible doesn't say we are not allowed to pray for them, but
we're not required to, and I would think that would apply
to this sin.
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Acts 13:52 says, "And the disciples were continually
filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit." Why is it that
most Christians today aren't "continually" in this state?
First of all, when we read a statement like that in the
book of Acts, it describes the attitude and posture of the
disciples at a particular time in redemptive history. I
think we would be remiss if we actually thought that the
book of Acts was trying to tell us that throughout their
entire lives, under all circumstances, in every moment,
the early church Christians were always constantly bub-
bling over with joy. We read the letters of the apostle Paul
in which he is expressing profound anguish and sorrow
and grief at different points in his ministry. He talks
about the fact that he has learned how to be content in
whatever state he's in and that there is an undercurrent,
a supporting system, ofjoy that is basic to his whole Chris-
tian life. However, that joy regularly suffers the intrusions
of sorrow, disappointment, and frustration. In fact, he
says that he is at times perplexed but not in despair, he is
cast down but not destroyed, he has to struggle just as
you and I have to struggle.
One particular short period of time in the early church
when there was much about which to be happy and to
rejoice occurred when the Holy Spirit was being poured
out and there was one triumph after another of the out-
pouring of God's Spirit. Of course, this was a time of cele-
bration, a time ofjubilation as the Spirit was being poured
out on the church and the church was seeing the remark-
able expansion of growth and development that went with
its early years.
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It may be that in general Christians today are not as
happy or as joyful as they were in the first century. I'm not
sure that's the case, but if it is, I think it's something we
could normally expect after two thousand years of being
removed from the immediate presence of the ministry of
Jesus. The early church did have the advantage of being
eyewitnesses to Jesus, which is why he said, "More blessed
are those who believe having not seen" than those who
enjoyed the privilege of being part of the original church.
Obviously, if people in the Christian church today had the
same experiences as those had by the fathers and mothers
of our Christian church in the first century, I think we
would see a deeper level of zeal and commitment and joy.
We must be careful not to idealize the early Christian
community described in Acts because at times it was not
pure. There were lots of problems, and in his letters Paul
addresses many problems and struggles that were going on
in the early church. But there was a spirit there that we
need to have infect the church today, a spirit ofjoy and a
sense of power in the presence of the Spirit of God.
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