The Overcomer Trust

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HE SHALL TEACH.

By Dr. M. Ashton.


God the Holy Spirit is a PERSON. That does not mean that He has a body. A body is not necessary to personality. God is a Person, but He has not got a body as we have. A person is made up of three things, a mind which thinks, emotions which feel and a will which chooses, and the Holy Spirit has all three.

The mind, “He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit” (Rom. 8 v27). 

The emotions, “The love of the Spirit” (Rom. 15 v30). 

The will, ‘‘All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives to each one, just as he determines” (1 Cor. 12 v11).

We must not think of the Holy Spirit as just a Power or Influence. He is a Person, as really a Person as God the Father is a Person and the Lord Jesus Christ is a Person. Not only is He a Person, He is a Divine Person. GOD the Holy Spirit, equal with God the Father and God the Son in the Godhead. Many arguments from Scripture could be used to support this but we shall think of only two here.

Jesus said, “Baptising them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28 v19). Not in the Names but in the Name. One Name, three equal parts, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Peter said, “How is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit . . . You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5 v3-4). A lie to the Holy Spirit is a lie to God.

Since the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, do we treat Him as such? Do we love Him, trust Him, honour Him and obey Him? Do we recognise the Person of the great Teacher as we teach?

When the Lord Jesus Christ ascended up to heaven with His work of redemption finished, God the Father gave Him the Holy Spirit, and Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to earth to make this earth His Home. ’‘Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2 v33).

As really as the Lord Jesus made this earth His Home for thirty-three years, so has the Holy Spirit made this earth His home, from Pentecost until the coming again of the Lord Jesus. His home is in the Church which is made up of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, “And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit” (Eph. 2 v22). And also in the hearts of all those who are true believers in the Lord Jesus. ‘’Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God ? You are not your own” (1 Cor. 6 v19).

Of course we cannot divide the Godhead. When the Lord Jesus lived on earth the Father was in Him and the Spirit filled Him, and when we say that the Holy Spirit lives on earth we recognise that the Father and the Son are present in Him. “Another Comforter . . . to be with you . . . I will come to you . . . My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14 v16-25). At present the home of the Father and the Son is in heaven and that of the Holy Spirit is here on earth, and it is here that He is doing His work and exercising His power.

Since the home of God the Holy Spirit is here on earth are we making Him feel at home? Is He at home in our heart? Do we allow Him into every corner? Does He control our thinking, our feeling, our choices? Is this great Teacher at home as we teach? Do we consult Him as we prepare to teach? Do we look actively to Him to teach us how to teach? Do we allow Him to control our behaviour towards those we teach? Do we expect Him to work in their hearts?

We are only thinking here of one aspect of the power of the Holy Spirit, His power as it is shown in connection with teaching the Word of God.

His Power has to be at work in the teacher. We are told that others must see Jesus in us if we are to lead them to Him. Do we realise that the Holy Spirit has the power to do just that in us, to create in us, even us, a Christlikeness, as Christ by His Spirit dwells in our heart? “He may strengthen with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3 v16-17).

“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor. 3 v3). This means that we are to be like letters which tell people about the Lord Jesus, and that the writing of this letter is to be made on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

If we are to teach we must ourselves be taught, and it is the Holy Spirit who has power to teach us to understand the Bible in such a way that we can teach it and make it living and real to others. “But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read . . .  only in Christ is it taken away . . . Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3 v14-17). This means that when we turn actively to the Holy Spirit to teach us He will open our eyes to see the Lord Jesus in the Scriptures in a way we never have before.

Then He gives us power to enable us in our teaching. In Luke 4 v18 we are told that the Lord Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit to preach. If He needed that anointing how much more do we for all our teaching. 

Lastly, and perhaps the most important of all, the Holy Spirit has the power to teach us to pray for others. If our life is yielded to Him, He will pray through us, and we will be enabled to pray for them faithfully and earnestly, as we must if we are to see real spiritual results in them.  “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us” (Rom. 8 v26).

His Power as He works in others. Our desire is that others will so understand God’s Word that they will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and then grow in their Christian lives. To this end they must first be convicted of sin and only the Holy Spirit has power to do this. “When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt” (John 16 v8-9). Then they must be brought to understand the work of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. This also the Holy Spirit has power to do. “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (John 16 v14).

Then they must be born again, and it is the Holy Spirit who has the power to bring about this new birth in response to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. “Born of the Spirit” (John 3 v5, 6 & 8).

Then they must walk in the Christian pathway and grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. This walk is to be in the Spirit, (Gal. 5 v16). And it is His power which will enable them for everything that this walk involves.

He is also able to bear witness in the hearts of others to all the truths we seek to teach them. “We are witnesses . . . and so is the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5 v29-32).

What is our attitude to be to this great Teacher whom God has given us? We should go through the New Testament and underline all the passages which tell what our attitude should be to the Holy Spirit.

We should not grieve the Holy Spirit, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4 v30). That means that we should not make Him sad. We can do that in two ways. We can ignore His presence. If my child comes home and takes no notice of me, I am sad, and the great Teacher is made sad if we do our preparation and go to teach with no recognition of His wonderful Person and Presence and Power. 

He is the HOLY Spirit and anything that is unholy or sinful in our life, however small, makes Him sad. Will we actively bring Him into all our teaching and will we be quick to confess all sin, so that the blood of Jesus may keep on cleansing us?

We should enter into active partnership with Him. That is the meaning of the communion of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13 v14). Seek to understand from the Scriptures His ways of working and bring our ways into line with His ways. For instance, He is the Spirit of Truth, and we must be careful that we know the truth of the subjects we teach. He is the Spirit of Life so the subjects we teach must be living in our own experience, otherwise they will not bring life to others. He is the one who glorifies the Lord Jesus, so our teaching must be full of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If our teaching is to produce lasting results, the one absolute essential is that we constantly recognise the Person, the Presence and the Power of the divine Teacher, God the Holy Spirit.