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“God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
[1]
“God gave us a spirit…” It is a truly divine mystery—the Spirit of God hallows the body of each believer.
This tabernacle, this body of frail flesh that is even now decaying and passing away, is declared to be the Temple of God.
The Apostle has written, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.
So glorify God in your body” [1 CORINTHIANS 6:19, 20].
We understand that God presents Himself as a tripartite Being.
When we speak about God or even address Him as God, we often become fuzzy in our thinking.
For many Christians, it is not difficult to think of God the Father as God seated on His Throne.
Though we speak of God the Son, believing that He is God, we do not always act as though He is God even if we give tacit acknowledgement that He is really and truly God.
However, it is almost de rigueur to treat God the Spirit—the Third Person of the Trinity—as an influence rather than the Person He is.
In short, the concept of the Triune God is difficult for us to grasp and whatever our conception of God, it tends to break apart when we begin to speak about the Holy Spirit.
I’ll be the first to confess that we preachers have done a poor job of teaching about the Triunity.
We often gloss over the concept, giving the teaching short shrift.
In fairness to those of us who preach, the subject often seems overwhelming as we attempt to communicate what is essentially the character of the Holy One in the short time available.
I often feel restricted if I take the time I have allowed in these longer messages.
Many pastors are trained to restrict themselves to twenty minutes or less.
Candidly, I’m barely past my introduction after twenty minutes!
Nevertheless, it is essential that we enable the saints to know God, equipping them to communicate the deep things of God to those they encounter.
Our charge is to reveal God through His Word to those to whom we are sent.
The Apostle makes a fascinating statement that is easy to pass by if we aren’t careful.
“God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” [2 TIMOTHY 1:7].
That singular statement will be the focus of our study today.
Please open your Bible to the passage and weigh the truths that God has provided in His Word.
*GOD GAVE US A SPIRIT* — Our focus in this message will be the Holy Spirit, commonly referred to as the Third Person of the Trinity.
In order to discuss this concept intelligently, we need to define “Person.”
What do we mean when we sing the words voiced in the Doxology, “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity?” Intoning these ancient words, we are giving voice to a divinely revealed truth concerning God.
Understand that when we speak about God, human language will always prove inadequate.
Our language is based on time; and God is not bounded by time.
Also, language carries physical and spatial connotations that cannot apply to God.
And yet we must use language to communicate what we know of God.
One word that stands out as inadequate for describing the Triune God is the word “Person.”
Person is a finite term as we usually use the word.
When we speak of God, we speak of one “what” and three “who’s.”
The “what” is the Being or Essence of God.
The three “who’s” are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
There is one Person of the Father who is always the Father.
There is one Person of the Son who is always the Son.
And there is one Person of the Spirit who is always the Spirit.
[2] Each of these Persons is distinct from the others, and yet all are one in essence and purpose.
Each of the Persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit is fully and truly God; thus, they are perfectly one in the identity of their nature.
In speaking of the Trinity, then, we encounter three Persons in one Being.
God is One, as Moses declared: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” [DEUTERONOMY 6:4].
That is to say, there is but one God.
We do not worship three gods, for God has revealed Himself as One.
Jesus declared as He prayed, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” [JOHN 17:3].
However, though God is one, yet He speaks of Himself in the plural, especially in the Creation account.
Note the account of the creation of mankind.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’” [GENESIS 1:26].
God (singular) spoke, but He used the plural in speaking of the creation of mankind.
Some have speculated that He spoke to angels who are presumed to have been present.
Frankly, we can dismiss such speculation.
First, there is no indication that angels were involved in creation other than to have perhaps sung to the glory of God near the end of the Creation Week.
[3] Again, where is it recorded that God ever invited inferior entities to join in his creative work?
Others have suggested that God was using the plural of majesty at this point.
However, if that is so, it does not fit with the character of God as revealed throughout the entirety of the Old Covenant.
God does not speak in stilted or self-aggrandising language elsewhere in the Bible.
Why should we imagine that He does so here?
No, it seems best to understand that God is speaking within the Godhead as the Triune God as He prepares to create mankind.
After the fall of our first parents, we again see this language of the One God speaking in the plural.
“The LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.
Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—’” [GENESIS 3:22].
Note that Yahweh, the One True God who speaks; and yet, He says, “The man has become like one of us.”
Yet another passage in Genesis that must be considered is found in the account of the judgement at Babel.
“The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do.
And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.’
So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city” [GENESIS 11:6-8].
Again, it is Yahweh, the LORD, who speaks; and yet, His concern is that the man may become as they are.
Let me point out one final reference, though many can be adduced.
Note the account of the LORD advising Abraham of the destruction of Sodom.
Here is the extended passage.
“The LORD appeared to [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.
He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him.
When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, ‘O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.
Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.’
So they said, ‘Do as you have said’” [GENESIS 18:1-5].
Note that the LORD is identified as appearing to Abraham [VERSE 1].
However, when he looks us, he sees three men [VERSE 2].
However, when Abraham speaks, he addresses the visitors in the singular, “O Lord” [VERSE 3]; and yet, in the verse following Abraham speaks in the plural.
The alternation continues throughout the narrative.
Abraham repeatedly speaks to “the LORD” [VERSES 10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 22], and then refers “the men” [VERSES 16, 22].
Let’s understand, then, that we are not speaking of three gods—that is polytheism.
Neither are we speaking of God expressing Himself in three different ways—that is modalism.
Neither are we saying that there is inequality between the Persons of the Trinity—that is subordinationism or even Arianism.
God presents Himself in the Word as One God in Three Persons, equal in essence, in power, in purpose.
We must be balanced in our study of the Triune God.
While the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons with unique attributes, the distinctions are not essential—that is, the distinctions are not distinctions of essence.
We dare not permit ourselves to become sloppy in our thinking about God.
My focus in this message is the Spirit of God, so let’s turn our attention to Him.
Throughout Scripture, God’s Spirit is witnessed acting as God acts and doing the things that God does.
For instance, the Spirit of God was active in creation.
As the Creation Account unfolds, we read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” [GENESIS 1:1, 2].
He is said to give life.
Note a couple of instances in the Word where the Spirit of God is seen as the one giving life.
Of God’s Spirit, the Psalmist has written:
“When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
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