Understanding the Holy Spirit – Part 1

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever [john 14:16]

At this time, Jesus was with the disciples all the time. They went places together. They worked together. They ate together. They hung out together all the time. He had also given them power to cast out demons, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and raise the dead. The disciples were already living a supernatural life. But all this happened because Jesus was with them. If they had a problem they would come to Him. He was their solution provider. Their bread giver. Their protector. He was their teacher. Their Master. Their life was pretty much around Him. They would get up in the morning and their day was dictated by what the Master was doing and where He was going. Where ever the Master would rest for the night, they would rest there with Him. They were captivated by His words. Once Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” ‘Jesus’ pretty much summed up their life.

The term used for ‘another comforter’ in the greek is ‘allos paraclaytos’. There are two words in the greek that means ‘Another’. Allos and heteros. ‘Allos’ means another of the same kind, while heteros means another of a different kind. When the bible says “Allos”  here it means Jesus to say that someone just like Himself, of the same class, group and Order would come. SO even though Jesus would go away, He would send the Holy Spirit to each one us just as Jesus was to the disciples when He was here. The disciples would have the same kind of life  even though Jesus was gone. Then all of them had one Jesus. But when the Holy Spirit came, each one had a living individual relationship with the Holy Spirit at the same time no matter where they were. Jesus expected nothing to change when the Holy Spirit came. It would be the same like it was in the days of Jesus. They would go where the Holy Spirit would go. They would call unto Him in times of despair and He would come to their rescue. He would be their teacher. Their bread provider. Their friend and confidant. He would be everything their life was about. They would wake up with Him and rest where He would stop for the day. Their day would begin and end with Him.

The Strong’s Concordance for paraclaytos gives us the following meaning :

• Counsellor : and an extraordinay strategist – The Holy Spirit counselled Joshua on how to take down the wall of Jericho (Joshua 5:13-15).
• Helper – He helps us in our times of weakness to pray the right prayer. He knows what is needed and what’s coming, when we don’t even know what to pray.
• Intercessor – The Holy Spirit intercedes for us through other people in prayer.
• Advocate – He fights on our behalf. Miriam`s leprosy (Num 12) was the cause of God intervening for Moses to establish him even from among his own brother and sister.
• Strengthener – physical strength – Samson killed a thousand men with the jaw bone of as ass(Judges 15:15); gideon – moral and military strength- (Joshua 6:11-17,7,8)
• standby – as a generator when all your power is drained – Samson`s end.

Many people don’t have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and don’t know Him. The Holy Spirit is not a dove or smoke or anything else that we see Him many times represented as. But the Holy Spirit, the third person of the God-head[Father, Son, Holy Spirit] is God. He is a person and has a personality. He has feelings and emotions. He can be grieved and quenched. He is gentle and never forces His will on us. When He comes in our midst, miracles are bound to happen. Sicknesses cannot stay in His presence. Bondages have to break in His presence. It is His presence in our midst that makes our life dynamic and full of power. This is why Jesus said, It is better for Him to go, so that He could send the Holy Spirit to each one of us. When Jesus lived on the earth, Jesus had the totality of the Holy Spirit. Though Jesus was God, He stripped away His divinity and chose to be born a human. But it was the Holy Spirit in Him that made Him supernatural.

Jesus demonstrated what any man who is empowered by the Holy Spirit is capable of doing. After that the Holy Spirit came up on Jesus at His baptism, Jesus turned water into vine. Healed the sick. Cast out demons from people. Walked on water. Raised the dead. Healed the lepers. Multiplied bread. Calmed the storm with a word. And finally raised Himself from the dead. That is why Jesus said, greater works than He did we could do. It is the Holy Spirit in a person that makes him like Jesus.

But we need to develop an intimacy with the Holy Spirit if we want to do mighty deeds of faith. Power must always be a by product of our intimacy with Him. Because He is always seeking to heal someone hurting or to set someone free. He is compassionate to our needs. But the Holy Spirit is not an entertainer. He never does anything to entertain us.

Reproving the world

And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:9 Of sin, because they believe not on me; 10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; 11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. [John 16:8-10]

John 16:8 gives us another function of the Holy Spirit as He convicts the world. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgement

1. 1. Of sin because they believe not on me. This is not saying that the only sin is not believing in Jesus now and every other sin is no more a sin. Jesus is saying that because belief in Jesus is the only way to forgiveness of sins, and if anyone does not believe in Jesus, their sins are just the way it was. They were sinners in need of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit out of His love for the people, would convict the world of its sins, prodding them to accept the gift of life from the Father.

2. Of Righteousness. Before Jesus came, there was no one who was righteous.

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: [Rom 3:10]

Jesus came at a time, when the Jews lived in spiritual blindness and thought themselves righteous through the keeping of the law given through Moses. They lived in the letter of the Law but did not comprehend the spirit of it. They believed keeping the Law was all God was interested in, and counted themselves righteous for every law they kept. Jesus saw their spiritual state and did not mince words when He said :

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. [Mat 23:27-28]

Righteousness is not an outwardly attribute but an inward one. We can only appear righteous. But God that judges the heart of man knows the righteousness of men and He judged them all unrighteous.

Here were the supposed teachers and leaders of the Jewish community, but among them walked another from among them, that provoked them and taught them righteousness. Every act of the Master, provoked them to jealousy. Jesus threatened their status quo. Because every time, Jesus spoke, they knew He was redefining everything they so painfully established to suit their own evil ways. Jesus always convicted them of their lack of righteousness. Now that Jesus was going, the Holy Spirit would do this very thing. The Holy Spirit would convict the people of the world of their righteousness.
What is righteousness?

There is this supernatural divine attribute of righteousness which when we consider, we get to understand a whole new realm. Righteousness is :
A.The rightness of God. That God is always right. If God would call the moon, Sun, it would be so.
B.That before Him, everything would become right. A. The sick would become healed. The cursed would become blessed. There is this story of the Ark from the Old Testament in 1Chronicles 13. After Uzza was killed by not keeping the proper order that was demanded of God for the transportation of the Ark, David suddenly was afraid to continue carrying the Ark back to Jerusalem and he left the Ark with Obed-Edom. He was a nobody. But when the Ark of the Lord came into his house, suddenly he became blessed. The bible says he had eight sons and all the eight were blessed. This was after the Ark remained in his house for three months.

The rightness of God is healing, prosperity, holiness etc. Everywhere you have been wronged the rightness of God can change the wrong to right. Righteousness is the rightness of God in your Spirit, soul and body and in all our affairs.

The righteousness of Jesus revealed in the fig tree account.
The account of the fig tree is mentioned in Luke 13:6-9. Many people don’t understand why such a loving Jesus would, without rhyme or reason curse a tree for not producing fruit outside its season. The bible tells us that the season was not yet for figs. Yet Jesus expected the tree to bear fruit because He wanted it. But the fig tree did not respond to the righteousness of the Son of God. When Jesus wanted money to pay tax, the righteousness of the Son of God forced all nature to respond to His need. A fish somewhere in the deep sea, received this request and it probably went and swallowed a gold coin that was on the seabed and came searching for that hook that Peter had put out and took the bait to serve the Master. This is what the righteousness of  God can truly do.

So now when the Holy Spirit has come, He has set the standards of righteousness and He is calling each one to that standard. The Kingdom of God is here and the kingdom is beckoning the people to follow a standard of righteousness that it has set, which no one can meet on their own merit. Jesus is that standard. And without Him, everyone would be seen coming short. Today the Holy Spirit convicts everyone everywhere that without Jesus there is no righteousness.

3. Of Judgement : Of Judgement because the prince of this world is judged. When Jesus started His ministry, he handed down the judgement to the devil and went about enforcing this judgement. Jesus outlawed everything the devil did and began to undo what the devil had done. In the account of Luke, the first miracle of Jesus is the casting out of demons from a man.

And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, 34 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. 35 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not. 36 And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. [Luke 4:33-36]

Mathew’s account of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry says

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. 24 And his fame went throughout all Syria:and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them [Mat 4:23-24]

All manner of sickness and diseases were caused because of the demonic reign over the world. When Jesus came, the bible says, He preached saying ” The Kingdom of God is at hand”. Everything that came upon the world as a result of the satanic kingdom would be judged.

A kingdom is where a king has dominion. Dominion is the highest type of power. When the Kingdom of God comes over a place, everything else that was there needs to bow down. Everything standing in opposition will have to flee. Because in dominion there are no two parties contending. When the satanic kingdom rules, the nature of that kingdom would be seen everywhere it has dominion. But when the Kingdom of God comes upon a place, it is on earth as it is in heaven. There is no sickness in heaven. So sickness has to go. There are no demonic confinements and bondages in heaven. So people must be set free. Jesus judged satan and his kingdom everywhere He went.

When the Holy Spirit came, He would continue doing this. Everywhere He sees the reign of the satanic kingdom, He would pronounce His judgement over it and free the people. That is why healings, signs and wonders happen today. They are the result of the judgement of God on satan and his kingdom.

…To be Continued