The Role of the Holy Spirit in Our Lives

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit”. We all enter this world through the natural birthing process (the water), but in order to be a part of God’s eternal Kingdom, we must also be born of the Spirit. The works of the Holy Spirit are continuous throughout our lives as believers: through his gifting, his guiding, empowerment, and teaching. However, there are specific roles He plays in our conversion process- in that moment in our lives when we make a decision to become a follower of Christ and the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within us. First, the Spirit convicts us; then He regenerates us; and finally, He indwells us, and seals us.

Conviction is the first aspect of our conversion- to know that we have a need in the first place. Jesus told his disciples the Holy Spirit would convict the world. “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment”. The Holy Spirit convicts our hearts of the truth- we are guilty of sin, we have missed the mark of God’s perfection. This conviction becomes the driving force for us to seek peace with that verdict.

The Holy Spirit convicts the whole world, yet not all will listen to this conviction. Some people will simply ignore it, never questioning what the nagging feeling is in their conscience, eventually hardening their hearts to the truth. There are also those who will agree that they are “sinners”, a term often used to simply mean, “hey, I’m not perfect, but I’m not so bad either”, excusing away how they live their life. They will often have the hope that when they die, the good will have outweighed the bad and heaven will receive them. These same people will not seek the pardon from conviction. They are without peace and remain captive to sin. They will spend their lives seeking relief from the weight of the guilt by any means that will mask or divert it. They are relying on their own righteousness to bring them into God’s presence.

However, for those who seek relief and pardon by the redemptive work of Christ, we accept in faith the need for forgiveness and new life. It is through the Holy Spirit we are regenerated or “made new”. Titus chapter three, verse five tells us: “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”. It is through this washing, or baptism of the Holy Spirit, that regeneration takes place.

Regeneration defined as “The act of begetting by God, which imparts eternal life” (McCauley). This life is our “new life” in God’s Kingdom, beginning here and now on earth. The old life of sin has passed away. We are born again, pardoned and set free from sins captivity. Second Corinthians chapter five verse seventeen tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

This regenerative process takes place by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit actually resides in our hearts. First Corinthians chapter six, verse nineteen asks the question, “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” The Holy Spirit is in us, indwelling us. Now that He has come in and made his home with us, He “seals us”.

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory”. (Ephesians 1:13-14). What does this mean when the Bible tells us He seals us? The word “sealed’ brings to mind a jar that is closed tightly. In Ephesians, from the original language, “sealed” is transliterated, Sphragizo.

Sphragizo, used fifteen times in the New Testament and is defined as the following:
to set a seal upon, mark with a seal, to seal for security: from Satan since things sealed up are concealed (as the contents of a letter); to hide, keep in silence, keep secret in order to mark a person or a thing; to set a mark upon by the impress of a seal or a stamp; angels are said to be sealed by God; in order to prove, confirm, or attest a thing to confirm authenticate; place beyond doubt of a written document; to prove one's testimony to a person that he is what he professes to be.

When the Bible tells us we are “sealed”, it means we “are securely hidden” from the reaches of Satan. The seal of the Holy Spirit brings great hope and joy. It acts as an assurance of the thing that we hope for: the redemption of our body and spirit for eternity. It is one of the greatest actions of the Holy Spirit in our conversion process. For in it, we can rest in His work and not our own. As stated earlier, it is by God’s mercy, and not our own righteousness, that we are born again.

It is also a permanent action, “Believers may lose the filling – but not the indwelling”. Once the Holy Spirit has makes His dwelling with us, it is by His seal upon us that we know we no longer belong to ourselves. This is an area often misunderstood as we confuse the” indwelling of the Holy Spirit” with the “filling of the Holy Spirit”. The filling of the Holy Spirit is one of those actions of the Spirit that is continuous over our lifetime.

It is reliant on many things. “Being filled means being controlled by the Spirit”. The role of the Holy Spirit at conversion is to indwell us. Afterwards, how much He fills us, has to do with how much of our lives we give over to Him, living a Spirit filled life. This is probably why so much of God’s word instructs us on how we behave and live in this life. He knew our struggles after conversion would be the battle of either walking by the Spirit, or walking in the flesh.

The role of the Holy Spirit is truly a gift. He first makes us aware of our need. He then gives us the ability to have faith to turn from sin; allowing His regenerative work in us; bringing about our new life in Christ. In addition, His seal upon us is our assurance, our hope. As we walk through life, He gives us the power to live and be like Christ. He gives us gifts to use for the good of others. He teaches us, leads us in the way of Christ. But, it all starts with the work that He does when we first feel that prick in our heart, and begin to seek the new life that we come to believe is there for us in Christ.

If you have any questions or want to seek a new life in Christ, I would be happy to pray with you. Please email me dear friend at:
L.Wrede@verizon.net




sunny side of truth, shall set you free

God's Righteousness Becomes Ours

Taken From The Book of Romans










How does the righteousness of God, become righteousness from God, and credited to us as righteousness? What does Paul mean by this and how does it happen? Here we will briefly look at these questions and see why God may have established this means of counting us righteous as opposed to another means.

When we speak of righteousness, what are we talking about? The word is used in both the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament word in Hebrew is “hqdc” and refers to “justice, justification, and salvation”. In the New Testament the Greek word is “dikaiosune” and refers in a broad sense to the “state of him who is as he ought to be… righteousness, the condition acceptable to God. The doctrine concerning the way in which man may attain a state approved of God”.

Within this state that God approves, are character qualities of “integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking feeling, and acting”. So here, we see that righteousness is our position in life that is approved by God, and based on the character qualities of God... imparted to us. How does this affect us?

Paul declares in his opening statement in the letter to the Romans in chapter one, verse seventeen, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’ “. Paul declares that the gospel reveals, or shows us, what it means to be righteous- a “condition acceptable to God”. The words, “live by faith”, tells us that to live in this condition acceptable to God, we must do so in faith. James R. Edwards, in his commentary on Romans said that, “righteousness comes as a free gift of God and is received by faith alone” (Edwards, 1992).

In defining faith, Paul uses the word “pistis”, a Greek word for “faith” that in general terms means:
The conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ. Conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the New Testament of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervor born of faith and joined with it.
So here, we see that God provides righteousness from himself and we obtain it by faith. But how does this happen? Romans 3:10 goes on to say that, “There is no one righteous, not even one”. If no one is righteous, how can we be counted as righteous?

Now if Paul is making the statement, that no one is righteous and that we have all sinned, then how do we obtain the condition that is acceptable to God? By faith. By faith indeed, but faith in what? If we don’t have the ability in and of ourselves- because we have already seen, according to Paul, that we are all unrighteous…everyone from the beginning of Adam until now…where or how do we obtain it?

Some will say that we obtain righteousness by observing and obeying God’s laws. We are acceptable to God when we do “good things”. However, Paul goes on to tell us in Romans 3:20, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin”. Here we see that we can’t place our faith in the Law, and carry out the deeds of the Law, in order to be in proper standing with God.

The Law only causes us to become aware of the fact that we are sinners. Furthermore, the Law came many years after Abraham (who God declared righteous as it says in James 2:23 “And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God's friend”). What then do we have faith in?

Paul continues on to address this, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe”. Paul declares that we are to have faith in Christ (in the work he did on the cross), and by doing so, our relationship, or our standing with God, is now as it should be. How then does this take place?

Paul maintains in Romans 3:24-25 that we “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement (or propitiation as it says in the NAS translation)”. There are four terms we need to define here in order to fully understand how this works: Justified, grace, redemption and propitiation.

The term ‘justified” comes from the Greek word “dikaioo”. It means “to declare, pronounce, one to be just, righteous, or such as he ought to be”. Grace comes from the Greek word “charis’ and means “good will, loving-kindness, favour”. The term redemption comes from the Greek word “Apolutrosis” and means “a releasing effected by payment of ransom”. And, finally, the word propitiation (atonement) comes from the Greek word, “Hilasterion”, defined as:

"Relating to an appeasing or expiating, having placating or expiating force, expiatory; a means of appeasing or expiating, a propitiation used of the cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which was sprinkled with the blood of the expiatory victim on the annual day of atonement (this rite signifying that the life of the people, the loss of which they had merited by their sins, was offered to God in the blood as the life of the victim, and that God by this ceremony was appeased and their sins expiated); hence the lid of expiation, the propitiatory".

So then what can we surmise from these definitions? That it was through God’s love and kindness that he freely (without charge to us) paid the price of our unrighteousness by the sacrifice of Christ’s blood, in order that he may declare us righteous and that we now have been restored, and “our standing with God, is as it should be”. God (being in his character fully righteous) took that righteousness, and through faith in Christ, counts us as righteous.

Our part in this is having faith in what he did. Moreover, because of this, we have no room for pride in the matter, only a humble posture of gratitude because we did nothing to deserve or earn it.

“Where, then, is boasting?” Paul goes on to ask (3:27). Why would Paul be concerned about people boasting? It is perhaps for similar reasons he would be concerned today. People want to have credit in their salvation (especially the Jews at that time who believed they were God’s special people, not realizing the reason behind their chosen status as God's witness on earth). Humans want to be the ones who have earned and deserved it.

“Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation” (4:4). Therefore, if a man can earn his right standing with God by the things he does, it nullifies the concept of it being a gift freely given. It also places mankind on an equal footing with God as if to say “God you do your part and I will do mine”.
By doing this, we no longer need faith, however.

If our salvation was based on our works then that begs the question of why Christ had to die. No…our desire to do good works in order to be righteous goes all the way back to the original sin, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). We have a desire to discern what works are good and which are evil making us “like God”. It is our desire to be like God that caused us to be unrighteous in the first place!

So we see that God, in order to restore us to the place we ought to be, had to be the one in whom the solution would come. In our act of faith in what he did are we considered righteous according to the book of Romans:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (5:1-2).

We have seen that there isn’t anyone who is righteous except God. In order for us to be in right standing (righteous) with God, he had to be the one who made that possible otherwise we would be going back in a circle to what broke our standing with him in the first place-that we would be like God. In addition, because of his righteous character and justice, he paid the price through Christ, and by faith in Christ, we are justified (it is not through the Law or good works). God’s righteousness becomes our righteousness,he paid the ransom, our part is to believe and be thankful, believe in what Christ did, follow him and give him all the glory.