Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

Behold the Triune God

I want to begin with a question: Why would the eternal and sinless Son of God stand in line with sinners and submit to a baptism associated with repentance? Did he need to repent? Of course not, he was without sin from conception to the grave. Then, why?

The Spirit Poured Out

What happened at Pentecost, as recorded in the second chapter of Acts? Clearly it was a unique event, tongues of fire, rushing wind, the miraculous gift of languages. It was sudden, Luke says,[2] but what happened on that day did not come out of nowhere. When the crowd stood bewildered at the sound of the apostles declaring the mighty works of God in many languages, Peter corrected their misconceptions and pointed them back to the Scriptures, saying, “this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). What was witnessed in that moment was not merely a curiosity nor chaos, but a prophesied promise fulfilled.

The Yes but How of Prayer

Jerry Bridges tells of a man who when reading a book would often write “YBH” in the margin. When asked what the letters meant, the man replied, “They stand for Yes, but how? I agree with what the author is saying, but I need to know how to apply it.”[2] In the first thirteen verses of this eleventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t tell his disciples to pray but instead gives us the “YBH” of prayer.

The King’s Heralds

It is his word by his Spirit that does the work, as he told the seventy-two, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). We are simply called to be the King’s heralds, but where the gospel is preached the kingdom is near.

In One Spirit

After Jesus ascended to the right hand of God the Father almighty, in place of his physical presence he sent his Spirit, witnessed on the day of Pentecost in tongues of fire upon the apostles.[2] That day was unique in Israel, not because the Holy Spirit was absent from God’s people previously but because the Holy Spirit came in an unprecedented fullness, fulfilling Joels’ prophecy of the Spirit being poured out “on all flesh” (Joel 2:28), not indiscriminately but according to the sovereign grace of God.

The Message and Its Miracles

This is the first record we have of the apostles ministering as Jesus did, which tells us less about the apostles and more about the bestowing of Jesus’s power and authority, which is all the more intriguing considering one of the twelve was Judas Iscariot. But called, commissioned, and sent they were, for the purpose of carrying a message, the good news of the kingdom of God. And while the substance of their message and its miracles were specific to their context, we (though not apostles) may glean from God’s work in and through them, starting first with the message they carried.

The Family of Faith

When Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth, from preaching throughout Judea, he didn’t receive what we would call a “warm welcome.” Rather than celebrating his ministry, the people wondered, “Where did this man get this wisdom, and these mighty works?” (Matt. 13:54). To them, he was just the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Simon, Judas, and his sisters.[2]

Who Are the Children of God?

On this Pentecost Sunday, a day on which we commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit in fullness upon Christ’s church, I want us to consider within our passage today the indwelling characteristics of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the identifying characteristics, in every believer.  

To that end, I want us to think on this simple question: Who are the children of God? Are they the natural descendants of Adam, as the universalists believe? In other words, is every human being a child of God? Or, are they the natural descendants of Abraham, as the Jews of Jesus’ day believed, or as dispensationalists believe today? In other words, is every one of Jewish ethnicity a child of God? Or, how do the writers of the New Testament use the term “child of God,” or do they make a distinction at all?

Of All Peoples

He who said that he came to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15) did, in perfect obedience to the Law of God, not only as an adult but as an infant, as we see in our passage today. According to the law, as the firstborn male, he was to be presented to the Lord, harking back to the Egyptian captivity and God’s preservation of Israel’s firstborn sons by the blood of the lamb. Jesus’ presentation also included his mother’s ceremonial purification, following childbirth, and a required sacrifice of a lamb or “a pair of turtledoves, or two you young pigeons” (2:24), the offering of a family of meager means. It is a humble yet beautiful picture of covenant faithfulness, obedience, and the early blessings of a godly home.