Holy Spirit: The Spirit of Truth

John 14:15-17

“¹⁵ If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

To help us understand the Holy Spirit…

What is the Trinity?
- Old testament affirmations of a single deity: Yahweh - Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear oh Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one.”
- Moving forward from the Old Testament we start to see other figures who are distinct from the Father and yet also seem to be divine, we must deal with the fact that we only believe in one God, but there are three individuals who are identified by God who are distinct from one another.
- The temptation is to say that we have one God that shows up in three ways, or we have one God with three different masks or roles. But that’s not quite accurate. We see these “masks” interacting with each other, so there has to be some distinction there.
How do we explain the trinity? Why is it important?
- God is one substance and three persons.
- The importance of the trinity isn’t that we can explain it or understand it.
- The importance instead is what it tells us about God even before he created. God has always existed in a perfectly equal relationship between three persons. When we’re offered salvation by Jesus, it’s not just sin-forgiveness that he offers. It’s inclusion into a perfectly stable relationship that has always existed.
- Salvation is relational because God is relational. We will likely spend the rest of eternity exploring that without ever exhausting it.
Who is the Holy Spirirt and what does he do?
- The Holy Spirit is a person, just like Jesus or the Father. We have to be careful that we don’t think of the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force, like electricity.
- And while none of them (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are male in the same sense that some humans are male (except for Jesus’ humanity), scripture uses masculine pronouns for them, we follow that tradition.
- The way that the earliest Christians understood the incarnation was to say that Jesus existed in two ways at the same time. There are some things that we talk about with reference to his divinity (miracles), and others that we talk about with reference to his humanity (feelings of being tired and hungry).
Would it be appropriate to say that Jesus’s miracles were done by the Holy Spirit, since they don’t start until after the Spirit descends on him in his baptism?
- When talking about the role or function of the Spirit, we have to keep in mind another thing about the Trinity. The three of them are inseparable.
- Whenever we see God act, all three persons are acting, even if it seems to us as though only one is.
- All three persons are involved in Jesus’ miracles…and even taking his baptism as an example, all three persons are there as well.
Why do we need the Holy Spirit?
- God dwells among his people in the Old Testament, but there’s various degrees of disconnect.
- In Jesus, according to John 1:14, Jesus makes his dwelling among us. John will go on to say in his epistles that he not only saw Jesus but touched him as well. The disconnect between God and his people was over. He was now fully among us.
- The Old Testament alludes to a day when God will put his Spirit in his people.
- When Jesus departs, he sends the Spirit and we become temples of the Spirit. God is now no longer just among us; he takes up residence inside of us.
- This goes back to what we were talking about earlier with God’s relational nature. The Holy Spirit inside of us unites us to Christ, who unites us to the Father.
- We experience the Trinitarian relationship by the Holy Spirit, through the Son, to the Father.
- Without the Holy Spirit, salvation wouldn’t exist. He’s not just an add-on. He’s essential to the very nature of salvation. Without him, we are not saved.
- As Pentecostals, we believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is distinct from salvation.
- In salvation, we are baptized into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit (Romans 6). That’s when we join the body.
- After salvation, Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit as a separate and subsequent event.
- In both instances, both Jesus & the Spirit are acting together. The Father is also acting in each instance, but in a less visible role.
- The shorthand is that the Father plans, the Son achieves, and the Spirit applies. But they all act together, all of the time in every act.
In the Gospel of John, why is the Spirit called “the Spirit of Truth”?
- This is uniting the purpose of the Spirit with the purpose of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
- John goes on to record Pilate’s famous, “What is truth?” (John 18:38)
- For John, it seems that the answer to this is the Spirit, who points to Jesus, who reveals the Father. They are truth. God is truth.
- Ancient Greek philosophers referred to the three transcendentals: three things which transcend culture, time, etc. They were Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. These transcendentals are defined by who God is. He is truth, he is goodness, and he is beauty.
- Anything that is true, good, or beautiful points to him. Conversely, any attempt to stifle truth, goodness or beauty is an attempt to oppose him.
- This is particularly relevant for us today, with all the wars over “my truth” and “your truth.”
- Truth can’t be owned. You don’t have a truth. You can have an opinion, or experience, but not your own truth.
- There is a truth, and that is objective and eternal. But you and I have incomplete perspectives of that. Holy Spirit begins to reveal truth now. Faith that truth will be fully revealed to us one day.
- Truth isn’t the only thing that matters. Goodness and beauty matter as well. 2 Peter 3:15, the quintessential verse for defending the faith, says, “Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do this with gentleness and respect.”
- While we need to be careful with our words when it comes to the “my truth” conversation, we also should ask ourselves if we’re modeling goodness and beauty in those conversations. Are we gentle & respectful?
- There is a challenge for us all when we consider the context of Peter’s letter. His audience was being killed by Romans. What he’s saying in that letter is that they should have the kind of hope that causes their murderers to pause and say, “Why are you the way that you are?”
- In that kind of environment, Peter wants them to be able to respond, but to be sure to do so with gentleness and respect. That sounds nearly impossible.
- Fortunately, Jesus sent us a helper, who is always available to us, no matter the conflict. Through the Holy Spirit, we can respond in ways that will surprise those around us because our response simply makes no sense.
How does the Holy Spirit reveal truth to us?
- Through His voice
- When we submit our decisions to the Spirit
- We learn His voice and grow confident in following it

Take Aways:

God is one person, three substances: Father, Son, & Spirit. All three are always working together, inseparable.
We are invited into the perfect relationship when we are saved.
The Holy Spirit is God in us, revealing eternal, objective truths even now.

Questions for Life Groups:

How do you understand the trinity and the role of the Holy Spirit?
What is truth? How does the enemy distort truth for you?
How have you experienced revelation of truth from the Holy Spirit before, and expect to in the future?