Revelation of God’s Word

It’s good to be with you again as we draw near to the close of another week. Our theme throughout this week has been, “The Holy Spirit in You.”

In my talk yesterday I explained what it means for us, practically, that the Holy Spirit has come to be our paraclete. And you remember the other translations: the comforter, the counselor, the helper and also the word that occurs in 1 John 2:1, where John says,

“We have an Advocate with the Father.”

The same Greek word paraclete, one who is called in alongside, one who speaks in our defense. And so, I pointed out to you we have in our help the two greatest advocates in the universe: God the Son speaks in our presence to the Father as our advocate in heaven and on earth, God the Holy Spirit pleads our cause and says the things for us we can’t say, explains to us the things we can’t understand. God’s provision for His children is so perfect, it’s so wonderful it always blesses me to meditate on this theme of the two advocates, the two paracletes. Jesus in heaven, the Holy Spirit on earth.

We have to say God is surely on our side. I think I said in my talk yesterday with two advocates like that, how could we ever lose the case?

And then I explained yesterday something of what Jesus said in John 14. He said “another person will come.” He was speaking of a person. And then He used the word “forever,” it was something permanent. He used the phrase “in you,” it was to be an indwelling presence. He said, “I will not leave you orphans.” We are to be fully cared for. And finally He said, “I will come to you.” So Christ comes back to us in the Holy Spirit but no longer restricted by space and time.

Let me try and put that in just a few simple sentences. The Holy Spirit comes to us as a person to indwell us, permanently. His temple is to be the corporate body of Christ (the church) and the individual body of each believer. As a result of His coming, we are no longer orphans; we are fully cared for, fully provided for. And through His coming, Jesus Himself comes back to us, but no longer limited by time or space. So that children of God all around the world in every continent can have direct, intimate, personal contact with Jesus at the same time in many different places through the Holy Spirit.

Well, today and also in my talks next week (because next week I’ll be continuing with this theme “The Holy Spirit in You”), so today and in next week’s talks I’ll be speaking about specific ways in which the Holy Spirit helps us, comforts us, meets our needs.

Today, the first specific way I wish to deal with is the revelation of God’s word. The Holy Spirit is the revelator and interpreter of the Word of God. Listen to what Jesus says in John 14:25-26, to His disciples:

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor [or the Comforter, or the paraclete], the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

There’s two functions of the Holy Spirit there which are important. He’s to remind and He’s to teach. He is to remind the disciples of all that Jesus had already taught them and that always blesses me because I understand that the record of the apostles in the New Testament is not subject to the weaknesses of human memory but it’s inspired by the Holy Spirit. They might not accurately have remembered some things, but whatever they needed to remember, the Holy Spirit Himself reminded them of.

However, He did not merely take care of the past, He also takes care of the future. He will teach them everything they need to learn and that’s true for you and me today. He will teach us all things that we need to know. He is our present teacher here on earth. Jesus was the great teacher while He was on earth but now He’s handed over the task to the Holy Spirit, His personal representative. And so whatever we need to know about the Word of God, the Holy Spirit is here to show it to us.

You see, this places us and the disciples on a level with the Old Testament prophets. Concerning the Old Testament prophets, Peter wrote in his second epistle, chapter 1, verse 21:

“For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

So you see the accuracy and the authority of the Old Testament prophets was that of the Holy Spirit Himself. He was responsible for what they said as He rested upon them and inspired them and carried them along.

But this is also true of the writings of the New Testament. Jesus made sure that the Holy Spirit would remind them of all that He said and teach them all that they still needed to know. So we can say the Holy Spirit is the real author of all Scripture, both Old Testament and New Testament. And Paul states this very early in 2 Timothy 3:16:

“All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

All Scripture is God breathed. Another translation, “inspired.” But the word “inspired” and the word “God breathed” both indicate the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who breathed all Scripture through the human channels through which Scripture came.

So you see God’s perfect provision for us. This always causes my heart to rejoice. The Holy Spirit was the author of Scripture; He’s also our personal teacher of Scripture. So the author Himself becomes the interpreter of the book. Who ever could interpret a book better for you than the one who wrote it? I have written something over twenty books  myself. Sometimes I hear other people interpret my books and often they do a good job but I always think, “Well, you missed that,” or “You didn’t get that quite right.” But with this situation, the Holy Spirit who’s the author of Scripture is also the interpreter, so He misses nothing, He’s got it all right if we can listen to Him and receive from Him, we know what the Scripture really has to say.

You see, this was an immediate result. For instance, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell, the unbelieving crowd said, “They’re drunk!” But Peter stood up in Acts 2:15-16 and said:

“These men are not drunk, as you suppose, It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel...”

Up to that time, I’m sure Peter had no understanding of the prophecy of Joel at all. In fact, he had a very limited understanding even of the teaching of Jesus. But the moment the Holy Spirit came, the Bible made sense for him in a totally new way because the author was there to interpret.

It’s the same with the apostle Paul. He had been persecuting the church, rejecting the claims of Jesus. This is in Acts 9:17:

“[But] Ananias went to the house [where Paul was] and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul [who later became Paul], he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’”

Notice that. And immediately after that, Paul began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God—the very thing he’d been denying. But the moment the Holy Spirit came in, he had a totally different understanding. It was like the transition from darkness to light. It wasn’t something gradual, it was really almost an instant transformation because the Holy Spirit, the teacher and author of Scripture, was right there in Paul. We’re speaking about the Holy Spirit as the interpreter and the revelator of the Word of God. But when we do this, we need to bear in mind that not only is the Bible the Word of God but Jesus Himself is called the Word of God, the personal word of God. For instance, in John 1:1, we read of Jesus:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Three times in that verse He’s called the Word. And then in John 1:14:

“The Word became flesh and lived for awhile among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, whom came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

So you see, the Bible, the Scripture, is the written Word of God but Jesus is the personal Word of God and, of course, the marvelous thing is they agree.

Now, not only does the Holy Spirit reveal the written Word of God and interpret the written Word of God, but He also reveals and interprets the personal Word of God, Jesus. So this is what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit in John 16:12-15:

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.”

And so He doesn’t try to say it all because He trusts the Holy Spirit. He knows the Holy Spirit is coming. Then He goes on to explain to them what the Holy Spirit will do when He comes. Verse 13:

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”

You see, there’s the Holy Spirit as the interpreter of Jesus. He takes what belongs to Jesus and makes it known to us. He glorifies Jesus for us. He reveals Jesus in His glory, in His totality, every aspect of the nature and the character and the ministry of Jesus is unfolded to us by the Holy Spirit.

It’s very interesting to note that once the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles and the disciples on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, they never had any further doubts where Jesus was. They knew that He’d arrived in the glory of the Father’s right hand. He had glorified Jesus to them. He had taken the things of Christ in the Scripture and out of their memories and out of their contacts with Jesus and He had revealed it to them.

So let me sum this up in relationship to Jesus. The Holy Spirit reveals and glorifies Jesus, and the Holy Spirit administers the total wealth of the Father and the Son because all that the Father has is given to the Son and all the Son has, the Holy Spirit administers. In other words, the total wealth of the Godhead is administered by the Holy Spirit. No wonder we don’t need to be orphans when He’s our administrator and all the wealth of God is at His disposal.

Well, our time is up for today. I’ll be back with you again next week at this same time, Monday through Friday. Next week I’ll continue to explain further specific ways in which the Holy Spirit helps us. This week my special offer is particularly suited to the week’s theme. It’s my book Purposes of Pentecost. This full length book in twelve chapters unfolds the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. It tells you who the Holy Spirit is, how He comes and all that He will do for you. Stay tuned for details.