1 Peter1:12
“To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but
to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you
through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from
heaven”
Peter says that those who
preached the gospel before he came did so through the Holy Spirit who was ‘sent
from heaven’. In just those three words Peter describes an important factor
about the ministry and commission of the Holy Spirit. He is ‘sent from heaven’…
This word ‘sent’ is the Greek word apostello and means to commission, to
set apart for a special service, or to send out with a mission to fulfill. It
where we derive the other Greek word translated as ‘apostle’ which means sent
one, one who is sent on a mission
The Holy Spirit was sent by
God from heaven with a mission to fulfil. That mission was to be another
helper, to be our parakletos, to continue where Jesus left off.
And this mission involves
as we are going to discuss a) to add to the church i.e. to draw people to the
Lord Jesus Christ and to regenerate them through the new birth. b) to establish
the church i.e. to teach and council those He has regenerated, thus making
disciples out of them. and c) to build the church i.e. to strengthen and edify His
disciples so that they grow and reach their full potential.
This is the multifaceted
ministry of the Holy Spirit toward us. He is our apostle sent from heaven who
drew us to Jesus our Lord and Savior and keeps us progressing in Him on the
path of life by teaching, encouraging, and strengthening us. Let us discuss
this in detail;
HE IS IN YOU TO TEACH YOU
“These things I have spoken to you while being present
with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My
name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things
that I said to you.” John14:25-26
Jesus taught His
disciples many incredible truths while He was with them but He did not teach them everything there was to know. This was
partly because it would have been impossible for Him to teach them everything
there is to know and also because they were not born again. They were still
fallen men that did not have the capacity to grasp and understand spiritual
truth.
He spoke about this in John16:12
“I still have many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now.”
They could not bear them
because they were still carnal and under sin.
But now that we are born
again, and can understand spiritual truth the Holy Spirit is here to teach us
all that there is to know.
So Jesus said in the
above verse that “the Helper, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things…”
Throughout the New
Testament we see the fulfilment of this commission and we see great examples of
men and women taught by the Holy Spirit and walking in incredible truth. The Apostle
Paul was probably the greatest example of this. A man who never even met Jesus
or walked with Him. And yet he wrote half of the New Testament and was the
foremost expositor and teacher of the New Covenant truths of faith
righteousness and grace.
How did he learn all
this? He was taught by the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle John talked
about this teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit in 1John2:27
“But the anointing which you have received from Him
abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same
anointing teaches you concerning all things…”
This word anointing is a
specific reference to the Holy Spirit and is actually one of the many names of
the Holy Spirit revealed in scripture.
This verse goes on to say
that “the same anointing teaches you
concerning all things…”
This means that the Holy
Spirit teaches us about anything and everything. Most of us have limited Him to
only doctrine or church things. However, this verse says He teaches us
concerning all things.
This means He can teach
you about work, your job, business, marriage, relationships, ministry, school,
mathematics and so on and so forth. There is nothing the Holy Spirit can’t
teach you about. He knows all things and He is in you and will teach you whatever
you want to know.
This is the same promise
Jesus gave us in John14:26 that He would teach us all things “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your
remembrance all things that I said to you.”
HE IS IN YOU TO REMIND YOU
After Jesus had promised
that the Holy Spirit would teach us all things, He added that He would also
remind us of whatever He had spoken to us. He said the Holy Spirit would bring
all things to our remembrance “and He
will bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
This is an amazing
promise if you consider it in the context in which it was written. Jesus had
been teaching His disciples for three years. Most of the time they were
clueless about what He was saying and did not understand Him. sometimes they
forgot soon after the lesson was over and He had to rebuke them.
Now He was promising them
that the Holy Spirit was going to continue where He had left off
teaching them
about the Kingdom of God and that He was also going to remind them about all
the stuff Jesus had taught them for the past three years.
Consider that these
disciples did not have any notes, there were no audio or video recordings and there
were no books written about what Jesus was saying.
They were about to be
introduced to the best note taking system, the best audio and video recorder, The
Holy Spirit. He would remind them of every single thing that Jesus had said to
them and every single thing He had done.
Indeed this ministry was
so successful that these disciples were able to write entire books about their
time with Jesus, remembering all the words He said, the things He did and so
forth. And all this they did accurately decades after Jesus had gone back to
heaven. We know these books as the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John.
This same Holy Spirit is
now available in us to achieve the same results. He is able to remind us of whatever
things that the Lord has specifically spoken to us through prayer and communion
with Him, through studying the Word, through prophecy by someone else, through
a sermon by a preacher or through a dream or vision or some other means.
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