What is the role of the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit (hereafter referred to as HS) is God’s primary manifestation of the Trinity in the New Testament. He is found in many places in both the OT and NT where the HS is seen in connection with a life-giving action, leading many to believe that the HS is also responsible for giving life. This can be found in Gen 2:7 where God ‘breathed’ life into Adam and in Job 34:14-15, ‘If He put His mind to it and withdrew the spirit and breath He gave, every living thing would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.’ In the NT is also most famously seen in the story of Christ, where Jesus is conceived by the HS in Matt 1:18 and Luke 1:35. More directly, the HS is seen in a direct relationship with humanity in John 6:63 where Jesus states quite clearly, ‘The Spirit is the One who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.’

The Holy Spirit also empowers the believer, enabling them to perform in all manner of ways outside of the person’s normal capabilities. Moses, Joshua, and a number of individuals in Judges, and even Saul were guided by the HS and achieved many fantastic actions where they were directed and driven by the HS. The NT also shows the HS descending on Jesus after his baptism, whereupon Jesus then goes into the wilderness and fends off the temptations of Satan. The HS is also seen quite clearly during the Pentecost where the HS takes up residence in the Apostles who then proceed to preach with conviction and bravery in the face of persecution and hardships throughout their lives.

Along these same lines, the HS will also purify the believer, performing an initial cleansing of sin from the person, like an introductory scrub-down. This cleansing sets the believer on a new direction away from sin and down the road to the process of sanctification, as noted in 1 Cor 6:11, ‘And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.’ This can also be restated as a new life as in Titus 3:5, ‘He saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.’

Most critically, the Holy Spirit provides guidance and direction to the believer by dwelling in the believer taking on the role of a moral compass. Through the indwelling, the HS provides the presence of God to ensure that the believer stays on the right course. Paul touched in this in a number of verses, such as Rom 8:14, where the HS is shown leading them as God’s sons, and in Gal 5:16 where he implores the reader to follow in the ways of the Spirit and they would not be tempted by the sins of the flesh. Paul late in Galatian also speaks of the desires of the Spirit against the flesh, inferring the Spirit as a moral compass. Paul elaborates on this a little more in Gal 5:22, 23a, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control.’ The HS is also seen in Acts 16:6-7 as redirecting Paul away from Asia, where they wanted to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Paul did not challenge the HS, but obeyed as if given direction from Jesus in the flesh.