2 Corinthians 1; Genesis 1:1-2
Genesis chapter one verses one and two says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And then our next reading is from second Corinthians chapter one. So Sunday mornings were in first Corinthians, but this is second Corinthians. Second Corinthians chapter one, verses one through 22. We get the typical greeting.
Paul says, I’m an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and with him is Timothy, our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s suffering, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we do not want you to be ignorant brothers of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us. On him, we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessings granted us through the prayers of many.
For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God and supremely so towards you. For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and acknowledge. And I hope you will fully acknowledge just as you did partially acknowledge us that on the day of our Lord Jesus, you will boast of us as we will boast of you.
Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first so that you might have a second experience of grace. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say yes, yes, and no, no at the same time?
As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvana, St. Timothy, and I, was not yes and no, but in him always yes. For all the promises of God find their yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. And then over to John chapter 14, this is a Jesus promise of the Holy Spirit.
John 14, beginning at verse 15, it says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments and I will ask the father and he will give you another helper. to be with you forever, 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. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you will also live. In that day you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you.
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him. And we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.
And the word that you hear is not mine, but the father’s who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while I am still 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 that I have said to you.
Peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, I am going away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I am going to the father for the father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place so that when it does take place, you may believe I will no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the father has commanded me. So the world may know that I love the father rise and let us go from here. Amen. This is God’s. A great and gracious word. Question 53, as I was kind of scratching out on my paper this week, I think is a little dangerous in our current culture.
It asks, what do you believe concerning the Holy Spirit? Now you could translate, what do you feel about the Holy Spirit, right? Because we’re in the Sola feelings world. But what do you believe about the Holy Spirit? Do you believe what you have heard? Do you believe what you have seen do you believe what you have experienced? Or do you believe what the scriptures teach?
Now hopefully if you start with you believe what the scriptures teach the other answers would be yes but sadly Most people believe about the Holy Spirit what they’ve heard and it’s not good stuff they believe what they have seen and it’s a perhaps likely not real, but counterfeit.
And then, uh, they will say what they have experienced. Uh, and that’s a doozy for sure. Now, if we believe what the scriptures teach and we experienced the Holy spirit and truth, and we, uh, see things and we hear things, uh, as we bump along in the Christian life, uh, that’s a wonderful thing. The Holy spirit is a big reality in the life of believers. Um, Sadly, I think in this world, our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is, it’s drawn from something that worked, right?
It’s drawn from something that was a big flash and on and on. You can read particularly of the revivals throughout American history and You know, Jonathan Edwards gives us that wonderful little grid, how to tell if it’s a real revival. But well, about two years ago, there was the big revival at the school, maybe over in Kentucky. And you know, the news was there for like a week or 10 days or a month or however long it lasted. Then all of a sudden, you know, over with, done. A year later, someone wrote an essay. And of course, somebody had to be the big jerk and write an essay evaluating it and saying there appears to be no lasting change. months ago at my kids school in Virginia. There was a big revival, so to speak, and I haven’t noticed what the outcome is, but I’m sadly one of those skeptics who says, we’ll see.
But We don’t want to be stuffy reformed folk, do we? Well, we do, but we don’t want to quench the fire of the Holy Spirit. We do want to be stuffy reformed folks, but not downs to the flames. I think it’s good to be a stuffy reformed folk, but we don’t want to be the frozen chosen.
That’s for the Lutherans, right? We want to be a robust Bible-believing, Holy Spirit-believing bunch of folks. And we remember what the role of the Holy Spirit is. The role of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus. Now we live in a world that loves to emphasize a phenomenon, right? We love to emphasize, Ooh, it’s the, it’s the work of something extra terrestrial, something outside of us.
It’s something big. I remember when I was in, College in the 1990s the Toronto movement was a really big deal and it swept through our campus And there was a little group off to the side. They would you know They did whatever they did. It was a little weird on odd but they were over there and then there were a bunch of us kids, you know who grew up in the You know the decently in an order side of things and we would say something to them biblical or whatever. Oh, you’re you’re quenching the spirit and You know, so I’ve seen all those sorts of things.
It’s rather interesting. But perhaps one test case would be is if the work of the Spirit is not bringing glory to Christ, we might ought to be a bit suspect. If you read church history, if you read the Bible, church history should be full of Christ-centered ministry. Church should be full of Christ-centered ministry. Nevertheless, the person and work of the Holy Spirit is really, really, really important and vital to us.
So when the question is asked, what do you believe concerning the Holy Spirit? you should say, well, the Heidelberg catechism gives us three things, right? Cause that’d be, that’d be good. And then where does the Heidelberg get those? Well, it gets them from the Bible. We read a couple of passages of scripture. Uh, there’s a bunch more in the proof text, but concerning the Holy spirit, we should say with conviction in our minds and in our hearts that we believe what the Bible teaches about the Holy spirit and the Heidelberg is going to give us two big categories.
We believe in, in the person of the Holy spirit, And we believe in the work of the Holy Spirit because we’ve read our Bible, uh, because we’ve heard things, seen things and yes, experienced things. It’s okay to say all that business. Okay. Concerning the Holy Spirit, uh, we believe first that he is true and co eternal God. I think I’ve told some of y’all before about, uh, the teacher I had way back in college and the history of, uh, theology. He was a rank liberal. I don’t think he believed in Jesus or God, but he was nevertheless our lecturer.
And he would come in and sit on the table in the front of the room with his yellow legal pad, and that had all his handwritten notes for class. And he’d sit on the front table all hunched over across his leg, and he’d read from his legal pad. And there was one time where he was stuck that way. We all got up to leave, and we noticed he wasn’t moving. And I think he was so old, he was stuck in that position. It was rather humorous, I suppose. But in his history of theology class, we learned about the consubstantiality of the Trinity. What in the world? Basically, that what the Father is, the Son is. What the Son is, the Holy Spirit is.
And round and round, like the Athanasian Creed says, you can go. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. And so when our catechism says He is the true and co-eternal God, Uh, we are saying what the early councils wrestled over and what my aged theology professor hunched over from the reading from his legal pad would speak of. And it’s the phrase, uh, from the Greek language, homo, UCS, same homo, uh, UCS, I believe substance. And so, uh, what the father is, the son is what the son is. The spirit is what the spirit is.
The son is in the father and round and round you can go. And so the Athanasian Creed, spelling it all out, says the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one equal and co-eternal God. One deity, equal glory, and co-eternal majesty. And we say of the Father, He is not made, not created, and not begotten. We say of the Son, that He is of the Father begotten, but he’s not created or made. And then of the spirit, we say he is proceeding of the father and the son, but he is not made, created or begotten.
Those things were hammered out in the early centuries of the Christian church. The 325 council of Nicaea, I think dealt with the person of Christ. The Constantinople 381 dealt with the person of the Holy Spirit. And then all the way up into the eighth century or so, you’ve got them hammering out all these creeds and confessions that Jesus, I’m sorry, that the Holy Spirit, well, father, son, and Holy Spirit here, we’re talking about the spirit.
He is true and co-eternal God. You hear some wacky stuff about God out in the world. you actually see some wacky stuff about God and the world. I think of, uh, in 25 or so years of ministry, all the books that people have been reading and movies they’ve been watching and TV shows and they come tell you with great excitement and you have to contain your eye roll. No, Jesus is not a black woman on a train. Um, you know, all, all the stuff that has gone through, uh, through this, this world and, you just have to, it’s something to wrestle with. We are enamored with all kinds of things. Uh, but, but the Holy Spirit is true and co eternal God with the father and with the son. Um, that’s why it’s helpful to say the creed every week. Uh, that’s why it’s helpful to learn your catechism. That’s why it’s helpful to read your Bible. Keep straight, who is our God? What is his person? What is his work? What is his nature?
Three persons, one God, same in substance, equal in power and glory, all that good stuff. Okay, so concerning the Holy Spirit, we believe first, he’s God, co-eternal with the Father and Son. The second thing has three things to it. But the second is that he is also given unto me. to make me by a true faith. First thing, a partaker of Christ. Second, he comforts me. And third, down at the bottom, he abides with me forever. So the second big picture is his work. So his person, he’s co-eternal God with father and son. Now we’re going to think about his work. Now this is bare bones. This is basic. This is not, you know, volume, whatever, of a systematic theology with pages and pages and pages. This is bare bones basic, but it’s a plenty to make us.
I think full of joy. So second, uh, our catechism says concerning the Holy Spirit, we believe he is also given to me. Uh, you should point back to yourself if you have true faith. Uh, he’s also given to me to make me by a true faith. We want to stop there for just a moment.
If you don’t have faith in Jesus, you don’t have the Holy Spirit. in order to be a believer, you have to believe what the scripture says about yourself. You’re a sinner. What the scripture says about God, you’re under his justice, wrath, and mercy and curse that’s due for sin. You have to believe what the Bible says about Jesus.
He is our substitute, our mediator, and it’s in our place that he lives, obeys, suffers, dies. And what will the catechism later teach us? Justification is just as if I never sin and just as if I always obeyed. Right. And so by a true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, uh, the Holy spirit is given unto us, uh, to make me a partaker of Christ and all benefits.
Um, tomorrow, if a attorney called you and said, you know, Mr. Kratz, um, you know, long lost uncle Billy, named you in his will. I don’t have a long lost Uncle Billy or whatever, but if I did, and so you need to come down to the law offices of, what’s the one from Car Talk, Do We Cheat Him and How? Come down and you’re going to hear the will read. All right, so you’re going to go down there and you’re going to realize he’s left you a fortune.
But you just keep on living as if you didn’t come into wealth. Maybe, I remember the first church I served, everybody was selling their land off to Metro Charlotte. And the only thing about their life would change is they’d get a new Buick. But they’d still live in the same old house, you know, wear the same old clothes, maybe, you know, take an extra trip or something like that. But it didn’t really change them. But what if you said, I don’t have any money? I’m poor, I’m broke, I can’t eat, I can’t afford health care, I can’t all this. You would be living like a pauper, yet your account would be full.
And that’s the struggle that we have as believers. We have every spiritual blessing, as Ephesians says, given to us in Christ Jesus. All the riches of heaven are ours by faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are made partakers of Christ and all benefits.
So you think way back into Bible history, way back into Genesis, what did God promise to Abraham? I’ll give you an offspring. Your offspring will outnumber the sand on the seashores. If you can count the stars in the heavens, that’s a good start for your children, your future children. And we come to Galatians and it says, if we have faith, we are the offspring of father Abraham. And so we sang that little song back in Bible school. Father Abraham had many sons. I am one of them. So are you, uh, did y’all do that with the little March and all? Yeah. Uh, so we, we, obtained the covenant promises made to Abraham and successively that came down the line through David, Solomon, Jesus, all the rest, they come to us by faith. And so all the covenant promises and provisions of Christ are ours.
The merits of Jesus, the spoils of the cross. We think about how wonderful it is to have Jesus obedience. God sees us as if we have always obeyed. How wonderful it is to have Jesus’ forgiveness, His sacrifice. God sees us as if we’ve never sinned. And so the merits of Jesus are ours, but the spoils of Jesus are. You read Ephesians chapter 4 and it’s the ascended Christ is going up to heaven and victory spoils from the cross are given. He gives the church. He gives the spirit, he gives pastors and teachers and he gives each of you the opportunity for the equipping of the church to make you wonderful servants and to build you up into the measure and the stature of Christ. And so it’s a wonderful thing to have the gift of the spirit uniting us to Jesus and making us partakers.
We think of the Holy Spirit just kind of as an aside here is the one who dwells in us. We think of him as the one we have fellowship with. We think of him as the down payment or the seal of our redemption. And we remember that he animates us or gives us life. He vivifies us, but also sanctifies us. He convicts us of our sin, all these wonderful things. But by a true faith, we’re made partakers of Christ and all his benefits. You are not poor people.
And so what’s the challenge? It’s to quit living like it. Live out of the riches of heaven that are yours. Well, the second thing is that he may comfort me. He is given to me to make me by a true faith comforted. If you wanted to rearrange the words for that second point, what does Jesus say a bunch of times to his disciples? I will not leave you as orphans. I will send someone. He will be a helper. He will be a paraclete. He will come alongside you. He will be your comforter. He will be your counselor, your advocate.
In fact, down the street, I think one of the coolest names of churches in our town, besides Covenant Presbyterian Church, is the Church of the Holy Comforter. That’s a sweet name. You get congregations called Church of the Good Shepherd, You know, Trinity Church, you get churches with the names, the sweet names of different parts of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I think those are sweet. Church of the Holy Comforter, pretty, pretty cool. But what does it mean that he will comfort us?
When we read Genesis chapter one and two, what did we see? We saw that when God in the beginning was taking nothing and making something, at first there was chaos. But what did we have? We had the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep. And then successively, over the days, you have the voice of God saying, let there be this and this and this. And by the end of the five or the first six days of creation, you have what was chaos, now orderly, what was inhabitable, and unformed, now habitable and it’s formed and filled with all kinds of life. And so when in our lives we have things that overwhelm us, things that discomfort us, we have a helper, we have a counselor, we have an advocate, we have a Holy Spirit who hovered over the face of the deep.
And I don’t know if you ever think about this, but when there’s some chaos in your life, And your breath is sucked out of you. You can’t speak. You have one who with sighs and groans, too deep for words, will interpret, will lift up your prayers to the Holy One, to the throne of God. But you can say, Lord, there is so much chaos in my life.
Would you hover over it and make sense of it? Bring peace and bring order. And that’s a wonderful and comforting feeling. How does the Holy Spirit comfort us? Well, that is one good way, but also by the word which he inspired and by the illumination which he gives when we read the word or hear the word. The Holy Spirit is a vital part of that. The Spirit can give us soul strength. I mentioned earlier, what do you believe about the Holy Spirit? What would you hear? What have you seen? What have you experienced? The big answer is what’s in the Bible. But back down to what you have experienced.
I’m sure that in your Christian life, if you stop and think about it, you’ve had moments where you know, and not in some hokey way, But you know that it was only the Spirit of God that restrained you from sin. Or it was only the Spirit of God that gave you the strength or the ability to do something that you know in your own strength you never could have accomplished. And so the Spirit, I think, in His comforting, helping work can give us soul strength. It can give us peace and give us rest. hover over our chaos and disorderliness, but also can call to mind the things that we have heard before.
You think back your whole life. Most of you perhaps have had a Bible nearby most of your life. Now, unless you have one of those steel trap minds, one of those minds that just has a photographic memory, you probably read some scripture, think about it, it’s pretty exciting to you. You sort of put it in the back of your mind and you move on about life. You never really think about it until maybe you’re cruising through your Bible and you say, oh, I remember that verse. But what about when you’re bumping along in life and don’t have a Bible?
And the Holy Spirit calls to mind a promise and it just strikes you right between the eyes. It smacks you upside the head. It grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you and says, don’t you remember what I have said and what I have promised? I think the spirit does that so mightily so well. The third blessing of the work of the spirit, he abides with me forever.
We talk a lot about union with Christ. We talk about how union with Christ is the big umbrella over the order of salvation and how without union with Christ, what Jesus accomplished could not be applied unless we had the spirit and we’re united to Jesus and all those things. And so we’re connected to Jesus. We even go so far to say with our catechism that when we die, our bodies in the grave are still united to Jesus. So we’re never apart from Jesus, even when we are, Our remains are in the earth, in the ground. But the Holy Spirit also abides with us forever.
The Comforter is with us and ministers to us. That’s a very helpful and peaceful thought. We have the prophet, priest, and king on the throne of glory. behind the curtain ministering, but we also have the spirit who ministers before God in heaven, also ministering to us. He is in our hearts. He is in our lives. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, but he abides with us forever.
I think of where else Jesus uses the word abide. I am the vine and you are the branches abide, abide with me. There is something important. to know in our minds and in our hearts and in our experiences, I believe, um, that God, uh, the father, God, the son and God, the Holy spirit never leave us and they never forsake us. And I hope we’ll take comfort with these, uh, these few words. Let’s do pray.
Lord, we thank you for showing us, uh, the Holy spirit, uh, ever, ever God eternally. So, and uh, the distinct person and the distinct work yet. One in the same with the father and the son, we can’t wrap our minds around it too, too well. In fact, we might say it’s a thing too wonderful for us.
Uh, but as we see the work of the triune God and various aspects, we, um, we have comfort and we have hope, uh, and we rejoice or etch, etch these things in our minds and hearts so that we believe them. and experience them and rejoice in them. We thank you for this in Christ’s name. Amen.