Bible Text: St John 15:26–16:4 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
The Holy Spirit has of course always existed. He’s the eternal God. The first verses of Genesis have Him hovering over the face of the deep – creating everything that exists with the Father and the Word. We get the language for our creed, “who proceeds from the Father and the Son” from our Gospel reading. And you notice that it doesn’t say “who will proceed from the Father,” it’s not something that hasn’t been happening but will in the future, no it’s something that always happens, and so Jesus says, “who proceeds,” the continuous, the everlasting act, what simply belongs to God. The Father eternally begets His Son and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from both, three distinct Persons, yet one God, one essence.
But Jesus does say that He will send the Spirit. Something will change. After His death and resurrection. He will send the Spirit. That’s not a change in God; God can’t change. But it is a change in the way God relates to us.
Everyone has a relationship with God. By virtue of existing as a human being, you have a relationship with God. The only question is whether it’s a good relationship. Is God angry with you because you hold on to your sin or refuse to acknowledge Him as God in your life? Well, that’s a relationship. It’s a bad one, but it’s a relationship. Is God pleading with you to trust in Him, to return to Him, to love Him as He loves you? That’s a relationship. A better one. Is He actively forgiving you, so that you hear Him say it, is He actively teaching you and encouraging you, so that you learn from Him and then speak back to Him in prayer? Is He feeding you with His body and blood? Is He calling you His child? His Bride? His Beloved? That’s the best relationship imaginable.
The Holy Spirit is a Person, not a person as in a human being, but a Person, with a personality, who actively seeks relationships – that’s what persons do. When Jesus sends the Spirit, he’s not sending a power, a force, He’s sending a Person, who loves mankind, loves you, just as the Son does, and the Father, because He is one God, one Love, with the Son and the Father. So He actively seeks to know you, just as, more than, your mother does or your husband or wife, or your best friend.
How? He speaks. That’s how relationships are formed. Right? I know my wife, my wife knows me, we have a relationship largely because we talk. So the Holy Spirit speaks. He will bear witness to me, Jesus says. When you hear God’s Word, the Bible, the preached Word in Church, the Law, that tells you you’re a sinner, tells you to repent, stop doing bad stuff, stop being selfish, stop judging others by your standards, stop lusting, stop complaining, God’s angry at it, when you hear that, it’s the Holy Spirit speaking, pleading, again, seeking, establishing a relationship with you. And when you repent, when you speak back to God and say, I’m sorry, I’m a sinner, I want to do better, I trust in Christ who took my sins away by His bitter suffering and death, then it’s again the Holy Spirit who tells you God forgives you, that Jesus’ blood covers it all, and the Father is reconciled to you.
Jesus says the Holy Spirit will bear witness. He also says the apostles will. They will write the words – that’s the New Testament. They’ll write down history – what they saw with their own eyes, because, as Jesus says, “you’ve been with me from the beginning,” they saw His miracles, heard His sermons, saw Him crowned with thorns, nailed to a cross, groaning in agony, exhaling his last breath, dead, laid in a tomb, and then gloriously alive, and then ascended to heaven. They saw it. They bear witness and we have their human words.
But they are more than that. They’re the Holy Spirit’s words. Not one word, one syllable, one letter was written down by those apostles, except by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. “He will lead you into all truth,” Jesus says. These are His words. They aren’t just a record of the past. They aren’t just history. They are the Holy Spirit’s active pleading, active teaching, active striving to establish a relationship with you. Every time you read them, and especially when you hear them preached and spoken to you in the absolution and in the Lord’s supper and in the sermon, it’s not a guy speaking (he’s a mouthpiece), it’s the Holy Spirit.
And this is why Christian faith isn’t just knowledge. I can have all sorts of knowledge about Julius Caesar. I’ll never have a relationship with him. He’s dead. He doesn’t know me and I don’t know him either, no matter how much I study him. But Christian faith is a relationship with Christ Jesus. It is a relationship with God. Where He speaks to you, you speak with Him, and you know He loves you, and you love and trust in Him.
When we think of knowledge of God, it’s often put in terms of logic. So, I know God exists because stuff exists, and science and logic tell me that the universe had a beginning, and you can’t have that beginning unless God did it. So that’s using logic and it does get you knowledge of God. And you can do the same thing, kind of, with the resurrection. Why do you believe it? Because there were witnesses to it, 500 men, more than that, saw Him at the same time, after He rose. I have knowledge, historical knowledge, of what happened. And that’s important. Again, Jesus says so, you will bear witness about Me because you have been with me from the beginning.
But it is penultimate. It isn’t yet the knowledge that the Holy Spirit gives to you. Most knowledge is actually far more intuitive. I don’t actually need a logical proof for God’s existence. I just know it. The proofs explain what I already know, because I’m His creature and I’m born again as His child, and the Holy Spirit dwells in me. I also don’t need proofs that I’m married to my wife. I frequently have dreams that I’m not. They’re the worst. We still have a bunch of kids too in the dream, and I’m still a pastor, so it’s not good. But every time, I wake up and I don’t need to go check the marriage certificate, call the county clerk in Hennepin County, MN, get logical proof that I’m married to my wife. I know it. I remember it. I live it.
That’s the knowledge that you have with God as a Christian. You know Him. That’s what the Holy Spirit works in your heart. We call it the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. This is how St. Paul talks about it, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” That’s what every Christian knows. It’s the seal the Holy Spirit puts on our heart. The Father loves me as His own child. The Son bled for me, speaks forgiveness to me. The Spirit dwells within me, inspires faith in my heart to trust in this wonderful God who made me and when I sinned sent His Son to die for me, and when I was lost sent His Spirit to find me.
The worst false teaching of the Roman Catholics is not that they pray to Mary or the saints, it’s not that they teach that your works contribute to your salvation, it’s not that the pope is the leader of the church, it’s that you can’t be sure of your salvation. You can’t have this assurance, this witness of the Spirit, this certainty, that you are Christ’s and you have everlasting life and the Father will never let anyone snatch you out of His hands. That’s what happens when you replace divine certainty with human ingenuity. The Spirit of Christ teaches certainty, certainty found in the wounds of the God-man crucified for you. The Spirit is the Spirit of truth, He is the Spirit of certainty, because He is the Spirit of Christ, and Christ’s death for you is certain, and He is the Truth.
So you can know and be certain that you are a son of God, washed clean, completely forgiven, an heir of heaven. This is the peace that fortifies you when temptation strikes, when persecution attacks, when sickness and pain rise up. It’s the Spirit of God, who has established this relationship with you, so tight, He says, that not even death can tear you away from Him. Nothing can.
When you don’t feel this witness, when you don’t feel very Christian, when God seems far off, where do you look? Look at yourself and see whether you need to repent of your sins. Because you do. And your sins will fill you with doubt. So confess them. And then receive what is certain. The external witness of the Spirit. The internal witness, you knowing, you being certain, that you belong to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and will forever, this exists because of the external witness, because constantly you hear the Spirit speak and bear witness to Christ, the Son of God who gave Himself for you, the Spirit who speaks and points you to the body given and the blood shed for you, the Spirit who reminds you that you were washed in Baptism and joined to Christ, that the Father loves you, that the Son has prepared a place for you in heaven. He is the Spirit of truth. Because Alleluia Christ is risen.