Chapter 5: The Holy Spirit and Christ 

In this lesson we want to look at the Holy Spirit in His relation to the earthly ministry of Jesus from two aspects: first of the Holy Spirit working in Christ during His earthly ministry, and second, of Christ working through the Holy Spirit during this present dispensation.  

1) We will see that Jesus did nothing in the way of ministry until He was baptized by John and filled with the Holy Spirit. He did no teaching, performed no miracles, made no disciples. All that Jesus did for the three and a half years of His ministry He did, not as God, but as a Man who was full of the Holy Spirit.  

2) We shall also see that Jesus does nothing on earth now except through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Christ’s perfect representative on earth; through Him Jesus continues His earthly ministry, only on a vastly expanded scale and no longer in a physical body.  

The Church on earth is now His Body, through which He works by His Spirit. Roman Catholics say that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, the one on earth who represents Christ and takes His place. But that’s not true. The Holy Spirit is the true Vicar of Christ. Actually, it might be more accurate to say, the Body of Christ, the Church, is the true “vicar of Christ.” 

When Jesus came from His glory as the Eternal Son (the Logos) and was born into this world, He was born as a real human being, subject to the conditions of all humans. Jesus did not cease to be God, but He emptied Himself of all the powers and prerogatives of His deity. He temporarily surrendered the rights and abilities of Godhood and submitted to the limitations of the human condition. 

Phil. 2:5-11: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, Ph. 2:7 but made Himself nothing [literally “He emptied Himself”], taking the very nature a servant, being made in human likeness.  8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 

So Jesus now has the Name above all names, not because He is the divine Logos, but because He, the Word, ‘became flesh,’ perfected our human nature, paid the ultimate price for sin, and now deserves to be exalted above all as the glorified God-Man. The mighty works, the supernatural knowledge, the divine wisdom were His, not by virtue of His deity, but because He was full of the Holy Spirit. It’s true that before He received the Holy Spirit He lived a sinless life by virtue of being Divine Man; from childhood He enjoyed the Father’s favor and was “without sin.”  But only after Jesus was baptized by John, and only after the Temptation in the wilderness, are we are told that “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit...”(Luke 4:14).  Only then did His ministry begin. 

Jesus could only speak and do what the Spirit of the Father led Him to do: 

John 5:18-20, 30: “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these... By myself [that is, in my own human ability] I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” 

John 8:28-29: “So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” 

Jesus only knew what the Father showed Him. 

In general Jesus knew more than other men, and specifically, as the Father revealed it, Jesus knew what was in the mind of men:  

John 2:24: “But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25 He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.” 

And “Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him” (John 6:64). 

On other occasions as well Jesus had special knowledge, but that was not the omniscience of an all-knowing Deity; it was the insight and revelation that the Spirit of the Father gave Him. There were also things He did not know. How else could it be said, “Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).  No one, I suppose, imagines the infant Jesus and the adolescent Jesus with the same knowledge He had as the pre-existent Son. 

On one occasion He asked, “Who touched my clothes?” (Mark 5:30). Did He really know who touched Him?  There’s no reason to think so. He had no need to know supernaturally what He could learn by a simple inquiry. We are told that Jesus “was astonished” (Matt. 8:10). We may be certain that the Logos (Word), before He “became flesh” in the incarnation, was never astonished at anything.

And how can One who is omniscient, who knows the end from the beginning, “be tempted in every way, just as we are” (Heb. 4:2)?  Of course, the most striking example of His imperfect knowledge is seen in His own confession that He did not know the day or hour of His return: 

Matt. 24:36:  “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” 

Why?  Why did the Son not know the day and hour of His return? Because, I suppose, He didn’t need to know, and the Holy Spirit had not shown Him. I’ve heard people say, “Even Jesus doesn’t know when He’s going to return.” But surely He knows now. He’s no longer limited to His human state, but is glorified with the Father. 

No, in order to be the Perfect Man, a pattern for us to follow, He had to divest Himself of His omniscience. He became our pattern of what a man can do who is full of God, full of the Holy Spirit. 

SPIRIT’S WORK IN CHRIST 

First we will look at Jesus’ earthly ministry as see how completely He depended on the Holy Spirit. 

His Teaching:  

John. 3:34:”For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.”   

Because He had the Spirit of God without measure or limit, He heard and gave us the mind of the Father perfectly. Jesus said to the Father in John chapter 17, verse 8, “For I have given them the words that you gave me.” We have the very words of God in the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. 

You may have the KJV, which reads: “For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.”  The words “unto him” are in italics. By employing italics the translators of the KJV let us know that they supplied the words “unto Him” because they were not in the original. The translators must have thought it unseemly to say that God gives the Spirit without limit to everyone. But that is just what John did say. He said, “God gives the Spirit without limit, or measure.”  God gives the Spirit (period).  He does not give a little of the Spirit, or part of the Spirit: He gives us the whole Spirit. He doesn’t give some a so-called baptismal measure and others a mere indwelling measure. He gives us the Holy Spirit without limit as well. It is our capacity to receive that determines how much we have of the Spirit. Why are some full of the Spirit and other are not?  It’s all a question of capacity, or rather, of availability. The size and capacity of the vessel determine how much can be poured into it, or whether the vessel is empty to begin with. You may remember that Jesus once said, “The prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me.” Satan had no sin-ground in Christ, no disobedience, not the slightest dark place that the Devil could occupy. Jesus was empty of all that hinders the full reception of the Spirit; therefore He was totally filled with the Spirit of the Father.  

So Jesus was completely full of the Holy Spirit because He was perfectly available to God. That’s why Jesus could say that He only did what the Father told Him to do: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.”   

To the very end Jesus was empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit; in fact everything He did, He did in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Ac. 10:37-38: “You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached —38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”   

From the early days in Galilee, only after His baptism and the descent of the Spirit upon Him in the form of a dove, do we reckon His earthly ministry. From that time on every moment of His life He was filled with, and guided by the Holy Spirit. 

Acts. 1:1-2: “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.” 

Indeed, the Resurrection itself was accomplished by the Holy Spirit. 

Rom. 1:4: “and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God, by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

Because Jesus was the Son of God, divine, He was also the Son of Man, perfect, sinless man.  Because He was a perfect HUMAN VESSEL for the Holy Spirit, in Him “all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). Thus, in addition to being our Savior and Lord, He is our perfect model and representative. “As He is so are we in the world.” We too should live our lives in total submission to Christ’s Spirit within us. 

CHRIST’S WORK IN THE CHURCH THROUGH THE SPIRIT  

In a very real and important sense the only person of the Godhead who is on earth is the Holy Spirit.  God the Father is in heaven and Christ Jesus the Son is at His right hand.  But the Holy Spirit is on earth, abiding permanently in the Church, and applying Christ’s work of redemption to mankind. 

Without the Holy Spirit all the work of Christ on our behalf would be mere history. He is the Executive of the Godhead, as we saw in a previous lesson; He applies the redemptive work of Christ to us. Christ is God entering into human history; the Holy Spirit is God entering into the human spirit and heart. 

John. 14:15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [Paracletos, Comforter, Advocate, One who comes alongside to help] to be with you forever —17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” 

John. 14:26: “But the Counselor, 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.” See how absolutely essential the Spirit is to our faith?  The reason we can have confidence in the Gospel accounts is that they did not forget what Jesus said or get His Words confused. The authenticity of the New Testament depends on this work of the Holy Spirit, bringing to remembrance the things that He said. 

John. 15:26: “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.” 

John. 16:12: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 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. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 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.” 

The Holy Spirit, then, is very self-effacing; He does not come to reveal Himself but Jesus Christ, the Son. While He was on earth the Son knew, taught, and did only what the Spirit of the Father allowed and directed. Now the Holy Spirit only does what Christ and the Father allow and direct. 

John:  16:5-7 “Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?’6 Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Summary:  The Holy Spirit is the Being who filled, guided, and empowered Jesus in His earthly ministry. Now Jesus continues His ministry by that Same Spirit as He indwells His Body, the Church.

Go to chapter 6: The Spirit and the Word             Spirit of Truth, Contents