The Holy Spirit is one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity, and He is a personal being rather than an impersonal force. He is the same in substance and equal in power and glory with God the Father and God the Son. Each person of the Godhead possesses a unique personal property. The personal property of the Spirit, who is the third person of the Godhead, is that He “proceeds” from the Father and the Son. God the Holy Spirit functions as the life-giving agent of creation and new creation. The Spirit is the principal agent of biblical revelation, illumination, and persuasion. He also brings about the conviction, regeneration, and transformation of the hearts of sinners. In the economy of redemption, the Spirit applies the saving work of the Son to the hearts and lives of the elect. The Spirit unites believers to Christ, imparting all the benefits of Christ’s person and work to them.

The person and work of the Holy Spirit spark much interest these days-but also much confusion. Many do not fully understand who the Spirit is or how He works in our lives. Some people even claim that the Spirit speaks to them apart from the Bible.In this booklet, Dr. R.C. Sproul cuts through the confusion by going to Scripture. After explaining who the Holy Spirit is, Dr. Sproul briefly sketches His work in this world, from giving new life to unbelievers to sanctifying and empowering God's people.The Crucial Questions booklet series by Dr. R.C. Sproul offers succinct answers to important questions often asked by Christians and thoughtful inquirers.

Who is the Holy Spirit and what is His role in redemption? These questions have been especially important since the rise of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements in the last century. Along with a renewed interest in the person and work of the Holy Spirit has come increased confusion. In this series, R.C. Sproul cuts through the complexity, getting to the heart of the Bible’s teaching regarding the third person of the Trinity.

As Dr. Sproul examines Biblical truths concerning the Holy Spirit, he considers the teaching of the sixteenth-century Reformer John Calvin, who is known as "the theologian of the Holy Spirit." Dr. Sproul explains how Calvin emphasized the Holy Spirit's role in illuminating the revealed Word of God to believers.

As Dr. Sproul examines Biblical truths concerning the Holy Spirit, he considers the teaching of the sixteenth-century Reformer John Calvin, who is known as "the theologian of the Holy Spirit." Dr. Sproul explains how Calvin emphasized the Holy Spirit's role in illuminating the revealed Word of God to believers.

Who is the Holy Spirit and what is His role in redemption? These questions have been especially important since the rise of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements in the last century. Along with a renewed interest in the person and work of the Holy Spirit has come increased confusion. In this series, R.C. Sproul cuts through the complexity, getting to the heart of the Bible's teaching regarding the third person of the Trinity.

Although the Holy Spirit is sometimes the forgotten Person of the Trinity, His presence and work is found throughout redemptive history. In this twelve-message series, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson traces the work of the third person of the Trinity through Scripture—from creation to the work of Christ to His dwelling in our hearts today. Along the way, he sheds light on the vital role the Holy Spirit serves. Dr. Ferguson's goal is to help us know the Holy Spirit as a person, in addition to knowing of His power and work within us.

Although the Holy Spirit is sometimes the forgotten Person of the Trinity, His presence and work is found throughout redemptive history. In this twelve-message series, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson traces the work of the third person of the Trinity through Scripture - from creation to the work of Christ to His dwelling in our hearts today. Along the way, he sheds light on the vital role the Holy Spirit serves. Dr. Ferguson's goal is to help us know the Holy Spirit as a person, in addition to knowing of His power and work within us.

People have many ideas about the Holy Spirit. Some think that He is simply a force or a guide. However, Scripture gives us a different picture, showing us, as Dr. Sinclair Ferguson explains, that the Holy Spirit is the eternal God of creation.Dr. Ferguson's study is rooted and driven by the scriptural story of the Spirit in creation and redemption. Throughout he shows himself fully at home in the church's historical theology of the Spirit and conversant with the wide variety of contemporary Christians who have explored the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Who is the Holy Spirit and what is His role in redemption? These questions have been especially important since the rise of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements in the last century. Along with a renewed interest in the person and work of the Holy Spirit has come increased confusion. In this series, R.C. Sproul cuts through the complexity, getting to the heart of the Bible’s teaching regarding the third person of the Trinity.

Although the Holy Spirit is sometimes the forgotten Person of the Trinity, His presence and work is found throughout redemptive history. In this twelve-message series, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson traces the work of the third person of the Trinity through Scripture - from creation to the work of Christ to His dwelling in our hearts today. Along the way, he sheds light on the vital role the Holy Spirit serves. Dr. Ferguson's goal is to help us know the Holy Spirit as a person, in addition to knowing of His power and work within us.

Our worship, prayers, and all of the attending things are Trinitarian from beginning to end. When we look at the function of the different members of the Godhead with respect to prayer, we see that the second person of the Trinity, Christ, intercedes for us as our Great High Priest. That’s why we usually pray in the name of Jesus.

Additionally, the Holy Spirit assists us in articulating our prayers to the Son, who then carries them to the Father. We make that distinction among persons, but we’re distinguishing among three persons of one being. So, all that we do in this case is fully Trinitarian.

THOMAS: Interestingly enough, we talked a little bit about this today in a course that I was teaching here for Ligonier. We talked about the change of view that has taken place since the Puritan period in the seventeenth century. At that time, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was a definite sin. It was a definite, existential moment in a person’s life when they said “No” to the gospel or “No” to the work of the Holy Spirit. I was pointing out that Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I think in Preaching and Preachers, said that this was what troubled his congregation the most during the course of his ministry.

Most interpreters today view the sin against the Holy Spirit as unbelief, such that the only sin that cannot be forgiven is unbelief. They say that if you are brought before the judgment seat of God and do not believe, then there is no forgiveness, and that is the sin against the Holy Spirit.

I’m more with the Puritans. I think that to sin against the Holy Spirit—and therefore to commit the unforgivable sin—is something one can commit during the course of one’s life rather than pushing it to the very end on the day of judgment.

WEBB: I’ve heard it said that if you are concerned that you’ve committed this sin, then you need not worry because you haven’t committed it. Is that true?

SPROUL: Not necessarily. You could have done it and still be concerned about it, but it’s a good sign.

WEBB: Okay.

SPROUL: In the first instance, when you’re talking about blasphemy, it has to do with something you say or write. The context in which the warning was given was that the Pharisees were accusing Jesus of doing His miracles by the power of the devil. It was like He said, “Be careful; you’re this close.”

Notice that, at the time of the crucifixion, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Scripture also says, “Had they known, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory,” (1 Cor. 2:8), and so on.

I think the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit happens when the Holy Spirit reveals to a person that Jesus is the Christ, and then they accuse Him of being a devil. If you do that, you’re toast. Now, I don’t know whether anybody ever does that, but I don’t think we ought to get away from what the very root meaning of blasphemy is—it’s a verbal thing.

that anointing power upon all of us.

We distinguish among various different works attributed to the Third Person of the Trinity.

For example, regeneration is so vitally important, and the Holy Spirit is the One who changes the disposition of our hearts. Anyone who was a believer in the Old Testament had to be regenerate before they would be a believer. So anyone who was regenerate the Old Testament experienced the work of God the Holy Spirit in changing the disposition of their soul.

We also talk about ways in which the Holy Spirit filled people. The first people we read about being “filled” by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, strangely enough, were those whom God called to be artisans for the construction of the tabernacle (Ex. 31:1-6; 35:30-36:2). They were gifted by God the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill that particular task.

You also see that other offices and operations of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament saints included a particular charismatic anointment or empowering, like the prophets whom the Holy Spirit came upon, and the kings who were anointed by the Holy Spirit.

You go back to the book of Numbers and you see where Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, rebuked Moses for doing too many things by himself. He was led by the Lord to instruct Moses, and he said, “Gather seventy of the people that you know are elders among the people, bring them to yourself, and I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and distribute it among the seventy” (Num. 11:16-17). That’s recorded there in the Old Testament. So, the multiplication of the empowering of Moses was given.

And at that time, when Joshua raised up a question about it, he said, “Moses! Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. Please forbid them.” And Moses replied, “Envious thou for my sake, Joshua? Would that all of God’s people would be prophets, and He would pour His Spirit out upon them” (Num. 11:29).

That prayer of Moses later became a prophecy by Joel that, in the latter days, God would pour out His Spirit upon all believers (Joel 2:28-29). That’s the significance, I think, of what took place at Pentecost. Pentecost saw the Spirit of Christ distributed, not just for seventy people to empower them for ministry, but to the whole Christian community (Acts 2:16-21). All believers received the Holy Ghost and were empowered (Acts 2:38).

Now I know that not everybody believes that aspect, as we’ve seen all kinds of controversies about the role and the person of the Holy Spirit in our day. One of the best studies that you can ever get is the study by Sinclair Ferguson on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. So, I commend that to you.

When I became a Christian in September of 1957), I found myself in a serious quandary. I was engaged to be married, but when I told my fiancée about my conversion, she thought I had lost my mind. That was upsetting enough, but I was also learning that I should not marry a nonbeliever, and so I began to wonder whether I would be able to marry the woman I loved. Several months passed with no resolution of this dilemma.

Finally, spring break approached. My fiancée was planning to go home to Pittsburgh from the college where she was studying, and I persuaded her to stop at my college, attend a campus Bible study with me, and then spend the night in the girls’ dorm. I cannot remember anything for which I spent more time praying. I spent virtually the whole day before she arrived on my knees, praying that God would work in her life. I came to the conclusion that if she did not soon become a Christian, I would have to break the engagement, as much as I did not want to do so.

One of my clearest memories of that wonderful morning is of the moment when we were getting into my car. As she was telling me about her experience, she looked at me with great excitement and said, “Now I know who the Holy Spirit is.” Of course, she had attended church for years. She had heard the Holy Spirit mentioned. She had heard the benediction pronounced in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But now, for the first time, she had a sense of who the Spirit really is.

That statement of my fiancée, who is now my wife, was very significant. Notice that she said, “Now I know who the Holy Spirit is,” not, “Now I know what the Holy Spirit is.” In her conversion, she made a transition from understanding Christianity in an abstract sense to understanding it as a personal relationship with God.

At times when we read the New Testament record of those who are baptized in the Spirit or filled with the Spirit, it seems that these terms are used interchangeably, that they refer to the same phenomenon. At other times there’s a little distinction that is not altogether clear in the text. Sometimes it seems that to discern the difference requires a knife sharper than the one I own.

Let’s just go back and ask this question: What does the Bible mean by the term “baptized in the Holy Spirit”? In the New Testament there’s a distinction between being born of the Spirit—which is the work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate us, to change the disposition of our hearts and make us alive spiritually—and to baptize us in the Holy Spirit. We read about the baptism of the Holy Spirit principally on the Day of Pentecost and subsequent events similar to the Day of Pentecost in which those who were gathered were baptized in the Holy Spirit. We understand that the people who were baptized in the Holy Spirit were already believers and they were already regenerated. So we must distinguish between the Spirit’s work in making us spiritually alive and the Spirit’s work in baptizing us, whatever baptizing means. Most churches would affirm that the primary meaning of the concept of baptism in the Holy Spirit is the work of the Spirit upon a human being to endow that person with the power necessary to carry out their mission and vocation as a Christian.

In the Old Testament that charisma, the gift of the empowering of the Holy Spirit, was limited to certain individuals such as priests and prophets and mediators like Moses. But the point of the New Testament is that the whole body of the people of God is now being equipped and empowered from on high to carry out its task. Notice that Pentecost is tied very closely to the great commission. Jesus said, “Go into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outermost parts of the earth, but before you go, tarry in Jerusalem. After the Holy Spirit comes upon you, then you can go and carry out this mandate.”

The “baptism of the Spirit” refers to being equipped or empowered by God’s Spirit to carry out the task that Jesus has given the church. When the Spirit equips us or baptizes us, we are immersed, as it were, in the Holy Spirit; sometimes the Scriptures refer to this as being filled with the Holy Spirit. Other times the term “being filled with the Holy Spirit” is used in the same way as being filled with love or filled with joy—there’s this sensation of superabundance of the presence of God. I think that sometimes the Scripture is speaking of something more than simply being equipped for ministry, but having an awareness, a keen awareness and consciousness, of the powerful presence of the Spirit.

would apply to this sin.

objectively. Yet, for that redemption to avail for us, it must be appropriated subjectively. Faith is required as the necessary instrument for us to receive the benefits of Christ’s accomplished work of redemption.

The subjective appropriation of the work of the Son is accomplished by the application of that redemption by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who regenerates us. In that regeneration, He generates the faith in us that is necessary for our appropriation of the work of Christ.

That application via regeneration and faith is not a joint venture between the sinner and the Spirit. The Spirit does not regenerate those who believe. No, He regenerates the unbelieving sinner unto faith. He quickens to spiritual life those who are dead in sin. He changes the recalcitrant heart of the sinner, making the unwilling willing to come to Christ. He makes the indisposed disposed to Him, the disinclined fully inclined. Our salvation is entirely of God—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Soli Deo Gloria.

Without the Holy Spirit, there would be no true prayer. Paul writes to the Corinthians and says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).

The Spirit primarily does two things in us, and if you understand these two things, you’ll understand how the Spirit helps us pray. First, the Spirit illumines us. He opens our eyes to see who God is truly, and we then find our minds turned. We have a complete misunderstanding of what God is like, and then the Spirit opens our eyes, and it’s a mighty aha moment that carries on as we carry on being educated by the Spirit. So, the Spirit renews our minds as we think: “Oh, that is what God is like. I did not think God was like that.”

Second, by renewing our minds, the Spirit transforms our hearts. He takes away a heart of stone to give us a heart of flesh. That is an initial work that He does, but it’s also an ongoing work. The Spirit gives us a new mind and a new heart, but He also ongoingly educates us and affects us. In regard to prayer, that means that as the Spirit works in me, my mind is enabled to know what to pray for.

As a young Christian, I naturally tended to have a prayer life like a shopping list of blessings for me, my family, and my friends, and it was pretty self-centered. And then I’d remember that I ought to do some less self-centered prayers. But as the Spirit works in me and transforms my mind, and I see reality differently, as I start seeing the centrality of God and not me, then my prayers start following that change. My prayers start becoming more God-centered and less me-centered. That’s the Spirit’s re-education work.

Further, through the Spirit’s re-education work, He is also transforming my affections and desires. It’s not merely as the Spirit works in me that I know, “Yes, I really ought to be more God-centered and less self-centered.” Rather, the Spirit is doing a deeper work. He’s actually making me want to be and enjoy being God-centered so this just becomes natural to me. I’m not trying to work at it. It just comes out of who the Spirit is making me to be. Therefore, I begin to desire to pray God-centered, God-loving, and God-adoring prayers.

The Spirit educates and affects me such that I begin to desire to pray, to desire long communion with God in a way that I did not think about before. Initially, prayer was just one of those things that I ought to do every now and again. But the Spirit’s work runs so deep that I begin to enjoy communion with God.

So, it’s those two things that the Spirit does. He educates me, transforming my mind, and He transforms my affections so that I enjoy prayer and begin to pray more intelligently and more Christian prayers.

of the Trinity to us!

We are stretching our intellects to the limit here. But as our minds stand on tiptoe, exploring the horizons of divine revelation, we are not distressed by our limitations. Rather, we are gazing on the endless beauty and wonder of God’s ineffable being, lost in wonder, love, and praise. The Spirit shines on the face of Christ; the Son leads us to the Father. Thus we begin to realize who He is who has brought us to know God. With the Apostle John, we say “Surely, Blessed Spirit, You have brought us into the fellowship of the Father and his Son Jesus Christ!” (1 John 1:3). And so we learn to sing with the saints through the ages: Teach us to know the Father, Son And Thee of both, to be but One, That through the ages all along This may be our endless song, Praise to Thine eternal merit Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen—and Amen!

The chief way the church has stumbled in understanding the Holy Spirit is that it has focused on the gifts of the Spirit and the Spirit as the giver of power. I have quite often said that when I was a teenager, every single minister, teacher, or preacher who stood up to talk about the Holy Spirit started as though he had read the same book as everybody else, saying, “The Holy Spirit is the forgotten person of the Godhead.” The truth, however, is that they focused on the spiritual gifts—speaking in tongues, prophesying, and miracles—and power. But they did not focus on the person of the Holy Spirit.

That misplaced focus might be the biggest distortion of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the result has been that the biblical focus on the fruit of the Spirit has been minimized and the role of the gifts of the Spirit has been maximized. But when we look at the New Testament, there are only a few places where the special gifts of the Holy Spirit are even mentioned. The dominant focus of the New Testament is on the fruit of the Spirit transforming us into the likeness of the character of Christ. That is really where our focus should lie, though it is a much slower and less dramatic business than speaking in tongues, prophesying, and all the other things that go with it. But we could talk the hind legs off a donkey on this theme, I’m sure.

those who spoke of release from the influence of indwelling sin and struggle through the liberty of the Spirit. Precisely because He is the firstfruits and not yet the final harvest, there is a sense in which the indwelling of the Spirit is the cause of the believer’s groaning: “We ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). The presence of the Spirit brings us already a foretaste of future glory, but also, simultaneously, creates within us a sense of the incompleteness of our present spiritual experience. This, for Owen, is how communion with the Spirit—understood biblically—brings joy into the life of the believer and yet a deep sense that the fullness of joy is not yet.

be that precise about it. So the question is interesting and raises a number of issues.