This month features excerpts from an article in the April 5, 1945, issue of the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, in which I. H. Evans explains some of the crucial works of the Holy Spirit in the plan of salvation.
The Holy Spirit has much to do with our eternal salvation.* The devoted Christian will more and more seek to understand His person, His relationship to God [the Father] and Christ, and His ministry to the believer. The Holy Spirit is spoken of in Scripture as having personality, initiative, power, and as one person of the Trinity. In our observations we must confine ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit in saving men.
The Scriptures speak of God as a being. Christ is presented to us as the God-man, who, as God’s Son and our Saviour, took human form and lived in [the likeness of] sinful flesh, not as a sinner, but as God in man, who should taste death for every man. The Holy Spirit is presented as another Comforter, or Helper, or Advocate. He was not the one who was to taste death for every man, as Christ did; He was to carry on the work of spreading the gospel of the kingdom, calling men to repentance, and to live with and minister to the believers.
Christ said to His disciples: “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” John 14:15-17. The Holy Spirit is this Comforter. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” John 14:26. . . .
Christ’s Representative
“Before this the Spirit had been in the world; from the very beginning of the work of redemption He had been moving upon men’s hearts. But while Christ was on earth the disciples had desired no other helper. Not until they were deprived of His presence would they feel their need of the Spirit, and then He would come. The Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative, but divested of the personality of humanity, and independent thereof. Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally. Therefore it was for their interest that He should go to the Father, and send the Spirit to be His successor on earth. No one could then have any advantage because of his location or his personal contact with Christ. By the Spirit the Saviour would be accessible to all. In this sense, He would be nearer to them than if He had not ascended on high.”—The Desire of Ages, p. 669.
This Comforter, or Helper, is not a temporary companion, but He is to abide with God’s people forever. . . . The promise is, “He . . . shall be in you” and “abide with you forever.” [The Holy Spirit] is one of the three persons of the Godhead and has ever been with the church and wrought in all the victories of every Christian in serving God, and when we think of Him as being in us as well as with us forever, we can appreciate more than otherwise what God has done to save mankind. . . .
Soon after ascending to His Father, Christ sent the Holy Spirit to abide with His people individually and collectively while they live on earth, to help them as Comforter, and to persuade them to seek after righteousness through faith in Christ.
Holy Spirit and the Scriptures
The Holy Spirit is not only a Comforter but a great teacher. It is He who inspired the writers of the Scriptures; He helped the prophets to understand what the people of God in all ages needed to have written. The Scriptures are not a hodgepodge of miscellaneous writings, that have neither purpose nor teachings of important truths, but they are for spiritual food and instruction to aid the believer all through his life. The Holy Scriptures express the thoughts of God toward sinful, rebellious men and women, offering them mercy and pardon and guidance in ways of righteousness. The Scriptures are food for the soul as bread is food for the physical body.
The Holy Spirit indicated what holy men should write. They “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” [2 Peter 1:21.] “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” John 14:26. The Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance what we have read in the Bible. Thus He not only guided men in what to write, but also brings to the believer’s mind what has been written by men of God.
Our Teacher and Helper
The Holy Spirit quickens the spiritual mentality of the soul. He it is that re-creates the carnal heart, brings about the new birth, and enables the newborn soul to feed on the promises of the Word. He dwells in the child of faith, and quickens the soul formerly dead in trespasses and sins. . . .
“If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine” is the promise of Christ. John 7:17. This is fulfilled in the newborn soul when he seeks the Lord and receives the work of grace by faith.
After we have experienced the new birth we are still in the flesh and are surrounded with temptations that once we did not strive to resist but which now we must fight. The enemy is now determined that we shall not follow on to know the Lord but that we shall be “stony ground” hearers of the Word. Sometimes the Christian may find his old habits returning, and feel that he cannot longer resist. At such times he must hold on to the promises of God and claim divine help. Do you say that when one is born again he cannot be tempted of the devil? Then remember the experience of Christ. . . .
If the sinless Son of man, approved of God, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and ministered to by the Holy Spirit, was buffeted by the enemy, shall it be thought strange that the newborn soul baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit should be tempted by the enemy of all righteousness?
Helps Our Infirmities
To the church at Rome, Paul wrote, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” Rom. 8:26, 27. . . .
When we stop to think that the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us “with groanings which cannot be uttered,” how can we feel that we are unequal to the task of overcoming our weaknesses? How often we forget that God is with us in the battles we fight, that we are not alone, but the Holy Spirit is praying for us and dwells within us!
Where the Spirit of God is, there is always power. We read of this power on the day of Pentecost. . . . The Holy Spirit descended upon them, and on the very first day of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s power about three thousand souls were converted to the Lord. Great strides in Christian attainment can be gained only when the Holy Spirit enters the heart and takes up His abode there.
Every child of God can have this indwelling power if he will. It must be received by faith by each believer. The Holy Spirit is ready, and will do far more for us than we can hope or think. He is divine, and has infinite power to accomplish what He wills. We can talk to Him as friend to friend and say to His praise and glory:
Thou art my victory, my all in all,
My rock, my tower, my armor for defense;
When my strength fails, on Thee I humbly call,
And lo! Thy mighty arm, I know not whence
It comes, defends me; though Thou art unseen,
I’m conscious of Thy help on whom I lean.
The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is our assurance of overcoming sin. Without that presence we cannot win; clothed in it we shall not fail. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” 1 John 5:4.
* I[rwin] H[enry] Evans, “Another Comforter,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Apr. 5, 1945, pp. 8, 9.
