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I believe in the Holy Spirit
Christians believe God is a Trinity. We’ve already seen that God has eternally existed as one essence and three distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each of the three persons of the Godhead is fully God, yet there’s one God. The Apostles’ Creed affirms the trinitarian formula when it affirms belief in the Holy Spirit with the simple statement—“I believe in the Holy Spirit”
Sometimes people speak of the Holy Spirit in impersonal terms. In contrast, Jesus referred to the Spirit as He, Helper, and Guide. The Spirit is never an it. The Holy Spirit is specifically mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed because the Bible teaches that the Spirit isn’t the Father, nor is He the Son, yet He’s fully God. Because the Spirit is fully God and God is a personal God, the Spirit has personal attributes, and He acts personally.
The Spirit of God literally changes everything about your life. He ransoms you, saving you from being a spiritual orphan; bringing you into the household of faith; and marking you as a son or a daughter of God who’s known, loved, provided for, cared for, and pursued. Being adopted into the family of God is an identity marker that nothing and no one can take from you. Through faith in the Son, by the grace of the Father, you’re a Spirit-filled member of His family. The triune God created a new Spirit-born people—the church—characterized by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit indwells believers and uniquely gives them and the church the gift of discerning and receiving the truth about God (see 1 John 1:1-3; 4:6) and rejecting false teaching (see 4:1). The Spirit unites believers and enables us to abide in Christ. The Spirit also fills us and gives us Christlike character that’s powerfully different from the way we once lived according to the flesh (see Gal. 5:16-26; Col. 3:1-17). Now, with the Holy Spirit, humans are turned into proper vessels for to love and serve the world in the name of Jesus Christ.
About this Plan
Culture has changed. Church beliefs shouldn’t. It’s each for our culture of individuality and innovation to shape the way we think about the church. With so many questions, opinions, and interpretations among people today—even within the church—what should we all agree on as essential to the Christian faith? Join Matt Chandler for 12 days answering this question as we walk through a historic creed of the Christian faith.
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