Who Is the Holy Spirit?

Of the three persons of the Trinity, none is more apt to be misunderstood or forgotten than the Third Person, the Holy Spirit. We may simply overlook Him or avoid Him out of fear or confusion. Let’s remind ourselves of the actions of each member of the Trinity: God the Father initiates all divine activity. He sends God the Son to accomplish our salvation. The Father and the Son send the Spirit to apply our salvation. God the Father initiates, God the Son accomplishes, and God the Spirit applies. All that the Father wills, all that Christ purchases, is given to us through the Spirit of God. In this chapter, we will explore who the Holy Spirit is and what He does in His work of application.

Not only has God come to rescue us in Christ, but God continues to save His people through the Holy Spirit. For the believer, salvation is ongoing in the sense that those delivered from sin’s penalty (justification) now experience deliverance from sin’s power (sanctification), and will one day be delivered from sin’s presence (glorification). The Spirit is active in each of these aspects of salvation.

After His resurrection, and immediately before His ascension, one of Jesus’s first actions is to breathe out the Holy Spirit on His disciples. “He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). He shows that not only is He the God who creates but, the God who recreates. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not only true for those disciples who were present with Jesus at His resurrection; it is true for anybody who would follow Jesus. Immediately after His ascension, Jesus does the same thing for all disciples. At Pentecost we see that anybody who believes in Jesus through faith receives the Spirit of God.

Peter preaches the gospel, and the crowd responds by asking, “What are we supposed to do?” Peter answers, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). When we receive the good news of the gospel through faith, we don’t just receive forgiveness of sins we receive the very presence of God. Not only does the Spirit of God breathe life into humanity formed from the dirt, but He also breathes life into humanity reborn in the gospel.

And that is exactly what we need. We don’t just need God to be with us, or God to be for us—though we need those things too. We need God to be in us, so that the work of Christ can be applied to us.

This is why the Father and the Son send the Spirit, in order to apply the accomplishments of Christ—to make His accomplishments ours. What Christ secured, the Spirit gives. Those Christ has justified, the Spirit enlivens, unites to Christ, sanctifies, preserves, and glorifies. The Spirit makes us coheirs in the kingdom of Christ. He gives us the King and the kingdom.