Well, good morning. We're seeing how significant a portion of the Sunday School class are, the Mortons and the Mays. They are out this morning because Carol's had a heart attack this morning. Bobby says she's calling it minor, but they don't... know how they would know that yet at this point. That's just her assessment, or if she's had a doctor tell her that. About 8 o'clock this morning, Don took her to the Pueblo West Parkview ER that we have out here by Walgreens. And Bobby called me almost a half hour ago, probably saying, She was on her way into town, into the hospital by ambulance, probably as we spoke at that point. So Don's with her, obviously, and Bobby was here to help set up, but he's gone to be with Don and to wait on that situation. So that is why they're not here, and I'll be announcing that again later, obviously, in the worship service. Meanwhile, we will Well, we'll pray for them now as I pray to open us for the lesson. Our good and gracious God and Heavenly Father, we thank you for this, your day. A day set apart by you for your glory and our good. We do pray this morning for Carol and for Don. We ask that Carol's assessment would indeed prove out that it is minor. We ask that there would be no long-term damage and that she will recover quickly. We pray for Bobby. as well as he goes to be with them. Will you comfort him and use him as your instrument to be a comfort and a rock of stability and strength for Don and for his mom? Lord, as we open your Word together, we ask that you would bless our time in it. Will you strengthen our faith, our understanding, our knowledge of you, and grow us in the conformity to the image of Christ? We ask it in his name. Amen. It's not real loud, but it echoes in here. So I'm going to turn it down just a bit. Yeah, we had a domino effect with the class that Matt Ackerson teaches. Okay, so we continue now on the Holy Spirit and studying who is the Holy Spirit and the role of the Holy Spirit and those kinds of things. Just a quick review from last week just to catch us up a little bit and remind us, as well as because it didn't get recorded last week. So last week we started looking, first of all, at the New Testament's most focused and detailed teaching on the Holy Spirit that comes in the Gospel of John, chapters 13-16, and we looked at chapter 15, verses 26 and 27, and noted that this is where Jesus is promising another counselor, or another helper, or another comforter. We talked about that word that's used there for paraclete. It's a compound word in the Greek from kaleo, to call, and para, alongside. So this is when you call alongside. And you can see where the idea of helper or comforter would come from, one that you call alongside to help you or to comfort you. But in John's gospel, it's widely recognized that the word has legal or forensic connotation. This is the witness advocate. And we talked about the way that trials were conducted in first century Palestine. It's not so much that you need a professional in the law to come and argue for you. It's not that kind of advocate. It's the judge who will kind of run the trial and who will decide the trial. What you need is a witness. What you need is a character reference. And the requirement, what's requisite for someone to serve in this capacity, is that they know you. Obviously, it would be good if they also have some credibility with the court. But what's most distinctly and deeply needed in the person of a paraclete, when we're talking about that in a forensic way, is one that knows you well. So your need is not for a trained expert who can manipulate the system on your behalf, but you need an intimate friend who can convince the judge that you were innocent by telling the truth. Someone who can tell the truth because they are an eyewitness. And so it's this other witness or advocate that will come. That's the role of the Holy Spirit. And that's important in the whole structure of the Gospel of John, because in the Gospel of John, Jesus is on trial. as it were, where the reader is the judge. John is calling upon the reader to make the appropriate judgment, namely, that Jesus is who he said he was. He is the Son of God, the Messiah. And he calls upon the Spirit as the one who will bear witness to that. as the apostles also will." And that's John 15, 26-27 says that as well. So Jesus says, after I'm gone, I will send to you another paraclete. And he's been with me from the beginning and you too will witness to me because you have been with me from the beginning. And so there's the requisite to serve as this kind of witness to who Jesus is. The witness must have been with Jesus from the beginning and so that's critical for understanding who the spirit is In John's gospel and in the New Testament. He's one who is with Jesus from the beginning quote from Ferguson from womb to tomb to throne The Spirit was the constant companion of the Son. As a result, when he comes to Christians to indwell them, he comes as the Spirit of Christ, in such a way that to possess him is to possess Christ himself, just as to lack him is to lack Christ. And we looked at Romans 8, 9, and 10. which are indicative of an economic identity. And that's where we got off and had some fun conversation about the Trinity and about economic identity. What are we talking about there? We're not saying that the Son and the Spirit are the same person, but we are saying that in really significant ways, in redemption, they have the same role. There is an economic identity to the Son and the Spirit, and that's why Ferguson can say there in that quote, to have the Spirit, is to have Christ. It's the same thing. Those are interchangeable sentences. They mean the same thing because of that economic identity between the Spirit and Christ. They're doing the same thing because the Spirit comes as the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit who brings Christ. And if we looked at Romans 8, 9, and 10, we could look again there, too. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and Christ are all used as interchangeable terms in that text. They obviously mean the same thing. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. That's the same thing. And then a little later in verse 10, Christ is mentioned in the same exact way. And then we want to move, and I think Is this as far as we got? I should have made a mark. Did we look at Luke 1.35? I think this may be where we started right here. is to begin. So what we begin to do then, given that we've identified the significance of the Spirit, the importance of the Spirit, the role of the Spirit, is to bear witness to Christ and His qualification for being able to do so is He's been with Him from the beginning. And because of that, then we begin to just take a survey. From the beginning of Jesus coming into the world, let's look at the connection then of the Spirit. And so we'll start then in Luke 1, verse 35. Let's have a volunteer read that for us. The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, And for that reason, the Holy Child shall become the Son of God. So the angel answered. What question is he answering? How can I be pregnant? How can it be? Yeah, how can this happen? And the answer is, the Spirit will overshadow you. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, so we want to look at two phrases here. The Holy Spirit will come upon is one, and the power of the highest will overshadow is the other. We'll look at those two terms. For the Holy Spirit to come upon, that's a reference to Old Testament language. It is not real frequent, but it would be familiar to the one who's familiar with the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit comes upon Saul when he's about to be called as king, so that he prophesies with the other prophets. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, Samuel tells him, and you will become a different man. In his case, it's a temporary coming upon. And the Spirit later departs from him. But then also, upon his anointing, the Holy Spirit comes upon David. And the sense that we have is that that coming upon brings a fundamental change in that person. The Spirit indwells the life of the one that he comes upon, shaping their character, shaping their actions into conformity to his purposes, so that Saul prophesies. That is, he speaks the words of God. They're not his own words, they're the words of God. That's the result of the Spirit having come upon him. And again, Samuel says, that's in 1 Samuel chapter 10, you will become a different man. And so that that language of coming upon the spirit will come upon you Mary and will conform your character and your actions to his purposes But it means something else to this coming upon. There's a culmination here in what happens with Mary of a long-established monergistic Old Testament pattern in redemptive history. Monergism, is that familiar to everybody? That God saves by himself, mono, one. Not synergistic, we cooperate with God, but God saves by himself. And one of the ways that that monergistic redemption has been communicated throughout redemptive history is that the Holy Spirit has come upon various barren women to cause them to become fruitful. We can think of several. Sarah, who's far too old, and yet she bears a child. I taught really young kids Sunday school in Mobile. There was a student in that class named Brixie, And I can't remember if I was teaching or if it was somebody else in my family that just reported the story of Brixie. It started in with the Bible story for the lesson. And I don't know which one it was. Maybe it's Hannah. Maybe it's Mary. I don't know. But Brixie interrupts and pipes up and says, I know. God's going to give her a baby. And I said, well, how did you know that? God gives everybody babies. It's actually not all that common, but they all make it into our canon of Sunday school stories. And so the little kids have heard these. But we do have Sarah. There is Hannah. There's Samson's birth. So it certainly is a theme, a pattern that's recognizable to the student of scripture. Here it goes a step further, doesn't it? It's not just one who's been long-term barren, but one who's a virgin who is made fruitful. And so the monergism of this working of redemption through the bringing about of a child in a way that's miraculous comes to its most vivid expression, as the virgin shall conceive. So it's come upon. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. She's also told the power of the highest will overshadow you. And that term, overshadow, has still richer theological and redemptive historical imagery associated with it than does come upon. The Greek word there for overshadow is opiskiadzo. And it is the Greek word that's used in the Greek version of the Old Testament. When we do word studies that span between the two testaments, we have to look at the septuagint. The Jews had translated their scriptures into Greek, so then if we look at that version of the Old Testament, we can do our word studies back and forth between the two testaments. So what did the people who wrote and first read and best understood the Greek of the New Testament We have a window into how they understood the Old Testament because we see the Greek words they used to translate it. Does that make sense? So the Greek word in that episkiazo that's used in the Old Testament is used for that protective hovering of God over his people. which alludes to that guiding protective cloud that was with them through the wilderness, the presence of God that is with his people to protect them and guide them and provide for them. Same word gets used in association there. It was the Holy Spirit who was active for God's people in that cloud in the wilderness. We know that because Isaiah 63, 10 and 11 tell us that the rebellion of God's people in the wilderness grieved whom? The Holy Spirit, right? Grieved the Holy Spirit. Why grieved the Holy Spirit? Because it's the Holy Spirit who's active in their redemption, who's been active in being with them, God's presence with them, who's been guiding them and providing for them. And so when they rebel, it is a slap in the face of precisely the Holy Spirit. And so Isaiah, among other places, will tell us, will show us that it's the Holy Spirit that's active by that cloud, hovering over God's people. Same word gets used. That same cloud, the glory cloud, the Shekinah glory it comes to be known as, that same cloud reappears later in redemptive history, hovering as the presence of God at the tabernacle when it is completed, and again at the temple when it is completed. So again, the covenantal presence of God with his people Again, the Holy Spirit is indicated, and again, this word for hovering is made use of. So again, just for God's people steeped in the scriptures, when they read in Luke 135 this answer to Mary's question, how will this be, there's just rich history that comes with those terms. The imagery comes along with those terms automatically. We understand what's being said here. The spirit of God is to come and be with his people for redemptive purposes, to fulfill his covenant, Ezekiel 10 is one of those graphic and confusing chapters in the Prophets. It has the wheels covered with eyes, both within and without, and there's wheels within wheels, so they can go whichever direction they want without turning, and you're trying to visualize this, and you can't, and all of that. It's a somewhat lengthy chapter. But at least in that chapter, and I can't remember if those wheels and eyes and things appear in other places in Ezekiel, I think they do, but in chapter 10, the reason that they're there is because early in the chapter, the temple is described as being filled with the cloud of God's glory. And then later in that chapter, after all the cherubim and the wheels and things have been described, the glory cloud leaves the temple and goes to above these wheels and chariots, which then take that glory cloud up into heaven, away from the temple. It's a description of the departure of the glory of God and the presence of God from his people, as a judgment upon his people. Later in Ezekiel, in chapter 43, the prophet prophesized the return to the temple of that glory. That glory, that I gave you this vision of it departing, it will return. Now the temple of Ezekiel's day was destroyed. So Ezekiel prophesized that glory of God will return, but before that prophecy was fulfilled, that temple was destroyed. One thing that was lamented by God's people upon the building of the second temple was that there was no Shekinah glory. So we've been talking about this in Zechariah, right? As the temple is, they're working on rebuilding the temple, it's the second temple. And they wondered, you know, is God going to return? If we build the temple, will his presence return to his people? And one of the things that was mourned by the people is that when it was complete, it was not filled with a visible cloud, as the first temple had been, as the tabernacle had been. But the promise that God's glory would be seen there in that second temple, which is a prophecy of Haggai, and he's a contemporary of Zechariah. This is the two prophets prophesying to God's people at the same time, Zechariah and Haggai. And Haggai prophesies that God's glory would be seen at that completed second temple. And when is that fulfilled? In Christ. It's when Jesus walks into that temple. Yeah. It's not when there comes this visible cloud as a sign of God's presence with his people. It's Jesus, who from the very beginning of his life, life begins at conception, where Luke 1.35, right, the overshadowing of Mary, From the very beginning of Jesus' life and all through his life, he was overshadowed by the Spirit. The Spirit is hovering over his whole person, life, ministry. And so when he entered the temple, the Spirit of God, the glory of God, the presence of God entered the temple. answering that prophecy of Haggai, that the glory of God would be seen there. And it is the hovering of the Spirit over Jesus that enables that. Questions or comments? Let's look at Luke 9.34. Somebody want to read 934 for us? So this is where? What's the scene? Yeah, this is on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus is taken, the three, the group within the group, up on the mountain with him where he is transfigured before them. Something of his native glory is revealed to them. And here we have that same word again. It is the only other place that Luke uses the word in his gospel. He probably uses it in Acts. It's the only other place it appears in the gospel of Luke. is here in verse 34. While Peter was saying this ridiculous thing he said, a cloud came and hovered over them, overshadowed them. There again, we have that same word associated with a cloud, over them. And this, of course, makes it a Trinitarian text. Because here we have Jesus, the Son, who has taken his disciples up on the mountain. We hear the voice out of the cloud, this is my Son. Who says this is my Son? It's the Father that says that. And the cloud we've come to recognize as the presence of God with his people, the hovering of the Holy Spirit. So all three are present there in that scene in visible or audible ways. This passage also uses the word Exodus. And we're going to tie that in as well. In verse 31, just a little bit earlier. Well, let's go back to verse 30. Jesus has brought them, his three disciples, up on the mountain. And behold, two men talked with him who were Moses and Elijah. And they represent there the law and the prophets. For the Jews, that's a way of summarizing the whole of the scriptures. Moses is the law. Elijah is the foremost of the prophets. And so we have the whole of the scriptures here talking with Jesus. There were two men, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his what? Different translations have different words here now. Departure. That's what Timah has too. Mine has deceased. His death. Those are good translations. The word is actually the same word that the Jews used to translate into Greek from the Hebrew for Exodus. You understand departure, right? It's a perfectly good explanation. But then we miss that tie to the exodus. He's going to achieve a redemption of God's people out of bondage, out of the house of slavery. That's what he goes to the cross to perfect. They're discussing his exodus that he is about to accomplish. And that ties the work of the Spirit with Christ to also the work of the Spirit in the Exodus. Remember we started not long ago, we were talking about that cloud, that pillar of cloud that served as guide and protector to God's people in the wilderness. The Holy Spirit there acting, they grieved the Holy Spirit. And so there's a linguistic tie also to the Exodus. So we talked a fair bit, I don't remember if it was last week or two weeks ago, about the Holy Spirit hovering over the chaos at creation. We looked at Genesis chapter 1 there and drew out of that that it's the Holy Spirit there that's hovering over the waters and who then brings order to the incomplete creation of God. And so we want to see as we're exploring, so who is the Holy Spirit? What's his job? As we look throughout the whole of the scriptures, look at these linguistic ties, we want to see connections between the creation, exodus, a recreation and redemption, and the work of the Holy Spirit in and through Christ. we can draw further ties and connections between some of these things. So Genesis 1 verse 2. We'll look at some other terms here as well, besides just that hovering. It'll be hard to find it right at the very, very beginning. He's got Genesis 1, verse 2. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Okay. So there's hovering again, right? I mentioned that. And also this term, without form. Hebrew is tohu. And the Hebrew for hovering is rehab. So the earth is without form and hovering over it. The only other use of that Hebrew word, tohu, without form, in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, is in Deuteronomy 32. Let's look there. So just think of how familiar to us are the words, in the beginning. That's not much to go on. But if you say to a Christian, this is probably almost still true, if you say to an American, in the beginning, there's an immediate connotation that goes with that. We're talking Genesis 1.1. Maybe a little later we say, oh, John 1.1 also. There's a deliberate echoing of that language. That's all it takes. So too, if there's this word that gets used there in Genesis 1, verse 2, tohu, and then you never come across it again until one other place in Moses' writing, late in Deuteronomy, we're almost at the end of the Pentateuch, you're going to make that association. I've heard that word before. It's associated with the creation story there. So Deuteronomy 32, verses 10 and 11. Somebody read that for us. He found him in a desert land and in the howling waste of the wilderness. He encircled him. He cared for him. He guarded him as the pupil of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest that hovers over its young. He spread his wings and caught them. He carried them on his pinions. This is the only other time Moses uses that word tohu without form. It's going to be early in verse 10 there. Desert land or wasteland or wilderness, I'm not sure which English word there is coming from that Hebrew. Now if we were at all tempted to think, I mean, it's a word. It could be a coincidence. He's not necessarily calling our attention to Genesis 1-2 and drawing a parallel there. If we had any doubts at all, when we keep reading into verse 11 and we find hovering again, that should put our doubts to rest, I think. The only other place he uses that without form, this term hovering appears also. And here he's talking about God's presence with his people in the wilderness. He's actually talking about his election of their forefathers, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and their wanderings. He promised them a land, but they did not see it in their lifetime. And so his presence with their forefathers, the barely formed new people of God. They haven't grown into a whole nation in Egypt yet. They're just one small family at this point that he's talking about here. And that has parallels then with creation too, doesn't it? That's not what I have next in my notes, is it? So that might be here somewhere, but I'm just going to say it now because I started. At creation, God calls something into existence, but it's chaotic. It's the waters, which is chaos, the source of Unpredictable tragedy comes from the sea in the Hebrew mindset. And so over the waters, the chaotic waters, hovers the Spirit of God, and it is the Spirit that then brings order and organization and completion to what God has begun. And here in Deuteronomy 32, we have this description of the wilderness, the formlessness in which God finds his people and hovers over his people. And again, it's going to be the Holy Spirit that forms this people from a single man, Abraham, into a whole completed glorious people for God's glory. There's parallels there in the role that the Spirit has. Does that make sense? I'm stumbling through that, but good enough to make sense. Oh yeah, I had it here in connection with Isaiah 63. It is next. I just didn't realize I wanted to go one more place in the scripture before I said that. Isaiah 63. You know, I use the American pronunciation because I'm an American and I'm in America, but at Twin Lakes I learned to... I just like the British pronunciation. I would use that if I thought I'd get away with it. The Brits say Isaiah. And there are a number of Scottish speakers at Twin Lakes every year, so I would hear Welsh, different things from the British Isles, so they would pronounce it that way, Isaiah. Which, of course, they say is the right way to pronounce it. Isaiah 63, 7 through 14. And I was just looking at Jeremy, because he's got an Isaiah, of course, and their pastor in Mississippi was Scottish, so they heard that all the time. Isaiah 63, 7 through 14, so it's a somewhat lengthy passage. And what we're looking for here is that idea, the Holy Spirit hovering over the just begun, yet to be formed or completed divine work of creation and of redemption. I will mention the lovingkindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them according to his mercies, according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, children who will not lie. So he became their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. And he bore them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. It's the text we were referring to before. And so that's what makes it evident to us that it's the Holy Spirit who's active in the exodus and in forming this people. So he turned himself against them as an enemy, and he fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people, saying, Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who put his Holy Spirit within them, who led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the waters before them, to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the deep as a horse in the wilderness that they might not stumble? As a beast goes down into the valley, and the Spirit of the Lord causes him to rest, so you lead your people to make yourself a glorious name." So that similarity in forming this new people of God. They've come out of Egypt. Remember when Moses is called at the burning bush? He says, so if I go back to your people and say, your God has sent me to you, they're going to say what? Yeah, what God? Our God, what are you talking about? We're like a nation of slaves. Our God. So it seems that they do not have, at least very much, if any, memory of this God. And so they're brought out of Egypt, and they need to be now formed into a nation that's formed by the law that God will give them in order to reflect his glory. And it's the Spirit who takes this nascent work and begins to form it. It's that same Spirit that we find in Luke chapter 1, verse 35, that's given as the explanation, the answer to Mary's question. he will hover, he will overshadow the mother of Jesus, overseeing the conception of Jesus and coming upon Jesus to characterize and empower his entire life and ministry. We'll have a lot more to say about that, but right now we're just kind of sort of zeroing in. We've been elsewhere, but we're kind of zeroing in on his conception. been elsewhere to just get a feel, a flavor for the Spirit's work, and then bringing that back to the conception of Jesus. The work of the Spirit then, it seems, in the incarnation is antitypical. Using the word of type and antitype, a type, something that pictures, that foreshadows something that is to come. And then the antitype is the fulfillment, the thing that was pictured beforehand. So the spirit, his work in the incarnation, is a fulfillment of his former tasks. It's what he's been doing throughout redemptive history, have been pointing forward to. is his work in the Incarnation and beyond. The Holy Spirit engages in a divine work of new creation. Just as at the original creation, the Holy Spirit works on previously created material, this chaotic matter, so here at the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, he begins with the already existing humanity of Mary. that already exists, and he hovers over that, and is going to bring a new creation out of that. As at the original creation, the Holy Spirit brings order and fullness through the creation of man. What's the pinnacle of creation on the sixth day? When it's done, when it's finally proclaimed to be not just good, but very good, is upon the creation of man. Here with the incarnation of Jesus, the Holy Spirit brings the second Adam, the new man, the last man. And the Holy Spirit engages in a divine work of new exodus, a new redemption. As the Holy Spirit hovered over the fledgling nation, guiding and protecting throughout the wilderness wanderings, so did He keep Jesus, the new and better Israel, from wandering into sin under temptation in the wilderness, a place to which it was the Spirit that brought Him or drove Him into the wilderness, there to be with Him and preserve Him there, where He succeeds where Israel had failed. Again, through the work of the Holy Spirit, guiding and directing, providing for him, causing him to be the new Israel, the new redemption. Questions? Yes? This is kind of a sideline, but why in some cases does the Holy Spirit go directly to the person, as in the case of Mary? In some cases, he goes to another person and says, go tell this person. It's actually an angel that's speaking. Yeah, it's Gabriel that's speaking to Mary. The Holy Spirit is his answer to her question, how can this be? He says the Holy Spirit will. But the question is valid nonetheless. Sometimes, I don't know. I mean, we could ask all kinds of questions about that. The one that comes to my mind more often than not is, why in the world does God use human ministers to preach the word? Because he could do that directly, too. And he would do it a lot better. But it's just not how he's chosen to do things. I was wondering if anybody really knew the answer to that. I can't answer that question either. Well, I knew if anybody in Portland could, it was probably you. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I could. Things about just the people of God coming together as the people of God are floating around in my mind. And also that we walk by faith and not by sight so that most of the time God's people are called to recognize the voice of God because of its content. because it gels with the witness of the Holy Spirit within us and convinces us of the truth of the Word, again, because of its content, rather than because we're just overpowered with this experience of His divine voice. But those are interesting ideas more than a definitive answer. Anything else? Okay. Randy, can I call on you to close us in prayer? Yes, sir. Eternal, holy, and gracious God, we thank you that you are triune and eternal. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each person and each person active in your plans and purposes increase the accomplishment of salvation of your people and sanctification bringing them to completion of that work. I pray that you would bring these truths to our mind the rest of the day on through the week and help us to grow in grace and understanding. Be with us now as we head into corporal worship. You will hear our prayers, our praises, our confessions, and the preaching of the word and be glorified in all that we give in Christ. Amen.