Let's begin with a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this Lord's Day. Thank you for your mercies. Thank you for your grace, your loving kindness towards us, Lord God. Please bless our study, bless our time together. We pray that you would bless this Lord's Day, that we would glorify you and glorify your son, Lord, as we worship you, as we gather and sing praises to you, as we lay our petitions down before you. Lord, please teach us, instruct us, and grow us by your word and by your truth, Lord God. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. There's feedback, or no. Let's see if that's, yeah, that's better. Okay, so we've been going again through the Trinity and the Gospel of John. We started off with the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his work and role in salvation. Then we looked at the Father and the deity that is attributed to him, and then his role in salvation in the Gospel of John. And then we started to look at the Holy Spirit and his role in the Gospel of John, in the Trinity and in the Gospel of John. We saw that the deity of the spirit in the role that he plays in salvation, that just as the father and the son have a specific role in salvation, so does the Holy Spirit. We get a hint of this, of his role in the first part of the Gospel of John, which is pretty much chapter one through the end of chapter 12. But even this, the vast majority of instances where the Holy Spirit is mentioned, it's in connection with the ministry of Jesus. And so the focus there is not so much the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but of the ministry of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is much more prominent in the second section of John, the Book of Glory, regarding his role in salvation. We see this in John 14, 16 through 17, in John 14, 26, John 15, 26, 16, 13, and 20, 22. And what we see basically is that he is the spirit of truth and the helping spirit or the helper that Jesus is going to send. The role of the Holy Spirit, as a spirit of truth and as the helper, is a role that is given to him by the Father. He will bring to remembrance all that Jesus has taught to his disciples. This is part of his role. He will testify regarding Jesus together with his followers. He will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And he will guide Jesus' disciples in all truth and disclose what is to come. So in all of these, again, he is, Though it is his work that he is doing, it's still, notice, in connection with Jesus. where in the first part of the gospel, the focus is on Jesus's ministry. Here, the focus is on the spirit, but it's the spirit doing what? Leading people to Christ. So there's still that connection. There's never gonna be just this like kind of solo, on his own kind of work apart from the Father and the Son. And this is what we've been seeing, that when we look at the Father, when we look at the Son, their roles, though there's a certain emphasis with each person of the Trinity, but yet they're working together. And we see the same thing here with the Gospel or with the Holy Spirit, that he is working together in connection with the ministry of Jesus Christ. One thing that we need to keep in mind, too, as we read these right here, and as Jesus is promising his disciples these things, they are specifically for his disciples. We can draw application to ourselves, and when we look at scripture, we need to always keep this in mind. Who is the author speaking to? Who is the subject here speaking to? And in this case, Jesus is speaking to the disciples. And from that, we can draw application to ourselves, to the church in our day, but we also need to keep in mind what is particularly given to the audience that is being spoken to. These promises are given to the disciples that the Holy Spirit would bring remembrance of all things that Jesus taught to his disciples, because he is gonna prepare them for their ministry. He will guide the disciples in all truth and disclose what is to come. We see this, for example, with John, who the Holy Spirit revealed, you know, the things in the book of Revelation, right? The things that were to come. We see this with Peter and other apostles that they were given this special revelation of things to come. This does not apply to all of us. So we can't claim this promise for ourselves and say, well, the Holy Spirit is going to reveal to me things to come. And if he does reveal them, they're going to be things that are already written down in the scriptures. He will give you clarity and understanding of those things to come, but things that have already been written down, inscripturated, canonized. This is for the disciples, and so we're seeing here the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Again, the role is given to him by both the Father and the Son. And the Son, we see this in John 14, 26, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things. and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." So Jesus here is saying that the Holy Spirit will be sent by the Father. But in John 15, 26, he says, when the helper comes whom I will send to you from the Father, that is a spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. And so, He is sent, given by both the father and the son. But this actually, just a little kind of side note. This was part, not the only thing, but part of the reason why the Church in the East and the West split many years ago. It was one of many reasons. There was other theological disagreements that the Eastern Church had versus the Western Church, but it has to do with the Nicene Creed. Originally, it didn't have that section in the red and the sun. Originally, it read, we believe, yeah, originally simply said, who proceeds from the father. See that? Originally simply said, who proceeds from the father, but in the late 6th century, it was changed or there was an addition made to it, who proceeds from the father and the son. And here in the Latin, it's filioque, so qui ex patria filioque, That is the filioque controversy. The East did not like that. First of all, they believed it was in violation of one of the canons of Ephesus that said that you cannot have new creeds other than what the fathers had already given them. So they believed there was a violation of that, because it was changing the creed. But it also kind of went against some of the Eastern Church's view on the Trinity. So, you know, that along with other things caused that break between the Eastern Church and the Western Church, and so after that you have the Eastern Orthodox Church and then the Roman Catholic Church in the West. But scripture does say that both the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, Now, given the role of the Spirit as described in John, does this mean that the Old Testament saints did not possess the Holy Spirit? If they did, why is Jesus saying that the Spirit had not yet come and that he will come in the future? So, this was kind of brought up by a question that we had last week, you know, is the, The working of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is that something that's exclusive in the New Covenant, something that didn't happen before? And so if that's the case, how are Old Testament saints saved? So we're going to kind of look at that a little bit, well, for the rest of this study today. Okay, so first thing I want to say is that there's not a lot of, well, there's really not very many, not clear verses in the Old Testament that really explain or talk about being born again or being born from above the way that we see in the Gospels or in the New Testament. We have to remember that revelation, the Bible, what we call the Bible, Old and New Testament, are progressive in its revelation. That God, throughout redemptive history, is little by little, He's progressively revealing more and more of his plan of salvation, not just the plan of salvation, but of who he is. All these doctrines that we hold are all found, we can find them in the Old Testament, but in seed form. They're there, they're sometimes not as clear, but God, little by little, as history goes by, as the history of salvation progresses, God is, little by little, revealing more and more of that plan and of who he is, of Christ, And so when we get to the New Testament, that's when we see the full revelation of all these truths. And so it is difficult to look in the Old Testament and try to find a verse that talks about being born again. But there are things in the Old Testament that we can point to. The New Testament tells us that in order to see the Kingdom of God and enter into it, that is, in order to be saved, one must be born from above. One must be born of the Spirit, which is regeneration. We see this in Don 3, verses 1-8. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these things that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? And Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. So all of this is speaking of someone who is born of the spirit. You need to be born of the spirit in order to see, to enter into the kingdom of God, to be saved, to be a true believer. If this is the case, and people were not born again in the Old Testament, did not have the working of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, then no one in the Old Testament is saved. But of course, we do know that people are saved. So just from this alone, we can deduce from this that, yes, people, if saints were saved in the Old Testament, they would be born again by the Spirit of God, regenerate, converted. But we also see here that Jesus is rebuking Nicodemus for not knowing about this concept of being born again. So he says, you're a teacher of Israel, you're a teacher of the law, you know the law, the Old Testament, and you don't know about this, which implies that there are things in the Old Testament that speak of being born again. We see this, for example, in Deuteronomy 30, verse six. Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, so that you may live. One of the biggest issues with the Israelites that we see throughout the history of Israel is that they were stubborn, they were stiff-necked, they did not believe the promises of God, even from the very beginning. being delivered out of Egypt, seeing the Red Sea parted, seeing all these great miracles, and yet they continue to grumble, continue to disbelieve and doubt. thinking that God has just brought us out here to kill us in the desert. And the Lord abuses them for being stiff-necked, for how long will you not believe my word? And so what is the solution? How can a person love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength? And that is to be circumcised in heart. And that is the language of the Old Testament of being born again. We see this in Jeremiah 31, 33, for this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Jeremiah 32, 40, I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me. Ezekiel 11, 19, and I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them. And I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. And then Ezekiel 36, 26, moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So even though this is speaking future tense, right? This is something that God will do. The idea here is that it is necessary to have this new heart, to be circumcised in heart, to be born again in order to love God, to truly believe in God and his promises. But this is speaking within the category of covenants. In the old covenant, circumcision of the heart was not part of that covenant. People could be in the covenant and not be circumcised in the heart. You could be an unbeliever and be in the old covenant. All you had to do to really be faithful in the covenant was to obey the the commandments, to do these external things. The people couldn't judge your heart, so as long as you did what you were supposed to, the offerings and kept to the dietary laws and all that, you were in good standing in Israel. But the problem, though, is the heart. And that's really what God was after. And even in the Old Testament, God is commanding them to believe, to circumcise their hearts. But of course, we can't. We can't make ourselves be born again. This is something that God would do. And so this is prophesying of a time when in the covenant, everybody who is in that covenant will be circumcised in the heart. Everybody who is in the New Covenant will be born again, will have the law of God written in their hearts. And that'll be different from the Old Covenant where the vast majority of them did not have circumcised hearts, but some of them did. So again, though this is a work for the New Covenant, those blessings are found in the Old Testament in certain individuals. Ezekiel 37, 9 and 10, the hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley and it was full of bones. And he caused me to pass among them round about and behold there were very many on the surface of the valley and lo, they were very dry. And he said to me, son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, oh Lord God, you know. Again, he said to me, prophesy over these bones and say to them, oh, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. And thus says the Lord God to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you that you may come alive. And you will know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied, and I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a noise. And behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew on skin, and skin covered them. but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may come to life. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet in exceedingly great army. This is a wonderful picture of what God has done to his people, that he has worked in his people who were dead in sin, that God is the one who has breathed life into them. By his Holy Spirit, he has brought them back to life. So this is a picture of salvation. of what God would do in the new covenant. And so again, the point here is that we need the spirit. We need the spirit to give us life. So anybody who believes in God, who trusts in God, who loves God truly, maybe though not perfectly since we are still fallen, can only do so by the working of the Holy Spirit, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And so by these, again, we can conclude that yes, Old Testament believers did have the Old Testament. Okay, other examples, now in the New Testament, Hebrews 11, 39 through 40. This is what is called sometimes the Hall of Faith. The author says, and all of these, speaking of the Old Testament saints that he had just spoken about, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect. So a couple things here. There's a sense here of unity. There's unity between the saints in the Old Testament and saints in the New Testament. So they would not be made perfect apart from us. So there's this kind of unity in their salvation. But it also speaks of their faith. Well, faith in whom? It says they did not receive what was promised. So they believed in the promise. And who was the promise? It was Jesus Christ. Christ did not come in their lifetime. He came during their lifetime. The Old Testament saints were looking forward to the promise. The New Testament saints here, the author of Hebrews, he's looking back at the promise having already come. So their faith was in the same object, in Jesus Christ. Gentile believers in the New Covenant are children of Abraham because they have the same faith as his. So here Paul is arguing against the law, that the law can save us. He is arguing for justification by faith alone, apart from the works of the law. But notice what he says in Galatians 3, 6 or 9. He says, even so Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, all the nation will be blessed in you. So then, those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. and elsewhere it speaks of Gentiles who believe as Abraham are true children of Abraham. But the point here is it's not saying that Abraham was a different kind of believer and the New Testament believers or higher or different believers, but there's unity here. He's saying the New Testament believers are believers just as Abraham was because they had his faith, the faith that he had by which he was justified. That is the same faith and justification that New Testament believers have. So there's unity in the justification, in the faith, making them one with Abraham. They are blessed with him, the believer. Okay, so then if in the Old Testament, the New Testament, there's the same work of the Holy Spirit indwelling believers, why do we have the language in the New Testament of the Spirit not yet being given to believers or that the Spirit is to come in the future? And that is often, you know, it's a right kind of question to ask. I mean, we're told that as believers, we have the Holy Spirit, the disciples had the Holy Spirit, Old Testament believers, but there are, and especially in John, verses that speak of the Holy Spirit. For example, in 739, that the Spirit had not yet been given to them. And then in 14 and 15, We read in John that Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit will come. He's going to send him a helper. So notice he hasn't come yet. But then, of course, we have also the promise in Pentecost that the Holy Spirit would also come. So what is going on here? Well, there are at least three distinct operations regarding the work of the Holy Spirit. So first, there is the regenerating and indwelling work of the Holy Spirit, okay? Second, there is the special anointing and equipping work of the Spirit. Third, there is a special work of the Spirit during key epochs and events or eras in redemptive history. And this one also includes a setting apart equipping, but on a larger scale and fewer times in redemptive history. And just a quick, under the second one, there's a special anointing and equipping work of the Holy Spirit. This is not to be confused, I'm not teaching this, what is often called the second work of the Spirit, or there's another term for it, the second blessing. which is Wesleyan. Basically, that doctrine is that you can be a Christian, but if you want to be this higher, more sanctified, holier Christian, you need to experience that second blessing of the Holy Spirit. That's not what I'm talking about. We're going to look at that in a little bit. First, there is a regenerating and indwelling work of the Spirit. And this one is the one that we've already seen in the Old Testament with Abraham, in the New Testament with believers being born again of the Spirit and having this Holy Spirit indwell the believer. That is the first or one of the operations of the Holy Spirit. We see this again in both the Old and the New Testaments. But the second, there is a special anointing and equipping work of the Spirit. We see this, for example, in Exodus 31, 2 through 5. See, I have called by the name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. I have filled him with the spirit of God and wisdom and understanding and knowledge and in all kinds of craftsmanship to make artistic designs for work in gold and in bronze and the cutting of stones for settings and in the carving of wood that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship. So, this one is connected with the third operation, which we will look at, but you'll see some overlapping. Here, we see this is a special time in redemptive history, you know, with the Mosaic Covenant, the building of the tabernacle. And so God here is equipping Bezalel, he's equipping him for a specific task. He's giving him wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all kinds of craftsmanship for what? To make artistic designs for work in gold and silver and in bronze. So he's equipping him for his work that he's been assigned to do, that he has been appointed to do. So he gets this anointing, this blessing, this equipping by the Holy Spirit. In Numbers 27-18, the Holy Spirit empowers Joshua to lead Israel. In Joshua, Judges 6-34, the Holy Spirit comes upon Gideon and uses him for his special task. In 1 Samuel 16-13, the Holy Spirit rushes upon David. What are we seeing here? In all of these, there's a special task given to certain leaders, to certain people, and the Holy Spirit is equipping them for that task, for that duty. And surprisingly, the Holy Spirit even comes upon and empowers unbelievers to do a particular work. And we see this in 1 Samuel 10, 6 and 10 with Saul. And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. And the Spirit of God came upon him mightily so that he prophesied among them. So this is Saul, the first king of Israel. The Holy Spirit comes upon him and he prophesies. 1 Samuel 11, 6, then the Spirit of God came upon Saul mightily when he heard these words and he became angry. Well, the context there is he's gonna go off to war. He hears some things that he does not like and that causes him to go and deliver the people at Jabesh Gilead. But the point here is that the Spirit of the Lord again comes upon Saul mightily And then he goes off and he delivers the people. So he's equipping him for a work. Now, this special anointing is not the regenerating and injuring work of the spirit. And that is evidenced by the fact that with Saul, the spirit of the Lord was taken away. Okay? So this special equipping is temporary. Again, does it mean that you are born again? Because again, the example here with Saul is that the Lord, the Holy Spirit was taken away from him. We read this in 1 Samuel 16, 14, and following, now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him. So the Lord equipped him for his task, for his purpose, by the Holy Spirit. But then when he was done with that task, when he was done with Saul, he removed his Holy Spirit from him and sent an evil spirit to him to terrorize him. And that anointing was also part of the fact that he was king. And he was the king of Israel, and he was anointed to serve as king. But as we see, the kingdom is taken away from him, and so the Holy Spirit is also taken away from him. And we see this also with David in Psalm 5111. He cries out, do not. So this is a psalm where we see his repentance from his wicked sin with Bathsheba, committing adultery, and then having her husband killed. He says, do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. He's not saying, you know, I don't want to lose my salvation. He's trusting in the Lord, he knows he's not going to lose his salvation, but he could be, the kingdom could be removed from him, he could be taken away as king. So he's asking, don't remove this Holy Spirit, this anointing of the Spirit that's equipping me for this job, for this, as king, don't remove that special anointing from me. He could have, but so again, it's not the same as being born again. It's an equipping, the spirit coming upon someone to equip them for a special task. So the third one, there is a special work of the Spirit during key epochs and events in redemptive history. And we see this with, for example, with Moses. Moses performs great signs and wonders by God's power, and this is the power of the Holy Spirit. We see this in Exodus 4. There's a great display of God's presence in the cloud that guided the Israelites by day and the pillar of fire that guided them by night. And this, again, is the Holy Spirit. God was present with them through the Holy Spirit. And this is a key, one of the most important events in redemptive history. It's the forming of God's people, the Mosaic Covenant that's gonna govern Israel for many years, and it's the covenant under which Christ is gonna be born. So this is a very important point in history, and so God is doing something great, and the Holy Spirit is using people to do great and wondrous things. We see this with Elijah and Elisha, which represents the formal institution of the prophetic office. We see, I've mentioned this before, Moses is the paradigm, the paradigmatic prophet. And though the office comes from him, there is no one like Moses except Jesus Christ, who was the greater Moses. With Elijah and Elisha is where we really see the beginnings of this prophetic office, because people can prophesy. We see this with Saul. He prophesied, but he was not a prophet. If the Holy Spirit comes upon a person in the Old Testament to prophesy something, it doesn't mean make them a prophet. They prophesied, but it doesn't make them an official prophet. So aside from those kind of prophecies or people prophesying, there was the office of prophet. And Elijah and Elisha are representatives of that prophetic office. And so as this prophetic office really kicks in and begins, we see them performing many miracles by the Holy Spirit. Signs performed by Elijah include shutting up the heavens and causing a drought, multiplying flour and oil for a widow, raising the widow's son from the dead, defeating the prophets of Baal with fire from heaven, bringing rain to end the drought, destroying 102 soldiers with fire, and parting the waters of the Jordan. So all these signs were done by Elijah by the power of the Holy Spirit. And then we see also signs performed by Elijah. He parted the waters of the Jordan River, provided the widow's oil, resurrection of the son of the Shunammite woman, purified the poisoned cup, multiplied loaves. He healed Naaman. Gehazi was cursed with a skin disease. He performed the miracle of finding an ax. An axe head, he prophesied the death of Ben Hadad and the rise of Hazael. He prophesied Israel's defeat of King Hazael of Damascus. So he's doing these great miracles, these signs as a prophet of Israel. And again, this is a special point in redemptive history. But what we also need to see is that the prophets that come afterward during this same prophetic office, they're not performing these miracles, right? This is something that was done at the beginning of the prophetic office to establish the prophetic office, to establish this period and this prophetic office. And once it's been established, these miraculous signs are taken away. So that's important to remember. So, connecting it back to the original question, if the Holy Spirit worked in the same way in the Old Testament as in believers, and saints were saved in the same way in both statements, why is there language of the coming of the Holy Spirit, or the helper that is to come, or that the Spirit had not yet been given? In John 20, 22, Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, receive the Holy Spirit. So it sounds like they do not have the Holy Spirit. So how would we then, given what we've heard, how would we answer this question? What's a possible answer? because they do have the enjoyment of the Holy Spirit. So why is it saying that they're going to receive the Spirit, he's gonna come, and in John 20, 22, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on them, which implies they don't have it, but they do. So what is that? Yes. He's giving them the Holy Spirit for a special function, special task. Yes. The apostleship. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. So yes, that's exactly right. This is the special, so again, remember that the Holy Spirit works in special, particular moments in redemptive history. Well here, Jesus accomplishes the work of salvation, he establishes the new covenant, and so now the era of the new covenant is beginning. And he's going to establish his new covenant church under this new covenant. And so he's, yes, he's setting aside the disciples as the apostles who are going to lay this foundation down. So he's equipping them. It's not that they didn't have the Holy Spirit, but he's breathing on them this special equipping power of the Holy Spirit. And we see the same thing with Jesus. At his baptism, the Holy Spirit comes upon him. That is a sign that he was set apart, he was anointed and equipped for the ministry that he then did for the next three years. And so the apostles then are receiving the Holy Spirit. not for the first time, but they're receiving it to equip them for their task of the apostleship. And then the new covenant, again, being established, the new covenant church, the promise of the helper coming. It is a special working of the Holy Spirit, again, in this new covenant context to establish the new covenant, to establish the new church. And then we see this at Pentecost when, He comes upon the people and they start speaking in tongues and we see in Acts, we see miraculous signs being done. All this is this special anointing. of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, the prophets, and the evangelists. There are New Testament prophets, apostles, evangelists, teachers, and pastors. and the Holy Spirit is equipping the Church and giving them these extraordinary signs to establish the New Covenant Church. But once the Church has been established and the New Covenant has gone forth, what do we see with Elijah? What do we see in the past is that now that it's been established and confirmed, those extraordinary signs are done away with. And so, for example, we don't have apostles anymore. We don't have prophets anymore. We don't have evangelists anymore. The task of evangelizing is left to the elders of the church. Now we have the elders and deacons, those are the two offices of the church. And so some of these tasks of evangelizing and all these things can be left to the elders or to gifted brethren, but there's no more office of prophet, no more office of evangelist or apostle. Those were given to the church by the Holy Spirit as blessings to establish it. But once it's been established, it's removed. The special work of the Spirit during these epics and redemptive history. So as to this third one, the language of promise, coming, giving, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, again, is in reference to the new epic and redemptive history. One thing I do want to say is that The equipping of the saints for special tasks, that is done away with in the sense that, again, there's no more tongue speaking, there's no more miraculous signs. But when a person does come to faith, was born again and into it, at the same time, the Holy Spirit does equip them with certain works or certain gifts. Not the miraculous gifts, but the ordinary gifts to edify and bless the church. We see a lot of these certain works of the Holy Spirit that are no longer in effect, not because God can't do them anymore, but because the purpose for them has been met. the purpose for the miraculous signs in Jesus' ministry. He preached a message and he confirmed that message with signs. And he told people, if you don't believe my words, believe my works. As the New Testament is being established, the people are performing great signs to confirm the message they are preaching about Christ, but once the Church has been established, and especially once we have the New Testament canon written down, then there's no need for that anymore, and so these extraordinary gifts are done away with, and what remains are the ordinary gifts, the ordinary offices, and by ordinary, I don't mean boring or dull, but just not miraculous, right? So now we have the office of elder and deacon, and the ordinary gifts of wisdom and knowledge and discernment and giving and all these different gifts that God equips us to serve one another. So, that is how we can look at the language. Let's conclude. Believers in both Testaments were saved the same way and had the Holy Spirit dwell in them and work in the same way. There are times when the Holy Spirit came in mighty and powerful ways to equip individuals for a specific task. Other times the Holy Spirit came in a mighty way, a powerful way to signify the beginning of a new epoch in redemptive history. The disciples had the Holy Spirit, but they, along with the entire New Covenant Church, were going to receive the Holy Spirit in his special role in the New Covenant era. Though this is the primary role of the Holy Spirit, he does not act apart from the Father nor the Son. So I wanted to conclude with that, that in all of this, he's working in conjunction, in connection with the Father and the Son, all three working together to not only bring the salvation, but to apply the salvation to gather God's people and to build up his church. So are there any questions before we close or comments? Yes. I personally don't equate them. I would say that Israel, as a covenanted people in the Mosaic Covenant, is a typological church. It typifies the kingdom of God, but it is not, I wouldn't say it's the same exact as the old, as the New Covenant church. I would say that there are believers within Israel, true believers, that are part of God's universal body of elect and the church, the universal church. But from kind of an earthly kind of standpoint of God's redemptive work, I would see Israel as a typological church. or we can say it's another analogy that I've seen used, is that Adam is the protological son, Israel is the typological son, and Jesus is the eschatological son. And so Jesus and all those that are in him, the eschatological church, the New Covenant church, is distinct in that sense from Israel, because they're typifying what is to come. And within Israel, we do find true believers, but it's not, I wouldn't say it's exactly the same thing. Does that make sense? Yes. Thank you. Yeah, and that's a tragic conclusion from dispensationalism, I think. It's primarily because in the old, the basic belief of dispensationalism is that God saves people in different dispensation, or under different dispensations in different ways. And so in the time of the law, it was the law that he used to bring people to salvation. the Holy Spirit is primarily new covenant in the church. So they have these different ways of salvation. And so because of that, yeah, a lot of them do say that they didn't believe in, actually, a lot of them would even say that they didn't believe in Christ. They just, they believed in God, but not in Christ because, you know, they didn't have Christ. And they're obviously not seeing or interpreting the Old Testament accurately because there's Christ everywhere in the Old Testament. They would say they believed in God and certain promises, but not Christ, and that they didn't have the Holy Spirit. It was different. But no, scripture says that we are children of Abraham. We are the same as with him. What he believed, we believed. We may have greater clarity, that's for sure. We have greater clarity and greater knowledge of the things that the prophets desired to know. You know, they had the knowledge, but how is it all going to turn out? How is the suffering servant, also the conquering lion, you know, how are these things going to work? But yet they believed the same things we did. Just we have a clearer understanding of those things. Yes. Yeah. Separate, yeah, apart from one another, yeah. And that supports then the doctrine of the Trinity. All three working together as one, one God, one essence. Any other questions? I think he did. I think that oftentimes we don't give him enough credit, like, you know, because we don't see everything. We're not told everything that they knew, right? I think one good example is when he's told to sacrifice his son. In the Old Testament, we just read it. We just think, OK, he's going to do it. And maybe we even think he's like, yes, I'm going to do it. But no, obviously, he didn't want to do it. But he had the promise that, OK, through this seed, I'm going to have a multitude of nations that are going to come from this seed. So he had that promise in mind. But the Lord's telling me to sacrifice him. That's all we were told in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, the author of Hebrews tells us that he reasoned that if he was killed, God would raise him from the dead. But we would have known that had the author of Hebrews not told us that. So I think that especially some of these key figures did know. And I think a lot of other people did get a glimpse. I mean, we see it in the Psalms, too, when the Lord said to my Lord or my God. So we see all these kind of communications between the Father and the Son. I think people did have a very limited but a true understanding of the father and the son. There's this divine person that is the son, and then of his spirit. So I think they did have an understanding of the Trinity. Maybe not at first, but as they, you know, continued in the scriptures, I think that they did have some knowledge of the Trinity. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions or comments? Okay, well then, it's almost time for morning worship, so let's close in prayer.