Pneumatology is a very unique study because whereas in Christology and theology proper in so many places, if you pick up 10 theology books, they'll all be different. But in pneumatology, it's like I've never seen anything so consistently the same. You can pick up Ryrie, you can pick up my notes from Grace Seminary, you can pick up whatever. It seems like they have the same outline, same outline, same outline. I don't know the explanation for that, but it's very much true. The study of the Spirit of God is one of those things that, well, you ever know somebody who does more for the team than anybody else and gets no credit? That's kind of the Spirit of God. How many songs do you know about the Spirit of God? I want you to list 10 songs on the Spirit of God. I bet you can't, because I can't. Spirit of the living God, you know, the Comforter has come, the Comforter has come, you know. You can list them on one hand that I know of. How many can you list about Jesus Christ? The cross, the blood. You see, how many can you talk about the Father? Great is thy faithfulness, how great thou art. You know, we worship thee, et cetera, et cetera. And now some songs will have all three of them, like Holy, Holy, Holy. Obviously, we'll make a reference to the Holy Spirit. But there is very little singing about the Holy Spirit. for some reason. There's very little preaching about the Holy Spirit for some reason. There's very little books written on the Holy Spirit. By the way, if you need to read something, I do have some books here on the Spirit of God and I'll leave them here if you need that for your extra reading for next week. But it seems to be one of the least talked about subjects in some circles. And on the other side, it seems to be one of the most talked about subject in other circles. And our circles, we tend to freeze and other circles, they tend to fry. You know, it's either freeze or fry in this subject. And hopefully we can be at least biblical. Why would it be that we don't sing much about the spirit of God? Are we wrong? No, because God set it up that his son would get most of the glory and honor in some ways. And there's there's a sense in which we have no problem worshiping the spirit. But when you pray, you very seldom say, dear Holy Spirit, I'd like to talk to you today. You know, it's Heavenly Father. Sometimes you say, Christ, I don't know that I've ever heard anybody talk to the spirit of God. And so you might conclude the spirit of God really isn't that important in our understanding of scripture really isn't important in your life. Let me ask you this. How important is the Spirit of God in your life? Very. OK. Why? We don't sing about him. We don't study him, it seems like. I mean, what's the deal? He seals us. All right. All right. He's a comforter sent by Christ. Gives us understanding. He convicts. He gives power. All right. Is that what you said? All right. When the last person that we kind of worked with and came to Christ not too long ago, it was so intriguing to me that, you know, within a week after he was saved, you know what he was talking about? He said, this is great. The Spirit of God lives within me. He was just talking about the Spirit of God living. My whole life's different. The Spirit of God lives within me. And he kept going back to the Spirit of God, Spirit of God. Most people will talk about the cross, about Christ. It was just so intriguing that he kept talking about the Spirit lives within me, you know, and it was a wonderful, wonderful thing. So it is a great thing. As we said, some people freeze and some people fry and we're divided on that. I have a bunch of articles here I don't need to read. A large majority of Christians or Americans don't believe in Satan or the Holy Spirit. We've read that one a little bit already. Flame of Love by Clark Pinnock. Clark Pinnock is a great writer. He tended to off in his last days and tremendously brilliant guy. And anyway, he wrote a book, The Flame of Love. And obviously his point was he was trying to be a bridge between the Pentecostals who fry when it comes to the Holy Spirit. Everything's the Holy Spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit. And us more conservative people who tend to not talk about the spirit and not, you know, worship the spirit, whatever. He tried really, really hard to bridge that. I'm not sure he did a very good job of that, but he entitled it, Romancing Pentecostalism. We should have a little bit more of that in our circles, a little bit more hoopla and whatever, and rolling in the aisles, whatever. Then there's Gordon Fee, great author, professor out at Gordon Conwell Seminary, also was at Trinity for a long time. Paul, the Spirit and the people of God, and he talks about various people in his church. I can't even say this. Oh, Ferris. who, every time he got blessed, awooed and started dancing down the aisle. And then there was the next guy, and he lists them all down, and somebody told Awoo to sit down once. Because Awoo had been blessed by the Spirit, and Awoo had a revelation from God, and he was telling everybody what God had told him to say. And somebody said, I don't think that's from God, why don't you sit down? And Awoo said, the Lord said it, I'm going to say it. Gordon Fee said we need to spice up our worship, and spice up our religion. We need a little more Awoo in our services. Anyway, he said, Calvinism taken straight has something of a skittish attitude towards the chaotic, unpredictable spirituality of us Pentecostals. And on and on it goes. Anybody ever hear of the Toronto Blessing? What they do there? They roll and then they laugh. Holy laughter. Barking like dogs. They had more stuff going on up there. That was the number one. The number one attraction in the city of Toronto for two years straight, it wasn't the Blue Jays, it wasn't the whatever's, it wasn't the CN Tower, it wasn't whatever. When people flew into the airport, they had a survey. The number one attraction, the number one reason people are coming to the city of Toronto was to get the blessing, you know, to roll in the aisles and have holy laughter and whatever. One of the latest ones on the, what do they call these new churches? They are basically postmodern anyway. The, not the developing churches, whatever it is, They're all over. But one of the thing is, if you go to Minneapolis, there's one of them. And you know what they do? The only way you can pray is you got to sit in a couch. You guys go and pray you're not in the couch and then you have to go. And you have this picture of all these people sitting on couches, you know. And the rest of us just don't ever get through to heaven. You know, you wonder where these people come up with them. But anyway, all that to say, the Spirit of God is pretty confused. Jack Deere, he was a seminary professor at Dallas in our circles and was raised in a church just like ours and believed everything that we believed. And one day he was surprised by the Spirit. And so he all of a sudden realized there was more to it than what we had. He'd been deprived all of his life because he went to a regular Baptist church like ours. had never spoken in tongues, never had direct revelation from God, never, you know, rolled in the eye with holy laughter. And he was surprised by the spirit. It's interesting as you read the book. I'm not sure who's surprised who. But anyway, because there was a rebuttal to that. I think he was surprising the spirit by what he was doing. So there's a lot of movement in that we we tend to shift all over in regards to the Holy Spirit. So what I gave you here was just a quick outline of everything we're going to study about the spirit. We won't make all of it tonight. Two weeks from tonight, we'll finish it up with a the last things like the baptism of the Spirit, the indwelling of the Spirit, and the filling of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit will be next week. And hopefully you can think that through. If I said, what is the baptism of the Spirit and how is it different than the filling of the Spirit and how is it different than the indwelling of the Spirit? Those might be things that we could learn next week or two weeks from tonight. Let's start. Page two for your notes. What does the Bible say about the person and work of the Holy Spirit? It's called pneumatology. Why is it called pneumatology? Where do you ever see the word pneuma? Pneumonia. Why is it called pneumonia? Has to do with air. See any other pneuma in front of words? Pneumatic. What are those? Air tools. So pneuma is a very common Word used air tubes, pneumonia, problems with your air, that kind of thing. So Numa literally means air or wind or can be translated spirit. The Old Testament word is Rua, which means air or wind or spirit. So we we recognize that that's the word that's used. And so we're trying to talk about pneumatology. Why is it called air, wind, spirit? All right. Doesn't have a bodily form. It's like John chapter three, the the wind blows. You don't know where it comes from. You don't know where it goes. And you can't really see the wind, but you sure can see the effects of it. And the spirit of God, that's where they came up with pneumatology. It is about the spirit or about the wind or about the air. Literally, it's about the spirit, that which you can't see, except you can see the impact and the effect and whatever. So the word that you see in the New Testament, whenever it's Holy Spirit, the word spirit is pneuma or some form of it. Here's the issues under 1b. We're going to talk about the person of the Holy Spirit. Who is he? And the first A1B is the Holy Spirit is a real person. He really is a person. What's a person? I don't know. We're going to have to think about that. The issues are this. Is the Holy Spirit an emanation, an influence, a power, or is he a person? And there might be a little difference in that. Since he is a spirit, can he be a real person? All right. Did the Pope die? Are you sure? You don't think he exists anymore? Ah, it's not wrong to say the Pope died. But when we say that, we are in a sense communicating the person died. But in a sense, what really died was his body. Probably a little more correct to say the body of the Pope died. His spirit lives on. Billy Graham answered all of our questions this week by pronouncing that he's in heaven. So I feel all better about that. And so he's one of our great brothers and he's in heaven. So I'm really feeling good about that. But when we say somebody died, We probably are leaving an impression that there's a difference between spirit and body. And really, we have to think that through. There are some denials of the fact that the Holy Spirit is a real person. In history, way back in 215 A.D., modalism or Sabellinianism from a guy named Sabellus said, God is a unity. And he revealed himself in, why is it called modalism? Remember, we studied that under Christ. Three modes. Exactly. So there's one God. And one day he shows up. He's got the Father. He takes off those clothes and shows up the next day. He's got the Son. Takes off those clothes and shows up the next day. He's got the Spirit. But there's only one God. He just shows up in three modes or three forms or He has different roles. And when he does this, we call him spirit. When he does this, we call him Christ. And when he does this, we call him father. There isn't three persons. There's only one person and one God in the Godhead. It denies the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, modalism had a problem with Christ, his deity. And now it has a problem with the Holy Spirit. And although that is an old, old position, it keeps creeping up in a lot of different forms. And some people really don't believe there are three persons in the one Godhead. There's just one Godhead, one person. He just shows up in different forms. That's one denial. And the other denial came about when two men out of Italy, one of them finally moved to Poland. Their last name was Sosinius. One was the uncle of the other. So the one died earlier. The younger one, Flavius Sosinius, moved to Poland eventually. And these two men started what was called Sosinianism later on. In 1800s, it showed up in England and Unitarianism. Sicinius and his nephew had a little problem with the concept of the spirit of God and his person and whatever. So they said the Holy Spirit is a virtue or energy flowing from God to man. So God's energy or God virtue that flows into you is the spirit. It's not a person. It's just a virtue or an energy. It denies the spirit as a person and basically says the spirit is only a power or influence in my life. He's an emanation. He's an influence. He's a power. He's some kind of a flow into me like I'm sticking my finger into the outlet of God and I get a little power flowing into me. It is interesting, when Flavius Licinius died in Poland, he had been very influential because he didn't directly attack the Trinity and didn't directly attack the Holy Spirit as it was taught. But he was having great influence. They were very successful. And on one of the tombstones, it writes like this, Lofty Babylon, which would be the Roman Catholic Church. Lofty Babylon lies prostate. Luther destroyed its root. Calvin destroyed its walls. Socinius destroyed what really is the foundation. In other words, Socinius destroyed the Trinity. He destroyed the spirit of God as a person in the Godhead. He destroyed ultimately Socinius also destroyed Christ. And basically said Jesus was a not a God or the deity. Jesus was a man. In fact, Jesus was the best man who ever lived. But he was nothing more than that. So they were pretty proud of the fact that You know, what Calvin did, what Luther did, they were okay. But what they did just took off Christianity from the foundation. So those are some of the denials. Let's look at the biblical evidence of the fact that the Holy Spirit is a real person. First of all, we're going to have to look these up, but we're going to fill in the blanks here. He has the characteristics of a person. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, guess what it is? It's a duck. And if something has all the characteristics of a person, then it's a person, or at least you would conclude it's a person. So why don't you raise your hand if you look it up. Romans 8, 2. Thank you, Mike. Romans 8, 26 and 27. Bryant. First Corinthians 12, 11. Thank you, Pam. And Ephesians 4, verse 30. Phyllis. So there are many other verses. We're going to take these one at a time just to prove he has the characteristics of a person. He does things that you know, you'd expect of a person. So first characteristic, Romans 8, 2. I think it's Mike. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. All right. The spirit of life is the spirit who has life. And so he is one who has life. People have lives. Persons have life. They're not just power. This electrical outlet somewhere here has power, but it doesn't have life. It may turn on lights. It may do all kinds of things, but it doesn't have life. To go with that one, I'll just give you another one, but you don't need to look it up necessarily. John 7, verse 37, 38, and 39. On the last day of that great day of the feast, Jesus stood. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the spirit. whom those believing in him would receive for this Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. So he's talking about living water or life and the Spirit has life and he can give life to people. So he has one of those characteristics of people or a person, I should say. He has life. Number two is Romans 8, 26 and 27. OK, you and I don't know enough to really pray. Did you know that? I really don't know how to pray as I ought, but there is someone who does, which means the Spirit of God has intelligence. He knows things. First Corinthians 12, you might write in the margin there as well. I'm sorry. First Corinthians 2 and verse 11 talks about that the Spirit knows. He has the ability to know things, his mind as it's there, the mind of the Spirit. He has intelligence. So there's indications you read through scripture. He has life. Like a person has life, he has intelligence and a mind and knows things like people do. First Corinthians 12, 11, I think is Pam. Okay. One in the self, same spirit. And it says, works all these things. And the last phrase, as he wills or as he purposes, as he purposes, as he wills, that would be very, very similar. If you think about it, he has purpose. And he has freedom. It just says he can, as he wills, as he purposes, and he has freedom to give gifts to people as he sees fit. And so he has liberty or freedom. He has purpose in what he is doing. It would be a characteristic of a person. How about Ephesians 4.30? And grieve not the Spirit of God. So he has emotions. So he has intellect. He has life. He has purpose and will and freedom. He has emotions. It kind of sounds like he has some of the characteristics, if not all of the characteristics of a person. He's not just a power and emanation of force. All right. Any comments on that? By the way, you could find other emotions that he has. And we're going to study it next week. Some of the pains that he feels from me and from you. He really does have emotions. As does God the Father, as does God the Son. Any other comments on his characteristics? Let's go to his next section. He acts like a person. He acts like a person. So let's raise your hand if you can read these. John 14, verse 16. Thank you, Jared. John 15, verse 26, Matt. John 16, verse 8 is Nancy. Acts 8, 39, Jackie. Acts 13, verse 2 is Phyllis. Romans 8, 26 again. David and First Corinthians 2, 13, L. So let's just go down these and you'll see that he does things that a person would do. John 14, 16, and we might have to read the next one as well. Go ahead. I forget who has that one. OK, that's good enough. And you find in that section that your translation said counselor. Some other translation would be comforter. All right. The paraclete, the one who's called alongside to help in time of need. He's like a paralegal and he's a paraclete. He's the one who comes alongside. He counsels or he comforts or he helps. So he does something that people do. You ever comfort anybody? This electrical outlying might have a lot of power and even a lot of influence, but I'll tell you, it doesn't give you much comfort. It can't give you comfort. You need a real person to do that. You need someone who has a heart and characteristics of a person and he comforts. How about John 15, 26? He will testify of me. He'll give witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's a characteristic or an action that you would expect a person to do. How about John 16, 8? Alright, he convicts. And we're going to talk about that later on tonight. He convicts of sin, righteousness, judgment to come. So he does something that a person does. Acts 8, 39? Okay, the Spirit of God caught him away. So the Spirit of God is active there. I had... I didn't have the right one there. I had Speaks, but anyway, obviously that's not right. He performs miracles, I wrote in the margins, so that's what he does. He does supernatural things. I think that's what I was going to do. He catches people up. Acts 13.2. Phyllis, I think. As they ministered to the Lord in the past days, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me, Barnabas, and Saul for the work Alright, so he says to them or commands them, he commands the church there in Acts 13 to do something. And that's an action of a person. How about Romans 8, 26 again, David? He intercedes for us. He prays for us. He's usually a person who's praying for you, not a chair, a power, an emanation or whatever. So he prays for us. And finally, First Corinthians 2.13. So he teaches, and we could probably make a long list of things he does that are things that people do or a person does, not a power, an emanation, or an influence, or whatever else they call it. Okay. So he has the characteristics of a person. He does the things or he acts like a person. Finally, or not finally, number three, he is a spirit. The word spirit is, anybody know grammar real well? It's neuter. In gender, it's a thing. The wind is a thing, it's not a man or a female, right? So when you have a noun that's a neuter, what pronoun should you use? It. What does it say in John chapter 16, verse 13? We have a whole bunch of them listed there, but let's just pick up John 16, 13. And it says this, however, when he, the spirit of truth has come. So what pronoun is used? Doesn't say it, it's he. And that would give you an indication that it's a person versus a thing, power, emanation, whatever. Someone said this is very bad grammar, but it's very good theology. And so there is a lot of times we make a case that the pronoun always has to match its antecedent, its noun. A masculine has to have a masculine pronoun, a feminine has to have feminine, neuter has to have neuter. Sometimes we make great theological cases on it. This is one where you don't want to do that. All right. And be real careful. There are times when it's appropriate to take a neuter noun and make a masculine pronoun because it's the right thing to do. He is not a thing. He is a person. In fact, you could add to that when Ephesians 1.14, there is a pronoun there, a relative pronoun, which is translated which, but it should be translated whom because it's masculine and gender and it's not neuter. So the point is, if he's a thing, you would always use neuter. But the pronouns that are used, God is very careful never to call him a thing. God is very careful not to say which, it's whom. God is very careful to make sure that we recognize that even though the title is neuter, He is indeed masculine. He is a person. He is not a thing. 5A should be 4A, obviously. He is associated with other persons of the Godhead, in particular, on an equal basis. Matthew 28, verse 18, 19, and 20. Verse 19 in particular, therefore, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and The Holy Spirit, you just kind of have a sense that there are three. They're equal. It isn't two persons and one thing there. In fact, someone wants to try to put the word thing in there. You know, it just doesn't work. Baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 13, verse 14, which is the end of the book of 2 Corinthians, it's kind of a benediction. Does someone have that? All right. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's God the Son. The love of God, that's God the Father. And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, that's God the Holy Spirit. And they're just, in the benediction, it's three of them just like they're equal. They're all associated equally. And so he's associated with other people or persons, especially in the Godhead, on an equal basis. You might add another one there and that's John. 14, John 14, verse 16 and 17, which says Christ is saying in John 14, 15 and 16, especially chapter 14. So I'm going to have to leave you guys, you know, but don't worry about it because I'm going to send you another comforter. And he's going to talk a lot about the comforter. And he uses the word another comforter. There are two words that could be translated another in the Greek. There's the one that's another of a different kind. It's the word heteros from which we get heterosexual and hetero whatever. It means they're different versus homosexual, which is the same. It means another of a different kind. And so he said, I'm going to send you another comforter. He could have used the word, I'm going to send you another one who's totally different than me. It's another of a different kind. But he could use the word alas, which means another of the same kind, just like me. Which one do you think he used? Absolutely the same kind. He said, you liked being with me. I'm going to send you another comforter. It's just like me. And so he is putting the Holy Spirit, in a sense, on equal basis with him. He said, just like Jesus, he goes out of his way to do that. So let's conclude it. What is what different does it make for him to be a real person, not just a power? If the Holy Spirit is a power or emanation, we would ask, how can I pray to it? Use it. Good. If I said there's a whole bunch of power here, guys, right down there, I got to have two prongs and How do I harness it? How do I use it? How do I plug into it? How do I get some of that power? You know, I got a light here in my hand and it's not working. I want to plug that thing in and get it moving. So if he's just a power, an emanation or an influence, I'd say, how can I get more of it? How could I plug into it? How could I use it? How could I harness it? How could some of that power flow through me? All right. And so the truth is some of the charismatics view it almost that way. It's something of a, what do I get out of this deal? What power can I flow? Obviously, he'll bring power in our life. But that's that's one question. If the Holy Spirit is really a person, how can I know him and place myself under him so that he can control me and he can use me and he can direct me and he. And so there's a little difference in thinking. If he's just a power, I want to plug in. How do I get more of that stuff in my life? If he's a person, then he's somebody I want to place myself under and allow him to control me. Makes sense? All right. I'm thinking more of if I'm really filled with the Spirit. allow him to run my life and control me. He's living in, you know, the illustration I learned when I was first saved is, you know, there's a car with two steering wheels and you can either drive it or let the Holy Spirit drive it, you know, so yield to the Spirit, be filled with the Spirit. Let this person take control of your life and run your life in that sense, not so much in worship and whatever. So there might be some real significance if you just think of him as a power versus you think of him as a person. By the way, the other difference would be this. How many have ever offended that electric outlet? How many have ever grieved it? How many have ever just made it really feel bad? See, my car doesn't really feel bad. I might mistreat it and beat it and do all kinds of crazy things to it. And at the end of the day, it's just a bunch of metal with gasoline going in with a lot of power. But it's never grieved. It never feels bad. It never cries. But if it's a person. All of a sudden, I can have a relation, I can know what I can have a relationship with it and it can be grieved. It can hurt. It can cry. He's a person. So it makes a difference. So he is a real person. Let's go to the next one. The Holy Spirit is a divine person. He's not just a person, not just a real person. I'm a real person. And so are you. But I'm not a divine person. The issue is, is the Holy Spirit completely God? Is he equal with the other persons of the Trinity? In other words, he's equal with God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit. There are some denials, obviously, and I only listed three. Sosinians, which we studied before, just last page, who said he was a virtue, he was an influence, he was an energy, he was a power, he was an emanation, that kind of a thing. Then there was Arius in the third century A.D. who had a problem. Remember, he had a problem with the deity of Christ. And that's why the Council of Nicaea came together to straighten him out on that. But he said this, the father created the son. who, or in other words, the Son created the Spirit, who was a person but not God. And so, Arius had a problem with the deity of Christ and ultimately the deity of the Holy Spirit as well. Jehovah's Witnesses today are so Sinian one reference to the Spirit. In other words, they see the Spirit as an influence, a power, an emanation. So they'll talk about the Holy Spirit of God and they're talking different than you and I if you don't catch it. But they're Arian with reference to the Son. They would say the Lord Jesus Christ had been created. So in many ways they are like both the Sassanians and the Arians as well. So there are a lot of denials of this. As my first article here tells you, 55% of the Born-again Christians in America don't believe that or reject the concept that the Spirit of God is a living entity. He's a real person who's of God in the equality with the Lord Jesus Christ. So you might think, well, everybody believes this stuff. Well, apparently that's not true. Let's go to some biblical evidence that he is a divine person. Look up Acts 5, 3 and 4. Somebody raise your hand if you would. First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 11 with verse 18. Somebody looked it up. Jackie? So, David. Alright, so in verse 3, he has lied to the Holy Spirit. In verse 4, he lied to God. What conclusion would you reach? He is God. How about 1 Corinthians 12 verse 11 and then verse 18? Okay, so the Spirit divides gifts as He wants. How about verse 18? So now God has done kind of the same thing. So, you'd find places like this where Spirit Verse three, God, verse four, obviously the same person. So he is called God in the scriptures. I think you could make some other verses as well on that list. How about 2C? He possesses attributes of God. Psalm 139, 7 through 10 is Al. 1 Corinthians 2, 10 and 11. Thank you, Pam. And Hebrews 9, 14 is might. So, Al, go ahead. He starts out by saying, where should I go from your spirit? Where, where, where? He has the characteristic or attribute of being omnipresent. Where can I go where your spirit isn't? You can't say that about me or you or anything else. You can say that only about one who is God, who is omnipresent. How about 1 Corinthians 10 and 11? Somebody's got that. How much does the Spirit of God know about God? Everything. And none of us can, none of us do, none of us ever will. So He's omniscient. He knows all things, just as God knows all things. In Hebrews 9, verse 14. Mike? How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit of God, the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? through the eternal spirit. So he's eternal. So if you know somebody who's omnipresent, omniscient and eternal, you have all the attributes or some of the attributes, I should say, of God. You could also add to that list 1 John 5, he's the spirit of truth, which is the same characteristic or attribute of God and on and on the list goes. So he possesses attributes of God, attributes that no other person can have. And if you do, you are God and you can't have them unless you are God. How about the 3A? He performs acts or actions that only God can do. Luke 1, 35, we won't look this up. He is the agent of the virgin birth. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. I mean, who can do that except God? John 3, 5 and 6, we're going to say it later, so you don't need to look it up. We are born of the Spirit. All right. And then this is we're born again. So he regenerates. We're going to study that later on. Who can regenerate a person except God? Titus, I'm sorry, Romans 8, 11 says he raised up Jesus from the dead. Now we understand from two Sundays ago, God raised him from the dead. We studied in prayer meeting, I think it was God, the son raised himself from the dead. And now we find that God, the spirit raised Jesus from the dead. Guess who raised Jesus from the dead? God. All right. So those are the actions that only God can do. He does a lot of things that may be like teaching and talking. I can do that. But there are some things I just can't do. And only a God, only God could do. He is associated with God on an equal basis. We've studied some of these, but let's look at Acts 28, verse 25 and 27 through 27. You remember in Isaiah 6. We have the scene where Isaiah is before the throne of God and he says, you know, he sees God, he falls down. Holy, holy, holy. All the seraphim are saying, holy, holy, holy. And all those things. Then that is quoted in Acts 28 and verse 25. And so in the Old Testament, the point is in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, the clear reference is to Jehovah, Yahweh. to God as Yahweh. That same passage is quoted here and who is it about? Acts 28 verse 25 through 27 or whatever it is. Would somebody read that? So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word. The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers saying, go to the people and say, hearing you will and we can stop right there but the Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah and if you read Isaiah 6 that's exactly what he quotes as far as Yahweh. You could do the same thing with Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34, with Hebrews 10, 15 through 17. The quote in Hebrews is of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah, there is clearly no reference to the Spirit. It's Yahweh, who we would call God. And in the book of Hebrews, it's clearly a reference to the Spirit. We already studied Acts 5, verses 3 and 4, lying to the Holy Spirit as if it is God. That goes, by the way, with Matthew 12. You can look that up. We studied Matthew 28 at the baptism. He's associated. with God the Father, God the Son on an equal basis. And we studied 2 Corinthians 13, 14 in the benediction where the love of the Father, etc., etc., they are on an equal basis there. So, he is associated with God, at least in those places, on an equal basis. So, all of those evidences would come to the conclusion, and probably there's a whole bunch of other verses you could look up, lead you to the conclusion he's not only a real person, he is a divine person. He is equal with God the Father, equal with God the Son, etc., etc. Now, there's a word called procession that you have to look at in John 15, 26 to get a sense of it. Who proceeded from who? Now, when you and I say the word, if I said God the Father, I'm sorry, God the Son proceeded from God the Father, you would probably think, what would you think? All right, that he was first. All right. In time, what else would you think? It would kind of be like in my mind. He gave birth to or he created or he brought into existence or something. All right. So when we use the word proceed, that's probably what comes to our mind. So it's offensive to me and to you when I say the son proceeded from the father. Well, he didn't create him. He didn't bring him into existence. I don't like that. All right. Or if the spirit proceeded from the father, we'd go, oh, no, no, no, I don't like that. So we have to correctly understand in theological terms what they mean when they say procession or proceeds from. And it's found from John 15. Verse 26, but when the helper, comforter, perically, comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me. So when it's used there, he proceeds from the Father. If I would have said that before you read that, you would have said, Pastor, you're a heretic. The Spirit didn't proceed from God the Father. I mean, the Father didn't create him and bring him into existence. So what does it mean there? It says clearly, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father. There is this great debate that raged in Christianity for hundreds of years, who proceeded from whom? And we say, well, they're all equal. They were eternal, so it doesn't proceed from them. But it's based on this verse. All right. The word proceed, as it's used here, means to be sent from or whatever. But let's fill in the blank there. The Holy Spirit is not inferior or unequal. but has a subordinate role or relationship. He was the one who was sent from. If I said to my son, I'm sending you out, go do that. You're proceeding from me to do a task. There's a sense in which you've been told by your dad or by whoever to go do it. And so it has nothing to do with equality or inequality or superiority or inferiority or anything like that. It has to be doing with this, with the role and relationship you've been sent out. In a sense, maybe we could say subordinate, although even that is probably a misleading word. We often think of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in that order. Not as far as equality is concerned, one superior and then Christ is number two and spirits number three on a pecking order. They're all equal but there is a sense in which God the Father sent his son so his son proceeded from him and he also sent his spirit and he proceeded from him. Now here's the rage, the controversy that came about because of that. who preceded who and who preceded from who was the big issue. By about 380 A.D., actually before that little time, there was a man by the name of Macedonius. And so it's the Macedonian problem, not because it came from Macedonia, but because it came from a man named Macedonius and his followers, who basically denied that the Holy Spirit was fully God. And the Holy Spirit really wasn't all that really didn't come from God. So when we use the word proceed from, we think it's inferior. In reality, it means God the Father sent his Son, God the Father sent his Spirit. And as a result, the Constantinopian Creed was written in 381 A.D. And in there, they clarified it and said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, who is glorified with the Father and the Son. And I didn't put the words the in there, but I'm pretty sure they're there. And so they made a clear statement that he proceeded from the Father. And then that was confirmed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. So he did proceed from the Father. And by that they were saying not that he's inferior, but he's equal with God. They were trying to make a statement against this man named Macedonius, who somehow saw or denied the Holy Spirit as being equal to the Father. The Senate of Toledo in 589 recognized that because it said he proceeded from the Father, people were misinterpreting that to mean that the Son was not equal. And so they add a little phrase, he proceeds from the Father and the Son. And they tried to clarify that. That's called the philoqua clause. That's a real big deal in church history because It was added so as to not deny the oneness of father or son and father. When it just said proceeded from the father, some concluded the son and the father are not the same. You say, what's the big deal? I don't even understand it, let alone get the point of it. Well, the Western Church, which is now what we call Roman Catholicism, and the Eastern Church, which is now called Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and all the Orthodox brothers, they split over that, that little phrase and the son. And the Western Church accepted the fact that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were absolutely equal. And when it says in John 15, 26, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, they felt the liberty to add, and the Son, because they're all equal. The Eastern Church said, no, it says only from the Father. That means the Son is not quite equal with the Father, and they split over it. That's one of the reasons we have an Eastern Orthodox and a Roman Catholic Church, and they've never been able to get to, that really is a major reason they've never been able to get together. And it all has to do with the deity of Christ, the equality of the Godhead, et cetera, et cetera. Here's one thing, though, I want you to, I said it before and it came up today in a conversation with a pastor, you know, it keeps coming up. When there's a controversy and a council settles it. The Council of Nicaea talked about the Trinity in 325, the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Constantinople Creed or Council in 381, the Senate of Toledo. When there's a council that comes together to deal with an issue like the Trinity or the deity of Christ or is it the father or son or both, those kinds of things, there's two ways to look at that historically. One is to say, that they came together to establish this new truth. And so, as we studied about the deity of Christ, the liberals would say the Trinity never was taught until 325, when the Council of Nicaea suddenly established a whole new truth, the Trinity. And people believed that. And there really wasn't a thing called the Holy Spirit until 381, when they established this truth. And there really wasn't, you know, 66 books called the canon until 110 when Marcion and the council that he called established 66 books as the canon of scripture. And so one way to look at it is these councils came because they were going to establish a new truth that had never existed before. The other way to look at it is what? Yeah. And the only reason we have a council is because all along we believed in the Trinity. And all of a sudden some guy named Arius comes along and denies it. So we got to have a council to confirm what we believe and to refute what he doesn't what he believes and to put it in writing that we really do believe in the Trinity or in the Holy Spirit or whatever it is. So which view do you think is the right view or in most cases that you've seen. Even in your own history, your own life, when a church makes a statement about the family and votes on it or makes a statement about something, is it because they never believed that before? Or because suddenly there's an error creeping in and we got to take a stand and tell everybody what we've always believed? Which is it? The latter one. And the reason that came up today is because one of my friends says that premillennialism is wrong. And the reason it's wrong is because it was never established in a doctrinal form until the 1800s. And therefore, it didn't exist before then. And so the church established a whole new teaching that never existed before in the 1800s under Darby and So. And my answer to him was, just look at history. The truth is that it was established then because it was an issue then that had to be settled in those circles. And the truth is, if you study history, I think church history, Many early, including Paul in the New Testament, but many other non-New Testament people clearly have writings about the millennium, et cetera, et cetera. But the point is, whenever there's a council, it's not to establish a new truth. And don't ever fall for those liberals who try to get you on that one. They refuted a new error by establishing and putting down in writing those kinds of things. So obviously that's a hobby horse of mine. Here's just some councils in a little chart that I have. You don't have to write it down. 325, the Council of Nicaea established that Christ is God. The Council of Constantinople, we just referred to in 381, established the Holy Spirit is God. In the Council of Ephesus in 431, that holy human beings truly are depraved. And then the Council of Chalcedon in 451, that Christ is both man and God. He's both fully man and fully God. It is not that they established them. They just put it in real firm writing that we have believed this. We do believe this in the scriptures. For you and me, I think you're like me, at the end of the day, history is nice. I love history. But at the end of the day, I don't really care what Luther says. I mean, I do. I love Luther. You know that. And I love Calvin in many ways and whatever. But at the end of the day, they're just men. If everybody in history didn't believe it, but this book taught it, I'd still have to believe this book, right? So really, our authority, that's what makes us unique. We are not dependent upon historical positions. We're dependent only on the Bible. Now, I think history will prove that there have always been people who believe what we believe, and there's always been people who have disbelieved it. But at the end of the day, we settle all issues in this book, not in history. Any comments? Mike has one. Who were the men that called those councils? Who attended? It was they were the bishops generally by the 300s. And so absolutely by by that 300. Yes, because the Roman Empire had officially gone Christian and there were bishops that established all that. And so you're exactly right. A lot of our established fundamentalism to the original. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah, you are right. In fact, to this day, when you read Catholic writings, for example, the way I read them, you know, this sentence is great. I couldn't have said it any better than, you know, if I tried. The next sentence is off the wall. It's like, where'd that one come from? And as you read through it, you'll find a lot of wonderful truth. But there's a lot of statements that are really bonkers. And that's why you can't really read it, because you all get confused, at least I do. But they do have some good statements. They have some bad statements all mixed in it. So you're going to take a break for two, three minutes and we'll be back and we'll do the work of the Holy Spirit, at least part of it.