A False Dilemma

"Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you." —John 16:7 ESV

... Religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building. —Bono

I have a friend—I'll call him Brennan—who served for several years as a leader in our church. A bright young college senior, Brennan was well-spoken, well-regarded, and a leader both on his college campus and in our church. But Brennan had a dark secret he had shared with no one. He had a same-sex attraction that led him into pornography and eventually to a string of hook-ups with random guys he met in Internet chat rooms.

By the time Brennan finally confessed his sin to his campus leader and me, he was a broken young man. He had already desperately tried everything he could think of to fix himself. He had memorized Scripture, made vows, and even gotten rid of his Internet connection. Yet his "problem" was getting worse. So together, we plotted out a course of recovery that involved professional counseling, more Scripture, and high accountability. Brennan progressed a little, and for brief seasons it looked as if he was gaining victory ... only to fall back down into the same dark valleys. Eventually he checked himself into an intensive ministry that helps believers get control of the lusts of their flesh.

Brennan showed up at my house eight months later, noticeably different in his demeanor. I asked him what he had learned. "I didn't learn anything new," he said. "I learned to lean on the Holy Spirit. I always knew he was in there, but I didn't know how to relate to him." Brennan told me he had been surprised at how frequently the counselors at this ministry, all of whom had come through their own struggles and sexual addictions, referred to the Holy Spirit. They talked about him like he was real, like someone they met with daily. For them, the Spirit was not a theological concept, but a Person with whom they interacted and on whom they depended.

Brennan, who had grown up in Baptist and Reformed circles, knew all about the Holy Spirit. He knew the Holy Spirit came into his heart when he trusted Christ and that he was in there, helping out somehow in the sanctification process. But never, he said, had he been taught to seek the Holy Spirit like these believers did. They sought his presence as if their lives depended on him. Brennan began to understand that he needed more than "right beliefs" to subdue these lusts of his flesh. He needed power. Resurrection power. And a constant Companion who would always be there to help.

"And this discovery," he said, "marked a turning point in the struggle with my sin." He added, "These temptations are still with me, and I suppose always will be. But I have found in the Spirit of God a power more potent than the lusts of my flesh. Being filled with God the Holy Spirit has done more for me than all the seminars I sat through or coping techniques I mastered."

Do you know the Holy Spirit in this way?

Just before Jesus ascended to heaven, he told his disciples, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" (John 14:18, emphasis mine). At the ascension Jesus did not become an absentee God. He, as God, simply came to his disciples as a different Person. The mystery of the Trinity is that only one God exists in three Persons. Each person is distinct from the other two, but in experiencing one, you experience the one God who is them all. (If your mind feels as if it just exploded, that's okay. Christian theologians have been wrestling with that for centuries!)

In the same way that he could tell his followers, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father," so it would be true for him to say, "When you hear from the Spirit, you hear from me." And, remarkably, he told his disciples that his presence in them would be even better than his presence beside them. Wow. Think about that.

This Spirit, he said, would bring to their minds all that he had said and taught. In other words, he would make the Word of God come alive in their hearts, applying that Word to their questions and doubts. The Spirit would lead them through the Word, and they would gain the ability to obey that Word by his power.

An Eternal Partnership

In Scripture, the word of the gospel and the power of the Spirit always go together. The Word is God's revelation to us, profitable for rebuke, for correction, for training and instruction in righteous ness, capable of making us complete, sufficient for any and all good works (2 Tim. 3:16–17). But only through the ministry of the Spirit, Jesus said, could we ever understand or obey that Word:

"When the Advocate comes ... he will testify about me." (John 15:26)

"He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you." (John 16:14)

"But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14:26)

"When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteous ness and judgment." (John 16:8)

"Apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)

The Spirit makes the living Word come alive in us. He brings it to our remembrance at the times we need it. He explains it to us. He gives us spiritual eyes to see God's beauty in it. He empowers us to obey it. He shows us specific ways we are to apply it.

Paul believed the study of the Word without this illumination was useless. That's why after expounding the gospel in great detail in the first three chapters of Ephesians, he stops explaining and starts praying that the Spirit would enable the Ephesian believers "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ ... that surpasses knowledge" (Eph. 3:18–19). Do you catch his play on words? He prays they would understand something that is beyond all knowledge. Isn't that a contradiction?

Not at all. We arrive at certain kinds of "knowledge" not through the accumulation of more cognitive facts, but personal experience. There are two words for "knowledge" in Greek. Oida refers to facts, data, and cognitive pieces. Ginosko refers to an internalized knowledge gained...