HOLY SPIRIT CLASS l Chuck Smith l Living Water l "Attacks on the Holy Spirit" l Utah VidDevo l VidDevoChurch

Attacks on the Holy Spirit

Many cults attack the personality of the Spirit, just as they attack the deity of Jesus. 

The Jehovah's Witnesses are one such cultic group. 

The leaders of the Watchtower teach that the Holy Spirit is not a Person at all, but is merely an essence or an influence. 

These men say the Holy Spirit is not really a "He," but rather an "it." 

According to them, we shouldn't speak of the Holy Spirit, but of a holy spirit - an influence or power emanating from God, no more personal than a breeze flowing from a fan.

This is the same error as the early church heresy known as Arianism, so called

because its chief exponent was named Arius, a priest of Alexandria (A.D. 256- 326). 

Arius taught that the Father alone was truly God; both the Son and the Spirit were inferior and created. 

Neither possessed by nature or by right any of the divine qualities of immortality, sovereignty, perfect wisdom, goodness, or purity.

The Jehovah's Witnesses have borrowed much of their heresy from this early Arian abomination. 

Thankfully, all of their arguments were anticipated and answered more than 16 centuries ago. 

More importantly, the Scriptures plainly declare and reveal that the Holy Spirit is indeed a Person.

Another group, called the Jesus Only sect, doesn't deny the personality of the Spirit but does deny He is a distinct Person within the Godhead. 

This sect is quite strong in the southern part of the United States and has spread as far west as Arizona.

 Its heresy is not Arianism but Sabellianism, which denies the separate persons of the Godhead. 

The Jesus Only sect insists that Jesus is the only God; He is the Father, He is the Son, and He is the Holy Spirit. 

It teaches that the three "personalities" of God are in reality only three masks that the one God wears.

But the Bible will have none of this. 

It clearly and firmly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a Person, the same in essence as the Father and the Son, yet separate in personality from them both.

HOLY SPIRIT CLASS l Chuck Smith l Living Water l "Is the Spirit a Person?" l Utah VidDevo l VidDevoChurch

Is the Spirit a Person?

There are certain things we need to know about the Holy Spirit in order to fully appreciate and understand Him and His work. 

The first thing is that the Holy Spirit is indeed a Person, and we need to recognize this if we are to have a personal relationship with Him.

If you think of the Holy Spirit as only an essence, as only a force, as only a power, you will find it impossible to have a personal relationship with Him. 

You cannot have a meaningful relationship with an essence or a force. 

Have you evertried to get personal with an electric socket? How about with a steam turbine? An automobile engine?

Of course you haven't. The thought is absurd. 

And it's equally absurd to think of the Holy Spirit as an essence or a force or an impersonal power that permeates the universe, and yet hope to call upon Him in your time of need.

No, the Holy Spirit is a Person who has been sent by the Father at the request of Jesus to come alongside of you to help you. 

Jesus said, "I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper... the Spirit of truth."

HOLY SPIRIT CLASS l Chuck Smith l Living Water l "God's Special Agent " l Utah VidDevo l VidDevoChurch

God's Special Agent

The Holy Spirit is God Himself, a Person with whom you can enjoy a personal relationship. 

He is not merely an impersonal force or power or essence within the universe, but He is rather a Person who can speak to you and to whom you can speak. 

He is a Person who can guide you, who can help you, who can strengthen you, who can teach you the truth of God.

The Holy Spirit is the agent through whom God works today in the world, within the church and in individual believers. 

That is why we need to become well acquainted with the Holy Spirit, for He is the One whom the Lord has placed over the church to guide, direct, and empower its activities.

When Jesus told His disciples, "I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever" (John 14:16), He was encouraging His men to prepare for a new way in which God would thereafter be relating to them. 

A new way, but not a totally foreign way.

In Greek, the word another in the phrase "another Comforter" is allos, which means "of the same kind or equal quality; another of the same order." 

A second Greek word, heteros, can also be translated "another," but it means "of a different quality." 

For example, suppose you were going to rent a car from Hertz.

When you approach the counter, they say, "We're sorry, sir. You reserved a little compact Geo, but we happen to be out of that model right now. We can give you another car, a Lincoln Town Car, for the same price. Would that be acceptable?"

That another in Greek would be the term heteros. 

It isn't the same or of the same quality. 

On the other hand, suppose you had reserved the Town Car and they said, "I'm sorry, we can't give you the Town Car, but we'll give you a Cadillac instead." 

That would be another vehicle of more or less the same quality as the one you reserved (allos).

So when Jesus says the Holy Spirit is of the same quality as Himself, He means the Spirit possesses the same essential qualities that He Himself does, especially those of divinity and personality. 

In essence He tells His men, "I have been with you, but now I am going away. But I will not leave you alone. I will ask the Father to give you another Comforter - allos, of the same quality, the same kind, as Myself. 

Just as I was with you and took care of every situation for you, so now the Holy Spirit will be with you and will take care of every situation for you."

HOLY SPIRIT CLASS l Chuck Smith l Living Water l "Changes in the Wind" l Utah VidDevo l VidDevoChurch

Changes in the Wind

But by the fourteenth chapter of John, the winds of change have begun to blow.

Jesus is making it plain that He is about to go to the cross to be crucified.

Although His disciples don't understand everything He says, nevertheless they are deeply disturbed by His words. 

They don't want Him to go away, and their hearts quickly fill with fear and turmoil. 

The very fact that Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled," indicates that His men were troubled and they were afraid. 

What will we do without Jesus? they wondered. 

So Jesus answers their unspoken question:

I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you (John 14:16,17).

This is a pivotal point in the Gospel of John.

 Jesus is saying to His friends, "It's true that I'm going away and that where I'm going you can't come right now.

But don't be worried! I'm going to prepare a place for you, and in time I will come again and receive you unto Myself. 

But in the meanwhile, I will not leave you comfortless.

 I will not leave you without any help. 

I will ask the Father to give to you another to come alongside of you to help you. 

I will not abandon you; I will not leave you comfortless."

The Greek word translated "comfortless" in John 14:18 is orphanous, literally "orphans." 

"I will not leave you as orphans," Jesus promised His friends. 

And to keep that promise, the Master said He would pray to the Father and ask Him to give the disciples another "Comforter."

In Greek, the word translated "Comforter" is parakletos. 

Para is the Greek preposition for "with" or "alongside of," while kletos is the word for "called." 

So Jesus is telling His friends that He will ask the Father to send another Helper who will come alongside of them to help them.

 And the help they will receive would be the Helper Himself!

HOLY SPIRIT CLASS l Chuck Smith l Living Water l "Who is the Holy Spirit? " l Utah VidDevo l VidDevoChurch

PART ONE: Who is the Holy Spirit?

1. Personality Plus

I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells
with you and will be in you.
- John 14:16,17

Jesus was a great One to have around while He walked upon this earth. 

People learned to trust in Him as the master of every situation. 

When you had Him around, you didn't worry about something going wrong; you knew He would take care of everything. 

Those who had been with Him for very long knew that He could handle any situation that might come up.

A tax collector giving you a bad time, trying to collect taxes that aren't really due? 

No problem; Jesus is here. 

"Go down and catch a fish," the Master tells Peter. 

"Take the coin out of his mouth and pay the taxes."

What a handy One to have around!

Or suppose you've attracted a big crowd of people and you're short on food. 

Not to worry. 

Here's a little boy with five loaves and two fish. 

Sit the people down in companies, and Jesus will take care of them all. 

And when it's all over, you find you've collected 12 baskets full of leftovers.

As I said, a handy One to have around.

Or maybe the Pharisees are trying to trip you up and stump you with some kind of technical question. 

Don't sweat it; Jesus will handle them. 

Don't give it another thought. 

Just leave it to the Master.

OK, but what if you're out in a stormy sea in danger of sinking? 

What then?

Same song, fourth verse. 

Jesus has the power to still the storm and to bring you safely into His desired haven.

As I said, it's always great to have Jesus around.

That's the lesson the disciples learned over and over for three wonderful years.

They discovered that Jesus was an amazingly handy Person to have around.

They never had to worry when Jesus was present. 

They learned to relax and be confident because they knew the Lord was there to help.

HOLY SPIRIT CLASS l Chuck Smith l Living Water l "Introduction" l Utah VidDevo l VidDevoChurch

Introduction: A Glorious Walk with the Spirit

While Jesus was upon the earth, He was the Person of the Godhead with whom man most closely related. Jesus was here to represent God to man, which He did wonderfully - to such a degree that He could tell Philip, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father ... I and My Father are one" (John 14:9; 10:30).

 Jesus was God in flesh upon the earth.

At first the disciples didn't recognize this. But over time they came to realize that when they walked with Jesus along the road, in fact they were strolling alongside of God. 

Eventually they saw that when they laid their hand upon His shoulder, in reality they were laying their hand on the shoulder of God. 

They recognized that when Jesus talked to them, they were hearing the very words of God. 

They understood that when they saw Jesus and His compassion for the sick, they glimpsed the heart of God and His desire to make right that which was wrong.

When they saw Jesus take the scourge and drive the money changers out of the temple, they witnessed the determination of God to bring purity to man's religion - or more accurately, to purge man of religion and bring him into a purerelationship with God. 

When they saw Jesus weeping over Jerusalem because its people had failed to understand the opportunity for salvation that God had given, they watched the heart of God breaking over man's lost chances.

During His roughly 30 years on the earth, Jesus taught the disciples thoroughly and gave them many commandments. 

But on the day He ascended into heaven,He told His friends He would thereafter give them commandments and direct their activities in a new way. 

From that day on, He would guide and direct themthrough the Holy Spirit.

It's critical that we understand this. 

The Holy Spirit is the primary agent of theGodhead working in the world today. 

He is the person of the Godhead to whomwe relate most closely. 

He is the One who is gathering a body of believers - the bride of Christ - to present unto the Lord. And the church through the Holy Spirit is doing the work of God in the world.

The Holy Spirit is called the Paraklete, "one called alongside to help." 

He has come alongside to help us in every situation. He is here to be our strength. 

He is here to be our provider. 
He is here to take care of the emergencies that arise in life. 
Anytime that we need help in any kind of situation, we can know that the Holy Spirit is here to be our helper. 

He is the One who has been called to comealongside to help us.

The Holy Spirit desires a personal, loving relationship with all of us. 

He wants to come alongside of you and help you in and through every situation you mayface. 

That is why it is so vitally important that each of us come to know the person of the Holy Spirit, to know Him in His fullness. 

Only in that way will we be able to experience the comfort, help, and strength that He provides and which all of us so desperately need.

My Hope for This Book

The purpose of this book is to help you get to know the Holy Spirit so that you might enjoy a full, rich relationship with Him. 

It is my earnest desire to so present His glory and beauty that you will seek to yield your life fully to Him, knowing and personally experiencing His grace, His love, His power, and His gifts.

God wants us to know Him not merely as some eternal creator or as some force or power that fills the universe, but as a loving, caring Father who sent His Son to die for our sins. 

Jesus made it possible for us to enjoy this intimaterelationship through the agency and the power of the Holy Spirit. I am praying that by God's grace and through this book the Lord will develop inyou an insatiable hunger for and thirsting after the Spirit. 

I pray that you will come into a deep, personal, intimate relationship with Him so that your life will be transformed by His power.

I pray that you will come to depend upon Him for guidance, for health, for strength, for comfort, for wisdom, and for power. And I pray that He will become closer to you than any person you have ever known - that you will be bathed in His glory and thus fashioned into the image of Christ.

Some exciting times lie ahead in these pages! 

But, of course, you don't have to wait for the end of the book to gain great blessing. 

You can yield yourself to the Holy Spirit even now, giving yourself over to His control and to His filling. 

I urge you to make up your mind even now to yield and surrender your life to Him.

Then you can begin, even at this moment, to enjoy a glorious walk in the Spirit, delighting in the fullness that God desires for each of us.

x

COMMUNITY BIBLE COLLEGE l Holy Spirit l Chuck Smith l Utah VidDevo l VidDevoChurch

HOLY SPIRIT SERIES

Living Water                     by Chuck Smith

Introduction: A Glorious Walk With The Spirit

Part One: Who Is The Holy Spirit?

1.Personality Plus

2.The Mystery Of The Three In One

Part Two: What Does The Holy Spirit Do?

3.At Work In The World

4.Keeping The Lid On

5.The Church's Divine Helper

6.The Manifold Grace Of God

Part Three: What Are The Gifts Of The Spirit?

7.Unity In Diversity

8.The Word Of Wisdom

9.How Did He Know That?

10.How To Plant A Mulberry Tree In The Ocean

11.Hope For The Sick

12.The Hardest Gift To Possess

13.Speaking Forth The Word Of God

14.Unmasking The Evil One

15.An Affront to the Intellect; A Blessing To The Soul

16.What Did He Say?

17.Helps - the Quiet Ministry

18.Enough Milk, Already!

19.Just Do It!

20.Keep It Simple

21.An Awesome Responsibility

22.A Ready Help In Time Of Need

Part Four: How Should We Respond To The Spirit?

23.The Real Baptism Of Fire

24.Ask And You Shall Receive

25.A Torrent Of Love

Epilogue: The Ultimate Experience

Notes