I am writing this article with the understanding that most who read it do understand that the Bible shows us God is one in essence but three in persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is a Divine Relationship with God Father as invisible lead, God Son Jesus as visible God to relate to a visible humanity, and God Holy Spirit as an invisible, omnipresent God who is everywhere at the same time. Omnipresent may prove even more important in eternity in a unique way after God creates a new heaven and new earth with no more humanity or sin following Jesus’ one-thousand-year millennial reign.
When we examine the Holy Spirit’s role inside humanity, we begin with the Old Testament after Adam and Eve’s fall, when God entered into a personal relationship with Abraham, followed by Isaac and then Jacob.
Why did God do this? Before God did this, we had two thousand years beginning with Adam and Eve where God was interacting with them before the fall, but had not set up a relationship plan with larger humanity until later.
Before the flood, life was chaotic and evil due in large part to the fallen angels in Genesis 6 being able to materialize and produce hybrid children with women, called Nephilim or giants. Their bloodline polluted the human bloodline to the point that God’s wrath brought the flood, which destroyed everything except eight people – Noah and his family.
After the first two thousand years, God decided to begin a personal relationship with a race of people of His choosing, beginning with Abraham. Acts 7:2 says, “The God of glory appeared to Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia before speaking to him in Haran. God told Abraham He would make him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, give his descendants the land of Canaan, and use his family line to bless all the families and peoples of the earth.
Abraham’s family “line” would be the millions of people who would be born through Abraham’s lineage in the future. Notice how God did not start with a “group” of people already on Earth. He started with Abraham to reverse the scattered rebellion of the Tower of Babel and launch a rescue plan for humanity.
God began His personal relationship plan with one man – Abraham. God knew that once Abraham knew God and entered into a personal relationship with Him, then he would be able to pass that knowledge to his wife, Sarah, and then later to his children and their children through the ages to come. His descendants would later become the Jewish race. They would be a people “set apart” to know the one true God and be His people that would bless the whole world in the years to come. Of course, the ultimate blessing is Jesus coming from the line of Judah.
This article is about the Holy Spirit’s role for humanity. Have you noticed how there is no evangelism in the Old Testament? Why? Because God’s plan then was to set up a certain people through the lineage of Abraham. God was not looking to evangelize Gentiles to be Jewish. The Bible shows us there were some Gentiles who, by faith, entered into the Jewish religion in order to follow God’s plan for the Jewish people. These people were Jewish only by faith, not by the only way to be truly Jewish – by lineage.
God used Moses to bring the Jewish people the law through the 10 commandments. To be in a personal relationship with God, as the Jewish people were, meant there could be no sin between them and God. The 10 Commandments proved that humanity born in sin could never avoid sin. God solved this problem by setting up His law of atonement where an innocent, sinless life could shed its blood as a sacrifice for the sins of another.
In Israel’s case, this could only be done by sinless animals who are not created in God’s image. Their sinless blood had to be sacrificed over and over millions of times for two thousand years until God Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice to die on a cross and shed His sinless blood to pay the price for the sins of all humanity once and for all. This was done in order for each person to have an opportunity to enter into a personal, intimate relationship with God Jesus to receive Him as Lord and Savior.
We know from the Bible that during Israel’s existence for the first two thousand years, the Holy Spirit did not dwell in people like it does in the New Testament, but He did fill certain people for certain tasks temporarily – men such as Moses, Joshua, Saul, David, prophets, Joseph. Certainly the Holy Spirit is everywhere at all times, and only indwells in people according to God’s plan.
Have you ever thought about why God did not evangelize or indwell believers before Jesus? The answer appears to be because God did not enter into a personal relationship with the whole Gentile world but only with the Jewish people. His desire and plan was to separate the Jewish people from the rest of the world. He wanted to separate His chosen people who knew Him from the rest of the world who did not. It all has to do with SIN. The Jewish people were saved from sin through millions of animal sacrifices, and the rest of the Gentile world had no relationship with God or any way to remove their sins.
This all changed with the arrival of God Jesus to the world. His sacrifice on the cross to pay the price for all sins applied to not only Israel but also the Gentile world. For the first time, God allowed believers in Jesus to become “born again” by receiving the Holy Spirit in them.
The Bible says that just like God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we human beings are body, soul and spirit. Spirit refers to eternal life. God is Spirit, and by being created in His image, we, too, are spirit eternally. However, we are born spiritually dead due to our sin nature. Spiritually dead does not mean annihilation death where we no longer exist after physical death, but means a “separation from God” for all eternity in hell, a place where God does not reside.
Instead of all of God’s blessings and goodness and wonderful things He has in store for us, we get the opposite since He is not there – torment, darkness, and agony for all eternity, which is far worse than an annihilation death. Jesus made this crystal clear when He talked about Judas in Matthew 26:24. He said “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about Him, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” Never being born is infinitely better than infinite torment!
God has done the most incredible thing imaginable by connecting us to Himself through the Holy Spirit. But why did God do this? One of the main reasons is because God is now focused on evangelizing. With Holy Spirit God in us, we can now know the “things of God” that He wants us to know. The Holy Spirit is God’s power in us to know Him, His guidance in our lives, how to understand His word in the Bible, and how to recognize and overcome our sin nature.
As human beings, we continue to have a sin nature until we die, but with Holy Spirit God in us, we now have a new “Godly nature” in us that is more powerful than Satan’s sin nature that also influences us. We now have a war going on with our sin nature battling against our new Godly nature, and God’s desire is for us to win this war by serving and pleasing Him as we journey through life to our eternal home at death.
God wants us to evangelize and spread the good news to the rest of the world. Matthew 28:19 ESV says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
After establishing Israel, there are two things God always makes sure happens in any relationship He has. First, He needs a place to dwell, and second, there needs to be a place for sacrifices.
With Israel for two thousand years, God dwelt in a physical temple that could also accommodate animal sacrifices. When Jesus was here, He told the religious leaders, “Destroy this temple (His body), and in three days I will raise it up.” The Pharisees did not understand that Jesus was telling them that the temple and the sacrifices where God dwelt had now transitioned into Himself.
God transitioned from the temple to dwell within Himself, God Jesus, and He took care of the sacrifice issue forever.
After Jesus transitioned from Earth back to heaven, His ultimate transition and role for the Holy Spirit was the Holy Spirit transitioning from heaven to earth to enter “into redeemed humanity,” where God resides in each born-again believer. Of course, the sacrifice part had already been taken care of by Jesus on the cross. Hallelujah and praise the Lord!
Another major benefit of the Holy Spirit being in us means that in eternity, even though we still have free will, we will never sin, as God will never sin. God knows that any of His free-will sentient beings He creates can and will sin, and that the only way a sentient being with free will can never sin is by being connected to Himself. Also, this connection will allow us to love like God loves. Can you imagine how incredible it will be loving billions of Saints and angels with God’s type of love.
I mentioned earlier that the Holy Spirit being omnipresent might be even more important in eternity for this reason. This is speculation, but it does make sense.
The church is now called the bride of Christ, and after the rapture, when Jesus comes back for His bride, He takes us back to heaven for our seven-year wedding celebration and feast. After the wedding, His bride becomes His wife. There will no doubt be billions of us following Jesus’ one-thousand-year millennial reign.
How are each of us going to be able to have a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus in eternity with billions of us wanting to be with Him as much as possible? It makes sense that the Holy Spirit might have a new role in eternity. Since God Father, God Son, and God Holy Spirit are connected together, it seems that Jesus could interact with billions of us at the same time should He desire to do so through omnipresent Holy Spirit God.
There is a saying: To the world, I am nobody, but to Somebody, I am the world. Jesus’ relationship with us is not corporate. It is one-on-one. That is how Jesus sees each one of His born-again believers.
There is a stark difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament in terms of the Holy Spirit’s role in humanity. Israel is the age of the law, and Jesus is the age of grace. I’m sure each of us is ecstatic that we have the blessing of being born at this time in history rather than before the age of Jesus. Bible prophecy is showing us that the rapture and the age of grace appear to be ending soon. There is no question that the most blessed generation to have ever lived will be the generation that does not see death but is snatched off the planet to enjoy our wedding celebration with our Bridegroom Jesus.
Maranatha, Lord Jesus!
David Cogburn