The Holy Spirit and Transformation

Published on January 25, 2010 by Stephen Leung

I was shooting pool with some friends the other night. It had been a while and it showed.  But, I also ran across a page of jokes of the day, and the first one ran like this:  A little girl asked her mother, “Mom, is it true that God is much bigger than us?”  The mother said “yes, God is.”  The girl asked, “Mom, is it true that God lives inside of us?”  Again the mother said, “yes.”  The girl then asked, “Then, wouldn’t that mean that God must be showing and others would see?”  There are a dozen ways we think the mother should respond or clarify.  But, take a moment to see that there is a lot of truth to what the little girl concludes in this joke.  Well, the truth is that God does show.  I think the problem is that many times we do not see very well, and other times, we are working against rather working with God to see his dwelling in us show.
God does dwell in us in the person of the Holy Spirit.  And, I love the way Pastor Kurt explained the baptism of the Holy Spirit, with which Jesus baptizes us, as a “drenching of the Holy Spirit.”  We sometimes expect something overly mystical to be evidence of the Spirit’s dwelling in us and His filling us.  It is true that some of the Spirit’s work is not automatic, but some of it is.  Theologians such as Herman Bavinck^[1], make it a point to show that the Spirit, along with the other two persons of the Trinity, is at work in our sanctification (cf. Titus 3:5 and 1 Peter 1:2), that the Holy Spirit is indeed the prime agent in sanctification (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:11), and that sanctification begins with being set apart and placed in a special relationship with God, but also includes all that is done for and in believers.  So, we might say that just recognizing that we are now in a relationship with God is a demonstration of the Spirit’s work.  But, everything that is done for us in bringing us to glorification – from present process (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18) to completion (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:49, Philippians 3:21, and Colossians 3:4), is also proof positive.  If we step back, we will find that transformation in our lives can be traced over time.
We also sometimes conceive of something overly mystical as the means by which we change by the power of the Holy Spirit.  As Bavinck puts it, there is also an active meaning to sanctification, based on the work of God in us, but where we are called and equipped to participate in this sanctification (cf. Romans 12:1, 2 Corinthians 7:1, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, Hebrews 12:14, etc.).  While we recognize our self-agency alongside God’s all-encompassing activity in grace, we can sometimes fall off the other side of the road and act as if it is only us and what we do to bring about transformation.  Again, theologians like Bavinck^[2] point out that the Spirit works with the word (and the other means of grace, the sacraments) to grow us an give us his benefits.  The Spirit is the person who is always present with the word, sustaining it and making it active.  Yet, practically, I find Unit 4 of the Gospel Transformation workbook to be quite helpful.  First, we need to understand that we need the Spirit.  When we note the aspects of Jesus’ life and ministry that relied on the Spirit, we conclude we certainly need the same.  (Cf. John Harvey’s Anointed with the Spirit and Power for more on this.)  Second, we need to ask (cf. Luke 11:13).  Third, we need to keep in step with the Spirit and sow to the Spirit (cf. Galatians 5:25; 6:8).  More are listed on page 200 of the workbook, but I believe these are simple and practical enough that we can commit to doing by the Spirit, what He desires to do anyway.  Praise God that we do not have to be Pharisees, moralists, impatient nags, prisoners, workaholics, law givers, bootstrappers, or credit-mongers when it comes to transformation.

[1] Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 4, Herman Bavinck, Ed. John Bolt, Trans. John Vriend, p. 252-253.
[2] Ibid., p. 459.