Question 40: What is the nature of the Holy Spirit’s work of revelation?
Answer: The nature of the Holy Spirit’s work of revelation is to reveal God’s glory to us in Christ, and to show us his glorious works.
What is your purpose in life? I’m not asking on a philosophical type level, I’m asking on a: “What thing are you working towards right now?” type of level. I’ve got a flower bed in part of my garden, it has a healthy cluster of kangaroo paws in it (I’m talking about the plant variety, not some sadistic hunter’s habit!). Right now, that garden bed is pretty weed-ridden, and it has been for a good time. I have decided that in the space of the next week, I will be destroying every trace of unwanted botanical material in that garden bed that I can get my hands on (some of those things will leave their roots down deep to make a comeback later...). Chances are it’s not going to get done, but I do have a dream. There are other things I want to do too. I wanted to go to a ministry conference in February, so I made it happen. It was wonderful! How about you? What kind of things are you going after at the moment? Where is your purpose in life taking you?
Did you know that the Holy Spirit has a purpose? He’s on a mission. There is a dominating goal in his mind which is constantly directing what he is doing in your life. But this is no garden-bed goal, there is instead an infinite depth in the mind and purpose of the Holy Spirit that is beyond our comprehension. Nevertheless, what we know we know truly, and can say confidently, because he has shown it to us. The one driving desire of the Holy Spirit, which shapes and directs all that he does in our lives, is to show us the Father, as he is revealed in Christ the Son, and to draw us near to himself by God’s covenantal love for us. The central activity through which he accomplishes this aim is by revealing the truth to us. We aim to plan trips and take care of our garden beds, the Holy Spirit aims to show us constantly expanded visions of the glory of God in Christ. Of course, looking after our gardens and planning trips can have their small place in that glorious purpose as well!
In John 15:26 Jesus said: “when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” As we have seen, the Holy Spirit, as God, fully perceives the infinite depths of the divine mind. His knowledge of the truth is full, infinite, and beyond mortal measure. As we move forward, we begin to explore the matter of how and what the Spirit does in his work of revelation. The what is centrally clear is that he bears witness about Christ.
Let me express this using different terms. Broadly speaking, we may summarise the content of the Holy Spirit’s divine revelation simply as: truth. The Spirit reveals truth. That is the fullest sum of his activity of revelation. As the Spirit of truth, all his activity of revelation is by nature a revelation of truth, and nothing but the truth can proceed from him. “God is not a man that he should lie” (Num 23:19). As the revealer of truth, we say that the Spirit is the revealer of God himself, and his works. In Question 4 we asked: What does it mean to say that God is truth? To say that God is truth means that God himself exists as the ultimate ground and source of all that is, was, or will be; that his Word perfectly reflects, conforms to, reveals, and expresses the divine mind, determining also that which exists in creation; and that, in his Spirit, he perfectly, fully, and truly perceives and reveals all things. From this answer we may gather that Christ, the Word of God, in his person and works, is the sum and substance of the Spirit’s work of revelation. The scriptures confirm this finding in a good many places additional to John 15:26.
To start with, one of the titles of the Holy Spirit himself is “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9). Christ, in whom the fullness of the godhead dwells, perfectly reflects, conforms to, and reveals the divine mind. Christ is thus a revelation of God (as we’ve seen in earlier studies). The Holy Spirit is the agent by whom we personally are enabled to see and understand God’s revelation of himself in Christ. As we read in 1 Cor 2:13: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” And all that God has given us can be summarised as the blessings we have received in Christ (Eph 1:3). Christ and the Spirit thus both have a distinct but essential role to play in God’s work of self-revelation – Christ as the substance of revelation, the Spirit as the agent who personally opens the human heart to both see and receive Christ. What then is the nature of the Holy Spirit’s work of revelation? The nature of the Holy Spirit’s work of revelation is to reveal God’s glory to us in Christ, and to show us his glorious works. SDG.
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