Lutheranism 101 - Part 26 - The Third Article I

The Third Article
"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen"

The Third Article of the Apostle's Creed deals with the role of the Holy Spirit. So the first question we have to ask is, who is the Holy Spirit. Well he is not a force or an energy, and he is not a holy version of the Casper the ghost. The Holy Spirit is also not an it, but a he. He is a person of the Trinity. In fact he is the third person of the Triune God. The Holy Spirit has the special job of what we call sanctification. Which is a snobby way of saying he makes us holy. Scripture shows us that he makes us holy in two ways.
The first way is by bringing us to faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Contrary to popular opinion we cannot bring ourselves to faith. We are born spiritual dead and a dead person cannot do anything. Therefore something or someone has to bring a dead man to life. That is what the Holy Spirit does to us. That leads to the next question. How does he do it? When we read the Bible we see that people are brought to faith through God's Word and sacraments. The Holy Spirit uses God's Words from Scripture to change people's hearts and bring them to faith. He also uses the sacrament of baptism, which is water combined with God's Word to bring people to faith. We see that especially when infants are baptized. God works in their hearts and establishes a relationship with them. The details of how the Holy Spirit does all of this through the Word are not known to us, we just know it happens.

The Second way that the Holy Spirit makes us holy is by renewing our lives and creating within us the desire to lead a holy God pleasing life. Again he does this Word and sacrament. When we read and hear the Word of God we are reminded of how God has forgiven us and promised us eternal life, that creates in us a desire to do God's will and live for him. We also daily remember that we are a baptized child of God and a member of his family. In the Lord's Supper we receive not only forgiveness but also strengthening of our faith. All of this leads us to do good works.

That leads to the next question what are good works? Well simply defined they are anything we do in faith for others. The important thing to remember is that good works come after faith not before it. In other words good works do not create faith, instead they are the result of our faith. I always like to illustrate this by asking why does a dog bark? The answer is because its a dog. It doesn't bark to become a dog. Why does an apple tree grow apples? Because it's an apple tree. It doesn't grow apples to become an apple tree. So why does a Christian do good works? Because they are a Christian, they don't do good works to become a Christian. So anything we do in faith for others is a good work, no matter how big or how small.

We also see in Scripture that the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. These are talents or abilities that we are to use in the church and God's kingdom. Everyone has different gifts. Some people for instance may have the gift of teaching, others the gift of giving or the gift of caring etc.. God does this so that the church can be effective in its work. Now there are some gifts that people like to argue about. The gift of speaking in tongues or healing for instance. Scripture clearly says that these gifts exist. At the same time we are instructed not to concentrate on the amazing gifts as much as on the gifts of faith and other practical gifts that build up the church. At the same time we cannot deny these gifts or say that God no longer uses them or won't use them some time in the future.

The last thing the Holy Spirit does is preserve us in faith. He does this again through His Word and sacrament.

Next week we will talk about the Church.

Here is some Scripture for you on today's lesson: Matthew 28:19; Acts 5:3-4; Genesis 1:2; Titus 3:5; 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 12:3; John 3:5-6; Romans 10:17; Romans 8:9; Galatians 5:22-23; 1 Corinthians 10:31;

Pastor Fred