God the Holy Spirit, Mentor's Guide, MG14

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G O D T H E H O L Y S P I R I T

The Holy Spirit’s work of regenerating individuals is part of his larger work to make all things new. The Holy Spirit is at work to fulfill God’s ultimate plan to create a new heaven and a new earth in which all things are freed from the effects of sin. Because of our father Adam’s sin, we are by nature “children of wrath” and cannot claim to be God’s children by any natural descent. The Holy Spirit adopts believers into God’s family at the moment they place their faith in Christ and, completely by grace, gives them the rights and inheritance belonging to royal children. This adoption guarantees us both unique intimacy with God and also discipline and correction when we fail to obey him. The Holy Spirit’s ministry of adoption reminds us that salvation can never be separated from incorporation into the Church. To accept Christ always involves being adopted into his family (the Church) and thus no one is saved apart from the whole family of God. One of the most important works of the Holy Spirit at salvation is his work of uniting us to Christ so that the power of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension are credited to us and set at work in us. The Reformed tradition emphasizes that this occurs as the Holy Spirit living in us makes the presence of Christ real in our lives and speaks of this work as the baptism in the Holy Spirit following Paul’s language about the Spirit who baptizes us into Christ’s body. Many Protestant Christians who are not in the Reformed tradition prefer to use the term “baptism in the Holy Spirit” to refer to an experience that follows conversion. Rather than connecting Spirit baptism to the Spirit’s presence (as the Reformed tradition does), these believers follow Luke in emphasizing Spirit baptism as a special endowment of God’s power. It is important that we do not mistakenly set Paul’s writings against Luke’s but accept the entire witness of the Scriptures (Gospels, Acts, and Epistles) and find ways to speak about Spirit baptism which emphasize both his presence and his power, both his work at salvation and his work following salvation. Christians may disagree about the theological language used for this dependence on the Spirit’s presence and power but all should seek to experience it.

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