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

pledging to come to them by virtue of sending his Spirit. “The word [paraclete] is always in this Gospel used by Jesus, who speaks of the Spirit as sent to supply the needs of His followers after His departure. . . . It is worth noticing that, without exception, these functions assigned to the Spirit are elsewhere in this Gospel assigned to Christ” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, New International Commentary on the New Testament , Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971, p. 663). And John Calvin rightly comments: “When he says, I will come to you, he shows in what manner he dwells in his people, and in what manner he fills all things. It is, by the power of his Spirit” ( Calvin’s Commentaries , Vol. XVIII, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981, p. 95) This correspondence between the presence of Jesus (physically) and the on-going presence of the Holy Spirit is so exact that living lives of discipleship before God can either be described as “walking in the footsteps of Jesus” or as “walking by the Spirit.” 1 John 2.6 - Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk [ p ripat ] in the same way in which he walked. Gal. 5.16 - But I say, walk [ p ripat ] by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. To walk like Jesus and to walk after the Spirit is, biblically, the exact same idea. And it is the Holy Spirit himself who “comes alongside” to help us walk as Jesus did. Michael Green rightly insists that the key distinction between the Old Testament descriptions of the Spirit and those in the New Testament is that the Spirit takes on the ministry of representing Christ. He writes: No longer is the Holy Spirit encountered as naked power; he is clothed with the personality and character of Jesus. If you like, Jesus is the funnel through whom the Spirit becomes available to men. Jesus transposes the Spirit into a fully personal key. Jesus is the prism through whom the diffused and fitful light of the Spirit is concentrated. Jesus is the prophet (Luke 7.16, Acts 3.22, 7.37) of the end-time, through whom the prophetic Spirit, so active in the Old Testament, gave full and final

12 Page 23 Outline Point II-E-2-c