The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-17, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

What was the role of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' life and ministry?

Answer

The Holy Spirit, just very briefly, functioned in a number of ways in the ministry of Christ, and all that we know is what is revealed in Scripture. 

First of all, it was the Holy Spirit, you remember, who was the divine agency of the Trinity, that basically planted the seed for the incarnate Son of God in Mary.  So the Holy Spirit was the agent of the birth of Jesus Christ.  It is also clear that during the ministry of Jesus Christ, He attributed His deeds and His works to the Holy Spirit, so that in some way, and again you are into the Trinity again, and the inscrutibility of the Trinity, in some way Jesus, in His incarnation limited the independent exercise of His attributes to the will of the Father and the power of the Spirit.  That's why in Matthew, chapter 12, when the Jews concluded that He was of Beelzebub the devil--you know, they had heard all of His teachings, they had seen His miracles, and they had watched everything he had done, and their conclusion was, "You are of the devil!"  And He called that "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit," and the reason it was blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was, because He had yeilded Himself to the Father's will and to the Spirit's power. 

You remember at His baptism, that the Spirit of God decended like a dove and came upon Him, and I think therein was the emblem of the empowering of Jesus for His ministry, so that part of His self-emptying, part of His incarnation, part of His voluntary self-imposed restriction was giving Himself over to let the Spirit of God work through Him in a way that is beyond our ability to understand, so that when one denied that the work of Christ was the work of God, one was blaspheming the Holy Spirit who was doing that work through Him. 

Additionally, when raised from the dead, the Apostle Paul said that He was raised by the Spirit.  So the Spirit was involved in the incarnation, involved in the life and ministry of Christ, and involved in His resurrection.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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