The Holy Spirit, Part 1 – The Spirit’s role in salvation
Up to today we have discussed salvation in Christ as a central role in providing us or eternal life through faith alone in his death and resurrection.
However, the Holy Spirit also is very important in our salvation, yet a very controversial topic. Opinions vary widely about the role of the Spirit, from various forms of traditional orthodox and different levels of charismatic beliefs. However, Christians often lack knowledge of what scripture teaches about the Holy Spirit.
Let’s examine today what the Bible itself says about the Spirit to better shape our thinking, based on the true word of God. The general structure of scripture’s teaching about the Spirit for the New Testament church, fall into three basic areas:
- The Spirit’s role in salvation
- The Spirit’s role in our Christian walk
- The Christian’s duties to the Spirit
In this episode we will be focusing on the Spirit’s role in salvation. The next two episodes will then cover the Holy Spirit in relationship to our Christian life.
Spirit’s role in salvation
Indeed, the Spirit in salvation is key. He performs the following vital functions:
- Convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8) – This role is vital because left to our own resources, as fallen man both physically and mentally, we would not come to faith and salvation by our own efforts (Romans 3:10-12). Therefore, the Spirit helps unbelievers recognize their faults, the coming judgment and God’s demand for righteousness.
- Baptizes (Romans 6:2-9; Ephesians 2:4-7; Colossians 2:12-13) – In the epistles the word ‘baptism’ signifies spiritual baptism which occurs at our salvation by the Spirit. The actual meaning of the Greek word for baptism (βαπτιζω, baptizoo) is ‘to identify with’. Therefore, the Spirit baptizes us by identifying us with Christ’s death and resurrection. The Spirit accomplishes this by putting to death our old person and resurrecting us to a new living person. ‘Regeneration’ and ‘born again’ are other concepts in Scripture signifying this important event (Titus 3:5; John 3:9). These wonderful verses demonstrate to us the profound importance of the resurrection because there is no eternal life without the resurrection and regeneration (1 Corinthians 15:13-19).The incredible fact of spiritual baptism (which water baptism may symbolize) gives us surety for our great salvation. As a new creature we cannot be slain and re-created into our old dead self.
- Seals to redemption (2 Corinthians 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:5; Ephesians 1:13-14) – This great promise indicates that each believer has the Holy Spirit from time of belief in Christ’s death and resurrection until death and going to be with God. Indeed, one of the definitions of a Christian is one who has the Holy Spirit for if it, a person is not yet a believer (Romans 8: 9).
- Places believers into the church (1 Corinthians 12:13) – The Spirit graciously places believers, at salvation, into the universal church (body) of Christ of which Christ is the head (1 Corinthians 12:13).
As you can see, the Spirit is integral in bringing believers to salvation, completing salvation and beyond to eternal life. What a fantastic blessing that believers have such a gift from God as the Holy Spirit!
Join this next episode as we begin to discuss the role of the Holy Spirit in our Christian walk. I hope these episodes are useful augmenting your knowledge and relationship with God. Please ask what questions you have. Trough the website.
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