1 Corinthians 12:3 - The Holy Spirit's Work - July 29, 2018

We are 2/3’s of the way through our summer-long study of the basic confession of the Christian faith: the Apostles’ Creed. We have plumbed the depths of Scripture and discovered anew that the Father is our Creator and Preserver and that the Son is our Redeemer and Lord. We have also discovered that this confession is, at the same time, objective and subjective. On the one hand, the truths presented in the Apostle’s Creed are completely outside of us – things that God has done, is doing, and will do. The truths we confess in the Creed are not subject to our opinions or feelings, are not up for debate, will never need to be revised or updated to match the ever-changing tastes of the world. They were true before we were born and will be true long after we die – whether we believe them or not. On the other hand, we begin each article with the very personal, very subjective words I believe. The question is: how do these objective, unchanging truths become our personal confession – the foundation on which we live and die? Enter the third person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. His work is to make objective truth our subjective possession; to make THE Christian faith my Christian faith. We will consider the necessity of this work and the process of this work.

In the minds of many, the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to dispense supernatural spiritual gifts: the ability to speak in tongues or perform miracles or receive dreams and visions directly from God. Apparently, this view of the Holy Spirit’s work had infected the Christian congregation in Corinth. Among the many issues that had divided the congregation was the false opinion that if a person was a genuine believer, if he had really received the gift of the Spirit – the evidence would be the possession of some special, supernatural “gift” of the Spirit. On the other side, if someone didn’t appear to have any special ability to heal or prophesy, he was considered a 2nd class believer – if a believer at all. (If you are at all familiar with the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, then you know that this pressure on cultivating supernatural “spiritual” gifts is still present. The really scary thing is that Scripture warns us to beware that signs and wonders performed apart from the Gospel of Christ crucified do not come from the Holy Spirit but from the devil. (John 16:14; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)) While Paul will spend the next three chapters of his letter to the Christians in Corinth correcting this false view of spirituality and placing the gifts of the Spirit into their proper place – that is, for service in the body of Christ – that’s not where he starts, because the primary gift the Holy Spirit can give is not a heightened spiritual sensitivity or unique abilities, but the one gift that is absolutely necessary for salvation: faith in Jesus Christ. No one who is speaking by the Spirit of God (in contrast to the spirit of an idol/devil) says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

When we say that faith is necessary for salvation, we have to be careful to walk the narrow Biblical road. We have to stay out of the ditches on either side. We don’t mean that Jesus’ work was somehow lacking or deficient – that faith needs to be added to make it effective. Jesus’ work was both perfect and complete. His holy life is perfectly adequate to cloak sinners of every age with the robe of righteousness God demands and his blood is the only payment necessary and able to satisfy God’s wrath over sin. Jesus is the only Savior we or anyone else will ever need. He has done everything necessary. Nothing more is needed; nothing less will do.

But in stating Jesus has done it all for all people, we need to be careful not to swerve into the ditch on the other side of the road: that because Jesus died for the world, all the world will be saved. There is only one way to receive everything Jesus died to win us: through faith. With Paul we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. (Romans 3:28) Which is why the Gospels are littered with calls to repent and believe. (Mark 1:15; Matthew 3:2; 4:17) Which is why when a poor jailer cried out to Paul: what must I do to be saved? Paul didn’t say, nothing, you have nothing to worry about, but believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. (Acts 16:30-31) Which is why Jesus laid out the simple rule by which he will judge all humanity on the Last Day: whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)

But that still leaves us with some important and sometimes problematic questions: if Jesus died for all, why are some damned? If Jesus died for me, but I need to believe it, don’t I get some credit? If all I need to do is believe, what do we need the Holy Spirit for? Be warned, the answers to these questions are highly offensive. If the world would get wind of this teaching, it would probably try to destroy us on social media. Our reason and our pride and our emotions will not like it, which is why we must subject our pride, our reason, our feelings, and the world’s opinions – to the written Word of God. Christ alone won salvation for all people by his life and death; this gift becomes ours through faith alone. But this final piece of the puzzle – faith – is not something we can do or take credit for. We are not born with it. It is not a skill that we can be trained and encouraged to cultivate. It is not a product we can purchase with any amount of money. Faith is not the result of a rational or willful decision. We are not born spiritually neutral; equally capable of accepting or rejecting Christ. We are born unbelievers. We are born blind, deaf, dumb, and dead to God. We are Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones by nature. On this point – a point that is revolting to our pride and reason and emotions – Scripture is painstakingly clear. Paul wrote earlier in this letter: the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14) In Romans he writes: the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. (Romans 8:7-8) This is why we confess with Luther: I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. This is not an easy confession. Many deny it. Others try to downplay or twist it. But we confess it, boldly, because it is the clear teaching of Scripture.

Our spiritual deadness, our inability to come to faith on our own is something we accept based on Scripture alone. But once we accept it, it becomes fairly easy to see the evidence. Consider how many people witnessed Jesus’ miracles in the 1st century – and were able to see the empty tomb for themselves – but still rejected him. Consider how many really smart and talented people there are in our world, and how hard they will work for money and power and fame – for the best this world can offer – but how few of them spend even a moment trying to achieve the greatest treasure of all: eternal life! (Matthew 13:44-46) Consider how even Christians, even those who have been baptized and instructed and have confessed Jesus as their Lord continue to play with the fire of sin in their lives; call Jesus their friend and yet continue to dance with the devil; who claim to be a child of the light and yet are perpetually walking in darkness. (And then consider how difficult it is to lead them to see their sins, repent, and believe!) (1 John 1:6) Or, most humbling of all, consider how often our faith is weak; how often we know what God’s will is – and yet do the opposite; how often we struggle to accept the clear truth of Scripture. Yes, even in we who have been made alive by the Spirit, the evidence that we are, by nature, spiritually dead remains. All of which is proof positive that Paul is right when he states: no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

In other words, apart from the Holy Spirit, the salvation Jesus purchased for us with his blood is about as valuable to us as a check for a million dollars – with our name on it – lying on the surface of the moon; as valuable as a beautiful piece of artwork is to a blind man; or as a cure for cancer is to a dead person. Apart from the Holy Spirit, all the riches of heaven, all the gifts that Christ suffered and died to win are useless to us, because we are blind to their value, ignorant of their existence and powerless to make them our own. This is why the work of the Holy Spirit is an absolute necessity. This is why Jesus even had to tell the disciples he taught personally that after he had died and rose he would send the Spirit of truth…[to] guide [them] into all truth. (John 16:13) While anyone can pick up the Bible and read it; anyone can walk through those doors sit down and listen – no one can believe a word of it apart from the Holy Spirit. But the good news is that with him, anyone, even a newborn infant, even the most violent persecutor of Christians (Paul), even someone suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia, even we can believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

But no less obscure to us than the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work is how he does it, his process. What would you say the first step in coming to faith is? Parents deciding to have their child baptized? Choosing to pick up the Bible and read it? Someone raising their hand and deciding to invite Jesus into their hearts? No. If faith is God’s gift (Ephesians 2:8-9), the first step in creating faith is God’s desire to give it! In order for anyone to come to faith, God must invite him, call him. It’s popular these days to think that we are responsible for making believers, but consider Bible history; how it’s never the story of people seeking out God; it’s always the story of God seeking out and calling people. From finding Adam and Eve hiding in the trees and promising them a Savior, to Noah’s proclamation of the Law and Gospel to the wicked world in the time of the Flood (Genesis 6) to Ezekiel declaring that God’s will is not that people would reject him and be damned but turn to him and be saved (Ezekiel 18:32) – God has been sounding the siren call to repent and believe his promises throughout human history.

And – except for rare circumstances (Abraham – Genesis 12; Moses – Exodus 3) – he issues this call mediately, that is, through human spokesmen, through his Word and Sacrament – and not immediately or directly from heaven. Sending men and women to proclaim the good news of the Gospel is the Holy Spirit’s work, too. He continues to send messengers to every corner of the planet to invite sinners to repent and believe. Jesus gives us a beautiful picture of the Holy Spirit’s work in this regard in his parable of the great banquet – where all are invited, but while the rich and powerful reject the invitation, the poor and needy gratefully accept. (Luke 14:15-24) And because God is responsible for extending this invitation there can be no doubt (and on the Last Day there will be no excuse) that the invitation has been extended to all to believe and be saved.

Wherever the call of the Gospel is found (whether in a worship service or a hospital room), the Holy Spirit is there to make that call powerful and effective. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone who hears the Gospel believes it. Two things are true wherever and whenever the gospel is proclaimed. Some will always hate it and reject it, but by God’s grace, some will believe it. Scripture refers to this spark of faith as enlightenment: an awaking to the knowledge that we are sinners worthy only of God’s wrath – and trust that Jesus came into this world to save unworthy sinners like us. And this enlightenment is only and always due to the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, sparking the light of faith in formerly dead hearts. Through his call to faith, through enlightening individual human hearts with faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit sanctifies and gathers his church and preserves it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith until he takes us home. These topics will be the focus of our sermons through the end of this series.

It is enough for us today to understand Paul’s simple words today: no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. God’s plan of salvation was always perfect and Jesus’ work in accomplishing our redemption is complete. But no one could benefit from those gifts if not for the power and work of the Holy Spirit. May we in humility recognize our desperate need for his powerful work and appreciate his process for creating saving faith. Above all, let us rejoice that the Holy Spirit has called and enlightened us to believe that Jesus is not only the Savior, he is my Savior. Amen.