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       Recognition of the Holy Spirit is foundational to the theological belief system of Christianity.  For most Christians, this recognition is tied to the doctrine of the Trinity which says that God is One and is expressed as Father, Son and Spirit. 

       Some Christian groups do not believe in this Trinitarian concept but believe that God the Father and God the Son are separate beings with the Holy Spirit being a power common to the both of them.  Under this concept, it is felt that God is a family presently consisting of the Father and the Son and that Christians can become part of this God family through resurrection from the dead.  Those that take this position get around being labeled polytheistic by maintaining that they still believe in only one God but define this one God as a family open to additional members unlike what they view as a closed Godhead under Trinitarianism. 

       Still other Christians see the one God as the Father only with the Son being created by the Father and the Spirit being the the mind and power of the Father which is disseminated  throughout  the universe.

   Regardless of ones position as to the nature of  God, the scriptures show the Holy Spirit to be a multifaceted dynamic which proceeds from God and therefore is of critical importance to our understanding.  In the spring of the year, much of the Christian community observes the festival of Pentecost as a special day of worship commemorating the giving of the Holy Spirit.  Under the Old Covenant, this festival was part of seven annual holy days God had commanded Israel to observe.

     Even though the Christ event in the first century made the Old Covenant obsolete, these festivals continued to be kept by most of the Jewish Christians until the temple was destroyed in AD 70.  That is why we see them meeting together on the Pentecost that occurred shortly after the ascension of Christ  The Christian community continues to observe Pentecost, not as an Old Covenant requirement, but as a New Covenant celebration commemorating the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in the A.D. 30's.  This event is often looked upon as giving birth to the Christian Church.      

       Christ had been crucified and resurrected and proceeded to spend 40 days teaching His disciples before visibly ascending to heaven.  Just before he ascended, He told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for what the Father had promised. What had the Father promised?

        John 14:16: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth.  Verse 26:  But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

      John 15:26:  "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

      We see Christ promising His disciples that they would be gifted by the Father with a Counselor, which is identified as the Holy Spirit. The Greek word for Counselor is paraclete, and is variously translated as counselor, comforter, advocate and helper.  This Holy Spirit is seen as coming from the father and defined as a counselor.  It is also defined as a Spirit of truth and of power. 

   This is what the disciples were waiting for as they continued to daily meet at the temple.  Whether they knew this promised Counselor was to arrive on Pentecost we don’t know.  The scriptures don’t say.  Whether they had any idea as to the manner in which this event would take place, we don’t know either.  The scriptures don’t say. In retrospect, we can identify a very plausible reason for the manifestation of the Spirit on this particular Pentecost observance.  

    Acts 2:5:  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  Verses 9-11: Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome  (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs

      There were thousands of Jews and converts to Judaism in Jerusalem to keep the feast of Pentecost. These were people of many different cultures, ethnic backgrounds and languages.  Ethnic Jews were only a part of this mix of believers in the Old Covenant religious system.  This was a golden opportunity to present the good news of Jesus Christ to a diverse audience.  Representatives from much of the known world were present in Jerusalem for this occasion. 

       God used this occasion to manifest Himself through a sound of a mighty rushing wind and the appearance of what seemed to be tongues of fire resting on the disciples.  This manifestation leads to the disciples being filled with the Holy Spirit which enabled them to speak in languages other than their native tongues.  

    God made it very evident that something special was happening. In one great act of power, God began the process of preaching the gospel to the world.  He gave the apostles the ability to speak in languages that could be understood by the many foreigners in town from all over the world.  They were able to understand what the apostles were saying in their native languages.  The miracle may have been as much in the hearing as it was in the speaking.  We are given limited insight as to what actually transpired relative to the tongues event.

       What we do plainly see is Peter taking the opportunity thrust upon him to preach the gospel of Christ to this diverse audience of adherents to the Old Covenant and to do so with great confidence and power of speech.

    This crowd had just witnessed a visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God.  They were able to understand the message about Christ in their native languages. They were given a powerful, no holds barred, straightforward message about the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. Many were convicted. Those who were convicted asked, “What shall we do?”  Peter answered, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.  And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). 

     Peter told them that the Holy Spirit, which they had just seen manifested in a visible way through the apostles, was a gift that they too could receive upon repentance and baptism.  Some 3000 took Peter up on his offer. They changed their attitude about the Christ event, accepted him as the promised Messiah, and were baptized as an outward confirmation of their faith in Christ. We must assume that those who accepted Christ also received the gift of the Holy Spirit as Peter had said.

    What did the receiving of the Holy Spirit mean to these fresh converts to Christianity?  Did it mean that they all could now speak in languages they had never learned, just like the disciples had apparently just done?  There is no scriptural evidence to show this was the case. The scriptural evidence would instead indicate that what the disciples experienced was a special manifestation to dramatically demonstrate that the gift that Christ had promised had truly been given.

     This manifestation of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was a special manifestation that empowered the disciples of Jesus Christ to boldly preach the gospel and thus begin the development of the New Covenant Church.  It must be understood that this was not the first time in scriptural history the Holy Spirit was found to indwell man.  We see John the Baptist being filled with the Holy Spirit from birth.  In referring to John, Luke writes: “for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth” (Luke 1:15).  Both Elizabeth and Zechariah, the mother and father of John the Baptist are said to have been filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:41, 67).  In Psalm 51:11, David asks God not to take His Holy Spirit from Him. In speaking of Israel, the prophet Isaiah wrote the following:

     Isaiah 63:10-11: Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them. Then his people recalled the days of old, the days of Moses and his people-- where is he who brought them through the sea, with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them?

      These accounts show that the Holy Spirit was available and had in-dwelled some before the Pentecost event.  In most cases the Holy Spirit appears to have been present among people but not indwelling them. Indwelling of the Holy Spirit for people in general did not become available until the Pentecost event in A.D. 31.

    John 7:38-39: Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

       John 14:16-17: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

       What does this gift from God mean for us today?  What is the Holy Spirit, and of what significance does its indwelling have for us versus it only being with us?

     Christ identified the Holy Spirit as the paraclete, a counselor, comforter, advocate and helper.  Paul told Timothy that God’s Spirit was a spirit of power, love and sound mindedness or self discipline, as some translations have it (2Timothy 1:7).   Peter, in his first letter said it is the Spirit of God that sanctifies us. John said:

        I John 4:13: We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

         John shows the evidence of God living in us is the Holy Spirit He gives us.  What is the significance of this? Let’s look at what this same John records regarding Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus about being born of the spirit.

       Of even greater significance is that Gods spirit in us is our guarantee of eternal life. See what Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians:

       Ephesians 1:13-14: And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.

       Apostle Paul makes some very profound statements about the Spirit of God in his letter to the Roman Church.  

          Romans 8:5-9:  Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 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.  You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

       Here we see that having Gods spirit indwelling us is what facilitates our belonging to Christ. Many other scriptures show belonging to Christ equates with passing from death unto life.  So we can see that having the Spirit of God is critical to our salvation and should also be the controlling influence in our behavior. In speaking to his friend Timothy and to the Thessalonian church, Paul says this:

        2 Timothy 1:6-7:  For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self discipline.