About this sermon
Many churches talk about the Holy Spirit constantly and still neglect him, because they neglect the Christ he came to exalt. The Spirit’s central work is to reveal Jesus Christ and apply his saving work to his people. Paul closes 2 Corinthians with the Trinitarian benediction: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. A church indwelt by that Spirit should show his unity, joy, and peace.
Sermon transcript
of the Psalms, and I’d like to have us consider a passage from 2 Corinthians, in fact, the very last section of 2 Corinthians chapter 13. My focus will be on verses 11 through 14. I’m going to begin reading at verse 5 to kind of fill out the context, but let’s turn to and give attention to 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 5 through 14. Let us hear God’s holy word. Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail the test. But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test. Now we pray to God that you do no wrong, not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right even though we may appear unapproved.
For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong. This we also pray for, that you be made complete. For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present I need not use severity in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down. Finally, brethren, rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. May God add His blessing to this reading of His holy word.
Let’s pray for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching. of his word this evening. Almighty God, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the grace and the love and the fellowship and the peace that you have given unto us in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank you for the indwelling of your Holy Spirit. We ask that by your Spirit you would illuminate our minds and open our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word this evening, and we ask, Lord God, that that you would be exalted this evening in the proclamation of your word. We ask that you would grant me assistance and grace by your spirit that I might declare your word with clarity and power this evening and that we might be built up in our most holy faith and most important of all, that Jesus Christ would be exalted through the preaching of the word.
We ask these things in his name and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon on this Lord’s Day evening is, The Holy Spirit is Awesome. Well, dear ones, you may not have realized it, but the last Lord’s Day, May 28th, was Pentecost Sunday in the traditional church calendar, a Lord’s Day when many churches have historically celebrated God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s church. Now, of course, you may say, well, Pastor, if that’s the case, why didn’t you preach on the Holy Spirit on the last Lord’s Day? And I would remind you that we’re Presbyterians. We’re not sticklers for the church calendar. So I can preach on the Holy Spirit any time the Spirit moves, if you will. But nevertheless, it is important for us periodically to reflect upon the persons of the Trinity, and as we are doing this evening, to reflect upon the Holy Spirit.
Now, think about the Holy Spirit. In one sense, the Holy Spirit is the most popular person of the Holy Trinity in the Christian world today. The rise and dominance of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement within popular Christianity, together with the prevalence of mystical piety and revivalistic worship styles, all of these things seem to point to the popularity of the Holy Spirit the life of the church today. But ironically, I would suggest to you, beloved, that in another sense, the Holy Spirit is the most neglected person of the Godhead in the church today. And the reason I say this is because in Holy Scripture, the central role of the Holy Spirit is is not to exalt himself or focus our attention on himself. No, beloved, the central role of the Holy Spirit is to exalt Jesus Christ and his saving work on the cross of Calvary, as well as to apply the benefits of that saving work to the hearts and lives of God’s people.
So even though many churches today talk a lot about the Holy Spirit, I still would suggest to you that because oftentimes Jesus and Him crucified are neglected, that the Holy Spirit is indeed the most neglected person of the Godhead in the church today. You see, friends, to the extent that the gospel message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of our sins, to the extent that that message is not kept front and center in the life of the church, to that extent, the person and work of the Holy Spirit are actually neglected and sidelined. To kind of put it another way, a church that’s always talking about the Holy Spirit but only rarely mentions Jesus Christ and His gospel is actually a church which is guilty of neglecting the Holy Spirit. Whereas a church which is always preaching Jesus Christ as crucified and risen from the dead, but which only occasionally mentions the Holy Spirit, is actually being much more faithful honoring the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
Dear ones, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, is indeed awesome. He is awesome not because He is the source of warm fuzzies or spiritual excitements, or as I’ve heard it put, liver shivers or religious ecstasies. Rather, friends, the Holy Spirit is awesome because He reveals and delivers Jesus Christ to us in the Word. That’s what makes the Holy Spirit awesome. He delivers Christ to you and to me, dear believer. He is awesome because he brings us into the fellowship of Jesus Christ and His church. Well, dear ones, our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, especially the apostolic benediction or blessing that closes this letter in verse 14, highlights the joy, the peace, and the unity that the Holy Spirit produces in the fellowship of Christ’s church. As you may know, the first century church in Corinth was a deeply troubled church.
It had been greatly disrupted and troubled by factions and schisms and disunity and other scandalous sins which threatened the peace, the purity, and the unity of that congregation. In Paul’s first letter, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle had addressed these various pressing issues in the church with great candor and great authority. Paul had even found it necessary in his first epistle to issue some stern rebukes and severe corrections to this weak, compromised, and erring congregation. Now, this second epistle, or letter to the Corinthians, was probably written sometime around 55 AD, about a year or so after Paul had written 1 Corinthians. In the early part of 2 Corinthians, Paul changes his tone to a much more gentle, joyful, and tender one, at least when compared to his more severe tone in 1 Corinthians.
In fact, Now, if you read through 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians is clearly the most personal of Paul’s letters. There’s a sense in which in 2 Corinthians Paul seems to almost wear his heart on his sleeves as the saying goes. The reason for this change in tone that Paul exhibits in 2 Corinthians in contrast to 1 Corinthians is that Paul’s earnest rebukes and severe corrections had apparently been used by God to bring about a repentance and a change of heart among many of the Corinthian believers that Paul had written to in 1 Corinthians. However, there still remained some serious issues that threatened the purity, the peace, and the unity of that church, the biggest of which was a group of false apostles whom Paul sarcastically referred to as super apostles. These so-called super-apostles either questioned or denied Paul’s apostolic credentials.
They boasted in their own credentials. They were very much into credentialism, apparently. They preached a false gospel, and therefore they threatened the peace, the purity, and the unity of that church with their false teaching. So in the closing chapters of 2 Corinthians, in chapters 10 through 13, Paul again changes his tone from gentleness to one of dripping sarcasm and irony as he vigorously defends his apostolic credentials and as he seeks to refute these boastful so-called super apostles. It is in the light of this threat to the unity of the church that we must seek to understand our passage for this Lord’s Day evening and what this passage teaches us about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. So let’s dive in and we, as we consider this closing section of 2 Corinthians beginning at verse 11.
And so, if you’re following along in your sermon outline, the first thing I want to point out, beloved, is that the Holy Spirit is awesome because He produces peace, love, and unity in Christ’s Church. The Holy Spirit is awesome not only because He is God, He’s especially awesome because of that, but he is awesome because he produces peace, genuine peace, love, and unity in Christ’s church. Look at verse 11. As Paul wraps up this very personal epistle, Paul says, finally, brethren, again, he appeals to them as brethren, brothers and sisters in the family of God, finally, brethren, rejoice. Paul’s goal is not to tear them down, to dump on them. Paul’s ultimate goal in writing to them is their own joy. He says, finally, brethren, rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Notice Paul’s emphasis on joy, on comfort, on peace and love. When we read these verses in the light of the closing benediction in verse 14, they imply that love, peace, and unity, such as Paul speaks of in the church here, are the result of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Again, verse 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Now, getting back to verse 11, in some of your translations, instead of saying, finally, brethren, rejoice, if you have a New King James Version, it translates that as farewell. So which is it? Is it rejoice or is it farewell? Well, in view of what follows, it is better to understand this as an exhortation to spiritual joy. The great expositor and theologian, Charles Hodge, is of that view.
And that is reflected in translations like the New American Standard Version, which I’m preaching from this evening, and the English Standard Version as well. So again, I think it’s appropriate to understand Paul as saying not just, hey, goodbye. He’s saying, rejoice. Finally, brethren, rejoice. And he says, be made complete, be comforted. He’s concerned for their healing, for their being made complete as a body, being like-minded, not divided, not separated by schism, but united in one faith, like-minded. He says, live in peace. He’s talking about peace in the body of Christ. And most of the epistles, by the way, have a corporate focus to them. There’s certainly individual relevance and application. But we tend to read the Bible today, because we live in a hyper-individualistic culture here in America, we tend to read the scriptures in a very hyper-individualistic way.
You know, it’s, you know, this is God’s personal love letter to me. Well, there’s in a sense, there’s truth to that. But let’s remember that most of the letters in the New Testament, most of the books were written to the people of God as a community. as a communion of the saints, as the body of Christ. And so he says, be like minded, live in peace. And as they do, the God of love and peace, God is the one who is the source of true, genuine love and peace. He will be with you. Praise God. He The God who is the source of all love and peace, he is with us, brothers and sisters, and he calls us to live together in peace. And then to seal and symbolize this peace, what does Paul say next?
He says, greet one another with a holy kiss. Pastor, what are you getting at here? This sounds a little creepy, right? Are you gonna say, pastor, that we should greet one another with a holy kiss? Well, we have to understand the culture of this time. The holy kiss, this was a common expression of greeting in this cultural context. And the kiss is still a typical greeting in some parts of the world today. Certain parts of the world, it’s common to greet even a stranger, someone you’ve just met by giving them a little peck on the cheek. That’s not how we tend to greet one another in our culture today. For us, it’s more like a handshake, maybe on occasion, depending on the circumstances, a hug. So I don’t think that Paul is binding us that we must greet one another with a kiss.
Again, as one commentator puts it, this expression of welcome and unity is usually reserved for special reunions among family members or formal gatherings. but the church adopted it as a way of expressing acceptance into the family of God. This expression, this cultural expression of family unity, family welcoming. was brought into the early church as a sign of welcome into the family of God. Charles Hodge writes, it is not a command of perpetual obligation as the spirit of the command is that Christians should express their mutual love in the way sanctioned by the age and community in which they live. So that is how I would understand, I would agree with Dr. Hodge in saying this. I don’t believe that Paul is binding the church in all ages and all cultural contexts to have a holy kiss as a form of greeting.
But he’s saying, show your unity by the way that you welcome one another into the body of Christ. And then he says in verse 13, all the saints greet you Again, who are these saints? They are set-apart ones. That’s what the term means. To be a saint is to be a set-apart one. And if you’re a Christian, if Christ is your Lord and Savior, if you are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, you are a saint. Doesn’t mean that you’re super holy, that you’re super consistent as a disciple of Jesus Christ, but if you are in Christ, indwelt by His Spirit, you are a saint, a set-apart one. And Paul says, all the saints greet you. Who are these all that Paul refers to here? Well, that would obviously mean all those who were with Paul as he was writing this epistle to the Corinthians.
All of those where Paul then was greeted. these believers in Corinth. And what’s the significance of this expression of all of the saints greeting you? Well, friends, this emphasizes in a very simple and plain way, this emphasizes the universality, the Catholicity, if you will, of Christ’s church beyond the local congregation. You see, when you and I are in Christ, we’re not just united to Christ and to one another here in the local congregation. We are united by the Spirit to brothers and sisters wherever they may be throughout the world. That’s what the term Catholic means, by the way. That’s a perfectly wonderful, good term that’s been co-opted by a certain a certain sect of Christendom, and, you know, so when we say, I believe in the Catholic, the Holy Catholic Church, we’re not saying, I believe in the Roman Catholic Church, we’re saying, I believe in the unity, the universal church, the unity of all of God’s children throughout the world. all of our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world.
So this greeting from all the saints again emphasizes the catholicity or universality of Christ’s church beyond the local congregation. And that is a catholicity made possible by the work of the Holy Spirit. So again, the Holy Spirit is awesome because he produces this peace, this love, and this unity in Christ’s universal church. But the Holy Spirit is also awesome because he shares fully in the one divine being with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is awesome because he shares fully in the one divine being with the Father the Son. And this is implied by the Trinitarian benediction that the Apostle closes this letter with in verse 14. Notice he says, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s the second person of the Holy Trinity. There’s the eternal Son of God incarnate. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is And the love of God, that would be God the Father, the first person of the Holy Trinity.
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, that would be the third person of the Trinity. Be with you all. The Holy Spirit shares fully in the one divine being with the Father and with the Son. And this is one proof text, if you will, one passage of scripture that clearly demonstrates or implies this truth about the Holy Trinity. As our beloved Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it in question six, where it asks, how many persons are there in the Godhead? And I know some of you know this probably by heart. The Bible-based answer to that question is that there are three persons in the Godhead. There’s one Godhead, one God, but there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.
Now, of course, that is the theological formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, and it is correct. It is grounded in Scripture, Bible-based, and so forth. But the earliest Christians, before the Council of Nicaea, before the doctrine of the Trinity was formalized by the creeds of the Church, the earliest Christians were Trinitarian, but theirs was an experiential Trinitarianism. They not only believed in the Trinity, they experienced the Trinity in unity and fellowship with one another and with the triune Godhead. And this is demonstrated and expressed in this benediction, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not just, yes, remember, we believe that there’s three persons, that there’s one God and three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Paul expresses it this way. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is the one who secured and delivers grace, God’s unmerited favor to God’s people.
And the love of God, it was the love of God the Father that chose us and elected us in Christ from before the foundation of the world. And that demonstrated his love in the sending of his son, Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption. and the fellowship or communion, the koinonia of the Holy Spirit be with you all. It is the Holy Spirit, as I said before, who not only reveals Christ, but delivers Jesus to you and to me by his saving power. Dr. Murray J. Harris in his commentary on this passage says this, he says, Paul grounds his pastoral appeal for unity of spirit and for the rejection of discord in the theological doctrine of the Trinity. The grace of Christ banishes self-assertiveness and self-seeking. The love of God puts jealousy and anger to flight, while the fellowship created by the Spirit leaves no room for quarreling and factions.
To put it simply, the Holy Spirit, again, is fully 100% God. Notice that Paul, in this apostolic benediction, puts all of these three persons at an equal level. He doesn’t just talk about the love of God and subordinate the Son and the Spirit to God the Father, no. The Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are all presented here in this benediction on equal footing, if you will. So the Holy Spirit, this implies that the Holy Spirit is fully 100% God. He is not just part of God, he is God. He shares fully in the one personal divine essence or being with the Father and the Son. And this is very significant because sometimes I hear even Christians speak about the Holy Spirit as an it. Is the Holy Spirit an it?
No. The Holy Spirit is a he. This is important. Did you know the Jehovah’s Witnesses who reject the doctrine of the Trinity, they reject the full deity of Christ, what do they do with the Holy Spirit? It’s my understanding that the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that the Holy Spirit is God’s active force. That’s how they describe the Holy Spirit. But that’s an interesting concept, an interesting idea, because the Bible says that you can actually blaspheme the Holy Spirit. You can grieve the Holy Spirit. How is an active force grieved? How is a force blasphemed? How is a force offended against? No, friends, the Holy Spirit is presented in Scripture as a person of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is one, the third person of the Trinity. So the persons of the Trinity, again, are not three different parts of God.
That’s the heresy of partialism. The theologians express this by saying that the Holy Spirit, or excuse me, that God is a simple being. And when they use that term simple, they’re not saying that God is simple to understand. How can the inexhaustible, infinite God be simple to understand? No. That language of the simplicity of God means that God cannot, like us, He cannot be divided up into different separate parts. And you say, well, Pastor, I have trouble wrapping my mind around this. Well, join the club. This is, we’re talking about God, the triune, sovereign, infinite God. The Holy Spirit is truly, fully, 100% God, co-equal, co-eternal with the Father and the Son. The Spirit is not the Father or the Son, and yet the Spirit is fully God, shares in the one full divine essence with the Father and the Son.
And because the Holy Spirit is fully God, not just a part of God, but fully God, He is just as worthy of worship and honor, adoration and obedience as is God the Father and God the Son. In closing, beloved, the Holy Spirit is awesome. He’s awesome because He produces peace, joy, and unity in the body of Christ. He is awesome because He shares fully in the one divine being with the Father and the Son. But finally, beloved, the Holy Spirit is awesome because He brings us into the saving fellowship of Christ. The Holy Spirit is awesome because He brings us into the fellowship of Christ. Verse 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Now you may wonder, why doesn’t Paul start with the first person of the Trinity?
Why doesn’t he start with the Father and then go to the Son and then mention the Holy Spirit finally in his Why does he start with the second person, then go to the first person of the Trinity, and then close off with the third person of the Trinity? Well, there’s a study note in one of my study Bibles, the new Oxford Annotated Bible, that I think puts it quite well. It says, the order is significant. The grace of Christ leads one toward the love of God. and the love of God when actualized through the Spirit produces fellowship with God and man. We can’t come into the Father’s presence apart from the mediation and merit, the person and work of God the Son. But having come to the Father through the Son, by the Spirit, we have fellowship with God and with one another. in the body of Christ, and the Spirit is the one who applies Christ and His saving benefits to His people.
Dear listener, has the Holy Spirit through the Word applied Jesus Christ and His saving work to you? You say, well, how do I know? Are you trusting, resting in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone as your Savior from sin? Do you believe that Jesus was crucified for the forgiveness of your sins? Do you believe that in Jesus Christ you have a merciful, forgiving God? Saving faith, receives and rests upon Christ as he is offered in the gospel. And dear listener, Christ is offered to you in the gospel. By the Spirit of God, receive Christ, rest upon him. Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You have God’s word for it. God can be trusted to keep his promises. There is no need to doubt. the word of Christ.
And you don’t have to make yourself worthy for it. None of us are worthy. You don’t have to prepare yourself for grace. You don’t have to change your life before coming to Jesus. You come just as you are, but he will change you after you come to him. but come to Jesus. He welcomes you, dear sinner. He welcomes you by his word and gospel, and may the Spirit use that word to draw you to faith in Christ that you may receive and rest upon him alone. Beloved, Christ dwells in and among us by his Holy Spirit. So think about that in closing. If Jesus Christ, by his Spirit, so dwells in our midst as his people and in our hearts as believers, Let us act like it. Let us live out the implications of being indwelt by the Spirit of God.
Let us manifest the unity, the joy, and the peace of the Holy Spirit in our lives as individual believers and in the life of Christ’s church. Amen. Let us pray. Dear Lord and Father in heaven, sovereign and eternal God, we thank you. For you, O God, are indeed an awesome God. We thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit that you’ve given to the Church. The Holy Spirit is indeed awesome. We ask, Lord, that you would give us the grace to see the awesomeness of the Spirit at work in our hearts and lives. We pray, Lord, that you would produce faithfulness, love, peace, joy, and unity in us and among us, that we might be a powerful witness for Christ to those outside of the church. Be with us now, Lord, bless us on our way this evening, and help us to serve you well in the week ahead as your disciples.
In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s close our time this evening by rising and we’ll sing together hymn 401, Holy Spirit of Messiah. We’re going to sing stanzas one, two, four, and then six through nine. So a total of six stanzas. Number 401, Holy Spirit of Messiah, stanzas one, two, four, six through nine.
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