A brother in South America writes, "I noticed that you said: I 'believe in' the Lord Jesus Christ, and I "believe in" the Father. Would it be correct also to say, 'I believe in the Holy Spirit?'"

Christians from earliest centuries have not hesitated to confess in the Apostles Creed, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty . . . . I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord . . . . I believe in the Holy Spirit." In God's arrangement, the Holy Spirit carries out the salvation which God planned before the world began and accomplished through Jesus Christ. The Spirit therefore points to Jesus and glorifies him, even as Jesus points to the Father and glorifies him (John 16:14-15; 12:49; 17:3-4). Scripture reveals no purposes, agendas or ministries of the Holy Spirit other than those of God as revealed in Jesus. In that sense, we do not "trust in" the Holy Spirit -- who instead enables us to trust in God-in-Christ. But there is also a sense in which the answer to your question must be "Yes," for the Holy Spirit is none other than the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the risen Jesus Christ.

Throughout Scripture, the Spirit is the personal, powerful presence of the one and only God (Gen. 1:2; Ezek. 36:27; Lk. 1:35). But before God came to dwell invisibly in the Spirit, he came and dwelled in visible form, enfleshed in the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:14, 18; Col. 1:19; 2:9). To see Jesus is to see the Father (John 14:9-11). We need not be frightened by God, if we love the light, for we know Jesus and he is not frightening. Jesus is the human face of God.

We need not fear the Holy Spirit, either, for the Spirit is the invisible presence of God-in-Christ, the personal, powerful presence of the resurrected and ascended Jesus Christ. "I will come to you," said Jesus as he was about to depart this world, and "you will behold me" -- but he was speaking of the Spirit (John 14:18-19). "We will come" to those who love God and keep Jesus' word, said Jesus of himself and the Father, "and make our abode" with each such person (John 14:23). This referred to the Spirit's coming.

Jesus' parting words in Matthew are, "I am with you always" -- speaking, of course, of his presence in the Spirit (Matt. 28:20). Luke's Gospel records what Jesus "began to do and to teach" in the flesh, and Acts reports what Jesus continued to do through the Spirit after his ascension (Acts 1:1-2). We may welcome the Spirit as we would welcome Jesus in the flesh (Rom. 8:9-11; 2 Cor. 3:17). We may joyfully receive the Spirit as God's present, and every fruit and gift of the Spirit -- for the Father of Jesus Christ gives to his dear children only what is good (Lk. 11:9-13; 1 Cor. 14:1; 1 Thes. 5:19-22).

For a detailed outlined study of the Holy Spirit through the Bible, click here.

For more on the Holy Spirit, click here.