Jesus’ Ministry Is a Ministry Saturated with the Holy Spirit

I want to continue these lessons in which we have been examining the life of the Holy Spirit, the life of the believer anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit so as to live an effective and fruitful life in the things of the Lord.

We have already devoted many programs exclusively to this subject of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and of believers. And as you will have noticed, I have confined myself mainly to the Old Testament as a way of preparing us to enter into what, in a sense, is actually more important for us and more applicable to the life of the Church after the coming of Christ Jesus and His ascension. Through this, we must understand how to use effectively that powerful gift of the Holy Spirit that God has left us, in order to carry out the work God has entrusted to us through His Son Jesus Christ.

So what I want to do in these next studies is leave you with some reflections on how the Holy Spirit works in this dispensation of the Church, in this present time when the Church is on the earth carrying out the Great Commission that Christ left us. How can we use that powerful gift of the Holy Spirit effectively?

So from here on, I will confine myself mainly to the New Testament, although I may use some illustrations from the Old. We have seen, however, in studying Saul’s life and how the power of God moved in the life of Saul, a very imperfect man, that this even helps us understand this ministry of the Holy Spirit much better because, after all, we are imperfect people, and the moving of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers is something extremely dynamic. It is not one-dimensional or easy to classify or define, but has many interesting aspects.

The power of God, the filling and the work of the Holy Spirit interact with and relate to the believer’s life—a life that is imperfect, limited, changing, and progressive—and the Holy Spirit is always there beside us, accompanying us through the twists and turns and the ups and downs of each believer’s spiritual journey.

So I think Saul, a believer in quotation marks, “very imperfect,” can help us. And we have also seen that same kind of situation in David’s life: David, too, was a tremendously imperfect man, and through the anointing he received by the impartation of the prophet Samuel, David also benefited from that moving of the Holy Spirit. Yet he, too, was an extremely imperfect man who made many mistakes, and all this helps us understand how the Holy Spirit also moves in us in our own lives.

Now we turn mainly to the New Testament, and there we see that the Lord Jesus Christ always intended the Church to move in the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit. We even see that, in Jesus’ own ministry, the Holy Spirit played an absolutely key role from the very beginning of His ministry.

We see, for example, in passages such as Luke, where, just as the Lord is beginning His ministry, it says in chapter 4, verse 1 of Luke: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” We also see that the Holy Spirit was there at Jesus’ very birth, coming upon the life of His mother, Mary, and engendering the fullness of the life of God in the body of Jesus the man, who thus came to be perfect man and perfect God, dwelling together in one person.

We also see that the Holy Spirit was there when Simeon and Anna received the revelation that the child born to Joseph and Mary was indeed the awaited Messiah. And in Luke chapter 2, verse 5, it says: “There was in Jerusalem a man named Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, and was waiting for the consolation of Israel”—meaning the Messiah—“and the Holy Spirit was upon him; and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before the Lord’s Anointed came.” Anointed—Mashiach was the one anointed by the Holy Spirit, filled with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, who was Jesus Christ.

And it says that Simeon, moved by the Spirit, came to the temple. That is, we see there in that scene with Simeon and Anna how the Holy Spirit was continually at work. Concerning Anna, it says in verse 36 of Luke chapter 2: “Anna, a prophetess, was also there”; that is, Anna had the gift of prophecy. It is interesting how clearly we see there, even in the New Testament during that time of transition between the birth of the Messiah and the full life of the Church of Jesus Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit at work: Simeon receiving a prophetic word, receiving revelation from God; Anna moving in the prophetic gift—all this surrounding the person of Jesus Christ.

We see that John was also full of the Holy Spirit. And we also see that when the Lord is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him and comes to the Lord in the form of a dove, and anoints the Lord Jesus Christ with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

The Lord also, at His first public appearance, takes the Book of Isaiah, the scroll of Scripture, and speaks of how: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, and He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor, to the prisoners, to those afflicted in spirit.” That is, the Lord moved in the power, in the anointing of the Holy Spirit in His incarnate form, and the Holy Spirit was with the Lord Jesus Christ wherever He went.

We even see, too, in the passage where the Lord rises again and approaches the disciples, now in His crucified form, that He tells them: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And we assume that if the Lord said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” these men at that moment received a touch, an anointing of the Holy Spirit.

John also speaks of Jesus Christ as the one who baptizes, the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. John 1:32, just to cite it so that you can have it for your own studies, speaks precisely about this, saying: “John also bore witness, saying: I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.” And the Holy Spirit says to John: “The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, that is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”

How interesting that Jesus’ ministry is a ministry surrounded, saturated, covered, accompanied by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and that the Lord Himself had to move, in His incarnate form, in that mystery of the incarnation and of the Trinity as well: God Himself dwelling in the body of Jesus, the Son, the Father, but the Holy Spirit is also needed there. And it is as though Jesus specializes, as John says, in baptizing: He is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. In another passage, John says that Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire, while he himself is limited to baptism in water.

So the Spirit of Jesus Christ is characterized by that presence, that companionship, that moving of the Holy Spirit. And the last passage that comes to mind, so that we can take this teaching as a single whole, is when the Lord Jesus Christ is practically saying farewell to His disciples—I think it is in John chapter 14 or chapter 15; you can look for it there. He speaks of how: “I am going away, but I will send you a Comforter,” the Paraclete, right? And He will teach you all things. He is the Spirit of God whom God will send to the Church when the Lord ascends, so that this Spirit may accompany them, nourish them, encourage them, spur them on, strengthen them, and endow them with power and authority. All these things are related to the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

I hope this helps you understand a little that Jesus’ ministry is a ministry that must be characterized by the presence and the moving of the Holy Spirit. And that has much to do, as we will see later, with our own lives, our ministries, and the ministry of the Church with a capital C throughout the earth. God bless you, and we will continue our study later. Blessings.