The Holy Spirit in Jesus

Where do we see the Holy Spirit show up in the life of Jesus?

• Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:18)

• Jesus was filled with the Spirit even from His youth (Luke 1:15)

• Jesus has the Spirit descend on Him at His baptism (Matt 3:16)

• Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested (Matt 4:1)

• Jesus returned to do ministry in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14)

  • Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 42 that He has the Spirit upon Him (Matt 12:18, look more at Luke 4:18)

    • The Spirit is upon Him to:

      • Proclaim good news to the poor

      • Proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind

      • To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

  • Jesus casts out demons by the Spirit of God (Matt 12:28)

• Jesus offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice through the Spirit (Heb 9:14)

• Jesus was raised through the Spirit (Rom 1:4)

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Holy Spirit was at work in literally every part of Jesus’ life.

Just because the Spirit was at work in Jesus all the time doesn’t mean that Jesus emptied Himself of His divinity (Kenosis theory from Phil 2). It wasn’t as though He had lost His divine power and needed the Holy Spirit to come and give Him a boost.

But frankly, this topic is just really hard to talk about precisely without falling into heresy. The Bible is clear, the Spirit was upon Jesus for His whole life. The Bible is also clear, Jesus is fully divine and possesses all the attributes of God so that the Spirit being on Him does not add to Him. I do not know exactly how to explain that the Spirit was at work in Jesus’ life. I the Spirit’s work was tied to the humanity of Jesus, giving intimacy between the person of Jesus and the person of the Father, and thereby the Spirit was involved in the person of Jesus living a perfect life, doing the perfect ministry of the Messiah and overflowing with the fruit of the Spirit and the wisdom from above. But when it comes to the Trinity, it has been said that when one member acts, all the members are acting, which is what makes it so difficult to even think about whether this is Jesus doing something or is this the Spirit doing something in Jesus. The answer is just yes.

And I think this is intentional. Not being able to clearly distinguish between the work of Jesus and the work of the Spirit not only teaches us about the life of Jesus, but it also shows us something about our life. We have the same Holy Spirit that Jesus did. And the Bible really talks about us obeying God in the same ways it talks about Jesus obeying God.

• • • • It is the work of the Spirit in us. Philippians 2:13 says that “It is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” In other words, anytime we do anything good, anytime we desire something good, or display good character, that is God working in us. God gets credit for that. God gets the glory for that.

      • And yet, we are responsible to obey. We are called to walk by the Spirit to live by faith, and that is how our life will be pleasing to God. And if we don’t do that, then we will be disciplined for that disobedience and lack of faith.

      • And so Phil 2:12 says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” It’s not saying that we save ourselves, it’s talking about God doing something in us, so we need to be doing something too.

Do you see how similar this is to how the Spirit worked in Jesus’ life. You couldn’t really tell whether it was the Spirit doing something or Jesus doing something. As we think about the Spirit’s work in Jesus’ life and the Spirit’s work in our life, we see that God working and us working go hand in hand. That doesn’t mean that we get the credit for what is accomplished. But it does mean that we can’t stay quiet and keep the gospel to ourselves and expect God to save people. That’s not how it works, God works, and we work. Here’s a simple application that hopefully adds clarity:

• There’s a reason that most pastors spend a lot of time during the week preparing sermons and Bible studies. I don’t just show up on Sunday and Wednesday and then rely on the Spirit to inspire me in the moment. I trust that the Spirit works as much in the preparation as He does in the delivery. In fact, I would argue that you are more in sync with the Spirit the more you prepare because you are better able to understand and communicate what the word of God says, and we know that the Spirit uses the word to work in our lives. The Spirit works, and we work.

You can really apply this to any area in the Christian life. Following God means that we will have to do something. That doesn’t mean we’re doing it in our own power. Just the opposite, the only way that we’re actually able to follow God is when the Spirit is working in us. So Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Paul worked hard, but he knew that it was God’s grace and work that was accomplishing all that he was doing. That’s the attitude we should have. We should pray that God will do something, and we should trust that He will do it, and then we should go to work in that trust. That’s what faith is. And we see this interplay in the life of Jesus as we think about the work of the Spirit in the life of Jesus.