(Note: My grandfather has begun adding his email to the end of his columns for readers who have questions. With a slight modification to avoid spambots, I’m posting it here too so that his Internet readers can do likewise)
What about the Holy Spirit?
According to the biblical record Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit, whom he would send, would guide his followers into all truth. We cannot know God directly but we can recognise his Spirit, for we see that Spirit in the words and works of Jesus as recorded in our New Testament. This Spirit has always been at work in the world, teaching us how to behave and how to tame our over-clamant instincts when they are liable to cause hurt to others. What Jesus promised was that his followers would actually find this Spirit within themselves enabling them to do the very same sort of work that He himself had done. The trouble with many Christians is that they simply don’t believe this; so they remain weak and powerless. At the same time there are other Christians who wrongly think that because they have the Spirit of God within them they know all the answers. Sometimes they point to the saying: “The Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth.”
Now I regard this as a message of hope. In spite of the frightful mess Jesus’ followers have made of the pure and lovely religion he bequeathed to us; in spite of the vicious and quite unchristian ways in which some Church leaders behave towards those whom they should, in the words of our founder, love as he has loved us; in spite of the many evil things that have been done in Christ’s came, the time will eventually come when the Holy Spirit will have completed his guiding, when we shall know as we are known by God and when all shall be well. Of course we cannot know when that time will come but Christians are meant to live in hope as well as in faith and love.
-Peter Graham
peter.graham [at] bucklandnewton.com
