Articles
Holy Spirit Assistance or Resistance?
It is quite common these days for people to claim that the Holy Spirit is personally guiding them in their lives. He is said to be the inspiration of their ideas and the director of their decisions. That assumption then becomes their self-assurance, their confidence of being right with God. If this is your view, I ask you to consider something recorded in Acts chapter 7.
Stephen is the speaker. He is on trial before the Council (6:15), the Sanhedrin, the Jewish supreme court. He is charged with blasphemy because he preached the end of the Jewish temple service and the Law of Moses (6:13-14). The Bible says Stephen spoke with wisdom and the Spirit (6:10), being full of the Holy Spirit (7:55).
Stephen’s “defense” was a rehearsal of Israel’s history, one which focused on ways in which they had ignored God’s representatives. He bluntly concluded, “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised, you are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did” (7:51). How did their fathers resist the Holy Spirit? Stephen continued, “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become” (v. 52).
The prophets were the Holy Spirit’s means of speaking to the fathers. “God . . . spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways” (Hebrews 1:1). “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:21). “You bore with them for many years and admonished them by Your Spirit through Your prophets” (Nehemiah 6:30a). Whenever the fathers did not do what the prophets instructed, they were resisting the Holy Spirit.
The New Testament is God’s communication to us. It is inspired by the same Holy Spirit (Ephesians 3:3-5). Whenever we do not do what it instructs us, we are just as surely resisting the Holy Spirit.
God’s guidance is not via subjective, unverifiable ideas or feelings we have. It is via objective truth, set forth in His once-for-all revealed word (Jude 3). An unholy spirit might speak to your heart and tell you to do something other than what the New Testament says, but the Holy Spirit assuredly will not. Acting that way is in resistance to Him, not assisted by Him!
Remember Paul’s caution: “If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment. But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized” (1 Corinthians 14:37-38).
