God the Holy Spirit. The revealer of God. The writer of the Scriptures. The one who hovers over creation. The conceiver of the Christ child. The conceiver and indweller of the church. The unifier of Gods people in Christ. The guarantee of our inheritance.
In this season where we remember the Christ and his birth. And when we think of the birth of Christ we often think of the first person of the trinity, the Father, sending the second person of the Trinity, the Son, to earth. But do we consider the work of the Holy Spirit? It was after all God the Holy Spirit who brought the life of Jesus into existence. It was the Holy Spirit who came upon Jesus as he entered into his earthly ministry. It was with the Holy Spirit that Jesus came to baptize with.
Today, I want to take a moment and consider God the Holy Spirit especially through the lens of Christ Birth. But before I do that lets just make sure we understand that the Holy Spirit is not some power, but a person. The Holy Spirit is a “he” not an “It.” The Spirit can be lied to; you cannot lie to a “it”. The Spirit can be grieved. The Spirit can speak, the Spirit can comprehend, the Spirit can help us, intercede for us, and has a mind. The Spirit bears witness. The Spirit it creative. All these things are characteristics of personhood. He is like the Father and the Son a person. Co-equal. Co-eternal. The true and living God.
We will see this further explained as we go through the sermon. I preach it under the following theme:
The Holy Spirit and the birth of the second Adam and new humanity.
- The Holy Spirit and the birth of the second Adam.
- The Holy Spirit and the birth of a new humanity
The Holy Spirit and the Birth of the second Adam
The Holy Spirit is God – and God is making all things new! That is what Christmas is about. That is what God is about. That is what the Holy Spirit is about.
You will remember the story. Mary is told that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit, but Joseph is missing or does not believe this important piece of information, so he decides to divorce her quietly. But what happens. We read in Matthew 1:20 that the angel comes to him and says, “‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’”
So here is what we learn from that about the Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit made the preexistent second person of the Trinity into a human being.
In other words, The Spirit genesis-ed Jesus! Why do I say it that way? Well, because that’s how our text says it. Matthew 1:18 reads in the original Greek: “Now the genesis of Jesus Christ...” (cf. 1:1). Genesis means beginning. It is not “the genesis,” of course, in the sense of the birth of Jesus is the beginning of the Sons existence. For he existed from all eternity. But it is the beginning of the person of Jesus. The God-man.
This word also brings us all the way back to Genesis 1. The beginning. When the Spirit hover over the face of the water and creation came into being. But the rest of that story shows that Man, Adam, failed to obey and so brought him, his offspring and all creation under a curse. The curse of death.
That was that beginning. Now we have a new genesis. A new beginning birthed out of the old as Luke makes clear when he links Jesus, all the way back to Adam and ultimately to God (Luke 3). Here we also have a similar event; the Spirit is hovering over the womb of the virgin Mary. We read in Luke1:35, “And the angel answered and said to [Mary], ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you.’” Just as the Spirit “was hovering over the face of the waters” at creation (Genesis 1:2), so here for our salvation the Spirit “overshadowed” Mary’s womb (Luke 1:35), making God’s Son into one of us—with bones and brains and blood, with lungs and lips and lymph nodes, with head and heart and hands.
If we understand this, we can also understand better the person and doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Two things stand out.
First the Spirit of God was working as part of the Godhead in the birth of Christ. One God: Father, Son and Spirit and yet all three persons were distinguishable in their work. He proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Father sends the Spirit to conceive the Son in Mary, and so when Jesus ascends he sends the Spirt to conceive the church in the world.
And so, you see how salvation, and each of the major events of Christ life is not just the work of the second person of the Trinity, the Son, but the Work of the Triune God. Without the work of all three persons of the Godhead it could not have been possible. As one theologian says, “The Son is not the Son without the Spirit.”
Second, the work of the Holy Spirit in the conception of Christ is a fleshly work. The Spirit’s work is material, tangible, and visible. Just like the Spirits work included the physical cosmos and all that was there in, so in the birth of Jesus we see that his work is fleshly. Real. Ironically, the Spirit’s work is fleshly!
We think of the Spirit in the sense that he is some power that works some spiritual gifts in us. And I don’t deny in any way that the spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12–14 are real manifestations of the Holy Spirit. However, I do want to say that the primary work of the Holy Spirit is not found in the spiritual gifts. The primary works of the Holy Spirit are found in creation and in re-creation. And here in our text, as it is often in Scripture, the focus is on the Spirit’s work in creation and that is both physical and Spiritual. At Christmas we see thisin the creation of God in the flesh.
The work of the Holy Spirit can be over-spiritualized. I suppose that might sound strange. How can the Spirits work be over Spiritualized? I think because it is easy to visualize a Son and a Father. We know who they are, but it is hard to conceptualize Spirit. He is Spirit but his work can be seen. Here is what I mean: where the Holy Spirit is present in the world, we see the humanity of Jesus believed and even emphasized. On the other hand, where there are false or demonic spirits at work, we find a Jesus without flesh—a super-spiritualized Jesus, a kind of cosmic Christ. The fact that the church buts an emphasis on Jesus life death, resurrection, is because the church sees these are really historical, physical events. We celebrate the birth because it is very important to us that Jesus was a real human being made in the image of God. One like Adam – but without sin!
This was one of the issues the Apostle John dealt with in his three letters. It was the main theological controversy of his day. To put it plainly, the false teachers forgot about Christmas. They so emphasized Christ’s divinity that they neglected his humanity. And what did John say to that? Here is his test for orthodoxy: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (1 John 4:2). How do you know if the church is Spirit-filled? One way you can know is if Jesus—in all his heavenly divinity and in all his earthly humanity—is the focus!
Why is the Spirit so persistent in showing us Jesus as Human! Because he wants us to see that he truly is the second Adam! This is hinted at throughout the birth narratives and explicitly made clear in passages like Romans 5, or 1 Corinthians 15. Luke 3 also makes the link clear when it ties Jesus back to Adam verse 38, and then ultimately back to God! Adam was the one that caused the world to fall under a curse. Adam fell. Adam would have to pay. Adam would have to suffer the curse, in order to restore us to God favor. In order to form a new humanity, in his likeness – in true righteousness and holiness.
The Holy Spirit and the birth of a new humanity
There is a clear connection between the birth of Jesus, and the birth of the church.
In the opening chapter of Acts, Jesus tells his disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Jesus is, of course, referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that will bring the Church into being. The Greek verb here for “come upon” (eperchomai) is the exact same verb Luke used with Gabriel and Mary above (Luke 1:35). In fact, Luke 1:35 and Acts 1:8 are the only places in the entire NT where the Holy Spirit is said to come upon (eperchomai) someone/thing.
Coincidence. I think not. This is the same author. He chose to tie these two passages together. We begin with Jesus’ conception. Remember Luke’s genealogy. He did not stop with Adam but goes a step further by saying that Adam himself was the [son] of God. Luke, then, sees Jesus as a new Adam, the head of a new creation.
If Jesus is God’s Spirit-conceived new Adam, the foretaste of a new creation, then for Luke the church is God’s new race that shows a new way of being human. If Jesus is God’s Spirit-anointed agent of redemption, the Church is a Spirit-anointed community of salvation—proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom, speaking liberty to the captives, and declaring sight for the blind. The Christmas appearance of the Spirit launches the mission of God’s Messiah; another coming of the Holy Spirit inaugurates the mission of God’s people in the world and leads the church the the return of Jesus.
. You see the holy Spirit coming upon Mary and the conception of Jesus is a part of a much grander story. Christmas is not just about Christmas. Christmas reaches back into time all the way to creation when the Spirit was there, and forward into time all the way to the new heavens and New earth when the Spirit and the Bride say come! As we read in revelation: The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let the one who hears say, “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely. The Spirit echoes the voice of the church! It is one voice! And the voice says Come!
And today that Spirit that brought creation into existence, that Brought Christ into the World, that brought the church into existence. Is speaking, is call, is convicting, is encouraging! Yes the Holy Spirit is using the service to bring about a new creation. A worship service is the workshop of the Holy Spirit. To encourage, to heal, to call people to himself! This is about the formation of a new humanity, a new creation in a new Adam – our risen Lord Jesus Christ!
. For Luke Christmas was never just about Christmas. It was never something to be put in a box in the attic and then unpacked and set on a pedestal for one or two months per year. It is If we read closely, we will find that Luke is telling us quite explicitly that Jesus’ birth is woven in with his life, death, resurrection, as well as the ongoing life of his Church (also initiated and sustained by the Spirit).it is something that impacts all of life forever, and must be proclaimed weekly, monthly, yearly into all eternity!
The work of the Holy Spirit is to constantly remind our wandering hearts of our mission and focus us: to follow in our Lord’s footsteps as a Spirit-filled community of image-bearers, renewing and redeeming creation.
Dear church, we have a great need for the Holy Spirit. In both our churches and our personal lives, it is so easy to lapse into thinking that we are self-sufficient. The birth of Christ, and the birth of the church by the Spirit remind us of our utter dependence on God. Like Jesus, the Church was not born of the will of a man. This is not manmade institution. Also like Jesus, the life of the Church will not be sustained merely by human will. Not all the organizational skills, and all the structure will keep the church running. Or it may look like its working, but without the Spirit it will be dead. We need the Spirit to continually dwell in us and empower us for the mission of God in this world. When our calling begins to seem daunting (and it will), we should remember Gabriel’s words to Mary (“For nothing will be impossible with God”; Luke 1:37) and turn to the Spirit for strength and guidance. He is God. He is the Spirit of Father and Son: he is the reality of God with US!
Amen.