The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the triune God, fully God like the Father and Son are fully God. He is the God’s agent who produces and applies your salvation through conviction, regeneration, and sanctification (Titus 3:5).

As you hear or read the Good News—the Gospel of Jesus Christ, telling of the greatest life ever lived and what He has done for you—the Holy Spirit begins His unique work. In His timing, He shines sufficient light into the darkness of your sin, where you are naturally unwilling and even unable to believe.

“No sinner can ever make the first move in the salvation process. This is what Jesus meant in John 6:44, when He said, ‘No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him.’” (John MacArthur)

The Holy Spirit draws you to Himself, unblinds your eyes, “tugs on” and softens your hardened heart, opens your mind and “convicts you about the guilt of sin, the punishment for it, your need for a Savior and about righteousness and judgment.” (Romans 16:8)

The Holy Spirit does a supernatural work of grace to reverse your unwillingness or ignorance and releases you from the bondage of your sin leading you to genuine repentance and enables you to come to faith in Christ.

Nothing happens without the Holy Spirit. Nothing else can save you and you certainly can’t save yourself. Whether one emphasizes regeneration before faith, or faith before regeneration, both sides affirm that it is the Spirit who initiates and enables.

No sinner can repent or believe apart from His work (John 6:44; Titus 3:5).

The crucial truth is that God saves sinners entirely by grace through Christ, produced and applied by the Holy Spirit.