Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Who Is the Spirit?

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

We’re looking at what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit. My impression is there are an awful lot of churches in the world that talk about nothing but spiritual experience, and there are an awful lot of churches that are absolutely afraid of the subject and talk only about truth and knowing the right things. I think the remedy for that imbalance is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, because the deeper you get into it, the more you realize Spirit and truth go together. Let’s look now at what John 14 tells us about 1) who the Holy Spirit is, 2) what the Holy Spirit does, and 3) how you can receive what he gives. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on July 4, 2010. Series: The Holy Spirit. Scripture: John 14:16-26. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. Who is the Holy Spirit? And why is the Spirit's work so vital to the Christian life? The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit is not just a vague force, but a person who works in the lives of Christians in profound ways. Today, Tim Keller is exploring how the Spirit calls us to faith, unites us together, equips us with gifts, and shapes us to be more like Christ.

The scripture reading this morning comes from John's Gospel chapter 14 versus 16 through 26. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. Then Judas, not Judas Iscariot, said, but Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus replied, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own.

They belong to the father who sent me. All this I have spoken while still with you. But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. This is the word of the Lord. In the summertime, of course, because of vacations, there are multiple preachers up here. And in order to keep ourselves unified and make sure that we're working together,

we choose a common theme. And what we're going to be doing from now all the way into middle of September is looking at what the Bible teaches about. the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. My impression is that there's an awful lot of churches in the world that talk about nothing but spiritual experience. And there's an awful lot of churches that are just absolutely afraid of the subject and just want to talk about doctrine and truth and knowing the right things.

But I think the remedy for that imbalance is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Because the deeper you get into it, the more you realize that spirit and truth go together. And that's what we're going to be doing over the next number of weeks. And so this is an introduction. Let's take a look at what this great passage tells us about who the Holy Spirit is, what he does, and then how you can receive what he gives. Who he is, what he does, how you can receive what he gives. Very top level, very basic intro.

But wonderful. First, who is He? Who is the Holy Spirit? And by the way, I already gave you a bit of an answer by the choice of my pronoun. The Holy Spirit is the personal divine resident of the Christian's heart. The Holy Spirit is the personal divine resident of the Christian's heart. First of all, personal. Have you noticed that Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit, not as it, as we tend to do, not as an energy or as a force, but as he, see, like, you know, right away, right in he says, the world cannot accept him, he, a person. In Ephesians 430, the Holy Spirit is said to be grieved.

You can grieve the Holy Spirit. In Hebrews 10, 29, it says you can outrage the Holy Spirit. In Romans 15, it says the Holy Spirit loves. So he loves, he's grieved. he's outraged. An impersonal force cannot feel those feelings. That's a person. But he's not only a person. He's God. So, for example, right up here, it says, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor. We'll get to the word counselor in a minute. But Jesus says, he's another counselor. I'm a counselor. He's another one. Now, there's two ways, there's two Greek words that could be used to talk about another.

There's this one, and then there's another one. The one Greek word for another is hetero, which means, actually, opposed or different to the former. The other Greek word that could be used is alos, which means just like the former. Now, you've got to realize what Jesus is saying here, because Jesus made some enormous claims about himself. Jesus said there's a place in John 8 where he says, before Abraham, was, I am. He takes the divine name that God gave to Moses in the burning bush. Jesus says, that's me, I am. Before Abraham was, I am. Jesus claims to forgive all sins. You know what that means? When he says, I can forgive all sins. That means all sins are against me, because you can only

forgive the sins that are against you. Jesus says he's going to judge the world. So Jesus is constantly saying, I am equal to God. And now he has the audacity to come along and say, I'm sending you someone who's just like me. The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is God. And what we are into right now is the dizzying doctrine of the Trinity. Can I make you a little dizzy with it? In verse two, which we didn't read, in verse two of this chapter, Jesus is all about saying, I'm going away. I'm going away. Then, here it says, in verse 16, he says, but the Holy Spirit is coming. And then you go down into verse 21. He says, my father and I will love you. And in verse 21, 22, and 23, he says, we will come to you. So he says, I'm going away. The Holy Spirit is coming.

And therefore, I'm coming. And Jesus is not saying, oh, I'm not really going away. I'm coming to you in the form of the Holy Spirit. Nor on the other hand is he saying, oh, I'm going away. And before I'm not coming, he's coming. He is so one with the Holy Spirit that when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, Jesus comes. And yet, he is not so identical to the Holy Spirit that he isn't also already away and therefore in heaven. Got that? Okay? See how easy that was? No, you know, here's, Jesus is saying, there's not three gods because there are two, one to be three gods. On the other hand, it's not one person in three forms. You know, there he has his father hat, and he has his son hat,

and he has his Holy Spirit hat. It's not three gods. They're two one for that. But it's not one God in three forms. They're two, three for that. It's one God in three persons. And we're going to, in the next year, we're going to get back to this doctrine. All I can tell you is, in the early days of my Christian faith,

it was a millstone around my neck. It felt like this is so confused. using. And today I think it's one of the greatest things. It's one of the joys I've got when I can contemplate it. Once you get to understand it, you see the beauty of it, and I can't go into any further than that, because we're here not to talk about the Trinity, but the Holy Spirit. But here's what I want you to see, and why it's so important. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is a divine person in the middle of your life. Why does that matter? Oh, it matters. Because the Bible talks about being filled with the Holy Spirit.

well later on we'll have a whole sermon on that being filled with the holy spirit but being filled with the holy spirit is to experience incredible divine joy and power i want that and i want that for you so how do you get filled with a spirit if you are filled with a spirit and you think of the spirit as an impersonal force you're going to go about seeking that in a different way than if you understand you're being filled with a spirit and the spirit is a person. If you try to get filled with an impersonal force, you go about it in a mechanical way. So, for example, Eastern thought conceived God, the divine, as an impersonal force. Eastern thought sees the divine as an impersonal force.

And therefore, its approach to, Eastern Thought's approach, is meditation. But the meditation is always emptying the mind of thought, rational thought, emptying the mind of words. You empty the mind of it. Why? Because we're trying to get in touch with the force. And yet, whenever you get into the Bible and you see the word meditation comes up a lot. But Christian meditation, biblical meditation, is not emptying the mind of rational thoughts and words. It's filling the mind with the words of God. It's a completely different approach. If you understand, if you think of the Holy Spirit as an it, you're going to be moving in a mechanical approach.

In fact, I really do see an awful lot of Christian teaching on being filled with a spirit that does sort of, you know, see the Spirit as a kind of electrical charge. And therefore, the way you get filled with the Spirit is by pushing buttons. You pray in certain ways. You do certain things. You refrain from certain things. You repent for certain things. And you kind of, you push all the right buttons and you get your life into some kind of environmental condition. And then, in it comes.

It. No. No. If the spirit is a person, then to be filled with a spirit is like being filled with a person. How does that work? Well, you know, I know, for example, that when I was young, sometimes my parents would, if there was a visitor that came into our home for a while, you know, a weekend or something like that, It was a person that my parents really respected.

It could have been a visiting dignitary, visiting speaker, or a member of the family that they had high regard for. It affected everything. First of all, for some reason, the house looked beautiful. Suddenly, we made our living space just physically look beautiful. But then secondly, everybody was on their best behavior, and it wasn't a sham. The point is the little things that used to just rub us the wrong way just didn't matter because this person was here. And we hung on this person's words. To be filled with a spirit is to have your life transformed by an acute consciousness of the glorious person that lives permanently within the walls of your life.

I mean, yeah, I've told you this before. I remember once counseling a man who had had an affair and it blew up his life, you know, and he had been cheating on his wife. But he told me that whenever he would bring, you know, if his wife was away and he would bring his. his mistress into the home. He had to turn over all the pay, you know, did I tell you this recently? Any picture of his wife, any picture of himself and his wife, or any picture of his wife, he had to take down or turn over. Because neither he nor the mistress could bear even the face, the photograph face of his wife. Because even the presence of the picture would affect his behavior. Do you know who's living in your, you know, in your life?

Are you melted by spiritual understandings by an acute consciousness of the glorious person that's there? It should change the way in which you live. Just the awareness of it fills you with a sense of his presence. And it would bring integrity to your life. There's all kinds of stuff you're doing right now that you're not, you wouldn't do, if you were aware of him being there. If you turn the pictures back over and you said, oh, my, think about this. And of course, it also means to hang on his work.

So be filled with the spirit is very different than to be filled with a force, which leads us to the second point. So the Holy Spirit is a personal, divine, resident of the Christian heart. Secondly, what does the Holy Spirit do? And there are two words here that tell us what he does, and they're great. He is the Spirit of Truth, verse 17, and he is a counselor. He's a Spirit of Truth and a counselor. So first, he is the Spirit of Truth. what does this mean at one level we know this that the holy spirit essentially authored the bible

the holy spirit literally is the author of the bible so for example in second peter chapter one it says this no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation for prophecy never had its origin in the will of man but men spoke from god as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And then here, this is John 6, verse 63, where Jesus says, The words I speak to you are spirit and life. In other words, the words of Jesus that you see in the Bible were produced by the Spirit, and if you embrace them and receive them and understand them, they give you eternal life.

So the Holy Spirit, at one level, is the author of the Scripture. In fact, and see, this goes back to this idea of what it means to be filled. with the spirit, if the spirit's a person, as opposed to a force. If you go to Ephesians 518, the famous passage in which Paul says, be filled with a spirit, and then he makes a list of the traits of a spirit-filled life, which we won't go into right now. We have a sermon coming up on that later. Be filled with a spirit, Ephesians 518, and then there's a list. If you go to another one of his letters, Colossians, and if you go to chapter 3, and you know, Paul wrote these letters to different churches, but he often said similar things because, you know,

he was writing to churches and he got the same basic truce across. If you go to Colossians 316, it says, be filled with a word. It says, be filled with a word. And then it makes a list of a word-filled life. It says, let the word dwell richly in you, which is the same as be filled with the word. Then it gives a list of traits, and they're the same trait. And they're the same traits, as Paul said in Ephesians 518, were the traits of a spirit-filled life. You know what this means? See, to be filled with a person, to be dominated by a person, is to hang on that person's every word. It means to be dominated and saturated by the scripture. To let it dwell in you richly is not the same thing as knowing it is information. So take it in. It's to make it part of

yourself. Or another way to put it is this. You know, you can look at, glasses, but that's really not why I spent so much money on these. I did not go to the optician and spend hundreds of dollars on this just so I could sit them down and say, hey, honey, come look at my glasses. That doesn't work that way. You put them on and you look at everything else through them. And the scripture, it's one thing to look at the scripture and to say, I'm going to learn the facts. It's another thing to let it dwell in you richly. It's another thing to be saturated by it. It's another thing to so take it in that you look at everything else through it. And therefore, to be filled with the word and to be filled with the spirit is the same thing

because he's a spirit of truth. In fact, he goes on beyond that, though. We already referred to it here. Look in verse 21. Whoever has my commands, that's the word, and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my father, and I too will love him, and I will show myself to him. Now, that's interesting. What does this mean?

here are some people who obviously believe in Jesus and who obviously are obeying Jesus and they're reading the Word of God. And Jesus says, I will come and show myself to them. In this passage on the Holy Spirit, I will come and show myself to them. Now, what does that mean? Does they not know who He is? Of course they know who He is. What is that? That is the Holy Spirit taking the words and making them life. Taking the words. Taking the words and making them power. Here's another place where Paul talks about it. And listen, this is actually one of the most important verses in the Bible to me personally. This is Ephesians 3. Paul says, I pray, he's praying for his friends. He says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he will strengthen you

with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. He's talking to Christians and he says by the power of the spirit I'm praying that through the power of the spirit Christ may dwell in your hearts but Christ is already dwelling their hearts they wouldn't be Christians And then he says, I'm praying that by the power of the spirit, you may grasp. You may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

Don't they already know about the love of Christ? Of course, they wouldn't be Christians. He says, but I want you to know this love that surpasses knowledge. What's he talking about? Let me just give you an example. Here's Jonathan Edwards' Quiet Time Notebook. There's a little journal he wrote. He says, I have, at many times, had the greatest delight.

in the Holy Scriptures of any book whatsoever. Oftentimes in reading it, every word seems to touch my heart. I seem often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence and have such a refreshing, ravishing food communicated from these words that I cannot get along in my reading. I often used to dwell long on one sentence to see the wonders contained in it. The sense I had of divine things as I read the scripture

would often of a sudden, as it were, kindle up a sweet burning in my heart, an ardor of my soul that I know not how to express. Though he's not doing too bad a job right there. What's he talking about? It's one thing to read the scripture. It's another thing to have the Holy Spirit come and reveal Jesus Christ to you in it. It's one thing to know Christ dwells in your heart. It's another thing to sense it.

We talked about this actually last week. It's one thing to know with your head that sugar is sweet. It's another thing to taste it and have your whole being electrified. by it. You not only know it, but you sense it. And that's the job of the Holy Spirit. He is the author not only of objective truth, because he wrote the Bible, but of subjective truth. He makes it live. He makes it vivid and powerful. He makes it life changing. And that's the first thing the Holy Spirit does. But believe it or not, that's not all. Because actually, if this is all he did, he still would be a kind of consultant or, you know, somebody you hired just to come in and give you

certain things at certain times. But that's not all he is. He's also a counselor. I mean, this is the main point of this whole passage. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor. Now, if you go to five or six translations, get out all your different translations, you're going to have five or six different words. And whenever you see English translations with very different words in every translation, that means that the word that's used here is too rich for one English word to convey, and so the translators are struggling. Some of you may have the old King James Bible, and there's a number of other translations that say, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter. Now, that's a really sweet word, but it does make the Holy Spirit

it sounds like a quilt. So they don't use that much anymore. But even this word, counselor, is this a camp counselor? Is this a marriage counselor? No. Actually, they do know one thing, and this is the reason why we don't have a good word to come out with it.

Basically, what the commentators know this word is, this is the word paracaleo, or paracleteus. it's actually a very difficult word to translate para means not to be in front or behind but to stand alongside Kaleo means to declare to call to argue actually and therefore the best way to translate this is I'm going to send you another legal advocate the Psalms can profoundly shape the way you approach God even Jesus relied on the Psalms to face every situation including death

In Tim and Kathy Keller's 365-day devotional, The Songs of Jesus, you'll find daily readings through the Psalms with fresh biblical insight. If you don't have a regular devotional practice, this book is a wonderful way to start. And if you already spend time in study and prayer, then reading and praying through the Psalms can help you bring your deepest emotions and questions before God and discover a new level of intimacy with him. We'll send you Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the love of Jesus with more people. Request your copy today at

gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. The word gets across the idea that on the one hand, this person is yours. This person stands in your position, represents you. This person is loyal to you, to the end. This is a person who is for you, in the strongest sense. But on the other hand, it also means this is a person who argues. This is a person who debates. This is a person who makes a case. This is a person who defends you against your enemies. There's a soft side. That's the sympathy with you, and there's a hard side. Now, why in the world would Jesus Christ say that the Holy Spirit is your legal advocate? What does that mean? And here's what I believe it means.

The Holy Spirit's job is to defend you against the enemies here on earth, but especially the enemies inside your own heart. For example, in Romans 8, 15, it says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but he's given us the spirit of his son who comes into our heart crying, Abba father. You know what that means? Your heart's filled with fears? Fears. And the Holy Spirit comes in and argues and says, no, God loves you. You're his child. Then one verse later, Romans 816, it says the spirit bears witness with our spirit that were children of God. We actually talked about this last week. What I didn't bring out is the word bears witness is a technical Greek word that means the star witness in court. A person bringing testimony,

legal testimony in court, that basically settles the case. And so what this is saying is, here, your heart's filled with doubts, your hearts filled with doubts. And in comes the Holy Spirit and says, no, there's no reason to doubt. You are his. You are loved. Or there's this great spot in Hebrews 12, which is all about suffering and all the troubles that come to us. And in Hebrews 12, it says, have you forgotten the word of exhortation that argues with you? That's what the Greek word means. As children, my son do not make light of the Lord's discipline, for he disciplines those he loves. And the Hebrew's writer is quoting Proverbs 3. And he's saying that the job of the Holy Scripture is to argue with you when you're cast down. Suffering has happened to you. Bad things

have happened to you. And you feel like, oh, I'm being abandoned. No, according to the book of Hebrews. He says, the scripture argues with you. How? As children. The scripture argues and says, no, you are his child. He has not abandoned you. Good. fathers often put their children through paces. And that's what's happening to you right now. Now, what does all this mean? You know, there's a place in 1st, John 320 where it says, when our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. With a small paraphrase, I'm just going to say, when our hearts condemn us, the Holy Spirit is greater than our hearts. It's the Holy Spirit's job to argue. Our hearts do not like the idea of grace. We don't really

like the gospel, the idea that we're saved by grace. We want to earn it. We want to merit it. It puts us in control. And because our hearts have got that part there, we're constantly being buffeted by fears. We're by doubts. When bad things happen, we say, no, no, he's abandoned us. I'm not good enough. He can't possibly love me. And the Holy Spirit comes in and argues. He makes the case. He takes the gospel and pounds you until you start to relax. But it's not just that the Holy Spirit defends us against accusation. He also defends us against temptation. In James chapter 4, there's this strange spot where James first says,

do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity toward God? And then it says, don't you realize, and again, they don't know how to translate this, don't you realize that the spirit of God within you envies you? Sometimes they translate it lusts unto envy. They don't know how to translate. You know what it's saying? It's saying, don't you realize that when you start to let the world take you away from God that the Holy Spirit within you longs for your love?

The Holy Spirit sees us giving our heart to money or giving our heart to fame or giving our heart to sex or giving our heart to power instead of to God. And then the Holy Spirit, when it sees our hearts tempting us away from God, knowing this is going to destroy us, the Holy Spirit acts the way, a loving friend acts toward an addict. What do you do when you love somebody and you see them destroying their lives through addiction? You get them into a corner and you say,

you're killing yourself, I'm not going to let you do it. I'm going to confront you. I'm going to oppose you because I love you. I'm not going to let you do it. And you know what? You can almost come to blows over that. You can have friends who come and tell you, you're wrong, you're killing yourself,

I'm not going to let you do it, and you can get so angry at them that you can have a fight. fight. But this is what we've got when we have the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is a friend. This is a counselor. This is a legal advocate. This is someone who will not let you kill yourself. He's a glorious person. And Paul says in Philippians 1, the good work God began in you. He will bring to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. He's a glorious person, this Holy Spirit, and he will not stop until you become the glorious person you should be. He is going to oppose

anything in your heart that will scuttle you. And he's not going to be. He's not going to going to let you go. This is a friend whose love has teeth in it. This is a friend who's utterly for you, which means sometimes he's against you for you. He said, I should have thought twice about inviting this person into my life. No. I mean, I just want you to think about the implications. And therefore, yes, it's the job of the Holy Spirit to give you scripture. And then the job of the Holy Spirit to make that scripture real and vibrant and powerful in your life. But he's not simply doing it, you know, just to give you spiritual experiences. He's come into your life and he's utterly committed to bringing the good work God began with

you at the new birth to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. And he's not going to let you go. See, he's a counselor, but he's not like a camp counselor. You don't go home. He's even not like a marriage counselor that, you know, you go to sea. and then you, you know, say, I'm not getting anything out of it. Okay, he's a permanent legal advocate. He's a permanent friend who's willing to do interventions on you all the time.

He's for you, para, but he sometimes can be against you for you. And that's the wonder of having the Holy Spirit in your life. Now, lastly, very importantly, how can you be, well, I'm not going to say be filled with the Spirit. We're going to go to that later. but how can you be sure that you're receiving the benefits that the Holy Spirit can offer you? And I think there's two answers in this text. We're just sticking with a text. There's certainly much more to say about the Holy Spirit than we have here, but we're going to stick with a text.

And here's the first thing. The key to the power of the Holy Spirit operating in your life and making you what you should be and can be is understanding the first advocate. See, when Jesus says, I'm going to send you another counselor, he's talking about himself. Who's the first counselor? Him. He. He's the first counselor. And this word paraclete, Paracaleo, legal advocate, is used of Jesus, too. By the same author, John, not in the book of John, but in the first epistle of John, where he says this. Now, this is the new international translation. He says, I write this to you, this is 1 John 2.1. I write this to you so that you

will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the father in our defense. Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Now, that's how the new international version renders it. We have one who speaks to the father in our defense. Actually, it just says, we have an advocate with the father. We have a paracletaea. We have an advocate with the father. And when the Bible says that when we say, that when we say, we have a paracalea, we have an advocate with the Father. And when the Bible says that when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father. If we believe in Jesus Christ, we have an advocate with the Father, here's what the Bible is assuming. Number one, it assumes that there is a bar of justice. There is a court before which all of us

stand accused, that we're condemned. And after 35 years, in fact, I realized that, you know, actually the first sermon I ever preached at my very first. church 35 years ago was on 4th of July Sunday. And my 35 years of pastoral work, I've seen lots and lots of people who try desperately to get out from under this idea that they're moral failures, this idea that they're condemned. One of the best ways to do it is to move to New York City where you're going to be told what's right or wrong, you create that yourself. You decide what is right or wrong for you. You don't let somebody else's moral standard. You don't decide what is right or wrong for you and for you know for a number of years you say see i don't have to

feel guilty i decide what is right or wrong for me until you realize there's not a single person on the face of the earth that even lives up to the standards that you have decided are right or wrong and the standards that you apply to everybody else and i don't care what happens it could be you're successful in the beginning of your life and then realize as life goes on that you've neglected your relationships and now you're lonely well you're unsuccessful early in life and you feel like a failure because of that or you just suffering hits you and whenever suffering hits you you realize you you you forces you to admit your moral flaws, everybody in the end has a sense that they're condemned. Everybody knows their moral failure. It sleeps very deep, this sense in people for a long time,

and it might be sleeping deep in you. But there is a bar of justice. There is a court before which we all stand accused. Point one. Point two, the second thing that this passage assumes is that when you believe in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ stands before that Court of Justice representing you, representing you, interceding for you, making his case for you. Now, when I was a new Christian, I read that spot, there's a place in Romans 8 where it says Jesus Christ ever lives to intercede. It's in Hebrews 7. It's in Romans 8, where it says Jesus Christ makes intercession for us before the Father. And that was kind of the comfort for me. Because in my mind, what it meant was, every time I sin, Jesus walked up and

said, don't abandon Tim because, you know, be merciful or something like that. You know, I know he promised not to do that anymore and he did it anymore. Let's give him one more chance. I guess I thought that's what he was doing. And it wasn't very comforting to me because, you know, I always wonder, how long can even, how long can Jesus keep that up? You know, when is he finally going to say, I'm not going to the father one more time for this guy. Or when's the father going to say, I'm sorry, you know what? This has been five years now, you know, he says, it didn't comfort me until I read a, actually a sermon outline by a man named Charles Hodge, who was one of the professors

at Princeton Theological Seminary in the 19th century, like in the 1830s and 1840s. And he gave a chapel talk on Jesus Christ as the Advocate. and something to change my life long ago. He says, you know what? Jesus Christ is your advocate. He is your legal representative before the bar, before the court. And one of the things you have to realize, he's not up there just pleading for mercy. That is not what a legal advocate does.

A legal advocate makes a case, and he makes a case based on the law. And he's up there securing your status as not being condemned because, of the law. He's not up there pleading for mercy. He's making a case. I said, what? And then this is what Charles Hodge says, is something like what we think. The Bible is trying to convey when it talks about Jesus is our legal advocate. It's almost as if, and I know this is, it's almost that Jesus is saying, Father, you are just. And sin demands payment. And this brother or sister of mine has sinned. He's not loved God with all his heart, soul, strength of mine. He hasn't loved his neighbor himself. He has sinned. And his sin must be paid for. But Father, here's the

payment. Look at my broken body. Look at my poured out blood. I have paid for it. And it would be unjust to get two payments for the same sin. I've paid for it. And therefore, I'm not just pleading for mercy. I demand acquittal for my brother. because I have paid for his sin, and therefore he cannot pay for his sin, and therefore there cannot be any condemnation for him. I demand acquittal. It's justice that he's pleading for. See, that's what Charles Hodge was saying. And when I realized that, I hope you can come with me. I'm trying to get across in three minutes what was kind of a watershed for me. See, I realize all other religions sort of see salvation as the scales. You know, the justice scales.

You know, the blind lady with the scales, that's justice. And all I thought was that the moral law of God, the divine justice, was on one side of the scale. And I had to put in a ton of good works on the other side just so it didn't kill me. See, the justice of God was against me. You better be good. You better be good. And I had to, you know, push up everything I possibly could out of my own life. All the good deeds and all the prayers and going to church and everything.

Get it on that other scale. Otherwise, just to balance that out of it. Otherwise, I was cooked. And I realize that when you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior, and when he becomes your legal advocate, it means the justice of God is on your side. It would be unjust for God to take two payments for the same sin, and your sins have been paid for.

And therefore, the very justice of God, the omnipotent, infallible, infinite justice of God, demands that there is no condemnation for you. Now, if we've got that advocate up there doing that, what is the Holy Spirit doing down here? The Holy Spirit is our advocate on earth. Jesus Christ is our advocate in heaven. What the Holy Spirit is doing is he's taking the advocacy in heaven and applying it here on earth against the enemies in your own heart. He's pounding into you.

He's dealing with your temptations. He's dealing with your pride. He's dealing with your fears. He's dealing with your accusations. and he's saying, look at what Jesus has done. The Holy Spirit, though, is not an advocate that points to himself. J. I. I. Packer beautifully puts it. It's in John Chapter 16, where it actually says,

Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will speak of me. He will glorify me. He will not speak of himself. He will speak of me. And J. I. Packer, who is an Anglican minister, one day was, he was preaching a sermon on the Holy Spirit, and he was looking for a good illustration on the way to preach. He saw a floodlight. It was kind of dark at night. And he saw a floodlight lighting up an old building, which in the daytime didn't look very good, but at night looked beautiful. And he suddenly realized he couldn't even tell where the floodlight was. He says, I couldn't even tell, because the job of the floodlight is not to call attention to itself. The job of the floodlight

is to throw into relief the beauty and the magnificence of the thing that is flooding. And he says, that's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's job is not to say, look at me, get my power, get my joy, you know, get my annoy. The Holy Spirit's job is to say, look at Jesus, look at the beauty of what he's done, look at him standing up there, look at his advocacy for you. Do you not see that there's no danger, there is no failure, there is no failure, there is no accusation. There is nothing that can overturn you, that can cast you down. Nothing. The Holy Spirit's job is to, he's an advocate on earth pointing to our advocate in heaven,

making the work of the advocate in heaven so beautiful to your life that it changes it. All right, look, two things. Number one, here's two ways I would like you to change your life on the basis of what I've already said, even if you say, I've already got some things to change. All right, then these two things. Would you please notice the magnificence of divine selflessness? The magnificence of divine selflessness. Here's Jesus Christ, emptying self of his glory, in order to become a servant and die on the cross for our sins.

And now here's the Holy Spirit, not speaking of his own glory, but glorifying Jesus. There must be something deep in the heart of God that is, other-oriented. There's a selflessness in God. There's something in God that says, my life for yours. There's something in God that says, I'm here to serve you. Here's Jesus emptying yourself of his glory. Here's the Holy Spirit, only showing us Jesus' glory. Are you always promoting yourself? Are you always upset because people aren't giving you your due? Do you feel like you're not getting credit? Do you find yourself always getting insulted? How dare people talk to me like that or be about me like that? Are you doing what a lot of New Yorkers are doing, spending all

their time just trying to get up the ladder and basically only dealing with people if they serve you, serve your interest, help you with your agenda? If you want to be like the divine person who comes and lives in the heart of a Christian, you have to be a person who is characterized by the magnificence of divine selflessness. Get rid of your pride. Stop promoting yourself all the time. Be like the one who lives within you. But here's the second thing.

Are you, on the other hand, do you feel like an imposter? Are you struggling with rejection? You know, in New York, there's always an audition. There's always a job, you know, interview. There's always, we're always struggling with rejection here. Are some of you struggling an awful lot? Do you feel like a failure in many ways? Are you afraid to have any of the people around you realize how much you lack confidence?

How much you right now almost loathe yourself? You need an advocate. And you got one in heaven. You got one on earth. You've really got everything you need. Avail yourself of him. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We thank you for sending another counselor into our lives. Oh, how we do. Thank you for that. And we pray that you would help us to be filled with the Spirit. We pray that you would help us to receive his counseling. We pray that you would help us to cooperate with him as he advocates for us. And we ask that you would help us to do this as an entire church, so we truly would be a spirit-filled church. will notice, and you'll be grateful. You'll be glad for us. We'll be grateful to you, and you'll be

glorified in us, and that's what we want. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it, and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life, and to share it with others. For more helpful from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospel and life.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 2010. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017,

while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.