The Spirit of Love, Truth and Power

Love (including joy, comfort and relational terms like dwell, abide, unity)

  • [Acts 9:31] Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.
  • [Acts 13:52] And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
  • [Rom 5:5] the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
  • [Rom 8:14f] For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.
  • [Rom 15:30] Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me
  • [1Cor 6:19] Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
  • [Gal 4:6] And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
  • [Gal 5:22-23] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
  • [Phil 2:1] Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy,
  • [Col 1:8] who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
  • [Eph 2:22] in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
  • [Eph 4:1] the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
  • [1Jn 3:24] And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
  • [1Jn 4:13] By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Truth

  • [John 6:63] It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are Spirit, and they are life.
  • [John 4:23-24] But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth ; for the Father is seeking such to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.”
  • [John 14:17] the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
  • [John 14:25-26] These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
  • [John 15:26] But when the helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me.
  • [John 16:12-14] I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak; and he will tell you things to come. “He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you.
  • [Acts 1:2] until the day in which he was taken up, after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen,
  • [Act 4:31] and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
  • [Acts 6:10] And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.
  • [1Cor 2:10-14] But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned
  • [Eph 3:4-5] ...the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets [+v.7]
  • [Eph 4:23] and to be renewed in the Spirit of your minds
  • [1John 4:6] By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
  • [1John 5:6] And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.

…Truth lived out

  • [Rom 8:1-13] There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit… [This is a major passage up to v13]
  • [Gal 5:16f] Walk in the Spirit
  • [Eph 5:9] for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth
  • [2Th 2:13] But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth,

Power

  • [Micah 3:8] But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord,
  • [Zech 4:6] ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.
  • [Luke 1:35] And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you;
  • [Luke 4:14] Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee,
  • [Acts 1:8] But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
  • [Acts 10:38] how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
  • [Rom 1:4] and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
  • [Rom 8:1-2f] There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
  • [Rom 8:8] But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
  • [Rom 15:19] in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
  • [1Cor 2:4-5] And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
  • [Heb 2:4] God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will?

Truth + Power

  • [Acts 14:3] So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.
  • [1Thess 1:5] For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit

Truth +love

  • [1Peter 1:22] Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,

All Three

  • [2Tim 1:7]
  For God has not given us a Spirit of fear,
power→ -but of power
love→ -and of love
truth→ -and of a sound mind.
  • [Rom 15:13]
  Now may the God of hope fill you with all
love→ joy and peace in believing,
truth→ that you may abound in hope ✳
power→ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
  ✳ [v.4 clearly connects hope with the Scriptures “which were written
for our instruction”, so the hope is not empty, but hope in the truth]
  • [Eph 1:17-20]
  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of
truth→ wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, 18the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of his calling,
love→ what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, [heirs because we are adopted into relationship with God v.5]
power→ 19and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power 20which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
  • [Eph 3:14-21]
  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be
power→ strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
truth→ 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
love→ that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God./ 20Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
  • [1Cor 13:13]
  [in the context of v1,2 which contrast truth and power with love]
power→ So now faith, [the context of faith is v.1 where it is the supernatural power gift of faith that could move mountains]
truth→ hope, and [the content of hope is the knowledge God’s promises and understanding his mysteries (v,2,8,9)]
love→ love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Updated on 2009-09-03 (r.52) by Andrew Fountain