Jesus Christ Comes in the Power of the Holy Spirit General audience of August 5, 1987 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Jesus Christ Comes in the Power of the Holy Spirit General audience of August 5, 1987

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Title: Jesus Christ Comes in the Power of the Holy Spirit General audience of August 5, 1987


1
Jesus Christ Brings the Holy Spirit to the Church
and Humanity General audience of August 12, 1987
2
  • Jesus Christ the Son of God,
  • who was sent into the world by the Father,
  • became man by the power of the Holy Spirit
  • in the womb of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth.
  • As man, he fulfilled his messianic mission
  • unto the cross and the resurrection,
  • in the power of the Holy Spirit.

3
  • In reference to this truth one should recall the
    text of St. Irenaeus where he wrote
  • "The Holy Spirit descended on the Son of God who
    became the Son of Man, becoming accustomed
    together with him to dwell in the human race, to
    replace in men and women the works of God, by
    fulfilling in them the Father's will, and
    transforming their decay of old age into newness
    of Christ"
  • (Adv. Haer. III, 17, 1).

4
  • It is a very significant passage which repeats in
    other words what we have learned from the New
    Testament,
  • namely,
  • that the Son of God became man
  • by the power of the Holy Spirit,
  • and in his power
  • he carried out his messianic mission.

5
  • Thus he prepared the sending and descent into
    human souls of his Spirit who
  • "searches the depths of God"
  • (cf. 1 Cor 210),
  • to renew and consolidate his presence and
    sanctifying action in human life.
  • That expression of Irenaeus is interesting in
    which he says that the Holy Spirit, working in
    the Son of Man,
  • "became accustomed together with him to dwell in
    the human race."

6
  • We read in John's Gospel that
  • "on the last day of the feast,
  • the great day,
  • Jesus stood up and proclaimed,
  • 'If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink.
  • He who believes in me,
  • as the Scripture has said,
  • out of his heart shall flow rivers of living
    water.'
  • Now this he said about the Spirit,
  • which those who believed in him were to receive
    for as yet the Spirit had not been given,
  • because Jesus was not yet glorified"
  • (Jn 737-39).

7
  • Jesus announced the coming of the Holy Spirit by
    the use of the metaphor of
  • "living water,"
  • because it is
  • "the Spirit that gives life"
  • (Jn 663).
  • The disciples will receive this Spirit from Jesus
    himself in due course, when Jesus will be
    glorified.
  • The evangelist has in mind the paschal
    glorification through the cross and resurrection.

8
  • When this time
  • namely, Jesus' hour
  • was already near,
  • during the discourse in the upper room,
  • Christ resumed his announcement and several times
    promised the apostles the coming of the Holy
    Spirit as the new Counselor (Paraclete).
  • He told them,
  • "When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send you
    from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who
    proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to
    me"
  • (Jn 1526).

9
  • Jesus then concluded,
  • "If I do not go away,
  • the Counselor will not come to you
  • but if I go,
  • I will send him to you.
  • And when he comes,
  • he will convince the world of sin
  • and of righteousness
  • and of judgment"
  • (Jn 167-8).

10
  • The texts quoted contain very fully the
    revelation of the truth about the Holy Spirit,
  • who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
  • When speaking to the apostles in the cenacle on
    the eve of his passion,
  • Jesus linked his departure already close at hand
    with the coming of the Holy Spirit.

11
  • For Jesus it is a causal connection
  • he must go away by means of the cross and
    resurrection,
  • so that the Spirit of truth
  • can descend
  • on the apostles
  • and the entire Church
  • as the Counselor.

12
  • The Father will then send the Spirit
  • "in the name of the Son."
  • He will send him in the power of the mystery of
    redemption, which is to be carried out through
    this Son,
  • Jesus Christ.
  • Therefore it is right to say, as Jesus did, that
    the Son himself will also send the Spirit.
  • "The Counselor whom I shall send to you from the
    Father"
  • (Jn 1526).

13
  • On the day of his resurrection,
  • Jesus fulfilled this promise to the apostles,
  • which he had made on the eve of his passion and
    death.

14
  • John's Gospel narrates that when Jesus appeared
    to the disciples who were still hiding in the
    upper room,
  • he greeted them,
  • and while they were dumbfounded by the
    extraordinary event
  • "He breathed on them,
  • and said to them,
  • 'Receive the Holy Spirit.
  • If you forgive the sins of any,
  • they are forgiven
  • if you retain the sins of any,
  • they are retained'"
  • (Jn 2022-23).

15
  • In John's text there is a theological emphasis
    which it is well to underline
  • the risen Christ is he who appears to the
    apostles and brings them the Holy Spirit,
  • and in a certain sense gives him to them in the
    signs of his death on the cross.
  • "He showed them his hands and his side"
  • (Jn 2020).

16
  • Since the Spirit is
  • "the Spirit
  • who gives life
  • (Jn 663),
  • the apostles receive together with the Holy
    Spirit the capacity and power to forgive sins.

17
  • That which happened in such a striking way on the
    day of the resurrection, was in a certain way
    spread by the other evangelists over the
    following days.
  • During that time, Jesus continued to prepare the
    apostles for the great moment when,
  • by virtue of his departure,
  • the Holy Spirit will descend upon them
    definitively,
  • in such a way that his coming will be manifested
    to the world.

18
  • That will also be the moment of the birth of the
    Church.
  • "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has
    come upon you
  • and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in
    all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the
    earth"
  • (Acts 18).
  • This promise,
  • referring directly to the coming of the
    Paraclete,
  • was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost.

19
  • Jesus Christ is he who comes from the Father as
    the eternal Son
  • he who went forth from the Father, becoming man
    by the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • After having fulfilled his messianic mission as
    Son of Man by the power of the Holy Spirit,
  • "he goes to the Father"
  • (cf. Jn 1412).

20
  • Going there as Redeemer of the world,
  • he gives to his disciples and sends down upon the
    Church in all ages the same Spirit,
  • in whose power he acted as man.

21
  • In this way
  • Jesus Christ,
  • as he who
  • "goes to the Father,"
  • leads to the Father all those who will follow
    Jesus in the course of the centuries by means of
    the Holy Spirit.

22
  • "Being exalted at the right hand of God,
  • and having received from the Father the promise
    of the Holy Spirit,
  • Jesus Christ has poured out this which you see
    and hear"
  • (Acts 233),
  • the Apostle Peter proclaimed
  • on the day of Pentecost.

23
  • The Apostle Paul wrote
  • "Because you are sons,
  • God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our
    hearts, crying,
  • 'Abba! Father!'"
  • (Gal 46).
  • The Holy Spirit who
  • "comes from the Father"
  • (cf. Jn 1526),
  • is at the same time the Spirit of Jesus Christ
  • the Spirit of the Son.

24
  • According to the fourth Gospel,
  • John the Baptist proclaimed that God gave Christ
    the Holy Spirit
  • "without measure."
  • St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the prophets
    received the Spirit
  • "according to measure,"
  • and therefore they prophesied
  • "partially."

25
  • Christ, however, possesses the Holy Spirit
    without measure
  • both as God, inasmuch as the Father, by means of
    the eternal generation, grants him to be the
    common principle with the Father of the
    procession of the Spirit in an uncreated way
  • and as man, because through the fullness of
    grace, God has filled him with the Holy Spirit,
    so that he may pour him out on every believer
  • (cf. Super Evang. S. Ioannis Lectura, c. III, 1,
    6, nn. 541-544).

26
  • The Angelic Doctor refers to the text of John (Jn
    334)
  • "For he whom God has sent utters the words of God
    who gives to him the Spirit without measure"
  • (according to the translation proposed by
    distinguished biblical scholars).

27
  • Truly we can exclaim with profound emotion,
    together with John the evangelist,
  • "From his fullness we have all received"
  • (Jn 116)
  • truly we have become partakers in the divine life
    in the Holy Spirit.
  • On this world of the children of the first Adam,
    destined to die, we see rising up in power the
    Christ,
  • the "last Adam," who has become a
  • "life-giving Spirit"
  • (1 Cor 1545).
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