Question:

The Holy Spirit was pretty active during the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Seems the Holy Spirit has not been very active in past 2000 years. Your thoughts on this? Am I wrong in thinking this?

Answer:

The Holy Spirit has been extremely busy the past two thousand years–convicting people of sin, guiding them into the truth (John 16:7-10, John 14:15-18), interceding for us when we pray (Romans 8:26-27) and many other things. I think what you are saying is that for the past 1900 years or so, the Holy Spirit has not been working through public, physical miracles, as He did during the ministry of Jesus and in the very early church. If that is what you are saying, then you are correct. But please do not think that the main work of the Holy Spirit is in the form of the miraculous.

If you look at the Old and the New Testament you will discover that throughout most of the history of God’s people, there were few miracles. Pretty much the only time when significant miracles are recorded is in times when God was giving new revelation. The miraculous is recorded principally during the ministry of Moses and Joshua, as well as during the ministry of Elijah and Elishah. Otherwise, the miraculous was rare in the Old Testament. Miracles are not used by God to convince people to become a Christian, but to validate that the message is from God. This is what Jesus said during his ministry (John 10:25, 32, 38). The writer of Hebrews tells us that the purpose of miracles (or at least one of the purposes) is to testify to and confirm the message (Hebrews 2:4). The reason the miraculous gifts were given to the early church (or at least one of the reasons) was to testify to the validity of the message taught by the apostles and other inspired teachers at a time when the New Testament was not yet complete.

The Holy Spirit is very active today. He works in many ways in the lives of Christians as well as working to convict those who are not saved. However, because we have the completed Words of God, the Spirit does not normally work through physical miracles today.

I hope this helps.

John Oakes