The Ministry of The Holy Spirit:

Then and Now

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The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Godhead. He possesses ALL the attributes of God, including omnipresence. Jesus, in a special sense, sent the Holy Spirit, Who is the Comforter, at the time He departed soon after the Ascension. He, the Holy Spirit, began to indwell all believers on the Day of Pentecost and from then on. Paul tells us in Romans 8:9b "Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." Christ said until He went away the Holy Spirit would not come, but when He would go away the Holy Spirit would come. But that does NOT mean that when the Second Coming happened in AD70 that the Holy Spirit left just because all believers were raptured, or as some teach, relinquished His ministry as "Comforter," but instead He remained in this world, continuing to indwell those who would come to Christ after AD70. Some preterists teach that when Christ returned in AD70 that He continued to remain in this world to such a degree and to such an extent that the Holy Spirit was no longer needed. Christ now is all we need since He has returned and we don't need the Holy Spirit any longer. This is false. This seems to be Max King's position, but Max fails to acknowledge that at the time of the Literal Rapture in AD70 (which he denies) that the believers, both living and those raised out of Hades, were taken by Christ back up to Heaven. So, while we know that all Persons of the Godhead are omnipresent, in a special way Jesus is now in Heaven and the Holy Spirit indwells living believers on earth today, just like He did in New Testament times. So the times that we live in today, during this post-Parousia period, are quite similar to the post-Pentecost days prior to the AD70 Parousia. The main difference is that in that first century believers were anxiously anticipating the Second Coming of Christ, while today we are experiencing here and now the "first fruits/deposit" of our salvation, a taste of heaven itself, but must wait to receive our consummated full completion of our salvation in Heaven, until our Lord calls us Home to be with Him, one by one as we physically die. Similarities AND differences, right?

~~Walt Hibbard