On the day of Pentecost, God’s life, His Spirit, came into and completely re-created Jesus’ followers, but the fundamental purpose for God giving His Spirit was to provide a sure witness of the right way, the only way, to Him. “The Spirit is the witness”, John would later write, “because the Spirit is truth” (1Jn. 5:6). No news reporters were in heaven when the Son offered himself to the Father as a sacrifice for man’s sins, and no cameras or microphones recorded that awesome, holy moment. In the Old Testament shadow, when Israel’s high priest went into the Holy of Holies to present the blood of animals before God for the sins of the nation, no one, not even other priests, were allowed in the tabernacle (Lev. 16:17). In the Son’s case, even the holy creatures of heaven would have been barred from witnessing the event. Otherwise, the Spirit would not be the witness, as John said. It would only be one of many.
Without God’s witness, the Spirit, people can believe that Jesus is Lord, but only with His Spirit can we ever know that Jesus is Lord and Christ. This is what Paul was talking about when he said that without the Spirit, no one can say (and know it to be true) that Jesus is Lord (1Cor. 12:3).
