Do you remember what is said in the second verse of the Bible, in the account of the creation of the world? We are told, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
There has always been the Holy Spirit. He has been written of many times in Scripture. But the Lord Jesus told the men who believed in Him that when He was returned to heaven the Holy Spirit would come to live in them. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as a person saying “He,” but not an earthly person, nor in a body, as the Lord Jesus took.
Unseen Person
The Lord called Him the Spirit of truth and the Comforter, which meant one to counsel and to defend us. The Lord had before told of the Spirit as being like the wind, saying, “The wind bloweth where it listeth (pleases), and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
We cannot see the wind, yet we feel it and know it is here. We can see what it does. It is a great force in the world. So the Holy Spirit, who is a person, acts like a force or power. He is greater, of course, than any power here.
And what the Lord Jesus told of the Holy Spirit (called also the Holy Ghost) was what the Spirit would do. First we are told what the Spirit would do for the disciples. He would “bring all things to your remembrance” whatsoever Jesus had said to them. He would teach them all things, guide them to all truth, tell them things to come, and abide or stay with them forever (see John 14:16-17,26; 15:26; 16:13). “He will reprove the world of sin ... because they believe not on Me.”
Reproof
“To reprove” means to speak against wrong. The Spirit would speak God’s words believers to show unbelievers their sin. The Son of God came in love to save sinners. The greatest sin anyone can do is to not believe Him.
“He will reprove the world ... of righteousness because I go to My Father.” Because the Lord Jesus was righteous, God raised Him and He is in heaven. The Spirit tells men to believe that.
“He will reprove the world ... of judgment ... because the prince of this world is judged.”
Satan was the first to lead to doubt and unbelief of God’s words (Gen. 3:4) and has ever since tried to lead people to unbelief. The penalty for sin is death and to be apart from God. Christ took that punishment on the cross, and the Spirit tells of judgment for Satan and all who follow him. These facts are explained more afterward, as the Lord said they would be. Read Hebrews 2:14.
After the Lord was gone to heaven, the Holy Spirit came (Acts 2). From that time the men who loved the Lord Jesus, but had been afraid of those who did not believe, spoke with power by the Spirit. They preached that Christ came to die for sinners, that God raised Him, and that there was judgment for all who did not believe Him (see Acts 4:8; 5:29-32).
Further Meditation:
1. Why is the Holy Spirit compared to the wind?
2. What other verses in the Word of God show that the Spirit of God is part of the Trinity with the Father and the Son?
3. The Holy Spirit: His Person, His Coming, His Operations by H. E. Hayhoe would give you a brief and easy-to-read introduction to Bible truths about the Holy Spirit.