About this series:

The Holy Spirit is fully God, eternally existing with the Father and the Son. Throughout the Old Testament, we see glimpses of the Spirit’s presence and work, but it is through the teaching of Jesus and the events of the New Testament that the church’s understanding of the Holy Spirit is revealed more fully.

About this talk:

Almost all people in almost all cultures once took it for granted that there was such a thing as ‘truth’: that certain things accord with reality. In modern, western society that assumption has been challenged, to the point where it has become controversial to believe that certain things about the world are true and others are not. Multiculturalism, the sexual revolution and relativism have reshaped concepts of truth in British society, and in many others.

The Oxford Dictionary has an annual ‘word of the year.’ In 2016 it chose ‘post-truth’ as its word for that year. The definition given was: ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. The point being that in the modern world appeal is made and trust is gained by virtue of resonating with you and validating what you feel to be right, rather than necessarily on the basis of facts. This concept had been in use for a decade prior to 2016, but its usage increased greatly in frequency in 2016 in the context of two major political events (please note: I am not making any political statements here!):

The EU referendum in the UK, in which claims such as this were made: “£350 million paid annually to the EU would instead be spent on the NHS.” Such statements were later discovered to have no basis in fact, but they ‘felt right’ and supported an appeal from one side of the argument.
But especially because of the US presidential campaign, in which Donald Trump became the prime embodiment of post-truth politics. So it was said, ‘Trump has his supporters’ trust because truth is a great deal more than factual accuracy...His supporters may not believe everything he says - in fact, they often say they don’t even think he believes everything he says. They assume that he’s not going to do all the things he promises...The literal things he says matter less to them as facts than as signals that he’s on their side.’

And while many religious beliefs / worldviews accommodate a range of versions of the truth, the Christian faith has always believed that there are certain essential things that are true in ultimate matters of faith, and that, by implication, certain other things are not true. In essence, that the Bible contains the truth about God, mankind and salvation and especially that the truth is centred in Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” We must continue “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 3) - truth is a real thing.

It is therefore not surprising that Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Truth” (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13), given that the Holy Spirit is another just like Jesus - fully God and in complete unity with God the Son and God the Father. Each of these chapters (John 14-16) spell out what is meant by the Holy Spirit being the Spirit of Truth:

John 14: He is another, just like Jesus, who will speak God’s truth to them (vs 16-17); He “will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (v 26).
John 15: “The Spirit of truth...will testify about me” (v 26).
John 16: “He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears” (v 13). The truth Jesus refers to is the words of Scripture and especially God’s self-revelation in the person of Jesus.

He is the truth and we need the Spirit to lead us to know him better, because the truth about Father, Son and Holy Spirit can only be discerned as the Spirit is at work in us - “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:14). So we depend on the Spirit of God to reveal to us the truth of God in the Word of God.