With and Within

J. I. Packer on the relationship of Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son:

The Spirit, whose creative power effected the conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb (Luke 1:35), was with and within the incarnate Son throughout his life on earth. He disclosed his presence to Jesus, to John, and perhaps to others by the apparition of the dove at Jesus’s baptism (Matt. 3:16-17; John 1:32-33), which convinced John that “this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit bearer, so John was told, would in due course be the Spirit giver. The Spirit at once led Jesus into the wilderness “to be tempted by the devil” (Matt 4:1); he participated in all the Savior’s ministry (Luke 4:14), empowering his miracles (Matt 12:28), prompting his joy (Luke 10:21), and sustaining him through the agony of Gethsemane for the greater agony of his atoning death (Heb. 9:14). As we Christians are upheld by the Holy Spirit in the life that we live with God and for God, so was our Savior before us. As we live in a simultaneous relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are always together and never apart from each other, so were the Father and the Spirit together with the Son when he was on earth, as they are still and always will be.

Quoting from Taking God Seriously: Vital Things We Need to Know (page 114).

About Faith

From J. I. Packer, a summary of what the book of Hebrews says about faith. 

1. Faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (11:1 NIV) — the emphasis being, as always in Scripture, on the reality of faith’s objects rather than the degree of confidence we feel about them.
2. Specifically, faith honours and pleases God by taking His word about things (creation, 11:3; rewards 11:6; God’s faithfulness to His promises, 11:11; this life as a journey home, 11:13-16; the fact that obedience always makes sense, even when it looks like nonsense, 11:17-19, etc.).
3. Faith approaches God boldly through Christ (4:16; 10:19-22) to find help and strength for the winning of the moral, spiritual and circumstantial victories (11:32-38; 4:16) and for the enduring of hostility both from within and from outside oneself (sin within, 12:1-4; ill-treatment from without, 10:32-34; 12:3).
4. Faith interprets trouble as God’s discipline of his child (12:5-11) and, so far from being daunted, rejoices to think of it as proving one’s sonship to God and preparing one for peace and pleasure to come.
5. Faith takes courage from examples of living by faith which the “great cloud of witnesses” have left us (12:1; 13:7), from thoughts of their present happiness (12:23), and from knowing that when we come to God here on earth we plug into the present worship and fellowship of the heaven that will be our own home one day (12:22-24).
6. Faith battle against temptations to unbelief, apathy and disobedience, sustaining against them the quality sometimes called “stickability” (Canadians say, “stick-to-it-iveness”), and referrred to in the letter as patience and endurance (Greek, hypomone) (6:11f.; 10:36; 12:1). Faith in God produces faithfulness to God.

Quoted from 18 Words: The Most Important Words you will Ever Know, page 132.

The Building, the Body, the Bride

Ephesians, writes J. I. Packer, uses “three basic images, or analogies, each illustrating some ongoing aspect” of the church: the building, the body, and the bride.

The Building

On the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with the Lord Jesus as the cornerstone, Gentile and Jewish believers are being built together, as so many building blocks or shapes stones laid side by side, to become “a holy temple in the Lord … a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (2:20-22). As in Old Testament times the temple was where God made people most vividly aware of his self-revealed reality and teaching, and where they in turn knew themselves closest to him (see the Psalms), so it is and will ever be in the church. That is a fact that all Christians should face, and celebrate joyfully from the heart. 

The Body

The church

which is one body under Christ its Head, grows and upbuilds itself in faith and love through the harmonious operation of each particular body part. That is to say, as each believer seeks to attain total Christlikeness, and as the Holy Spirit of Christ prompts each to cooperative work and service out of love to God, to neighbors, and to the body of Christ as such, the church moves forward into “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God … to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” 4:1-16, esp. 13). The vision is of divinely managed coordination of the body, and of developing discernment of the truth and wisdom of God by the body corporately.

The Bride

As the bride is prepared by willing helpers for her wedding day, so Christ himself, the church’s Bridegroom, works to prepare the church, the object of his love, for the glory that he has in view for her—“that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle of any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (5:25-27). Ongoing sanctification for all Christians, separately and together, through a vast variety of events, circumstances, and conflicts, is accordingly the church’s present experience, while the approaching consummation of fellowship with Jesus is the church’s abiding hope, and the assurance of Jesus’s unfailing love remains its constant support. That is an outlook, and an upward and forward look, that all Christians should cherish and keep intact. 

Quoting from Taking God Seriously: Vital Things We Need to Know (pages 90-91).