The Spirit of Power, Not Cowardice

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Tim. 1:7, NASB).

NOTE: This post will not be concerned with the still somewhat controversial filoque issue. For a full discusion of that subject I would advise the reader to consult the section in SB Ferguson's exceptional work The Holy Spirit in Contours of Christian Theology, Gerald Bray, General Editor, IVP, Illinois, 1996.

In this second instalment of my own subjective peregrinations concerning the Holy Spirit, I’d like to consider the Holy Spirit in the Church from a primarily personal perspective; that is, in the walk of the believer, the born-again one. And I guess that I should be explicit about my underlying assumption: one not born again—of the Holy Spirit that is— will not walk in or by the Spirit, will not be transformed in any meaningful way by the presence or activities of the Spirit and so will in no wise be saved in spite of his or her behaviours and confession, “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God … Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’” (John 3:3, 5-6). “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him” (Rom. 8:9). “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).

This should make my position clear. But to clarify further, if one is a covenant child and has inherited the benefits of the covenant, it is of absolutely no importance, for without the Spirit, you are dead. All the obedience, all the tithing, all the Sabbath-keeping and all other works of the Law in the world will avail you not in such a case (“Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. Later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you’” (Matt. 25:7-12).

This post will concentrate on the four qualities of the believer Paul enumerates for his protégé Timothy: timidity, power, love and discipline.

Timidity
Paul says that we are not given a spirit of timidity by the Holy Spirit. By contrast, he says we are given a spirit of power. The AV uses the word “fear” in place of the NASB’s “timidity.” I think it a much better rendering of the Greek. In fact, an even better one is “cowardice.” We are not to be cowards in Christ. Our lives as Christians cannot be marked by cowardice or fear, if they are, how then can we honestly believe we are indwelt by the Spirit? We are hypocrites.

But what exactly is meant by the words timidity, fear and cowardice, especially in the daily round of life as we live it in the world?

The opposite of the word cowardice is the word courage. So then, it must be fair to say the Spirit gives us courage. Courage for what purpose? Well, not just to feel brave, at least not only. It is to experience and fully live out, according to the filling we are given by the Spirit, those things we looked at in our last post: Spirit filled assurance, grace, love, mission, peace, praise, prayer, preaching, sanctification, and so on. All these things require us to be courageous in our commitment. We do not get this courage from ourselves. It is part of what the Holy Spirit provides in His role as Paraclete, the one who comes alongside to help, succour and assist. A frightened Christian is still a Christian but he is able, through the Spirit, to overcome His fear, believing in the words of our Lord and Saviour “…but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

A Christian who is motivated by fear is grieving the Holy Spirit by denying the very truth of the words spoken and promised by his Lord and King, Jesus. What kind of Christian is that? A Christian is ready to accept challenge, ready to be hurt, ready to take risks for Christ. He is not afraid of change, not afraid of being wrong, not afraid of being foolish, not afraid of making enemies if must be. The Spirit puts us out onto the “high seas” where danger abounds. He places us in dire straights for the sake of the Gospel and the salvation of lost souls.

The Church is like a boat. A boat sits in the water. It is not part of the water, yet without water, the purpose and meaning of the boat is lost. The boat is really properly known and understood in relation to the water in which it sits. But a boat is not meant to just sit in the water. No, it was meant to move through the water. A boat is a vessel. It is designed to not only be carried by the water—but also to carry through the water. She takes her cargo from place to place, harbour to harbour, resting betimes and unloading and reloading so that she may begin the journey all over again.

A boat that sits in the harbour is a safe boat, no doubt. Chances are, very little risk of harm will come to her. On the other hand, she will gradually become fouled with barnacles and weeds the longer she is prevented from moving out into open water. The barnacles and weeds will slow her down even to the point of preventing her from moving at all in carrying out her intended purpose.

Let this not be the fate of our congregations, nor of ourselves, through fear and timidity. We have a vessel made for salvation, let us man the oars and raise the sails, catching the wind of the Spirit in exuberant faith and assurance, knowing the very Spirit of God is our motive power and that our rudder is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Power
Where does the power within the church come from? It does not come from the Law, for as we read from one commentator (Adam Clarke) in referring to 1 Cor. 15:56, “The law of God forbids all transgression, and sentences those who commit it to temporal and eternal death. Sin has its controlling and binding power from the law. The law curses the transgressor, and provides no help for him; and if nothing else intervene, he must, through it, continue ever under the empire of death.” So the law has no power to save from death, it only condemns the sinner of his fault and at most enables the sinner to understand his terrible predicament. It offers no saving solution.

No, Paul makes it very plain that power comes to the Church (of all true believers) by and through the application of the Spirit (of Christ’s redeeming work, wrought for His elect on the cross and guaranteed for him by the Resurrection).

Do we have such power? Do you? Are you fearless in your defense of the Gospel? Are you ready to proclaim your faith openly in the face of hostile opposition? Are you ready to love those who are not saved, perhaps giving them solace, perhaps giving them food or clothing? Are you ready to take risk knowing that the will of the Spirit is what is motivating and empowering you to do so? These things are manifestations of the Spirit’s power in the Christian.

The Greek word, dunamis, refers primarily to a resident kind of enabling energy or force. That is, the force belongs to the cause of the force in an intimate connection by nature. It is in the nature of the Spirit to be powerful. The power does not come to the Spirit by another. It resides in Him as an aspect of His very nature and being, even as the wind is its own power. The power of the Spirit therefore is not alien to Him and is given to us as part of the ministry of Christ. If therefore we do not have the power of the Spirit, we then are grieving the Spirit by that degree.

A boat without power is useless. The power we receive comes to us from the wind in our sails. We hoist our sails through our assured faith, catching the power of the breath of God so that he may empower us for good, for “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” Eph 2:10).

Love
As I have stated elsewhere (7 November, 2007) I believe that love is one of the core constituents of the true church.

And we see from Paul that true Christian love comes to us from God and is part and parcel of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In fact, a yardstick by which we may measure our true Christianity and our walking in the fullness of the Spirit is the degree to which we are experiencing and expressing love in our Christian walk, under all situations and conditions.

If we hold on to our love, dispensing it only to those we believe are worthy to receive, are we really being children of God? Are we then no different than the priest and the Levite who could so easily pass by the man by the side of the road, even breaking their own law by doing so? We may be doctrinally pure, being well versed in theology as well as Church history, government and ecclesiology. Our worship may be refined to a biblical purity that is beyond reproach and we may even be respected leaders in our congregation, but all of that is worthless without love: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

Love is the reason the boat traverses the long passages through lonely waters and stormy weather; it is to bring a measure of bounty and blessing to those who are without the goods needed for fullness of life. Likewise, the boat of the Church and of the Christian is to bring the Good News to those suffering in want and misery, even the rich and powerful.

But it is also to express our loving-kindness to other Christians, brothers, sisters and loved ones with whom we have to do. It is not only a part of the spirit’s ministry to enable evangelism, teaching and the like, essential as these are. It is also part of His ministry to show us Jesus and His compassion for those who struggle in their own depraved falleness. The Holy Spirit calls to mind our own deplorable condition, always reminding us of our abiding depravity in and of ourselves as separated from the love and peace that we obtain only in God. When we are confronted with the effects of our own falleness—our fear, our anger, our depression, our hatred, our envy—regardless of the triggers of life that cause these things to raise themselves up, our only hope is the indwelling of the Spirit, reminding us that we are, in spite of our selves and our overpowering emotions, children of the Most High God and that He is working in us to do His good and perfect will for us, “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11).

Discipline
The word behind the English is the Greek sophronismos. The word means an admonishing, calling or encouraging to soundness of mind, moderation and self-control. And of course, in the context, it can only be the Spirit who can give such an admonishing.

The word is similar to the word used in Gal. 5:23 which is egkrateia in Greek, meaning self-control of our passions and appetites (more on this aspect in my next post). This is not what Paul is hinting at in our verse from 2 Timothy. In our context I’m pretty sure he is saying that our consciences are pricked in such a way by the Holy Spirit, that while we have the courage, power and love of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit Himself will discourage us from being carried away uncontrolably by these strong spiritual forces. He will so order our understanding and its external expression that we will not be carried along on winds of subjective impressions, emotional outbursts or even maniacal ranting. This runs foul of most Charismatics and Pentecostals of course, but as I pointed out in a previous post (1 November, 2007) such ranting cannot be considered truly Christian in light of the whole counsel of God’s Word, and can only be considered as an aberration at best.


In this post, I have looked at the main points of the presence and work of the Spirit as given us in Paul’s letter to Timothy. So much more could—and must—be said. However, I think it is safe to say that the presence of the Spirit is something objective, real and to be desired and prayed for with all one’s mind, heart, soul and strength. The Spirit is the empowering of the Church as well as the individual believer. He is not only the same Spirit that brooded over the waters of Creation, and without whom creation would not have been, He is also the counselor and Helper of our souls, leading us to God and strengthening us in our sanctification and holiness. Without the Spirit our Christianity is nothing because it is the Spirit who applies the redemption won for us by Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria.