Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Part 4.

For more resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

We've been thinking about the role of the Holy Spirit in the old covenant, and now we want to contrast

that with the role of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant. And this can perhaps be best done

by means of a timeline. Let's imagine a timeline on which the left side represents the Old Testament

covenant and the right side is the New Testament. And the division between these two would come

at the cross of Christ.

Jesus said at his last supper that he was inaugurating a new covenant in his blood.

This was the covenant prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah.

And so the transition between the old and new covenants

occurs with the death of Christ.

But the effects of that transition are not immediate.

There is a transitional period following the cross which is described in the book of Acts,

in which we have a transition from the old to the new.

And the key verse here is Acts chapter 1 and verse 8.

Acts chapter 1 and verse 8.

There Jesus says, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses

in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

Here Jesus describes the bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon the New Testament Church in a progressive

series of events, beginning first in Jerusalem and Judea, and then Samaria, and then

the uttermost parts of the earth, which would

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