The Presence & the Power: The Significance of the Holy Spirit in the Life and Ministry of Jesus

We cannot escape the truth, writes Gerald Hawthorne, that Jesus was completely “one of us” Yet Jesus taught with amazing authority, spoke God’s word with extraordinary power, healed people who were sick, raised people who were dead, opened the eyes of the blind and did other miraculous things seemingly beyond the ability of humans. How? Hawthorne asks. Was it by means of his divine nature that he did all this, for certainly he was fully God as well as fully human? No, is his resounding answer. Through a careful study of the New Testament, Dr. Hawthorne argues that Jesus did not act from the prerogatives of one who shared the nature of God. Rather, he did what he did through the Holy Spirit, upon whom he depended for power and authority. Essential to this view is the affirmation that Jesus was indeed fully human. In the pages of The Presence and the Power, the author shows the role of the Spirit in Jesus’ conception and birth, in his boyhood and youth, in his baptism and temptation and ministry, and in his death resurrection. Hawthorne brings his discussion to a climax by setting forth his own understanding of the mystery of the interworking of the human and divine in Jesus. This all serves to usher the reader into the final chapter, the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. This concluding chapter makes the truths of the book very clear as to their life application for any and all of Jesus’ followers.