Page 40 - Pneumatology - A Study of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Connect…

Despite how hard you try, I’m sure you sin every day. I do. I get impatient with others when I have to wait.
Sometimes I even talk out loud and say some ugly things about a person, making sure they can’t hear me.
When a driver pulls out in front of me and cuts me off, sometimes I call them an "idiot!” Selfish thoughts
plague my mind daily. It is a continual battle to resist sin, isn’t it?

Well, praise the Lord, the Holy Spirit is in our lives to convict us when we sin, and to bring us to sorrow and
back to right standing before Him. He is busy in every believer’s life, working to make
them more like Christ in every way. Let’s better understand this important work of
the Holy Spirit….

The Lesson ...

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The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

In John 16:8, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit: “When [the Spirit] comes, he will convict the world
concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (ESV). In this verse, we see a three-fold ministry the Spirit
will perform in relation to the unsaved world. He will “convict” the world; that is, He will reprove it or show it
to be wrong. This reproof will target three areas in which the world needs admonishing: sin, righteousness,
and judgment.

Jesus went on to explain: “Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness,
because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this
world is judged” (John 16:9–11, ESV).

The world is a sinful place, and one of the Holy Spirit’s tasks is to convict the world of its sin. No amount of
preaching, pleading, or pointing of fingers will bring about the conviction of sin unless the Holy Spirit is at
work in the sinner’s heart. It is the Spirit’s job to convict. And what is the most basic sin of which the world is
guilty? Jesus specifies it as unbelief. The convicting power of the Holy Spirit is at work in the world “because
they believe not in [Christ].” Once a person responds to the Spirit’s conviction and turns to faith in Christ, the
other sins he practiced will be taken care of. It is the sin of unbelief—a refusal to trust in Jesus—that is
primary.

The world must also be convicted of righteousness, and this, too, is something the Holy Spirit does. There is a
righteous standard we are all held to, despite the world’s stubborn denial of absolute truth. And who is the
standard-bearer of righteousness? Jesus points to Himself as that standard: “Because I go to the Father.”
There is only one Person who came down from heaven, lived a life of sinless perfection, and ascended back
to heaven—the Son of Man, who lives to be our Intercessor (John 3:13; 1 Timothy 2:5). The righteousness
that the world tries to deny is found demonstrated in Christ. Everything He ever said and did was the

24 https://www.gotquestions.org/convict-world-sin-righteousness-judgment.html - Used with permission
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