Pentecost is the climax of our redemption, the fulfillment of our human destiny. Jesus isn’t done when He dies on the cross, and His work isn’t finished when He takes up His life again. He isn’t finished when He ascends to heaven. Jesus’ founding work of redemption isn’t done until He receives the Spirit and pours it out on the church. Only then is the work of salvation complete.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified. We believe the Spirit was given at Pentecost, and the Spirit now lives in us and among us, binding us together as one body in Christ.

Let it sink in: God lives in you. The Creator Spirit who hovered over the waters; the Spirit-breath who gave life to Adam; the Spirit in whom we live and move and have being; the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead and the Spirit who groans over creation until new creation is born: That Spirit lives in you. The love by which the God of love loves, that love has been poured into your heart. The life by which the living God lives is your life.

God created man so man could be glorified to share God’s throne. God created man to glorify man. God saved sinful humanity for the same reason. As Irenaeus put it, God became man so that man might become God. God became man by the Spirit so that by the Spirit man might become God. The Son took flesh through incarnation by the Spirit. Christ was in the world because of the Spirit. And Christ continues to be in the world through the Spirit, as the Spirit of Christ forms Christ in our flesh, in your flesh and my flesh.

The Son takes human form by the Spirit; the Spirit forms the Son as man in the womb of Mary. The ascended Jesus continues to take human form by giving His Spirit to the church; the Spirit who formed the bridegroom in the womb of Mary now forms a bride in the womb of the church.

You are a divine man or a divine woman or divine child. You aren’t an incarnation as Jesus is, two natures in one divine Person. But you do live a divine-human life. You’re a site of God’s dwelling, a temple of the Spirit, and everyone you see – your husband, your wife, your children and your parents, the stranger down the row and your closest friend – everyone who knows Jesus is a divine human. You should be in awe of yourself. You should be in awe of everyone else. Because God the Spirit has made you His dwelling.