.

The Spirit is thus the earthly presence of the glorified Lord. In the Spirit, Christ becomes Lord of His Church, and in the Spirit the resurrected Lord acts both in the community and in the individual.  The power of His resurrection is more than a power of ecstasy and miracle; it produces a new creation.  The Spirit opens up for the believer the way to the saving action of God in Christ.  He does this not as a magic power which man cannot resist; He creates the possibility of man’s replying with a responsible and conscious affirmative.  He gives him, through the knowledge of the crucified Christ, the realization that in Jesus Christ God acted for him. The Spirit gives faith in the cross and resurrection of Christ and gives the power to live a life of faith.  He is the “Spirit of faith” (2 Corinthians 5:5,7).  The Spirit is not man’s own potential, but entirely the gift, the power and strength of God.  The Holy Spirit as God’s Spirit, must be distinguished from man’s own spirit, since He is the Holy Spirit, free from all sin.  The Holy Spirit is always entirely God’s Spirit and is not absorbed into the individual spirit of man (Romans 8:16; 1 Corinthians 2:10f). At the same time, God’s Spirit can win power and dominion over man, so that He becomes man’s inner self, so that a man no longer lives by his own strength, but by God’s (Romans 8:9-15, 26f). In this way God’s Spirit does not work, as in the agnostic view, as an automatically divinizing substance.  The Spirit is the power which creates faith, and the norm according to which the believer is constantly summoned to live; “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:15; 6:8).

-From The Church by Hans Kung

.