What Role Does the Holy Spirit Play in the Life of an Unbeliever?

What role does the Holy Spirit have in the lives of those who do not yet believe in Christ? Today, Sinclair Ferguson explains how the Spirit brings individuals face-to-face with their need for the Savior.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: We’re recording live this week at Ligonier’s 2025 National Conference. Our guest on the Ask Ligonier podcast is Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow. Dr. Ferguson, what role, if any, does the Holy Spirit play in the life of an unbeliever?
DR. SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON: Well, that’s an interesting question, Nathan. I think it can be answered probably in two stages. The first is to go back to some first principles that everything God does in terms of His internal relationships—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—in everything in the life of the Trinity, all three persons of the Trinity are always participating, but they participate with each other as persons in different ways, as a Father, as a Son, as Holy Spirit. And of course, there’s mystery here of God being one and yet God being three persons. The same is true when we think of the activity of God beyond Himself in creation, in providence, in redemption, and in the final consummation. In everything He does—and you can see this very clearly in Scripture—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are always involved.
And typically they’re involved approximately, one might say, in this way: the Father, in consultation and agreement with the Son and the Spirit, plans. So, we often think about the Father choosing us in His Son before the foundation of the world. The Son, as it were, executes the plan of the Father, and the Spirit then works in the world to bring that to pass in different ways.

So, you see that in creation. The Father plans creation. Creation is accomplished through the Word. But then we also learn in Genesis 1:2 that in bringing that plan and the work of the Word to its completion, the Spirit was hovering over the waters and brought order and fullness out of the chaos and darkness of the original stuff. And you see the same thing in the birth of the Lord Jesus. You see the same thing in the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. So, everything that God does is really superintended by the Holy Spirit. And we can say that that is also true of providence.

So, level one, a kind of cosmic perspective would be to say that actually the Spirit is always engaged in bringing to fruition the Father’s plan, which means that in unseen ways, the Spirit is working, of course especially in the church, but also governing the life of the world. So, you and I came here by a series of back passages, and every time I’ve come here, there’s been a hive of activity that people outside don’t see, but it’s what is happening in that hive of activity that makes what happens outside possible. So, I think we can say the same thing about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Just as we say in general God is sovereign in all things, the way in which He is sovereign is that He is sovereign through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now, there’s a second stage, and in many ways the stage that we as Christians are especially interested in, and that is, I think, summarized in what Jesus says in John 16:8–11 when He says, “When the Spirit comes, He will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.” And we could say you can see the same pattern there: the Father choosing His people, the Son dying for His people, and then the Spirit coming to apply the work of Christ to individuals. And so, He works at that level in individuals to convict us of our sin, to convict us that only in Jesus Christ will we find righteousness, and to absolutely convince us that apart from Jesus Christ there is only judgment. And He does that in a similar way because we are brought to conviction of sin, or many people are brought to conviction of sin without realizing that the Spirit is working in them. And it’s only then when they begin to understand biblical teaching, they realize, “Oh, that was the Spirit working.”

If I can use an illustration. The other month I flew from Scotland to Dubai, and as I was sitting in my seat, as happens when you sit on an airplane, the captain came onto the intercom, and he was just welcoming us all. And I missed just his first few words of introduction. But I realized that the captain of the flight was an Australian, and it made me think of an Australian pilot that I knew of, and I was thinking about him. We got to Dubai the first night at the conference. I spotted on the other side of the church a couple that I had met before and I knew, and they came over to speak to me. And he was a captain with Emirates Airlines, and he said to me, “When did you get in?” I said, “I got in at one o’clock this morning.” He said, “Where did you fly from?” I said, “I flew from Glasgow.” And he smiled. He said, “In that case, I was flying.” And I thought, I mean, it was a fantastic experience really to think I’d been flown by somebody I knew and actually about whom I’d been thinking. But I hadn’t brought the two pieces together.

And I thought, this is such an illustration of how it is when we are brought to faith in Christ. We are conscious that there is something, somewhere that we may have some kind of sense of connection, and we become conscious of our sin and brought to Christ. And then it’s as though the captain comes over to us and says, through his words, “You know, I was flying you there.” And that’s how the Spirit works in unbelievers.