Gary :
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay tuned. We return now to our program series from 2000 and:
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to question from listeners and readers of The Berea Call. Here is this week’s question: Dear Mr. Hunt and Mr. McMahon, Would you do me a favor and talk about the Holy Spirit. There are a lot of ideas floating around about this 3 rd person of the Trinity, everything from His being an impersonal power that God uses, sort of like electricity, to His being God. Although we are not to pray to Him, or worship Him, I’m not quite sure about some of this, especially the last part. Thanks, for your help.
Tom:
Dave, there are some teachings that are pretty obvious that come out of the cults, whether it’s in Jehovah’s Witnesses, or others who don’t recognize the Holy Spirit as a person, but as the questioner indicates, sort of a power, electricity, like electricity is on. But this is not the Holy Spirit as the Bible sets it forth.
Dave:
Well, the Holy Spirit, according to scripture, is a personal being. This is very difficult for us to describe this, because I don’t even know what a person is. Men and women, human beings are personal beings. We have a sense of personal identity. I guess that’s what, mainly, you mean. A personal being has an identity as a person, separate and distinct in themselves from all the things around them and all the other persons around them.
Tom:
God made us in His image, so we can look to each other to find some attribute, some characteristics that are found in God.
Dave:
Well, we’ll see the deformed; we’ll see the falling short.
Tom:
Right, no I’m not talking about on this instance, you know, His divineness.
Dave:
The falling short of what we ought to be made in the image of God, and of course sin is coming short of the glory of God. But, no, you get the descriptions of the Holy Spirit, or descriptions of how He acts, and thinks and so forth.
Tom:
Now you say, He, personal being, not it.
Dave:
Yes, I’ve had a little conversation with a gentleman on the plane the other day about that, and he says, Why do you say, He? We’re talking about God, and he says, Why do you say, He? Well, I said, God is not an “it” that’s for sure, and God is not a “she” because feminine language for God would be altogether inappropriate because a woman gives birth out of herself. So the baby is an extension of her, has been nurtured by her, and so forth. But the universe is not an extension of God, and we’re not an extension of God. An image in a mirror is not an extension, it’s something else. So there’s the only other one you’ve got, it, he or she, and it doesn’t mean that God is like a man. In fact, the Bible says God is not a man that He should lie, neither the Son of man. But the Bible is very clear Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all separate and distinct individual persons, but they are one God. Now we don’t understand that. We’ve talked about it in the past; we can’t explain it away because for example Genesis:1:1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth., the very first verse says, “In the beginning, God s ….” Eloheim is the word there, it’s a plural. Well then why does the Bible say, “In the beginning God?” Because the word “created,” the verb is in the singular, and all through the Old Testament you have a plurality and a singularity. At the burning bush, for example, Moses says what’s your name, who are you? God says well it is Eloheim, plural. It’s God s speaking but Eloheim does not say we are that we are. Eloheim says I am that I am. Now Paul says, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Those who are led,—so the Holy Spirit must have a personality. He can be grieved. Those who are led of the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God, so the Holy Spirit leads. Paul says we were prevented of the Holy Spirit from going into Asia . So the Holy Spirit has a will, and has a purpose, and guides and so forth. So, all through the New Testament and the Old Testament, the Spirit of God is presented as thinking and doing and willing—
Tom:
Teaching, He’s the comforter, power—electric power doesn’t comfort or console us in any. Dave, for Christians, some object to the fact that there are songs to the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit is invited in and so on. In other words, there’s a thinking among Christians that praise, worship, all of those are not to be given to the Holy Spirit. What do you say to that?
Dave:
Well, first of all we don’t invite the Holy Spirit in. If we are saved, we are indwelt, we are sealed of the Holy Spirit, and furthermore, He is with us. Jesus said where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I. So people who say, Come, Holy Spirit, now we are going to give you permission to be here and to operate—you hear this in some of the so-called miracle crusades—that is not biblical at all. Now there are misunderstandings in this area. For example, Paul writes to the Ephesians and he says, “When He, the Spirit of truth is come…” that’s chapter 2 and “He will not speak of himself.” Some people say oh that means that the Holy Spirit doesn’t talk about himself. So anything that’s directed to the Holy Spirit, if you’re talking about the Holy Spirit, no it means He does not speak on his own initiative. Just as Jesus said, I can’t of my own self do anything, the Father does it. Father, Son and Holy Spirit work in concert and harmony as one. So, it doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit—well, how can the Holy Spirit inspire the Bible when it tells us about the Holy Spirit? So, on the other hand, we come to the Father through the Son, we worship Jesus, and so forth, nowhere do you get that kind of language in the Bible. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to know, who enables us to worship the Father, to worship the Son and so forth. But the Holy Spirit is God; make no mistake about that, one with the Father and the Son.
