Is the Holy Spirit God?

Gary: Now, Contending for the Faith…. 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 third 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 be Jehovah’s Witnesses or others who don’t recognize the Holy Spirit as a person, but, as the questioner indicates, sort of a “power,” like electricity and so 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. It’s 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 attributes, some characteristics, that are found in God.

Dave: Well, we’ll see the deformed and we’ll see we’re fallen short …

Tom: Right. No, I’m talking about omniscience and you know, His divine attributes…

Dave: Right. Right. But we’ve fallen 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. For example…

Tom: Now, you say “He”—a personal being—not “it.”

Dave:  Yes. I had a little conversation with a gentleman on the plane the other day about that. He said, “Why do you say ‘He’”? We were talking about God, and He said, “Well, 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,’ ‘She,’ or ‘He.’ 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.
See All..., the very first verse, says, “In the beginning, Gods [‘Elohim’ 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. Yet all through the Old Testament you have a plurality and singularity.

At the burning bush, for example, Moses says, “What’s your name? Who are you?” God says, “Well, it is Elohim.” Plural. “Gods” is speaking. But “Elohim” does not say, “We are that we are.” Elohim says, “I am that I am.”

Okay, 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…

Dave: Exactly…

Tom: Power, electric power doesn’t comfort, console us in any way…

Dave: No.

Tom: All right. 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.

Tom: Right.

Dave: We are indwelt. If we’re saved, we’re indwelt, we’re sealed, with the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, He is with us. Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I.” So, for people to say, “Come, Holy Spirit, now we’re going to give you the permission to be here and to operate…” You hear this from 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. “…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, or your talking about the Holy Spirit, no! It means He does not speak on His own initiative. Just as Jesus said, “I can of my own self do nothing. The Father does it.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work in concert, in 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.