Tag: Spirit

God the Holy Spirit

Posted on by Edward Dalcour

The Holy Spirit

1) Is called God and Lord in a religious context.  

2 Is identified as YHWH.

3) Possesses the divine attributes.

4) Accomplishes divine works.

5) Was worshiped as God; that is, in the same way as that of the Father (and Son).

6) Possesses personal attributes and characteristics affirming His personhood.

7) Is a distinct person from the Father and the Son.

 

Biblical Data

 1) Just as the Son is, the Holy Spirit is referred to as God and Lord in a religious context.

The biblical authors were strict monotheists (i.e., believing in one God), they present the Holy Spirit as truly God distinct from God the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is called Theos (“God”). In Acts 5:3-4, the personhood of the Holy Spirit is unquestionably seen by the fact that only a self-aware “person” can be lied to—one cannot lie to a rock or electricity.

In verse 4, the person of the Holy Spirit, to whom Ananias lied, is called Theos (“God”). After Peter harshly asked Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” Peter then explained in the next verse, “You [Ananias] have not lied to men but to God.” Also, in the narrative (5:9), the Holy Spirit is called, “the Spirit of the Lord.” The OT, the phrase, “the Spirit of the Lord [YHWH]” occurs two-dozen times. “The Spirit of YHWH” was indeed God. The Holy Spirit is called Kurios (“Lord”) in a religious context (2 Thess. 3:5). As mentioned above, the NT authors cited OT passages referring to YHWH and applied them to the Holy Spirit. The person of the Holy Spirit is referred to as both God and Lord in a religious context, thus, ontologically (in essence).

 

2) The Holy Spirit is identified as YHWH.

In the OT, the Spirit of God was in fact God.  David rhetorically asks YHWH, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (Ps. 139:7). The Hebrew parallelism here indicates that David sees YHWH’s Spirit as the very presence of YHWH. Further, throughout the OT, the “Spirit” (or “Spirit of YHWH/God”) shares the same attributes as YHWH. For example, He is presented as the Creator (Gen. 1:2; Job 33:4; Ps. 104:30); He abides with believers (Ps. 51:11; Isa. 63:10-11); He gives wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to men (Exod. 31:3).

Also, as with the Son, the NT authors cite OT passages referring to YHWH and apply them to the Holy Spirit (Acts 28:25-27, Heb. 3:7; 10:15; also cf. Acts 5:9 with Deut. 6:16).

3) The Holy Spirit possesses divine attributes.

As God, the Holy Spirit possesses the specific attributes that only God has. The author of Hebrews indicates that the Holy Spirit is eternal: “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. 9:14). The author of Hebrews refers to the Spirit as pneumatos aiōniou, lit., “Spirit eternal.” The same adjective (aiōniou, “eternal”) is used of God in Rom. 16:26: Theou aiōniou, “God eternal.” Thus, the person of the Holy Spirit is the eternal God—for only God is eternal.

4) The Holy Spirit accomplishes divine works.

For example, Holy Spirit is the agent of Mary’s pregnancy (Matt. 1:18); He regenerates a spiritually dead man (John 3:5; Titus 3:5); He dwells in/with the believer (1 Cor. 3:16); distributes spiritual gifts according to His own will (1 Cor. 12:11); seals believers for redemption (Eph. 1:13); and sanctifies believers and works in their life (Thess. 2:13). Only because the Holy Spirit is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent is He able to complete these acts. Moreover, Paul says in 1 Cor. 2:10 that the Holy Spirit “searches all things even the depths of God.” The Greek term translated “searches” is erauna (from ereunaō). This verb carries the idea of “logical investigation” (BDAG). The tense indicates that the “searching” is continuous and active—He is always searching, knowing all things at all times. In verse 11, the Holy Spirit is said to know the thoughts of God. Only God can know the thoughts of God.

5) The Holy Spirit was worshiped as God.

In Matt. 28:19, Jesus commands all new converts to be baptized into the name (i.e., “power, authority”) of the triune God. Water baptism signifies the unification or identification with whom the participant is being baptized—the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Another kind of religious worship is direct prayer. In Matt. 9:38, Jesus instructs His disciples to “beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” First, the fact that Jesus refers to “Lord of the harvest” in the third person (“His”, not “My” harvest) indicates that the “Lord of the harvest” is not Himself. Second, as seen, the Holy Spirit is called “Lord” several times in the NT in a religious context. Third, there is no contextual reason to believe that the “Lord of the harvest” is the Father. And finally, in Acts 13:1-4, the Holy Spirit sends out the laborers (“Barnabas and Saul”) to the missionary (harvest) field. As God, the Holy Spirit was worshiped and honored in the same sense as that of the Father and Christ.

                   

6) The Holy Spirit possesses personal attributes and characteristics affirming His personhood.

As seen, groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) reject the personhood of the Holy Spirit equating Him to an impersonal force like electricity. However, the personhood of the Holy Spirit is biblically demonstrated and defined by the Holy Spirit’s use of personal pronouns and first person verbs of Himself and the personal attributes that the Holy Spirit possesses. The same biblical data that supports the personhood of God the Father is applied to the Holy Spirit.

– Personal pronouns and first person verbs. In the NT, personal pronouns are applied to the Holy Spirit. In Acts 10:19-20, for example, the Holy Spirit identifies Himself, not merely as “God’s activity,” but rather as egō (“I”), that is, a self-aware person:

19 “While Peter was reflecting on the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 But get up, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I [egō] have sent them Myself.”

Note Acts 13:2, “While they were serving the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set Barnabas and Saul apart for Me for the work to which I have called them.’” Here the Holy Spirit not only issues personal commands, but refers to Himself as moi (“Me,” from egō) and uses the first person verb proskeklēmai (“I have called them”)—in the NT, this verb is only used of persons. not forces, nor modes, nor manifestations.

– Personal attributes and characteristics. It would be a fallacy of equivocation to equate person with people, as many anti-trinitarians do. Those who do so misunderstand the meaning of both terms. For example, angels fall under the category of “person,” but they are not “people.” Likewise, the Holy Spirit can be called and ontologically categorized as “person,” though He is not in the ontological class of “people” (same with the Father). So, all people are persons, but not all persons are people. Hence, God the Father, Satan, demons, angels, and the Holy Spirit are persons, but they are not people.

The Holy Spirit possesses many personal characteristics (as with the Father and Son) denoting that the Holy Spirit is a self-aware subject or Ego (i.e., person) cognizant of His own existence, which is clearly demonstrated by the specific personal characteristics or attributes He possesses:

He can be blasphemed (Mark 3:29, 30).

He can be lied to (Acts 5:3).

He intercedes or prays on the behalf of the believer (Rom. 8:26).

He issues commands (Acts 13:2, 4; 16:6).

He is intelligent in that He investigates and searches (1 Cor. 2:10-11; Rom. 8:27).

He has a will (1 Cor. 12:9-11).

He could be grieved (Isa. 63:10; Eph. 4:30).

He testifies (Neh. 9:30; John 15:26; Heb. 10:15) and teaches (John 14:26).

 

Only cognizant persons can exercise and engage in intelligent communication (Acts 10:19-20; 13:2, 4). Scripture presents many clear examples of the Holy Spirit intelligently communicating to others (as shown above). Even the anti-trinitarian JWs, in the Watchtower’s Awake magazine, distinguish a personification from a person as they rightfully define a person: “Is the Devil a personification or a person….? Can an unintelligent person carry on a conversation with a person? … only an intelligent person can.”[1]

The Apostle Paul, in his Trinitarian benediction, comforts the saints in Corinth with these words: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). Only self-aware persons can experience true koinōnia (“fellowship”). This same koinōnia, believers have with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:3). Moreover, as a distinct person, the Holy Spirit gives love: “Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Rom. 15:30).

Love is something that the Holy Spirit possesses and gives. As with true personal fellowship, only persons can possess, give, and experience love. Hence, abstract things such as natures, modes, manifestations, electricity, etc. have not the ontological capability to accomplish these things—only persons do. Thus, He is a person, not a mere influence.

7) The Holy Spirit is a distinct person from God the Father and the Son.

As with the Son, the Holy Spirit is frequently juxtaposed with the Father and the Son (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 2:18). The Son personally relates to the Father and to the person of the Holy Spirit, and the reverse is altogether true of the Father and the Holy Spirit relating to each other. In John 14:16, Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [allon] Helper [better trans., “Advocate”] that He may be with you forever.”

Scripture presents that the Holy Spirit is a self-aware person or self. He possesses personal attributes and personal pronouns are applied to Him. The same evidence that confirms the personhood of the Father confirms the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, Scripture clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is God in the fullest and truest sense. Accordingly, the Holy Spirit should be worshiped as God. He is distinct from the Father and the Son. He is the eternal almighty God, who regenerates sinners and glorifies the Father and the Son—He is the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.

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NOTES

[1] Awake!, 8 December 1973, 27.

The Holy Spirit’s Occupation

Posted on by Edward Dalcour

 

When we speak of the Holy Spirit – we are speaking of the Third Person of the Trinity – God the Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit in the NT is the same person as the Spirit in the Old Testament—different only in scope, not person or nature. Let’s review some of the important activities of the Spirit in the life of the believer:

 

The Spirit Indwells all Believers

JOHN 14:17: “That is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be “in you”(cf. Rom. 8:9-11; 1 Cor. 3:16), In John 14:23. As the Spirit dwells with/in us, the Father and the Son dwells with/in us (cf. John 14:23; 1 John 1:3).

 

The Necessity and Benefits of the Holy Spirit


Dwelling Within Us

  1. That the Spirit indwells us shows that we are children of God, heirs of Him, and “fellow-heirs with Christ”—Romans 8:16–17: “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”

 

  1. The indwelling Spirit gives us the wisdom and knowledge of the testimony of God and the crucifixion of the Son—1 Corinthians 2:12: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.”

 

  1. The indwelling Spirit leads and guides us—Romans 8:14: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”; 1 John 4:4: “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

 

The Holy Spirit accomplishes regeneration in the hearts of sinners—John 6:63: It is the “Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.” Titus 3:5-7: “He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace – we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Observe the emphasis of all three persons of the Trinity here. The same combination of words are found in Ezekiel 36:25-27 and Isaiah 44:3.

 

The Holy Spirit Sanctifies us at Conversion

1 Corinthians 1:2: “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (cf. 1 Cor. 1:30-31; 6:11).

 

2 Thessalonians 2:13: “But we should [imperative mood] always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth” (cf. 1 Pet. 1:1-2).

 

1 Peter 1:1-2: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those . . . who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.”

 

He is our Paraklētos (“Advocate”)

 John 14:16: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper [paraklētos, lit., “advocate”], that He may be with you forever.”[1]

 

The Holy Spirit Intercedes on Our Behalf

 Romans 8:26-27: “The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

 

The Holy Spirit installs Pastors

Acts 20:28: “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

 

The Holy Spirit Provides the Opportunities and the Results

Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (cf. Acts 8:29; Acts 10:19-20; Acts 13:2). The Holy Spirit also hinders evangelism (cf. Acts 16:6).

 

We Fellowship with the Holy Spirit in the context of the Triune God 

  2 Corinthians 13:14: “The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”

 

The Holy Spirit Gives Love to the Elect

 Romans 15:30: “Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.”

 

The Spirit enables us to carry out the Fruit of the Spirit in our Christian life
 (cf. Gal. 5:22-23)

 First note the starting context in the verse 16 (syntactical literal reading): “walk [‘behave, live’] by means of the Spirit [pneumati] and the lust of the flesh, never never, not even a possibility shall you gratify [‘fulfill, complete’].” The Spirit here in verse 16 is the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit that is spoken of in verses 18 and 22, thus, not the “spiritual” part of our nature, nor our spirit in union with the Spirit.

 

Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Interestingly, the term “fruit” (karpos) is singular, although there are nine characteristics. Grammatically, the term “love” (agapē) could have the semantic idea of the affixed English colon (“love:”). If this is the intended meaning, Paul would be indicating that the fruit of the Spirit is love, and the eight following characteristics is how Paul defines love. Thus, the fruit of love consists of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

 

The Filling and Baptism of the Spirit

As seen, the indwelling of the Spirit refers to the eternal relationship (“in you”) we have with the Triune God at conversion—permanent and perpetual. Whereas “being filled,” as in Acts and Paul’s literature, was not permanent (and spontaneous in Acts). This particular phenomenon only occurred in special circumstances, usually producing boldness in the proclamation of the gospel—namely, as in Acts, the resurrection of Christ: “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31) and rarely did it result in tongues.

 

Further, being filled with/by the Spirit in Acts is not the same as the command to be filled with the Spirit in, for example, Ephesians 5:18. Notice that the verbal actions are present tense, in contrast to the single isolated accounts in Acts (which Paul could have achieved by using past tenses): “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled [present imperative] en pneumati [lit., “by means of the Spirit”]. Syntactically, the preposition en (in, by, with) followed by the dative pneumati (“Spirit”) indicates instrument (means), not “content.”[2] The two imperatives (commands), which are in the middle/passive voice, are, do not “get drunk” and “be filled” by means of the Spirit.

 

Thus, believers are to be filled (perhaps a reference to God’s moral attributes, or joy) by Christ (who is the agent) by means of the Spirit.[3] Moreover, note the five participles in verses 19-21, “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, “singing,” “making melody,” “always giving thanks,” and “being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” These are semantically participles of result—indicating the result of being filled by the Spirit. This filling is not connected with speaking in tongues. Further, Spirit filling in Acts was never commanded as in here in verse 18. In Acts, it was special inoculation or saturation of the Spirit for a particular work of service (similar to the Spirit’s activity of filling in the OT). Thus, Paul says that we must be continually filled with the Spirit, not just once or twice.

 

Spirit Baptism

It was John the Baptist who first prophesied Spirit baptism: “I baptized you with water; but He [Christ] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8). This prophecy was reiterated in Acts 1:4-5. Notice also that Mark 1:8 and Acts 1:5 contain the same syntactical construction– “baptized, en pneumati hagiō (lit., “with [the] Spirit Holy”). As seen in Ephesians 5:18, en (in, by, with) followed by a noun in the dative case (here, pneumati) can denote “means”—thus, “by means of the Spirit.” So according to this prophecy, Christ is the agent of the baptism (i.e., the one doing the action) and the Spirit is the instrument (i.e., the means, which Christ uses to perform the action)

 

When was this prophecy fulfilled? First, no exact time stamp is provided, but the first occurrences are in Acts. However, 1 Corinthians 12:13, does express a fulfilled action among all Christians: “For en heni pneumati [“by means of one Spirit”] we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” As in Mark 1:8; Acts 1:5; and Ephesians 5:18, we find en + dative indicating that the baptism was “by means of” the one Spirit (Christ being the agent). And note the double usage of pan (“all”) indicting that ALL Christians were baptized by the Spirit (at conversion), not merely a special class of so-called “anointed” or mature believers.

Spirit baptism is a gift promised by the Father – given first in Acts, which happens at conversion to ALL believers.

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The Holy Spirit is active in our lives – He is our paraklētos, that is, He is called to be alongside of us. He regenerated us and caused us to be born again having sealed us for the day of redemption (cf. Eph. 1:13). And the same Spirit that hovered over the face of the waters (cf. Gen. 1:2), dwelled with David, came upon Samson and other judges and prophets, led Jesus into the wilderness, poured out upon all of His people at Pentecost, and filled Peter – lives with us and fills us—and helps us in our weaknesses. He provides us “fruit” to edify and move us to a life of love, relationship, and works of service – ultimately to glorify the Triune God.

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Notes 

[1] Paraklētos appears five times in the NT – John 14:16, 26, 15:26; 16:7 and once in 1 John 2:1 with in reference to the Son.

[2] See exegetical discussion of this passages in Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 93,374-75,375 

[3] Ibid.