The PERSON of the HOLY SPIRIT
with a Brief Introduction to the Trinity

In this article, we'll look at the person of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity (consisting of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit).  As with the other persons of the Godhead (the Trinity), it's impossible to separate the Person from His works, however, we'll primarily mention the works of the Spirit as they pertain to the Person, leaving a more detailed treatment of His works for another article.

Why Study the Spirit

The Holy Spirit is seen today, from our point of view, as the most prominent of the three persons of the Trinity, sometimes thought of as our "point of contact" with the Godhead.  The Father's work was most noticeable during the OT period, and the Son's during His time on earth.  The Holy Spirit has been the most conspicuous from the time of Pentecost,  and in an experiential sense, the Person through which we experience God today. 

Challenges in Studying the Holy Spirit

For most modern Christians, visualizing the Holy Spirit is much tougher than with the other two persons of the Trinity.  Even though the Father and Son are also spirits, we can picture God as a father figure, and Jesus manifested Himself as a human being.  It also doesn't help that older Bible versions such as the KJV referred to the third person of the Trinity as the Holy Ghost, which may conjure up visions of white sheets or of Casper, the cartoon ghost.

In comparison to the other members of the Godhead, the Scriptures provide less explicit revelation about the Spirit, the only extended treatment being Jesus' teachings in John 14-16.  This is probably due to the  Spirit being voluntarily subordinate (in function, not in essence) to the Father and the Son.  The Spirit's main ministry is revealing and glorifying the Father and Son, therefore, I believe that when we are most yielded to the control of the Spirit, we are actually least aware of His presence, and more aware of the presence of the Father and the Son.

Since it's very difficult to understand the Holy Spirit without some basic knowledge of the Trinity, we'll start with a brief overview of this doctrine. 

 [TOC]   [Top of Page]
 

Introduction to the Trinity

The traditional formula for the doctrine of the trinity is "one God, three Persons", which stresses the unity of the three Persons having one essence, or nature.  I believe the key terms to understand here are "unity" and "person".  The Scriptures do not use the term "Trinity" or give us an explicit statement asserting the doctrine; however, there are so many implications of the unity and deity of the three Persons of the Godhead, especially in the NT (the Gospel of John in particular), that we conclude the church was correct in formulating the doctrine.

Two Trinitarian Heresies

With a doctrine as complex as that of the Trinity, it is not surprising that several heresies have developed.  We should state here that a heresy is not always a deliberate or blatant falsehood, but can merely be an inadequate formulation of a doctrine.  We'll briefly define the two most common heresies, "Tritheism" and "Modalism".

Tritheism regarded the Godhead as consisting of three independent and autonomous divine beings.  This heresy denied the unity of the Trinity.  Modalism went the other direction, upholding the unity of the Trinity, but treated the three persons of the Trinity as a single Person who has revealed Himself in three "modes" at different times throughout history.  The most common approach is that God revealed Himself as the Father in creation, as the Son in redemption, and as the Spirit in sanctification.  This is the most prominent heresy today, held by such persons as TJ Jakes and recording artists (and pastors) Phillips, Craig and Dean.  This also seems to be the position held by Paul Crouch and many of his guests on his network (which also offers much good programming).  It is ironic that, calling themselves the Trinity Broadcasting Network,  many at the network appear to deny the Church's traditional position on this doctrine.

"Unity" of the Trinity

The unity of the Trinity is sometimes referred to as "three-in-one", "three-in-oneness", or "triune".  The most well-known verse in the Scriptures regarding the unity of God is the Shema:

Hear O' Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One (Deut 6:4).

The Hebrew word used for "One" in this passage is "Echad", which gives us a sense of "a unity within plurality".  By contrast, the Hebrew word for a single, solitary oneness (Yachid) is never used in connection with God's oneness.  The word Echad also occurs in Genesis 2:24 - For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one (echad) flesh.  Other uses include (in regard to the Tabernacle) the fifty gold clasps that hold the curtains together to make the tent a unit (echad) in Exodus 26; and the Lord directing Ezekiel to join two sticks, representing Judah and Ephraim, to show He would make the two kingdoms into a single (echad) nation (Ez 37).  In each case, we see the word echad used to represent a unity made up of multiple parts.

"Persons" and History of the Trinity

The meaning of the word "person" has changed somewhat over the years, so let's look at a little history.  The North African church father, Tertullian, is probably the theologian most responsible for developing the Trinitarian terminology.  One of the obstacles in the third century was that there were no words in Latin (the language of the church) which could describe the Trinity.  According to historians, Tertullian was a brilliant scholar who was responsible for coining over 500 new nouns, approximately 300 new adjectives and 200 new verbs.  Fortunately for Latin students, not all caught on, but three that did were Trinitas (Trinity), persona (person), and substantia (substance).  Tertullian introduced "substance" to express the common foundational unity of the Trinity (that which the members had in common), despite their diversity (not independence).

The word persona (person) literally means "a mask", such a one worn by an actor in a Roman play.  During this time period, an actor might play several roles (including female parts) within the play, so he would switch masks to allow the audience to understand which character he was portraying.  So Tertullian's original meaning of "three persons" appears to include the distinct, yet related roles of each member of the Trinity.

Discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity was limited in the first three centuries due to the concentration of theological debates being centered primarily on the deity of Jesus.  Once this doctrine was established, debate turned to whether the Holy Spirit was "an activity, a creator, or God".  In 381, a Council at Constantinople formulated a statement describing the Spirit as " the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, and is worshipped and glorified with the Father and Son".  While the council clearly stated that the Holy Spirit should be considered equal in rank, it stopped short of using the term "God". 

The phrase "proceeds from the Father" subsequently became a heated debate which became known as the filioque controversy.  In the ninth century, the western church revised the phrase to read "proceeds from the Father and the Son" (filioque is a Latin term literally meaning "and from the Son").  The eastern church disagreed in the strongest terms, and this controversy was a major part of the split between the western (Roman Catholic) and eastern (Eastern Orthodox) churches in the middle of the eleventh century.

Early in the twentieth century, theologian BB Warfield called John Calvin "the theologian of the Holy Spirit", stating that Calvin's doctrine of the Spirit "is Calvin's gift to the church".  To properly address even an introduction to Calvin's discourse on the Spirit will require a separate article, so we'll just just mention Calvin's attitude toward the doctrine.  While Calvin went to considerably precise details in his doctrine, he recognized the limitations of the Greek and Latin terms, and despised quibbling over words, stating we should "Say that in the one essence of God there is a trinity of persons; you will say in word what Scripture states and cut short empty talkativeness" (Institutes I.13.5).  Calvin also held that the exact relationship between the three Person of the Trinity is "incommunicable", that it transcended mere human words.

Perhaps Adrian Rogers said it best (not sure who originally coined the phrase) "Try to understand the Trinity and you'll lose your mind, but try to deny the Trinity and you'll lose your soul."

 [TOC]   [Top of Page]
 

Person of the Holy Spirit

Before we get to a discussion of some of the attributes of the Holy Spirit, I think we can draw some mental pictures by looking at the Hebrew word ruach (Greek pneuma) whose full meaning is almost impossible to reproduce in English.  It is traditionally translated "Spirit", but also can be translated "wind" or "breath".  We want to be careful not to identify God the Holy Spirit as a force of nature, but we can draw some parallels. 

The Hebrews would associate the "Spirit" of God with His power and redemptive purpose, most prominently displayed in the exodus from Egypt (including the powerful wind which divided the Red Sea in Exodus 14).  The Hebrews also pictured God as a judge, with His "wind" as a means of blessings and curses.  The east wind brought a mist of fine sand which scorched vegetation and the land (Is 40:17) and destroyed human pride.  The west wind brought the cool air and moisture from the Mediterranean, providing refreshment to the land and the human spirit (Hos 6:3). 

The idea of the Spirit as "breath" was associated with life, such as God breathing the breath of life into Adam (Gen 2), and the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. 

The Spirit is also associated with the term "charism", which refers the "filling of a person with the Spirit of God" , enabling the person to perform task which otherwise would be impossible.  These are commonly referred to as "spiritual gifts", which we'll discuss in the article on the "Works of the Spirit".

Deity of the Holy Spirit

Establishing the deity of the Holy Spirit from Scripture is not quite as straightforward as that of the Son.  When I say "establish the deity of the Holy Spirit", I don't mean to imply that the Spirit is dependant on our reasoning or belief for His deity.  The Spirit's deity is self authenticating and independent of whether or not we believe and accept it. 

Regarding the deity of Jesus, we have His own testimony with the many "I am" statements, in addition to those claims by the authors of Scripture.  Most prominent are Paul's Christological statements in Colossians 1:13-20, and in Philippians, Chapter 2, where he writes "although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped" (v6, NASB).  There are two Greek words used for "form" in the NT.  The first is "schema", which gives us the sense of shape or superficial appearance rather than substance.  The word used in this passage, however, is "morphe", which means "the set of characteristics which constitutes a thing what it is".  Therefore, Paul is strongly asserting the deity of Christ.

While we don't have a corresponding statement regarding the Holy Spirit, I believe the Scriptures identify His deity in several other ways.  First there are many passages where references to the Spirit and to God are used interchangeably.  One of the most distinguished is in Acts 5, where Ananias and Sapphira held back proceeds from the sale of their property, and misrepresented the amount they gave to the Apostles.   Peter equates lying to the Spirit with lying to God.  In 1 Corinthians 3:16-20, Paul uses God and the Spirit interchangeably with regard to statements about our bodies being a temple.

A second means by which the Scriptures verify the deity of the Holy Spirit is by ascribing to Him the attributes of God.  The Spirit possesses Omnipotence (Gen 1:2, Lk 1:35), Omnipresence (Ps 139:7-10), Omniscience (1Cor 2:10-11), Eternality (Heb 9:14) and Truth (1Jn 5:6).

The scriptures also ascribes works to the Holy Spirit that can only be performed by God.  We'll discuss these further in our "Works of the Holy Spirit" article, but some of these are Creating, Inspiring, Convicting, Regenerating, Comforting, Interceding, Sanctifying, and Begetting and Resurrecting Jesus from the dead.

Finally we see the Trinitarian statements in scripture, the best-known being the baptismal formula (aka the Great Commission) of Matthew 28:19.  Another example is Paul's benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14 "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."  Finally, Peter writes of the respective roles of the G0dhead in salvation in the salutation from his first epistle, "To God's elect... who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood..." (1Pe 1:1-2).

Personality of the Holy Spirit

It is also important that we note the personality of the Holy Spirit.  He is not an impersonal force, but possesses characteristics such as intelligence (1Cor 2:10-11), will (1Cor 12:11, Acts 13:2) and feelings (Eph 4:30).  One of Scripture's most evidential statements comes from Jesus Himself, when in His description of the Spirit's ministry in John 16:13-14, He uses a masculine pronoun instead of a neuter pronoun.  The Greek word for spirit (pneuma) is neuter, so we would expect the pronoun to agree with its antecedent in person, number and gender; however, Jesus overrides the proper use of the Greek language in order to assert the personification of the Spirit.

We also see the Spirit performing works normally reserved for a person, such as teaching (Jn 14:26), contending and restraining (Gen 6:3), commanding (Acts 8:29), leading and guiding (Acts 8:14), and speaking (Jn 15:26).

 [TOC]   [Top of Page]
 

Summary and Conclusions

In summary, we thus conclude the following.

The Holy Spirit is fully divine, and deserving of the same honor and respect accorded to the Father and the Son.  The Spirit should not be thought of as being inferior in nature, even though His role may be in subordination to the other members of the Godhead.

The Holy Spirit is a person, not a vague or impersonal force.  We can pray to and have a personal relationship with Him, just as with the Father and the Son.

We can't perfectly understand the exact relationship within the Trinity, but the Spirit is one with the Father and Son.  His will is in perfect harmony with that of the Father and Son, and there is no tension among their works or persons.

The triune God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, now resides in us.  Through the person and works of the Holy Spirit, He has truly become Immanuel, "God with us".

 [TOC]   [Top of Page]