Who Is The Holy Spirit?

But your shall receive power

when the Holy Spirit 

has come upon you; '

and you shall be witnesses

to Me in Jerusalem,

and in all Judea

and Samaria,

and to the 

ends of the earth.

Acts 1:8

     The Sovereignty of God was discussed, the Incarnation of the Wisdom of God was examined. Now we must turn our attention to the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed states: "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets...." Do you believe that statement? This creed clearly states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son and as the Doctrine of the Trinity so affirms, the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Godhead. This creed being necessary to clarify the position of the Church against the heresies that refuted the Doctrine of the Trinity. There was confusion within the early Church over the inclusion of Filioque (Latin: "and (from) the Son") which is found in the Nicene Creed in the Latin Church but not found in the Greek text which states that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father" (John 15:26).Filoque has been an ongoing source of conflict between the East and West Churches and contributed to the schism of 1054 A.D. and has been an obstacle to any attempt to reunify the two Churches. The Bible does not use the word "Trinity" yet we as Trinitarian Christians believe in the Trinity and oppose those who do not. The explicit use of a word does not indicate that the truth of the word is not explicitly revealed in Scripture. The same is true of the the use of the word "proceeds" from the Son and the Father. It is Scripture that gives us our Doctrine not we who give the meaning to Scripture. So what does the Scripture reveal?  In John 16:13-15 Jesus says of the Holy Spirit "he will take what is mine and declare it to you", and it is argued that in the relations between the Persons of the Trinity one Person cannot "take" or "receive" (λήψεται) anything from either of the others except by way of procession.Texts such as John 20:22 ("He breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit"), were seen by Fathers of the Church, especially Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria and Epiphanius of Cyprus as grounds for saying that the Spirit "proceeds substantially from both" the Father and the Son.Other texts that have been used include Galatians 4:6, Romans 8:9; Philippians 1:19, where the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of the Son", "the Spirit of Christ", "the Spirit of Jesus Christ", and texts in the Gospel of John on the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus (14:16, 15:26,16:7). Another form of discontent within the Church is the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit means when it is said that He comes into a person and resides with a child of God. We find within the Charismatic or Pentecostal movement an influence towards those who join them and call this giving of the Holy Spirit "third force." 
     Try and explain electricity! You may give the action of electricity, the movement of atoms excited by an electrical force, that it has a power, that it is dangerous in certain forms, etc. Yet, you have not explained electricity. It is difficult to explain that which is unexplainable. Take another example: Call a person on the other side of the world by using a phone, a cell phone for instance, and immediately that you speak they hear you and vice-versa. Try and explain that seemingly unexplainable. How then are we to explain the Holy Spirit? God in His word has revealed all that we should know. Unfortunately, electricity is misused, phones are used even though we have not a full understanding of their workings, even to the point of misusing them at times. The same is true of the Holy Spirit, He is used in ways that are not Scriptural, ways that give to us a feeling that we know of Him, that we have Him in our lives, yet what we have done is to use the term Holy Spirit, misused the teaching of what the Holy Spirit does for a true Christian, giving a person the feeling of holiness, of being right with God. 
     Who is the Holy Spirit? Is the Holy Spirit a Person? Or, is He just a power emanating from God, doing the bidding of God, but is not a Person as the Jehovah Witness teach, or that there is not a Trinity as the Modalist teach? Do you have a clear understanding of the Holy Spirit? Or, do you just tacitly believe, that you have acquiesced and believe so as not to "rock" the boat? Is the Holy Spirit leading your life in the ways of Scripture or is the gifts promised by God more important and used more importantly, than knowing and believing upon the Person of the Holy Spirit. God gives gifts, but only gives the gift, a single use of the Greek word, of the Holy Spirit to reside in the life of His children. We must not conjoin those two things, "gifts" and "gift." 
     This blog is just a beginning, and the above a preface to what will be discussed in the following blogs. We believe that God is a Person, that the Son of God, the Incarnated Wisdom of God, Jesus Christ to be a Person, and we can reach an understanding, a way to explain, their Personhood, but can we explain the Holy Spirit. We must wipe away the cobwebs that so entangle us and confuse us in regards to this Doctrine of the Third Person of the Trinity. Therefore, the first thing that will be discussed is: does the Bible teach that the Holy Spirit is a Person? Is the use of Filioque correct?


Thus the Lord God
     showed me...
                 Amos 7:4a


Be Glad And Rejoice In The Lord


Richard L. Crumb