Who or what is the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead and goes out forever from the Father through the Son. He is the comforter promised by Jesus Christ that God sent to all believers. The Holy Spirit lives in us, unites us with the Father and the Son, and transforms us through repentance and sanctification, and conforms us to the image of Christ through constant renewal. The Holy Spirit is the source of inspiration and prophecy in the Bible and the source of unity and fellowship in the Church. He gives spiritual gifts for the work of the gospel and is the Christian's constant guide to all truth (John 14,16; 15,26; Acts of the Apostles 2,4.17-19.38; Matthew 28,19; John 14,17-26; 1. Petrus 1,2; titus 3,5; 2. Petrus 1,21; 1. Corinthians 12,13; 2. Corinthians 13,13; 1. Corinthians 12,1-11; Acts 20,28:1; John 6,13).

The Holy Spirit - functionality or personality?

The Holy Spirit is often described in terms of functionality, such as: God's power or presence or action or voice. Is this a suitable way to describe the mind?

Jesus is also described as the power of God (Philippians 4,13), the presence of God (Galatians 2,20), the action of God (John 5,19) and the voice of God (John 3,34). Yet we speak of Jesus in terms of personality.

Holy Scripture also attributes personality traits to the Holy Spirit and subsequently elevates the profile of the spirit beyond mere functionality. The Holy Spirit has a will (1. Corinthians 12,11: "But all this is done by the same spirit and allocates to each his own as he wills"). The Holy Spirit searches, knows, teaches, and discerns (1. Corinthians 2,10-13).

The Holy Spirit has emotions. The spirit of grace can be reviled (Hebrews 10,29) and be grieved (Ephesians 4,30). The Holy Spirit comforts us and, like Jesus, is called a helper (John 14,16). In other passages of scripture the Holy Spirit speaks, commands, testifies, is lied to, and enters. All of these terms are consistent with personality.

Biblically speaking, the spirit is not a what, but a who. The mind is "someone", not "something". In most Christian circles, the Holy Spirit is referred to as "he", which is not to be understood as an indication of a gender. Rather, "he" is used to indicate the personality of the spirit.

The divinity of the spirit

The Bible attributes divine attributes to the Holy Spirit. He is not described as having angelic or human nature.
Job 33,4 remarks, "The Spirit of God made me, and the breath of the Almighty gave me life." The Holy Spirit creates. The spirit is eternal (Hebrews 9,14). He is omnipresent (Psalm 139,7).

Investigate the Scriptures and you will see that the mind is omnipotent, omniscient and gives life. All of these are attributes of the divine nature. Consequently, the Bible designates the Holy Spirit as divine. 

God is one "one"

A basic teaching of the New Testament is that there is a God (1. Corinthians 8,6; Romans 3,29-30; 1. Timothy 2,5; Galatians 3,20). Jesus indicated that he and the Father shared the same divinity (John 10,30).

If the Holy Spirit is a divine "somebody," is he a separate god? The answer must be no. If that were the case, then God would not be one.

The Scriptures point to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with names that have the same weight in sentence construction.

In Matthew 28,19 It says: "...baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". The three terms are different and have the same linguistic value. Similarly, Paul prays in 2. Corinthians 13,14that "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Peter explains that Christians “were chosen by the sanctification of the spirit unto obedience, and to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1. Petrus 1,2).

Hence Matthew, Paul and Peter clearly discern the differences between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Paul told the Corinthian converts that true deity is not a collection of gods (like the Greek pantheon) where each gives different gifts. God is One [one], and it is "one [same] Spirit... one [same] Lord... one [same] God working all in all" (1. Corinthians 12,4-6). Later Paul explained more about the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. They are not two separate entities, in fact he says "the Lord" (Jesus) "is the Spirit" (2. Corinthians 3,17).

Jesus said that God the Father would send the Spirit of truth so that He, the Father, might dwell in the believer (John 1 Cor6,12-17). The Spirit points to Jesus and reminds believers of his words (John 14,26) and is sent from the Father through the Son to bear testimony of the salvation that Jesus made possible (John 15,26). Just as the Father and the Son are one, so the Son and the Spirit are one. And in sending the Spirit, the Father dwells in us.

The Trinity

After the death of the New Testament apostles, debates arose within the church about how to understand the deity. The challenge was to preserve the unity of God. Various explanations put forward concepts of "bi-theism" (two gods - father and son, but the spirit is only a function of either or both) and tri-theism (three gods - father, son and spirit), but this contradicted the basic one Monotheism found in both the Old and New Testaments (Mal 2,10 etc.).

The Trinity, a term not found in the Bible, is a model developed by the early Church Fathers to describe how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are related within the unity of Godhead. It was the Christian defense against "tri-theistic" and "bi-theistic" heresies, and combated pagan polytheism.

Metaphors cannot fully describe God as God, but they can help us get an idea of ​​how to understand the Trinity. A picture is the suggestion that a person is three things at once: Just as a person is soul (heart, seat of feelings), body and spirit (understanding), so God is the compassionate Father, the Son (the divinity bodily - see Colossians 2,9), and the Holy Spirit (who alone understands things divine - see 1. Corinthians 2,11).

Biblical references that we have already used in this study teach the truth that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are different persons within the one being of God. The NIV Bible translation of Isaiah 9,6 points to a trinitarian idea. The child to be born will be “Wonderful Counselor” (the Holy Spirit), “Mighty God” (the Deity), “Almighty Father” (God the Father), and the “Prince of Peace” (God the Son) called.

Problems

The Trinity was hotly debated by various theological disciplines. So z. For example, the Western viewpoint is more hierarchical and static, while the Eastern perspective always shows a movement in the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Theologians speak of the social and economic trinity and other ideas. However, any theory that suggests that the Father, Son, and Spirit have separate wills or desires or existences must be viewed as untrue (and therefore false doctrine) because God is one. There is perfect and dynamic love, joy, harmony and absolute unity in the relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit to one another.

The Trinity doctrine is a model for understanding the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Of course, we do not worship any doctrine or model. We worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” (John 4,24). Theologies that suggest that the Spirit should get its fair share of glory are suspect because the Spirit does not draw attention to itself but glorifies Christ (John 1 Cor6,13).

In the New Testament, prayer is primarily addressed to the Father. The Scriptures do not require us to pray to the Holy Spirit. When we pray to the Father, we pray to the Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The differences in deity are not three gods, each demanding separate, reverent attention.

Moreover, in the name of Jesus, praying and baptizing are the same as doing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit can not be distinguished or superior to the baptism of Christ because the Father, the Lord Jesus, and the Spirit are one.

Receive the Holy Spirit

The Spirit is received in faith by anyone who repents and is baptized for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus (Acts 2,38 39; Galatians 3,14). The Holy Spirit is the spirit of sonship [adoption] who testifies with our spirit that we are God's children (Romans 8,14-16), and we are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our spiritual inheritance (Ephesians 1,14).

If we have the Holy Spirit then we belong to Christ (Romans 8,9). The Christian church is compared to the temple of God because the Spirit dwells in the believer (1. Corinthians 3,16).

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ who motivated the Old Testament prophets (1. Petrus 1,10-12), purifies the soul of the Christian in obedience to the truth (1. Petrus 1,22), capable of salvation (Luke 24,29), sanctify (1. Corinthians 6,11), brings forth divine fruit (Galatians 5,22-25), and prepare ourselves for the spread of the Gospel and the edification of the Church (1. Corinthians 12,1-twenty; 114,12; Ephesians 4,7-16; Romans 12,4-8).

The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth (John 16,13), and open the eyes of the world to sin, and to righteousness, and to judgment” (John 16,8).

Conclusion

The central biblical truth is that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, shapes our faith and our lives as Christians. The wonderful and beautiful communion shared by the Father, Son and Spirit is the communion of love into which our Savior Jesus Christ, through His life, death, resurrection and ascension, sets us as God in the flesh.

by James Henderson