Tuesday: Personal Aspects of the Holy Spirit – Part 2
A challenge we face in understanding the Holy Spirit is that we can imagine God as a Father in a somewhat tangible way. Many also have a concrete picture of Jesus, as He is described in the Gospels. He took our human nature and appeared to us in human form.
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The Holy Spirit, however, is presented in a very different manner. He is seemingly impalpable, much harder to comprehend than are the Father and the Son.
Hence some draw the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is only an impersonal power. As we have seen so far, that idea doesn’t really do justice to the nature of the Holy Spirit. In fact, there are statements in the Bible that would make no sense if the Holy Spirit were just an impersonal force or (divine) power.
Carefully read the following two passages and see if they make sense if you replace the reference to the Holy Spirit by the impersonal word “power.” Why do these texts make sense only if the Holy Spirit is, indeed, a Person?
Rom. 15:13 “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
1 Cor. 2:4 “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:”
The statement of the apostles that “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28, NASB) would be absurd if the Holy Spirit were only a power or an impersonal influence. The statement instead indicates another personal being, much as both the Father and Son are personal beings.
Furthermore, how can believers be baptized “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19, NASB), if the first two who are mentioned are Persons, but the third mentioned is not? That doesn’t make the best sense. Instead, all three are mentioned as being part of the same one name in whom we are baptized. Thus, the Holy Spirit is revealed here to be on the same level as God the Father and God the Son.
Ellen G. White has perceptively stated that “there are three living persons of the heavenly trio . . . the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” – Ellen G. White, Evangelism, p. 615. She, too, is very clear about the existent personality of the Holy Spirit.
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When Jesus was on earth physically walking among men he was not alone. The Holy Spirit was working in and through Him producing the very thoughts and feelings of the Father within Him. Therefore He could honestly say I do nothing of Mine own self but the Father teaches Me.
Our Father was His guide, continually teaching Him--developing His feelings, thoughts, and concepts continually through the work of the Holy Spirit . This is why we pray to the Father as He taught us to pray, "Our Father."
He had no access to the Father that we don't have. The Holy Spirit is always available to bring to our thoughts and feelings the very mind of the Father as was also in Christ Jesus. The thoughts and feelings and power and healing and gifts that were given to Christ Jesus are made available to all of us children through the inner workings of His Holy Spirit. The righteousness of Christ is also made available to all God's children through the Holy Spirit's work in our lives.
Let's choose Him today, all day, every day! He will give us victory and total success if we will have Him and not make ourselves more important .
For me, I look at this argument of the person or impersonal aspect of the Holy Spirit as an argument of the fundamentals of my faith. My faith is based on the Trinity Godhead - in whom I am baptised into. It would be very dangerous (for me) to raise such questions of person or imperson (or thing). The Trinity Godhead is something we cannot or must never put in something like an enclosure and give it a definition of sorts. They were there before anything came into being. They are everlasting to everlasting, eternal to eternal. Praise God the Trinity that they are all working non-stop to reform me to something I never thought I could be and growing!
James White, R&H, March 6, 1855 "The greatest fault we can find in the Reformation is, the Reformers stopped reforming. Had they gone on, and onward, till they had left the last vestige of Papacy behind, such as natural immortality, sprinkling, the trinity, and Sunday-keeping, the church would now be free from the unscriptural errors."
The Bible knows only one God Almighty who is the head of Christ so Godhead is Yahowah our Father. He is God to us and to Christ too, He is Father to us and Father to Christ too. He is Holy, Holy, Holy and He is Spirit too. Who is then The Holy Spirit? As for "third person" according to E.G.White one next to Christ in authority was Lucifer. So I would like to ask a question: who is the "Holy Spirit" the third person then?
The trinity issue of God is easy to understand if you accept the Bible account of creation of mankind. When God said, "Let us make man in our image," He meant just that. When Adam was made alive and saw His Creator, he saw someone that looked and thought and felt and responded in fellowship very much like himself. God made Adam like Himself in body, mind, and Spirit. The Holy Spirit was shared in the Breath of Life as God breathed in to the nostrils of Adam. Adam became a living soul made in the exact image of his Creator.
With the motivation of the Holy Spirit Adam performed like Jesus would have performed in any similar circumstance with the thoughts and feelings motivated by Love like his Creator.
This worked well and there was good fellowship with God and man in the garden home until the serpent educated them in the motivation of selfishness without the motivation of the Holy Spirit which led them to eat of the forbidden fruit. The rest is history for us to learn from as to how to regain the Holy Spirit as our source of Life and motivation.
Praise the Lord that the Holy Spirit is my constant companion through good times and bad. I thank God he is sent to me and all of us as a comforter! Amen.
We often question what or who is the Holy Spirit because of the limitation of our understanding. God has not ever given us a brain big enough to graspe that. Like when we hear of Jesus being born here on earth as the only begotten son of God. Was he a son when he was known as Micheal in heaven? And to us, a son is one that has been conceived. And once more, a Father is only a father if he conceived a child.(the limitation of our understanding. Yes it will take eternity to know God.)
Jesus our example while on earth, depended on the holy spirit to assist in fulfilling the Father's will. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." We too need to allow the holy spirit to work in us so we can fulfill God's will in our life and hasten the second coming of Jesus.
Into this moral and spiritual darkness Jesus came bringing life and light to all. Although the world did not recognize Him, "to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." However, God promises that through faith in Christ anyone can begin to move in a new direction. God is at work through the Holy Spirit to make us who HE intends us to be. So despite our differences, as members of the family of God we have been reconciled to Him through His death and resurrection and reconciled to each other through the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We keep unity by being united in the Spirit.
Peter K. Wangi
I second you but they're not putting up an argument but rather stressing on the importance of the holy spirit. Most Christians underrate the Holy Spirit because it performs the same tasks as God do but there is more into that than we think.This year's Sabbath school has thought me a lot.
I enjoyed reading the description of the mystery of the Personhood of the Holy Spirit in this lesson.
It brings me to a place where I must choose to either accept by faith in Gods Word the description given or fabricate tales that make what wasn't meant for me to understand, understandable.
I choose to believe Gods Word, and fully trust the love, comfort and transforming power of God the Holy Spirit.