Title: THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE BIBLICAL ILLUMINATION...2
Content ND
THE BIBLICAL ILLUMINATION ABOUT
THE GIFTS OF SPIRIT
Chapter 2
The personality of the Holy Spirit
Who is the Holy Spirit? One might think that the Spirit is merely a power of strength coming from God, a blessing which He grants us. However, it is easy to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is more than this. He is a person.
It is a fundamental revelation of Scripture that the Holy Spirit is a person in the same sense that God the Father is a person and the Lord Jesus Christ is a person. The Holy Spirit is presented in the Scripture as having the same essential deity as the Father and the Son and is to be worshiped and adored, loved and obeyed in the same way as the God. To regard the Holy Sprit in any other way is to make one guilty of blasphemy and unbelief. We tread therefore on most holy ground. In thinking of the Holy Spirit of god and the truth involved is most sacred and precious.
The personality of the Holy Spirit has been subjected to denial and neglect through the centuries of the Christian church and is seldom understood by twentieth-century Christians. The heretic Arins who stirred up a rebellion against the Scriptural teaching concerning the person of Christ and the person of the Holy Spirit denied the eternity of Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit. For him the Holy Spirit was only the “exerted energy of God” manifested in the created word. While his view was repudiated at the Nicene Council in 325, it foreshadowed the defection from Scriptural teaching while was to follow. Socinius and his followers in the sixteenth-century held that the Holy Spirit was merely the eternally proceeding energy of God.
This laid the foundation for modern Unitarianism. Variations in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit have been many through the centuries, but the great body of conservation and orthodox Christians have regarded the Holy Spirit as a person according to the revelation given in the Scriptures. Many may be surprised to hear that there are men professing to be Christians who flatly deny the personality of the Spirit.
The author will hot sully these pages by trancribing their blasphemies, but the author will mention one detail to which appeal is made by the Spiritual seducers, because some of out friends have possibly experienced a difficulty with it. In the second chapter of Acts, the Holy Spirit was said too be “poured out” (v. 18) and “shed abroad” (v. 33). How could such terms be used of a person? very easily: that language is figurative, and not literal; Literally, it can not be, for that which is spiritual is incapable of being materially “poured out” descends, so a “pouring” rain is a heavy one, so the Spirit freely given in the plenitude of His gifts.
One offers no apology, the, for devoting a separate article to the consideration of the personality of the Holy Spirit, for unless one has right conception of His glorious being, it is impossible that one should entertain a right thought about him, and therefore impossible for to render to Him that homage, love, confidence, and submission, which are His alone, and impossible rot us to understand the gifts of Him.
To the Christian who is given to realize that he owes to the personal operations of the Spirit every Divine influence exercised upon him from the first moment of regeneration until the final consummation in glory.
Use of Personal Affirms Personality
The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person. Jesus never referred to “it” when He was talking about the Holy Spirit.
In normal discourse, personal pronouns such as I, thou, he, they are used of persons. While personification occurs in literature frequently, it is always quite apparent and does not leave the meaning in doubt. Personal pronouns are used of the Holy Spirit in such a way that personal is affirmed.
In the New Testament, the Greek word “pneuma” is neuter and would normally take a neuter pronoun. In several instances, however, the masculine pronouns are found (John 15:26, 16:13-14). The only explanation for the masculine is that the pronouns refer to a person. Relative pronouns are used the same way in Ephesians 1:13-14. These indirect evidences confirm that the Holy Spirit is commonly regarded as a person in the Scripture.
Billy Graham mentions: “Whoever speaks of the Holy Spirit as “it” is uninstructed, or perhaps even undiscerning.”
Charles Hodge states: “He is introduced as a person so often, not merely in poetic of excited discourse, but in simple narrative and in didactic instructions; and His personality is sustained by so many collateral proofs, that to explain the use of the personal pronouns in relation to Him on the principle of personification, is to do violence to the rules of interpretation.”
His Attributes Affirm Personality
Personality is commonly defined as containing the essential elements of intellect, sensibility, and will. All of these elements can be found in the Holy Spirit.
He is endowed with understand of wisdom, which is the first inseparable property of an intelligent agent.
“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man, except the Spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God none knows, save the Spirit of God” (1Cor. 2:10-12, NIV)
Now to “search” is an act of understanding, and the Spirit is said to “search” because “He knows”. He is the Spirit of wisdom (Eph. 1:17, NIV) and the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah (Isa. 11:2, NIV).
He is endowed with will, which is the most eminently distinguishing property of a person: “All things worketh that one and selfsame Spirit, dividing unto every man as He will” (1 Cor. 12:11, NIV)
His sensibility is revealed in that the Spirit can be grieved by sin, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30, NIV). He loves: “I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit” (Rom. 15:30, NIV). Sustaining these essential elements of personality is the whole broad doctrine of the deity of the Holy Spirit.
Walvoord states: “If God possesses personality, and the Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity, it follows that He has personality. A denial of this personality is denial of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Billy Graham states: “The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, like gravity of magnetism. He is a person, with all the attributes of personality.”
His Actions Affirm Personality
The most tangible and conclusive evidence for the personality of the Holy Spirit is found in His actions. The very character of His works makes it impossible to interpret the Scriptures properly without assuming His personality. In view of the discussion of His works in detail which follow, it is necessary only to mention illustrations here. All the actions of the Holy Spirit are such that personality is required.
He speaks: “He who has an ear, let him hear what Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev, 2:7, NIV). While the disciple were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2, NIV).
He intercedes: “In the same way 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 groaning too deep for words” (Rom, 8:26, NIV) .
He testifies: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me” (john, 15:26, NIV).
He commands: “And they passed through the Phrygian and Galatians region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and they had come to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them” (Acts 16:6-7, NIV).
He creates: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen, 1:2, NIV).
He empowers: “So he said to me ‘This is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Zech, 4:6, NIV).
He teaches: “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell what is yet to come” (John, 16:13, NIV).
He comforts: “But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26, NIV).
He prays: “In the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Rom. 8:26, NIV).
He convinces the world: “When he comes, he will convict the world of judgment: in regard to sin, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned” (John. 16:8-11, NIV).
He guides: “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come: (John. 16:13, NIV).
He can be lied to: “Then Peter said, ‘Ananias, how is it that Stan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your dispos