By Jon Topping | November 29th, 2024
In order to show the Holy Spirit is a person, we’ll look at places in Scripture that ascribe attributes and actions to the Holy Spirit. When we look at these, they are not the kind of qualities that an “energy” or a “force” can have. Instead, these qualities are only the kind of things you could say about a person.
Firstly, lets look at the kinds of things the Holy Spirit does. In Matthew 4:1 and Mark 1:12 it says the Holy Spirit lead Jesus. A force cannot lead people. A person leads people. We also see a similar verse in Romans 8:14 where it says the Holy Spirit leads believers. Then later in verse 27 of that same chapter it says the Holy Spirit intercedes for the saints, according to the will of God. Here, the Holy Spirit is following the will of God, which implies there’s a distinction being made. For example, if a king were to pardon a criminal, you would never word it by saying, “the king pardoned the prisoner according to the will of the king”. It’s redundant, and frankly, doesn’t make much sense. The reason it says the Holy Spirit intercedes according to the will of God is because there are two persons involved; the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
We also see the personhood of the Holy Spirit when He speaks to people (Acts 8:29; 13:2), because forces and energies do not speak to people; only a person can speak to people. An important point to note here. Some will say that God spoke to these people “through” His Holy Spirit, implying that it’s really just a way of phrasing it to say that God did it, rather than identifying the Holy Spirit as another person. However, that’s not what the verse says. It directly says the Holy Spirit did the speaking. It’s not phrased in a way to say that the Holy Spirit is the energy or force by which God speaks. It phrases it in a way where the Holy Spirit is the one doing the speaking. (Note: This challenge, and the response to the challenge, happens with many of the points brought up in this blog. The answer is always the same. The passages treat it as if the Holy Spirit is a distinct person, rather than merely the force of God.)
We also see that the Holy Spirit dwells inside believers (John 14:16, 17), that He teaches us, and reminds us (John 14:26). Scripture also says that the Holy Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God (1 Cor 2:10). What would it even mean for an energy to search the depths of God? Or for a force to teach us, or remind us? Only a person can do these sorts of things. We also read about the gifts of the Spirit a lot in 1 Corinthians, and it says explicitly that the Holy Spirit gives these gifts “as He wills”. The way it’s worded is quite obviously treating the Holy Spirit as a person. Not only that, the verse goes out of its way to describe the person of the Holy Spirit as having a will of His own. Forces and energies do not have wills, and do not make decisions. Only people do that.
Next, we can see examples that are more passive, rather than direct actions of the Holy Spirit. These passive sorts of actions still show the personhood of God, but in a different way. For example, in Acts 15:28 it says the Holy Spirit had an opinion. Forces do not have opinions; people do. Then in Acts 10:19-21 it says that we as Christians are supposed to obey the Holy Spirit, which implies that the Holy Spirit commands and directs us. If there is a command that you are obligated to obey, that command came from a person, not some kind of impersonal force. In Acts 7:51 it says the Holy Spirit can be resisted, and in Isaiah 63:10 it says the Holy Spirit can be sinned against. I suppose in a sense you could resist a force, but the implication is that the Holy Spirit has a will, and a desire, and the person is fighting against the will of the Holy Spirit. However, I don’t think it makes any sense at all to say a force can be sinned against. You cannot sin against the force of gravity, or the energy in a battery. You can only sin against a person. Scripture also says the Holy Spirit can be blasphemed (Mark 3:29; Mat 12:31-32), and that the Holy Spirit can be lied to. Again, you cannot lie to a force or an energy; only a person can be lied to.
The last major group of attributes we can see for the Holy Spirit are feelings that the Holy Spirit can have. In Hebrews 10:29 it says that the Holy Spirit can be outraged, or insulted. In Ephesians 4:30 it says the Holy Spirit can grieve. These are very important qualities to pay attention to, because these show feelings and emotions within the Holy Spirit Himself. If, as some will argue, the Holy Spirit is merely the force or action of God going forward, then these emotions wouldn’t make any sense. For example, you might say that an enemy nation “forces the king’s hand”, in the sense that that hand of the king is performing the action of retaliation. No one would ever consider the king’s hand to be a separate person! However, no one would ever say the king’s hand has been outraged or insulted. The king himself is the one that can be insulted. So, when we see that the Holy Spirit grieves, or is insulted, it implies that the Holy Spirit is a person capable of feeling these sorts of emotions.
Now that we’ve seen the various qualities and attributes ascribed to the Holy Spirit, it’s also important to show that the Holy Spirit is distinct from the other persons of God. This is necessary because, as I’ve said, people like Jehovah’s Witnesses try to say that the Holy Spirit is merely the Father Himself, and that there is no real distinction between the two. As a first but very important point, the baptism of Jesus showcases the distinctness of the three persons of the Trinity (Mat 3:16). In this passage we see Jesus being baptized, the Holy Spirit descending upon Him like a dove, and that the Father speaking from heaven regarding Jesus. So, the voice in heaven is not coming from Jesus, nor is it coming from the dove. The voice in heaven is obviously God the Father, but Scripture says the dove was the Holy Spirit. These two things, the voice and the dove, are distinct from each other, and they are also distinct from Jesus.
Another major point to consider regarding the distinctness of the Holy Spirit from the Father is to look at the Day of Pentecost. Jesus said that He prayed to the Father, that the Father would send another helper. Jesus also said that He needed leave so that this helper, the Holy Spirit, could be sent (John 14:26, 16-18; 15:26; 16:7). In other words, Jesus is not the Holy Spirit. It also says that the Father will send the Holy Spirit as a representative of Jesus. So, if the Father is sending the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is not the Father. If the Holy Spirit is a representative of Jesus, then He’s not Jesus. If Jesus prayed to the Father to send another helper, and the Father did, then this helper is not the Father, nor is it Jesus. This obviously shows the three persons of the Trinity being distinct persons.
Another passage that is similar to this is found in Isaiah 48:16. This is a particularly powerful passage, because it’s found in the Old Testament, and was written centuries before Jesus even came to earth. Here’s what the verse says, “from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there. And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.” For this verse, obviously this is God speaking, because He’s saying He has been there from the beginning, and from the time everything came into existence He was there. However, He also says that the Lord God has sent Him… so He’s not God? Even though He obviously is God? And then it says that God’s Spirit sent Him as well. In any other understanding, this verse makes no sense. Only when understood as God being three persons, distinct from each other, and yet all the same God, can this verse possibly make any sense. Therefore, this one verse reveals three different persons, all of which are God, and yet are distinct from each other.
From this dive into how Scripture describes the Holy Spirit we can see that the actions, the attributes, and the feelings of the Holy Spirit let us know that the Holy Spirit is in fact a person. Then, we can see other places in Scripture that let us know that the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son.
Jon Topping is a speaker with Engage International and is based out of Canada.
