The Holy Spirit is one of the three divine persons of the Trinity. I know! He is a gift of God, lives within us, gives us life, guides us to the truth, and is a person. He is God living inside of those who have accepted Christ as their Savior. However, many of us probably struggle to think of the Holy Spirit as a person. But if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7). This practice is still retained in English translations—wherever you see LORD the underlying Hebrew word is Yahweh. We might say Sally has a joyful spirit or that Johnny has an adventurous spirit, but we wouldn’t say Johnny and Sally are spirits. It is crucial that the Holy Spirit comes so that we might become "…a temple of the Holy Spirit within you…" (1 Corinthians 6:19). Our difficulty in fully recognizing the Holy Spirit as a person is, perhaps, compounded by the many biblical symbols for the third person of the Trinity: water, anointing oil, fire, the cloud, the seal, and the dove (see this list in the catechism). He makes no mention of the Holy Spirit as a divine person. ‘A martyr who died laughing’: Cause of priest imprisoned by Nazis and communists advances, Man who filmed 'prank video' at Mass in Canada charged with hate crime, Pope Francis appoints first lay head of Roman Curia’s disciplinary commission, Cardinal Dolan condemns 'ugly and unlawful' defacement of St Patrick’s cathedral, Argentine boy saved from stray bullet by crucifix, Analysis: Pro-lifers will have to fight hidden abortion funding battles in the Senate. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified," as we profess belief in every Sunday. As a Person, the Holy Spirit is one we can be in relation with. These comparisons would make no sense if the Holy Spirit were a person, as the Trinity doctrine teaches. In a way, this is more intimate of a connection than any we could have with any other human person. The Holy Spirit is a person, and should be treated with the respect of a divine person. Love is intimately linked to the Holy Spirit. You might also like... Part 2 - The Essentials of Divine Mercy with Father Chris Alar, MIC . In Romans 8:26, St. Paul attributes a kind of voice to the Holy Spirit: In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. The spirit of Elijah (Luke 1:17) is not a different person from Elijah. Since one of the major aspects of Godâs nature is that he is a person, it follows that the Holy Spirit is a person. In the creed, the liturgy, and every time we cross ourselves we affirm that the Holy Spirit is one of three divine persons. The Holy Spirit guides believers, and is therefore a person, John 16:13. According to the doctrines of the Christian faith, the Holy Spirit is one of the three persons of the Trinity, along with God the Father and God the Son.The divine works of the Holy Spirit.are described in both the Old and New Testaments. (We will come back to the sacraments in a later column). A person, not an impersonal force, searches all things (1 Corinthians 2:10), knows the mind of God the Father (1 Corinthians 2:11), teaches the content of the Gospel to believers (1 Corinthians 2:13), dwells within believers (1 Corinthians 3:16; Romans 8:11; 2 Timothy 1:14), accomplishes all things (1 Corinthians 12:11), gives life to those who believe (2 Corinthians 3:6), cries out from within our hearts (Galatians 4:6), leads us in the ways of God (Galatians 5:18; Romans 8:14), bears witness with our own spirits (Romans 8:16), has desires that are in opposition to the flesh (Galatians 5:17), helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26), intercedes on our behalf (Romans 8:26-27), works all things together for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28), strengthens believers (Ephesians 3:16), and is grieved by our sinfulness (Galatians 5:22-23). "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Corinthians 13:13). However, many of us probably struggle to think of the Holy Spirit as a person. In the description of the creation of man in Gen. ii.7, it is the breath of God, that is the Holy Spirit, who imparts life to man, and man becomes a living soul. ⦠We are not saying that the word fellowship itself, demands the Holy Spirit is a person, but that a word that normally, but not always implies personality, is used in conjunction with two other known persons. As the creed itself says, He is the one ‘who spoke by the prophets.’ This fact leads to an extraordinary conclusion: it means that each time we are reading Scripture we are hearing what the Spirit says to us. So, how can we better appreciate the Holy Spirit as a person? N. At times He restricts us from certain actions. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is deeply connected with bringing God’s word to us. The Holy Spirit is truly the forgotten member of the Trinity, and Dr. Malcolm Yarnell has constructed the clearest work of our modern time to bring Christians back to the person and office of the Holy Spirit. He is a member of the Trinity, equal to God the Father and God the Son. Orthodoxy, Stephen Beale is a freelance writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. But the creed makes the same move, identifying the Holy Spirit as ‘the Lord, the Giver of Life.’. Notice, too, that this is one more proof of the Spiritâs full Deity. One of the difficulties we need to overcome when it comes to contemplating the Holy Spirit is to remove from our minds the consideration that the Holy Spirit is just some kind of impersonal force, kind of like what we hear about in "Star Wars." This Bible study will explore in brief the ministry and works of the Holy Spirit. 5 The Holy Spirit has intellect, emotion, and will. In the Catholic Church we understand the soul to be spiritual in nature. He grieves, He knows, He is eternal, He encourages, He gives understanding, He gives peace, He comforts, He directs, and He can be prayed to. All rights reserved. Best of Week, The Sabbatarian and Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the Holy Spirit, until the 1890s, was largely focused on the tangible, or âliving reality,â of the Holy Spirit as a divine manifestation rather than His nature or personality.3 During the period up to the 1890s, most Adventists did not accept that the Holy Spirit had a distinct personality. But there is a point at which we have to face the truth: the difficulties we have in approaching the Holy Spirit as person reminds us of the mystery and absolute otherness of God, as the first quotation in this article stated. The second name for the Holy Spirit occurs in 2 Corinthians 3:17. The Holy Spirit is a person, as Scripture makes clear. In the creed, the liturgy, and every time we cross ourselves we affirm that the Holy Spirit is one of three divine persons. The first is the name which is the name that Jesus provides in John 14:26. And all the divine attributes ascribed to the Father and the Son are equally ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity and undoubtedly the least understood member of the Godhead. The Greek word used here is "koinonia," which can also be translated "communion." What does the Holy Spirit do? The Father, through the death, resurrection and ascension of his Son, freely gives us the Spirit so that we might become adopted sons and daughters of the Father (cf. Moreover, the second person assumed a human nature, making Him that much more relatable as a person, as the above author notes. When a person becomes born again by believing and receiving Jesus Christ 4, God resides in that person through the Holy Spirit. Without denial of the one Essence of the Godhead, the personality of the Holy Spirit must be affirmed and is subject to proof unassailable by any who accept the Scriptures as authoritative. St. Paul helps us to understand this. We can understand the Holy Spirit as a divine person from the quote we started with: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." This passage ends St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. For if I do not go, the Advocate [Holy Spirit] will not come to you. "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…" (1 Corinthians 12:13). Catholic Exchange is a project of Sophia Institute Press. St. Paul, in this passage, also speaks about the love of God the Father. Father Chris Alar explains the third divine person of the Blessed Trinity. 6. The final book of the Bible (and the last to be written) describes âa new heaven and a new earthâ (Revelation 21:1 Revelation 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. We need to resist the urge of hearing St. Paul’s words, like the lines in the movie, "May the force be with," and perhaps to resist the urge to says "And also with you.". However, no less significant is St. Paul’s teaching on the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. We can think about God the Father as the source of all things. In the case of Jesus, we are dealing with a man like us who lived almost two thousand years ago in Palestine. However, I am not writing on the Mass. The exact words are, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Not an "influence" or some vague power, but the Third Person of the Trinity. That He is the third Person of the Holy Trinity is made clear by His inclusion with the Father and the Son in such Bible passages as Matthew 28:19. The Holy Spirit has been given to us through baptism. Holy Souls in Purgatory; Works of Mercy; From the National Shrine; In the News; Archives; Voting and Faithful Citizenship; Explaining the Faith: Understanding the Holy Spirit. Here St. Paul speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ. Variants include Helper, Comforter, and Counselor, but the most literal one is Paraclete, which simply is a transliteration of the Greek word, paraklētos. Each is divine, yet there are not three gods but one God. In this verse Peter confronts Ananias as to why he lied to the Holy Spirit and tells him that he had ânot lied to men but to God.â The Holy Spirit teaches others, and therefore is a person, John 14:26. âThe Holy Spirit is a person, for He beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.â (Ev 616) âSin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godheadâ (DA 671) If the Holy Spirit is a divine Person then we can affirm all verses that indicate personhood and we can affirm all verses that utilise language describing the Spirit or His work as a force or power or influence. The Holy Spirit speaks, showing that He is a person, Acts 13:2. As this author explains, the name has its roots in the Old Testament where Hebrew scribes would substitute the name Adonai, or Lord, for Yahweh, the sacred personal name for God, which was not said out loud. holy spirit, We do not worship a bird, fire, wind or clouds; we worship God when we worship the Holy Spirit. (The above is from the New American Bible, Revised Edition.) In Abrahamic religions, the Holy Spirit is an aspect or agent of God, by means of which God communicates with people or acts on them. The issue the degree to which we are aware of this reality, which I think may not be at the same level as it is for the Father and Son. For us a person is a body and soul. The expansive category of divine person effortlessly and naturally accounts for the narrower category of power or influence. It is completely misleading to read into the Bible a third Person, the Holy Spirit. "'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts" - Zechariah 4:6 The Holy Spirit is "the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Personhood means there is potential for love and union. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is represented by water, oil, a dove and fire. The word âsubsistenceâ means something that has a real existence. A native of Topsfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Brown University in 2004 with a degree in classics and history. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, however, the matter becomes more difficult. © Copyright 2021 Catholic Exchange. In the end, we should aim to get to know the Holy Spirit as a person on his own terms, not our own. Needless to say, the deeper we enter into the truths of our faith the better. that we decide whether the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, worthy to receive our adoration, our faith, our love, and our entire surrender to Himself, or whether it is simply an influence emanating from God or a power or an illumination that God imparts to us. This metaphor obviously brings us closer to our objective of understanding the Holy Spirit as a person. The Father is not the same person as the Son, who is not the same person as the Holy Spirit, and who is not the same person as the Father. Here it was two apostles, Barnabas and Saul/Paul (Acts 14:14). There are three individual subsistences or persons. Still, a defense attorney is a job title and doesn’t carry the same personal intimacy as the names Father and Son. In the ancient Greek world, a paraclete was a kind of legal advocate, analogous to defense attorneys in our society. You want to say, "And also with you!" He is not a person of flesh and blood, but a person of spirit. Galatians 4:6). With consideration for the Spiritâs identity derived from both Old and New Testament accounts, author Malcolm B. Yarnell focuses on identifying characteristics of the person of the Holy Spirit himself, rather than discussing the work of the Spirit solely in the context of ⦠In all this, however, we can see the Holy Spirit revealed as a Divine Person who inspires and energizes. In Romans 10 and Galatians 3 St. Paul says that faith comes through hearing. In John 10:27, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”. Since the Holy Spirit has not assumed any bodily form, it is impossible for us to imagine him in any concrete way. Nor is the Spirit of God a different person from the Father. Of course, these symbols all serve to reflect something about the identity of the Holy Spirit but they do not specifically help us see Him as a person. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Raised as an evangelical Protestant, he is a convert to Catholicism. He is depicted as âbear[ing] witness,â âestablish[ing] a covenant,â is referred to as âthe Lord,â âputs [his] laws on [our] hearts,â and even forgives sins. One approach is to look at two of the formal names the New Testament gives to the Holy Spirit. From Scripture we learn that the Holy Spirit is God. The core difficulty, I believe, is in thinking of the Holy Spirit as a person. It might seem strange to us to hear the Holy Spirit described as the ‘Lord’ since we associate that title with Christ. Why is The Person Of The Holy Spirit A Divine Person? As one Catholic educational site puts it, The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that told you. In Romans, St. Paul says, "…the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Romans 5:5). TheDivineMercy Video. As one Catholic educational site puts it, Of the three divine Persons, the most mysterious one and the most difficult one for us to think about is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit ⦠He also speaks of God, who at the beginning of the same letter St. Paul calls "God our Father," and "…the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation" (2 Corinthians 1:2, 3). The Holy Spirit Is Divine It is apparent from the above sections that the Holy Spirit is very special. We can even imagine him as a kindly and merciful Father. Let me draw one important inference. In the case of Jesus, we are dealing with a man like us who lived almost two thousand years ago in Palestine. We can know and love the Holy Spirit just as we know and love the Father and the Son. So we have to return to the verse in John, which makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is a very special kind of Paraclete—He will work on our intellects to both teach us and remind of Christ’s words to us. The word âpersonâ denotes individuality and self-awareness. The Holy Spirit can be fellowshipped: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all" 2 Cor 13:14. Ultimately our task is not to box the Spirit into our human concept of a person, but to recognize that for God to be three persons is radically different than what it means to be a human person. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/StephenBeale1. He welcomes tips, suggestions, and any other feedback at bealenews at gmail dot com. The Holy Spirit is revealed here to be both a person and divine. (Romans 8:9b). The Holy Spirit acts as a person by giving commands, Acts 16:6-7. We can think about God the Father as the source of all things. The fact that the Holy Spirit is God is clearly seen in many Scriptures, including Acts 5:3-4. 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