The Holy Spirit

Is the Holy Spirit simply the essence of God, just as our own spirits are the essence of us? To answer that question, we need to see whether scripture presents the Spirit in terms that indicate something more.

Let’s begin with the issue of pronouns. The Holy Spirit is referred to as she in the Hebrew text and it in the Greek. The only instance where a masculine pronoun is used is in John 15:26, and only because the noun it describes is The Advocate or Comforter, which is a masculine noun. Grammatical gender has no necessary correlation with biological gender; it’s much the way we might refer to a boat as she.

Regardless of the grammatical gender of pronouns, it’s clear from the totality of scripture that the Holy Spirit is not a mere force but a Person of the Trinity just as much as the Father and Son. Just as clearly, neither the Holy Spirit nor the Father are gendered (Num. 23:19, John 4:24). Though God is described as having body parts in various passages, the context indicates that these are anthropomorphisms (ways to describe in human terms). Only Jesus in his incarnation is gendered (Phil. 2:5-11), since he alone has the dual nature of both God and human.

Now let’s look at the scripture references describing attributes of the Holy Spirit (HS):

• The HS can be blasphemed― Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10
• God pours his love into our hearts through the HS― Rom. 5:5
• Our bodies are the temple of the HS― 1 Cor. 6:19
• We are sealed with the HS as a guarantee of our salvation― Eph. 1:14
• We must not grieve the HS― Eph. 4:30
• The HS lives in us― 2 Tim. 1:14
• The HS gives us rebirth when poured out on us via Jesus― Titus 3:5-6
• The HS speaks to us― Heb. 3:7-11, 9:8
• The HS commisioned the apostles― 1 Peter 1:12
• The HS gives prophecies― 2 Peter 1:21

Here is the logical proof:

• Only persons can be grieved, and only divinity can be blasphemed
• The HS can be grieved (Eph. 4:30) and blasphemed (Luke 12:10)
• ∴ The HS is a divine Person