Who is The Holy Spirit?
We all use the term “spirit” a great deal. Now I want to tell you what I do and do not mean by it. In the first place, we rule out all of the secondary uses of the word “spirit.” I do not mean courage, as when we say, “That’s the spirit!” I don’t mean temper or temperament or pluck.
I mean nothing so nebulous as that.
We are all materialists to some extent. we are born of material parents into a material world; we are wrapped in material clothes and fed on material milk and lie in a material bed, and sleep and walk and live and talk and grow up in a world of matter.
Matter presses upon us obtrusively and takes over our thinking so completely that we can’t even speak about spirit without using materialistic terms. God made man out of the dust of the ground, and man has been dust ever since, and we can’t quite shake it off.
Matter is one mode of being; spirit is another mode of being as authentic as matter. Material things have certain characteristics. For instance, they have weight. Everything that is material weighs something; it yields to gravitational pull. Then, matter has dimension.
Everything that is made of marble has dimensions; you can measure the thing if it is made of matter. It has a shape. It has an outline of some sort, no matter whether it is a molecule or an atom or whatever it may be, on up to the stars that shine. Then it is extended in space.
So I say that weight, dimension, shape, and extension are the things that belong to matter; that is one mode of being; that is one way of existing. One Power of spirit, of any spirit for
I am talking about spirit now, not about the Holy Spirit, which is its ability to penetrate, Matter bumps against other markers and stops; it cannot penetrate. Spirit can penetrate everything. For instance, your body is made of matter, and yet your spirit has penetrated your body completely.
Spirit can penetrate spirit. It can penetrate personality, if God’s people could only learn that spirit can penetrate a person alrty, that your person’s ability is not an impenetrable substance, but can be penetrated.
A mind can be penetrated by thought, and the air can be penetrated by light, and material things and mental things, and even spiritual, can be penetrated by spirit.
What Is The Holy Spirit?
Now, what is the Holy Spirit? Not who, but what? The answer is that the Holy Spirit is a Being dwelling in another mole of existence. He has not weft, nor measure, nor size, nor any color, no extension in spice, but He nevertheless exists as surely as You exist.
The Holy Spirit is not enthusiasm. I have found enthusiasm that hummed with excitement, and the Holy Spirit was nowhere to be found there at all, and then I have found the Holy Ghost when there has not been much of what we call enthusiasm present. Neither is the Holy Spirit another name for genius. We talk about the spirit of Beethoven and say, “This or that artist played with great spirit. He interpreted the spirit of the master.”
The Holy Spirit is none of these things. Now what is He? He is a Person. Pur that down in capital letters – that the Holy Spirit is not only a Being having another mode of existence, but He is Himself a Person, with all the qualities and powers of personality. He does not matter, but He is substance.
The Holy Spirit is often thought of as a beneficent wind that blows across the Church.
If you think of the Holy Spirit as being lit rally a wind, a breath, then you think of Him as non-personal and non-individual. But the Holy Spirit has will and intelligence and feeling and knowledge and sympathy and ability to love and see and think and hear and speak and desire the same as any person has.
You may say, “I believe all that. You surely do t think you are telling us anything new!” I don’t hope to tell you very much that is new; I only hope to set the table for You, arranging the dishes a little better and a little more accurately so that you will be tempted to partake.
Many of us have grown up on the theology that accepts the Holy Spirit as a Person, and even as a divine Person, but for some reason, it never did us any good.
We are as empty as ever, we are as joyless as ever, we are as far from peace as ever, and we are as weak as ever. What I want to do is to tell you the old things, but while I am doing it, to encourage your heart to make them yours now, and to walk into the living, throbbing, vibrating heart of them, so that from here on your life will be altogether different.
Who Is The Holy Spirit?
So the Spirit is a Person. That’s what He is, Now, who is He?
What The Creeds Say
The historic church has said that He is God. Let me quote from the Nicene Creed; “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Which proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.”
That is what the Church believed about the Holy Ghost 1,600 years ago. Let’s be daring for a moment. Let’s try to think away this idea that the Holy Spirit is truly God. All right.
Let’s admit something else into the picture. Let’s say, “I believe in one Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who with the Father and the Son is to be worshiped and glorified ” For the “Holy Ghost” let’s put in ‘Abraham, the father of the faithful, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified? That is a monstrous thing, and in your heart ahead there is a shocked feeling.
You could t do it. You could t admit a mere man into the holy circle of the tiniryl The Father and the Son are to be worshiped and glorified, and if anybody else is to be worshiped and glorified, he has to be equal to the Father and the soft.
Now let’s look at the Athanasian Creed. Thirteen hundred years old it is. Notice what it says about the Holy Spirit: “Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.” Once more let’s do that terrible thing. Let’s introduce into this concept the name of a man. Let’s put
David is in there. Let’s say, “Such as the Father is, such also is the Son, and such is the hymnist David? That would be a shock like cold water in the face! You can’t do that. And you can’t put the archangel Michael in there. You can’t say, “Such as the Father is, such also is the Son, and such is the archangel Michael.”
That would be a monstrous inconsistency, and you know it! I have told you what the creeds of the church say. If the Bible taught otherwise, I would throw the creeds away. Nobo dy can come down the years with flowing beard, and with the dust of centuries upon him, and get me to believe a doctrine unless he can give me chapter and verse.
I quote the creeds, but I preach them only so far as they summarize the teaching of the Bible on a given subject. If there were divergence from the teachings of the word of God I would not teach the creed;
I would teach the Book, for the Book is the source of all authentic information. However, our fathers did a mighty good j”b of going into the Bible, finding out what it taught, and then formulating the creeds for us.
What The Hymnists Say
Now let’s look at what our songwriters and our hymnists believed. Recall the words the quartet sang this evening;
“Holy Ghost, with light divine,
Shine upon this heart of mine?”
Let’s pray that prayer to Gabriel, to Saint Bernard, to D. L. Moody. Let’s pray that prayer to any man or any creature that has ever served God. You can’t pray that kind of prayer to a creature. To put those words in a hymn means that the one about whom you are speaking must be God.
“Holy Ghost, taith Potaer divine,
Cleanse this guilty heart of mine,”
Who can get into the intricate depths of a human soul, into the deep confines of a human spirit, and cleanse it? Nobody but the God who made it The hymn writer who said “Cleanse this guilty heart of mine” meant that the Holy Ghost to whom he prayed was God.
“Holy Spirit, all divine,
Dwell within this heart of mine.
Cast down every id. ol throne,
Reign su? reme-and reign alone.”
The church has sung that now for about one hundred years. “Reign suPreme-dnd reigru alone?” Could you pray that to anybody you know? The man who wrote that hymn believed that the Holy Ghost was God, otherwise, he wouldn’t have said, “Reign supreme, and reign all by yourself,” That is an invitation no man can make to anybody, except the Divine One, except Cod.
What The Scriptures Say
Now the Scriptures. Notice that I am trying to establish the truth that the Holy Spirit is not only a Person, g but that He is a divine Person; not only a divine Person but God. In Psalm L39 the hymnist attributes omnipresence to the Holy Ghost.
He says, “Thither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (L39:7) and he develops throughout the 139th Psalm, in language that is as beautiful as a sunrise and as musical as the winds through the willows, the idea that the Spirit is everywhere, having the attributes of deity. He must he dei ty, for no creature could have the attributes of dairy.
In Hebrews (9:14) there is attributed to the Holy Ghost what is never attributed to an archangel, nor a seraphim, nor a cherubim, nor an angel, nor an apostle, nor a mar nor a prophet, nor a patriarch, nor anyone that has ever been created by the hand of God.
It says, “Through the eternal spirit,” (Hebrews 9:I4) and every theologian knows that eternity is an attribute of dei ry and, an attribute of no creature which dairy has ever formed. The angels are not eternal; that is, they had a beginning, and all created things had a beginning.
As soon as the word “eternal” is used about a being it immediately establishes the fact that he never had a beginning, and is not a creature at all, but God. Therefore, when the Holy Ghost says “the eternal Spirit” about Himself He is calling Himself, God.
Again, the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:1,9 says, “Baprizrngthem in the name of the Father and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Now try to imagine putting the name of a man in there. “Brp getting them in the name of the Father and the Sqn and the Apostle Paul.”
You couldn’t dream it! You couldn t think it! It is horrible to contemplate! No man can be admitted into that closed circle of deity. 7e baptize in the name of the Father and the Son because the Son is equal to the Father in His Godhead, and we baptize in the name of the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost is also equal to the Father and the Son.
You say, “You are just a trinitarian and we are trinitarian ahead.” Yes, I know it, but once again I tell you that I am trying to throw emphasis on this teaching. How many blessed truths have gotten snowed under?
People believe them, but they are just not being taught, that is all, I think of our experience this morning. Here was a man and his wife, a very fine intelligent couple from the creature which dairy has ever formed. The angels are not eternal; that is, they had a beginning, and all created things had a beginning.
As soon as the word “eternal” is used about a being it immediately establishes the fact that he never had a beginning, and is not a creature at all, but God. Therefore, when the Holy Ghost says “the eternal Spirit” about Himself He is calling Himself, God.
Again, the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:1,9 says, “Baprizrngthem in the name of the Father and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Now try to imagine putting the name of a man in there. “Brp getting them in the name of the Father and the Sqn and the Apostle Paul.”
You couldn’t dream it! You couldn’t think it! It is horrible to contemplate! No man can be admitted into that closed circle of deity. the baptize in the name of the Father and the Son, because the Son is equal to the Father in His Godhead, and we baptize in the name of the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost is also equal to the Father and the Son.
You say, “You are just a trinitarian and we are trinitarian ahead.” Yes, I know it, but once again I tell you that I am trying to throw emphasis upon this teaching. How many blessed truths have gotten snowed under?
People believe them, but they are just not being taught, that is all, I think of our experience this morning. Here was a man and his wife, a very fine intelligent couple from the Book, all through the Old Testament and the Nernr, and I have given you only a few proof texts. I could spend the evening reading Scripture stating this same thing.
What Is He Like?
Now what follows from all this? Ah, there is an unseen Deiry present, a knowing, feeling Person airy, and He is indivisible from the Father and the Son so that if you were to be suddenly transferred to heaven itself you would t be any closer to God than you are now, for God is already here.
Changing your geographical location would not bring you any nearer to God nor God any nearer to you, because the indivisible trinity is present, and all that the Son is the Holy Ghost is, and all that the Father is, the Holy Ghost is, and the Holy Ghost is in His Church.
What will we find Him to be like? He will be exactly like Jesus. You have read your New Testament, and you know what Jesus is like, and the Holy Spirit is exactly like Jesus, for Jesus was God and the Spirit is God, and the Father is exactly like the Son, and you can know what Jesus is like by knowing what the Father is like and you can know what the Spirit is like by knowing what Jesus is like.
If Jesus were to come walking down this aisle there would be no stampede for the door. Nobody would scream and be frightened.
They might begin to weep with her joy and delight that He had so honored us, but nobody would be afraid of Jesus; no mother with a little crying babe would ever have to be afraid of Jesus; no poor harlot being dragged by the hair of her head had to be afraid of Jesus-nobody!
Nobody ever had to be afraid of Jesus, because He is the epitome of love, kindliness, genitalia, warm attractiveness, and sweetness. And that is exactly what the Holy Ghost is, for He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Amen.