Who Is the Holy Spirit?

The very names of the first two persons of the Trinity, God the Father and God the Son, remind us that they are persons with whom we relate. But the name of the third person, God the Holy Spirit, seems different—more abstract, less personal. And certainly there is something elusive and mysterious about Him (John 3:3–8). Perhaps this is the reason some Christians inadvertently refer to Him as “it” from time to time, and others are tempted to think of Him as little more than God’s power. But this kind of thinking mischaracterizes the person of the Holy Spirit, who as the third person of the Trinity is both fully divine and fully personal, just like the other two persons of the Godhead. In order to understand who the Spirit is more fully, we need to look more closely at both His personality and His deity.

When thinking about the personality of the Holy Spirit, it is important to remember first of all that He truly is a person. He is not some force, nor is He simply a metaphor for God’s power. The Bible is quite clear about this important point. For example, the Spirit has various attributes regularly associated with personality, such as His own mind (Rom. 8:27), emotions (Eph. 4:30), and will (1 Cor. 12:11). In addition, He displays self-awareness, referring to Himself as “I” in Acts 13:2. He also is called the “Helper” (or Comforter) who continues the work that Jesus did in the disciples’ lives (John 14:16–17, 26). Further, He interacts with other persons as a person. He teaches (John 14:26), speaks (Acts 8:29), intercedes (Rom. 8:26), testifies (John 15:26), commands (Acts 10:19–20), guides (John 16:13), and commissions (Acts 13:2–4). He also can be lied to (Acts 5:3), grieved (Eph. 4:30), blasphemed (Matt. 12:31), and insulted (Heb. 10:29).

The Spirit is not just a person; He is God, sharing the totality of the divine being with the Father and the Son.

The Spirit is not just a person; He is God, sharing the totality of the divine being with the Father and the Son. This explains why the Spirit is so closely associated with the other two divine persons in Scripture (Matt. 3:16–17; 28:19; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 Cor. 12:4–6; 2 Cor. 13:14). It also explains passages like Acts 5:2–4, which explicitly refers to the Holy Spirit as God when it equates lying to the Spirit with lying to God, and Hebrews 10:15–17, which identifies a quote from Yahweh in Jeremiah 31:31–34 as a quote from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s deity is further supported by the various divine attributes ascribed to Him, such as eternality (Heb. 9:14), divine power (Luke 1:35), divine omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10–11), omnipresence (Ps. 139:7–10), and holiness (Rom. 1:4). He also performs divine actions, like creating (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:29–30), regenerating (Titus 3:5), inspiring Scripture (2 Peter 1:20–21), and effecting the virgin birth of Christ (Luke 1:35).

While orthodox Christians have universally agreed on the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, they have disagreed on the nature of the relationship the Spirit enjoys with the Father and Son. This has been called the filioque controversy. This controversy became acute during the Middle Ages between the Eastern Greek-speaking church and the Western Latin-speaking church, culminating in the formal separation of the two in 1054. Essentially the debate centered on whether the Spirit “proceeds” from both the Father and the Son (Western church), or from the Father alone (Eastern church). During the medieval period, the Western church added the phrase “and the Son” (filioque in Latin) to the Nicene Creed’s statement on the Holy Spirit, which reads, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].” The Eastern church found the addition, and the theology behind it, unacceptable. The debate itself is not as esoteric as it may sound, for it relates directly to how one understands the relationship between the three persons of the Godhead.

Given what we have seen about the person of the Holy Spirit, the Nicene Creed (both in Eastern and Western versions) has good reason to go on to say that the Spirit “together with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.” We have good reason to follow the Creed’s lead. As we contemplate, in the next entry, the incredible works the Spirit does in our lives as believers, remember that it is God the Holy Spirit—the fully divine third person of the Trinity—who is at work in our lives in these wonderful ways.