the Fourth Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Encyclopedias
Holy Ghost
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (πνεῦμα ἃγιον ), the third person in the Trinity, proceeding from the Father and the Son, and equal with them in power and glory (see 10th Art. of Religion, Church of England, and 9th of Methodist Episcopal Church). For the significations of the original words rendered in the English version by "Spirit," "Holy Spirit," "Holy Ghost," (See SPIRIT). The Scriptures teach, and the Church maintains,
I. the Procession;
II. the Personality; and
III. the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. For the offices of the Holy Ghost, (See SPIRIT), (See HOLY); (See PARACLETE); (See WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT).
I. PROCESSION of the Holy Ghost. — The orthodox doctrine is, that as Christ is God by an eternal filiation, so the Holy Ghost is God by an eternal procession. He proceedeth from the Father and from the Son. "When the Comforter is come whom I will send you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me" (John 15:26). He is the Spirit of the Father, he is the Spirit of the Son: he is sent by the Father, he is sent by the Son. The Father is never sent by the Son, but the Father sendeth the Son; neither the Father nor the Son is ever sent by the Holy Ghost, but he is sent by both. The Nicene Creed teaches, "And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified." The Athanasian Creed, "The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding." The article of the Church of England says, "The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God." The term spiration was introduced by the Latin Church to denote the manner of the procession. When our Lord imparted the Holy Ghost to his disciples, "he breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:22).
During the first three centuries there was nothing decided by ecclesiastical authority respecting the relations of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. The Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) declared only that "the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father" (ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον ), and the Greek fathers generally adhered to this view; so Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, and others. Epiphanius added to the formula, ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, the explanatory clause, ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ λαμβάνον (John 16:15). John of Damascus represents the Spirit as proceeding from the Father through the Son, as Novatian had done before him, relying on John 15:26. With this modification, the formula adopted at the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381), and appended to the Nicene Creed, was retained in the Greek Church. "But there were many in the Latin Church who maintained that the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Father only, but also from the Son. They appealed to John 16:13, and to the texts where the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ, e.g. Romans 8:9 sq. To this doctrine the Greeks were for the most part opposed. It prevailed, however, more and more in the Latin Church; and when, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Arians, who then prevailed very much in Spain, urged it as an argument against the equality of Christ with the Father, that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father only, and not from the Son, the Catholic churches of that region began to hold more decidedly that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both (ab utroque), and to insert the adjunct Filioque after Patre in the Symibolum Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum. In this the churches of Spain were followed, first by those of France, and at a later period by nearly all the Western churches. But as the Eastern Church still adhered substantially to the more ancient formula, it accused the Western Church of falsifying the Nicene symbol; and thus at different periods, and especially in the 7th and 9th centuries, violent controversies arose between them" (Knapp, Theology, § 43; Hey, Lectures on Divinity, vol. 1). The true causes of these dissensions were, however, very different from those which were alleged, and less animated, it seems, by zeal for the truth than by the mutual jealousies of the Roman and Byzantine bishops. But, however uncertain the reason that provoked these disputes, they terminated in the 11th century in an entire separation of the Eastern and Western churches, continuing to the present time. The addition of the word filioque to the creed of the Western Church first appears in the acts of the Synod of Braga (A.D. 412), and in the third Council of Toledo (A.D. 589). See Procter, On Common Prayer, p. 234; Harvey, History of the Three Creeds, p. 452; and the article (See FILIOQUE).
The scriptural argument for the procession of the Holy Ghost is thus stated by bishop Pearson: "Now the procession of the Spirit, in reference to the Father, is delivered expressly in relation to the Son, and is contained virtually in the Scriptures.
1. It is expressly said that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, as our Savior testifieth, ‘ When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me' (John 15:26). This is also evident from what has already been asserted; for inasmuch as the Father and the Spirit are the same God, and, being thus the same in the unity of the nature of God, are yet distinct in the personality, one of them must have the same nature from the other; and because the Father hath already been shown to have it from none, it followeth that the Spirit hath it from him.
2. Though it be not expressly spoken in the Scripture that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, yet the substance of the same truth is virtually contained there; because those very expressions which are spoken of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father, for the very reason that he proceedeth from the Father, are also spoken of the same Spirit in relation to the Son, therefore there must be the same reason presupposed in reference to the Son which is expressed in reference to the Father. Because the Spirit proceedeth from the Father, therefore it is called ‘ the Spirit of God,' and ‘ the Spirit of the Father.' ‘ It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you' (Matthew 10:20). For by the language of the apostle, ‘ the Spirit of God' is the Spirit, which is of God, saying, ‘ The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God; and we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God' (1 Corinthians 2:11-12). Now the same Spirit is also called ‘ the Spirit of the Son' for ‘ because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts' (Galatians 4:6). The Spirit of Christ:' ‘ Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his' (Romans 8:9); ‘ Even the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets' (1 Peter 1:11). The Spirit of Jesus Christ,' as the apostle speaks: ‘ I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ' (Philippians 1:19).
If, then, the Holy Ghost be called ‘ the Spirit of the Father' because he proceedeth from the Father, it followeth that, being called also ‘ the Spirit of the Son,' he proceedeth also from the Son. Again: because the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, he is therefore sent by the Father, as from him who hath, by the original communication, a right of mission; as, ‘ the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send' (John 14:26). But the same Spirit which is sent by the Father, is also sent by the Son, as he saith, ‘ When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you.' Therefore the Son hath the same right of mission with the Father, and consequently must be acknowledged to have communicated the same essence. The Father is never sent by the Son, because he received not the Godhead from him; but the Father sendeth the Son, because he communicated the Godhead to him: in the same manner, neither the Father nor the Son is ever sent by the Holy Spirit because neither of them received the divine nature from the Spirit; but both the Father and the Son send the Holy Ghost, because the divine nature, common to the Father and the Son was communicated by them both to the Holy Ghost. As, therefore, the Scriptures declare expressly that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father, so do they also virtually teach that he proceedeth from the Son" (Pearson, On the Creed),
II. PERSONALITY of the Holy Ghost.
1. Definition and History of the Doctrine. — A person is "a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection;" "a singular, subsistent, intellectual being;" "an intelligent agent." As personality implies thought, reason, reflection, and an individual existence, distinct from that of other beings, when we speak of the personality of the Holy Ghost we mean his distinct and individual existence as an intelligent and reflecting being. He is represented throughout the Scriptures as a personal agent, and the earlier Christian writers so speak of him, though without any aim at dogmatic precision. It is the habit of some writers, opposed to the orthodox doctrine, to assert that not only was the doctrine of the Holy Ghost not precisely defined in that early period, but that it was not received. "On the contrary, the thorough investigations of recent times show plainly that the ante- Nicene fathers, with the exception of the Monarchians, and perhaps Lactantius, agreed in the two fundamental points that the Holy Ghost, the sole agent in the application of redemption, is a supernatural divine being, and that he is an independent person; closely allied to the Father and the Son, yet hypostatically different from them both" (Schaff, Ch. History, 1, § 80). The first positive and dogmatic denial of the personality and deity of the Holy Ghost seems to have been made by Arius, who applied the doctrine of subordination here, and placed the same distance between the Son and the Spirit as between the Father and the Son. According to him, the Holy Spirit was only the first of created beings, brought into existence by the Son as the organ of the Father. Later anti-Trinitarians represent the Holy Spirit simply as an operation of the divine mind, as the "exerted energy of God," or as an attribute only of the divine activity.
2. Proof of the Personality of the Spirit. "The Holy Spirit is represented in the New Testament not only as different from the Father and Son, and not only as the personification of some attribute of God, or of some effect which he has produced, but as a literal person (see Semler, Disp. Spiritum Sanctum recte describi personam). The proof of this is thus made out from the following texts:
(1.) From the texts John 14:16-17; John 14:26; John 15:26. The Holy Spirit is here called παράκλητος , not comforter, advocate, nor merely teacher, as Ernesti renders it, but helper, assistant, counselor, in which sense it is used by Philo, when he says, God needs noπαράκλητος (monitor). Of the Paracletus, Christ says that the Father will send him in his (Christ's) name (i.e. in his place) to instruct his disciples. To these three subjects similar personal predicates are here equally applied, and the Paracletus is not designated by the abstract word auxilium, but by the concrete auxiliator; so that we have the Father who sent him, the Son in whose place he comes, and the Holy Spirit who is sent. His office is to carry forward the great work of teaching and saving men which Christ commenced, and to be to the disciples of Christ what Christ himself was while he continued upon the earth. John 15:26, When the Paracletus shall come, whom I will send to you from the Father (I mean the Spirit — i. e. teacher — of truth, who proceeds from the Father), he will instruct you further in my religion; where it should be remarked that the phrase ἐκπορεύεσθαι παρὰ Πατρός means to be sent or commissioned by the Father.
(2.) 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, There are various gifts (χαρίσματα), but there is one and the same Spirit (τὸ αὐτο Πνεῦμα ),from whom they all proceed. Here the χαρίσματα are clearly distinguished from the Spirit, who is the author of them. In 1 Corinthians 12:5 this same person is distinguished from Christ (ὁ Κύριος ), and in 1 Corinthians 12:6 from ὁ Θεός. In 1 Corinthians 12:11 it is said all these (various gifts) worketh one and the self-same Spirit, who imparteth to every man his own, as he will (καθὼς βούλεται).
(3.) Those texts in which such attributes and works are ascribed to the Holy Spirit as can be predicated of no other than a personal subject. In John 16:13 sq., he is said to ‘ speak,' to ‘ hear,' to ‘ take,' etc. So in 1 Corinthians 2:10, God hath revealed the doctrines of Christianity to us by his Spirit (the πάρακλητος before mentioned, who was sent to give us this more perfect instruction). And this Spirit searches (ἐρευνᾷ ) all things, even the most secret divine purposes (βάθη Θεοῦ; comp. Romans 11:33 sq.); in his instruction, therefore, we may safely confide. The expressions, the Holy Spirit speaks, sends any one, appoints (any one for particular purpose, and others, which occur so frequently in the Acts and elsewhere, show that the Holy Spirit was understood by the early Christians to be a personal agent (Acts 13:2; Acts 13:4; Acts 20:28; Acts 21:11 sq.).
(4.) The formula of baptism, Matthew 28:19, and other similar texts, such as 2 Corinthians 13:14, where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are mentioned in distinction (ver. 35), may now be used in proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit, since the other texts upon which the meaning of these depends have already been cited. From all these texts, taken together, we may form the following result: The Holy Spirit is represented in the Bible as a personal subject, and, as such, is distinguished from the Father and the Son. In relation to the human race, he is described as sent and commissioned by the Father and the Son, and as occupying the place, which Christ, who preceded him, held. In this respect he depends (to speak after the manner of men) upon the Father (John 14:16) and upon the Son (John 14:16; John 14:26 : also John 16:14, ἐκ τοῦ έμοῦ λήψεται ); and in this sense he proceeds from them both, or is sent by them both. This may be expressed more literally as follows: The great work of converting, sanctifying and saving men, which the Father commenced through the Son, will be carried on by the Father and Son, through the Holy Spirit.
"The objectors to this doctrine frequently say that the imaginative Orientalists were accustomed to represent many things as personal subjects, and to introduce them as speaking and acting, which, however, they themselves did not consider as persons, and did not intend to have so considered by others; and to this Oriental usage they think that Christ and his apostles might here, as in other cases, have conformed. But, whenever Christ and his apostles spoke in figurative language, they always showed, by the explanations, which they gave, that they did not intend to be understood literally. But they have given no such explanation of the language, which they employ with regard to the Holy Spirit. We therefore fairly conclude that they intended that their language should be understood literally, otherwise they would have led their readers and hearers into error, and the more so as they well knew that their readers and hearers were accustomed to personifications" (Knapp, Theology, § 39).
The scriptural argument is thus logically developed by Watson.
"1. The mode of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit in the sacred Trinity proves his personality. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and cannot, therefore, be either. To say that an attribute proceeds and comes forth would be a gross absurdity.
2. Many passages of Scripture would be wholly unintelligible, and even absurd, unless the Holy Ghost is allowed to be a person. For as those who take the phrase as ascribing no more than a figurative personality to an attribute, make that attribute to be the energy or power of God, they reduce such passages as the following to utter unmeaningness: ‘ God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power;' that is, with the power of God and with power. That ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost;' that is, through the power of power. ‘ In demonstration of the Spirit and of power' that is, in demonstration of power and of power.
3. Personification of any kind is, in some passages in which the Holy Ghost is spoken of, impossible. The reality which this figure of speech is said to present to us is either some of the attributes of God, or else the doctrine of the Gospel. Let this theory, then, be tried upon the following passages: ‘ He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.' What attribute of God can here be personified? And if the doctrine of the Gospel be arrayed with personal attributes, where is there an instance of so monstrous a prosopopceia as this passage would exhibit? The doctrine of the Gospel not speaking ‘ of himself,' but speaking ‘ whatsoever he shall hear!' The Spirit maketh intercession for us.' What attribute is capable of interceding, or how can the doctrine of the Gospel intercede? Personification, too, is the language of poetry, and takes place naturally only in excited and elevated discourse; but if the Holy Spirit be a personification, we find it in the ordinary and cool strain of mere narration and argumentative discourse in the New Testament, and in the most incidental conversations. ‘ Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.' How impossible is it here to extort, by any process whatever, even the shadow of a personification of either any attribute of God, or of the doctrine of the Gospel! So again: The Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.' Could it be any attribute of God, which said this, or could it be the doctrine of the Gospel? Finally, that the Holy Ghost is a person, and not an attribute, is proved by the use of masculine pronouns and relatives in the Greek of the New Testament, in connection with the neuter noun Πνεῦμα, Spirit, and also by many distinct personal acts being ascribed to him, as ‘ to come,' ‘ to go,' ‘ to be sent,' ‘ to teach,' ‘ to guide,' ‘ to comfort,' ‘ to make intercession,' ‘ to bear witness,' ‘ to give gifts,' ‘ dividing them to every man as he will,' ‘ to be vexed,' ‘ grieved,' and ‘ quenched.' These cannot be applied to the mere fiction of a person, and they therefore establish the Spirit's true personality" (Watson, Theological Institutes, 1, 637 sq.).
III. DIVINITY of the Holy Spirit.
1. The same arguments that prove the personality of the Holy Ghost, go also, to a certain extent, to establish his divinity. The direct scriptural argument may be thus summed up:
(a.) Names proper only to the Most High God are ascribed to him; as Jehovah (Acts 28:25, with Isaiah 6:9; and Hebrews 3:7; Hebrews 3:9, with Exodus 17:7; Jeremiah 31:31; Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 10:15-16), God (Acts 5:3-4), Lord (2 Corinthians 3:17, 19). "The Lord, the Spirit."
(b.) Attributes proper only to the Most High God are ascribed to him; as omniscience (1 Corinthians 2:10-11; Isaiah 40:13-14), omnipresence (Psalms 139:7; Ephesians 2:17-18; Romans 8:26-27), omnipotence (Luke 1:35), eternity (Hebrews 9:14).
(c.) Divine works are evidently ascribed to him (Genesis 2:2; Job 26:13; Psalms 32:6; Psalms 104:30).
(d.) Worship, proper only to God, is required and ascribed to him (Isaiah 6:3; Acts 28:25; Romans 9:1; Revelation 1:4; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Matthew 28:19).
2. The argument for the personal divinity of the Spirit is developed by Watson as follows:
(1.) "The first argument may be drawn from the frequent association, in Scripture, of a Person under that appellation with two other Persons, one of whom, the Father, is by all acknowledged to be divine; and the ascription to each of them, or to the three in union, of the same acts, titles, and authority, with worship of the same kind, and, for any distinction that is made, of an equal degree. The manifestation of the existence and divinity of the Holy Spirit may be expected in the law and the prophets, and is, in fact, to be traced there with certainty. The Spirit is represented as an agent in creation, ‘ moving upon the face of the waters;' and it forms no objection to the argument that creation is ascribed to the Father and also to the Son, but is a great confirmation of it. That creation should be effected by all the three Persons of the Godhead, though acting in different respects, yet so that each should be a Creator, and, therefore, both a Person and a divine Person, can be explained only by their unity in one essence. On every other hypothesis this scriptural fact is disallowed, and therefore no other hypothesis can be true. If the Spirit of God be a mere influence, then he is not a Creator, distinct from the Father and the Son, because he is not a Person; but this is refuted both by the passage just quoted, and by Psalms 33:6 : ‘ By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (Hebrew, Spirit) of his mouth.' This is farther confirmed by Job 33:4 : The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life;' where the second clause is obviously exegetic of the former: and the whole text proves that, in the patriarchal age, the followers of the true religion ascribed creation to the Spirit as well as to the Father, and that one of his appellations was ‘ the Breath of the Almighty.'
Did such passages stand alone, there might indeed, be some plausibility in the criticism which resolves them into a personification; but, connected as they are with the whole body of evidence, as to the concurring doctrine of both Testaments, they are inexpugnable. Again: If the personality of the Son and the Spirit be allowed, and yet it is contended that they were but instruments in creation, through whom the creative power of another operated, but which creative power was not possessed by them; on this hypothesis, too, neither the Spirit nor the Son can be said to create, any more than Moses created the serpent into which his rod was turned, and the Scriptures are again contradicted. To this association of the three Persons in creative acts may be added a like association in acts of preservation, which has been well called a continued creation, and by that term is expressed in the following passage: These wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to dust: thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth' (Psalms 104:27-30). It is not surely here meant that the Spirit by which the generations of animals are perpetuated is wind; and if he be called an attribute, wisdom, power, or both limited, where do we read of such attributes being ‘ sent,' ‘ sent forth from God,' ‘ sent forth from' God to ‘ create and renew the face of the earth?'
(2.) "The next association of the three Persons we find in the inspiration of the prophets: ‘ God spake unto our fathers by the prophets,' says Paul (Hebrews 1:1). Peter declares that these ‘ holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost' (2 Peter 1:21); and also that it was ‘ the Spirit of Christ which was in them' (1 Peter 1:11). We may defy any Socinian to interpret these three passages by making the Spirit an influence or attribute, and thereby reducing the term Holy Ghost into a figure of speech. ‘ God,' in the first passage, is unquestionably God the Father; and the ‘ holy men of God,' the prophets, would then, according to this view, be moved by the influence of the Father; but the influence, according to the third passage, which was the source of their inspiration, was the Spirit or the influence of ‘ Christ.' Thus the passages contradict each other. Allow the Trinity in unity, and you have no difficulty in calling the Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son, or the Spirit of either; but if the Spirit be an influence, that influence cannot be the influence of two persons, one of them God and the other a creature. Even if they allowed the pre-existence of Christ, with Arians, these passages are inexplicable. by the Socinians; but, denying his pre-existence, they have no subterfuge but to interpret ‘ the Spirit of Christ,' the spirit which prophesied of Christ, which is a purely gratuitous paraphrase; or ‘ the spirit of an anointed one, or prophet:' that is, the prophet's own spirit, which is just as gratuitous and as unsupported by any parallel as the former. If, however, the Holy Ghost be the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, united in one essence, the passages are easily harmonized. In conjunction with the Father and the Son, he is the source of that prophetic inspiration under which the prophets spoke and acted. So the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead is said by Peter to have preached by Noah while the ark was preparing, in allusion to the passage ‘ My Spirit shall not always strive (contend, debate) with man.' This, we may observe, affords an eminent proof that the writers of the New Testament understood the phrase ‘ the Spirit of God,' as it occurs in the Old Testament, personally.
For, whatever may be the full meaning of that difficult passage in Peter, Christ is clearly declared to have preached by the Spirit in the days of Noah; that is, he, by the Spirit, inspired Noah to preach. If, then, the apostles understood that the Holy Ghost was a Person, a point which will presently be established, we have, in the text just quoted from the book of Genesis, a key to the meaning of those texts in the Old Testament where the phrases ‘ My Spirit,' ‘ the Spirit of God,' aid ‘ the Spirit of the Lord' occur, and inspired authority is thus afforded us to interpret them as of a Person; and if of a Person, the very effort made by Socinians to deny his personality itself indicates that that Person must, from the lofty titles and works ascribed to him, be inevitably divine. Such phrases occur in many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures; but in the following the Spirit is also eminently distinguished from two other Persons: ‘ And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me' (Isaiah 48:16) or, rendered better, ‘ hath sent me and his Spirit,' both terms being in the accusative case. ‘ Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read; for my mouth it hath commanded, and his Spirit it hath gathered them' (Isaiah 34:16). ‘ I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, I will shake all nations and the Desire of all nations shall come' (Haggai 2:4-7). Here, also, the Spirit of the Lord is seen collocated with the Lord of hosts and the Desire of all nations, who is the Messiah [according to the usual interpretation].
(3.) "Three Persons, and three only, are associated also, both in the Old and New Testament, as objects of supreme worship, and form the one divine ‘ name.' Thus the fact that, in the vision of Isaiah, the Lord of hosts. who spake unto the prophet, is, in Acts 28:25, said to be the Holy Ghost, while John declares that the glory which Isaiah saw was the glory of Christ, proves indisputably that each of the three Persons bears this august appellation; it gives also the reason for the threefold repetition, ‘ Holy, holy, holy!' and it exhibits the prophet and the very seraphs in deep and awful adoration before the Triune Lord of hosts. Both the prophet and the seraphim were, therefore, worshippers of the Holy Ghost and of the Son, at the very time and by the very acts in which they worshipped the Father."
3. In the Apostolical Benediction, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, Amen," the Holy Ghost is acknowledged, equally with the Father and the Son, "to be the source of the highest spiritual blessings; while the benediction is, from its specific character, to be regarded as an act of prayer to each of the three Persons, and therefore is at once an acknowledgment of the divinity and personality of each. The same remark applies to Revelation 1:4-5 : ‘ Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which was, and which is, and which is to come; and from the seven spirits which are before his throne' (an emblematical reference, probably, to the golden branch with its seven lamps), ‘ and from Jesus Christ.' The style of this book sufficiently accounts for the Holy Spirit being called ‘ the seven spirits;' but no created spirit or company of created spirits is ever spoken of under that appellation; and the place assigned to the seven spirits, between the mention of the Father and the Son, indicates with certainty that one of the sacred Three, so eminent, and so exclusively eminent in both dispensations, is intended.
4. "The form of baptism next presents itself with demonstrative evidence on the two points before us, the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. It is the form of covenant by which the sacred Three become our one or only God, and we become his people: ‘ Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' In what manner is this text to be disposed of if the personality of the Holy Ghost is denied? Is the form of baptism to be so understood as to imply that baptism is in the name of one God, one creature and one attribute? The grossness of this absurdity refutes it, and proves that here, at least, there can be no personification. If all the Three, therefore, are persons, are we to have baptism in the name of one God and two creatures? This would be too near an approach to idolatry, or, rather, it would be idolatry itself; for, considering baptism as an act of dedication to God, the acceptance of God as our God, on our part, and the renunciation of all other deities and all other religions, what could a heathen convert conceive of the two creatures so distinguished from all other creatures in heaven and in earth, and so associated with God himself as to form together the one name, to which, by that act, he was devoted, and which he was henceforward to profess and honor, but that they were equally divine, unless special care was taken to instruct him that but one of the Three was God, and the two others but creatures? But of this care, of this cautionary instruction, though so obviously necessary upon this theory, no single instance can be given in all the writings of the apostles."
5. A further argument is derived from the fact that the Spirit is "the subject of blasphemy: The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men' (Matthew 12:31). This blasphemy consisted in ascribing his miraculous works to Satan; and that he is capable of being blasphemed proves him to be as much a person as the Son; and it proves him to be divine, because it shows that he may be sinned against, and so sinned against that the blasphemer shall not be forgiven. A person he must be, or he could not be blasphemed: a divine person he must be to constitute this blasphemy a sin against him in the proper sense, and of so malignant a kind as to place it beyond the reach of mercy. He is called God: ‘ Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost? Why hast thou conceived this in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God' (Acts 5:3-4). Ananias is said to have lied particularly ‘ unto the Holy Ghost,' because the apostles were under his special direction in establishing the temporary regulation among Christians that they should have all things in common: the detection of the crime itself was a demonstration of the divinity of the Spirit, because it showed his omniscience, his knowledge of the most secret acts" (Watson, Theol. Institutes, 1, 629 sq.).
See, besides the works already cited, Hawker, Sermons on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost (London 1794, 8vo); Owen, Discourses on the Spirit; Pye Smith, On the Holy Ghost (London 1831, 8vo); Christian Review, 18, 515 (on the personality of the Spirit); Neander, History of Dogmas, 1, 171, 303; Neander, Ch. History, vol. 1, 2; Kahnis, Die Lehre vom-Heil. Geist (Leipsic, 1847, 8vo); Dewar, Personality, Divinity, etc., of the Holy Ghost (London, 1848, 8vo); Fritzsche, De Spiritu. Sancto (Halle, 1840); Bü chsenschü tz, Doctrine de l'Esprit de Dieu (Strasburg, 1840); Hase, Evangel. Dogmatik, § 175; Guyse, Godhead of the Holy Spirit (London, 1790, 12mo); Pierce, Divinity and Personality of the Spirit (London, 1805, 12mo); Heber, Personality and Office of the Spirit (Bampton Lecture, 1816); Foulkes, Divis. in Christendom, 1, 70, 101 sq.; Bickersteth, Christ. Stud. Assist. p. 453; Bull, Trinity, 1, 135 sq.; 2, 470 sq.: Wilson, Apost. Fathers; Baur, Dogmengesch. vol. 1, 2; Maonsell, Redemption, p. 156 sq.; Waterland, Works, vol. 6; Hefele, Conciliengesch. vol. 1; Milman, Latin Christ. 1, 98; Burnet, Articles of the Christian Faith, see Index; Walcott, Sacred Archaeol. p. 312; Wesley, Works, 1 34 sq.; Leidner, Philosophy, p. 99; Stillingfleet, Works, vol. 1; Smeaton, Atonement, p. 293, 296; Bethune, Lect. on Catechism, vol. 2: see Index; Hagenbach, Hist. of Doct. 1, 125, 258, 262, 453; Stud. u. Krit. 1856, 2:298; 1867, vol. 3; Mercersburg Rev. Jan. 1867, p. 464; Bib. Sac. 1863, p. 600, 877; 1864, p. 119; Am. Presb. Rev. April, 1863, p. 336; Chr. Rev. 15, 115; April, 1852, art. 4; Bullet. Theol. 1, 1868; Christian Observer, vol. 20; London Quart. Review, April, 1867, 63, 257; Ev. Ch. Reg. vol. 1; Brit. and For. Ev. Review, April, 1869; Congreg. Quart. July, 1869; Baptist Quart. Oct. 1869, p. 498; Christ. Remember. July, 1853. (See MACEDONIANS); (See TRINITY); (See SOCINIANISM).
These files are public domain.
McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Holy Ghost'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/h/holy-ghost.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
