On the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is God

In Acts 5:3-4 we read: “…Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit …? You have not lied to men but to God.” One can only tell lies to a person, not a power or something that is dead or without a conscience. The Holy Spirit, whom Ananias told a lie to, is a person, and rather, is incomparably greater than man, because He is God, with all of the divine essence as is the Father and the Son.

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” (1 Corin. 3:16-17) The term “temple of God” means the dwelling place of God. “God” here, who has the faithful as dwelling places, is “the Spirit”, which dwells in the faithful. The “Spirit of God”, the Spirit of the Father, is the same God, is God with all of the divinity, just as Christ is, “the Son of God (the Father)” and simultaneously is “God”.

According to Ephesians 2:22 the faithful are “a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Therefore the Spirit is “God”, all of the divinity.

The Holy Spirit is God and Master (Δεσπότης)

“And it had been revealed to him (Simeon) by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ … he took Him (Christ) up in his arms and blessed God and said: “Lord, (in Greek Despota) now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation.” (Luke 2:26-30). The fact the Simeon would not have seen death before he saw Christ was a revelation of “the Holy Spirit”. Therefore the Holy Spirit is “God” and “Master” (Despotis) whom Simeon glorified because his prophetic words were realised.

The Holy Spirit speaks as Giahve (Γιάχβε)

Giahve is the name of the true God in the Old Testament in Hebrew. We cite two versus from the Old Testament, in which the Holy Spirit speaks as Giahve, as the true God.

“Today, if you will hear His voice: “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; They tried Me though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.” So I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter My rest.”” (Psalms 95:8-11)

This verse is strange and astonishing. One divine person speaks in the beginning about another divine person, and further on speaks about himself. On the one hand, the other divine person, speaks about a third person and uses pronoun “His”, and on the other hand for himself he speaks to the first person and says “tested me”, “tried me”, “my work”, “was grieved”, “said”, “my ways” “my wrath”, “my rest”. But which person speaks in these versus? According to the word of the Apostle in Hebrews 3:7, it is the Holy Spirit speaking. It is clear from these words that the Holy Spirit is Giahve, that is true God. With the pronoun “His”, in the beginning of the verse the Holy Spirit distinguishes Himself from God the Father. Briefly, the meaning of the verse is: “Today, during the Messianic times, when you hear His voice, of God the Father, speaking through the Son, do not do all the bad things that your fore-fathers did to Me, the Holy Spirit, and as a result I became wrathful and I punished them.

It is worthy to note that according to this verse the Hebrews “tested” the Holy Spirit, according to 1 Corinthians 10:9 “they tempted Christ” and according to other versus, such as Psalms 78:41, 56 “tempted God”. The Hebrews tempted all Three, because the Three are one essence or Divinity.

“Then the Spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet and spoke with me and said unto me, Go shut thyself within your house. But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee with them, and thou shall not go out among them: And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shall be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house. But I will speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord …” (Ezekiel 3:24-27)

The Spirit speaks to the prophet saying that they will bind him, that He will make him dumb and that He will speak to him again and open his mouth to preach saying: Thus saith the Lord … The Spirit will speak and the prophet communicating the words of the Spirit will preach: Thus saith the Lord … Therefore the Spirit is the Lord, the true God.

The Holy Spirit is the Lord

“And the Lord said … Go to, let us go down and there confound their language … the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.” (Gen. 11:6-9)

The word “go” proves, that God the Father addresses more than one persons to go down and to confound the language of those building the tower of Babel. In accordance with a multitude of versus in the Bible addressing three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the above verse the one person, God the Father, addresses two persons, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The three persons, who confounded together the language of the people are called Lord, in Hebrew Giahve. Therefore the Lord, Giahve, the true God is also the Holy Spirit.

“And the Lord appeared unto him (Abraham) in the plains of Mamre … And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men … and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door and bowed himself toward the ground and said, “My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant; Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant.” And they said, “So do, as thou hast said.” (Gen. 18:1-5)

God appeared obviously to Abraham. There are many strange things in this appearance of God. The appearance occurred in the form of three men. Abraham acknowledges the three in the singular “Lord”. Afterwards he speaks to them in plural. It is especially worthy to note that at one time he says “thy servant” (τον δούλο σου) and the other time “your servant” (τον δούλο σας). It is also worthy to note that the three speak at the same time, as with one mouth, and they appear equal. Apart from this, the text for the three writes “they said” verse 5 and verse 9, and at another time writes “he said” verse 10 and “the Lord said” verse 13. Furthermore, according to the verses 20-21, the Lord will go down personally to Sodom in order to determine with His own eyes the moral condition of Sodom. According to verse 33, after God’s appearance to Abraham, He returned to heaven and two “angels” returned to Sodom. (Gen. 19:1) Did God descend down to Sodom? Yes, He descended Himself in the form of the two men or angels. The two as persons are the one and the same God.

According to Chapter 19 in Genesis, many strange things occur with the appearance of the two men or angels to Lot at Sodom. First of all, Lot addresses them in the plural, “my Lords”, (Gen. 19:2) showing that they are two persons. But later he addresses them in the singular, “Lord” showing that they are one essence. Further on he addresses the two in the singular, “And Lot said unto them, “Oh not so, my Lord, Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life … And my soul shall live for you.” (Gen. 19:18-20) The singular is used for the answer of the two to Lot, “And he said unto him, “See I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city … for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither…” (Gen. 19:21-22) The most strange thing occurs in Genesis 19:24, “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” The Lord rained on behalf of the Lord! The first Lord who rained the destruction on the sinful cities is the two men or angels, namely the Son and the Holy Spirit. The second Lord, whom the two rained the destruction for, is God the Father.

The three persons who appeared to Abraham are called men, because they appeared in the form of men. Out of the three persons, the two that appeared to Lot are called angels because they were sent by the other and were messengers. This is not about men or angels, but about the God who is declared at the beginning of the 18^th chapter of Genesis. God is three persons, but one essence and divinity. The Holy Spirit is one of the three persons, the same essence with the other two persons, true God like them.

“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion … The Lord hath sworn and will not repent … The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.” (Psalms. 110:1-5)

Here one Lord, God the Father, places a second Lord at his right hand, the Son – Messiah and speaks to him about a third Lord at the right hand of the second. The third Lord is the Holy Spirit.

“Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is upon their heart. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (1 Corith. 3:16-17)

When the Jew return to the Lord, the veil which blinds them is taken away. The Lord in this instance is the Spirit. It says here simply that the Spirit is the Lord. It is strange that in verse 17 the Comforter is the Spirit of the Lord. According to the previous verse 16 it is the Lord. Indeed as a person, the Comforter is the Spirit of the Lord, in other words, the Spirit of God the Father and in essence is the Lord, the true God. Likewise Christ is the Son of God and therefore God. (John 11:4, 1 John 5:20)

“And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ.” (2 Thess. 3:5)

This verse proves the trinity. The Lord who has the power to direct us to the love of God the Father and to the patient waiting of Christ is the Holy Spirit.

We cite some more versus of the New Testament which prove the trinity, verses where the Holy Spirit is mentioned together with the Father and the Son as a person with the same order as the other two: Rom 15:16; 1 Corith. 12:4-6; 2 Corith. 1:21-22, 13:13; Ephes. 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2; Jude 20-21.