The Personality of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is a divine person, the third person of the Godhead. You will never understand the Holy Spirit if you think of Him simply as a force or a wind. Like God the Father, He is spirit and He has a distinct personality.


The Godhead functions like a corporation. God the Father is the president and chief executive officer. Jesus is the executive vice president and director of operations. The Holy Spirit is the field representative. All three are God, but all have different functions.

Paul says in Romans 8:27 that the Holy Spirit is a person: "Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

Notice that the word Spirit is capitalized-as it should be-because it is referring to the Holy Spirit and not man's spirit. The phrase, the mind of the Spirit, indicates that the Holy Spirit has a mind. If the Spirit has a mind, it presupposes that He also has a will. Paul adds in 1 Corinthians 12:11: "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills."

The Holy Spirit not only has a mind but also a will. Isaiah 63:10 indicates that the Holy Spirit has feelings and can be grieved: "But they [the children of Israel] rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; so He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them."

You cannot experience grief if you do not have a personality. So the Holy Spirit has a mind, a will, and emotions, just as we do. But we must not stop here. We will also find that the Holy Spirit helps, teaches, guides, and comforts, as well as performs other functions.

HELPER, TEACHER


John 14:26: "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."

Christians have a divine Helper in the person of the Holy Spirit. He teaches us and reveals to us the things of God, supporting us in innumerable ways.

GUIDE


One phase of His help is in guiding the Believer. He guides us by speaking to our spirits, not our minds. Christians can trust that the Holy Spirit will never lead us into the wrong thing. John 16:13 reveals: "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come."

If the Holy Spirit led you to marry your spouse, be thankful. He would never lead you to the wrong person. Often you can tell couples who did not listen to the Holy Spirit before they got married because they wind up divorcing. If He led them to marry, and they divorce that would mean the Holy Spirit did not know what He was doing when He put them together and this is simply not true.

COMFORTER

In Acts 9:31, we see another aspect of the Holy Spirit: "Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied."

The Holy Spirit is here to comfort us. One of the names used in the original King James Version of the Bible to describe the Holy Spirit is the Comforter. In fact, a Greek term often applied to the Holy Spirit is the word Paraclete, or Paracletos, which means "advocate," "intercessor," or "one called alongside."

Just like throwing a bucket of water on a fire can quench the fire, you can do the same thing to the Holy Spirit by actions and attitudes that are inconsistent with what the Believers as a body are doing. This is one reason why I get on the congregation about being late for Sunday service. When we come together in one place, God considers us as one entity. Any thing one person does that is contrary to what the group is doing can hinder everyone else. That person is quenching the Holy Spirit.

Space does not permit me to discuss the Holy Spirit's divine qualities, such as being everlasting (Hebrews 9:14), being omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-10), being omniscient (1 Corinthians 2:10), doing divine works (Genesis 1:1-3), the ability to raise the dead (Romans 8:11), and so forth.

All these and more are the attributes of the Holy Spirit.