Who and What is The Holy Spirit?

If a godly person were asked what it feels like to have the Holy Spirit dwell in him or her, more than likely that person would not know exactly what to say or how to describe such an experience. One reason for that uncertainty is that the Holy Spirit is the most neglected of the "three persons" in the sense that even Pentecostals and Charismatics, the ones who most freely and openly give Him His rightful place in Christian worship, have never conducted serious, in-depth studies of His true personhood. Or if they have, their research efforts have taken as their starting point erroneous borrowed opinions. Other than being the one person whom the Father sent to dwell in all true believers--those who have acknowledged the Son of God as their only personal Savior--to be their Comforter, Advocate, Helper, Guide, Gifts-giver and Sanctifier, among His most outstanding operational functions, the substance of His person is far from being understood by most if not all. Below follow some of the most distinctive intellectual marks of the so-called third person:

1) The very first thing we must understand about the person of the Holy Spirit is that He is not the second, much less the third
person of no Trinity, but the FIRST AND ONLY person, for God is spirit * (John 4:24), One Spirit, One Lord
(Ephesians 4:4-6; 2 Corinthians 3:17), that one Lord is One God and Father and the Father is the ONLY TRUE GOD (John
17:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6).

* Or the Spirit, as in the original Greek of the New Testament the noun, standing alone, does not always have the indefinite quality that the omission of the
indefinite article has in English. In addition, while in the Greek a noun could take the definite article, like the, there was no Greek equivalent of our indefinite
article (a, an), e.g.: ho theos = the God [e.g., the God said would mean the one specific true God said, whereas theos by itself, would mean God or a god depending on the context, e.g., The word was (a) god, as opposed to the Word was God; since God did not create any gods--men did--the context shows that people like the Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong in alleging that John 1:1 should be read...the Word was (a) god].

(a) God is, therefore, one person, not three, and the Holy Spirit is one person with the Father, or God Himself.

2) A person is, primarily, an intelligent living being.

(b) The Holy Spirit, as a person and as God, is therefore the Supreme intelligent living being.

3) A person possesses a mind, a soul and the power of the word. God created us in His image, according to His likeness
(Genesis 1:26) in that we too possess those three faculties, all of which constitute that all-important part of our being that in turn
sets us apart from other earthly living creatures. They are also those constituent parts of our spirit that complement our body of
flesh and which together form our double nature: spirit and matter, which in turn make up our total person. Unlike us,
however, no part of God is matter but all spirit, except for the fact that He took on human form in order to visit the earth, the perfect and only logical way for Him to communicate and fellowship with men, die for their sins, and rise from the dead for the elect to be raised, in due time, in the likeness of both His death and His resurrection (Romans 6:5).

(c) The Holy Spirit is the Mind, the Soul and the Word of God (John 1:1, 14; 1 Corinthians 1:24; Philippians 2:3-11;
1 Timothy 3:16). Without His Spirit God is neither God nor a person.

4) The Holy Spirit anointed our Lord Jesus Christ at the Jordan River (Christ or Messiah means the Anointed), where He invested
Him with all the fullness of the Godhead (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18; Col. 2:9; Acts 10:38), fullness meaning all the power, attributes
and authority of God the Father, for it so pleased the Father (Col. 1:19; Mat. 28:18; John 17:1, 2). That is why Jesus
said that He and the Father are one and he who knows and sees Him has known and seen the Father (John 10:30; John 14:7-11),
because the Holy Spirit, His Father, was in Him. On that occasion Jesus then acquired a second nature, the same nature or Spirit
of the Father, so He became all man, except that He was totally sinless, and all God. The Spirit of God in turn played the double
role of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, who descended upon Him and then declared, "This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 4:16, 17). That is also why Jesus, the eternal living Word, is the power and the wisdom of
God--the Father and Holy Spirit as one single person--(1 Corinthians 1:24).

(d) Holy Spirit and Father are merely specific designations or titles for the same divine person to signify and describe
God's specific functions or roles: Father for His fatherly qualities; Holy Spirit in God's capacity as executor of
His own will.

5) (1) Now think of a gentleman who is a husband to his wife, a father to his children and a physician to his patients. Just because he plays all those three roles does not mean he is three persons, does it? (2) If we know that God is all Spirit and
no part of Him is matter, why the need to split that divine Spirit into three persons? We do not do that with our own spirit, do we? (3) These observations should remind us, once again, that we are like God only spiritually, not--please do not laugh--physically. If you think this is so obvious, why do such an incredible number of people believe that God is three and not one? In any case, we might say that we human creatures are miniature gods, or better yet, we are a miniature replica of the real God; at times we are more like a caricature of Him.

Now we have all we need to know about the Holy Spirit, or at least enough to have a clearer understanding of how He operates when He comes to dwell in us. But first, let us take a look at one more illustration: Imagine a man whose son inherits exactly all his spiritual characteristics (mental and emotional). This, of course, because of our many imperfections, never occurs in real life, but that is what happens with the operation of the Holy Spirit (God the Father). When He anointed the Lord Jesus Christ He transferred all of His traits, I mean all of them without one single exception, onto Him so that the Father and the Son were EXACTLY identical spiritually, even though Jesus was a man. He does the same thing with us the moment we believe and repent. But why is it that we are not identical with Him? Why is it that even the best of us struggle so hard to "keep our nose clean" with God, so to speak? Simply because Jesus was SINLESS from the moment the Holy Spirit prepared His virgin conception by overshadowing Mary (Luke 1:35).

Not so with us. Because the whole human species inherited from Adam and Eve that malignant influence known as the freedom to choose between right and wrong, and but for various beneficial influences (such as the law, the fear of punishment, inducements of one kind or another to motivate us to do what's right, rigid training, etc., etc.,) all men would continually do nothing but evil. Even those of us who consider ourselves born-again Christians are so irresistibly inclined to sin that we often resist even the power of the Holy Spirit, who as the perfect gentleman that He is, simply respects our decision when we choose to succumb to temptation. It's as if He said, "Son, I showed you the way, but if you prefer to go the way of Satan, well, baby, that's your choice." It is part of God's grace that He has made us partakers of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). It is for that reason that we no longer think, act, talk and feel the way we used to. Our attitude toward God and our fellow men has changed, all because we now have the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16), that is, the Holy Spirit, and despite all our deficiencies and imperfections we are still better persons than we once were thanks to Him, our Helper, Counselor, Teacher and Sanctifier. What is puzzling about all this is that all Evangelical Christians, notwithstanding their denominational preferences, continually talk and even sing about Jesus' life-transforming power. So what will we have? Either we give all the credit to our Lord or give it all or partially to ourselves; it cannot be given to both, not even in small measures.

The Holy Spirit's influence in us is hardly ever noticed because everything with respect to our new beginning appears to be so natural to us now. When we do the right thing we think it is our own doing. Likewise when we overcome temptation. It never occurs to us that if we manage to fight our own lusts and carnal instincts successfully it is the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives what makes it possible. The Holy Spirit, who is also the eternal living Word besides being the Father, always influences our way of thinking and our right choices through the same Word, even though we might not even be aware of it. Just one example: if a fellow happens to be tempted to commit an act of adultery, but who in order to avoid incurring in it goes to the extreme of inflicting pain on himself, he is only doing, however unwittingly, what Jesus advises when He said that it is better for a man who lusts after a woman to pluck his eye out of its socket than for his whole body to burn in hell. It is always through His Word that God governs our lives, for everything we need to know and understand about Him and ourselves is contained therein, and that same Word is God's Holy Spirit.