The Holy Spirit is God 

Geoff Thomas

The Jehovah's Witnesses deny this truth, as do the Mormons, but it is very clearly taught in the Scriptures. For example, in the Old Testament what is said of Jehovah God is also said of the Spirit of God. The expressions 'God said' and 'the Spirit said' are repeatedly interchanged. The activity of the Holy Spirit is said to be the activity of God. In Isaiah 6 the prophet describes his vision of God high and lifted up, his train filling the temple. Isaiah says, Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!' He said, 'Go and tell this people... , (Isaiah 6:8-9). Isaiah heard the Lord's voice telling him to go and tell the people, but Paul actually quotes this text in Acts 28:25 and he says, The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet: 'Go to this people and say... '.

What the Lord says the Holy Spirit says; what the Holy Spirit says the Lord says. There is no change in identity whatsoever; the Lord is God; the Holy Spirit is God. Again, the apostle tells us that believers are the temple of God for this reason, because the Holy Spirit dwells in us. In I Corinthians 3:16 Paul declares, Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? God's temple is the place where God lives, but Paul explains this by the fact that 'God's Spirit' dwells in us, and so he

equates God's Spirit with God himself.

Again, in Acts 5:3-4 we read, Then Peter said, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after ii was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What. made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God. , According to Peter's words to lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God.

Again the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is everywhere, that is, he is omnipresent. David says in Psalm 139:7-10, Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. The presence of the Holy Spirit is identified with the presence of God. Where the Spirit is, there God is. A fugitive cannot run and hide somewhere where God is absent. The Holy Spirit is simply everywhere; he is ubiquitous. This is an attribute that belongs to the being of God. An angel is not everywhere; an archangel is only in one place at one time, but the Spirit of God is not bound by space and time. He is called the 'eternal Spirit' and he is also omnipresent. There is nowhere that David can flee from the Spirit of God.

Again, the Spirit knows everything, in other words he is omniscient. To underline this we're not told that the Spirit knows my heart and my inmost thoughts, but that he knows everything about God. In I Corinthians 2:10-11 Paul says these words, The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no-one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. There are no secret corners in God that the Spirit knows nothing about. There are no no-go areas in the Godhead out of bounds to the Spirit. God doesn't keep a single secret from him. The Spirit goes in and in and in and into God, even the deep things of God. He knows the infinite and immeasurable God exhaustively.

Again, the Spirit is the Creator. He is there at creation: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty; darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. He is not spectating; he is active, as the Psalmist says: When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth (Psalm 104:30). The patriarch Job says, The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life (Job 33:4). The Spirit creates! Indeed the Spirit's greatest of all creatorial roles was his overshadowing of the virgin Mary so that the Son of God was begotten in her womb: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).

Again, the Spirit raises the dead. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you (Romans 8:11).

Again, the Spirit is the agent of a sinner's regeneration. If you are a real Christian, in other words, if you have been born again, it is solely because of God the Holy Spirit. In John 3:5-8 the Lord Jesus says, I tell you the truth, n no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again. ' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

If the Holy Spirit is not God, then far from the God of the Bible being unique, eternally alone, and matchless in all his perfections, there is at least one creature to whom belong all the attributes whereby God can be distinguished and marked out. He lacks nothing that the one living God is and has. That is the end of the unity of God. The Holy Spirit is a second god, and the chief rival and adversary on earth to the blessed and only Potentate.

You might think that teaching on the deity of the Spirit of God is irrelevant, but there was this incident in the ministry of a man I know which shows how wrong such judgements are. One Monday night a church member called him and she was almost whispering as she talked. 'Where does it say in the Bible that the Holy Spirit is God?' she asked. He gave her some of the above verses, and then he asked her why she was whispering. She said, 'I have a Jehovah's Witness here in the kitchen and he is winning the argument.' He mildly protested to her, 'But I preached a message to you only last night on the deity of the Holy Spirit.' 'Yes I know,' she said apologetically, 'but I didn't know I needed it then.' When she came onto the field of service and began talking of her faith in God to someone else she realised that she needed to know the Bible's teaching on the Trinity. So it will be with you. You might think that this teaching is for egg-heads and not for ordinary Christians, but then start talking about your faith to others and you will see that you need to know everything that God has taken such pains to tell us. The Holy Spirit is God.

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