Is The Holy Spirit, God? Subordinate? Equal?
Posted: Thursday, December 04, 2008
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
There has been much speculation, study, reasoning and questioning concerning the Holy Spirit (rendered Holy Ghost in the King James and other early translations). Questions concerning Him are many and cover a wide spectrum. Who is He? What is His purpose? How does He fit into the triune Godhead? And almost everyone has a different view concerning Him, albeit very minor in many cases. It is this writers view that we will never fully understand until we all stand before God. But, we can indeed, study the things written about Him and make somewhat educated conjectures.
(Acts 5:3-4) " But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God."
(John 14:15-17) " If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."
(John 15:26) " But 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:"
I would like to quote passage from John W. Haley concerning the two scriptures from John above: "These texts refer to an official, but not essential, subordination. It may be inferred from them that there is a fitness in the Holy Spirit's undertaking the function indicated, but not that he is not truly and properly divine. Dr. Hodge terms the Spirit "the executive of the Godhead," and says, "he is subordinate to the Father and Son as to his mode of subsistence and operation, as he is said to be of the Father and of the Son; he is sent by them an they operate through him."
(John 16:13) " Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come."
(John 14:26) " But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
Then, we have the fulfillment of those promises in John of the coming of that Spirit:
(Acts 2:1-5) " And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
We must understand one thing. God, which includes the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are spiritual beings. Jesus, the son, took on the fleshly body of a human to live among us. But, we know for a fact that flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:50)
So, we do know they are all spirits and we know they are all one. We are entering the area of that which is beyond the conception of the human mind. When we read that they are one, we cannot perceive, since our immediate vision of "one" is physically one, their being three. And that is an unrealistic view. They are one in spirit, their thoughts are in unison. They each are omniscient, so when three entities know all there is to know, they can be nothing else but one in spirit. They have nothing to disagree upon. It appears that they have each taken a role in which to function. The Father apparently has been willingly given the lead role, the Son accepted a role of submission to the Father and also relinquished His leadership role in heaven to live among men, thus qualifying as our redeemer by living an exemplary life for man to pattern themselves by. The Holy Spirit, seemingly, has always been the delivery man, implanting supernatural messages into mankind from the Father and/or the Son.
The problem with physical humans is that our perception ends when we leave the physical aspects which is all we have ever known. A spirit which is all powerful, all knowing, ever present, is beyond our ability to comprehend. It is conceivable, to me, that one such spirit would be able to perform all of the roles as mentioned above. If He is able to know the thoughts and intents of my heart, here in Piedmont, Alabama and also be aware of the dying marine creature deep under the Antarctic ice, plus knowing all the while how many planets, moons, stars and suns exist in this universe and knows each star that is exploding or colliding in distant space, why then could He not serve in all the roles mentioned? When we say His knowledge and wisdom are infinite and omniscient, that leaves little to be impossible with Him
(Matthew 19:26) " But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."
(Mark 10:27) " And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible."
Pray for our nation and it's leaders, and for undrstanding, while we study and meditate upon His word.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)HI Joel, truly a concept that our finite minds cannot fully grasp, but there is plently of evidence that the Godhead is of triune nature nonetheless."For there are three that vear witness in heaven: The Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." 1 John 5:7Colossians 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him...If we could understand everything there is to know about God, he would cease to be God.You truly have the gift of teaching in such a clear and informative way. I love the fact that you dig and wrestle with the word of God.Thank you so much Teresa, you are indeed correct when you say wrestle. I am not overloaded with smarts, but diligent study can do wonders anyway. You are one of the most knowledgable persons I have run into lately. I commend you.Hi Joel, I am fully convinced that Paul was being literal when he said we need to excercise our spiritual muscles :-) Even God said, come let us reason together.Thank you for the kind words, coming from an avid student of the bible, I am humbled. I can't imagine not being in love with the word of God. It is so rich and reveals so much about my Savior. To me not reading and studying his word would be worse than not wanting to hang out and get to know my husband in deeper ways.When God says he holds his word above his name and when Jesus says, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, I want to know every word! What excites me as that you have been studying a lot longer than I have and you are still learning, this tells me that as much as I know, I have only scratched the surface.What an adventure it is to walk with God!! Oops, didn't mean to ramble. I just feel so blessed when I talk about the word and run into others who love it as much as I do.Keep sharing. I know you are inspiring other believers to dig in as well!
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