The deity of the Holy Spirit is affirmed by His inclusion in the Trinity, His possession of divine attributes, and His performance of divine acts. The sermon demonstrates His Trinitarian nature by His inclusion in baptismal formulas (Matthew 28:19), benedictions (2 Corinthians 13:14), and witness statements (1 John 5:7), and by His separate appearance and actions (Matthew 3:16). His divine attributes include eternality (Hebrews 9:14), absolute holiness (Romans 1:4), omnipotence (Romans 15:19), omniscience (1 Corinthians 2:10), and omnipresence (Psalm 139:7). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit performs acts of deity such as creation (Genesis 1:2), inspiration (2 Peter 1:21), government (Zechariah 4:6), sending the Son (Isaiah 48:16), revelation (1 Corinthians 2:10), acting according to His own will (1 Corinthians 12:11), and resurrection (1 Peter 3:18). The sermon concludes by emphasizing His supreme majesty, noting that believers' bodies are His temple and that He can be grieved, sinned against, resisted, lied to, tempted, blasphemed, and insulted, underscoring the seriousness of His indwelling presence.
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The subject of this study is the deity of the Holy Spirit. Section one, his personality. One, he is one of the Trinity. Now, the word Trinity doesn't occur in the Bible, but the idea is there, and this is our way of expressing it. It doesn't mean that there are three gods, but that there is one God existing in three persons, co-equal and co-eternal and so on. And the Holy Spirit is one of these three. Now we have four proofs for this.
According to Matthew, twenty eight and nineteen, he was named in baptism. That is, the order of baptism was in the name of the Father. and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. He certainly would not include one person who was not co-equal with the Father and with the Son. In Second Corinthians thirteen and fourteen, he is named in the benediction. You remember the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.
And see he is named together with the others in witness. First John five and verse seven. I realize there have been some questions raised about this verse, but we're not going to that now. Now three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And last of all, first Corinthians twelve, four to six, they are named together in their work. In that section that has to do with the spiritual gifts, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are named as having a part in the distribution and the effective working of the gifts.
Now second, we want to notice that he possesses individuality. There's a misprint in your outline. Matthew three sixteen should be under heading B and the next one under heading C. So you'll drop down one line there. I have no reference for A because this simply states that they are mentioned separately. The very fact that they are mentioned independently and separately indicates that he has individuality. Now B, they appeared separately.
In Matthew three sixteen, at the baptism of the Lord Jesus, he was seen coming up out of the Jordan, while the Father spoke from heaven, commending him, and the Holy Spirit was seen descending in the form of a dove. So they appeared separately. And C, they acted separately. In Matthew one eighteen and in Luke one thirty-five, You remember the Holy Spirit was said to be the means of the conception of the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of the Virgin. The power of the highest shall overshadow thee. The Spirit shall come upon thee and so on.
He was conceived of the Holy Ghost. Now our third subdivision has to do with a seemingly retiring position in this age. This has disturbed a good many people. They've said, well, the Father has a very prominent place, the Son has a very prominent place, but the Holy Spirit seems to have a rather insignificant place, or at least seems to be retiring. He's sort of out of sight. Why does he have this retiring position? One of the points that's brought up is that he is not designated by a separate name.
He is simply called the Holy Spirit of God. While the Son of God is called the Christ, the Lord, and called the Son of Man, he's given him a name, Jesus. But the Holy Spirit is not designated by a separate name. We'll see in a little bit that he carries all of the other names. or the names which the other persons of the Trinity carry. Now in John eight, John three, excuse me, in verse eight, we are told that the wind blow up where it listed, and now here is the sound there often can't not tell what should come of or whether it go up.
The reason for that is that the word spirit in both the Hebrew and the Old Testament and the Greek language in the New Testament is a word which means breath or wind. It's Ruach in the Old Testament and it's Phnomah in the Greek. We get our word pneumatic, a pneumatic tire, a tire that's filled there. Because of this, some have felt that maybe he isn't really a person. Maybe he's just an emanation or just the breath of God.
But this is all a part of his taking this retiring position in this age. Then in John fifteen in verse twenty-six, the Lord Jesus said, The Holy Spirit, whom I will send unto you from the Father. So because he was sent from the Father, some have taken to mean that perhaps he does not have separate personality. And further in John's sixteen, verses thirteen and fourteen, the Lord Jesus said, when the Spirit has come, he will not speak of himself. Now the revised version says he will not speak from himself.
but he will take of the things of mine and will reveal them unto you. So, not speaking from himself means that he doesn't take the leave position, but that he comes to carry out the work of the Father and the Son in this present age. Now, subdivision two, he bears the names of deity. This should banish any thoughts that he is not really God or that he has an inferior position in any sense. One, he is called God.
And the reference here is Acts five, verses three and four. It says they lied to the Holy Ghost. And in the same passage it says, because they lied to God. This is Anon, Ash, and Sapphire. So lying to the Holy Spirit is tantamount to lying to God. For the Holy Spirit is God. Now, secondly, he is called Lord.
In Second Corinthians three and verse seventeen, We read, the Lord is that spirit. And in second Thessalonians three, one to five, he says, the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and the patience of Christ. It says patient waiting for Christ, but the revised version says the patience of Christ. So you have the Lord, evidently the spirit, directing you into the love of God and the patience of Christ. You have the Trinity together in that section. Now third, he is called Jehovah. You'll find this to be a helpful way of studying the Scriptures.
Whenever you find a quotation from the Old Testament given in the new, you may not always recognize it as a quotation, but the more you learn about the quotations in the New Testament and then go back to the old and compare them and contrast them. You learn a great deal about Old Testament passages and it will shed a great deal of light on the new. Someone has said the old is revealed in the new and the new is concealed in the old. I think it's in Baxter's handbook that he says that there are eight hundred and eighty quotations. from the Old Testament found in the New.
Now that tells you something. If you're really going to understand the New Testament, you've got to study the Old. Take this as an example. In Numbers twelve and verse six, you have the statement that the prophets were inspired in their writings by Jehovah. So he is called Jehovah. Comparing that with II Peter I, XXI, it says that the prophets take as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So Jehovah inspired them, and Jehovah is one of the titles for the Holy Spirit, just as he is for the Lord Jesus Christ.
The title of Jehovah is a composite title of the Trinity. Now the fourth point is that he is called the Most High, and here again we take Psalm and seventeen where it says they resist the most high while in Acts seven and verse fifty one the first martyr Stephen was preaching to the Jews and he said as your fathers did so you do you always resist the Holy Ghost he's evidently quoting from the Old Testament where he said that they resisted the most high Since he has the title then of God, Lord, Jehovah, and Most High, he certainly is one of the Trinity, and he does possess deity.
In our third section, he possesses the attributes of deity. These are things that are true only of God. Now one, he is eternal. You and I had a beginning. Having had a beginning, we shall never have an ending. We shall endure eternally, all human beings, somewhere. This is true of the angels and of course of the demons and of Satan. But they all have beginnings. You and I have beginnings.
But we won't have any endings. Now, the Holy Spirit is said to be eternal. In Hebrews nine and verse fourteen, we're told that the Lord Jesus, through the eternal spirit, offered himself without spot to God. And the word eternal, I once asked a Greek friend of mine who knew New Testament Greek as well as modern Greek, I said to him, what do you understand by the expression ion or the expression, the ions of the ions, the ages of the ages?
That's the word that's translated or the phrase that's translated eternal. What do you understand by that expression in the Greek language? And he didn't speak too good English, but he said, well, he say there that he just go on and on. And on and on and on and on and on and on. And that's what eternity is. Now we often use a circle as a symbol of eternity. It is the endlessness. I don't even think it's right to speak of a past eternity and a future eternity. It's all eternity. Somebody has said, if you can think of a boundless ocean and then think of a little island in the middle of that ocean, and think of cruising endlessly on that ocean until you reach this island and then getting off and crossing this island in a few days and getting back on the same ship and continuing to cruise endlessly.
You've got a little idea of time as an island in eternity. Now the Holy Spirit is said to be eternal. Second, he is said to be absolutely holy. In Romans one and verse four, We're told that the Lord Jesus Christ was witnessed to by the spirit of holiness. This is in connection with his resurrection from the dead. So the title Spirit of Holiness seems to indicate his absolute holiness. Now you and I are told to be holy as believers. The Lord says, Be ye holy, for I'm holy.
but we're all very conscious of not being absolutely holy. The Holy Spirit possesses that absolute holiness. Let me just digress here long enough to say that it's a very serious thing for you as a believer whose body is the temple of the Holy Ghost to take that Holy Spirit into an unholy place. think that over a little bit because he never leaves you remember the Lord said in John fourteen when the Holy Spirit has come he will abide with you forever in the Old Testament they prayed take not thy Holy Spirit from me but this is not true in our day he never leaves the believer and maybe maybe some of us have taken that Holy Spirit into unholy places that would grieve him.
Let's be careful. Now third, he is omnipotent. This is just a word which means all-powerful. In Romans fifteen and verse nineteen, and the same in Ephesians one, nineteen and twenty, he refers to the power of the Spirit of God. In Ephesians one, he tells about the power that works in you as the same power that raised up Christ again from the dead. This is a marvelous thing. If you think this through, realize that God has put within you the person of the Holy Spirit, and it was by the power of the Spirit of God that the Lord Jesus Christ was raised up again from the dead.
And fourth, he is omniscient. which means that he knows all things. In First Corinthians two and verse ten, he refers to some things that I has not seen and ear has not heard, and it is never entered into the heart of man to conceive these things. But he says, he has revealed them unto us by his spirit. For he says, the spirit searches all things, ye the deep things of God. So the Spirit of God is set to know everything. This is wonderful to know because he's our teacher. So we'll see as we carry this study a little further.
You're not so sure about human teachers, but here's a teacher that you sure knows what he's talking about. And last of all, he is omnipresent. The hundred and thirty-nineth psalm is a psalm in which David complains that God seems to be looking down in his shirt collar all the time. He's bothered by this. He just wonders why there isn't any way that I can get away from God. But after he thinks it's over, he finishes the Psalm by saying, that's the way it ought to be, because God is kindly toward me. He loves me. And so he says, Lord, go ahead and search me again. Now, in that Psalm, you have this statement.
in verse seven, whither shall I go from thy Holy Spirit? And then he said, if I go up to heaven or if I go down to hell, if I go to the darkest night, no matter where I go, I can't get away from thy Holy Spirit. So he is omnipresent. Only God has omnipresence. Sometimes we mistakenly attribute omnipresence to Satan. This is not true. Satan is not omnipresent. He is everywhere by ubiquity, which means that he can have a representative in every place, but he is not personally there. If he's looking after some business in Communist China today, he isn't in South Africa.
He has plenty of henchmen to take care of his business, but he does not have omnipresence. Only God has that. Now, section four, The Holy Spirit performs the acts of deity. The acts of deity. What are they? Well, number one, creation. You're familiar with Genesis chapter one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then it says, and by the way, the word God is the Elohim, the plural. in the Hebrew language.
There is the singular and the dual, which means two, and the plural, which means more than two. And the plural form is used in the very first name of God in the Bible, Elohim. And then in the third verse it says, And the Spirit of God moved or brooded over the face of the deep. So the Spirit of God had a part, even in creation. Now in Job, And verse four, Job says, the Spirit of God have made me. There's no contradiction between this and other statements about the creatorial work of the Father or the creatorial work of the Son, because they work together.
Everything that the deity does, they do in harmony. There may be a special sense in which the Father plans the creation. and the Son executes it, and the Holy Spirit makes it suitable for habitation. The same thing is true in redemption. The plan of redemption was in the Father's mind. The Son came down to be the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit builds a temple in which He can inhabit the habitation of God through the Spirit. But they work together. And second, He performs the act of deity and inspiration. Second Peter one, verse twenty one, which I referred a little while ago, says, Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Every writer in the Bible claims to be inspired by God. So either the Bible is divinely inspired or it is not a good book. If it isn't divinely inspired, it's full of lies because every book in the scriptures claims to be dictated by God himself. Every writer says, God told me to put this down. So let's count on inspiration. That is, this is the work of the Spirit of God. Now, number three, he has a special place in government. In the little prophecy of Zechariah, among the minor prophets at the close of the Old Testament.
Chapter four and verse six, we read, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. And the context there has to do with the government of nations, with all of the things that God is working out. Now God says, I'm going to handle this. I'm going to do it by my spirit. And then he had a part. Number four, he had a part in sending the Son. Isaiah forty-eight, verses sixteen and seventeen, if you'll read what goes with it, the context, you'll find that the Lord Jesus is the speaker, and he says, the Lord God and his Spirit has sent me.
Now, we often think of the Father sending the Son to be the Savior of the world. We think of the Lord Jesus sending the Holy Spirit and of the Father sending the Holy Spirit. But we sometimes forget that it also says that the Father and the Holy Spirit sent the Son. See, this is this complete unity of the Trinity. And these are proofs of the deity of the Holy Spirit. Number five, he performs the act of deity in revelation. On First Corinthians two, to which I referred a little bit ago, the ninth and tenth verses tell us that I have not seen or ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things that God prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed them unto us by his spirit.
He goes on to say, the spirit searches the deep things of God. So he is capable of revealing everything we need to know. of the mind of God in John fourteen again in chapter sixteen the Lord Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes he's going to he's going to take my things and show them to you he's going to he's going to teach you everything and he's going to show you things to come and the Spirit of God does all this and the sixth thing in first Corinthians twelve and verse eleven is that he does his own will.
Now this is very important. I've appended a note here in your skeleton outline that self-determination in anyone but God is sin. This is what's wrong with the human race. This was the cause of the fall of Satan. This is why you and I as Christians don't get along too well some days. It's our desire for self-determination. And yet in I Corinthians twelve in verse eleven, it plainly says that these things worketh the self-same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will.
See, the Spirit of God makes the decisions, the choices as to what gifts you shall be given and what place you shall have. in the body of Christ. So he acts according to his own will. This of course marks him out as being God. And then the last one in resurrection. Now in first Peter three eighteen it is said of the Lord Jesus that he was put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit. Here again the Father raised the Son from the dead. The Lord Jesus said, I lay down my life that I may take it again.
So he himself had a part in raising himself from the dead. Here we're told that he was raised again from the dead by the Holy Spirit. So you see the three working together in resurrection. The same thing is true in Romans eight and eleven of our resurrection. And not simply of our resurrection, but of the changing of those who are still alive when Christ comes back. He says he shall quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit. Quicken means to give light. If the Lord should come at this moment, my parents who have been dead for quite some time, both believers would be raised from the dead.
This was said to take place by the power of the Spirit of God. And I, being still alive, would have my body changed to be like theirs will be, all of us like Christ. This will all take place by the power of the Spirit of God. So these are the acts of deity which He performs. Now in our last section of this study, number five, His Supreme Majesty. I don't know any better word than this. The word has been borrowed for human kings and queens, but in a special way, the word majesty seems to belong to God Himself.
I don't even like to hear it apply to a majestic creation. I think it's a word that belongs to God. Anyway, I've used it here to express number one, that the Holy Spirit is seen in His glory. Now, there are several ways. In First Corinthians six, nineteen, he had seen in his glory as inhabiting the believers' bodies. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. The temple. Now, I have a house, and a king may have a palace, but only God has a temple.
See, this is an indication of the majesty of deity. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. That ought to make us think twice about how we use it or misuse it. Now, the same thing is said to be true of the church in Toto, the whole mystical body of Christ in Ephesians two, verses nineteen to twenty two, where he says, that the church groweth into an holy temple, a habitation of God through the Spirit. So the individual bodies of believers, and then the whole body of believers, the whole body of Christ, all Christians, form a temple of God through the Spirit.
On First Peter four, in verse fourteen, we have a very interesting verse. It says, the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. It might be interesting for you to sit down and correlate all of the titles, the ways in which the Holy Spirit is presented. He is the Spirit of holiness. Here he's said to be the Spirit of glory and so on. He's called the sevenfold spirits of God in the book of the Revelation. This goes back to Isaiah eleven, where seven titles for the Holy Spirit are given to him.
Well, this is one of them. He is a spirit of glory. Now, secondly, he may be sinned against. And I have appended seven names here. Let me give them to you. Isaiah sixty three ten says that he may be vexed. or offended. B, Acts seven, fifty-one says that he may be resisted. Stephen said you resist the Holy Spirit, just like your father's did. C, Acts five, three says that he may be lied to. And again in Acts five, the ninth verse, it says, how is it that you have agreed to tempt the Holy Spirit or to put him to the test?
Now a teacher has a right to test the pupils, students, but no human being has any right to test God. And these people are testing God. E, he may be blasphemed. Mark three twenty nine. And F, he may be insulted. Hebrews ten twenty nine. And last of all, he may be grieved. Ephesians four and verse thirty. Think these over. You'll see what a serious thing it is to have God himself living within us.