Yes, You Should Believe in the Trinity The Holy Spirit — a Person or Force? - Chapter 6 - Yes, You Should Believe in the Trinity!!!
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YES, YOU SHOULD BELIEVE IN THE TRINITY!!! CHAPTER 6: THE HOLY SPIRIT—A PERSON OR FORCE? PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS A MIND: ROMANS 8:27: “and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS EMOTIONS: EPHESIANS 4:30: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God….” THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS A WILL AND ISSUES COMMANDS: 1 CORINTHIANS 12:11: “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.” THE HOLY SPIRIT IS TREATED AS A PERSON AND DOES THINGS THAT JOHN 14:16; 15:26: “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper....When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me.…” “Now there are two words in the Greek language for the English word ‘another’: The first one (heteros) means ‘another of a different kind.’ The other Greek word (allos) means ‘another of the same kind.’ It is this second word, allos, that is used in John 14:16. So Jesus is saying that He will ask the Father to send another Helper of the same kind as Himself—that is, personal!”—Reasoning from the Scriptures with Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1993, p. 212 ROMANS 8:26: “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” “...but the radio waves Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts [God] knows what the mind of the radio waves is….for the electricity searches all things, even the depths of God....Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the electricity of God.…But they themselves rebelled and made his electricity feel hurt.…And do not grieve the radio waves of God...How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who...has insulted the radio waves of grace?….Is the electricity of the LORD impatient?…But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the electricity....’ ” How can an impersonal force express personality? I can’t make the electricity in my room express my personality any more than I can cause radio waves to “feel” hurt. As one considers these passages, the irrationality of interpreting the Holy Spirit as a mere force is plainly manifest. The following is a discussion of some of the arguments the Watchtower Society employs endeavoring to justify their reasoning:
Is this a viable argument? Let’s consider the following passage: “And when He had come out onto the land, He was met by a certain man from the city who was possessed with demons.…And seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him.…For He had been commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him many times.…And Jesus asked him. ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him.”—Luke 8:27-30 Is it credible to argue that the demons or fallen angels are not persons because they enter and “seize” humans? Is the apostle Paul any less of a person because he states at 2 Timothy 4:6, “I am already being poured out as a drink offering....”1. What about the following passages where we read that both the Father and Jesus “fill” people? “…that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.…one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”—Ephesians 3:19; 4:6 Since we know that it is a fact that both the Father, Jesus, and demons are not any less persons simply because they “fill” people, we must therefore conclude that this Watchtower argument is untenable, for the Holy Spirit is not any less a person than the Father and the Son.
Concerning the Scripture’s personification of wisdom and death, Peter Barnes2. notes: “It is vitally important to understand that the purely abstract attribute of wisdom is personified only once in the entire New Testament. Also, sin is personified just five times, and death six times, on the other hand, the Holy Spirit is personified in excess of one hundred times. There is positively no valid parallel between the way in which the New Testament writers spoke of the Holy Spirit and their sporadic personification of utterly abstract things.” —The Truth About Jesus And The Trinity, 1994, p. 48 The assertion that the Holy Spirit is not a person because he is associated with impersonal objects is another argument that is not credible for Scripture also associates Jesus with impersonal objects such as the following:
In regard to the Watchtower argument that the word “name” used in reference to the Holy Spirit only refers to power and authority, Robert Bowman comments:
While it is true that Greek grammar rules require that neuter personal pronouns be used in conjunction with neuter nouns, Peter Barnes is quick to observe that “in the very chapter to which the Watchtower article makes reference, namely John 16:13-14, there are three strikingly clear instances where the masculine personal pronoun is used in connection with the neuter word ‘Spirit.’”3. In other words, the apostle John broke Greek grammar rules when he wrote John 16:13-14, because he used the personal pronoun “he” in reference to the neuter gender noun “Spirit.” How is that for indicating personality! Ron Rhodes also comments: “The primary reason the Jehovah’s Witnesses say the Holy Spirit is an ‘active force’ is that the Greek word for ‘Spirit’ (pneuma) is neuter. However, as noted above, this is faulty reasoning, since the gender of the word has to do with the grammatical form of the word and not actual physical gender. For example, one will find that in Scripture, neuter terms are used in reference to infants (Luke 1:41,44; 2:16; 18:15), children (Mark 5:39-41), girls (Matthew 9:24,25; Mark 5:41,42), unclean spirits (Matthew 12:24,27,28; Mark 7:26,29,30), and angels (Hebrews 1:14). Obviously, each of these beings have personality, even though a neuter term is used in reference to them. We can safely conclude, then, that the use of a neuter term does not indicate a lack of personality.”—Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1993, pp. 213-214 On page 21 of the Trinity brochure, the Society quotes Edmund Fortman as stating: “Although this spirit is often described in personal terms, it seems quite clear that the sacred writers [of the Hebrew Scriptures] never conceived or presented this spirit as a distinct person.” However, they fail to note that Fortman goes on to say: “Perhaps it can be said that some of these writing about word and wisdom and spirit did provide a climate in which plurality within the Godhead was conceivable to Jews. However, these writers definitely do give us the words that the New Testament uses to express the trinity of persons, Father, Son, Word, Wisdom, Spirit.”—The Triune God, p. 9 On page 22, the Society goes on to quote Fortman as stating: “The Jews never regarded the spirit as a person; nor is there any solid evidence that any Old Testament writer held this view.…The Holy Spirit is usually presented in the Synoptics [Gospels] and in Acts as a divine force or power.” Notice how the first statement is separated from the second statement by an ellipsis. The Society pulled these statements from two different pages of Fortman’s book and took them out of context. Note the contexts from which these two quotes are taken: “The spirit of Yahweh was often described in personal terms. The spirit was grieved, guided men, instructed them, caused them to rest (Ps 143.10; Neh 9.20; Is 63.10,14). But it seems quite clear that the Jews never regarded the spirit as a person; nor is there any solid evidence that any Old Testament writer held this view. A few scholars today maintain, however, that even though the spirit is usually presented as an impersonal divine force, there is an underlying assumption that the spirit was a conscious agent, which ‘provided a climate in which plurality within the Godhead was conceivable.’ ” —The Triune God, p. 6 Scripture not only reveals that the Holy Spirit is a person, but He is also God:
============ 1. See also Philippians 2:17 |
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