What is the Holy Ghost in the Trinity?

Before dealing with the mission and activities of the Holy Ghost on earth, let us see what the Bible says as to His Person. We often hear Him spoken of as an influence or a power, but this is certainly not the teaching of Scripture. It is true that He exercises an influence, and is the power by which God operates in the souls of men; but He is a Person, and not only a Person but the third Person in the Godhead — the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Spirit is GOD, equal with the Father and the Son in the unity of the Godhead, Three in One and One in Three, One in knowledge, purpose, power, will.

The Holy Spirit is God, as the Father is God, and the Son is God, in the Unity of the Godhead, of One Substance, One in knowledge, counsel, will, purpose. We are obliged in speaking of them together to put their names in a certain order. Scripture gives the order in baptism, that those baptised are baptised in the name (not names) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (Matt. 28:19). But we must be careful not to make any distinction in the Persons of the Godhead in the way of One being more prominent than the Other.

A reference to Ephesians 4:30 may be salutary — "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." The Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as the Third Person of the Trinity, but we must be careful to avoid any thought of inequality in the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is God — a blessed Person. We must not think of Him merely as an influence (great as His influence undoubtedly is) — one cannot grieve an influence! Although sent by the Father and by the Son He nevertheless also came in His own will. A well-known servant of Christ has said — "The Spirit comes from above, in His own power, to possess and fill the place prepared for Him" (J.N.D.).

The Holy Spirit also now takes a place in the present dispensation that appears to be subordinated, He "proceedeth from the Father" and is "sent" by the Father and the Son. And having come, He does not speak of Himself but whatsoever He hears He speaks. His mission is to "glorify Christ" in receiving the things that are His and showing them unto us. (See John 15: 26; John 16: 13, 14). All such expressions as these appear to give a place of subordination to the Spirit as others appear to do to the Son but it is in appearance only and in respect to the place they have taken and the part they play in carrying out the divine purposes and not in anywise as to the dignity of their Persons. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are coequal in deity and all are one in thought, will and purpose though each has His respective part and sphere of action in the carrying out of the divine purposes.

The next thing is that it is by His SPIRIT God dwells there. I need not say to you that, if it is His Spirit, it is as equally God as if it were the Father or the Son. But it is neither the Father nor the Son, but the Spirit, and this is important to notice. God is before us objectively in the Father; the Son became man, that He might be servant to the Godhead, and accomplisher of the Father's counsels; and the Spirit is the One who has undertaken all subjective work in our souls, and who connects Himself with that work, as the spring and power of life in us, and as the means by which we enjoy all the blessings that are ours in Christ by the will of God. By the Spirit we are born again, sealed, anointed, cry Abba, Father, know that we are children of God, enjoy the love of God, mortify the deeds of the body, live to God, are led into all truth, know the deep things of God, know things to come, and contemplate the vast expanse of glory which stretches out before the vision of faith, radiant with the golden light of infinite and everlasting love. By Him our souls are nourished with all that God is as revealed in Christ. He is also the power for all worship, and service, and prayer. He dwells in our bodies individually, uniting us together as one body in Christ, and He dwells among us as His habitation.

Each of these errors destroys the Trinity in Unity, the first by denying the Unity of the Essence, the second by denying the Trinity of the Persons. The true and scriptural doctrine of the Trinity steers between these two erroneous extremes, and holds a Trinity of Persons in a Unity of Essence. Now, the Lord Jesus, as the eternal Son of the Father, is distinct from Him as His Son, and yet necessarily one with Him as partaking of the same Essence; and the Holy Spirit, as proceeding from the Father and the Son, is distinct also from those Persons of the Trinity, and yet, as eternally proceeding from both, partakes of their Essence likewise. Thus we have a Trinity of Persons, but a Unity of Essence—One God, but eternally subsisting as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Eternal Sonship gives to the Son a Unity of Essence with the Father, and yet a distinctness of Person; thus, as the Son He is one with the Father (John 10:30), and yet as the Son He is distinct from the Father. So eternal procession from the Father and the Son gives to the Holy Spirit Unity of Essence with the Father and the Son, and yet a distinct Personality. Upon this firm basis the Trinity stands. But if you remove the eternal Sonship of Christ, you also must take away the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit; and by so doing you destroy the Unity of Essence and inter-communion of Nature of Israel’s Triune God. If the denial of the eternal Sonship of Jesus involve such consequences, well may we tremble at such an error as removes the very foundations of revealed truth. All other views of the Sonship of Christ lower His essential and eternal dignity and, however craftily disguised, tend to, and usually end in, Arianism. If His Sonship be not His eternal mode of subsistence, it must, in some way or other, be created Sonship, and what is this but Arian doctrine in its very root and essence? How the Son can be eternally begotten, and how the Holy Spirit can eternally proceed, is a mystery which we cannot understand, much less explain; but we receive it by faith, in the same way as we receive the “great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.” If once we begin to reason on these matters, we are lost at the very threshold of our inquiry. To believe, not to speculate; to receive the testimony that God has given of His Son; not to doubt, argue and cavil, is the only sure path, as well as the peculiar blessedness of a child of God.

“To come to the point—it is the personal relations or distinctive relative properties which belong to each Person which distinguish Them from one another; as paternity in the First Person, filiation in the Second, and spiration in the Third; or, more plainly, it is begetting Psalm 2:7 which peculiarly belongs to the First, and is never ascribed to the Second and Third, which distinguishes Him from Them both, and gives Him; with great propriety, the Name of the Father; and it is being begotten, that is the personal relation, or relative property of the Second Person, hence called the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14), which distinguishes Him from the First and Third, and gives Him the name of the Son; and the relative property, or personal relation of the Third Person is, that He is breathed by the First and Second Persons; hence called the breath of the Almighty, the breath of the mouth of Jehovah the Father, and the breath of the mouth of Christ the Lord, and which is never said of the other Two Persons, and so distinguishes Him from Them; and very pertinently gives Him the name of the Spirit, or breath” (Job 33:4; Psalm 33:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:8). “Body of Divinity,” Book 1., ch. 28.

A. ― The Holy Ghost is God ― a Divine person. When God, as such, without reference to the persons of the Godhead is addressed in prayer, it includes the Spirit, with the Father, and the Son. In the New Testament prayer is spoken of, not as "to," but "in" the Holy Ghost. (See such passages as Eph. 6:18, Jude 20, Rom. 8:26-27.)

The Holy Ghost has come, in person, on earth in the Church; He is present in Person; He is some one who can be grieved. He is present in two ways — in the individual and in the Church: "Ye are the temple of God, and … the Spirit of God dwelleth in you," 1 Cor. 3:16. "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," 1 Cor. 6:19. He is, Himself, the gift (dorea) of God, sent by the Son, sent by the Father. Therefore, while He is God, we do not find that prayer is addressed to Him: not that all praise be not due to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but because He is always looked upon as on earth, as the Son was there; and He does not glorify Himself, but He glorifies the Father and the Son, and He is the source of all prayer and praise to the Father who gave Him, and to the Son who is glorified.