What is the Holy Spirit in the Trinity?

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.

His personality also calls for a few words; for though He be God the Holy Ghost, He is not God the Father, nor God the Son; and yet these three are One. Though the Father and the Son are One in divine essence, so that Jesus could say, "I and my Father are One," yet in person they are distinct. Hence we read that the Father sent the Son, that "when the fulness of time was come God sent forth His Son." And so of the Holy Ghost Jesus said, "Whom the Father will send in my name" (John 14:26); and again, "Whom I will send unto you from the Father" (John 15:26); and further, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." (John 16:7.) Also His personal actings were referred to by our Lord — "He shall teach you all things. He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. He shall testify of me. He shall guide you into all truth. He shall glorify me: and shall receive of mine, and show unto you." What language could more plainly convey to our minds thee reality of personal actings? And who, I would ask, but One who was God, could teach all things, and guide into all truth? It is "He," "He," "He," all through. Thus the Godhead and personality of the Holy Ghost are plainly taught in the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. Let these precious truths be solemnly pondered by us.

For the Christian and in Scripture, the Holy Spirit is, as we know, the third Person of the Trinity. Apart from Him, we could not, of course, speak of a Trinity at all. With Him the Godhead is manifest: too obvious and easy a thought, perhaps, to impress us much with its significance.

But the Holy Spirit is also the Revealer. In another sense from that in which Christ is the Witness of God, the Holy Spirit is the witness. He is the Inditer of Scripture, through men inspired of Him — the Relator, as Christ is in Person and Work the substance of the relation. The Spirit is the productive witness, as in creation, brooding upon the face of the deep, or, garnishing the heavens.

In the New Testament, where only we have the full revelation of God, the full truth as to the personality and Godhead of the Holy Spirit is brought out; there can be no question of His personality. He is spoken of in that way as definitely as the Father or the Son. While, as we have said, His work is that which is prominent; a work indeed which displays the glories of the Son and the truth of God; yet in the very power which thus displays them, we have the witness of His own essential and absolute Godhead, His distinct personality.

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.

Whilst it is true that nowhere in Scripture is it asserted in so many words that the Holy Spirit is God, yet the way in which the names of the Father, Son and Spirit are linked together, shows plainly the truth of the Deity of the Spirit with that of the Father and the Son. Believers are baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19). Could that formula be employed if it were not that the Spirit is God, as the Father is God and the Son is God? Then there is the charming benediction, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen” (2 Cor. 13:14). One well-known passage we refer to, 1 Corinthians 12:11, where absolute sovereignty, an attribute only proper to Deity, is predicated of the Holy Spirit, “But all these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally AS HE WILL.” This is language only proper to God Himself. There is also one very striking passage where the fullest intimation of the Holy Trinity to be found in the Old Testament is given: “Come ye near unto Me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was there am I [a Divine Person] and now the Lord God and His Spirit has sent Me” (Isa. 48:16). (1) The Lord God, (2) His Spirit, (3) Me, three Persons in the Holy Trinity. How often the Lord when on earth spoke of Himself as the SENT One.

the Holy Spirit is eternal (Heb. 9:14); the Holy Spirit is coequal (on one level) with the Father and the Son (Matt. 28:19); the Holy Spirit is omnipresent (Ps. 139:7); the Holy Spirit is omniscient (1 Cor. 2:10–11); the Holy Spirit is omnipotent (only God can create (Job 33:4) or raise up (1 Pet. 3:18)).

The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit also is put before us as a divine person. He is seen at the baptism of the Lord Jesus. The Pharisees are warned against the awful sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. There is no thought here of an influence or an emanation from God, or of a supernatural spiritual Being not divine. So far from this, our Lord speaks of Him as a divine person who has a specific work to do. When John the Baptist spoke of our Lord as the One who would baptize with the Holy Ghost, or, before that, in the holy mystery of the incarnation itself, on to the precious details about the promised Comforter, we are again and again brought face to face with the truth of the personality and deity of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Are not these divinely formed links? Who would venture to join with the Father and the Son one who was not divine? Faith may therefore rest assured that the Holy Spirit, whereof we speak, is a person, and properly and essentially divine.

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.