The Holy Spirit: A Personal Being

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
~ John 14:26 (ESV)

I need to buck up and get working on my paper on the role of the Holy Spirit in Acts. I am beginning to worry about choosing the assignment on the Holy Spirit. With a 2000-word limit, I will definitely run into problems.

I plan to approach it this way:

The role of the Holy Spirit in Acts
- in comparison to His role in the Scriptures
- in comparison to the various views held by believers

Who is the Holy Spirit?

According to Hammond, some people take the Holy Spirit as a divine "mode of action" - i.e. that scriptural references to "the Spirit" may be simply symbolic expression for an action of God in a spiritually creative manner. But if we look in the New Testament, references of Him would prove otherwise. The Holy Spirit is a personal being just as the Father and the Son. The Spirit is not an impersonal “it” or simply an influence.

1. The Holy Spirit bears the titles "the Spirit of God", "the Holy Spirit of God", "the Holy Spirit whom you have from God", "the Spirit of His Son", "the Spirit of Christ".

2. The emphatic use of the definite article, the Spirit.

3. Jesus discourse in John 14-16, where He gave the Spirit His most prominent title, the Paraclete; He is also referred to as "another Advocate" plus the use of a masculine personal pronoun in John 14:26 and 15:26.

4. References to "lying against" the Holy Spirit (Rom 9:1), "grieving" the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30), the Holy Spirit bearing witness (1 John 5:7), and teaching (John 14:26).

Maeghan