The purpose of this article is to show from Scripture that the Holy Spirit is a person rather than a force, power, or energy, as wrongly taught by both ancient heretics (e.g., Paul of Samosata in the 3rd century) and modern-day heretical groups (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians). The Holy Spirit is God, and therefore a person, just as much as the other two members of the Trinity are. We do him a disservice by depersonalising him. Admittedly, it should be noted that you’ll often hear orthodox Christians slip – albeit innocently – into this same error of speaking of the Holy Spirit as an “it” rather than a “he”. The Bible itself, however, clearly and consistently presents the Spirit as a personal being. Here are some examples:
1. The Holy Spirit has a mind. You can’t really get a much clearer indication of personhood than that. “And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit” (Romans 8:27).
2. The Spirit speaks: “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). Other verses where the Spirit speaks include but aren’t limited to: Mark 13:11; Acts 1:16, 8:29, 10:19, 11:12, 13:2 (the Spirit even uses the personal pronoun ‘I’ here), 1 Timothy 4:1, Hebrews 3:7, Revelation 2:7, 14:13, 22:17.
3. The Spirit is said to know things in 1 Corinthians 2:11 – specifically he is said to know the very thoughts of God. Also Isaiah 40:13.
4. He loves us (Rom 15:30)
5. He teaches us (Nehemiah 9:20 ; Luke 12:12; John 14:26; 1 Cor 2:13; 1 John 2:27)
6. He can be lied to (Acts 5:3)
7. He can be blasphemed (Matt 12:31)
8. He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30, Isaiah 63:10)
9. He can be angered (Psalm 106:33)
10. He can be outraged (Hebrews 10:29)
11. He can be resisted (Acts 7:51)
12. He chooses (Acts 15:28; 1 Cor 12:11)
13. He warns (Acts 20:23)
14. He reveals (Luke 2:26; Hebrews 9:8)
15. He testifies (Romans 8:16; Hebrews 10:15; 1 John 5:6)
16. He can be fellowshipped with (2 Cor 13:14; Philippians 2:1)
17. He counsels (John 14-17)
18. He encourages (Acts 9:31)
19. He helps (Acts 2:4; Philippians 1:19)
20. He is called God in a number of places (Act 5:3; 1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 3:17,18) thereby showing he must be a person since God is a person
21. He appears alongside other personal agents in the famous Trinitarian baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19: “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. The word “name” is singular and that the Spirit appears alongside other personal agents means the burden of proof is on those who want to deny his personhood (also see 2 Cor 13:14)
22. John refers to the Spirit as “another comforter” (John 14:16), where the word “another” in Greek means “another of the same kind”. Since Jesus is the comforter to whom the Spirit is being compared to, and since Jesus is a person, this indicates the Spirit must be a person too in order to comfort believers in the same way that Jesus did. He takes the role Jesus had: he guides, comforts, teaches and advocates for us.
So, after reading the above texts, how will the critic counter? They generally will argue that these references to the Spirit as a person are merely examples of personification. After all, they’ll say, the Bible contains many examples of inanimate objects being personified:
Blood is said to “cry out” in Genesis 4:10, trees will “clap” and the mountains and hills “sing” in Isaiah 55:12; the rivers “clap” in Psalm 98:8; the fields are “jubilant” in Psalm 96:12, the land “vomits” out its inhabitants in Leviticus 18:25; the moon is “embarrassed” and the sun “ashamed” in Isaiah 23:24; idols “tremble” in Isaiah 19:1; and wisdom is depicted as a woman in Proverbs 8. So, considering these cases, could it be that Holy Spirit is just a power or force that is merely being personified, like all these other non-personal things? Well, not really — for the following reasons:
Firstly, whilst blood (for example), is said to cry out, it does not speak in sentences or extended discourses, and nor is not personified in a wide variety of ways and in different genres consistently throughout the Bible like the Spirit is. It is never said to love, get angry, have a mind or will, etc. The same is true for other inanimate objects in the Bible. The Holy Spirit, in contrast, is consistently spoken of in a wide variety of personal ways throughout the Bible. This can only be because the Spirit is indeed a person and not just a force, power, or energy.
It may be objected at this point that a counterexample to this would be how wisdom is spoken of in the book of Proverbs. Wisdom is personified in a couple of chapters as a woman (Proverbs 1:20-33, 8:1-36) and this is different from other personified inanimate objects which are, at most, only personified in single sentences here and there.
This counterpoint won’t work, however, because wisdom is being personified in a poetic narrative, where personification is a common literary device (see the rest of Proverbs, where “folly”, amongst other things, is personified). The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, isn’t just spoken of in personal terms in poetic texts but is talked about this way in straight narratives (e.g., the book of Acts) doctrinal and epistolary genres (e.g., letters of Paul) and in theological discourse (e.g., John 14-16).
Another objection offered by critics is to note that the Greek word for “Spirit”(pneuma) is neuter in gender, and therefore, they argue, this proves the Holy Spirit can’t be a person. This objection is, however, quite weak. Firstly, ancient biblical languages like Hebrew and Greek – and even modern languages like German and Spanish – do contain gendered nouns. In Hebrew the words for “law” (torah) and “Spirit”(ruach) are feminine but no one argues those things are female. The Greek word for “sun” (helios) is masculine, their word for “moon”(selene) is feminine, and one of their words for “little child” (paidion) is neuter – yet it is used of Jesus. Likewise, in German, the word for “girl”(Madchen) is neuter, but no one argues girls are non-persons.
Thirdly, the term “spirit” when used elsewhere in scripture is applied to personal agents such as angels (Hebrews 1:14), demons (Matt 8:16), dead humans (Hebrews 12:23) and even God himself (John 4:24), so clearly the fact that the word is neuter doesn’t mitigate against the Holy Spirit being a person anymore than it does any of the other spirits just mentioned being persons as opposed to mere forces or powers. It’s inconsistent to argue that pneuma when used of the Holy Spirit means non-person but when used of all other spirits means person
Fourthly, whilst “pnuema” (spirit) is grammatically neuter, there are a number of times in John’s gospel where he actually breaks the rules of grammar and refers to the Spirit with the masculine pronoun “he” (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:13-14). It should be noted in fairness that some scholars argue that the masculine pronoun is merely used because it refers back to the word “Paraclete” (helper) – a masculine gender word used of the Spirit elsewhere by John.
A final argument used by critics to undermine the personhood of the Spirit is to note that he is sometimes said to be “poured out” or to “fill” things. This, they say, indicates the Spirit cannot be a person because only inanimate objects are spoken of in this way, not persons. But, once again, this is an easily disprovable argument, since persons in the Bible are spoken of using the exact same language: the apostle Paul is said be “poured out” like a drink offering (2 Timothy 4:6); Jesus is said to be “poured out” like water (Psalm 22:14), and is also said to have “poured out his soul into death” (Isaiah 53:12). Jeremiah 23:24 says that God himself “fills” the entirety of heaven and earth, and Ephesians 1:23 says Christ “fills all things everywhere.”
