Genesis 8:8-12 records that Noah sent out a dove “to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground,” so that he could be led in what to do. In like manner, Christians are guided by the Holy Spirit in their minds.
Exactly What Is the Holy Spirit?
We have seen many examples demonstrating that the Holy Spir- it is neither one-third of a single, amorphous god-being, nor a sepa- rate entity of a triune god. But, we may ask further, what is it?
The Holy Spirit is the life (and very mind) of God. Jesus Christ lived by the Spirit of the Father dwelling within Him. Just as the Father dwelled within Christ through the Holy Spirit and gave Him life, Christ lives within His followers through the Spirit and gives them life—eternal life. Notice Christ’s description of His relation- ship with the Father:
• “As the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me” (John 6:57).
• “For as the Father has life in Himself; so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself” (John 5:26).
With this eternal life (the Holy Spirit) dwelling inside God’s people, they can also become one with Christ and the Father. As the Father and Son are of the same mind and of the same accord, so are Christians to be (Phil. 2:2).
Becoming one with the Father and Christ is only possible through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Take time to really ponder the fol- lowing scriptures:
• “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30).
• “But if I do, though you believe not Me, believe the works: that you may know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him” (John 10:38).
• “At that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20).
• “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one, as We are” (John 17:11).
• “That they all may BEONE; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in
You, that they also may BEONEINUS: that the world may believe that
You have sent Me” (John 17:21). Again, II Timothy 1:6 shows that, like a fi re, the Holy Spirit
must be constantly stirred up within each Christian: “Wherefore I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of my hands.”
Paul also exhorted, “Quench not the Spirit” (I Thes. 5:19). Quenching the Spirit is like quenching thirst or fi re—when you quench either, you extinguish it. In the case of the Holy Spirit, this is done by “smothering it” with wrong thoughts, or by continual sin. Obviously, a person cannot be “quenched”!
(4) God’s Word also likens the Holy Spirit to WATER. Nobody
can live physically without water, and nobody can live spiritually (or eternally) without the Holy Spirit. Christ stated, in John 7:38- 39, “He that believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall fl ow rivers of living water. (But this spoke He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glori- fi ed.)”
(5) By-products of the Holy Spirit are compared to FRUIT. Fruit
helps to cleanse the physical body. The Holy Spirit helps to cleanse His children spiritually. Fruit also provides instant energy to the body: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal. 5:22-23). Allowing the mind to be guided by the Holy Spirit automatically yields the above “fruit,” which cleanses one of “spiritual toxins,” and provides power to continue.
Just as no one can live physically without food, Christians must feed upon the fruits of the Tree of Life (the Holy Spirit) in order to live spiritually (I Cor. 15:21-22; John 6:30-35; Rev. 2:17).
(6) The Holy Spirit is also a GIFT: “Then Peter said unto them,
Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). The Holy Spirit then brings with it poten- tially a whole series of gifts (I Cor. 12:1-11).
(7) Also, to show that Christians are to be gentle and peace- able, we saw that the Holy Spirit is likened to a DOVE. Notice: “And
Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the wa- ter: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him” (Matt. 3:16).
• “But you shall receive power, after that the Holy [Spirit] is come upon you: and you shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
It is this very power that allowed Christ to perform the many miracles that He did. The Father was with Christ through the Spirit dwelling in Him. Christ had no power in and of Himself to do any- thing:
• “I can of Mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and My judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent Me” (John 5:30).
• “Then said Jesus unto them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall you know that I am He, and that I do nothing of
Myself; but as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things” (John
8:28).
Having emptied Himself from the Godhead to become a human being, Christ needed the Holy Spirit, and so do you and I. If He could not do anything in and of Himself, how much can we do of our- selves? Absolutely nothing.
Reasons the Holy Spirit Is Given
Most understand (at least somewhat) that Jesus Christ is our ex- ample (John 13:15; I Pet. 2:21), and that we are to copy His life in our own. The way He lived, His sufferings and His overcoming the world are all things that we must be aware of and partake of. Let’s consider His birth, death and Resurrection as examples from which to learn the role of the Holy Spirit in God’s Plan for man- kind.
As we have seen, Christ was begotten by the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. Unlike human beings, He had no physical father. What we can glean from this event, however, is that the Holy Spirit is the means by which the Father begets His sons. Just as Christ was begotten by the Father, Christians also are begotten by Him. The only difference is that Christians are begotten outside the womb. We do not possess the Holy Spirit until after baptism (Acts 2:38). Once we are baptized and receive the Holy Spirit, we become begotten sons of God—not yet born. But the time will come when we will be raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us—just as Christ was.
Now answer the following: Are these verses in any way refer- ring to the trinity? And if they are, how is this reconciled with the fact that Christians are to become one with the Father and Christ, with no mention of the Holy Spirit—particularly when the Holy Spirit is supposedly the only one of the three persons that is in us? As explained, it is silly to think that Christians could become one with each other in the same manner of the Father and Christ—if they are two-thirds of the trinity. Yet, if the above-mentioned verses are taken at face value, that is exactly what one must conclude. It is obvious that Christ is talking about being of the same mind with He and the Father.
But, again, the Holy Spirit is also the power of God. When the term “power” is used today (for instance: “By the power vested in me…”), it never implies that that power does something of and by its own accord. It is understood that someone is using that power, wield- ing it—exercising it—distributing it—to accomplish a defi ned objec- tive. Does electricity have a mind of its own? Does nuclear energy? Does solar power? These and other sources of power are used to do various kinds of work and must be continually replenished. It is the same with God’s Spirit.
Notice an example of this power fl owing from Christ in Mark 5:25-30: “And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched His garment. For she said, If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue [Greek: dunamis, meaning power] had gone out of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said, Who touched My clothes?”
Consider the following analogy: When you work hard and per- spire, your body loses vital nutrients, which must be replenished. In a sense, this is what happened to Christ. The Holy Spirit was indeed a “vital nutrient” that fl owed from Him, and it had to be replaced. Also take notice of the following verses, and think about them in the context mentioned above:
• “Now the God of hope fi ll you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the
Why Some WILL NOT Understand!
At this point, an inset must be added, and it will explain why some people literally CANNOT possibly UNDERSTAND what is contained in this
volume. This point is connected to an earlier section, which dis- cussed how the Holy Spirit is poured out and can fi ll people, thus disqualifying it to be a person.
Here is an example of how some will take that easy-to-under- stand explanation, and dismiss it by bringing in wrong “facts,” wrong logic, wrong reasoning and/or wrong understanding—thus trapping themselves in wrong teaching.
Some have suggested that Psalm 22:14 proves that a person can be poured, because Christ said that He was “poured out” and He was a person. The conclusion then is that the Holy Spirit can also be poured out and still be a person.
In this passage, Christ is speaking, describing His crucifi xion. Let’s read it: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.”
It is probably immediately obvious to most that Christ is talking about how all of His blood poured out of His body, ending His life. Christians of every belief know that numerous verses reveal Chris- tians are forgiven, or justifi ed, by Christ’s shed blood (Rom. 5:9; Eph. 1:7; 2:13; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:12). Isaiah 53:12 states that He “poured out His soul unto death.” Obviously, soul here means His blood—His life. (See Leviticus 17:11.) This passage does not prove that the Holy Spirit is a person that can also be poured out. To con- clude such is a complete logical “disconnect”—but it is probably one such people will not be able to acknowledge.
We must ask: Why cannot the logic explained in the earlier sec- tion be accepted by some people? Why do some, indeed most, feel compelled to fi ght sound analysis, sound reasoning and sound logic when they see it? Why also will the plain explanations found through- out this book upset and confuse many of its readers? The answer lies in the fact that these things alone—sound analysis, sound reasoning and sound logic—are not suffi cient to defeat the illogic of a mind to whom God has not revealed Himself (Rom. 1:28; 8:7). Remember, this book has explained several times how God must call a person (John 6:44, 65) and must reveal Himself to that person for him to be able to grasp spiritual truths and spiritual principles (I Cor. 2:11). It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that God TEACHES us:
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, [it] shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). “Howbeit when [it], the Spirit of truth, is come, [it] will guide you
into all truth…” (John 16:13).
We repeat: A mind without the Holy Spirit cannot comprehend spiritual things and has no hope of understanding God’s Word—the Bible. It is only through the indwelling of the Spirit that one is able to understand the mind of God. Take a moment to reread I Corinthi- ans 2:9-16.
The above scriptures, including I Corinthians 2:9-16, can be sum- marized in the following way: Those who are being guided by the Holy Spirit CAN understand spiritual things, and those who are not be-
ing led by the Holy Spirit cannot understand—it is IMPOSSIBLE! Just as
you cannot know the thoughts and ways of another man, neither can you know the thoughts and ways of God. If one could somehow “proj- ect” his spirit into the mind of another person, then he could know that person’s thoughts. In a sense, it could be said that the “projec- tion” of God’s Spirit into our minds is what allows us to comprehend “the things of God.”
The Holy Spirit also STRENGTHENS Christians in a number of im-
portant ways. The following longer scripture is one of the most inspir- ing in the entire Bible, and best describes how God’s Spirit directly empowers—strengthens—those who have it: “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, TOBE STRENGTHENEDWITH MIGHTBY HIS SPIRIT in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowl- edge, that you might be fi lled with all the fullness of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, ACCORDINGTOTHEPOWERTHATWORKSINUS…” (Eph. 3:16-20).
Christ gives His servants the strength needed to overcome what could be called the three “S’s”—self, Satan and society, which are the three things that produce a fourth “S,” SIN. All real overcoming is done
by the power of the Holy Spirit. Just as Christ could only overcome by the Father dwelling within Him through the Spirit, it is through
that Spirit dwelling within a person, that overcoming anything spiri-
B
y now it is understood that there are several different kinds of spirit. We have seen that there is the Spirit of God, the spirit in man, the spirit of which angels are composed—and this same kind of spirit, which exists in fallen angels, described in the Bible as the devil and his demons.We have also seen that there are many gods worshipped around the world within the literally thousands of religions and variations of them invented by men. Many of these gods are seen to be, and wor- shipped as, the “father of creation” and the “father of mankind.”
Of course, by now it is also thoroughly understood that two of the beings in the supposed biblical triune godhead are thought to be the Father and the Holy Spirit—two-thirds of the trinity. And we have seen that this teaching is a counterfeit of the true God of the Bible, and that all of this is largely hidden—concealed—from the world’s recog- nition. However, within this counterfeit is an additional counterfeit, which must now be exposed. This other counterfeit is perhaps the most dangerous and sinister part of all that is wrong with the doctrine of the trinity! We will see that this second counterfeit within the over- all trinity god counterfeit is directly connected to a counterfeit spirit. Then we will come to understand that it is this different spirit that is, in fact, giving life to the idea that the trinity is biblical.
The apostle Paul warned the Corinthian congregation of a spe- cial kind of danger, which is connected to forgetting that there is “simplicity in Christ.” The result is that they were allowing them- Therefore, it must be understood that this book is not written to
or for the majority who may read it. At least grasp this point! Do not miss it. For you, the reader, to truly comprehend all that you are studying here, God must be opening your mind through the power of the very Holy Spirit discussed in this chapter. Otherwise, there is no hope of understanding. Perhaps take the time to read Matthew 7:7, however, for what you can also do.
All Are Deceived
The Bible is literally fi lled with instruction about the Holy Spirit. But in a world completely overcome with Satan’s “wiles” (Eph. 6:11) and “devices” (II Cor. 2:11), it is only through God’s help that you can be an exception.
But you must be willing to admit that the realm of traditional Christianity (and the world in general) has remained ignorant of what the Holy Spirit is. Naturally, this has directly contributed to why the nature of God so completely escapes their comprehension.
Just as the world has not understood the Holy Spirit or its role, or the Father and who He is, it has not understood the true Jesus Christ of the Bible. The apostle Paul warned of those who unknow- ingly follow “another Jesus.”
The next chapter could be the most stunning chapter in the book!