In John Chapter 14:15-17 Christ mentions the promise of sending the Holy Spirit: “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (KJV). Some people read this verse and the matter is settled for them. They read “He” and “Him” and say “Well that sounds like person hood to me. They read this scripture with the doctrine already in their minds and interpret it according to their doctrine. One thing that has become evident to me is these people are not consistent where the same personification is used referring to other things that don’t fit their doctrine; such as Wisdom in Proverbs 8 and many other places which I will not delve into in this article.
One thing that must be brought to the attention of all who study the scriptures is the many different ways that one Greek word may be translated. We also must consider whatever bias the translators may have held. The word used in this passage that is translated “Him” is the Greek word “autos.” This word can be translated as follows: himself, herself, themselves, itself, he, she, it, the same. We notice that the words “itself” and “it” are possible translations. You may be asking yourself “Why does it matter, that is not what this passage reads”. Well the point is the translators were very much aware of this fact and in certain places they DO translate this same word as “It” and speak of the same “Holy spirit” as an “It” rather than a “He” which will be demonstrated further into this study. Do I say that the HS being called a “he” takes away from Christ’s words at all? Of course not. My issue is that people have over emphasized this point in order to support their doctrines, yet are inconsistent in other places, starting with the translators themselves. They sometimes speak of the spirit as an impersonal thing rather than giving it person hood. For example, in Romans 8:11 we read concerning the Holy Spirit “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” Note that the translators did not take the liberty here to translate “That” as “who” when talking about the spirit dwelling in us. Why? Why not read the final line as “shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit WHO dwelleth in you.”
Now there is a parallel scripture to this one. That is 1 Cor 6:14 “And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His own power.” Okay, never mind the “it” versus “who” thing for now. Did God raise Christ by his Spirit or by his own Power? Which is it? I think we can see that these two things are seen as synonyms. One scripture is not enough to prove this, so let’s look at some other comparisons. 2 Cor 13:4 reads “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.” The Spirit is said to be what quickened the body of the Messiah but here Paul says that he lives by the power of God. He also promises that we shall live by that same power. Yes that power that raised Christ from the dead which is the very Spirit of God. In Acts 1:1-5 we read “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”
This is a scripture that is familiar to us all. What is often times NOT considered is the parallel verse where Christ made this promise, found in Luke 24:49 “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” The promise that was aforementioned was that of the Holy Spirit. Now we read here that Christ promises them that they will be endowed with power from on high. Again the two are used synonymously. Micah 3:8 says “But truly I am full of power by The Spirit of Yahweh, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.” Did Micah believe that he was being possessed and empowered by another “person in the Godhead” or did he believe he was empowered by the Spirit of God himself?
Let’s compare some other scriptures. Gen 1:2 says “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Now compare that with Jeremiah’s words in Jer 10:12 “He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom , and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.” We have the same pattern here, do we not? Not only that, but other words are introduced here. The same wisdom that is spoken of in Proverbs 8 can be compared to the “word” spoken of in John 1 and it can very well be compared to God’s discretion which word means -the freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation. Do we add more people to the “godhead” now since we see other attributes of God at work in his creation? Of course not. We understand the poetic language that the scriptures use and the literary devices that are employed to convey an idea. The thing is, we conveniently forget about this fact when our doctrines are being scrutinized.
I believe in some of the Apocryphal writings, and will reference one of them here, as it is very similar to Jeremiah’s own words. In the book of Judith 16:14 it says “May all of your creation serve you; you spoke, and they came into being. You sent forth your spirit and it shaped them; there is no one who can resist your voice.” Also in Hermas 3:4 we read “Behold, the God of Hosts, Who by His invisible and mighty power and by His great wisdom created the world, and by His glorious purpose clothed His creation with comeliness, and by His strong word fixed the heaven, and founded the earth upon the waters, and by His own wisdom and providence formed His holy Church, which also He blessed-behold, He removeth the heavens and the mountains and the hills and the seas, and all things are made level for His elect, that He may fulfill to them the promise which He promised with great glory and rejoicing, if so be that they shall keep the ordinances of God, which they received, with great faith.” We hear the similar declaration of Jeremiah in both of these passages. A bit more of a poetic overtone of course, but same idea. These last two scriptures I pray will put the nail in the coffin of these “JW” fear mongering tactics of Trinitarians and oneness believers concerning the descriptions of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures. Luke 1:35 “And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” What we see here is what is called repeated poetry. In the scriptures this device is used for exaggeratory purposes. The writer will say one thing and immediately say the SAME thing using different words. You see it a lot in the Psalms and the writing of the prophets. The Angel was not telling Mary about two separate events taking place. The angel was speaking of the Holy Spirit AS the power of God overshadowing her as we have seen throughout this article. It cannot be denied that the Holy Spirit in scripture is indeed commonly referred to as the Power of God. These writings existed before any JW cult came into being.
I would like everyone to understand that if God had revealed his Holy Spirit as another person separate from himself, I would accept it, but I don’t see him doing that in the scriptures. Me taking these arguments and running with them would be the same as me lazily settling on the idea that the Holy spirit is a literal dove, then teaching that it WAS the dove that was in the hands of Noah and building a complete doctrine using scripture to show WHY the holy spirit is a dove. This would be a dishonest thing for me to do, but it could be done using the same logic and reasoning as the trinity and oneness doctrines. I see men taking language and manipulating it to support their arguments all the time, nothing is new here. A sister shared a great article not too long ago on what she called the “shy member of the trinity”, pointing out how LITTLE the “person” of the Holy Spirit is mentioned and seen in the heavenly visions. These omissions cannot be overlooked, but I know that saying what the Holy Spirit is NOT does nothing for those asking “What/ who is the Holy Spirit?” I pray this has blessed all who have read. Shalom.
Ramon Carroll © 2014