Garry continued his series on the Holy Spirit this Sunday morning (12th September). He started by asking some challenging questions:

1) What do we believe?
2) Why do we believe that?
3) Do we have wrong ideas about God?

Describing and understanding the Trinity is dangerous ground! The fact that there is one God (Deut 31:39) in three persons is not easy to grasp, and some sects (eg Jehovah’s Witnesses) flatly deny this doctrine. As we worked through Scriptures, however, we saw how God the Spirit was present at creation and how the whole Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) can be seen at the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:14). We often think of the Godhead in a hierarchical role, with the Father like the Managing Director of a company and the Son and Spirit subservient to him! Garry stressed that the Holy Spirit is God, that He is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and Son and that the Holy Spirit is a person, not merely a force.

From a language point of view, confusion can arise because the word ‘Spirit’ in Greek (pneuma) is a neuter noun. Genders in languages are one of those things English people find difficult to grasp because they are no longer a part of our everyday language. Nonetheless, Garry demonstrated that the Greek adds the personal pronoun ‘he’ in John 16:13 to remind us that the Spirit is indeed personal, not just a ‘neuter entity’, and demonstrated that gender is a tool of language. Moreover, the fact that Jesus calls the Spirit ‘another Counsellor’ (John 14:16-17) shows us that the Spirit is like Jesus. In Greek, there are two distinct words for ‘another’: ‘allos’ (“Would you like another piece of this same cake?”) and ‘heteros’ (“Would like another piece of a different cake?”) The first word (‘allos’) is used in this passage.

Other Scriptures which underline the personality of the Spirit included Acts 5:3 (where Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit), Romans 8:27 (the Holy Spirit has a mind) and Romans 15:30 where the love of the Spirit is mentioned.

It’s wonderful to know that the Holy Spirit dwells within us and guides us into all truth.