If the Holy Spirit were a person, the third member of a trinity, as so many believe today, surely the Apostle Paul would have acknowledged it in his writings. Yet in his epistles he sends greetings to the membership mentioning, “ Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He never includes sending a greeting from the Holy Spirit. Certainly, if the Holy Spirit were a person, not sending greetings from the Holy Spirit would be an offense.

Let me give you just one example of Paul’s greeting to the Church. In Ephesians 1: 2 Paul says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” There is no mention of the Holy Spirit sending a greeting of grace to the Church. Paul concludes the epistle to the Ephesians with, “Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” Ephesians 6:23. Paul closes with a salutation from God the Father and Jesus Christ, but not from the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is not a person. What we find in the Bible is Paul referring to God and Christ as the source of the Spirit, the power and influencing agent of God.

Paul’s thoughts on the Holy Spirit reveal that he understood God’s spirit to be the power and presence of God the Father and of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, as stated earlier, is not the third person of a Triune God that can only be explained as a Mystery not found anywhere in the Bible. The lack of evidence of a Trinity in the Bible is admitted by most who foster the belief. However, the belief, which dates prior to the establishment of Christianity, is so entrenched in the mainstream, it is now accepted on faith, though it cannot be proven by those who “believe” in it. Now, let’s take a look at how the Bible describes the Holy Spirit of God.

In Acts 1: 8 the Spirit of God is poured out upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit was defined as a POWER coming upon the disciples, not a person: “But you shall receive POWER when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” Again, elsewhere in the Bible, when the angel spoke to Mary regarding her pregnancy, he said, “…The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the POWER of the Highest will overshadow you;” Luke 1:35. The Holy Spirit is the power of God used to bring about His will.

We can think of Jesus Christ and the Father in human terms because they are two separate persons. It is more difficult to understand exactly what the Holy Spirit is.

The word Spirit in the Greek is pneuma. It roughly means breath or wind. Some call the Holy Spirit the breath or the wind of God. But the Spirit of God is more than breath. Visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit is very rare. When the Holy Spirit does appear it is active, not stationary. It causes things to happen, it produces fruit.

Notice Matthew 3:16, “Then Jesus, when He had been baptized, came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending LIKE a dove and alighting upon Him.” Now we know the Holy Spirit is not a dove. Notice that the scripture says it descended upon Him “like a dove”. It did not descend upon Him “like a person”, but like a dove.

Let’s look at another rare visual manifestation of the Spirit in Acts 2:1-4: “Now when the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit….”

Notice in this passage the manifestation of the Spirit of God is like a fire. The Holy Spirit fills them as if something fluid has been poured into them. The Holy Spirit is the Power and Essence of the Mind of God. It is the agency of God Himself. I use the word agency meaning, the power, influence or instrumentality of God and Jesus Christ. Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, God and Christ can transfer strength, encouragement, and the power to perform certain tasks and to understand spiritual matters to human beings.

The Holy Spirit is personal in that it is the extension of God Himself. Through His spirit He can project His thinking, purpose, power and attitudes to people. We are told that the Father and the Son dwell in us through the presence of the Holy Spirit (I John 4:13; Romans 8:10,11; I Corinthians 3:16). The Holy Spirit is not a third person dwelling in us, but the essence of God Himself  the mind, attitudes, and power of God.

A condensed definition of the Holy Spirit would be something like this:

The Holy Spirit is the character of God; the power of God; the mind of God; the spiritual activity of God; the invisible presence and influence of God working in the converted, spirit-led Christian.

The Bible Uses Personification

The Bible describes the Spirit of God in ways that would never be used to describe a person. It is described as living water (John 7:37, 39); it can be quenched (I Thessalonians 5:19); it can be given in different portions (John 3:34); it is described as the breath of God (John 20:22); and it is called the power of the Highest (Luke 1:35).

Many believe the Holy Spirit is a person acting independently from God. It is true that the Bible uses the literary tool of personification as a figure of speech when talking about the Holy Spirit. One definition of personification is to attach human qualities to something that may be difficult to define. For example, Romans 8:26, John 14:26 and Ephesians 4:30 all describe the Holy Spirit as having personal actions, even though the Spirit of God is not a person.

There are other examples of the use of personification in scripture. In Genesis 4:10 we are told concerning Cain and Abel, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” Blood is used as if it were a person, crying out from the ground. But we all know blood is not a person.

We can read of another example of personification in Proverbs chapter 8, where wisdom is described as a woman. At times God will describe the work of His Spirit by using the tool of personification to give us more clarity in understanding how He works.

A Grammar Lesson

You might ask the question, “Why did John use the personal pronoun “he” when referring to the Holy Spirit in the 14th, 15th and 16th chapters of his Gospel? Doesn’t this imply the Holy Spirit is a “personage”?

To answer this question, it is important to understand that various languages designate nouns as masculine, feminine or neuter. This practice has nothing to do with whether the word is referring to female, masculine, or neutral things. For example, in the German language, a book is considered a neutral item, and a pencil is considered a masculine item. The same is true in the Greek language. The word for Spirit in Greek is a neuter designate, but in the translation from Greek to English the translators chose to use the word “he” to refer to it without discerning that the Holy Spirit is not referred to as a person, as we have already explained, except where the literary tool of personification is used. The use of “it” would have been the correct translation into the English language just as in John 1:32 and 6:63, and Romans 8:16.

Conclusion

The Holy Spirit is not a person. It is the Power and influencing force God uses to work out His purpose. He can project His mind, attitude and will through the Holy Spirit. You can have the Holy Spirit dwell in you and its powerful attributes will greatly strengthen and change your life. It is truly one of the greatest gifts a person can receive -- far more valuable than physical wealth or fame.