Who or What is the Holy Spirit?
We are currently learning about the Holy Spirit, who is the third member of the Trinity. Our textbook mentions groups like Jehovah's Witnesses who hold wrong views of the Holy Spirit. It's been years since I read what they believe, so I decided to revisit "what" they believe the Holy Spirit is.
Consider this. When Mary asked the heavenly messenger how she would conceive Jesus, the angel Gabriel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35, ESV). The "Most High" is a reference to God. The Holy Spirit is referred to as God's "power."
What do Jehovah's Witnesses say? Their website says, "It would not be quite accurate to say that the holy spirit is God's power."
All-righty then. I suppose it's ok to correct how God's angels refer to God's Spirit!
Next, the Jehovah's Witnesses say, "The Bible sometimes speaks of the holy spirit as accomplishing a certain task or of its being in a different location from God."
I immediately recognized three issues here. The first issue is the problem of referring to the Holy Spirit as an "it." The Bible never, ever, ever, ever refers to the Holy Spirit as "it" but always uses personal pronouns when referring to "Him." Jesus promised to send Him to the disciples so that they would effectively carry out and enable their ministry, "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you." (John 16:7, ESV)
The second problem is that they wrongly believe that those who hold to the Trinitarian view of God believe that the Holy Spirit is a separate "being" from God. Their website rhetorically asks, "Is the holy spirit an entity separate from God?" My answer is no. The Holy Spirit is not a separate being (entity) from God but a divine person associated with the Father and the Son, yet the Bible insists that God is one.
The third problem is that the Jehvah's Witnesses appear to deny God's omnipresence. Consider this statement from the JW website, "The Bible sometimes speaks of the holy spirit as accomplishing a certain task or of its being in a different location from God." Also, "From his invisible dwelling place, God can cause things to happen anytime and anywhere. Hence, he does not need to be at the location at which his active force operates. He can send his spirit to accomplish a task."
If God is omnipresent, it cannot be that when he is present in one location, he is absent from another. So it is nonsensical to say that God "does not need to be at the location at which his active force operates."
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