The Holy Spirit isn’t a force field or a power or a manifestation – He’s a Person. Which means you can know Him, relate to Him, and learn daily from Him!

Are you ready for some good news?

The Holy Spirit isn’t a force field or a power or a manifestation – He’s a Person. He’s the third person of the Triune God. He is the Spirit of Jesus Himself. Which means you can know Him, relate to Him, and learn daily from Him!

The Holy Spirit has all the qualities of personality. Jesus said the Holy Spirit is someone you can know. He is a teacher. He leads us into truth. The Holy Spirit knows things. He searches our hearts. He has a will. He can distribute gifts as he wills. In a tender way, he can be grieved. Romans 8 says that the Holy Spirit helps us when we pray, with groaning’s too deep for words. 

In the words of R.A. Torrey, the Spirit is not a “mysterious and mighty power” that we can “make use of” in our work “according to our will.” Rather, He fills us and uses us according to His will.

The Holy Spirit is also not a quantity. The New Testament speaks frequently of being filled with the Spirit, but this is metaphorical language. The Holy Spirit is not like a liquid that is poured into a bucket. We are not a container for the Holy Spirit, with some of us half filled, some nearly full, and most everybody leaking out before next Sunday.

Finally, the Holy Spirit is not a thing. We talk about the Spirit as something we can have. Do you have this power? How much of the Holy Spirit do you have? But He is not a thing of which you gain a quantity.

The Holy Spirit is a person who is in love with us just as the Father loves us. He is a person who is with us just as Jesus was with the disciples. He is the Spirit of Jesus. And that’s the Gospel!