The Personality of the Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit Is a Person;

for He beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. When this witness is borne, it carries with it its own evidence. At such times we believe and are sure that we are the children of God. What strong evidence of the power of truth we can give to believers and unbelievers when we can voice the words of John, “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

The Holy Spirit has a personality, else He could not bear witness to our spirits and with our spirits that we are the children of God. He must also be a divine person, else He could not search out the secrets which lie hidden in the mind of God. “For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man, which is in him; even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”

— E.G. White, Manuscript 20, 1906

Now, it should be mentioned that Ellen White never published this statement; so, this doctrine is not as important as many make it out to be. But what makes the Spirit of Holiness a “personality” and a “person”? The passage pretty much tells us, but let us be sure by looking in the very thorough Oxford English Dictionary to see the definition that fits the context of Ellen White’s usage of it here.

PERSON – Philosophical sense: a self-conscious or rational being. First occurrence: “All which words are … descriptions of a person, a person hearing, receiving, testifying” (Pearson, Creed, 1659).

And when -ality is added to the word, it simply means that state of it; so, ‘personality’, in this sense, means having the state of rationality (reasoning).

As for “being,” Webster defines it as “existence,” so it does not necessitate corporality—which is the case for the Father and the Son (with ‘person’ being defined for them as such in Heb. 1:3), but not the Spirit of Holiness. So, depending on which definition of ‘person’ is used (which aspect of the Spirit of Holiness is being referred to), the Spirit of Holiness could be a person or not a person. That is why it is so critical to define terms.

Therefore, the Spirit of Holiness is an existence having intelligence, as is also the case for the corporeal existences of the Father and the Son. We can now see how the two definitions of ‘person(ality)’ we have so far actually come together. A ‘person’ is a mind within a corporeal being. Is there a third corporeal being, ‘God the Spirit’? There is no indication of this anywhere in the inspired writings; instead we read of “the Spirit of God.” His Spirit, as a life-bearing essence, flowing out from Him and His Son, is a mystery, but as long as we understand this concept of personality being in heaven, and essence that “proceedeth” out (Jn. 15:26), we are in no danger of any form of pantheism, and there is really nothing else to understand than this concerning the nature of the Spirit of Holiness. Both the Spirit of Holiness’s distinct personality of the Messiah, and the essence that proceedeth from it, are clearly revealed to us.

It is now time to delve into the inspired writings that bring out more clearly this subject of who the Spirit of Holiness is: our one and only Saviour, the Messiah, who pleads for us in person by the side of the Father, and pleads to us by our side in Spirit, in a personification of Him; hence, another Advocate, but really just a different manifestation and role of the same.

Let us start by carefully reading from the chapter in Desire of Ages (Ch. 73) called—”Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled.” This chapter includes the infamous phrase “the mighty agency of the third person of the Godhead,” often used to support a triune God, but carefully read in its context, it teaches just the opposite of what many have thought.

Before offering Himself as the sacrificial victim, the Messiah sought for the most essential and complete gift to bestow upon His followers, a gift that would bring within their reach the boundless resources of grace. “I will pray the Father,” He said, “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. I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you.” John 14:16-18, margin…

“He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” Jesus read the future of His disciples. He saw one brought to the scaffold, one to the cross, one to exile among the lonely rocks of the sea, others to persecution and death. He encouraged them with the promise that in every trial He would be with them. That promise has lost none of its force. The Lord knows all about His faithful servants who for His sake are lying in prison or who are banished to lonely islands. He comforts them with His own presence. When for the truth’s sake the believer stands at the bar of unrighteous tribunals, Christ stands by his side…

At all times and in all places, in all sorrows and in all afflictions, when the outlook seems dark and the future perplexing, and we feel helpless and alone, the Comforter will be sent in answer to the prayer of faith. Circumstances may separate us from every earthly friend; but no circumstance, no distance, can separate us from the heavenly Comforter. Wherever we are, wherever we may go, He is always at our right hand to support, sustain, uphold, and cheer.

The disciples still failed to understand the Messiah’s words in their spiritual sense, and again He explained His meaning. By the Spirit, He said, He would manifest Himself to them. “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things”…

“I have yet many things to say unto you,” He continued, “but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you”…

It is by the Spirit of truth, working through the word of God, that Christ subdues His chosen people to Himself…

Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the third person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world’s Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church.

— E.G. White, Desire of Ages, pp. 668-671

“The third person” here, called “another Comforter” in John 16, is really a “Character of office” (one of the definitions for ‘person’ in the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary), not an actual individual sent down; hence, why Ellen White often uses the verbiage of “office work” or “agency” when describing the Spirit of Holiness in her writing. This does not negate the other personality definition of mind, which also comes into play as the agency’s head. The Spirit of Holiness is none other the Lord Jehoshua: personified here on this earth, but using His own life and character—hence, Holiness—from His own divine mind. That is how He comes to us.

“It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life.” [Jn. 6:63] Christ is not here referring to His doctrine, but to His person, the divinity of His character.

— E.G. White, Review and Herald, 4/5/1906