The Personality of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit Is Himself, Divested…

Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally; therefore it was altogether for their advantage that He should leave them, go to His Father, and send the Holy Spirit to be His successor on earth.

The Holy Spirit is Himself, divested of the personality of humanity, and independent thereof.

He would represent Himself as present in all places by His Holy Spirit, as the Omnipresent.

— E.G. White, Letter 119, 1895

While the Spirit of Holiness is our intercessor in the court of conscience, the Lord Jesus is our intercessor in the heavenly courts … “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jehoshua the Messiah, the Righteous One.” Jesus bears us upon His heart. We will nurture and cherish faith by considering the interest which the Holy Spirit has in us, manifested in His mission of love in coming to our world, humiliating Himself to humanity to save us.”

— E.G. White, Letter 97, 1892

It is not safe to catch the spirit from another. We want the Holy Spirit, which is Jesus Christ.

— E.G. White, Letter 66, 1894

The Saviour is our Comforter.

— E.G. White, Manuscript 20, 1892

Christ is to be known by the blessed name of Comforter. “The Comforter,” said Christ to His disciples, “which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you…

— E.G. White, Manuscript 7, 1902

To be “divested,” or ‘stripped’, entails previously being invested—that is, the Spirit of Holiness has to originate from the Messiah in order for that statement to be true. And this divesting makes for two natures; hence, how there is “another Comforter“—another form of our dear, comforting Saviour. His external human personality is stripped from the inner divine personality, which can manifest itself anywhere.

But although Christ’s divine glory was for a time veiled and eclipsed by His assuming humanity, yet He did not cease to be God when He became man. The human did not take the place of the divine, nor the divine of the human. This is the mystery of godliness. The two expressions human and divine were, in Christ, closely and inseparably one, and yet they had a distinct individuality.

— E.G. White, Signs of the Times, 5/10/1899

Thank God for this light! It is becoming clear now that the Messiah has a dual, yet united, nature: humanity and divinity—each having “distinct individuality”; thus, two individualities, two personalities, yet inseparably one. His humanity is limited to manifest itself in one place, but His divinity can be manifested wherever.

This next quote shows that these two individualities, or natures, even entails two bodies:

Every one who loses his life here will come up again, they shall see the King in His beauty, in His matchless charms, and the marks of the crucifixion are the bright beams that come from His hands when He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He has His human body and His divine body. He has the human and the divine natures blended.

— E.G. White, Manuscript 167, 1904

Within His human body of flesh and blood is a mysterious, intangible body! Yet the two are blended, with the divine within the human, united together.

He united humanity with divinity: a divine Spirit dwelt in a temple of flesh. He united himself with the temple. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” because by so doing He could associate with the sinful, sorrowing sons and daughters of Adam.

— E.G. White, Youth’s Instructor, 12/20/1900

The Son of the infinite God came to this earth, and honoured it with His presence. He emptied Himself of His glory, and clothed His divinity with humanity, that humanity might touch humanity, and reveal to fallen man the perfect love of God.

— E.G. White, Bible Echo, 1/14/1901

Watch what else it is called:

Christ declared that after His ascension, He would send to His church, as His crowning gift, the Comforter, who was to take His place. This Comforter is the Holy Spirit—the soul of His life, the efficacy of His church, the light and life of the world. With His Spirit Christ sends a reconciling influence and a power that takes away sin.

— E.G. White, Review and Herald, 5/19/1904

God is light, and He, as the Son of God was begotten in the express image of God, with that same internal, yet exceedingly luminous body. And He Himself is called ‘Light’ in the first book of John. Later, as the Son of Man, He was made human—hence, given a human body just like ours. This blending of divinity and humanity is a mystery, but our Lord Jehoshua is one divine-human being—a dual body, each with a distinct personality, or mind; an intangible body with an infinite mind from which light, like the rays of the luminous body of the sun, proceeds everywhere, and a tangible body which it is united to within. He is a double Saviour—one that sheds mercy upon us by His human blood, and one that sheds grace upon us by His Spirit of Holiness.

This reality of two bodies correlates to the eye-opening truth we learned of earlier in this series of how there is the realm of time, of Creation, of eternity, that we are in, and that there is a higher mysterious realm of God, and it is the latter which the divine body of our Saviour has access into; this dual body existence is likely similar for the Father, whom the Son was made in the express image of.

Now, let us read again the key part of the first quote:

The Holy Spirit is Himself, divested of the personality of humanity, and independent thereof.

The Scriptures say that the Spirit of Holiness is “shed forth”:

Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Spirit of Holiness, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.

— Acts 2:33

The Spirit of Holiness, like the physical blood, is shed forth from the Messiah, bringing into us what is in Him—the essence of who He is, Himself—while He is personally in Heaven. Created beings can interact with Him there in time and space, and He has a brain of humanity like ours, interacting with what is around Him, yet He also has within Him a mind that can comprehend the infinite by which He can mysteriously carry on a work throughout the universe, speaking anything into existence anywhere by His Word, which is Spirit and life, continually proceeding from Him: “upholding all things by the Word of His power” (Heb. 1:3).

Just to be clear, both God and His Son have two aspects about them—omnipresence (a mind working omnipresently in the universe) and locality (a mind working locally upon a corporeal form). And they share the essence of the Spirit, for it is their nature, from their two separate minds. But the reason why the “Spirit of Holiness,” since Pentecost of 31 CE, is considered a third personality, is because the Son of God has something His Father does not have: humanity. And what makes the Holy Spirit, as the divine personality of the Messiah, unique, is that the Spirit of Holiness has the same holy life that He lived in our flesh on this earth—the experience of humanity:

The Saviour came into the world, outwardly the Son of David, not manifesting the full significance of His character. His Spirit was subject to that discipline and experience through which humanity must in some measure pass. His divinity was veiled beneath humanity. He hid within Himself those all-powerful attributes which belonged to Him as one equal with God.

— E.G. White, 3 Spirit of Prophecy, p. 259

The Father never lived that life, only the Son. And this holy life, or Spirit of Holiness, is portrayed as a personality—distinct from both God and the Man Jehoshua. We will see a quote by Ellen White making this clear as she describes the “heavenly trio” in contrast to the “Triune God,” as she borrows words from W. E. Boardman’s then infamous book The Higher Christian Life and changes some of the words to change the meaning into truth from error. First, here is Boardman’s quote:

THE FATHER IS LIKE TO THE INVISIBLE VAPOR.
THE SON IS AS THE LADEN CLOUD AND PALLING RAIN.
THE SPIRIT IS THE RAIN — FALLEN AND WORKING IN REFRESHING POWER.

These likenings are all imperfect. They rather hide than illustrate the tri-personality of the one God, for they are not persons but things, poor and earthly at best, to represent the living personalities of the living God. So much they may do, however, as to illustrate the official relations of each to the others and of each and all to us. And more. They may also illustrate the truth that all the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, dwells in each person of the Triune God.

THE FATHER IS ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD INVISIBLE.
THE SON IS ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD MANIFESTED.
THE SPIRIT IS ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD MAKING MANIFEST.

— W.E. Boardman, The Higher Christian Life, p. 104

Now, compare that with Sister White’s corrective statement:

Another representation: “The Father is like the invisible vapor. The Son is like the leaden cloud. The Spirit is rain fallen and working in refreshing power.”

All these spiritualistic representations are simply nothingness. They are imperfect, untrue. They weaken and diminish the Majesty which no earthly likeness can be compared to. God cannot be compared with the things His hands have made. These are mere earthly things, suffering under the curse of God because of the sins of man. The Father cannot be described by the things of earth.

The Father is all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and is invisible to mortal sight.

The Son is all the fulness of the Godhead manifested. The Word of God declares Him to be “the express image of His person.” “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Here is shown the personality of the Father.

The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to heaven, is the Spirit in all the fulness of the Godhead, making manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe in Christ as a personal Saviour.

There are the living three personalities of the heavenly trio…

— E.G. White, Manuscript 21, 1906

Notice that she did not say “the living personalities of the living God” as Boardman did. She never described God as being triune or a Trinity in all of her writings. She always described God as a singular person, who is the Father. Notice also that she used the word “bodily” to describe the Father—only invisible to us because we are not in heaven.

So, in heaven we have a personal God and a personal Son, each with their own hands—the latter pair having been nailed to the Cross—which represent their universal creative and redemptive activity. Thus, they are watching and operating right from heaven where they personally are, yet working right where we are, which we can personally and preciously experience:

They should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.

— Acts 17:27-28

The Lord is everywhere in His awareness and activity, and you can experience Him as if you are the only person in the universe He is watching and caring for, because that is how personal and infinite and caring a Father He is; and there is only one unique you.

Our loving, personal Father always works through His Son, our Mediator, especially in the work of redemption. And it is for this work alone that the Spirit is called “Holy.” In Creation, it is simply called “the Spirit.” But in redemption, the mind of the Messiah, our Comforter, is primarily involved—the One who lived a holy life in our flesh and who will live it again in us, by His Spirit of Holiness, as we submit to Him. Our eyes are to continually be on Jehoshua, not an impersonal spirit that is not His. He is our personal Saviour, who personally sends His own Spirit of Holiness to us as we ask the Father for it in faith. Though it is a distinct personality from His tangible human person, it is still Himself—His own holy mind sending us His own holy life by the permission and will of His and our Father.

The Holy Spirit is the breath of spiritual life in the soul. The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of the Messiah. It imbues the receiver with the attributes of the Messiah.

— E.G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 805

The soul must have the vivifying influence of the breath of life from the Messiah, in order to reveal that Christ is formed within, the hope of glory.

— E.G. White, Youth’s Instructor, 8/25/1898

The life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Saviour, pervades the soul, renews the motives and affections, and brings even the thoughts into obedience to the will of God, enabling the receiver to bear the precious fruit of holy deeds.

— E.G. White, Acts of the Apostles, p. 284

His goal is to implant His holy mind in us, holy thought by holy thought through His Word, until we demonstrate His holy attributes outwardly to the world.

He gives the Holy Spirit. He supplies all your defects of character with His own holy attributes.

— E.G. White, Letter 251, 1899

What does the Holy Spirit do for the receiver? It gives him the mind of the Messiah…

The Messiah says, “I am with you to help you in every true purpose. I will never leave you, I will never forsake you in the battle you have with the enemy.”

— E.G. White, Letter 107, 1896

That is interesting. We know that the infinite mind of the Messiah is the Spirit of Holiness, in source, but in activity, in its working in us, we develop the same mind in holy character—the primary emphasis in the term “Holy Spirit.” Hence, one of the main definitions of ‘spirit’ is as follows:

Temper; disposition of mind, habitual or temporary; as a man of a generous spirit, or of a revengeful spirit; the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Let us go to the house of God in the spirit of prayer.

— Webster’s Dictionary, 1828

We should have this in mind when we read or hear or use the term “Holy Spirit,” for besides everything else it is, the Spirit of Holiness is the Messiah’s gift to us of His own divine nature, which He wrought in His humanity, that He may develop it in our humanity. So, when inspiration speaks of the Spirit of Holiness being Jehoshua the Messiah, and the Messiah dwelling in us, though we do not know just what substance it is or how it works in us, this is what it is referring to. With that understood, let us look at Romans Chapter 8, which demonstrates that the Spirit of Holiness is both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Messiah, but an emphasis on the latter. Here is Verses 9 and 10:

Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of the Messiah, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

The Spirit is here described as being spiritual life and righteousness. Since it is the very life and righteousness that is in the Messiah and proceeds from Him, it is said to be “Christ.”

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.”

— Verses 14 to 15

Here is a related Scripture:

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

— Galatians 4:6

Why the Spirit of His Son? Let’s go back to Romans 8:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts [God] knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He [the Spirit] maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

— Verses 26 to 27 [brackets mine]

This is further evidence that the Spirit of Holiness has a personality, in the sense of having an intelligent mind. And both from what we read before of “the Spirit of His Son” and what we are reading here, we know that it is the mind of the Messiah. He, as the Spirit, our Advocate, takes our prayers and unspoken desires that we can’t find words for and translates them to be acceptable to God, who is the One who searches hearts to hear our prayers. And God knows the Spirit of His Son will do to our prayers what is according to His own will before He hears them, because His own mind is in harmony with that of His Son. In that sense, they share the same Spirit; they have a united will and disposition. Therefore, God is perfectly fine with the Spirit of the Messiah interceding on our behalf in our prayer life as our Advocate; in fact, it was the Father’s own heart to provide us with an Intercessor in the Spirit of His Son.

Here is a quote from Sister White showing the same:

The groanings and the longings of the Spirit are the expression of the intercession of Christ in behalf of His people, according to the will of God. They come from God and are returned to Him in silent and in audible prayer.

— Manuscript 32, 1903

Thus, we have a dual comforting Advocate: one in the Spirit of the Messiah personifying Him on earth to plead the righteousness of God to us on behalf of God, and one in the humanity of the Messiah to plead His perfect life on our behalf. The Messiah is our one and only Saviour and “helpeth our infirmities” because, in His human nature, He “took our infirmities” (Matt. 8:17) and “was in all points tempted like as we are” (Heb. 4:15).

The following quote from the Desire of Ages expounds on this text and very clearly brings out this dual intercession of the Messiah in His dual personalities:

“Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 7:25. Though the ministration was to be removed from the earthly to the heavenly temple; though the sanctuary and our great high priest would be invisible to human sight, yet the disciples were to suffer no loss thereby. They would realize no break in their communion, and no diminution of power because of the Saviour’s absence. While Jesus ministers in the sanctuary above, He is still by His Spirit the minister of the church on earth. He is withdrawn from the eye of sense, but His parting promise is fulfilled, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20. While He delegates His power to inferior ministers, His energizing presence is still with His church.

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest … Jehoshua, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16.

— E.G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 166

Here are a few more quotes showing just who the Spirit of Holiness is:

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, which is sent to all men to give them sufficiency, that through His grace we might be complete in Him.

— E.G. White, Letter 11a, 1894

Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.

— 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

How shall I bear impressively the commission Christ has given to His people—the privilege of being workers with the Spirit of all truth manifest in the flesh—the divine Son of God, clothed with humanity, a channel devised and prepared to be continually receiving and imparting the heavenly current? Himself the overflowing Fountain, He receives to communicate to all those who will accept the gift.

— E.G. White, Manuscript 125, 1906

“Christ was the Spirit of Truth. The world will not listen to His pleadings. They would not accept Him as their guide. They could not discern unseen things; spiritual things were unknown to them. But His disciples see in Him the way, the Truth, and the Life. And they shall have His abiding presence.

— E.G. White, The Southern Review, 10/25/1898

While the Holy Spirit is our intercessor in the court of conscience, the Lord Jesus is our intercessor in the heavenly courts … “We have an advocate with the Father, Jehoshua the Messiah, the Righteous One.” Jesus bears us upon His heart. We will nurture and cherish faith by considering the interest which the Holy Spirit has in us, manifested in His mission of love in coming to our world, humiliating Himself to humanity to save us.”

— E.G. White, Letter 97, 1892

We are to look to a personal Saviour—our Lord Jehoshua the Messiah. He is in heaven, but He pours out His life and righteousness, and everything that His Spirit is, right into our hearts. No other spirit but the Spirit of the Lord Jehoshua can give us liberty from our sins, for He obtained it for us in His perfect life, death, and resurrection. We are to look to Him and live. And now that we know the Spirit of Holiness is the life of Jehoshua, we can now understand how “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10).

God does not search His own heart, for it is His own; but His Son can. He has access to the deep things of God and brings them to us, the supplicants of His grace, who cry, “Abba, Father.” We are to cry out to Abba for the living water to our thirsty soul. As we receive more, we are to beg for more, craving that life that is only found in the Messiah, who Himself proceeded from God and thus can give us the original Spirit of life of God. We can only be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), but He has this life in Himself by divine right as the Son of God, which the Father has promised us.

Christ came to this world to save perishing souls. He delights to impart His Holy Spirit to every soul who loves His presence. His first work is to preside in the family, that every member may learn lessons of heavenly wisdom and love. John, the heaven-sent messenger, states, “In him was life.” He is as the tree of life. In Him is life, original, unborrowed, underived.

— E.G. White, Manuscript 22, 1898

Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” In the Messiah is life, original, unborrowed, underived. “He that hath the Son hath life.” 1 John 5:12. The divinity of the Messiah is the believer’s assurance of eternal life.

— E.G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 530

If the Messiah cannot be “present in all places by His Spirit of Holiness, as the Omnipresent,” then He is not divine, just as He could not be divine if He had not proceeded out of God as His only-begotten Son. Satan invented many theories that destroy the divinity of the Messiah, that he may destroy faith in a personal Saviour, whose Spirit glorifies Him in us. This truth is described in the following passages from the Gospel of John, which Sister White quoted, identifying who the Spirit of Truth is in her own brackets! We will spend some time studying the second passage, so please read it particularly carefully.

“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth [not deception]; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not [Jesus, the author of truth], neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (Jn. 14:16-17). What is the work of the Comforter? “And when He is come, He will”—praise, flatter, exalt? No;—“He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment … I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you” (16:8-14).

— Manuscript 8c, 1891 [brackets not mine]

It is clear from the first passage that the Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of the Messiah, and this is evident from the Scripture itself, for in Verse 6, Jehoshua said that He is “the Truth.” What we need to see from the second passage is the wonderful truth that the Spirit of Holiness becomes personality in us.