The Personality of the Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit Is In the Word of God.

Here is the living, undying element so distinctly represented in the sixth chapter of John.

“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you: whosoever eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me, and I in Him. As the Living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so He that eateth Me, even He shall live by Me.” “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life.”

Much is being said regarding the impartation of the Holy Spirit, and by some this is being so interpreted that it is an injury to the churches. Eternal life is the receiving of the living elements in the Scriptures, and doing the will of God. This is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God. To those who do this life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel, for God’s Word is verity and truth, spirit and life. It is the privilege of all who believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour to feed on the Word of God. The Holy Spirit’s influence renders that Word, the Bible, an immortal truth, which to the prayerful searcher gives spiritual sinew and muscle.

— E.G. White, Letter 132, 1900

Thus, we are built up as the body of the Messiah. And below are more Spirit of Prophecy statements speaking to the same, showing us that in order to have the Spirit of Holiness in us we must be daily partaking of the Word by faith, believing that we are receiving the very life of the Messiah containing the holy attributes we are reading about.

The reception of the Word, the bread from heaven, is declared to be the reception of the Messiah Himself … As the blood is formed in the body by the food eaten, so Christ is formed within by the eating of the Word of God, which is His flesh and blood. He who feeds upon that Word has the Messiah formed within, the hope of glory. The written Word introduces to the searcher the flesh and blood of the Son of God; and through obedience to that Word, he becomes a partaker of the divine nature. As the necessity for temporal food cannot be supplied by once partaking of it, so the Word of God must be daily eaten to supply the spiritual necessities.

— E.G. White, Review and Herald, 11/23/1897

In every command and in every promise of the Word of God is the power, the very life of God, by which the command may be fulfilled and the promise realized. He who by faith receives the Word is receiving the very life and character of God.

— E.G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 38

God’s holy, educating Spirit is in His Word.

— Ibid., p. 132

The creative energy that called the worlds into existence is in the Word of God. This Word imparts power; it begets life. Every command is a promise; accepted by the will, received into the soul, it brings with it the life of the Infinite One. It transforms the nature and re-creates the soul in the image of God.

— E.G. White, Education, p. 126

God Himself speaks to the believing, trusting soul; for God’s Spirit is in His Word.

— E.G. White, Signs of the Times, 10/10/1895

The life of the Messiah that gives life to the world is in His Word.

— E.G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 390

The Word is made flesh, and dwells among us, in those who receive the holy precepts of the Word of God.”

— E.G. White, Special Testimonies on Education, p. 219

The Word is (present tense) made flesh, or becomes humanity! That says a lot, and it is Scriptural:

Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jehoshua the Messiah is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jehoshua the Messiah is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.

— 1 John 4:2-4

Our spirit is identified with the Spirit of God if we confess that Jehoshua the Messiah, in His Word, is made flesh in us, because confession makes it a reality; it causes the Spirit to take personality in us as we represent it in holy character. But the confession must be of faith. Anyone can speak a word and not mean it. So, how do we practically have this faith to turn the confession into the reality of the Messiah the Word becoming alive in us? Here it is:

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing through the Word of God.

— Romans 10:17

We must hear through the Word of God. What does this mean? What are we hearing? Well, I believe the Word of God is referring to His written Word. That is how God communicates to us His thoughts. But we are only hearing through it. So, what are we actually hearing?

The answer comes in this passage before it, which is profoundly powerful. In it, he references the Law, or Moses, which can apply to every inspired page, as the Spirit of Prophecy is just an extension of the original Scriptures of Moses, with Christ dwelling in us as the purpose of every page of the written Word.

For Christ is the end [“the end to which all things relate, the aim, purpose” (Strong’s)] of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the Law, that, “the man which doeth those things shall live in them,” and the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, “Say not in thine heart, ‘Who shall ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, ‘Who shall descend into the deep?’ (that is, to bring up the Messiah again from the dead.”) But what saith it?

“The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart”: that is, the Word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jehoshua, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

— Verses 4 to 10

Wow! That which we are to hear through the Scriptures is “the Word of faith“—the Word which we cannot see or hear with our senses, but that is right where we are. Recall that the Son of God is “upholding all things by the Word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). That includes ourselves. It is a mystery, but it is true. The Word is just waiting to be believed upon in our hearts and confessed with our mouths that it may activate the righteousness it contains; and “the righteousness of God” is “revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’ ” (Rom. 1:17). This is how we are to spiritually live.

The Spirit of God is in the Word of faith, not in the Word of page; and it is activated by faith. We are to hear what God through His Word is personally speaking to us through reading or reciting the written form of the Word.

Through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit speaks to the mind, and impresses truth upon the heart. Thus He exposes error, and expels it from the soul. It is by the Spirit of Truth, working through the Word of God, that the Messiah subdues His chosen people to Himself.

— E.G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 671

Every command is a promise of the righteousness of the Messiah. Every principle is a lesson of Him. Therefore, after hearing the voice of God’s Spirit speak to us through reading the written Word, we are to believe that it is reality and that the Word of faith is making it reality in us, even as we confess with our lips (if it be just under our breath) the mighty and powerful Name of Jehoshua. Again, where is His Spirit-filled Word? Everywhere, but especially in the Book of Nature which we should immerse ourselves in as often as we can. The Spirit speaks to us there as well.

But what has this to do with believing that God hath raised His Son from the dead? Everything! Just as surely as He is risen and lives in Heaven, He pours out His Spirit into all living things and “in Him all things consist” (Col. 1:17). But that is not all. When the Messiah was resurrected, He was begotten again. The Word made “the likeness of flesh of sin” (Rom. 8:3) had permanently died. Jehoshua was resurrected as a new soul: the Word was made flesh without sin, as His previous life had been, having always “condemned sin in the flesh”—never allowing it to arise in His life.

Therefore, the Father raised Him up with that same righteous life. For what purpose? To put that same life back into our flesh of sin to live His life in us, to reproduce Himself in us!—thus bringing glory to Him, and ultimately the Father, through a diversity of lives and experiences.

Christ is seeking to reproduce Himself in the hearts of men; and He does this through those who believe in Him. The object of the Christian life is fruit bearing—the reproduction of the Messiah’s character in the believer, that it may be reproduced in others…

Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. It is the privilege of every Christian not only to look for but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:12, margin).

— E.G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 67

In every principle of the Word we daily claim, we are claiming the begotten life of the Messiah, to beget us with Himself, so that the Messiah, “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18), is reproduced and glorified by us, through His Spirit which is in His living Word. This Word is already upholding us physically, just waiting to become activated by faith; then it becomes the Word of faith, begetting in us the holy life of the Messiah.

The Bible describes the Word as seed, and God places His life in all seed; but the seed must be activated to germinate. Just as warmth and water must cause physical seeds to germinate, so the warmth and water of our breath, coming from the Spirit’s work within, must germinate the Word to produce the fruit of holiness after its infinite kind. As we hear God’s Spirit speak to us each new truth, the the heartfelt language of our hearts to our lips should be, “I accept this truth in the Name of Jehoshua“; and we will be born again.

And thou shalt call His Name ‘Jehoshua‘: for He shall save His people from their sins.

— Matthew 1:21

The name of Jesus must be in our hearts and fall from our lips. The eye of faith must behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

— E.G. White, General Conference Bulletin, 10/1/1899

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible [seed], through the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

— 1 Peter 1:23

Our hearts are to become a holy garden, full of flowers and fruit-filled plants displaying the glory of the Messiah. We are to die daily to the weeds of our sins and be born again with the resurrected life of the Messiah in the Word of faith which we hear and believe, that we may make confession. We must first confess any sins to be weeded out and then the Name of Jehoshua—confessing that He, our living, resurrected Saviour, is in us, saving us from our sins by taking our sins and giving us His righteousness! His wonderful Name covers this all, so as long as we speak it discerning the simple meaning, then we only need to speak His Name in prayer; and this can be mingled with confession of the truth we are learning, praise, and thanksgiving. And the Spirit of the Messiah will make our prayers acceptable to the Father to whom belongs all glory. This is a daily new birth experience, especially in the morning, after we have arisen from our sleep.

I hope you are seeing how powerful this is. I hope you see that this truth—the truth of the corporeal personality of God and the personality of the Spirit of Holiness made manifest in us—is very practical. It is about knowing “the only true God, and Jehoshua the Messiah, whom” He “hast sent” (Jn. 17:3). Too often people have come to believe in an impersonal theology—whether it be trinitarian, non-trinitarian, or anything else—but not a personal God and a personal Saviour. People have preached the theoretical truth to others in the spirit of pride, corrupting the truth thereby. You can glory and rejoice in this truth, but please be humble with this truth you learn. Repent of your false ideas of God and focus on practical truth, holding firm to your confession of faith, of the Lord Jehoshua, who should be your only creed.

When you are tempted, call on His Name, and He will save you, even if a Scripture does not immediately come to mind, for He is the Word of Life, and His very Name—believed on according to its meaning—is in the Word, as we have read. Call on that Name and be saved! And make it a daily habit to partake, in faith, of the Word—the God-breathed words through the written page.

Try it right now. Claim the truth of this Scripture in the Name of Jehoshua, and it will be made flesh in you:

I am crucified with the Messiah: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but the Messiah liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.

— Galatians 2:20

Keep practicing this and the Spirit of Holiness will more and more become personality in you uniquely—the Word made flesh, afresh!—not as the Messiah, but as part of His bride, “one spirit” with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). That Spirit of Holiness is independent of the humanity of the Messiah and His bride, but it is that mysterious power that unites them together under one God and Father into a holy union of agape love which passes all understanding.

To conclude the series “Our Personal God and His Spirit, Versus the No God Alpha and Omega,” please read The Omega Experience, which delves into the startling “omega” following the “alpha of deadly heresies” that Sister White referred to several times in her later testimonies.