Is the Holy Spirit a Person?

Question

I know what I know, according to the Bible. I am a JW. What do you think? What is the Holy Spirit? I have seen a lot on here about the Trinity, alot of misguided information. What are your thoughts? I will post an article in a few minutes that explain what I think. My question is, What do you think the Holy Spirit is and how do you back it up? Then honstly sit back and look at the article I post and look up the scriptures in the Bible and compare them to what you have.

So? Is the Holy Spirit a person?

http://www.watchtower.org/e/200607a/article_01.htm

There is the Article I talked about in my question... Some will say "Oh its from the "Watchtower" but when you read it, notice, it is from the Bible. Everything is backed from the Bible. I encourage you to take out your personal copy of the Bible read along, look up the scriptures. :) I say all this with compassion, not trying to sound haughty, just with conveiction of my sound understanding of the Bible.

*conviction

Answer 1

no the Holy Spirit is not a person, it is Jehovah's Active Force. it is Jehovah God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and Jehovah's Active Force. no place in the bible does it say, anything about a trinity. yes Jesus said you seen me you seen the Father, was he was saying was he was with Jehovah for billions of years before he came to earth, that he knows his Father real well. Jesus also said that he cannot do anything without the Father in the heaven, so they are not one and the same

Answer 2

In the Bible, the holy spirit has been called an "IT" whereby "some" of it can be distributed into portions:

The King James Version and the ASV render Is. 34:16: "my mouth, it hath commanded, and his Spirit, IT hath gathered them."
At Numbers 11:17 we see: "I will take ['SOME' - NRSV, NJB] of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put IT upon them." - ASV (compare KJV, RSV, NRSV, AT, LB, NEB, REB, NAB, JB, NJB, Beck).

Also, in Acts 2:33, it calls the Holy Spirit "that" (or "this" in other versions) which according to the KJV New Testament Greek lexicon is a THING, not a person:

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=5124&version=kjv

Also, again in Acts 2:17,18, God "POURS OUT" [ekxeo, ekxew] from [apo] his Spirit upon all people. This alone should be clear enough that the Holy Spirit is a THING and not a person.

But look at what even TRINITARIAN authorities OTHER than Jehovah's Witnesses say in the following about the Holy Spirit:

"The majority of NT texts reveal God's spirit as someTHING, not someone." - New Catholic Encyclopedia, p. 575, Vol. 13, 1967.

"The Holy Spirit was viewed NOT as a personal figure but rather as a power." - The New Encyclopedia Britannica.

"In the N[ew] T[estament] there is no direct suggestion of a doctrine of the Trinity. The spirit is conceived as an IMPERSONAL power by which God effects his will through Christ." - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Ferm (ed.), 1945, p. 344.

"In the OT the Holy Spirit means a divine power ..." -p. 269, The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1976.

Answer 3

My understanding is that the word person may refer to the physical appearance, the psycho-emotional characteristic, or the whole combination of both. Person can even refer to the legal existence of an entity, such as a partnership or corporation. In other words person can mean not only the physical self that we can see and touch.

We can call the Holy Spirit as God's active-force or presence. I prefer the term person because there is more affinity and affection.

Hitler's personality is carried by the Nazi Gestapo. Jesus is personified by his apostles and disciples.

Answer 4

I believe the Holy Spirit is a part of God. I have seen the Holy Spirit. He looked like a see-through cloud, a mist, a ghost.
His touch is like a child.
When he entered me I felt a really strong emotion go through me. It was an emotion like you feel with sudden anger or lust. (Almost every adult has had an emotion that you can actually feel).
This happened to me years ago during a rough time in my life. I was praying. I am not a Jehovah Witness but I have to agree with them on this .

Answer 5

The Holy Spirit is one of the three Persons in one God. The Trinity is a divine mystery and as such is beyond complete human comprehension, but the three Persons are both distinct and inseparable. They are not three different beings, but three aspects of one being.

I think the Hindus actually have a lesson for us here; going by what I think I know of the Hindu religion, they believe that Krishna, Vishnu and the others are different facets of the same divinity. In other words, they aren't separate; they're just different ways of looking at the same divine being. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is a Person, but is not a separate entity from God the Father or Jesus.

Answer 6

Here is one Scripture from NJKV that mentions the Father, Son and Holy Spirit twice over.

Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit (Holy Spirit) of Him (God the Father) who raised Jesus (God the Son) from the dead dwells in you, He (God the Father) who raised Christ (God the Son) from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit (Holy Spirit) who dwells in you

Here are Scriptures mentioning the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:

1 Corinthians 12:4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit (Holy Spirit),

1 Corinthians 12:5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord (God the Son).

1 Cor 12:6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God (God the Father) who works all in all,.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead. I know the Holy Spirit personally who lives in and empowers me with His fruit and gifts. He prays through me every day by giving me utterances.

If God who is Spirit is a person, the Holy Spirit who is Spirit is also a person.

Answer 7

From one of my favorite movies :

Charlie McManus: You've got the Father, the Son and the holy ghost. But the three are one - like a shamrock, my old priest used to say. "Three leaves, but one leaf." Now, the father sent down the son, who was love, and then when he went away, he sent down the holy spirit, who came down in the form of a...
Brian Hope: You told me already - a ghost.
Charlie McManus: No, a dove.
Brian Hope: The dove was a ghost?
Charlie McManus: No, the ghost was a dove.
Brian Hope: Let me try and summarize this: God is his son. And his son is God. But his son moonlights as a holy ghost, a holy spirit, and a dove. And they all send each other, even though they're all one and the same thing.
Charlie McManus: You've got it. You really could be a nun!

Answer 8

ok theres nothing in the bible about some kind of "trinity" or "3 gods in one" or whatever crap thats about. that was just people making up stuff cuz there not smart. cuz seriously if jesus god and the holy spirit are the same person then who was god talking to? "this is my son in whom i am well pleased" well then if the trinity were real he would have said, "this is myself in whom i am well pleased." the holy spirit is like some kind of power from god that does miracles i think?

Answer 9

The Holy Spirit is not flesh and blood, like us.

As His name is so is He, a Spirit.

He is a separate from our Father and Jesus, but He is in one accord with them, just as Jesus said that all believer should be in one accord.

Answer 10

No.
There is NO mystery here,
it is the Will of God,
His active force.
Not only does God want, but,
requires us to Worship Him alone.
How would it do for Him to remain a mystery to us,
if we r to worship Him.
If we can't comprehend-understand Him.
That is illogical non-sense.
That cannot be of God.
He is a God of order, NOT a God of confusion.