Person. It has its origin only in a Person. It comes to men only from a Person. It is given to men only by a Person. It is sustained and
Christian loyalty, therefore, is and can be only loyalty to that Person. The loyalty of Christians can never be to anybody, and much less to any thing, other than just that one Person. And that Person is God—God, in Christ, through and by the Holy Spirit.
God is a person—a living, intelligent, person: a person who thinks, who loves, who pities, who speaks, who is good, who is true, who is faithful, who enters into covenant with men, and who keeps covenant and mercy with men forever.
And Christ Jesus is a person. In this personal Christ the personal God is manifested to the world and made personally known to believing men. Christ, was a person before he came into the world; yea, he was a person before ever the world was.
*This same Person who was before the world, and who made the world and made man, came into the world and to man.
*He was a person in the world and with mankind.
*In this same person he left the world and ascended to heaven and to the personal God of heaven.
*In this same Person, and as this same Person glorified, he is at the right hand of the throne of the personal God in Heaven.
*And in this same Person, and as this same Person glorified, He is soon corning again in all the glory to glorify and take to Himself and to the personal God of glory, all who are His by a personal faith upon their own personal choice.
And the Holy Spirit is a person. This great truth is not recognized, indeed it is not believed, by more than a very few even of Christians. For everybody knows that almost invariably, with very, very few exceptions, the Holy Spirit is referred to and spoken of by Christians as “it.”
But the word “it” never applies to a person. The word “it,” in the
very genius of our language, refers and applies only to things, never to persons; to things of inanimate substance, as a stone, a horse, a tree; or to things of concept, or experience, as space, height, breadth, peace, joy, grief, an impression, an influence. But the Holy Spirit is none of these: the Holy Spirit is not an influence; nor an impression, nor peace, nor joy, nor any thing. The Holy Spirit gives peace, and gives joy, assuages in grief, makes an impression, exerts an influence; but the Holy Spirit is none of these things, nor any other thing.
No, eternally no! The Holy Spirit is a Person, eternally a divine Person. And He must be always recognized and spoken of as a Person, or he is not truly recognized or spoken of at all.
See how plain and emphatic the Scriptures set forth this truth that the Holy Spirit is only a Person: and to aid the reader to see this truth, we will print in capital letters Italic, the words that designate the Holy Spirit:—
John 14:16, 17: “I will pray the Father, 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 (the world) seeth HIM not, neither knoweth HIM; but ye know HIM; for HE dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
John 15:26: “When the Comforter is come, WHOM I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which (WHO, Revised Version and others) proceedeth from the Father, HE shall testify of me.”
John 6:7-15: “If I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you; And when HE is come, HE will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.) ... I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye can not bear them now. Howbeit, when HE, the Spirit of Truth is come, HE will guide you into all truth; for HE shall not speak for HIMSELF; but whatsoever HE shall hear, that shall HE speak; and HE will shew you things to come. HE shall glorify me; for HE shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore, said I, that HE shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”
Thus in the short space of a few lines the Lord Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as a person; and speaks of Him in no other term than that which signifies in Greek, literally, “that person there.”
Therefore to be consistent those people who persist in speaking of the Holy Spirit as “it,” should also speak of Christ as “it,” and of God as “it.”
But as certainly as any one speaks of God as HE and of Christ as HE,
he must also speak of the Holy Spirit as HE."
A. T. Jones, The Medical Missionary p. 98, 1907
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