THE REAL HOLY SPIRIT

In Mormonism the "Holy Ghost" is a personage, or a god, but

the "Holy Spirit" is an impersonal force. The Mormons refer to

verses that the Holy Spirit is symbolized by oil, fire and water

and show that these are "impersonal". The Bible refers to the

Father and the Son as "bread of life", "living water" and other

"impersonal" terms. Again, we must look at the context.

In John 16:7, our Lord is placing His emphasis on His going

away and the Holy Spirit's being sent by the Father to replace

our Lord himself. This change (or replacement), Jesus says, would

be beneficial for His disciples. AN IMPERSONAL FORCE COULD HARDLY

IMPROVE ON THE PERSONAL PRESENCE OF OUR LORD, JESUS CHRIST!

The word in Hebrew and the word in Greek for SPIRIT and

GHOST both mean the same, "breath or wind" and the "translators"

of the King James Bible noted that the Greek word denoted a

neuter gender and mistranslated to be an "IT", but they did

utilize the word Ghost and Spirit and interchanged them on many

occassions.

The words as translated are from only ONE word in Hebrew and

ONE word in Greek - therefore there are NOT two words for SPIRIT

and GHOST - only ONE. Now, let's look at this ONE entity called

the HOLY SPIRIT. In John 16:13 and 14 we see our Lord, Jesus

telling us this about the Holy Spirit, "HE shall not speak of

HIMSELF ... HE shall glorify me ... HE shall receive of mine

...". NOTE that our LORD gives PERSONALITY to the Spirit.

Otherwise our Lord would have used the term that Mormons use

"IT".

Jesus repeatedly (John 16:7-15) uses the MASCULINE PERSONAL

pronoun "He" when referring to the Spirit. Jesus used the term

clearly to tell us that the Spirit had personality and intimacy.

Ananias was struck dead for lying to the HOLY SPIRIT (Acts

5:3). You cannot lie to an impersonal force! It would be like

walking up to a window box fan, turning it on and facing its

"force" and then telling lie after lie to it - IT WOULD NOT CARE

THE SLIGHTEST, WOULD IT? Now, you look at Ananias and, if you are

not a complete idiot, you would not repeat his behavior, now

would you? The Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost are not two

different items mentioned in the Bible. There is only one entity Üf�Ü

referred to as both HOLY GHOST and HOLY SPIRIT.

The Holy Spirit is a person. The Spirit may be "grieved"

(Ephesians 4:30) and "sinned against" by UNFORGIVABLE blasphemy

(Mark 3:29). None of these things are possible for an "impersonal

force".

The Holy Ghost does things which only a person COULD do.

He SPEAKS:

"The Spirit said unto Philip, 'Go near'" (Acts 8:29)

He STRIVES:

"My Spirit shall not strive with man forever" (Genesis 6:3)

- "The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity ... [and] MAKETH

INTERCESSION for us." (Romans 8:26)

He REVEALS, SEARCHES, and KNOWS:

"But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the

Spirit searcheth all things ... the things of God knoweth no man

but the Spirit of God" (I Corinthians 2:10,11).

Other verses can be shown in which the Spirit IDENTIFIES

with believers (Acts 15:28), The Spirit is ETERNAL (Hebrews

9:14), OMNIPRESENT (Psalm 139:7-10), DOES GOD'S WORK (Genesis

1:2), INVOLVED IN REGENERATION (John 3:8), participates in the

RESURRECTION (Romans 8:11).

Paul identifies the Spirit as the speaker to Isaiah. Acts

28:25-26 and Isaiah 6:8,9. An impersonal force does not counsel,

speak, feel, or anything resembling personality. The HOLY SPIRIT

is a person - one of the THREE ENTITIES of the ONE TRUE GOD.

Computers For Christ