Not Who, But What

"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness" Romans 8:10)

What is the Holy Spirit? Not "who," but "what"? The answer is that the Holy Spirit is a Being dwelling in another mode of existence. He has not weight, nor measure, nor size, nor any color, no extension in space, but He nevertheless exists as surely as you exist.

The Holy Spirit is not enthusiasm. I have found enthusiasm that hummed with excitement, and the Holy Spirit was nowhere to be found there at all; and I have found the Holy Spirit when there has not been much of what we all enthusiasm present.

Neither is the Holy Spirit another name for genius. We talk about the spirit of Beethoven and say, "This or that artist played with great spirit. He interpreted the spirit of the master." The Holy Spirit is none of these things. Now what is He?

He is a Person. Put that down in capital letters. He is Himself a Person, with all the qualities and powers of personality.

The Spirit is Himself God, the very true Nature of the Godhead subsisting in a form that can impart Himself to our consciousness. 

~A. W. Tozer~

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The Holy Spirit Is A Person

"When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself" (John 16:13)

The Holy Spirit is often thought of as beneficent wind that blows across the Church. If you think of the Holy Spirit as being literally a wind, a breath, then you think of Him as nonpersonal and nonindividual. But the Holy Spirit has will and intelligence and feeling and knowledge and sympathy and ability to love and see and think and hear and speak and desire the same as any person has.

Many of us have grown up on the theology that accepts the Holy Spirit as a Person, and even as a divine Person, but for some reason it never did us any good. We are as empty as ever, we are as joyless as ever, we are as far from peace as ever, we are as weak as ever.

What I want to do is to tell you the old things, but while I am doing it, to encourage your heart to make them yours now, and to walk into the living, throbbing, vibrating heart of them, so that from here on your life will be altogether different.

If we should know the full comfort of the Holy Spirit we must cooperate with Him.

~A. W. Tozer~