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Then there is the Holy Spirit. If we leave out of account passages which suggest that the physical air is being spoken of (e.g. Isaiah 40:7) and other passages where perhaps the meaning of 'God's Spirit' is God's mind (e.g. 1 Corinthians 7:40; Isaiah 40:13), then we are left with those passages where an intelligence is the apparent meaning (e.g. John 16:13). That the Spirit is normally presented as being fluid is undeniable (John 7:38/39 ). Because of this He can be shared by many persons at the same time (Acts 2:1-4). God gives us of his Spirit (1 John 4:13). He is not therefore just another person identical with God the Father. There is no such idea in Scripture. He, however, is not a created being as He is introduced to us in Genesis 1:2 before God began his creatorial work. He is not a part of God any more than motor spirit is part of a car, but He is in a way complementary to God, that is He is necessary to Him. |
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What the above amounts to is that God is one person one unit (1 Timothy 2:5), but as his complement (fulness) the Son and the Holy Spirit are also included, rather like the woman is included under the term Man in Genesis 1:27. Christ is also one person, one unit (1 Timothy 2:5), and there is one Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:4). We can therefore maintain, as the writers of Scripture did, that God is not a trinity of identical persons, but one being having a Spirit and a Word who were with Him (John 1:1; 15:26) and are the means by which He puts Himself in contact with his creature man. The Son is God's mediator externally (Hebrews 12:24) and the Spirit is our link with God internally (1 John 3:24). |
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As God's image Christ is worshipped (has homage done to Him - John 9:35-38), but we do not worship the Holy Spirit because He is in us rather than before us. He is the means by which we worship (Philippians 3:3; Jude 20). |
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The foregoing doctrine enables us to maintain on the one hand the greatness of the invisible God (1 Timothy 1:17) and on the other appreciate the means by which God has put Himself in contact with man without giving us to lose sight of his eternal power and divinity (Romans 1:19/20). The point may also be made that the way of thinking of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit proposed does not involve the violation of Scripture and meets the objections of bodies such as the Jehovah's witnesses to the traditional views on the subject. |
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March 2003 |
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Note: A much more detailed proof of the foregoing doctrine is shown on the second part of this website under All relevant passages of Scripture have been carefully considered over half a century in formulating the above. |