You will notice I use interchangeably the words “Spirit” and “Ghost.” They mean exactly and precisely the same thing. Our English word “Ghost” comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word “gast” and means “Spirit.” The phrase “Holy Ghost” comes from the old Elizabethan and pre-Elizabethan English the “holy gast.” Therefore, it makes no difference, which I say, I mean the same thing.
Let me start by reminding you that about a century ago the theological liberals in our country committed a great blunder. That blunder took the form of neglecting or denying the deity of Jesus. They either did not talk about it at all, or else they explained the deity of Jesus away, and neglected to mention His lordship over the Church. This was a stupid and dangerous blunder, which brought inner blindness to thousands and spiritual decay and death to greater thousands.
The evangelical church made up of gospel Christians such as you and me, people who believe the Bible, have committed a comparable blunder. That blunder took the form of neglecting or denying the deity of the Holy Spirit.
I need to modify that, for I doubt whether any Evangelical ever denied the deity of the Holy Spirit. However, we certainly neglect Him and His lordship within the Church. This failure to honor the Holy Spirit has resulted in much desolation within the Church.
For one, the fellowship of the Church has degenerated into a social fellowship with a mild religious flavor. For me, either I want God or I do not want anything at all to do with religion. I could never get interested in some old maids social club, with a little bit of Christianity thrown in to give it respectability. Either I want it all or I do not want any. I want God or I am perfectly happy to go out and be something else. I think the Lord had something like that in mind when He said, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot,” (Revelation 3:15 KJV).
Another result of the failure to honor the Holy Ghost is that so many non-spiritual, un-spiritual and anti-spiritual features have been brought into the church. The average church could not run on a hymnbook and a Bible. The church started out with a Bible and then developed a hymnbook, and for years, that was enough. Now, some people could not serve God without at least one vanload of equipment to keep them happy. All this attraction to win people and keep them coming may be fine, it may be elevated, it may be cheap, it may be degrading, it may be coarse, it may be artistic; but it all depends on who is running the show. Because the Holy Spirit is not the center of attraction, and the Lord is not the one in charge, we must bring in all sorts of anti-scriptural and un-scriptural claptrap to keep the people happy and keep them coming.
The horrible part is not so much that this is true, but that it needs to be at all. The great woe is not the presence of religious toys and trifles, but the necessity for them because the presence of the Eternal Spirit is not in our midst. The tragedy and woe of the hour is trying to make up for His absence by doing these things to keep our own spirits up.
I mentioned once in a sermon in Chicago that some churches are so completely out of the hands of God, if the Holy Ghost withdrew from them, they would not find it out for three months. Afterward I received a telephone call from a woman.
The voice on the phone said, “Mr. Tozer, I am not a member of your church; I am a member of a church on the north side.”
If you know anything about that great city, you know that being on the north side is like being in another state.
She said, “I was down to your church last night and heard you say that there are churches where, if the Holy Spirit should desert them, they’d never find it out. Mr. Tozer, I want you to know that’s what has happened in our church.”
Her voice was tender and broken, there was no criticism, and I tried to console her.
“Well, maybe,” I said, “it’s just that He is grieved, or maybe He’s not given His place.”
“No,” she said, “it’s past that, Mr. Tozer. We have so consistently rejected Him in our church that He is gone; He is no longer here.”
Now, I doubt whether she is right. I do not believe the Spirit of God ever leaves the church completely, but He can, like the Savior who was asleep in the hinder part of the ship, go to sleep and not make Himself known and let us get along without Him for years.
To fully understand this I must ask you to shake your head real hard and wake up some of those cells that have not had a good workout since you got out of college. I’m going to ask you to think with me about something that is a little bit off the beaten track.
Let me pose a simple question. What is the Holy Spirit?
In the first place, spirit is another mode of being than matter. You can pick a thing up and bounce it around; that is matter. You and I are composed of matter. That head you have is matter. That is only one mode of existence, but there is another, and that is spirit.
The difference between matter and spirit is that matter possesses weight, size, color and extension in space. It can be measured and weighed and has form. But the Holy Spirit is not material, therefore He does not have weight or dimension or shape or extension in space.
One power of spirit is to penetrate matter and things and all substances. Your spirit, for instance, dwells in your body somewhere, and it penetrates your body without hurting the body. It is in there penetrating because it is another form.
When Jesus had risen from the dead and was no more mere matter, He came into a locked room through the wall somehow, and managed to penetrate and get into that room without unlocking the door. He could not have done that prior to his death, but He did it afterward. Spirit, then, is another kind of substance. It is different from material things and can penetrate personality. Your spirit can penetrate your personality. One personality can penetrate another personality. The Holy Spirit can penetrate your personality and your spirit. The Bible refers to this in 1 Corinthians, “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God,” (1 Corinthians 2:11 KJV). Therefore, the Spirit of God can penetrate the spirit of man.
Let me mention what the Holy Spirit is not.
The Holy Spirit is not enthusiasm. Some people get enthusiasm and imagine it is the Holy Spirit. They become worked up over a song thinking it is Spirit-anointed worship. And they imagine that is the Spirit. Enthusiasm is not the Holy Spirit, because those same people go out and live just like the world. The Holy Spirit never enters a man and then lets him live like the world. You can be sure of that.
Incidentally, that is the reason most people do not want to be filled with the Holy Spirit; they want to live the way they want to live and have the Holy Spirit as a bit of something extra, as you might have a diamond stickpin or something very beautiful on your clothing. They want the Holy Ghost to be something added, but the Holy Spirit will not be an addition. The Holy Spirit must be Lord or He will not come at all.
The Holy Spirit is not courage, or energy, or the personification of all good qualities, like Jack Frost is the personification of cold weather and Santa Claus the personification of wanting to give someone a tie. The Holy Spirit is not a personification of anything, but the Holy Spirit is a person just the same as you are a person. He has all the qualities of a person. The Holy Spirit has substance but not material substance. He has individuality. He is one being and not another. He has will and He has intelligence and He has feeling and He has knowledge, sympathy, and the ability to love and see and think and hear and speak and desire and grieve and rejoice. And Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me” (John 15:26 KJV).
I have said the Holy Spirit is spirit and not matter. He is personality, He is individuality. He has intelligence, love, memory and can communicate with you. He can love you and therefore can be grieved when you grieve Him. He can be quenched, as any friend can be if you turn on Him, of course He will be hushed into hurt silence, because you have wounded Him. Therefore, we can wound the Holy Spirit.
Now, that is what He is. But, who is the Holy Spirit?
Consider the testimony of the Church down through the years. The historic church has consistently given witness that the Holy Spirit is God. Those who attended some of the denominational churches are familiar with the Nicene Creed, quoted every so often.
There is another creed called the Athanasian Creed. That came into being when a man stood up and said that Jesus was a good man and a great man, but He was not God. He was not divine, nor was He the second person of the Trinity. In response to this heresy, another man responded by declaring the Bible teaches that Jesus is God. All kinds of controversy erupted around this doctrine.
Finally, some came to Athanasia and said, “Athanasia, the whole world is against you on this.” He said, “All right, then I’m against the whole world.” He did not mind having them against him, he stood his ground.
This came to a peak at a great gathering at Nice, and out of it came the Athanasian Creed. The Church Fathers got together, and they hammered out what the Bible had to say about the Three Persons of the Trinity. Most of us are so busy reading religious fiction that we never get around to it. Therefore, I thought it might be beneficial if I took you back about 1,300 years and listened to our Fathers tell about who God is.
The Athanasian Creed
Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic [i.e., universal, Christian] faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three Eternals, but one Eternal. As there are not three Uncreated nor three Incomprehensibles, but one Uncreated and one Incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords, but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords.
The Father is made of none: neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another; But the whole Three Persons are coeternal together, and coequal: so that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped. He, therefore, that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believes faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world; Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood; Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ: One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God; One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ; Who suffered for our salvation; descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead; He ascended into heaven; He sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty; from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At Whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give an account of their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire.
This is the catholic faith; which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.
I do not know what something like that does to you, but that is just like a chicken dinner to my soul, to know this has come down the years and is what our Fathers believed. When that company of Christians met and declared this kind of thing, some had their tongues pulled out, some had their ears burned off, some had their arms torn off and some lost a leg all because they stood for this thing; that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The Romans persecuted them under Diocletian, Caligula, and the rest of them. These men were martyrs who hadn’t quite died, but who were maimed horribly. Old saints of God and scholars, who knew the truth, came together, wrote this and gave it to the world and for the ages. And I thank God on my knees for them.
Not only does the historic church say that the Holy Spirit is God, but the Scriptures say that the Holy Spirit is God.
If the Church said it and the Scripture did not say it, I would reject it. I would not believe an Archangel if he came to me with a wingspread of twelve feet shining like an atom bomb just at the moment it goes off, if he could not give me chapter and verse. I want to know it is here in the book.
I am not a traditionalist. Anybody comes to me and says this is traditional; I will say, “all right, interesting, if true but, is it true? Give me chapter and verse.” All tradition must bow in reverence before the clear testimony of God’s Word.
What I want to know is, were these old brethren, when they said all this, were they telling the truth? Well, listen to what the scriptures have to say.
The Scripture says He’s God, gives to Him the attributes that belong to God and the Son and the Father. For instance, the 139th Psalm says, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Psalms 139:7). That is omnipresence. Not even the devil is omnipresent. Only God can claim omnipresence. The Psalmist attributed omnipresence to the Holy Spirit.
Then in Job, He is given the power to create. “By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.” (Job 26:13).
And he said, “The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life,” (Job 33:4). There we have the breath, the “gast,” the “ghost,” the Spirit of the Almighty has given me life. Therefore, the Holy Spirit here is said to be Creator. He issues commands, “Thus saith the Spirit,” and only God can do that.
Then there is the baptismal formula. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
There is the benediction, “The grace of Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost.”
This may be a little shocking, but I want to ask you; if the Spirit of God was not God, but something less, if He was a man or an angel, or something else; if He just was not God as some people say, how would it sound if I introduced the name of someone else? The archangel, Gabriel, for instance.
Suppose I said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and Saint Paul.” Wouldn’t that be a shocking, horrible thing? If I said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Virgin Mary.” Wouldn’t that be a horrible thing? For you cannot attribute deity to Saint Paul. You cannot attribute deity to the Virgin, although we honor her, because she was the mother of our Lord. The Mother of our Lord’s body, but not the mother of the Lord’s deity. For His deity had been before the foundation of the world. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... and all things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” And the holy Lord, whom she bore, had made the very atoms that composed the body of His mother. Suppose we introduced her there, or introduced Gabriel the Archangel there? And we would say “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Archangel Gabriel.”
Everyone would run for the door. They would say, “There’s heresy in that church.” It would be a horrible thing to introduce an archangel or a man in where the Holy Spirit belongs, never, never, my brother. The Holy Spirit is God, and the most important thing here tonight is that the Holy Spirit is present. There is unseen deity present.
I cannot bring Him here. I can only tell you that He is here. That is all. I can tell you that He is present in our midst, a knowing, feeling personality. He knows how you are reacting to what I am saying. He knows why you came. He knows what you are going to say as soon as you get out on the sidewalk. He knows how you are thinking now. He knows your “uprising and your down sitting” and understands your thoughts afar off. And you cannot hide from Him. He is present in our midst. “I will send another Comforter, to you and He will abide with you.” Therefore, He is here among us. We meet as Christians, and there is an invisible presence among our assembly. We cannot see Him but we know He is present.
He is indivisible from the Father and the Son. In addition, He is all God and exercises all the rights of God, and He merits all worship, all love and all obedience.
That is who the Holy Spirit is. And here is a beautiful thing about the Holy Spirit: being the Spirit of Jesus you will find Him exactly like Jesus. Many people have been frightened by people claiming to be filled with the Spirit and acting anyway else but like the Spirit. Some people say when they are filled with the Spirit they are very stern, harsh and abusive. Others do weird things and say that is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is exactly like Jesus, just as Jesus is exactly like the Father. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” said Jesus. “I will send you another Comforter, and he will take the things of mine and show them unto you.” In other words Jesus is saying, “He will demonstrate me to you.”
What does the Holy Spirit think of babies? Well, what did Jesus think of babies? He thought of babies just what the Father did. And the Father must think wonderfully well of babies because the Son took a baby in His arms, put His hand on his little baldhead and said, “God bless you.”
Maybe theologians do not know why He did it, but I think I do. Nothing is sweeter and softer in the entire world than the top of a little baby’s head. Jesus put His hand on that little soft head and blessed it in the name of His Father. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. What does the Spirit think of babies, then? The Spirit thinks of babies exactly what Jesus did. What does the Spirit think of sick people? Well, what did Jesus think of sick people?
What does the Spirit think of sinful people? What did Jesus think of the woman, dragged into His presence, taken in adultery? The Spirit feels exactly the way Jesus feels about everything. He is the Spirit of Jesus and He acts exactly the way Jesus acts. If Christ Jesus our Lord was to walk down our church aisle and we could think Him here, no person would run from Him. Nobody. Mothers brought their babies, the sick came, the weary came, the tired came, the dispossessed came. Everybody came, because He was the most magnetic person that ever lived. Even old Fredrick Nietzsche, that nihilistic German philosopher that brought on world wars I and II, and laid the foundation for the Nazis. That old, ungodly fellow said, “I love Jesus, but I hate that man Paul.” He could not take Paul but he loved Jesus.
You will not find anybody saying very much against Jesus personally, because Jesus was the most winsome, the most loving, the most kindly, the tenderest, the most beautiful character that ever lived in the entire world. And you know what He was? He was demonstrating the Spirit. That is the way the Spirit is.
The Holy Spirit is friendly. We try to make Him something else but friendly, but He is friendly. Because He is friendly, He can be grieved. We can grieve Him by ignoring Him, by resisting Him, by doubting Him or by sinning against Him. We grieve Him by refusing to obey Him, by turning our backs on Him.
Keep in mind, there must be love present before there can be grief. Let me give you an example.
Suppose you had a seventeen-year-old son who began to go bad, who got to that age where he wanted to take things into his own hand. Suppose he joined up with some boy you did not know, some stranger from another part of town, and they got into trouble. You were called down to the police station and there sat your boy, and another boy you had never seen, in handcuffs. You know how you would feel about it. You would be sorry for the other boy, but you did not know him; but with your own boy, your grief would penetrate your heart like a sword. For only love can grieve. If those two boys were sent off to prison, you might pity the boy you did not know, but you would grieve over the boy you did know.
The mother can grieve because she loves. If you do not love, you cannot grieve. Therefore, when the scripture says, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,” it is telling us that He loves us so much that when we insult Him, He is grieved. When we ignore Him, He is grieved; when we resist Him, He is grieved; when we doubt Him, He is grieved.
In like manner, we can please Him by obeying and believing. When we please Him, He responds to us just as a pleased father responds, just as a pleased mother responds. He will respond to us because He is pleased, because He loves us.
If we were to increase our attendance until there wasn’t a place to put them, if we were to get $10,000 or $20,000 given to us, if we were to have anything that men want and love and put value on without the Holy Spirit, you might as well have nothing at all. For “This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). Not by the eloquence of a man, not by good music, not by good preaching, but it is by the Spirit that God works His mighty work.
We had better throw ourselves back on God, for there will be a day when we will have nothing but God.
What is the Spirit? Who is the Spirit? How do we know who the Spirit is? We know by the Scriptures. We know because the Church Fathers knew what the Scriptures said. Unless He is feelingly in our midst, unless He is consciously in our midst, He might as well be somewhere else. It is possible to run a church without the Holy Spirit, which is the terrible thing. You organize it. You get a board, a pastor, a choir, a ladies aid society and a Sunday school, and you get all organized. I believe in organization. I am not against it, I am for it. You get organized, and you get a pastor to turn the crank, and that is all there is to it. The Holy Ghost can leave, and the pastor goes on turning the crank, and nobody finds it out for five years. Oh, what a horrible tragedy to the Church of Christ.
But, we do not have to have it that way. This kind of preaching is going to do one of two things. There is going to be a reaction from it, or, there is going to be an eager seeking. I’m praying and believing the latter will be the case. I believe that there will be an eager seeking for better things than that we now have.
God’s Word to the church today is the restoration of the Spirit to His rightful place in the Church, and in your life is, by all means, the most important that could possibly take place.