2. Proof of the Personality of the Spirit.—" The Holy Spirit is represented in the New Testament not only as different from the Father and Son, and not only as the personification of some attribute of God, or of some ef- fect which he has produced, but as a literal person (see Semler, Disj). Spiritum Sanctum rede descrihi personam) . The proof of this is thus made out from the following texts: (1.) From the texts John xiv, 16, 17, 26; xv, 26. The Holy Spirit is here called ■Kapa.KKrj-oQ, not com- forter, advocate, nor merely teacher, as Ernesti renders it, but helper, assistant, counsellor, in which sense it is used by Philo, when he says, God needs no TrapaK\r]T0Q (monitor). Of the Purucletus, Christ says that the Fa- ther u-ill send him in his (Christ's) name (i. e. in his place) to instruct his discijjles. To these three subjects similar personal predicates are here equally applied, and the Paracletus is not designated by the abstract word auxilium, but by the concrete auxiliator; so that we have the Father who sent him, the Son in whose place he comes, and the Holy Spirit who is sent. His office is to carry forward the great work of teaching and sav- ing men which Christ commenced, and to be to the dis- ciples of Christ what Christ himself was -while he con- tinued upon the earth. John xv, 26, When the Para- cletus shall come, whom I will send to you from the Fa- ther (/ mean the Spirit — i. e. teacher — o/ ^r«/^, who proceeds from the Father), he will instruct you further in my religion; where it should be remarked that the phrase tKiropiveaOai Trapa JTarpoc means to be sent or commissioned by the Father. (2.) 1 Cor. xii, 4-11, The7-e are various gifts (xapitrpara), but there is one caul the same Spirit (to avro Yli>tviia),from whom they all pro- ceed. Here the xapirypaTa are clearly distinguished from the Spirit, who is the author of them. In verse 5 this same person is distinguished from Christ (o Kv- ptoc), and in ver, 6 from 6 QtoQ. In ver. 11 it is said all these (various gifts) worketh one and the self-same Spirit, who imparteth to everj' man his own, as he will {kuBmc, jiovXtrat). (3.) Those texts in which such at- tributes and works are ascribed to the Holy Spirit as can be predicated of no other than a personal subject. In John xvi, 13 sq., he is said to * speak,' to ' liear,' to
'take,' etc. So in 1 Cor. ii, 10, God hath revealed the doctrines of Christianity to us by his Spirit (the irapa- KXr]Toc before mentioned, who was sent to give us this more perfect instruction). And this Spirit searches {^pi^n'^) all things, even the most secret divine jmrposes ilidOi] Oeov ; comp. Kom. xi, 33 sq.) ; in his instruction, therefore, we may safely confide. The expressions, the Holy Spirit speaks, sends any one, appoiiits any one for a particular purpose, and others, which occur so fre- quently in the Acts and elsewhere, show that the Holy Spirit Avas understood by the early Christians to be a personal agent (Acts xiii, 2, 4; xx, 28; xxi, 11 scj.). (4.) The formula of baptism. Matt, xxviii, 19, and other similar texts, such as 2 Cor. xiii, 14, where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are mentioned in distinction (ver. 'ib), may now be used in proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit, since the other texts upon which the meaning of these depends have already been cited. From all these texts, taken together, we may fonn the f(dlov\ ing result : The Holy Spirit is represented in the Bible as a personal subject, and, as such, is distinguished from the Father and the Son. In relation to the human race, he is described as sent and commissioned by the Father and the Son, ami as occupying the place which Christ, who preceded him, held. In this respect he depends (to speak after the manner of men) upon the Father (John xiv, 16) an,d upon tlie Son (John xiv, 16, 26 ; also xvi, 14, 4K TOv tpov Xrjipi.Tai) ; and in this sense he proceeds from them both, or is sent by them both. This may be expressed more literally as follows : The great work of converting, sanctifying, and saving men, Avhich the Father commenced through the Son, will be carried on by the Father and Son, through the Holy Spirit.
"The objectors to this doctrine frequently say that the imaginative Orientalists were accustomed to represent many things as personal subjects, and to introduce them as speaking and acting, which, however, they themseh-es did not consider as persons, and did not intend to have so considered by others; and to this Oriental usage they think that Christ and his apostles might here, as in other cases, have conformed. But, whenever Christ and his apostles spoke in figurative language, they al- ways showed, by the explanations which they gave, that they did not intend to be understood literally. But they have given no such explanation of the language which they employ with regard to the Holy Spirit. We therefore fairly conclude that they intcndcil that their language should be imderstood literally, otherwise they would have led their readers and hearers into error, and the more so as they well knew that their readers and hearers were accustomed to personifications" (Knapp, Theology, § 39).