Chapter 1.  Introduction to the Holy Spirit: CEO of the Trinity  

For most of Church history the Holy Spirit has been the least known of the Persons of the Godhead. This is ironic because, in fact, almost all that we can experience of God we experience through the Holy Spirit. Jesus has gone to heaven, so we don’t communicate with Him on earth; He is at the right hand of the Father, who is also in heaven. The only Person of the Trinity who is on earth is the Holy Spirit. 

The Father is the source of all things. 

1 Tim. 6:13-16:  “In the sight of God [that is, the Father], who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ [His return to earth], 15 which God will bring about in his own time — God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might for ever. Amen.” 

The Father is the ultimate, unapproachable Source and Ruler of all things; the Son is the outshining and express image of the Father, through whom the Father brought everything into existence and keeps it in existence. 

Heb. 1:3: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” 

Col. 1:15-17: “He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” 

The Father, then, is the Source, from whom all things in heaven and in earth derive, and the Son is the Agent through whom they came into existence and are sustained. 

1 Cor. 8:5-6: “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”),  yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” 

But God is Spirit (John 4:24) and everything He does, and everything that the Son does, involves the Holy Spirit. God has always existed as Father, Son (or Word), and Holy Spirit. At the beginning of all creation we see the three Persons of God present together, as (apparently) they have always been. 

Gen. 1:1-3: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” 

Thus we find the Trinity in the beginning of the Bible. Here we have God the Father speaking creation into existence, the Word spoken, and the Spirit of God hovering, or brooding like a nesting bird, over the waters. We know that the Word here refers to the Eternal Son because of John chapter 1:1-3: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” 

We see the Three spoken of as being involved in creation in other Scriptures as well:  “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth” (Ps. 33:6).  The word for ‘breath’ is ruach, spirit. The breath of Jehovah’s mouth is the Holy Spirit, and the word from His mouth is the Son, or Word. 

We speak of God as Omniscient and Omnipresent; this is just a highbrow way of saying that God knows everything and is everywhere at once. Scripture indicates that it is through the Holy Spirit that God is present everywhere and knows everything. 

Psalm 139:1-8: “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in — behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, [Hebrew: Sheol] you are there.” 

God is omnipresent through His Spirit. His providential government everywhere sustains all of His works through the Holy Spirit. It is by the Spirit of God that nature exists and operates uniformly throughout the universe. So it is by the Spirit of God that the Father and the Son accomplish their work.  

Psalm 33:5-6: “The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. 6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”  

This is why I have spoken of the Holy Spirit in the title as CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the Trinity. The CEO of a company executes, or carries out, the wishes of the board, the chairman, and the owners of the company. He does not form the policy, but he carries it out. He is responsible for the day-to-day running of the company. In the same way the Holy Spirit carries out the policy, so to speak, of the Father and the Son. Of course this analogy is useful only so far, as we shall see; for it is often impossible to distinguish the Spirit Himself from God and Christ.

We have seen that God is present everywhere, knows all things, and rules providentially in His universe through His Spirit. In later studies we will also see that the Holy Spirit executes and applies the entire work of redemption: In regeneration we are “born of the Spirit” (John 3:5-6); our souls are sanctified by the Spirit (II Thess. 2:13); “gifts of healings” are distributed as the Spirit wills (I Cor. 12:9-11), and so on.  

Having said all of this, we need to acknowledge that we are dealing with a deep and difficult subject—one well beyond our capacity to understand. And since our study is about the Holy Spirit, I don’t intend to say more about the doctrine of the Trinity, except as will be necessary in the course of our study. The reasons we believe in a God who is both three and one are as follows: 1) The Scripture emphasizes that God is One, that there is only one God; 2) yet Scripture also recognizes a plurality in God—for example, the common OT word for God was Elohim, which is plural; 3) Scripture recognizes three beings as God and as distinct persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

Our focus is on the Holy Spirit, not on the Trinity. Though the Holy Spirit is recognized in Scripture as a Person not entirely identical with God and Christ,

He is not as thoroughly distinguished as a separate person as the Father and Son are. He is called “the Spirit of God,” and “the Spirit of the Son,” the “Spirit of Christ.” The Spirit has characteristics that are both personal and impersonal. For example, we can pray to the Father, in the name of Jesus; and we can even pray to Jesus (“If you ask Me anything...I will do it,” John 15:14).  But we are never told to pray to the Holy Spirit. Rather, we pray “by (or in) the Holy Spirit” (Eph. 6:18; Jude 20). We do not worship the Holy Spirit; we “worship by the Spirit of God” (Phil. 3:3).  

Sometimes we find ourselves thinking of the Holy Spirit as IT, rather than as a HE for the reason that Scripture suggests this dual nature of Spirit, both as personal and impersonal.  Look at John 16:13: “But  when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” The Greek Grammar in this verse is peculiar. The Greek Word for “spirit” is pneuma, which is neuter in gender; in other words spirit is an IT. But John violates the rules of grammar because he recognizes that it is not quite proper to call the Holy Spirit an IT.  So John uses the masculine pronoun HE (ekeinos), though grammatically he ought to use IT [ekeino] to agree with the neuter word for spirit. So even though the Holy Spirit seems almost like an impersonal force, He must be thought of as a Person. Here John violates the rules of grammar in such a way as to stress both the personal and impersonal nature of the Spirit. 

In John 14:15-18, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to the Church after His return to the Father: “If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [Advocate] to be with you forever —17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” 

Notice an interesting feature of this promise. Jesus said that He would send the Spirit, but He also said that He would come to them Himself. The Spirit is, in one sense, Other than Jesus, One who represents Him. Yet to us the Spirit is never distinct from Christ. In fact the Holy Spirit in us is Christ in us. So when it is said that Christ is in believers, He is in believers as the indwelling Spirit. So the Other Helper that the Father sent is in fact “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Christ, through the indwelling Spirit, “dwells in your hearts by faith” (Eph. 3:17).  

So we could almost say that the Holy Spirit indwells us as Another Christ, certainly as His perfect representative; He is the Spirit of Christ. Before the ascension of Jesus the Holy Spirit was the Spirit of the Father only. After Pentecost He was the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. 

Rom. 8:9-11: “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” 

This is a revealing passage: In it the Holy Spirit is referred to as “the Spirit of God,” “the Spirit of Christ,” “Christ,” and “the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead [that is, the Father].”   

 It’s enough to say at this point that, since Pentecost, wherever the Spirit is, the Father and the Son are.  But never is the Spirit addressed as Himself Only. 

So it isn’t exactly in accord with Scripture to pray to the Holy Spirit or to address Him in any way. Neither is the Holy Spirit ever an object of worship. 

Phil. 3:3: “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh –.”  The Holy Spirit helps our prayer (Rom. 8:26-27) and worship, but we do not worship or pray to the Spirit. 

Therefore it isn’t really scriptural to pray, “Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove”; or to sing “Spirit, we adore you; we lay our lives before you...” and many similar songs and prayers.  I would never correct or rebuke anyone for praying to or worshipping the Holy Spirit. I don’t know that it does any harm. All the same, when the congregation sings such songs, I quietly change it to fit my own understanding of the Holy Spirit’s place in worship. Strictly speaking we pray to the Father, in the Name of Jesus, and in or by the Holy Spirit.

 Summary:   

The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity through whom God relates directly to us, first in the order, power, and beauty of nature, as the One “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). It is by His Spirit that God knows all and is present everywhere. But He is also the Person who makes real to us God’s work of redemption in Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament the Father is most prominent; in the Gospels Jesus is the central figure. But after Pentecost both the Father and the Son affect our lives through the Holy Spirit. After Pentecost, if we are to experience God at all, we must experience Him in the Spirit of Christ. So it is somewhat accurate to think of the Holy Spirit in this Church age as the CEO of the Trinity.

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