Originally posted by e4chrisGood points.
The Father and the Son are quite easy to explain. But the Holy Spirit I know puzzles people who have been in the church a while.
I believe in it, and that it has a purpose for us. I used to work as a data analyst and people are so predictable, shop spending for example happens in very predictable waves, if you plot it on a graph it looks like a heartbeat ...[text shortened]... an form complex patterns. Its there. I wonder if it refers to the Bible too, as a product of it?
Please excuse the pasting, I'm a very slow typist but see if this helps:
God’s Active Force; Holy Spirit. By far the majority of occurrences of ru′ach and pneu′ma relate to God’s spirit, his active force, his holy spirit.
Not a person.
Not until the fourth century C.E. did the teaching that the holy spirit was a person and part of the “Godhead” become official church dogma. Early church “fathers” did not so teach; Justin Martyr of the second century C.E. taught that the holy spirit was an ‘influence or mode of operation of the Deity’; Hippolytus likewise ascribed no personality to the holy spirit. The Scriptures themselves unite to show that God’s holy spirit is not a person but is God’s active force by which he accomplishes his purpose and executes his will.
It may first be noted that the words “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (KJ) found in older translations at 1 John 5:7 are actually spurious additions to the original text. A footnote in The Jerusalem Bible, a Catholic translation, says that these words are “not in any of the early Greek MSS [manuscripts], or any of the early translations, or in the best MSS of the Vulg[ate] itself.”
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, by Bruce Metzger (1975, pp. 716-718), traces in detail the history of the spurious passage. It states that the passage is first found in a treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus, of the fourth century, and that it appears in Old Latin and Vulgate manuscripts of the Scriptures, beginning in the sixth century. Modern translations as a whole, both Catholic and Protestant, do not include them in the main body of the text, because of recognizing their spurious nature.—RS, NE, NAB.
Here is more on this:
Personification does not prove personality.
It is true that Jesus spoke of the holy spirit as a “helper” and spoke of such helper as ‘teaching,’ ‘bearing witness,’ ‘giving evidence,’ ‘guiding,’ ‘speaking,’ ‘hearing,’ and ‘receiving.’ In so doing, the original Greek shows Jesus at times applying the personal pronoun “he” to that “helper” (paraclete). (Compare Joh 14:16, 17, 26; 15:26; 16:7-15.) However, it is not unusual in the Scriptures for something that is not actually a person to be personalized or personified. Wisdom is personified in the book of Proverbs (1:20-33; 8:1-36); and feminine pronominal forms are used of it in the original Hebrew, as also in many English translations. (KJ, RS, JP, AT) Wisdom is also personified at Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:35, where it is depicted as having both “works” and “children.” The apostle Paul personalized sin and death and also undeserved kindness as “kings.” (Ro 5:14, 17, 21; 6:12) He speaks of sin as “receiving an inducement,” ‘working out covetousness,’ ‘seducing,’ and ‘killing.’ (Ro 7:8-11) Yet it is obvious that Paul did not mean that sin was actually a person.
So, likewise with John’s account of Jesus’ words regarding the holy spirit, his remarks must be taken in context. Jesus personalized the holy spirit when speaking of that spirit as a “helper” (which in Greek is the masculine substantive pa·ra kle·tos). Properly, therefore, John presents Jesus’ words as referring to that “helper” aspect of the spirit with masculine personal pronouns. On the other hand, in the same context, when the Greek pneu′ma is used, John employs a neuter pronoun to refer to the holy spirit, pneuma itself being neuter. Hence, we have in John’s use of the masculine personal pronoun in association with pa·ra kle·tos an example of conformity to grammatical rules, not an expression of doctrine.—Joh 14:16, 17; 16:7, 8.
Lacks personal identification.
Since God himself is a Spirit and is holy and since all his faithful angelic sons are spirits and are holy, it is evident that if the “holy spirit” were a person, there should reasonably be given some means in the Scriptures to distinguish and identify such spirit person from all these other ‘holy spirits.’ It would be expected that, at the very least, the definite article would be used with it in all cases where it is not called “God’s holy spirit” or is not modified by some similar expression. This would at least distinguish it as THE Holy Spirit. But, on the contrary, in a large number of cases the expression “holy spirit” appears in the original Greek without the article, thus indicating its lack of personality.—Compare Ac 6:3, 5; 7:55; 8:15, 17, 19; 9:17; 11:24; 13:9, 52; 19:2; Ro 9:1; 14:17; 15:13, 16, 19; 1Co 12:3; Heb 2:4; 6:4; 2Pe 1:21; Jude 20, Int and other interlinear translations.
Originally posted by galveston75occurrences of ru′ach and pneu′ma
Lacks personal identification.
Since God himself is a Spirit and is holy and since all his faithful angelic sons are spirits and are holy, it is evident that if the “holy spirit” were a person, there should reasonably be given some means in the Scriptures to distinguish and identify such spirit person from all these other ‘holy spirits.’ It would be ...[text shortened]... 5:13, 16, 19; 1Co 12:3; Heb 2:4; 6:4; 2Pe 1:21; Jude 20, Int and other interlinear translations.
sorry but what does that mean? I don't know the Bible as well as I should so I can't comment on all that you've said but will look some of it up.
Originally posted by e4chrisLol. It doesn't mean anything. For some reason when a few of us paste here these weird little letters show up in the lines. I have no idea what it is.
occurrences of ru′ach and pneu′ma
sorry but what does that mean? I don't know the Bible as well as I should so I can't comment on all that you've said but will look some of it up.
ru′ach and pneu′ma Should be "ruach and pneuma"
Originally posted by galveston75They are special characters that are different than your keyboard encoding, they appear as those weird numbers.
Lol. It doesn't mean anything. For some reason when a few of us paste here these weird little letters show up in the lines. I have no idea what it is.
Originally posted by galveston75Hebrews 10:15....
Lacks personal identification.
Since God himself is a Spirit and is holy and since all his faithful angelic sons are spirits and are holy, it is evident that if the “holy spirit” were a person, there should reasonably be given some means in the Scriptures to distinguish and identify such spirit person from all these other ‘holy spirits.’ It would be ...[text shortened]... 5:13, 16, 19; 1Co 12:3; Heb 2:4; 6:4; 2Pe 1:21; Jude 20, Int and other interlinear translations.
15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws upon their heart,
And on their mind I will write them,”
He then says,
17 “And their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more.”
18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.
Hebrews 10:29
How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
How can the Spirit testify if it's just some energy as JW's believe and How can the spirit be insulted?
Oh and this is beautiful
. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who [b]were so occupied were not benefited.
Christ is the same Yesterday Today and forever meaning well He's God the Son
The key to understanding God is reading the whole bible and stop thinking with a fleshly mind when dealing with things of the Spirit.
Manny
Acts 5:3.......If the spirit is just an energy force how can He be lied too?
Why the personification of the Spirit?
PS: 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”
Originally posted by menace71Much of this has been answered to you already. You are not reading the postings Robbie and myself are posting...
Hebrews 10:15....
15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws upon their heart,
And on their mind I will write them,”
He then says,
17 “And their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more.”
18 Now where there i ...[text shortened]... is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”
In that verse the Spirit that was lied to is equated with God pretty simple to understand. Whatever the label ones chooses to place there is no way that the triune nature of God can be dismissed from scripture....we can try to dismiss it because we don't fully understand it or just accept what God has clearly revealed. Christ the son had to become flesh in order to pay for sin and as it says He the living word became flesh and dwelt among man and He having been made flesh can sympathize with our weakness. No angels nothing else in all of the creation was or is sinless except God himself and God in the person of the Son became the sinless Lamb.
Manny
And we see in Hebrews 10 that the writer states that the Spirit is testifying and yet we also see that in the book of Jeremiah 31:33 the words being stated the first time by (as the JW's say Jehovah) so how then in the old testament it's Jehovah speaking? and yet in the new testament it is the Spirit speaking? either it's a contradiction or there the same God speaking.........Can't have it both ways it either is or is not.
Manny
Originally posted by e4chrisHe doesn't know it very good either. But he knows those Watchtower tracts pretty good if you want to ask him anything on those.
occurrences of ru′ach and pneu′ma
sorry but what does that mean? I don't know the Bible as well as I should so I can't comment on all that you've said but will look some of it up.
The Instructor