WE WILL now take up some Scriptures that Trinitarians use to try to prove that the holy Spirit is a third person in the Trinity, co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial with the Father and the Son.
The holy Spirit has a personality, but it is not a person. The holy Spirit has as personality the Father, the Son, good angels, God’s true people, etc., in their dispositions, for personality consists in the disposition, whose parts or elements are intellect, sensibilities, and will. All persons have these elements hence they have personality. Everyone who has a holy disposition has the holy Spirit as his personality, hence the personality of the holy Spirit is their personality, their disposition.
Trinitarians cannot prove a Biblical basis for their doctrine of three persons in one God, particularly that the third of these persons is the holy Spirit. Not one passage asserts this, hence they seize upon any passage connected with God where three things are mentioned, and by reading it into the text claim that it proves the Trinity, and thus that the holy Spirit is a person. Let us examine such passages and see that none of them teaches their doctrine, which counterfeits the pertinent truth:
“Us” in Genesis 1: 2, 26, 27 and Aaronic Benediction
Trinitarians seek to prove the Trinity by the creation account in Genesis 1: 2, 26, 27 where we read, “The spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. . . . Let us make man in our image. . . . In the image of God created he him.” They claim that the Spirit of God was a person operating along with the Logos as parts of the “us” the Father mentions and that therefore when it says God created man “in the image of God,” it meant all three did it as God.
In verse 2 the word Spirit obviously means God’s Almighty power, not His disposition, which worked in the ordering of the earth for human habitation. There is no indication that the Spirit is a person or a part of the “us” of verse 26 (Job 33: 4 refers to Job’s creation in his mother’s womb, not man’s creation). Jehovah is undoubtedly referring to Himself and the Logos as the “us” in verse 26; for He created all things through the Logos (John 1: 1-3) (1 Corinthians 8: 6) (Colossians 1: 16). The Greek word dia should be translated “through” in these passages; the Greek word hypo means by. Furthermore, man’s creation “in the image of God” does not mean that Jehovah and the Logos were parts of one God. Jehovah’s image in man is His disposition, which disposition the Logos (now Jesus) also possesses.
It is claimed that the Aaronic benediction (Numbers 6: 24-26) teaches the Trinity because three blessings are pronounced in it. But there is no mention of the Logos or the Spirit here, but only Jehovah. It says or indicates nothing about the Spirit being a person.
Omnipresence and Psalm 139: 7-10
Trinitarians claim that the holy Spirit is God because God’s exclusive attributes are expressly ascribed to the holy Spirit in the Bible. They claim that Psalm 139: 7-10 proves that the Spirit has omnipresence, which is an exclusive attribute of God. However, God is omnipresent not by His body, which is in heaven (1 Kings 8: 30), but by His attributes, which according to Psalm 139: 7-10, is that of power and wisdom. This is proven by verses 7, 8, and 10 where the word Spirit is used in the sense of power and wisdom, not that of a personal being, for according to verse 8 God is said to be in hell, the death state. This cannot be true of Him as a person, but doubtless refers to His wisdom which permeates even the death state, and to His power, that will in due time empty it in the resurrection. Hence it is by His wisdom and power that He is in hell, and thus by His power and wisdom, not by His body, He is omnipresent.
God’s wisdom and power are meant by His Spirit in verse 7, because in verse 10, His hand (power) and right hand (wisdom) are used synonymously with the word Spirit in verse 7. Psalm 139: 7-10 proves that nowhere in the universe can one remove himself from God’s knowledge and power. In this sense His Spirit – power, knowledge – extends throughout the universe, which not only does not prove that the Spirit is God, but rather disproves it.
Trinitarians seek to prove that the holy Spirit is a person by first stating that whatever exercises intellectuality, sensibility, and will is a person. Then they state that the holy Spirit exercises intellectuality (1 Corinthians 2: 10-13), sensibilities (Romans 14: 17), and will (1 Corinthians 12: 1). Finally, they conclude from those two things that the holy Spirit is a person. We deny the first statement, which, to be true, would have to include everything that exercises intellectuality, sensibility, and will; for not only persons exercise these three things, but dispositions exercise these. Therefore, it does not follow that since the holy Spirit exercises intellectually, sensibility, and will, it is a person. As proven above, the holy Spirit is God’s disposition in Himself and in all who are in disposition like Him. Therefore, since disposition exercises intellectuality, sensibility, and will, and the holy Spirit is a holy disposition, it follows that the holy Spirit is not a person, for a person and his disposition are not the same thing. Hence the same things cannot in all cases be predicted of both of them.
No Trinity in Isaiah 6: 3; Matthew 3: 16; 12: 31, 32
Isaiah 6: 3: “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts” (note Revelation 4: 8 in this connection) is used by Trinitarians as a proof that the holy Spirit is a person. However, this passage does not say so directly or impliedly. Those thoughts are read into the passage because there is a repetition of the word holy twice in this verse. In verses 1 and 8 the word “LORD” should read Jehovah. The “us” of verse 8 are Jehovah and the Logos, as Jehovah’s Agent in the matters here mentioned, just as in Genesis 1: 26 the Logos is Jehovah’s Agent in creation.
Trinitarians are certain that Matthew 3: 16, 17, used in connection with our Lord’s baptism, proves the Trinity. They reason that three persons are brought to our attention here, who thus constitute God in three persons. Although three different things are mentioned here, only one of them is called God. Of the other two, one is called the Spirit of God, not God Himself, and the other is by God Himself called His Son, not God Himself.
Trinitarians read into this passage their thoughts contrary to what the passage says. There are only two persons mentioned, and the third thing, instead of being a person, is called the Spirit of God, which cannot mean a spirit being inside of God, who Himself is a spirit (John 4: 24), but here means His power by which Jesus was begotten unto sonship of God and anointed (Acts 10: 38).
The fact that Jesus was then begotten by God through God’s Spirit, power, proves: (1) He is God’s Son, not God Himself, (2) He is not God, for God Himself is without a beginning, hence cannot be begotten, for a son is younger than his father, and (3) He is not God, for God needs nothing given to Him for qualification unto a ministry, while Jesus’ anointing qualified Him for His ministry.
Some Trinitarians point to Matthew 12: 31, 32: “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost [Spirit] shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost [Spirit], it shall not be forgiven him.”
They claim that because the Son Jesus is a person, one who is sinned against, so the Holy Spirit must be a person, one who is sinned against, and against whom sins are far worse than sins against Jesus. They thus make the holy Spirit a person who is much more important than Jesus! But this passage teaches that all sins that result from Adamic weakness and ignorance are forgivable through the Ransom merit of Jesus, but sins against light and knowledge, those that are willful sins (or the willfulness in mixed sins), are the sins against the holy Spirit, but not as a person. As previously noted, the holy Spirit is God’s holy disposition in Himself, Jesus, and His true people. When one sins willfully, he is sinning against this holy disposition, and not against the holy Spirit as a person.
(to be continued)