Scripture emphasizes there is just one Spirit. Paul, for example, wrote, “There is one body and one Spirit.”[1] Yet Scripture also speaks of the Spirit of God (the Father), the Spirit of Christ, and the Holy Spirit.[2] Moreover, each Spirit is said to be in believers.[3]
1 Corinthians 3:16 (NASB) Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (emphasis added)
1 Corinthians 6:19 (NASB) Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (emphasis added)
Galatians 4:6 (NASB) Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (emphasis added)
How is this possible if there is only one Spirit? The answer is found when we understand just who or, more accurately, what the Spirit is.
What is the Holy Spirit?
The most detailed teaching about the Holy Spirit is found in Jesus’ upper room discourse,[4] where he says that he has spoken to his disciples in “figurative language.”[5] The translators’ use of masculine pronouns for the Spirit in these passages form much of orthodoxy’s defense regarding the personhood of the Holy Spirit. However, as we discovered in a previous post, the grammar used in the Greek text reveals the use of neuter pronouns, not masculine ones. What’s more, as we learned in this post, the Holy Spirit is not a separate person from the Father and the Son, but rather the Spirit of God the Father. This became clear when we examined the Biblical texts and saw that terms like the Spirit of your Father, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit are all synonymous terms for the presence and power of God the Father.[6] This is consistent with the Jewish understanding of the Spirit of God as “an experience of inspiration and effective power…coming directly from God himself”[7] and is, in fact, the way the New Testament writers generally view the Spirit.[8]
The Helper
After Jesus was glorified, however, the Holy Spirit became the vehicle, if you will, for Christ’s presence in the earth.[9] We see Jesus alluding to this when he told his disciples that even though he was departing, he would not leave them alone:
John 14:16-17 (NASB) “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. (emphasis added)
Here the Spirit is called another Helper, also translated as another Comforter, Advocate, or Counselor. In the Greek text, another Helper is allon paraklêton,[10] which means, another helper of the same kind will come along side to give them aid.[11] Moreover, Jesus said the disciples already knew this Helper because he abides with them and, in the future, would be in them. In the very next verse, Jesus explains that he is actually the one who will come to them:
John 14:18 (NASB) “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (emphasis added)
Jesus is the Paraklêtos
In the verses that follow, Jesus also says, “you will see Me,” and “I…will disclose Myself” to those who love Me, even though he was going to the Father.[12] In other words, this paraklêtos or Helper would, in some sense, be Jesus. That the apostle John sees Jesus in this way is explained by Biblical scholar James Dunn:
With John too … he seems to understand the coming of the Spirit as fulfilling the promise of Christ’s return (particularly John 14.15-26) and to envisage the ‘other Paraclete’ as ‘the presence of Jesus when Jesus is absent.’[13] (emphasis added)
We see John make this connection between the paraklêtos and Jesus when he uses the same word to describe the Lord in his first epistle:
1 John 2:1 (NASB) My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; (emphasis added)
The word translated Advocate is paraklêtos, the same word translated as Helper (or Comforter, Counselor) in John 14 and elsewhere.[14] Theologian James Denny explains the connection:
In I John 2: 1 it is Jesus who is the Paraclete, even after Pentecost, and even here (John 14:18), he says, ‘I come to you.’ The presence of the Spirit is Jesus’ own presence in Spirit.[15] (emphasis added)
The New Bible Dictionary concurs that Jesus is the promised paraklêtos:
The Spirit is now definitely the Spirit of Christ, the other Counselor who has taken over Jesus’ role on earth. This means that Jesus is now present to the believer only in and through the Spirit…[16] (emphasis added)
It is the Spirit that makes it possible for Jesus to be physically seated at God’s right hand while also present in his disciples. Indeed, numerous times we’re told Jesus is in believers:[17]
Romans 8:9-10 (NASB) …But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. (emphasis added)
2 Corinthians 13:5 (NASB) …Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you… (emphasis added)
Galatians 2:20 (NASB) “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me… (emphasis added)
Colossians 1:27 (NASB) …the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (emphasis added)
The only way Jesus could be “in” his disciples is by the Spirit. Noted scholar F.F. Bruce, writes:
He had been with them for a short time, but the ‘other paraclete,’ his alter ego, would be with them permanently, and not only with them but in them.[18] (emphasis added)
This helps us understand how Jesus could promise believers that he would be with them always, even to the end of the age:
Matthew 28:18-20 (NASB) And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (emphasis added)
Incredibly, not only would Jesus be in believers, the Father would be as well. Continuing in John 14 we read:
John 14:23 (NASB) Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. (emphasis added)
As Church historian Kegan Chandler explains, the Spirit is now said to be both God the Father and the glorified Jesus:
The spirit is God’s personal operation in the world, which enables the accomplishment of his work. After Christ’s exaltation to the right hand of God, the Holy Spirit can now also be described as the personal influence of the glorified Lord Jesus, the Christians’ ‘one advocate with the Father’ (1 Jn 2:1), who baptizes believers with God’s power (1 Cor 15:45; Jn 14:18; Matt 3:11). Both God and his Son now work together through this spiritual power on behalf of the believer.[19] (emphasis added)
This is why we see Paul use terms like Spirit of Christ, Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, etc. interchangeably.[20] For example:
Romans 8:9-11 (NASB) However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead [i.e. God the Father] dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
While Scripture speaks of the Spirit of Christ,[21] the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, and other similar phrases, there is just one Spirit. And it is through or by the Spirit that Jesus ministers the power and presence of God. Dunn explains:
The exalted Christ and the Spirit of God are one and the same so far as the believer’s experience is concerned; ‘Spirit’ and ‘Christ’ are alternative ways of describing God’s approach to men now … the Spirit remains primarily the power of God (however much it manifests the character of Christ);[22] (emphasis added)
Truly, there is only one Spirit, and it comes from God the Father through Jesus the Christ.[23]
John 15:26 (NASB) “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me
Does the use of the title Spirit of Christ in 1 Peter 1:10-11 mean Jesus preexisted? See this article.
[1] Ephesians 4:4. See also: 1 Corinthians 12:4, 9, 11, 13; Ephesians 2:18.
[2] There are a variety of similar expressions used: Spirit of God, Spirit of your Father, Spirit of Jesus, Spirit of His Son, Spirit of Holiness, etc.
[3] See also: Acts 2:4; 4:31; Ephesians 2:22; 3:14-17.
[4] John chapters 13-17.
[5] John 16:25.
[6] For example, notice the use of the terms for the Spirit in these parallel passages: Mark 13:11; Matthew 10:19-20; Luke 12:11-12. Also in these: Matthew 3:16-17; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:32 (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18).
[7] James D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, 1989), p. 138.
[8] Ibid, p. 148.
[9] John 7:38-39; Acts 16:7; Philippians 1:19.
[10] https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/14-16.htm
[11] HELP’s Word Studies #243 allos. Strong’s #3875 paraklêtos.
[12] Quotes are from John 14:19-21. Jesus was going to the Father: John 13:3; 16:28.
[13] James D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, 1989), p. 147-148.
[14] John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7.
[15] James Denny, “Holy Spirit,” Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, Edinburgh, T & T Clark, 1917, p. 742.
[16] JDG Douglas, New Bible Dictionary, second edition. (Tyndale House Publishers, 1962), p. 1140-1
[17] See also Galatians 1:15-16; 4:6; Ephesians 3:17.
[18] F.F. Bruce, The Gospel & Epistles of John (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), p. 302
[19] Kegan A. Chandler, The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma, (McDonough, GA: Restoration Fellowship, 2016), p. 497.
[20] See also Acts 5:3-4, 9; 8:29, 39; 16:6-10; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.
[22] James D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, 1989), p. 146-147.
