I invite your attention to this passage because we shall find in it some instruction on four points,
first, concerning the true and proper personality of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, concerning the united
agency of the glorious three Persons in the work of our salvation. Thirdly, we shall find something to
establish the Doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the souls of all believers. And fourthly, we
shall find out the reason why the carnal mind rejects the Holy Spirit.
I. First of all, we shall have some little instruction concerning the proper PERSONALITY OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT. We are so much accustomed to talk about the influence of the Holy Spirit and His sacred
operations and Graces that we are apt to forget that the Holy Spirit is truly and actually a person—
that He is a subsistence—an existence. Or as we Trinitarians usually say, one person in the essence of
the Godhead. I am afraid that though we do not know it, we have acquired the habit of regarding the Holy
Spirit as an emanation flowing from the Father and the Son, but not as being actually a person, Himself.
I know it is not easy to carry about in our mind the idea of the Holy Spirit as a person. I can think of
the Father as a person, because His acts are such as I can understand.
