Is the Holy Spirit under attack today? Absolutely, and in a plethora of ways. One need look no further than the almost total inability of most Christians in the West to articulate who the Holy Spirit even is. Some incorrectly assume that the Holy Spirit is like some sort of impersonal force by which God seemingly empowers Christians to do different things. Others regularly refer to Him (the Holy Spirit) as an “it”, when He clearly possesses Personhood. Yet others fail to think of Him as fully God, though that is exactly who He is as the Third Person of the Trinity. Others, to try and bring the knowledge of God down to our creaturely level, attempt to create a hierarchy where none exists, demanding that the Holy Spirit be viewed at the bottom of that Godhead hierarchy.

This is not meant to scaremonger or guilt the reader into believing that they have not done enough study on the Person of the Holy Spirit. Rather, this is meant to be a wakeup call for the Christian to love, fear, and revere the Holy Spirit just as much as we do the Father and the Son.

At the same time, we must not make the mistake of believing that the statement that “the Holy Spirit is under attack” somehow means that the Holy Spirit may somehow be “defeated” by the sins and errors of man. The Holy Spirit is God, just like the Father and Son. And as God, He is in no danger of being defeated. However, because we desire to glorify our Triune God, it is essential we love and revere Him by learning who He is and articulating this rightly.

2,000 Years of Church History

If we want to defend the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and who He is, we need to make sure we stand upon the shoulders of those who have come before. No man is an island, and it is simply impossible to interpret the Scriptures in a vacuum. In 1 Corinthians 10:11, Paul writes of the Old Testament saints that, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” If the Old (and New) Testament saints were given as examples to us, then should we not look to the saints throughout church history in the same way? They agonized over how to come to a biblical understanding of the Holy Spirit. Should we not pay heed to their instruction and work?

For nearly two millennia, the biblical doctrine of the Trinity has been formulated and articulated within our creeds and confessions. Within the Athanasius Creed, for example, we have been gifted one of the finest pieces of Christian literature ever created, explaining with the highest degree of accuracy and biblical scrutiny how God is One in Essence, yet Three in Persons. The one who ignores and denies the grand tradition of Christian scholarship and pastoral writings on the doctrine of the Trinity does not merely harm themselves, but all whom they influence. The nourishment of the Body of Christ depends upon Christians who not only study the Bible, but also utilize the resources that God has gifted His Bride, the Church, over the past two thousand years.

Consider, just as one example of many, how the Athanasius Creed begins:

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,

neither blending their persons

nor dividing their essence.

For the person of the Father is a distinct person,

the person of the Son is another,

and that of the Holy Spirit still another.

But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,

their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.

We very quickly discover within the creed that the Holy Spirit is, in fact, God. He is part of the Trinity. He shares the essence of the Father and the Son—not in the sense that He has 33% of the essence, and the other two Persons share the other two-thirds. Rather, each as a Person contains the fulness of deity and essence so that it can truly be said that God is One, not composed of parts or divisions, and yet, mysteriously, Three Persons.

Unfortunately, many today fail to make use of resources like the Athanasius Creed, and so become functional and theoretical heretics as they mistakenly deny a number of truths about the Triune God, or add to God some creaturely attributes. Some, in an effort to be as noble as they may possibly be, openly claim that they hold to “no creed but Christ!”—ironically failing to realize that such a sentiment is, in fact, a creed. The truth, however, is that we need the Creeds. We need to return to them.

The Biblical Record

In Matthew 12:31, Jesus clearly warns that, “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.” We can easily deduce from this text that the Holy Spirit is, in fact, a Person, else there would be no way to sin against Him. But, at the same time, the clear warning is that to blaspheme the Spirit is to blaspheme God, and this sin is unforgivable. Many pages could be written on this, but suffice to say for now that the way we speak and think of the Holy Spirit clearly matters a great deal.

The trouble is that a good deal of people today show no reverence or respect to the Spirit of God. Within the Word of Faith and charismatic movements especially, there is a clear disregard for His authority and power. People treat Him like He is a tool or weapon that can be bought, sold, and used to get ahead in life. They have effectively become like Simon the Magician, who tried to purchase the Holy Spirit for his own unjust means:

“Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” And Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me”” (Acts 8:18-24).

The Holy Spirit cannot be bought, sold, twisted, or manipulated to suit some charlatan’s propaganda. He is a Person, yes, but He is also God. As God, He possesses the sovereign authority and power to do as He pleases. To lie to Him or about Him may even result in death (Acts 5:4, 9).

We must not be as those who twist the Word of God and try to take advantage of people’s ignorance by rewriting the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to satisfy unjust gains. When people claim to be Christians and then practice things like “grave soaking” (laying on the graves of departed saints to “suck” their Spirit energy away), laughing fits whereby they claim to have fallen under the joy of the Holy Spirit, or even knocking people to the ground in some sort of Jedi Force-like attack, are they not attacking the very Person and work of the Holy Spirit?

Speaking of His work, we would do well to pay attention to what the Bible actually tells us the Holy Spirit does. It has also been noted within the Creeds, extrapolating information from the biblical record, that the Holy Spirit is very active in our salvation. For example, when we consider the Covenant of Redemption, it is right to say that the Father planned our salvation, the Son purchased our salvation, and the Spirit now applies our salvation to us (Ephesians 1:13-14). He convicts us of sin (John 16:8-11). It is also right to say that, when we come to faith in Christ, we come because the Holy Spirit spiritually enlivens us to come to Christ (John 6:44). The Holy Spirit now indwells and fills us, working the process of sanctification within us (Philippians 1:6; John 16:12-15).

We must be certain that what we think and say of the Holy Spirit is, in fact, biblical and true. Anything less (or more) is to attack Him—and remember: the Holy Spirit is God.