[email protected]
Member
The evidence from the Bible that Jesus Christ is God and should be worshipped is pretty strong. Many of the proofs are in this thread and there is also an article on the names of God that shows that both God the Father and Jesus Christ share the Hebrew name for God that is translated LORD in the King James Version (or what Jehovah's Witnesses say is "Jehovah").
However, though the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as being divine and coming from God the Father and Jesus Christ and is an expression of God's power, that is, how God acts in His creation, I think there is not strong evidence in the Bible that the Holy Spirit is a person. In many places it seems that when the Holy Spirit is said to be doing something or saying something, it is God the Father or Jesus Christ who is doing or saying it through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Here is an analogy. If I write a letter to someone, and someone asks, what did the letter say, the person who received the letter might reply, "the letter said that...". But this is figurative language. The letter itself is not a person who speaks. It is the person who wrote the letter who did the communicating. Likewise, when the Bible says that the Holy Spirit sent the apostles to this place or that place, this might simply mean that God the Father or Jesus Christ sent them using the power of the Holy Spirit to communicate with them, just as I would use a letter to communicate with someone.
I do not think there is strong evidence in the Bible for the concept of the trinity or that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person as God the Father and Jesus Christ are distinct persons. Rather, the Bible seems to teach that God is a family (one God = one God family) presently made up of the Father and Christ into which humans can be born through a resurrection from the dead. The Bible calls us sons of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, and the church is described as the bride of Christ that will marry Christ at His return. These are all family relationships.
However, though the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as being divine and coming from God the Father and Jesus Christ and is an expression of God's power, that is, how God acts in His creation, I think there is not strong evidence in the Bible that the Holy Spirit is a person. In many places it seems that when the Holy Spirit is said to be doing something or saying something, it is God the Father or Jesus Christ who is doing or saying it through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Here is an analogy. If I write a letter to someone, and someone asks, what did the letter say, the person who received the letter might reply, "the letter said that...". But this is figurative language. The letter itself is not a person who speaks. It is the person who wrote the letter who did the communicating. Likewise, when the Bible says that the Holy Spirit sent the apostles to this place or that place, this might simply mean that God the Father or Jesus Christ sent them using the power of the Holy Spirit to communicate with them, just as I would use a letter to communicate with someone.
I do not think there is strong evidence in the Bible for the concept of the trinity or that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person as God the Father and Jesus Christ are distinct persons. Rather, the Bible seems to teach that God is a family (one God = one God family) presently made up of the Father and Christ into which humans can be born through a resurrection from the dead. The Bible calls us sons of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, and the church is described as the bride of Christ that will marry Christ at His return. These are all family relationships.