The Nature of the Holy Spirit

TBC Glassboro Sermons and More · The Nature Of The Holy Spirit

God’s nature is often referred to in terms of essence or substance.  Substance refers to the basic aspects of God’s nature.  Nature refers to the definable property of someone or something.  Nature should not be confused with attributes or characteristics.  Consider a book.  The nature of the book is that it has a cover and pages.  The attributes of the book would describe the type of cover or pages, the number of pages, the color of the cover, and similar descriptive characteristics intrinsic to the book.  Without a nature, or substance, the Holy Spirit would have not attributes or characteristics.  As a member of the Godhead, His nature is two-fold — Life and Light.  Since the Father and Son are both life and light, the Holy Spirit then is also life and light.

• For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; - John 15:26
• Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life. - John 8:12
• This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that bGod is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. - 1 John 1:5

Spirit means that the Holy Spirit is immaterial.  In other words, He does not possess a corporeal or physical form.

• God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. - John 4:24

That He is immaterial is to say that the Holy Spirit is not dependent upon matter and has no connection to matter.

• …a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. - Luke 24:39

   
Flesh and bones are matter, which a spirit does not have.  Hence, the Holy Spirit is not simply a spirit, He is pure spirit.  He is invisible to the naked eye (Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:17).   

• He is the image of the invisible God  - Colossians 1:15
  Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God - 1 Timothy 1:17