THE ERRORS OF THE DOCTRINE OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES – THE HOLY SPIRIT

Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the Holy Spirit is not a divine person, but an impersonal being, God’s active force. They say that “the sincere reader of the Bible cannot help but conclude that the Holy Spirit is not a divine person”. Then they expose the following points:

1) The Holy Spirit cannot be a person because believers were full of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1,41.67; Acts 2,4; 4,8; 7,55; 13,52). One person cannot be full of another person.

2) John the Baptist says of Jesus: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11) John could not refer to the Holy Spirit as a person.

3) Peter said that Jesus had been “anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and power.” (Acts 10:38) This is not compatible with the idea that the Holy Spirit is a person.

4) In the Bible it is not strange to personify abstract things or concepts. For example, Jesus said: “But wisdom is proved right by all her children.” (Luke 7:35) Of course, wisdom is not literally a person with children. Likewise, even though the Holy Spirit is personified in some biblical passages, it does not mean that he is a person.

Below is a premise:

In theology the term “person” indicates a being endowed with will and intelligence. There is therefore the human person, the angelic person, the divine person. Having said that, we can proceed with the answers to the four points listed above.

1) A demon – who is an angelic person deprived of divine grace – can enter a human person to possess it (Mark 1:23). Demons can even enter many in a human person (Luke 8:26-33). If it is possible for one or more demons to enter a man, this is all the more possible for the Holy Spirit who is a divine person. To God “nothing is impossible” (Luke 1:37).

2) “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11) It means that, through the washing of baptism, Jesus gives us divine life and the vehemence of charity. This does not mean that the Holy Ghost is an impersonal force, as Jehovah’s Witnesses would have us believe.

David, prophesying the sufferings of Christ, writes: “I am poured out like water; and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels.” (Psalms 21:15) Is Christ, of whom David prophesies, water? Certainly not. David makes use of a metaphor, that is, a form of comparison.

In his letter, Paul writes: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27) Does this mean that Christ is a garment? Certainly not. Here, too, a metaphor is used.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews writes: “God makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.” (Hebrews 1:7) These are not literally winds and flames of fire, but it is also a metaphor here.

3) “God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power” (Acts 10:38). The anointing is a metaphorical language. In the Old Testament priests were anointed with oil (Exodus 29:7; 30:30-31), kings (1 Kings 19:16; 1 Samuel 10:1; 15:1; 16:13-14) and the prophets (1 Kings 19:16). The anointing with oil symbolizes the permanent presence of the Holy Spirit on the Lord’s consecrated person, so that he can worthily carry out the mission entrusted to him by God. In fact, in the Bible, oil possesses the properties of joy (Psalms 44:8) and consolation (Isaiah 61:1-3) and healing (Luke 10:34; James 5:14-15), characteristics applied to the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22; John 14:26). Therefore Jesus – who is priest, king and prophet – was anointed in the Holy Spirit and power in the sense that in him there is the fullness of the Spirit of God with his gifts.

4) It is true that among the rhetorical figures present in the Bible there is that of personification, for which some psychological and behavioral traits of human beings are attributed to something impersonal or abstract (Romans 5:14; 8:22) . But it is also true that the Holy Spirit is God himself, and therefore when one speaks of him as a person, one should not think that rhetorical language is being used. Peter told Ananias that by lying to the Holy Spirit he lied to God himself: “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that YOU HAVE LIED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? YOU HAVE NOT LIED JUST TO HUMAN BEINGS BUT TO GOD.” (Acts 5:3-4) While Paul to believers: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)