“Blogging the Institutes” is my on-going attempt to paraphrase John Calvin’s work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. You can find out more about the series in the Introduction. For all the posts in this series, check out the Master List. 

Further Evidence that the Holy Spirit is God

Scripture also gives the name of God to the Spirit. Paul infers that we are the temple of God from the fact that the “Spirit of God dwells in us” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). Don’t overlook the fact that all the promise of God making us His temple is dependent upon the Spirit dwelling in us. Augustine expresses this sentiment well: “Were we ordered to make a temple of wood and stone to the Spirit, inasmuch as such worship is due to God alone, it would be a clear proof of the Spirit’s divinity; how much clearer a proof in that we are not to make a temple to him, but to be ourselves that temple” (Ad Maximinum, Ep. 66).

Paul not only says that we are the temple of God but also that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. When Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit, Peter claimed that he had lied to God Himself (Acts 5:1-4). When Isaiah introduced the Lord, Paul says it was the Holy Spirit that spoke (Acts 28:25-26). Jesus and apostle also assigned words spoken by the prophets to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit is the true God who inspired the prophets.

Furthermore, Isaiah says the Holy Spirit was grieved when God speaks of being provoked to anger by the people (Isaiah 63:10). Blasphemy against the Spirit is not forgiven, either in the preset life or the life to come (Matthew 12:31-32). There is also the passage is probably from David, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of the by the breath (Spirit) of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6). The work of creation was just as much as the work of the Spirit as the Son.