What Is the Holy Ghost?

Jesus said in John 5:26: “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” And in John 10:10 he said, “I am come that they might have life , and that they might have it more abundantly.” We know that Jesus came to make a way for us to be delivered from sin (Mat. 1:21). We are told in I Cor. 6:11 that it is the Spirit of God that washes away our sins, and subsequently sanctifies and justifies us. Rom. 8:2 says the same thing in these words: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” So what we have seen clearly by the scriptures is that God’s holy Spirit of life delivers us from sin, and from death, seeing that “the wages of sin is death" (Rom.6:23). To add to that, I Jn. 5:11,12 says this: "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. So then who is it that has the Son? "Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (from sin - II Cor. 3:17). So again we see that having God’s Spirit is the same thing as having Jesus, which means if we haven’t been baptized with the holy Ghost we do not have Jesus. And these things are consistently confirmed by the scriptures as well (Jn. 7:37-39; Acts 5:32; Gal. 3:27). It’s no coincidence that the last instructions gave to his followers on earth was to go and wait for the baptism of the holy Ghost, which he sent back several days later (Acts 1:45; Acts 2:1-4).

So what we have seen evidently established to us by the Bible, is that God’s Spirit is his life, which also is the life that he gave to be in the Son; and also the abundant life that Jesus said he had come to bring to us. It’s no wonder that the apostle Paul stated, "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8:9). And why is this the case? To quote the beloved apostle John again, "He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” And in reference to Rom. 8:2 quoted above, if we don’t have this life, we are not set free from death; and if we don’t have this holy Spirit, we are not delivered from sin. And adding to these things, John the Baptist said that Jesus came to baptize with the Spirit, and Jesus said that he came so that we might have life (Mk. 1:6-8; Jn. 10:10). See the correlation? It’s the same thing. In reality, the Spirit is the shared divine life that makes the Father and the Son ‘one,’ and also what joins us to the Father and the Son if we have been baptized with the Spirit. (Jn. 17:22,23; I Cor. 6:17; I Cor. 12:13). This is also how we can be 'one’ in the same manner that Jesus and the Father are one, as Jesus prayed we would be (Jn. 17:22,23; Rom. 6:3,4; I Cor. 1:10; I Pet. 3:18). And of course if we aren’t joined to the Lord, it’s certain that we are yet dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1). So then the holy Ghost is undeniably the eternal life that dwells in the Father, that he gave to dwell in the Son, who came to make the way for that same eternal life to dwell in us literally. Amen.