Interesting Questions-18

"Lying to the Holy Spirit = lying to God?"

Letter to the Editor:
GOD'S MESSAGE, August 2007, p.4-5

I HEARD MY [Protestant]  pastor say that the biblical narration recorded in Chapter 5 of the Book of Acts affirms, among others,   the deity  of the Spirit. I verified it with my own Bible and I found this: "But Peter said,  'Ananias, why  has Satan  filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit.....? ... . You have not lied to men but to God'?  What can you say about this?

Susan Seale
Dallas, Texas, U.S.A.

Editor's reply:

These verses you quoted (Acts 5:3 4, New King lames Version") undeniably point out that to lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God. But does this mean that the Holy Spirit is God? No, it does not. For if it did, then it would  contradict the essential truth about God. As Apostle Paul clearly stated,

"there is but one God, the Father, from whom a!! things came"  (I  Cor.  8:6,    New International Version).

The Almighty Father Himself said,

"I alone am God and that there is no one else like me" (Isa. 4-6-9, Today's English Version).

Why is it, then, that if one lies to the Holy Spirit, he also lies to God? To answer this, let us quote the following statements  of Christ concerning the Holy Spirit:

"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (John 14:26, NKJV)

But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. (John 15:26, NKJV) 

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me." (John 13:20, NKJV)

TThe Lord   Jesus   Christ   taught  "the  Helper"   or    the  Holy Spirit  is sent both  by   the Father   and  the Son. Furthermore,  Christ declared that anyone who   receives whomever He sent equally receives the one who sent Him—the Father who  is the only true God (John 17:1, 3).   Hence, whatever the person does to the one sent by Christ and by the Father, he Iikewise does it to God Himself. And since the Holy Spirit is sent by Christ and the Father, lying to the Holy Spirit necessarily means lying to God  Himself. It is not  surprising, therefore, that when Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit,  the Bible teaches  that he,  in effect, lied to God.

The problem with believing that the Holy Spirit  is  God  just   because lying to the Holy Spirit is tantamount to Iying to God the Father is that this would have several  erroneous ramifications.  For example, the apostles  would be Gods also because when Christ was commissioning the   apostles, to them He proclaimed:

 "He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me."  (Luke 10:16, NKJV)

Here,  Christ   Himself   says quite clearly that   rejecting   the  apostles is the same as rejecting Him and God. If we were to follow the line of thinking of those who argue that "the   Holy Spirit   is  God, then  we would be forced to accept that the apostles and  all other messengers are God as well. 

Historically, the erroneous belief that the Holy Spirit is God became an  article of faith  of the Catholic Church through the Council of Constantinople only in 381 A.D., more than three centuries after the Bible had been written (Discourses on the Apostles' Creed, p. 206)

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