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Verse:“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.” —John 14:16
The nature of the Holy Spirit is a profound mystery, and we can understand it only to the extent that God’s Word informs us. Early Seventh-day Adventists also had difficulty with the subject. It was not until near the end of the nineteenth century that Adventists began to recognize the personality of the Holy Spirit.
On February 6, 1896, Ellen White wrote a letter from Australia “to my brethren in America.” In that letter, she referred to the Holy Spirit as “the third person of the Godhead.”7 Two years later (1898), she used the same expression in her classic book The Desire of Ages.8 In the June 9, 1896, issue of Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, George C. Tenney, then coeditor, wrote, We cannot describe the Holy Spirit.
From the figures which are brought out in Revelation, Ezekiel, and other Scriptures, and from the language which is used in reference to the Holy Spirit, we are led to believe he is something more than an emanation from the mind of God.
He is spoken of as a personality, and treated as such. He is included in the apostolic benedictions, and is spoken of by our Lord as acting in an independent and personal capacity, as teacher, guide, and comforter.
He is an object of veneration, and is a heavenly intelligence, everywhere present, and always present. But as limited beings, we cannot understand the problems which the contemplation of the Deity presents to our minds.
When Paul affirms that the Holy Spirit “makes intercession for us” in Romans 8:26, 27, he is suggesting that the Spirit has His own distinct personality. When the apostle speaks of “the mind of the Spirit,” he eliminates any possibility of considering the Spirit only as abstract energy coming from the mind of God.
If this were the case, then we would be speaking redundantly of the mind of the mind of God, which simply makes no sense. Much more than mere energy, the Holy Spirit is the powerful Divine Helper who convicts the world “of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8); to pour out the love of God in our hearts (Romans 5:5), and to guide us “into all truth” (John 16:13).
And there’s more: He will abide with us forever!