To Have the Spirit Is to Believe the Gospel

"The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth, as also the Spirit of grace. He speaks and breathes only the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ. When a man, then, comes to know the gospel, or to receive this Spirit, he thinks of no other grace but what appeared in Christ's tasting death for men; no other truth, but what was manifest in Christ, the end of the law for righteousness. This differs not a little from what the popular doctrine leads us to think of; namely, the truth of grace in the heart. When our systems describe faith to us, as a saving grace bestowed on us, by which we make use of Christ for salvation, are we not led to think of some grace necessary to our salvation, beside what appeared when Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for the sins of men?" - Robert Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio, pg. 308-309

There is nothing special in the sacrament itself

"In order that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and the sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given, and the Holy Spirit produces faith, where and when it pleases God, in those who hear the Gospel. That is to say, it is not on account of our own merits but on account of Christ that God justifies those who believe that they are received into favor for Christ's sake. Gal. 3:14, 'That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.'
Our churches condemn the Anabaptist and others who think that the Holy Spirit comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works." - The Book of Concord, The Augsburg Confession, Pg. 31 Article 5 [The ministry of the Church]

On the Trinity

The doctrine of the Holy trinity simply stated is that God is one in essence but three in person. These persons are completely God, coeternal, coexisting. The Father never became the Father nor did the Son ever become the Son likewise the Spirit... Neither of them became what or who they are as the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses teaches.


17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. -2 Corinthians 3


To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. - Romans 9

The Spirit uses the word of God alone to speak to his people.

"How diabolical, then, is that madness which pretends that the use of the Scripture is only transient and temporary, which guides the sons of God to the highest point of perfection! I would also ask them another question - whether they have imbibed a different spirit from that which the Lord promised to his disciples? Great as their infatuation is, I do not think them fanatical enough to hazard such an avowal. But what kind of Spirit did he promise? One, truly, who should 'not speak of himself,' but suggest and instil into their minds those things which he had orally delivered. The office of the Spirit, then, which is promised to us, is not to feign new and unheard of revelations, or to coin a new system of doctrine, which would seduce us from the received doctrine of the Gospel, but to seal to our minds the same doctrine which the Gospel delivers." - John Calvin, The Institutes, I. IX. I.

"But in the same place the Apostle also calls his preaching 'the ministration of the Spirit;' doubtless intending, that the Holy Spirit so adheres to his own truth, which he hath expressed in the Scriptures, that he only displaces and exerts his power where the word is received with due reverence and honour. Nor is this repugnant to what I before asserted, that the word itself has not much certainty with us, unless when confirmed by the testimony of the Spirit. For the Lord hath established a kind of mutual connection between the certainty of his word and of his Spirit; so that our minds are filled with a solid reverence for the word, when by the light of the Spirit we are enabled therein to behold the Divine countenance; and on the other hand, without the least fear of mistake, we gladly receive the Spirit, when we recognize him in his image, that is, in the word. This is the true state of the case." - Ibid. I. IX. III.

There is no separating the agency of the Holy Spirit from the knowledge of the truth. To know the truth is life eternal; and this life is begun and supported by the Spirit of Christ. On the other hand, all who resist the truth, and do not admit its evidence, are expressly said to resist the Holy Ghost. We ought not, then, to imagine, with the popular preachers that the gospel can in any respect be considered as a dead letter, or destitute of Divine power. For being the voice of God, it is unchangeably powerful to save all who believe it, and to destroy all who oppose it. Believers are said to grieve the Holy Spirit, when they neglect to hearken to the words of the gospel, and their consciences are answerably grieved, when they are brought to repentance. - Robert Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio

We are persuaded of the authenticity of Scripture by God alone

"Let it be considered, then, as an undeniable truth, that they who have been inwardly taught by the Spirit, feel an entire acquiescence in the Scripture, and that it is self-authenticated, carrying with it its own evidence, and ought not to be made the subject of demonstration and arguments from reason, but it obtains the credit which it deserves with us by the testimony of the Spirit. For though it conciliate our reverence by its internal majesty, it never seriously affects us till it is confirmed by the Spirit in our hearts. Therefore, being illuminated by him, we now believe the divine original of the Scripture, not from our own judgment or that of others, but we esteem the certainty, that we have received it from God's own mouth by the ministry of men, to be superior to that of any human judgment, and equal to that of an intuitive perception of God himself in it. We seek not arguments or probabilities to support our judgment, but submit our judgments and understandings as to a thing concerning which it is impossible for us to judge; and that not like some person, who are in the habit of hastily embracing what they do not understand, which displeases them as soon as they examine it, but because we feel the firmest conviction that we hold an invincible truth; nor like those unhappy men who surrender their minds captives to superstitions, but because we perceive in it the undoubted energies of the Divine power, by which we are attracted and inflamed to an understanding and voluntary obedience, but with a vigour and efficacy superior to the power of any human will or knowledge." - John Calvin, The Institutes, I. VII. V.

Those who do not speak clearly and do not attempt to do so have not the Spirit

"The Holy Spirit speaks well, clearly, in an orderly and distinct fashion. Satan mumbles and chews the words in his mouth and makes a hundred into a thousand. It is an effort to ascertain what he means." -Martin Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets, Pg. 196

Going beyond Justification by Faith?

"Even before the Reformers had passed off the stage, different sects began to grow up within the Protestant movement and to break from the founding churches. The sects said that Luther made a good start in reviving the doctrines of justification by faith, but they had the feeling and Luther stood only half way and that they must go on, higher and deeper.
But Luther discerned that they erred on the greater charter of Protestantism - justication by  faith - and, as far as he was concerned, if this was wrong everything was wrong. 'Whoever departs from the article of justification does not know God and is an idolator,' wrote Luther. 'For when this article has been take away, nothing remains but error, hypocrisy, godlessness, and idolatry, although it may seem to be the height of truth, worship of God, holiness, etc.' (What Luther says [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959], Vol. II, pp. 702-704).
These sectarian teachers did not deny justification as an initiating step in the Christian life. Their error was the old one of relegating justification to something whereby the believer can make a start and then go on to higher things. With them, justification by faith was no longer the center. Their focus was away from Christ's work to their own, from the objective to the subjective." -John Robbins, Appendix found in The Holy Spirit, Pg. 102 

Irrationalism crept into the pentecostals camp which in turn crept back into Rome

"By the end of [... World War 1] fundamentalism had moved from its scholarly form as defended by eminent theologians in the famous The Fundamentals and had become a very non-scholarly movement making progress among the less affluent population. My father was certainly among the less affluent population, as were his people; but there was only one member who took up with the new movement. That the Pentecostals accepted the five points of the original fundamentals, namely, the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth, Jesus' miracles, his vicarious atonement and resurrection, admits of no doubt.
But let us remember that the Galatian Judaizers, whom Paul so vigoriously condemned, believed these five points too. What they did not believe was justification by faith alone. Did the early Pentecostals believe it? Do they believe and teach it now? Or is their developed view of tongues inconsistent with the evangelicals' historic position? However it may have been in the 1920's, more recently, beginning at the University of Notre Dame, the Pentecostals have penetrated Romanism and have welcomed numerous Catholics, if not into their assembly halls, certainly into their spiritual fellowship." - Gordon H. Clark, The Holy Spirit, Pg. 84

The Spirit's work in Regeneration to Glorify God

"Inspiration was an act of the Spirit on a special group of people, enabling them to perform a task no others were permitted to do. There is another act of the Spirit which applies to a large group irrespective of their individual personalities. In fact, there are two. As such they can be discussed before itemizing more particular examples. The first of these is regeneration. At the beginning of Kuyper's gigantic volume, he takes pains to say that the chief purpose of the Spirit is not to regenerate sinners, but to glorify God. 'The chief thing is not that the elect be fully saved, but that God be justified in all His works . . .' (p. 9). Undoubtedly this is so; but anyone whether the Spirit or a human being, or even an animal, can glorify God in several ways. For that matter the inanimate planets and the sands of the sea glorify God. Hence what attracts our attention now is not so much the Spirit's ultimate purpose as it is one chosen activity for accomplishing it." - Gordon H. Clark, The Holy Spirit, Pg. 31

The Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son

"As for Romans 8:26, 27 we see that the Spirit helps us by teaching us how to pray. He himself also prays for us, and this indicates the address of one person to another. The Spirit is not  the Father: He speaks to the Father. The point is important because someone, willing to grant that the Spirit is personal, may wish to identify the Spirit with the Father so as to have only one person. This verse, along with others, keeps the two persons distinct." - Gordon H. Clark, The Holy Spirit, Pg. 18

The Holy Spirit speaks

"A group of only two verses, however explicit they may be, will strike many readers as insufficient. Therefore a larger group, though not really required, will contribute corroboration. Then too, the aim is not rigidly restricted to the proof of the Spirit's personality, but expands to a general view of what the New Testament has to say. As will become clear later on, we want to know, not merely that the Spirit is a person; we also want to know what sort of person he is. Now, one thing that two persons can do. which non-persons cannot, except in poetic fancy, is to talk to each other. The delirious Keats once addressed a Grecian urn, but the urn never replied. Contrariwise, the Holy Spirit speaks and is spoken to. Consider these verses. In each there is an example of the Spirit's speaking. No one verse exhausts the range of his conversation, but each is sufficient to show that he speaks." - Gordon H. Clark, The Holy Spirit, Pg. 17-18

(John 14:26, 15:26, 16:13, 14; Acts 13:2, 21:11; Romans 8:26, 27; Galatians 4:6; 1 Timothy 4:1; Revelation 2:7)

Gordon H. Clark on theologians who spout meaningless verbage on top of encouragement not to understand

"It is true that systematic theologies say very little. But are there not special works on the Spirit? W. H. Griffith-Thomas is rather pessimistic. 'The probable explanation of some modern [distorted] views on the subject [of Christ, salvation, and the Scriptures] is the absence of any true doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is significant that amid the multitude of theological works of high value which have proceeded from able writers in Germany, England, Scotland, and America during the last century, very few have treated with anything like proper fulness and emphasis the Scripture revelation of the Holy Spirit' (the Holy Spirit of God, The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1913, p. 162).
This judgment seems a bit harsh, even if restricted to the nineteenth century. Perhaps Robert Phillip's Love of the Spirit (1832) and C.R. Vaughn's The Gift of the Holy Spirit (1894) do not qualify as 'works of high value . . . from able writers . . . with the proper fullness.' Many volumes on the Holy Spirit are distressingly vague. Their devotional language may stir the emotions of some people, but they disappoint all who wish to understand what God teaches. The book last mentioned, since it was reprinted in 1975, serves as a good example. Strangely enough it does not get to the personality of the Spirit until the fourteenth chapter of Part Two, the final chapter in the book, although one would expect this subject to come in the first or at least in the second chapter. regeneration precedes personality in chapters six to nine of Part One. The negations in these chapters are for the most part true. He speaks of the necessity of regeneration; he denies that it is merely a 'change in the external relations effected by a visible rite' (p. 136); and 'all attempts to identify this change with the ordinance of baptism . . . are useless. But the positive statements convey little meaning. For example, 'The new birth also involves the creation and the grant of a new nature . . . gaining a new nature, making a new man . . . introducing this new nature into a new life . . . new views, new feelings . . . new action determined by this great change' (p. 135).
Now these sentences are not so much false as meaningless. Literally they are true, but they do not distinguish feelings and actions resulting from regeneration by the Holy Spirit from feelings and actions resulting from other sources. Various people have various feelings and various views. Stalin, or was it Lenin? was once a seminary student; he then experienced a great change so that he had other views, new feelings, and different actions.
Furthermore, though regeneration may give one a new nature, the theologian quoted does not tell us what is meant by nature. This criticism is not simply a conclusion which a reader might infer. It is explicitly stated: 'It is obvious from these positive and most peculiar statements that all attempts to construe the Christian doctrine of regeneration out of all its high mysterious and spiritual significance must be altogether incompetent interpretations of the language used to describe it in the sacred record.' In other words, we should not try to understand the Bible." -Gordon H. Clark, The Holy Spirit, Pg. 2-3

Pink on the distinguishing mark of the Christian

"'But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his' (Rom. 8:9). The possession of the Holy Spirit is the distinguishing mark of a Christian, for to be without the Spirit is proof positive that we are out of Christ - 'none of his' : fearful words! And, my reader, if we are not Christ's, whose are we? The answer must be, The devil's, for there is no third possessor of me...n. In the past, all of us were subjects of the kingdom of darkness, the slaves of Satan, the heirs of wrath; and the great questions which each one of us needs to accurately answer are, Have I been taken out of that terrible position? Have I been translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, made an heir of God, and become indwelt by His Spirit?" A.W. Pink in The Holy Spirit


Pink kept it abstract if I might say.... though I do not agree with abstract theories nor do I think they exist. Pink sadly is not clear here.

The Spirit's personality

". . . The baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19: '. . . baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' If we wished to press the matter, we could point out that though the word name occurs only once, the grammatical construction indicates three names: not the name of Father, Son, and Spirit, but the name of the Father and [the name] of the Son, and [the name] of the Holy Ghost. The three of's indicates three names. If, however, grammar is no...t one's favorite subject, the major point is that the three names are in one category. If the Father is a person, and if the Son is a person, how could anything impersonal be the thrid member? No one with any intelligence would write, 'In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Father's power, influence, or mentality.'" - Gordon H. Clark, The Holy Spirit