God the Holy Spirit, Mentor's Guide, MG14

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G O D T H E H O L Y S P I R I T

complex way they speak about God if you try to collapse the Son into the Father or the Spirit or vice versa. The members of the Trinity communicate with each other and respond to each other in loving relationship. And finally there is equality. Each of the members is equally God. Each of the members possesses the attributes of God. Each of the members is to be thought of, and related to, as God. Each of the members is to be worshiped and obeyed as God.

John Calvin adds an additional thought to this line of reasoning by saying:

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“Nor does the Scriptures in speaking of him, withhold the name of God. Paul infers that we are the temple of God, from the fact that ‘the Spirit of God dwelleth in us’ (1 Cor. 3.16; 4.19; and 2 Cor. 4.16). Now, it ought not to be slightly overlooked, that all the promises which God makes of choosing us to himself as a temple, receive their only fulfilment by his Spirit dwelling in us. Surely, as it is admirably expressed by Augustine (Ad Maximinum, Ep. 66), ‘were we ordered to make a temple of wood and stone to the Spirit, insasmuch as such worship is due to God lone, 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.’ And the Apostle says at one time that we are the temple of God, and at another time in the same sense, that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

~ Institutes . I.xii.15.

In reference to the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, Thomas C. Oden writes:

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The blasphemy referred to is that of directly ascribing to the power of evil the coming of God into history through the Son and the Spirit (Mark 3.28, 29 and parallels). This sin instantly places the self beyond the range of forgiveness, because every step toward repentance and faith is enabled by the Holy Spirit. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is gravely to misunderstand oneself in God’s presence. Paul’s life offers ample evidence that blasphemy as such is forgivable (1 Tim. 1.13). Blasphemy against the Spirit is not unforgivable in the sense that God is powerless or