95-Scriptural Points on God the Holy Ghost: A Biblically-grounded Sermon on the Personality and Deity of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in the Infallible Word Alone

 Dr. MA Petillo

Come, Holy Spirit, come;
Let thy bright beams arise;
Dispel the darkness from our minds,
And open all our eyes.
Cheer our desponding hearts,
Thou heav'nly Paraclete;
Give us to lie with humble hope
At our Redeemer's feet.
Revive our drooping faith;
Our doubts and fears remove;
And kindle in our breasts the flames
Of never-dying love.
Convince us of our sin;
Then lead to Jesus' blood,
And to our wond'ring view, reveal
The secret love of God.
'Tis thine to cleanse the heart,
To sanctify the soul,
To pour fresh life in ev'ry part,
And new create the whole.
Dwell, therefore, in our hearts;
Our minds from bondage free;
Then we shall know and praise and love
The Father, Son, and Thee.   (TH, 254).

1.  The only true Vicar of Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit.

2.  The Holy Spirit precedes from the Father and Son. 

3.  The Holy Spirit is given the title "God" in the written Word.

4.  The Holy Spirit is called the "Lord God" in the Scriptures.

5.  The Holy Spirit is from God the Father and God the Son.

6.  There is an economic distinction in the Triune Godhead: the Father is the First Person, the Son is the Second Person and the Spirit is the Third Persons.  There are solely Three Persons in the Godhead and none else.

7.  The Holy Spirit is of the Grace of God.

8.  The Holy Spirit is the Truth.   I suggest to you that all Three Members of the Triune Godhead are the Living Truth.

9.  The Holy Spirit is given the title "Holy."  By nature God is holy.

10.  The Holy Spirit is "Life."

11.  The Holy Spirit is from Jesus Christ.  Have you not read Romans 8:9 in the New Testament?

12.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Adoption.

13.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of His Son.

14.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Glory.

15.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Prophecy.

16.   The Holy Spirit is God's Spirit.  Jehovah's Witnesses say that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force, but the Bible says He is both a person and God.

17.  God the Spirit is called the Holy Spirit.

18.  The Holy Spirit is the Helper.

19.  The Holy Spirit is the Everlasting Spirit.

20.  The Holy Spirit is called God.

21.  The Spirit of God is joined in divine unity with the Father and the Son.

22.  The Holy Spirit is eternal.

23.  The Holy Spirit is omnipotent.

24.  The Holy Spirit is omniscient.

25.  The Holy Spirit is omnipresent.

26.  The Holy Spirit is the divine and self-existent Creator.

27.  The Holy Spirit is Sovereign.

28.  The Holy Spirit causes a sinner to be a new creation.  No one can undo a new creation, because God's oath stands.

29.   There is an unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.  There are some Christians who say that such a sin cannot be committed, but others say it can.  The unforgivable sin is an apostasy unto eternal reprobation where there is no spiritual life.  The converted elect will never commit this sin, but only those who are the unconverted non-elect.

30.  The Holy Spirit is able to speak in the written Word.

31.  The Holy Spirit teaches God's people in Christ.

32.  The Holy Spirit strives with sinners.  That is, He restrains the cosmic treason of ungodly men.

33.  The Holy Spirit comforts God's people.

34.  The Holy Spirit helps our weaknesses.

35.  The Holy Spirit is grieved at the sin of His people in Christ.

36.  The Holy Spirit is resisted by God's people.

37.  The handiwork of the Holy Spirit is creation.

38.  The redemptive work of the Holy Spirit is redemption and salvation only in Christ.

39.  The redemptive work of the Holy Spirit convicts sinners of their deepest and hidden sins for mortification of the flesh through repentance unto life.

40.  The work of the Holy Spirit in Christian ministry was the virginal conception of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

41.  The Holy Spirit performed miracles through the ministry of the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity.

42.  Christ Jesus is anointed by God the Spirit.

43.  The ministry of Christ is supported by the Spirit of Christ.

44.  I suggest to you that in the public ministry of Jesus Christ there was also the activity of the Father and the Spirit, because the Three in One and the One in Three work in divine unity with each Other.

45.  The work of Christ was filled with the presence of God the Spirit.  In saying this, I am do not deny the deity of Jesus Christ.

46.  The Holy Spirit offered Christ to God (Heb 9:14).

47.  Christ Jesus was raised by the Spirit of God.

48.  Christ Jesus was vindicated by the Spirit.

49.  The work of the Spirit is in the writings of the prophets.

50.  The work of the Spirit is in the writings of the Psalms.

51.  The work of the Spirit is in ALL OF SCRIPTURE.

52.  The work of the Spirit of the Sword of the Word.

53.   The ministry of the Spirit is to regenerate elect sinners.

54.  The ministry of the Spirit is to indwell elect sinners.

55.  The ministry of the Spirit is to heal the spiritually sick.

56.  There is a baptism of the Spirit for God's chosen.

57.  The ministry of the Spirit guides God's chosen in Christ.

58.  The ministry of the Spirit empowers God's elect.

59.  The ministry of God the Spirit sanctifies His people alone.

60.  The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children in Christ.  Once a child of God always a child of God.

61.  The Holy Spirit helps God's people in Christ.

62.  The Holy Spirit gives joy to God's people in Christ.

63.  The Holy Spirit gives discernment in Christ.

64.  The Holy Spirit causes God's people in Christ to bear fruit.

65.  The Holy Spirit provides gifts to God's people.

66.  Every good work is a gift from the Spirit's foreordained purpose that never adds to Christ alone in how someone is right with God, because touching sinful man out of wickedness comes only wickedness.

67.  The ministry of the Spirit involved in the local church.

68.  The power of preaching is determined by the presence of the Spirit of God.

69.  The Holy Spirit fills the people of God in Christ.

70.  The Holy Spirit is active in local church government, but He superintended the written Word alone.  Church government is subordinate to God's infallible Word.

71. The Holy Spirit is behind the local church sending out missionaries for the cause and advancement of the gospel.

72. God's Spirit directs the missionaries of the local church.

73.  The Holy Spirit comforts the body of Christ.

74.  The Spirit of God sanctifies the local church.

75.  The Holy Spirit is promised.

76.  The Spirit of God is concerned with glorifying Jesus Christ alone.

77.  The Spirit of God was realized at Pentecost.

78.  The Spirit of Christ was realized by the Gentiles.

79.  The Spirit of God can be sinned against.   Every time a sinner sins, he offends God's Spirit.  Repent and live out the gospel!

80.  In Reformed Theology, the Spirit of God does not do violence to the will of man in spiritual rebirth.  In passing, I knew I was dead in sin and I knew what God's truth was by His providential Hand.  I prayed that God would violate my will, because I wanted to be saved.  I am not saying God commits sin, but I am saying that God intervenes at His appointed time in glory unto perfection of the unified merits of Christ alone applied to the awakened sinner in Spirit-caused regeneration.

81.  The Spirit of God illuminates the mind of man.

82.  The Spirit of God reveals things from the written Word in our prayer time to God.

83.  The Spirit helps us study the written Word of God.

84.  The Spirit of God has left the aid of the papacy.

85.  The Spirit of God "comes upon" reprobate sinners, because He is fulfilling the divine purpose of the Father.  By this, I do not mean salvation.

86.   The Spirit of God fills every believer in Christ.

87.   The Spirit of God provides the Christian with every blessing in Christ Jesus, because of His intercession with profound groanings.

88.  The Spirit of God has not inspired the religions of men, non-Christian cults or the occult.

89.  The Spirit of God is behind the Reformed local churches in the outward manifestation of the Reformed confessions.

90.  The Word preached is where the presence of the Spirit is.

91.  The Word preached is where the Spirit changes the minds and hearts of sinners.

92.  The divine presence of the Spirit in the Reformed Eucharist is the presence of God without the "material presence" of Christ.  In saying this, only God must be worshiped not bread and wine.

93.  The Spirit searches our hearts with the written Word.

94.  The Spirit is there at the most alone times of a Christian.

95.  Satan CANNOT control believers in Christ, but he may seek to place them in a diabolical trap.  Rather the Spirit of God controls the believer in Christ to do His good will.  That is, the Spirit of God will see us safe and sound to heaven at the moment of death.  

Holy Spirit, hear us;
Help us while we sing;
Breathe into the music
Of the praise we bring.
Holy Spirit, prompt us
When we kneel to pray;
Nearer come and teach us
What we ought to say.
Holy Spirit, shine thou
On the book we read;
Gild its holy pages
With the light we need.
Holy Spirit, give us
Each a lowly mind;
Make us more like Jesus,
Gentle, pure, and kind.
Holy Spirit, keep us
Safe from sins which lie
Hidden by some pleasure
From our youthful eye.  (TH, 638).