Is God a Trinity - Herbert W. Armstrong Library and Archives

Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 35
God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, p. 575).
After such admissions, it is almost inconceivable that
any theologian could still teach that the Spirit is a person
- yet some do.
A Lesson in Greek Grammar
The one place that most theologians feel describes the
Spirit as a person is resolved by a lesson in the Greek
language. In the Greek language, like the Romance languages
(Italian, Spanish, French, and others), every noun
has what is called gender; that is, it is either masculine,
feminine or neuter. The gender of a word has nothing to do
with whether it is really masculine or feminine - it is
more of a grammatical tool.
The verses most Trinitarian theologians will fall back
on for their proof that the Spirit is a person are in the
14th, 15th and 16th chapters of John’s Gospel. Here Jesus
is recorded as referring to the Spirit as “the Comforter.”
The pronoun “he” is used in connection with the word
“comforter”- parakletos - however, the reason for the
use of the personal pronoun “he” is for grammatical, not
theological, or spiritual reasons. (cp Ach (2: IO
All pronouns in Greek must agree in gender with the
word they refer to, therefore the pronoun “he” is used
when referring to the Greek word parakletos. Only John
refers to the Spirit as the parakletos - “Comforter.” The
other New Testament writers use the wordpneuma which
means “breath” or “spirit.” This is the Greek equivalent of
rfiah, the Hebrew word for “spirit” used in the Old Testament.
Pneuma is a grammatically neuter word and is
always represented by the pronoun “it.”
However, the translators of the King James Version,
being swayed by the doctrine of the Trinity, have generally
mistranslated the pronouns referring to pneuma as
masculine. One instance where they did not mistranslate
is found in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
John’s use of theparakletos is no proof the Spirit is a
person. For if the simple gender of a noun were the basis
for the personality of the Spirit, then the Spirit changed
gender from the Old to the New Testament, the Hebrew