iendship of the
Holy Ghost? Herein lies the whole secret of a real Christian life, a life
of liberty and joy and power and fullness. To have as one's ever-present
Friend, and to be conscious that one has as his ever-present Friend, the
Holy Spirit and to surrender one's life in all its departments entirely to
His control, this is true Christian living. The doctrine of the
Personality of the Holy Spirit is as distinctive of the religion that
Jesus taught as the doctrines of the Deity and the atonement of Jesus
Christ Himself. But it is not enough to believe the doctrine--one must know
the Holy Spirit Himself. The whole purpose of this chapter (God help me to
say it reverently) is to introduce you to my Friend, the Holy Spirit.

CHAPTER II. THE DEITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

In the preceding chapter we have seen clearly that the Holy Spirit is a
Person. But what sort of a Person is He? Is He a finite person or an
infinite person? Is He God? This question also is plainly answered in the
Bible. There are in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments five
distinct and decisive lines of proof of the Deity of the Holy Spirit.

I. _Each of the four distinctively Divine attributes is ascribed to the
Holy Spirit._

What are the distinctively Divine attributes? Eternity, omnipresence,
omniscience and omnipotence. All of these are ascribed to the Holy Spirit
in the Bible.

We find _eternity_ ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Heb. ix. 14, "How much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the _eternal_ Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?"

_Omnipresence_ is ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Ps. cxxxix. 7-10,
"Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy
presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in
hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead
me, and Thy right hand shall hold me."

_Omniscience_ is ascribed to the Holy Spirit in several passages. For
example, we read in 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11, "But God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit: for the Spirit _searcheth all things_, yea, the deep things
of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man
which is in him? _Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit
of God._" Again in John xiv. 26, "But the Comforter, which is t