Never Apply These Words to the Holy Spirit

The third important fact about the Holy Spirit is what is indicated in His name. He is holy.

This is His primary title, the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew, it is the Spirit of Holiness. He has many other titles, for instance, the Spirit of Grace, Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Power, and so on. But they are all subsidiary. His name and His primary title is the Holy Spirit. Anything that is unholy does not proceed from the Holy Spirit.

The Scripture also speaks of the beauty of holiness. There is a beauty in holiness when it proceeds from the Holy Spirit. It’s not necessarily external; it may be internal beauty. For instance, in

“First Peter 3:4,”

Peter speaks about the ‘hidden person of the heart.’ And he speaks about the ‘adornment of a meek and quiet spirit,’ which ‘in the sight of God is of great price.’ This is not external beauty; it is internal beauty, which comes from the Holy Spirit.

I want to say, however, with the utmost emphasis, anything unholy or ugly does not proceed from the Holy Spirit. I’ll give you a list of 12 adjectives, all of which I believe cannot be applied to the Holy Spirit or to anything that is the product of the Holy Spirit. As I go through the list, I suggest you check mentally and see if you agree with me. Here, then, are the words that would never apply to the Holy Spirit: self-exalting, self-assertive, vulgar, rude, sham, indecent, insensitive, stupid, silly, flippant, degraded, and degrading.

I’ll repeat that list just once more, and as I repeat the list, just see if you agree with me. These are 12 adjectives or 12 words that would never apply to the Holy Spirit or to anything that proceeds from the Holy Spirit. Here are the words: self-exalting, self-assertive, vulgar, rude, sham, indecent, insensitive, stupid, silly, flippant, degraded, and degrading.

I have in my heart, if God wills and I live, to write a book at some time, of which I have already chosen the title. The title is this: Holiness Is Not Optional. Only God knows whether I will ever succeed in writing the book, but I want to say, in any case, that the title states the exact truth. In the Christian life, holiness is not optional.

Many Christians seem to think about holiness as if it is like something added to a car, such as fancy leather upholstery instead of the normal kind of plastic. But that is not true. Holiness is an essential part of salvation. In

“Hebrews 12:14,”

the writer says, “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord.” What salvation do we have that does not bring us to see the Lord? But without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

We have, in our contemporary Western Christianity, a very incomplete picture of salvation. If I get saved and born again, and then I want to go on and be holy, I can do it, but it’s an option. I want to tell you that your salvation depends on your being holy, and holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit.

There are many features of purported moves of the Holy Spirit that I could pick out and hold up as examples of things that are not holy. But I will only deal with one, and that is animal behavior in human beings attributed to the Holy Spirit. There are many such examples, some I have witnessed, and some have been reported.

First of all, there is no passage in Scripture that I know of where the Holy Spirit causes any human being to behave like an animal. There is the example of Balaam, but that is in strong contrast. God caused Balaam’s donkey to speak like a man, but He never caused Balaam to bray like a donkey. There was one man whom God caused to behave like an animal: King Nebuchadnezzar. It says in

“Daniel 4:33,”

“He was driven from men, and ate grass like oxen. His body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.” God certainly caused Nebuchadnezzar to behave like an animal, but that was God’s judgment, not His blessing.