The Apostles' Creed: The Holy SpiritSample

The Holy Spirit’s Divine Attributes: Genesis 1:1-3

Christian theologians have traditionally spoken of God as having two distinct types of attributes: communicable attributes and incommunicable attributes. On the one hand, he has communicable attributes, which can be “communicated” or “shared” in some way with his creatures. 

For instance, God possesses the attribute of reason, which he communicates or shares with human beings. As finite creatures, human beings do not comprehend God’s reasoning perfectly. But we still have the capacity to think in reasonable ways. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we are divine. It simply proves that we were created by a rational God who communicated a measure of his attribute of reason to us. Our reason is derived from his; we reflect his attribute of reason because we are his creatures.

Another communicable attribute of God is his love. And many places in Scripture teach that our love for other people, and even for God, derives directly from God’s attribute of love. We see this in places like Galatians 5:22, Ephesians 5:1, 2 Timothy 1:7, and 1 John 4:7-21. 

But God also possesses incommunicable attributes — attributes that by their very nature cannot be shared with his creatures. The most familiar incommunicable attributes of God are things like his omniscience, which is his infinite intelligence, knowledge and wisdom; his omnipotence, which is his infinite power; his omnipresence, which is his existence in all places at the same time; and his eternality, which is his everlasting and unbreakable self-existence. Because God’s incommunicable attributes can only belong to him, we can prove that the Holy Spirit is God by showing that he possesses one or more of these attributes. And as we survey Scripture we find that, in fact, he possesses them all. Consider first the Holy Spirit’s omniscience.

Scripture says that the Spirit perfectly knows the mind of God. We see this idea in Ephesians 1:17 and 1 Corinthians 2:10-11. Of course, God’s mind is infinite, requiring an equally infinite mind to know it perfectly. By the Holy Spirit’s ability to comprehend God’s omniscient mind, the Holy Spirit himself is proven to be omniscient. And because he is omniscient, he must also be God.

The Holy Spirit is also proven to be God by his omnipotence. His power is the unlimited power of God. Many passages in Scripture speak of the power of the Holy Spirit, such as 1 Samuel 10:6, Romans 15:19, 1 Corinthians 12:11, and 1 Thessalonians 1:5. Consider the Holy Spirit’s association with God’s power in Genesis 1:1-3:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light (Genesis 1:1-3).

As we have mentioned before, Old Testament references to God generally refer to the entire Trinity. But it is also legitimate to see an emphasis on one person or another, according to the language and context. In this case, the emphasis is on the person of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God. So, the work of creating the light was done by the Holy Spirit. The same is true of everything else that God created in this chapter. But in order for the Holy Spirit to have had such omnipotence, in order for him to have created something out of nothing, he must have been fully divine.

Another incommunicable attribute the Holy Spirit possesses is omnipresence. Passages like Psalm 139:7-10 teach us that the Spirit is present throughout every part of creation, from the heights of heaven to the depths of the sea.

And the Holy Spirit also has the attribute of eternality. Hebrews 9:14 refers to the Holy Spirit as the “eternal Spirit,” meaning that he has always existed, and will continue to exist forever.