In all of our discussion and debates about the Holy Spirit, it’s important that we remember what we are talking about is the precious person of the Holy Spirit who has agreed to live in us forever as the temple of God.

This is the glorious person who, in spite of often being grieved by human sin, preserves and upholds and sustains saving faith in our hearts so that we don’t slip away from Jesus and down the slope into eternal damnation. And he does this every moment of every day even when we ignore his presence and presumptuously take his mercy for granted.

This is the majestic person who gently but powerfully opens our eyes to behold wonderful things in God’s Word (Ps 119:18).

This is the breathtaking person who enlightens the eyes of our heart (Eph 1:15-18) so that we might comprehend the majesty and mercy of our calling in Christ Jesus and the hope we have for an eternity in God’s presence.

This is the awesome person who lovingly restrains our sinful impulses and opens our eyes to see the beauty of God in a sunset and, contrary to everything we deserve, enables us to behold the saving grace of Jesus in his redemptive work.

This is the stunningly beautiful person who remarkably and inexplicably supplies us with encouragement and consolation and confidence and joy and peace and hope.

This is the splendid person who never grows weary of turning our attention to and riveting our sight upon the all-satisfying splendor of Jesus, even when our heart instead feels drawn to dwell on the sordid and joy-stealing filth of this world.

This is the precious person who keeps our hearts united to Christ when we feel tempted to give ourselves over into sexual immorality, who continually supplies us with strength to say No to greed and envy and unforgiveness and say Yes to the real joy of purity.

When we pause and think deeply about what is being said when we speak of grieving the Spirit or quenching the Spirit, we discover something more than merely an inadvertent slip of the tongue or a seemingly careless sin. The Holy Spirit is truly God and is deserving of our utmost adoration and exaltation. I pray that the Spirit himself will guide, direct, and illumine our minds to properly grasp the glory of his personality and power.

“Take away the dispensation of the Spirit, and his effectual operations in all the intercourse that is between God and man; be ashamed to avow or profess the work attributed unto him in the gospel – and Christianity is plucked up by the roots.” (John Owen, Pneumatologia: A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, in The Works of John Owen, vol. 3, ed. William H. Goold [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965], 8).