The Person of the Holy Spirit

Norman P. Grubb

Life is being introduced into a permanent living relationship with all that is involved thus in individuality, in originality. You can't tape down the Holy Spirit. You can't legalize Him down, thank God. He will be original-that's why He has burst out in about fifty new missions in Japan! He will be original. He won't be tied up. He'll go His own way and we missions inside missions must allow the same. We must be very careful we don't tape down people or the Holy Ghost will burst the tape and start something else. Oh no, He's original; He's Himself; He's a Person. I'm a person. We're funny people but even we are original to a point. If we're original a little bit, what about Him? He's original also and so it's an unpredictable relationship. "The wind bloweth where it listeth; you cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit"-not the Spirit but the person who is born of the Spirit; it is not the Spirit. The Spirit in us is like that. We who are born of the Spirit are unpredictable. Certainly the W.E.C.-ers aren't predictable-that's my headache all the time. I don't know about the T.E.A.M.-ites and the others, I don't know what they are like. Praise the Lord we want unpredictability; we want that because that's the Holy Spirit.

So we enter into a blessedly simple and living relationship; not a thing called Holiness, not a thing called Sanctification, not a thing called perfect love, or anything else, but just a Lover within us and we loving by His love within us and so on. Just that.

Karuizawa Japan Conference of 1954
Topic: "Temptation"