God & Jesus
The Holy Spirit: Gabriel or the third person?
Christians believe the Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Trinity. The Qur’an speaks of the holy Spirit as the angel Gabriel, who brings revelation. This topic compares the two readings, from the annunciation to Mary to the creeds of the church.
1The question
Who is the Holy Spirit: a divine person, God’s power, or God’s messenger Gabriel?
2What Christians believe
Christians believe the Holy Spirit is fully God, equal with the Father and the Son, and named alongside them in baptism (Matthew 28:19). He gives life, spoke through the prophets and lives in believers. The Council of Constantinople in 381 set this out in the creed.
Christians see the Spirit as personal: he teaches, speaks and can be grieved, and lying to him is called lying to God (Acts 5:3–4).
3What the texts say
Gabriel and the Spirit at the annunciation
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
The verse Christians cite for the Trinity
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Baptism in the name of Jesus
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
The spirit of the LORD as power
And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.
Lying to the Holy Ghost
But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
4What scholars say
Gordon D. Fee (God’s Empowering Presence, 1994) argues that Paul already thinks of the Spirit as personal. Historians agree that the full doctrine of the Spirit as a third divine person was settled only in 381, after debates with Christians who saw the Spirit as created.
Thomas O’Shaughnessy (The Development of the Meaning of Spirit in the Koran, 1953) traced how the Qur’an uses “spirit”. Classical Muslim commentators, such as al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir, identify the Qur’an’s Ruh al-Qudus, the holy Spirit, with Gabriel.
5The Islamic perspective
The Qur’an names Gabriel as the one who brought revelation to the Prophet’s heart, and calls the bringer of revelation the holy Spirit. In the story of Mary, God sends his Spirit in the form of a man, who says he is a messenger:
Say (O Muhammad, to mankind): Who is an enemy to Gabriel! For he it is who hath revealed (this Scripture) to thy heart by Allah's leave, confirming that which was (revealed) before it, and a guidance and glad tidings to believers;
Say: The holy Spirit hath delivered it from thy Lord with truth, that it may confirm (the faith of) those who believe, and as guidance and good tidings for those who have surrendered (to Allah).
And had chosen seclusion from them. Then We sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man.
He said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son.
Muslims read the Bible’s language of the spirit of the LORD coming upon people, as with Samson (Judges 14:6), as God’s power, and its language of the Spirit speaking as God’s messenger speaking. Both serve God; neither is a second God beside him.
The Comforter Jesus promised in John 14–16 has its own topic: “Who is the Comforter in John 14–16?”
6Objections and responses
“In Acts 5:3–4, lying to the Holy Ghost is called lying to God, so the Spirit is God.”
Response: Muslims answer that lying to God’s messenger is lying to God himself, just as Jesus says that whoever rejects him rejects the one who sent him (Luke 10:16). The verse shows that the Spirit acts for God, not that the Spirit is a second divine person.
“Matthew 28:19 names the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost together.”
Response: Outside this verse, the apostles in Acts baptise in the name of Jesus alone (Acts 2:38; 8:16). Naming three together in one command does not by itself make them one God, and the full doctrine of the Spirit as a divine person was not settled until 381.
7Conclusion
Both sides agree that God’s Spirit is at work throughout the Bible, from the creation to the annunciation and Pentecost. Christians see the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. Muslims see God’s power at work and his messenger Gabriel, both acting by his command.
Read Luke 1:26–38 with Qur’an 19:16–21, then Acts 2:1–21.
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Sources
- Bible, King James Version:Luke 1:26Luke 1:35Matthew 28:19Acts 2:38Judges 14:6Acts 5:3Acts 5:4
- Qur’an, translated by M. Pickthall:Qur’an 2:97Qur’an 16:102Qur’an 19:17Qur’an 19:19
- Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (1994)
- Thomas O’Shaughnessy, The Development of the Meaning of Spirit in the Koran (1953)