Evidence · Case 12 · Jehovah’s Witnesses
The Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 30
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Paul writes, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” Grief is an emotional response of a person.
Sources
Objections & responses
- “Grieve the Spirit” is Isaiah 63:10 language, where the Spirit is God’s own spirit. Isn’t Paul just using inherited Old Testament phrasing?
The Isaiah background is real, and it gives the Spirit’s identification with God. Ephesians 4:4 to 6, a few verses earlier, supplies the triadic distinction: one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father. The Witnesses’ reading has to make grief figurative for a force, while the Trinitarian reading takes it literally for a person. The Old Testament gives the deity and the New Testament’s patterning gives the distinction, and the argument is the combination.