“What is the difference between testing the Holy Spirit and testing or questioning God?”

June 2016 – Grace & Truth Magazine

QUESTION: What is the difference between testing the Holy Spirit and testing or questioning God? There are many accounts throughout Scripture where men of faith ask for signs from God (which I would take as a form of testing) and question His purpose.

ANSWER: The Holy Spirit is God, coequal in every way with God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God the Son. In the account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, we see this couple falling individually under the judgment of immediate death for lying to the Holy Spirit. What this couple did, they had planned to do. Probably neither realized the seriousness of what they had agreed together to do: to lay only part of what they had received for the sale of their possession at the apostles’ feet while claiming they were giving the entire proceeds. In all likelihood they did not realize the solemn consequence of thus testing the Holy Spirit who indwells the Church as a whole as well as indwelling each individual believer.

God’s Word also tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit nor to quench this Divine Person (Eph. 4:30; 1 Th. 5:19). We must not dare to forget that the Holy Spirit is one of the persons of the Godhead. In testing Him we test God.

If the Holy Spirit would execute such swift, severe judgment on every instance of lying or hypocrisy among God’s people today, how many of us do you suppose would still be alive?

Our attitude in questioning or testing God is all-important. This couple intended to deceive. God differentiates between such wickedness and the weakness of faith that many godly individuals in the Bible demonstrated. God is longsuffering. He is slow to exercise judgment, His strange work, even where His people sin (Isa. 28:21). On the other hand, He is very patient in encouraging even weak faith on the part of His own. We see this again and again as we go through Scripture. We tend, as we see the questioner doing, to look at the outward appearance of things and form our conclusions from our reasoning. However, God looks into the heart and discerns attitudes and motivations. He is not accountable to us in any way, but He often declares not only what He is doing or is about to do, but also why. Let’s remember that He is all-wise, all-knowing and absolutely just.

Answered by Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.