Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor. 3:16)
From Robert Turner, Plain Talk, June 1970
When one begins to discuss the nature of Deity—its plurality of functions, each of which is given personality—man's limitations become immediately apparent. But our understanding of God will not be bettered by ignoring what God has said about Himself. Nor can we know Him by pitting one facet of deity against another.
The Holy Spirit is deity, and we must consider this in our studies of Holy Spirit operations. GOD (deity) is ONE (Deut. 6:4; Mk. 12: 29-32; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:13-16) yet both Son (Jn. 1:1,14) and Spirit were present in creation (Gen. 1:2, 26). We accept the plural nature of the ONE God, not because we fathom it, but because God's Word declares it.
The Holy Spirit has the characteristics of deity: being Eternal (Heb. 9:14), Omniscient (1 Cor. 2: 10-11), Omnipresent (Ps. 139:7), etc. When Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit he lied to God (Acts 5: 3-4). The Spirit knows (1 Cor. 2:9f), wills (1 Cor. 12:11), speaks (Acts 8:29), grieves (Eph. 4:30), and strives (Gen. 6:3) — is thus given personality in the same way as is the Father and Son. We can not accurately think of the operation of the Spirit in such a way as to ignore this.
God being ONE, there is perfect consistency in all of His operations. His truth is ONE, and His Spirit does not deliver one thing to one, and a contradicting thing to another (See 1 Cor. 14: 37). God is no respecter of persons (Rom. 2:11). Even those specially endowed messengers, through whom His truth was delivered to the world (Lk. 24: 48-49), were subject to that message just as the rest of us (Gal. 2:11-14). God revealed Himself to man in an ever-increasing clearness, as He prepared man for the ultimate revelation in His Son ( Heb 1:1-f) and confirmed the message of His Son to man by His Holy Spirit (Heb. 2:4). The inspired message is now presented to man for his acceptance or rejection.
One can not accept God's Word, and reject God's Spirit (Acts 7:51, 52). We cannot accept the Son, and reject His words (Jn. 12:47ff). To reject the Son is to reject the Father (Jn. 8:42). What we are really saying is that God is ONE—and an acceptable relationship with one facet of deity is such with all. No one has the Spirit or is moved by the Spirit to do or say anything contrary to the will and way of the whole of deity. We are baptized into the realm of the whole of deity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Spirit dwells in the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16). (Note, we are God's house, a habitation of God through the Spirit, Eph. 2:22) Jesus said, "If a man loves Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and WE (emph. mine) will come unto him, and make OUR abode with him (Jn. 14:23). But a Christian is not God incarnate. God, the very essence of deity, does not dwell in material temples—neither flesh nor stone (1 Kng. 8:27- 30; Acts 7:48). Paul says that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:16-19) and couples this with God's Spirit in the inner man, and our being filled with...God.
Spirit-indwelling concepts which divide deity cannot be true.