The popular notion of “personhood” is based on the idea of individuality and of the possibility of conscious tow-way communication with another embodied person. One does not relate to the Spirit in quite the same way as one does to a human, but the Spirit is a person, nonetheless. The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to engage the Devil in spiritual conflict (Luke 4:1-13). It is the Holy Spirit who effects new birth (John 3:1-16). In John 14:16 Jesus told His disciples that He was going to send them “another Counselor,” referring to the Spirit. There are two Greek words for “another,” one meaning another of the same kind (allos) and the other
meaning another of a different kind (heteros). Here He uses allos, meaning that the Spirit would be a Counselor like Jesus, who was a person. When Jesus refers to the Spirit, He does so by use of the masculine personal pronoun, “He” (John 15:26; 16:8,13,14), in spite of the fact that the Hebrew Ruach (which can be translated as “wind,” “air,” or “spirit”) is a feminine gender noun, and the Greek pneuma (which can also be translated in the same ways as Ruach) is a gender neutral.
In most of the world’s languages, nouns are gender-specific; but that gender does not mean that the object is itself male, female, or neuter; the distinction is a matter of what is known as “grammatical gender.” The biblical writers do not refer to the Spirit as an “it.” The Spirit also teaches believers and brings to their remembrance what Jesus taught (John 14:26). He “bears witness” about Jesus (John 15:26 ESV) and glorifies Him (John 16:14). Jesus also said that the Spirit would guide the believers (specifically, the disciples) into all truth (John 16:13). These are function of a person.
The Apostle Paul refers often to the Holy Spirit, ascribing to Him the attributes of personality. The Holy Spirit testifies to our human spirits that we are the children of God (Rom 8:15-16). The Spirit knows the thoughts of God the Father and communicates those to believers (1 Cor 2:10-14). It is possible for Christians to grieve the Spirit by their sin (Eph 4:30). One can only grieve something that has personhood; neither a stone nor a force can grieve.
The notion of the personhood of the Spirit, as we have seen, is borne out in the concept of the Spirit as a “He,” and not as an “it.” But this has more to it than any concept of gender identity. James Leo Garrett Jr. writes, “Rather, it is whether the qualities and functions of personal being are truthfully to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit.” They are, and that means that believers relate to the Spirit as a personal being with whom they can engage in prayer and personal spiritual communion, as with the Father and the Son.