The Holy Spirit is God’s power. We see that it was set apart to do the things which are special to God, including the creation of life. Psalm 104:30 is a powerful picture of this.
The Holy Spirit was also used to develop God’s purpose with humans. In the Bible’s account, we see how it allowed miracles, prophecies and teaching. See Acts 10:37-38.
To allow these tasks, the Holy Spirit was given to a number of people to use, not just Jesus. Only apostles could pass on this gift. Acts 8:14-17 gives us information about this.
Today, the Spirit is shown in God’s message, but the powers given to the apostles ended. You can read this in 1 Corinthians 13:8.
Through the words of 1 John, we can see that we have to test the claims of those who say they have the powers of the Holy Spirit in our era. The sole authority of the full Bible message means this can’t be justified.
“…test the spirits to see whether they are from God…”
– from 1 John 4:1 (NIV).