Role of the Holy Ghost in LDS Doctrine: Guide and Comforter

LDS Perspective

In the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead, a "personage of Spirit" (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22) who does not possess a body of flesh and bones as do the Father and the Son. His primary mission is to bear witness of the Father and the Son and of all truth. As revealed in scripture, "By the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things" (Moroni 10:5). The Holy Ghost also sanctifies and purifies the hearts of the faithful, preparing them to dwell in the presence of God. President Joseph Fielding Smith taught that impressions from the Holy Ghost "sink deeper into the soul and are more difficult to erase" than even the visitation of an angel (*Answers to Gospel Questions*, 2:151). A crucial distinction

Historical Perspective

In Latter-day Saint theology, the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit) is understood as a distinct personage of spirit, unlike God the Father and Jesus Christ who possess glorified physical bodies of flesh and bone. According to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism cited by the Institute for Religious Research, LDS doctrine teaches that "the Holy Ghost is a spirit man, a spirit son of God the Father," though church leadership has neither officially endorsed nor denied the view that the Holy Ghost is one of God's spirit children who somehow advanced to status within the Godhead. Joseph Smith's 1843 statement, as recorded by Willard Richards, described the Holy Ghost as "a personage and a person cannot have the personage of the H[oly] G[host] in his heart," a declaration later modified in the History of the