1-4 God’s Spirit
As God is a real, personal being
with feelings and emotions, it is to be expected that He will have some
way of sharing His desires and feelings with us, His children, and of
acting in our lives in a way that will be consistent with His
character. God does all of these things by His “spirit”. If we wish to
know God and have an active relationship with Him, we need to know what
this “spirit of God” is, and how it operates.
It
isn’t easy to define exactly what the word “spirit” means. If you went
to a wedding, for example, you might comment, “There was a really good
spirit there!” By this you mean that the atmosphere was good, somehow
everything about the wedding was good; everyone was smartly dressed,
the food was nice, people spoke kindly to each other, the bride looked
beautiful, etc. All those various things made up the “spirit” of the
wedding. Likewise the spirit of God somehow summarises everything about
Him. The Hebrew word translated “spirit” in the Old Testament strictly
means “breath” or “power”; thus God’s spirit is His “breathing”, the
very essence of God, reflecting His mind. We will give examples of how
the word “spirit” is used about someone’s mind or disposition in Study
4.3. That the spirit does not just refer to the naked power of God is
evident from Rom. 15:19: “the power of the spirit of God”.
It
is a common Bible teaching that how a man thinks is expressed in his
actions (Prov. 23:7; Mt. 12:34); a little reflection upon our own
actions will confirm this. We think of something and then we do it. Our
‘spirit’ or mind may reflect upon the fact that we are hungry and
desire food. We see a banana going spare in the kitchen; that desire of
the ‘spirit’ is then translated into action - we reach out for the
banana, peel it and eat. This simple example shows why the Hebrew word
for ‘spirit’ means both the breath or mind, and also power. Our spirit,
the essential us, refers to our thoughts and therefore also to the
actions which we take to express those thoughts or disposition within
us. On a far more glorious scale, God’s spirit is the same; it is the
power by which He displays His essential being, His disposition and
purpose. God thinks and therefore does things. “As I have thought, so
shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” (Is.
14:24).
THE POWER OF GOD
Many
passages clearly identify God’s spirit with His power. In order to
create the earth, “the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen. 1:2,3).
God’s
spirit was the power by which all things, e.g. light, were made. “By
His spirit He has created the heavens; His hand has formed the crooked
serpent” (Job 26:13). A comparison of Mt. 12:28 and Lk. 11:20 shows
that “the finger of God” and “the spirit of God” are parallel - God in
action is His spirit. “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made;
and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Ps. 33:6). God’s
spirit is therefore described as follows.
- His breath
- His word
- His finger
- His hand
It
is therefore His power by which He achieves all things. For example,
believers are born again by God’s will (Jn. 1:13), which is by His
spirit (Jn. 3:3-5). His will is put into operation by the spirit.
Speaking of the entire natural creation, we read: “You send forth your
spirit, they are created: and (thereby) you renew the face of the
earth” (Ps. 104:30). This spirit/power is also the sustainer of all
things, as well as the means of their creation. It is easy to think
that this tragic life stumbles on without this active input of God’s
spirit. Job, a man who became weary of this life, was reminded of this
by another prophet: “If he (God) gather unto himself his spirit and his
breath; all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto
dust” (Job 34:14,15). When pulling out of a similar trough of
depression, David asked God to continue to uphold him with this spirit,
i.e. to preserve his life (Ps. 51:12).
We
shall see in Study 4.3 that the spirit given to us and all creation is
what sustains our life. We have “the breath of the spirit of life”
within us (Gen. 7:22 A.V. mg.) given to us by God at birth (Ps. 104:30;
Gen. 2:7). This makes Him “the God of the spirits of all flesh” (Num.
27:16 cf. Heb. 12:9). Because God is the life force which sustains all
creation, His spirit is present everywhere. David recognised that
through His spirit God was constantly present with him wherever he
went, and through that spirit/power He was able to know every corner of
David’s mind and thinking. Thus God’s spirit is the means by which He
is present everywhere, although He personally is located in heaven.
“You
know my sitting down and standing up, you understand my thought far
off... Where shall I go from your spirit? or where shall I flee from
your presence? If I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even
there... your right hand (i.e. through the spirit) shall hold me” (Ps.
139:2,7,9,10).
A
proper understanding of this subject reveals God to us as a powerful,
active being. Many people have grown up with a vague ‘belief’ in God,
but in reality ‘God’ is just a concept in their minds, a black box in
part of the brain. An understanding of the true God and His very real
presence all around us by His spirit can totally change our concept of
life. We are surrounded by the spirit, constantly witnessing its
actions, which reveal God to us. David found the encouragement of all
this absolutely mind-blowing: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high, I cannot attain unto it” (Ps. 139:6). Yet responsibilities
come with such knowledge; we have to accept that our thinking and
actions are totally open to God’s view. As we examine our position
before Him, especially when thinking about baptism, we need to bear
this in mind. God’s majestic words to Jeremiah apply to us, too: “Can
any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? says the
Lord. Do not I fill (by the spirit) heaven and earth?” (Jer. 23:24).
The Holy Spirit
We
have seen that God’s spirit is a vast concept to grasp; it is His mind
and disposition, and also the power by which He puts His thoughts into
operation. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7); and
so God is His thoughts, in that sense He is His spirit (Jn. 4:24),
although this does not mean that God is not personal (see Digression
1). To help us grapple with this vastness of God’s spirit, we sometimes
read of His “Holy Spirit”.
The
phrase “Holy Spirit” is to be found almost exclusively in the New
Testament. In the A.V. the name “Holy Ghost” is often used, but it
should always be translated as “Holy Spirit”, as modern versions make
clear. This is equivalent to the Old Testament phrases “the spirit of
God” or “the spirit of the Lord”. This is clear from passages such as
Acts 2, which records the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the
apostles on the day of Pentecost. Peter explained that this was a
fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel, in which it is described as the
pouring out of “my (God’s) spirit” (Acts 2:17). The main fulfilment of
this will be when Jesus returns (Is. 32:15,16). Again, Lk. 4:1 records
that Jesus “being full of the Holy Spirit” returned from Jordan; later
in the same chapter Jesus links this with Is. 61: “The spirit of the
Lord God is upon me”. In both cases (and in many others) the Holy
Spirit is equated with the Old Testament term “the spirit of God”.
Notice, too, how the Holy Spirit is paralleled with the power of God in the following passages.
- “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you (Mary), and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you” (Lk. 1:35)
- “The power of the Holy Spirit...mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God” (Rom. 15:13,19)
- “Our gospel (preaching) came...in power, and in the Holy Spirit” (1 Thes. 1:5).
- The
promise of the Holy Spirit to the disciples was spoken of as their
being “endued with power from on high” (Lk. 24:49).
- Jesus himself had been “anointed...with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38).
- The “promise of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5) is defined as “power from on high” in Lk. 24:49. Hence the disciples received power after the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:8).
- Paul
could back up his preaching with undeniable displays of God’s power:
“My speech and my preaching was...in demonstration of the spirit and of
power” (1 Cor. 2:4).
