Here are my notes and extended notes from Sunday's Bible School Session - feel free to comment and discuss:
The Spirit in the Old Testament
Section 1: Introducing the Holy Spirit
The Spirit’s Name:
The term Holy Spirit occurs only three times in the Old Testament (Psalm 51:11; Isaiah 63:10&11). More common is the phrase Spirit of the Lord. The Hebrew word for Spirit is RUACH which can mean breath, air, strength, wind, breeze or spirit. Apparently the word is applied to God 136 times.
Sometimes the Hebrew text uses this same word to mean different things within the same passage:
Q1: Look at the passage below. Most of the words have been translated from Hebrew into English for you except the word RUACH. Your challenge is to work out whether they should be translated as wind, breath or spirit (they’re not all the same).
Ezekiel 37:1-10
The hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the RUACH of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me to and fro among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones; I will make RUACH enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put RUACH in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord’”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no RUACH in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the RUACH; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four RUACHs, O RUACH, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me and RUACH entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.
In this passage it is at times difficult to distinguish between wind, breath and spirit. The Hebrew name for the Spirit is wind because like the wind we see the effects of the Spirit in action rather than a physical body. We don’t see the wind or our breath (unless it’s a cold day!) but we see what it does. It is the same with the Spirit of the Lord.
The Spirit’s Gender
It is conventional to refer to God in male terms and the New Testament refers to the Holy Spirit as a Him but actually the Hebrew word for Spirit is feminine. All Hebrew nouns have a gender – even inanimate objects.
Spirit or breath is a feminine word, so a literal translation of Job 33:4 reads: The Spirit of the Lord, she made me and the breath of the Almighty, she gives me life.
2 Chronicles 15:1 - The Spirit of God, she came upon Azariah son of Oded.
Judges 14:19 - Then she came upon him, the Spirit of the Lord and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down 30 men.
However in Isaiah 32:15 it says: until he is poured upon us, the Spirit from on high.
Now let’s be clear – the Spirit doesn’t have a gender because he/she doesn’t sexually reproduce. Perhaps in the Hebrew mindset ‘breath’ or ‘spirit’ reflects certain feminine qualities. The word RUACH when translated into Greek became PNEUMA which is a neuter word – it’s neither masculine nor feminine. In English we don’t have a genderless personal pronoun so we only have a choice of ‘he’ or ‘she.’ We usually use ‘he’ so as not to cause lots of confusion but we could just as easily say ‘she’ and be Biblically correct.
The Spirit’s Nature
Is the Spirit fully God or just his servant?
Psalm 139:7-10:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens you are there,
If I make my bed in the depths you are there,
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
If I settle on the far side of the sea,
Even there your hand will guide,
Your right hand will hold me fast.
Both the Lord (referred to as ‘you’ and ‘your presence’) and the Spirit, appear to be infinite or at least inescapable (a divine quality). This for me is evidence that the Bible sees the Spirit as being part of the Godhead because they share the same attributes (in this case omnipresence). The Spirit is fully God, not just his servant. But what do you think?
Section 2: The Functions of the Spirit
1. The Spirit as Creator
Genesis 1:2 - Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The Spirit/breath of God hovered over the waters for one moment, not in indecision but in anticipation and then God spoke. There is a seamless connection between God’s word and God’s breath/Spirit. If you look at John chapter one you also get the word (that is Jesus) involved in creation. Speech, breath and word are all intermingled – all three are involved. The Spirit hovers like a bird expectant, looking for signs of new growth. The Holy Spirit is constantly hovering over the chaotic parts of our life, expectantly looking and hoping for signs of re-growth or re-creation.
God the Father speaks and His breath goes out and accomplishes what was spoken. This is also expressed in Psalm 33:6 – By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
Genesis 2:7 says – the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
God breathed into man and he came alive. The word here is different to RUACH but the picture is still the same. The Spirit/breath of God is creative and life-giving when it comes into a person’s life. As we saw in Job 33:4 it says – The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. It is part of the Spirit’s job, indeed his nature, to breathe life into people and to create.
So when it says in Romans 8:11 – if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you – it is describing an activity that the Spirit has been doing since creation started – that of bringing and creating new life.
We have already seen another instance of this in Ezekiel 37. The Spirit creates, but he also re-creates. He takes dead things and brings them back to life. Healing takes place because the Spirit of creation enters the human body and re-creates it. In many of Jesus’ miracle stories, as happens here, he spoke and the Spirit created a miracle – a new eye, a working leg, new skin. Here, new flesh appeared and life was restarted. All of this is an echo of what happened at the first creation, when God spoke and things appeared. When God calls us to use the gift of healing we are doing what God did at creation. We speak his word and the Spirit creates life.
The concept of Revival comes back to this principle. When we pray for revival we are really praying for the Spirit of re-creation to start moving. To revive is to live again. Just like those bones that were dead came to life and just as Jesus was resurrected, the Spirit breathes life into our dead lives, circumstances, situations, spiritual disciplines, church services, witnessing, even into our society, and revives it. It is in the very nature of the Spirit to want to create and re-create. The Spirit desires to bring re-creation into our world but he is waiting for us to give him permission by speaking the Lord’s word of life into our situations.
2. The Spirit Inspires Creativity
Exodus 31:1-5
Q2: Discuss – Do you think the Spirit supernaturally gave Bezalel skills and knowledge in all kinds of crafts or did he give him the ability to use his natural skills supernaturally?
Q3: Do spiritual gifts need to be learned or developed in the same way that natural gifts do?
One thing we can conclude is that the Spirit is creative and he wants to inspire creativity in us. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit (the RUACH, the creative Spirit) he works alongside our natural gifts so that the edges between natural and spiritual get blurred. The Spirit inspired Bezalel, Oholiab and the other craftsmen to build the Tabernacle, which according to Hebrews 9 was a copy of something greater in Heaven. Jesus taught us to pray – Your Kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven and the Holy Spirit gives us the creative inspiration to work that out in practice.
Exodus 35:30-36:1 shows that the Spirit gave Bezalel not only the ability to create beautiful things, but also the ability to teach others how to do the same. Therefore we see that the Spirit inspires us individually but also for the help of others. The Spirit in the Old Testament does not often come just for the person themselves but to given them something to share with others. It is great to spend time in God’s presence and there is a time to seek God for ourselves but the primary function of being filled with the Spirit is to be used in service to God. Spiritual gifts are to help us reach out and help others.
3. The Spirit Empowers People
The Cycle of events in Judges went as follows – Israel Israel
Q4: Each group take one of the following passages and discuss: 1. What problems did Israel
Judges 3:10 Othniel; Judges 6:34 Gideon; Judges 11:29 Jephthah; Judges 13:25, 14:6&19, 15:14 Samson
The Spirit of the Lord came upon people in order to give them drive and zeal – the ability to fight and lead others to fight. The Spirit inspires us to be zealous for God and he also gives us the ability to pass that passion on. When you are around leaders who are full of the Spirit you will find yourself bravely doing things you had no intention of doing beforehand. That is the Spirit working through them, empowering them, but also allowing them to empower you.
The first stand Gideon made for the Lord he made in the dark of night. He obeyed the Lord but he was too scared to be recognized doing it. He was afraid of confrontation. In the silence of the night he crept in and took down Baal’s altar but as soon as the Spirit of the Lord came upon him he started blowing loudly on a trumpet and summoning Israel
The Spirit’s power did not erase Jephthah’s insecurities and sins. The Spirit coming on a person is not enough to redeem them, even though it empowers them. The Judges did amazing things in the Spirit but they also did terrible things and lived very immoral lives. The Holy Spirit by Himself was not enough to eternally save people or to give them a new nature. That was only possible through Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit gives us power but He cannot save us without Jesus. I used to wonder if the Spirit was able to perfect us then why didn’t He just fall on everyone and turn us into perfect people. Apparently, that didn’t happen with the Judges and therefore it can’t be enough for us. The Spirit has to work alongside what Jesus did for us, in order to improve our character.
Samson burned with anger when the Spirit came on him because of his own grievances (Saul did the same in 1 Samuel 11:6 but at the problems of others). The Spirit of the Lord stirs us up emotionally. We may feel compassion or righteous anger (as Jesus did) and this may lead us to action. The two things are interconnected. There is great passion but there is often immediate action that follows it. The Spirit is not given to us just for great worship times. Emotion was always closely followed by action in the book of Judges.
Jesus is our Spirit-filled Judge who came and delivered us. Unlike them, when he died he rose again, and later sent the Spirit to us, so that we could be empowered to share in the work of deliverance.
More studies to take away…
4. The Spirit identifies leaders
Numbers 27:18
So the Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit and lay your hands on him (and commission him).”
Only one quality was mentioned in reference to Joshua’s ability to lead – that the Spirit was on him. At a time when the Spirit only came upon a few people then whenever you saw that the Spirit was working through a person you knew they were being designated as a leader, or for some special task.
Today, if people are moving out in the gifts of the Spirit then we can identify them. For instance – those who prophesy might be called prophets, those who teach, teachers, those who are evangelising, evangelists. We recognize what the Spirit has already done – we give a name to it. Moses laid hands on Joshua in recognition that God had already chosen him and put his Spirit in him.
2 Kings 2:9 & 15
There was one question on everyone’s lips – who would take over the prophetic leadership from Elijah. Elisha performed the exact same miracle Elijah did and so the prophets who were watching were able to recognize the Spirit on Elisha. They bowed down to him in order to show that they saw him as their new leader. Once again the Spirit was moving in supernatural ways and this enabled other people to recognize who had been chosen to lead them.
Genesis 41: 38 (and Daniel 4:8 & 9)
It was Joseph’s spiritual abilities that set him apart, not because he was a good natural leader. Even Pharaoh and his court recognized the Spirit in Joseph, though it is a little ambiguous in the text if they understand that it was the Spirit of Yahweh rather than the ‘gods’ in general. The Holy Spirit inspires gifts in us that will make us leaders but those gifts are not just ‘beefed up’ natural qualities. In Joseph and Daniel’s case they enabled them to supernaturally interpret dreams – something not possible for your regular politician! The Holy Spirit inspires us to be leaders in the workplace not just in the church, but those gifts are still very definitely supernatural ones. It is not just a case of giving us favour or giving us the ability to do what everyone else is doing, only better. It is the ability to do things or know things that only someone filled with the Spirit could do or know. Our challenge is not to water down the spiritual gifts outside the church.
5. The Spirit Gives Supernatural Wisdom
Deuteronomy 34:9
Joshua was filled with the Spirit of wisdom which gave him the ability to lead.
Isaiah 11:2
The coming Messiah would have the Spirit of wisdom and understanding.
Nehemiah 9:20
The Spirit instructed Israel
Isaiah 63:14
The Spirit guided Moses and the people to a place of rest.
Psalm 143:10
The Spirit taught the Israelites in the desert. They learned to follow the law because the Spirit was revealing it to them (through Moses and the other Spirit filled leaders). Here David prays that God through his Spirit will lead him on level ground and teach him to do God’s will. The Spirit is a teacher himself. He teaches us the right way to go. When he fills us, he fills us with his own attributes. Teaching is a supernatural gift of the Spirit in the New Testament. He can give that gift because it is a part of his nature. Spiritual gifts are the Holy Spirit working his nature through us. We become able to do what he does.
Daniel 4:18, 5:11&14
Daniel had wisdom and intelligence that were beyond the natural realm. King Belshazzar recognized it as supernatural. The Holy Spirit is able to advance you in wisdom and knowledge beyond your schooling. He is not just enabling you to remember things you have memorised or even things you saw once, but forgot. He is enabling you to know things you have never known. Here Daniel gives an interpretation – often his knowledge is stuff that just comes direct to him from the Spirit. He doesn’t have to work it out or spend time weighing up the options. One minute he doesn’t know and the next the Spirit speaks and he does know. This is wisdom through revelation, not through learning or experience. Therefore it is open just as much to the young and illiterate as to the experienced or highly trained.
6. The Spirit Inspires People to Prophesy
Numbers 24:2
The Spirit came on Balaam and he spoke “an oracle” (a message of prophecy) about the future. The Spirit of God seems so strong on him that he keeps prophesying about other nations even when he’s finished his talk on Israel
1 Samuel 10:1-13, 19:18-24
What were they saying when they were prophesying? The NIV Study Bible suggests it was a kind of ecstatic praise and worship. Saul lay naked. He apparently had no control over his mouth or his actions. He ‘prophesied’ without wanting to. This is something that doesn’t seem to have parallels in the New Testament – people are not forced to prophesy. What it does teach us is that the Spirit is not a power we control like a magic wand. He may not usually control us or force us to prophesy but neither can we control him or force him to speak. He is more powerful than that and has a mind and independent will from us. We are his servants not the other way around. He is neither a tool nor a toy. He is not someone to be messed with!
Some of the messages the Spirit brought through prophecy:
- Success and a call to loyalty – 1 Chronicles 12:18
- The plans for building the
Temple - A call to reformation and purity – 2 Chronicles 15:1
- Success and the call to be courageous – 2 Chronicles 20:14
- Calling people to account for sin – 2 Chronicles 24:20
- It is the Spirit who enables us to be in a place to hear the word of God – Ezekiel 2:2
- The Spirit inspires prophetic actions (actions with a God-meaning) – Ezekiel 3:24
- The Spirit gives us revelation of what people are saying – Ezekiel 11:5 (We are not called to be mind readers. The prophetic word is not given to Ezekiel so he can look good or earn money. It is so that the people he is talking to realise that God is God and that he knows all things. Prophetic words may tell us what no-one else knows but that is never for our benefit or glory. It is only so we can point to the greatness of God.)
- The Spirit gives prophetic visions – Ezekiel 11:24 – not only can we ‘hear’ the word of the Lord, we can ‘see’ it too.
- The Spirit prophesies things in advance so that we can be ready.
7. The Spirit brings conviction and judgement
1 Samuel 16:14
The Spirit had left Saul. In the Old Testament the Spirit came upon people when they were chosen but he could also leave people when they disobeyed or turned from him. God was saying that his presence would not go with a person who did not wholeheartedly follow him. In the Old Testament the Spirit comes and goes as he chooses.
Psalm 51:11
David witnessed what had happened to Saul when God took his Spirit from him. Not only did he lose his position of leadership but also his mental health. David was desperate that his sin wouldn’t have the same result. He realised that the only option he had was to beg for forgiveness and restoration.
Nehemiah 9:30
To admonish = to reprimand firmly, to advise or urge earnestly, to warn of something to be avoided. The Spirit sends out a clear warning to people when they are disobedient. He warns them of judgement to come in the hope that they will change and avoid it. This is what he still does occasionally through prophetic words to Christians and more often through evangelism to unbelievers.
Isaiah 63:10
This passage is filled with God’s emotions. He has compassion (v7), he is distressed (v9), he loves (v9) and his Spirit is grieved at Israel
Micah 2:7
The people didn’t like Micah’s prophecy and so they questioned whether the Spirit really would get angry. Micah challenges us not to gloss over the emotional side of the Spirit. We need to take him seriously as a person and as someone who can get hurt.
8. The Spirit will identify the Messiah
Just as the Spirit showed people who God had chosen as their leader, so he promised to show them who their Messiah would be.
Isaiah 11:1-5
Isaiah was talking about the coming of another King David (Jesse was David’s father) – someone coming from the same blood line. Just like the Spirit came upon David, he would come upon this new king to enable him to rule. They were to expect a Messiah who was filled with the Spirit, who would be given wisdom by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit and know the Lord intimately through the Spirit. It was the Spirit working through him that would show them that he was the correct Messiah.
Isaiah 42:1
The ‘Servant’ became a Messianic title, so here again is a picture of what the Israelites were to expect in the Messiah: The Spirit would enable him to bring justice to the nations and to teach, especially the poor and broken-hearted.
Isaiah 61:1
The third name used for the Messiah in Isaiah is the ‘Anointed One’. Again David’s story is being referred to. David was anointed by Samuel and the Spirit came upon him. Here it says the Messiah would be anointed as the Spirit came upon him. They are to expect this Spirit-filled Messiah to preach to the poor, bind up the hurting, release captives etc. When they saw the Spirit doing these things they would know that the Messiah had come. The Spirit would identify the Messiah, empower him and enable him to lead.
9. The Spirit will be for all
Numbers 11:17-29
Moses spoke prophetically in his desire that everyone might be filled with the Spirit. It paves the way for the New Testament and the great outpouring at Pentecost. Everyone would have the ability to prophesy like Moses.
Isaiah 32:15
When the time came that the Spirit would be poured out, Israel Eden
Isaiah 44:3
Here we return to the creation motif again. The pouring out of the Spirit on Israel Israel Israel
Joel 2:28-29
What had previously only been for a few – the leaders or people with a very important task to do – would now be for all. In the time of abundance the Spirit would be poured out on everyone, young and old, male and female, slave and free. The privilege of hearing God’s word for oneself would be for everyone to share. Prophecy, dreams, visions are specifically highlighted. The Holy Spirit is now for all of us, for each of us – both the restoration/re-creation power and the revelation of God’s word. Don’t miss out! There is nothing to exclude you now! All those who are saved are called, anointed, empowered and inspired!!
