24.1 Defining Holy Spirit
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The Bible gives us a relatively clear picture of what is the Father and what is Christ Jesus, thus we can speak of Them with some understanding. The Spirit of God, however, is much harder to conceptualize, although we can look at every verse in the New Testament containing the word Pneuma – air, breath, spirit. Because we know that it is the Holy Spirit by Whom all things God speaks are accomplished in our lives, we very much want to know, however, what is a life-giving Spirit.
The purpose of this lesson, then, is to place before ourselves, in a broad array, what God does speak concerning His Spirit. But we must begin by eliminating Augustine’s “Trinity.”
Differing Entities?
And we eliminate Augustine so that we might hear what God actually says.
God has many metaphors referring to Jesus, Lamb, Word, Seed, and so on, but each of those metaphors is just another way to describe a single Person, whom we know, the Lord Jesus, who walked this earth entirely as a Man, just like us. The many references to Spirit, however, are not the same; rather, they lead us to consider that we are speaking, possibly, of different entities inside of whom God moves. The greatest of these questions is John’s reference in Revelation 5 to “the seven Spirits of God” in conjunction with Zechariah’s vision of seven “eyes” sent forth across the earth.
The Spirit of Christ
There are many references to “the Holy Spirit,” except that the translators decided to capitalize “holy” turning it from an adjective describing Spirit into the name of an individual Person. I have no problem with that designation, but then we have “the Spirit of Christ.”
Jesus is a Man; humans have two bodies, a physical body for the earth and a spiritual body for the heavens. Jesus, the Man, walking this earth, was fully Human, and thus possessed a spirit body by which He lived in heaven as we do. That spirit belonging to Jesus would not have been, then, the same as the Holy Spirit descending upon Him as a dove.
No Need to Define
Yet – he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (2 Corinthians 6).
Here is what I am driving at. When we break from our minds Augustine’s cold and rigid definition, we have NO need to replace it with another rigid definition. What we are now free to do is simply to allow what God says regarding Spirit to be what God says in that verse. We are never compelled to turn what God says into something else.
Augustine nailed down the Holy Spirit – Spirit of Christ, Spirit of God, seven “Spirits” of God – into one rigid box. Never, never do we do something so contrary to God.
The Spirit Defines Us
Wow, I cannot tell you how wonderful that conclusion is; it has laid to rest any need for us to define “the Holy Spirit.” In complete contrast, it is the Holy Spirit who defines us.
Now, when I laid out the first four books in this series on Symmorphy, the complete outline for each laid itself out fairly easily in my mind. But I was not satisfied with four, and knew that I wanted to write Symmorphy V: Life as well – except there was no simple outline available in my heart. But there was a Word – The Spirit and the Bride say come. That pairing of Spirit and Bride weighed deeply in my spirit.
Spirit and Bride
Thus I did a quick perusal of the New Testament to discover if this paring of Spirit and Bride – Spirit and Body was to be found elsewhere.
Now, when I say that Word and Spirit are always together, that you cannot separate between Jesus and the Spirit of God, for they are a pair that always exist utterly together, I can present verses to support that claim. But the substantial verses that place Spirit and Body, Spirit and Bride, always and utterly together are far more specific. I found at least eighteen such matched pairs, each of them speaking something specifically different; those many pairs form the outline of Symmorphy V: Life.
What God Means
What I am saying is that, while seeking a specific definition of the Spirit from the New Testament leads only to ambiguity, the definitions of Spirit and Body, Spirit and Bride together are substantial and specific through many key passages.
Now, I do not want to begin thinking about Symmorphy V: Life until the first four volumes are finished. Yet this course, as an inquiry into the substance of all things, is part of the foundation for LIFE, that is, Father revealed through family. Thus, let us leave off any need to define “the Holy Spirit,” and look, rather, at some key verses, NOT in any order, that reveal to us what God means His Spirit to be towards us.
Life-Giving
1. A life-giving Spirit.
It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing (John 6:63). This is the same as Zechariah 4:6. Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.
A great illustration of the nature of a life-giving Spirit is Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. The Hare wants to make things happen fast; the Tortoise moves SLOWLY but certainly. The Hare gets distracted; the Tortoise never turns aside. When we rest utterly in the Spirit, we ARE accomplishing purpose, but when we anxiously want God to “DO,” we just lose our way.
Power
2. A Spirit of Power
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). – You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me (Acts 1:8).
When most think of power, they think of miracles of healing; but that is simply a gift of outward ministry, not a quality of substance. But here we see that the purpose of power is not to “make things happen,” but rather to bring forth the life of Christ and to be what we are, the second witness of Christ.
Helping
3. A helping or enabling Spirit.
When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me (John 15:26).
The word, “Helper,” is paraclete, which means to come alongside, that is to give assistance. We see that further in – the Spirit helps us to pray and the Spirit gives us the words to speak. We do not think of “alongside” as the form of the Spirit, for we are utterly IN the Spirit, but rather as the quality of a gift-giver. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
Truth
4. A Spirit of truth.
When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth (John 16:13). – But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things (1 John 2:20).
Because I fill my self-story with what God speaks concerning Christ my only life, that is, with Word attended by Spirit, I know that I speak the truth. That knowing is a simple certainty. You see, miracles are not the proof of God, faith is. We know – and we know only by the Spirit.
Confirming
5. A confirming Spirit.
It is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth (1 John 5:6). – I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:3-5).
It is the Holy Spirit, moving in hearts filled with Christ, causing each one to know and to see the glory of Jesus filling them full now, that is the confirmation that the Words spoken are from God. It is the faith, then, in the heart of each one, that releases whatever gifts the Spirit has appointed to each.
In-Filling
6. An in-filling Spirit.
Be filled with the Spirit, speaking (Christ) to one another… (Ephesians 5:18b-19a).
We are, of course, filled with the Spirit by faith and not by works. We do not “get filled” by crying, or fasting, or praying long hours, as if God likes to play cynical games. We are filled with the Spirit because we 1. ask, and 2. believe that we have received. We know we are filled, then, because we speak Christ to one another. I am filled with the Spirit of Christ without measure – you are filled with the Spirit of Christ without measure.
Guarantee
8. A Spirit of guarantee.
In whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession (Ephesians 1:13b-14a).
The Holy Spirit is the “down-payment” that is not just the “promise” of our full resurrection into immortality and incorruptibility, but much more, the very working of God by which we are now in possession of all things. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:11).
Holy
9. A Holy Spirit. Finally, the Spirit is a Holy Spirit. Holy means devoted, that what is devoted is for one purpose only - that to which it is devoted. And thus to use that devoted One, the Holy Spirit, for any other purpose is to pollute.
Jesus is a warrior; the Holy Spirit is not - in fact the Holy Spirit contains the feminine aspects of God, private and personal. Jesus will always defend the Holy Spirit against abusers.
Yet for us, this same Holy Spirit, filling our bodies as His temple, one spirit with us, is our full devotion to God. The Spirit makes us holy.
By My Spirit
We are placing before our eyes particular qualities of the Spirit, that God might teach us.
The most significant idea is that we do not define the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit defines us. We know ourselves, Christ as us, out from the definitions by which we exist of the Holy Spirit.
Then, we see that the Holy Spirit is the doing of God. Any time we see the effect of God upon any part of His creation, including anything through Jesus, we see that it is the Spirit that is accomplishing that work.
Not by inward ability, nor by outward devices, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.