Part III: What is a Spirited life, and why do we have the Spirit?

(After long delay, I am returning to this series on the Holy Spirit. I had hoped to post about two a week for about a month. Instead, I haven't published one in over a month. Oops.)

How has the Spirit moved in your life? I'm not asking for generalities, but can you name specifics of when the Spirit has lead you to (or away from) an action, or given you specific insights, or comfort. Where have you actively considered the action of God's Spirit in your life?

I know there have been very tangible times when I have known the Spirit to be with me, guiding me. We know and are assured that God has freely given us His Spirit, a promise extending back to before Christ spoke of this gift.

I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication

Zechariah 12:10 (NASB)

I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it

Ezekiel 37:14 (NASB)

It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions

Joel 2:28 (NASB)

The problem with recognizing the touch of the Holy Spirit arises in that we live in a post-modern, post-Christian, post-(pick your own filler) society. Our views as Christians have been influenced by the world: Darwinian thinking, Freud, world religions, societal goals (money, fame, ease), etc. have all been stamped on our views of living a Christian life. These, at times, lead us to seek answers and explanations which are self-reliant, naturalistic, and jaded when the truth is we have experienced Jehovah moving His Spirit to change our lives. Am I wrong on this? Honestly, have we not all found ways to explain away the action of the supernatural with the machinations of the natural?

So, what does a Spirited life look like? An easy example is to look at Stephen in Acts 6-7. Read these two chapters, and see a man who was characterized by the Spirit of God: full of the Spirit (6:3, 5), full of grace, power, and signs (6:8), wisdom (6:10), face like an angel (6:15), boldness (7:51-53), seeing God (7:55), and loving of others who hated him (7:60). I am convinced that much of what Paul taught on the Spirit he learned from watching Stephen on this day, though the lesson took some time to sink in. Read 2 Corinthians 3:18 and 2 Timothy 1:7, among others, and see just how much Paul wrote about was exemplified by Stephen.

Beyond the biblical example, I also like to look at the Quakers for one example of Spirited life. Their belief in being lead by the Spirit is so deep that they do not have prepared lessons in their times of worship; instead, characterized by prolonged silences, they wait until someone is moved by the Spirit to speak. Bizarre? Maybe a bit, but I love their dedication to not speak and lead from their own personal desires and the reliance on and intimacy with the Holy Spirit it shows.

Another view of the the Spirited life can be characterized by the difference of how the Spirit works in a life. I think of this as having been touched by the Spirit verses having the Spirit abide within you. Consider the differences between King Saul and King David, in 1 Samuel. We are told several times that the Spirit of God came upon Saul (1 Samuel 10:10 and 11:6). But we are then told how the Spirit departed from him (16:14). In contrast, we see David in his anointing as king, with the Spirit coming on him "from that day forward" (1 Samuel 16:13). We see that the Spirit touches lives, even those not wholly dedicated to Jehovah - and therein lies a purpose. Go back to the above mentioned Zechariah 12:10 and see that the Spirit is pored out to touch the hearts of a people dead to God, convicting them of sin and bringing them to repentance. This we see fulfilled in Acts 2:37. It is the difference of God sending His Spirit to touch mankind, moving them to repentance, and the indwelling of the Spirit we receive in putting on Christ as our lord and savior; but both are pictures of life with the Spirit.

So then, why have we been given the Spirit? Why, also, is life in the Spirit important? I take the parable of Matthew 12:43-45 to heart: we are slaves to someone. If we choose not to be filled with Jehovah's Spirit, we will be overridden by the evil spirits of this world. We can either choose to be a slave to Christ, in His Spirit, or a slave to sin and death.

But then, look at the Gospel of Mark. Writing primarily to the Greeks, Mark spends a good deal of the opening of his gospel acquainting them (and us) with the Living Spirit. In Mark 1:8 we are introduced to baptism of the Spirit and then, in verse 10, see it exemplified in Jesus own baptism. We watch as the Spirit compels Jesus to enter the wilderness and a time of fasting and temptation (also verse 10). We then see Jesus casting out an unclean spirit (vs. 23-27) and, when word of this got out, demon-possessed people are brought before Him, and the demons cast out (vs. 32-34). What can we conclude from Mark's introduction to the Spirited life? We have been given the Spirit to live a life of danger. The Spirit did not lead Jesus into the desert for a picnic; more like to pick a fight. When we seek to do God’s will, we will be assailed, but in His Spirit we are hedged in and shielded. We are not removed from the battle; rather we are carried through it. As Jesus was, we are baptized with a Spirit of power. This Holy Spirit within us has authority and dominion over unclean spirits of this earth. We do not have to fear possession by one of these demons when we have first become the possession of Jehovah and His Spirit.

To be sure, this is not the only reason for the gift of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also our comforter and speaks for us when we cannot. Jehovah's Spirit is our teacher; in His Spirit, we have the mind of Christ. But, in all honesty, we are in a fight for our lives - our eternal lives - and we are not up to the challenge alone. God is with us, having given us His Spirit, so that we may be able to endure this boxing match without being knocked out.

Have you experienced the work of the Spirit in your life? Have you seen first hand what a Spirit-filled life looks like? How so? Recognizing the Spirit's actions is easier when we share how our own lives have been touched - the big and the small.

Tags: Quakers, David, Saul, Life in the Spirit

Knowing the Holy Spirit, Part II: What does the Spirit do?

In Part I, we talked a bit about who and what the Holy Spirit is - a taxonomy of the Spirit to help us understand who it is we speak of a little better. Now we are going to look a little bit at what the Spirit does. Since everything we read about the Holy Spirit is a couple of thousand years old, I think it important to go back and look at what would be expected of the Spirit's actions in a person's life to a first century denizen.

Most of what we know of the Spirit's actions in our lives in found in the New Testament, which was written to a society that was either Hellenistic or heavily influenced by Hellenistic thoughts. (Indeed, our own society, today, is still heavily influenced by and permeated with the ideas and beliefs of the ancient Greeks.) And the Greeks had some definite ideas about spirit, divided into two basic groups. The Socratic and Platonic camps generally held to the ideas that Socrates and Plato espoused on spirit. In their minds they saw the spirit as that part of us which comprised our emotional motivation for actions. The spirited person would be driven to great acts of bravery and glory. However, these great actions were counterbalanced by hubris; inevitably, those who had great spirit and did great things were destined to fall victim to their own pride. Consider what you know of Greek drama - they loved a good story where the hero came out ruined at the end because of hubris.

The second camp was centered on Aristotle, who saw the spirit not so much as a motivator as it was the simple essence of something. To Aristotelian thought, the spirit was the nature or utility of any object, animate or inanimate. The spirit or nature of an axe was to cut. The spirit of a pen to write. For a person, the spirit of that person would be the basic idea of who he was.

So, how do these ideas of Socratic and Aristotelian spirit jibe with what Jehovah taught of His Spirit through Jesus and the apostles? Well, it seems that the Hellenistic society was onto something, but still had much to learn. Take the Socratic belief: when Jesus preached of a life that must be immersed in Spirit and water (John 3) they would have likely taken this to mean that you would then be empowered to do great things, with a good chance of ending up in tragedy because of overconfidence and arrogance. But then, they could look at Jesus, whose immersion in Spirit was seen and recorded, and instead of hubris they would see humility. His death was not in pride but in sacrifice. Rather than a spirit which is of ourselves and which focuses on what can be done for ourselves, the Holy Spirit is of God and focuses us on what we can do for others.

To the Aristotelian, immersion in the Holy Spirit would be something very profound. To their thoughts, immersion in the Spirit would be no less than a total redefinition of one's life. You would no longer have the same purpose as before, but would be a new creature with a new mission.

Do these sound familiar (new life and power when filled with the Spirit of God)? They should. The Holy Spirit is that with which God changes our lives, taking us from base, unclean flesh to holiness and righteousness. The Greeks had a basic idea that was not far off the mark; but have we considered what role the Spirit has in molding and defining our lives today? We, too, must delve into the actions of the Spirit as we seek to know God.

But what does the Spirit do? How does being imbued with the Breath of Life change us? These are aspects of the Spirit which I will talk about in more detail later, but for now a brief discussion is important. One of the things which is most readily identified as an action of the Spirit are spiritual gifts, talked about in detail by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 and in other places. We know that the Spirit gives us these gifts to enable us to do that for which we were created. The Spirit is our promised helper, sent to be with us after Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension (John 15:26). Jesus tells us that the Spirit also works in us to convict us of sin (John 16:7-8), which echoes the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10. We also know the Spirit as Life Giver (2 Corinthians 3:6). Salvation comes to us through Christ's blood and the Spirit (Titus3:5-6) and sanctification is found in His Spirit and in faith (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

But these give only the briefest of glimpses at how the Spirit is acting in our lives. The recognition here is that when we enter into Christ and accept His Spirit, then we will be changed, and that the Spirit will always be there for us to guide, strengthen, and keep us close to the heart of Jehovah as we serve Him in life. Next, we will look at what a Spirit-filled life looks like and just why it is we have been given this gift from Jehovah.

Tags: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hubris, Humility

Knowing the Holy Spirit, Part I: Who is the Spirit?

Editor's note: A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to teach a class on Sunday's this May on the Holy Spirit. I want to share this with you, my blog readers. I hope you learn something, and maybe can teach me something as well (there are some very thoughtful people who visit here). This is Part I of a series, that I will try to update twice weekly over the next few weeks (I currently foresee six or seven installments).

What do you know about the Spirit? Honestly, what do you know? Many people, Christians included, know relatively little about the Spirit and how He acts in our lives. According to one study by George Barna, 68% of teens do not believe the Holy Spirit to be a real entity (Barna Research Group, "Third Millennium Teens", 1999, p. 51). I do not believe that adults vary greatly from this figure. When I posed this question to my Sunday morning class I got an honest answer from one man, describing the general knowledge most have of the Holy Spirit to be in terms of Star Wars and The Force. While Lucas most decidedly drew upon the Christian Spirit (among other ideas) for the force, this is not a good basis for Christians to understand what it is we have been given from God, of God.

Paul admonishes the Thessalonian church "Do not quench the Spirit." (1 Thessalonians 5:19). We must ask ourselves, though, how do we know if we are quenching the Spirit if we do not even really know the Spirit and how He works in our lives? Thus, this series seeks to open up this though process and begin to reveal some of how we are all touched by the Holy Spirit. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again" (Matthew 5:13, NASB). In the Greek, to "become tasteless" literally means to act foolishly. And what is more foolish than a so-called Christian without the Spirit of God filling their lives?

Consider a grumpy child: he may normally be a good kid, but at times he is grumpy and argumentative. You see the action, and that is easily explained, but the action is not the cause. If you were to step back and look at things, you would most likely recognize that the child is not getting enough sleep; a lack of sleep has lead to a grumpy, fussy child. For Christians, the lack of Spirit shows in the fruit of our lives. The fruit, both good and bad, is often explained away without acknowledging the source of the fruit. So I ask again, where is the Spirit in your life? The action of the Spirit, or the lack thereof, is shown in our lives; too often it is explained away in naturalistic terms, in ignorance of the supernatural action of out God.

So, just who and what is the Holy Spirit? This is not a question of what the Spirit does (we'll get to that later) but more one of taxonomy. We know that Jesus is the Son of God, and we see God the Father; but how does the Holy Spirit fit into this Trinity? Is the Spirit a ghost (as we all recite in King James English), akin to Casper's big, really powerful brother? I'm being a bit facetious, but this seems the best comparison the world - or most Christians, for that matter - can offer up. We have, I aver, come to misunderstand just who and what the Holy Spirit is. We liken the Spirit to the supernatural phenomena we pretend to understand better: ghosts. The King James use of this word is not in line with the modern connotation, due to lingual shift over the last four centuries (hey, it happens). What we think of as ghosts today is better described by the Greek word phantasma, which is what Matthew used when describing the apostles reaction to seeing Jesus walking on the water (Matthew 14:22).

But that still leaves the question of who is the Spirit of God? Most Christians today see the Holy Spirit as a portion of the Trinity, a concept not explicitly spelled out in scripture. The best direct references to the Spirit as co-equal with the Father are in Matthew 28:19 (the Great Commission) and in 2 Corinthians 13:14, where we find the Trinitarian formula of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit". But from the earliest times, we find that God was revealing Himself as more than meets the eye. In Deuteronomy 6:4 we find Jehovah proclaiming Himself, saying "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." (YLT) But the word "God" here is the Hebrew word elohim, a plural word. So, in one statement, we see Jehovah declaring Himself unified, but plural (i.e. one God, more than one face). In fact, as far as I can tell, every reference of a Jew in the Old Testament to Jehovah as "God" uses the plural elohim, while non-Jews use the singular 'elowahh to refer to Jehovah. I'm no scholar on ancient Hebrew, but that strikes me as significant.

Beyond this, we do find multiple instances where the Spirit is described as having divine qualities. In Psalms 104:27-30, we read of the Spirit being involved in creation, in life and death - very much actions that are in God's hands alone. In Psalm 139:7, we read of the omniscience and omnipresence of the Spirit, another characteristic of God alone. In Hebrews 9:14 we also see that the Spirit is eternal. A more explicit scriptural basis for the Trinity, and the Spirit's place therein, is not found. Addressing this, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus wrote in the 4^th century:

The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son, and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit himself dwells among us, and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of himself. For it was not safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received to burden us further.

I can offer no better reason than this. And I am compelled by all evidence to accept the deity of the Spirit of God.

So, maybe I've been able to answer the question here of just who the Spirit is, but the question of what remains. Remember that I mentioned above the King James' use of the word "ghost" being different from our modern definition? Well, the Bible uses two words in speaking of the Spirit: in Hebrew, ruach and in Greek, pneuma. The Latin word is spiritus, from where we derive our modern word "spirit" But all three of these - ruach, pneuma, and spiritus - mean the same exact thing: breath, air, or wind. So, to speak literally, the Spirit of God is the Breath of God. Read John 20:21-22

²¹So Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." ²²And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." (NASB)

Jesus bestows the Spirit upon His closest followers by breathing on them. How intimate and poignant this image of Jesus giving the promised gift of the Spirit of God by breathing on his disciples! Or, consider the vision in Ezekiel 37 of the valley of dry bones. Ezekiel is told that God will put His breath, His Spirit, in these dry bones of people and will give them life. Life, and demonstration of Jehovah's sovereignty and faithfulness.

Who is the Spirit? The Spirit is a part of God, is co-equal with God, is God. What is the Spirit? The Spirit is the Breath of Life which Jehovah places in each of us.

Next: Part II, What does the Spirit do?

Tags: Holy Spirit, Trinity, Saint Gregory, Breath of God, Breath of Life, Jehovah