In this segment, I want to take a look at the nature and the character of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is more difficult for most of us to understand than the Father and the Son, for sure. I want to start off. I'm not going to be talking about a lot of Greek terms in this class, but the one term that's used here spirits. This is the Greek word used in the New Testament is Pneuma. In English, you spell it P-N-E-U-M-A. And it's in the New Testament. It's also in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint.
This is the Old Testament when Jesus and the apostles are quoting from the Old Testament, also the Old Testament that was predominantly used by the early church, and the word is there quite a bit as well. And the word has multiple meanings. The word pneuma can mean, depending on context, it can mean the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. It can mean wind. It can mean breath. It can mean an evil spirit.
And it can include in a person, it can be the non-material part of a person that might include their feelings, their will, or their spiritual being, a person's spirit, the flesh and spirit from person. So the word" spirit" has a lot of different meanings depending on context. And the word Pneuma, some of you may recognize English terms that are similar to that, the word pneumatic. So I think about this as pneumatic tires.
This is a tire that has air in it, as opposed to a hard tire on a bicycle, a car, a truck, where the air has like a cushioning effect, so you don't feel all the bumps as you're going down the street. I also think of pneumatic tools. We're in the process of residing my house, my son-in-law and I, and he's got, I use the old-fashioned hammer and nails, and he uses the pneumatic nail gun for that, which is very powerful.
And as an engineer, I've designed projects where we use pneumatic controls for valves to open and close. It's basically running off of air pressure. So give you an idea of the word Pneuma. So it's air, it's wind, it's all these things. Now, one of the things David Bercot points out in his lesson on the difference between the spirit and soul and why it matters is that the word in the New Testament, in the original manuscripts, they didn't differentiate between capital and small S.
So when we see capital S Spirit, we think of Holy Spirit. When we think of small S Spirit, it might be the Spirit inside of us or an evil spirit. But in the original text, there was no difference. And so sometimes the translators will take a guess and they don't always have it the way the early church understood it. So there's a play on words that Jesus uses in John chapter three, verse eight. I think we're all familiar with this.
Jesus is talking about you have to be born again of water and the spirit in John 3:3 and 3:5 then. In verse eight, he says," The wind blows where it wishes." So it's the same word, and he's using it as a play on words. You know, when you say pneuma blows, obviously you're referring to wind when it's talking about the born again of water and the spirit. So the word means either wind or spirit. In Exodus 15, the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, it says that the water was blown back by the wind or the Spirit.
Now, which one is it there? So the Holy Spirit is referred to in Scripture in several different ways. The Spirit of God is one. The Holy Spirit or an older Bible translation might be Holy Ghost. The Spirit of Christ, 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 11, it says," Searching or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow." He's talking about the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit was inspiring the prophets.
So this is another description of the Holy Spirit. Or the Spirit of Truth, Jesus in John chapter 14 in the farewell discourse in verse 17, he refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth. The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." So he's described as the Spirit of truth. So several different ways to describe the Holy Spirit. All of them tell us something about the Spirit.
So the challenge is to understanding the nature of the Holy Spirit. It's much easier to grasp the nature of the Father or the nature of the Son than to grasp the nature of something that's described as wind, breath, spirit. It's like a fluid. So what is this? Is it a force? Is it a person? You know, God the Father, we know from John 1:18, 1 Timothy chapter 6:16," He dwells in unapproachable light. No one has seen. No one can see. He's unbegotten. He's the Creator of all things.
And He is the source of the Son and the Spirit. We know that about the Father. The Son of God, the Word of God, we know He's begotten of the Father before our ages, as it says in John 1, Hebrews 1, Colossians 1. We know that he's seen many places in the Old Testament. The early Christians saw when they saw an appearance of God, someone wrestling with God or having lunch with God, this had to be the Son of God because no one can see the Father.
Consider also what it says in John chapter 12 about in Isaiah 6, where Isaiah is in the throne room. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And in John 12, it says that Isaiah saw His glory referring to the Son of God. So we know that the Son of God is before all ages appeared several times in the Old Testament and could take on human form, unlike the Father and could be seen and could be located in a place and ultimately became flesh in Jesus because that's the nature of the Son that He could take on human form.
So the Son of God is also much easier for us to understand. Now let's take a look at the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, similar to wind, breath, something that flows like air, or in the baptism of Jesus, it comes down in the form of a dove. It's a white bird coming down at the baptism of Jesus in the form of a dove. So you know who or what is the Holy Spirit?
Now, as I'm wrestling with this, I'm interested in how did the church understand the nature of the Holy Spirit and the character of the Holy Spirit in the beginning? I'm not interested in a view that's only came up in the 20th century or in the 16th century. What did the church believe in the beginning? So I went back and looked at early Christian statements of faith, looked at the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, and both of them tell me almost nothing.
They both say," I believe in the Father, I believe in the Son," says," I believe in the Holy Spirit." And that's all it says. So the Christians believed in the Holy Spirit, but there was no further definition regarding the Holy Spirit. The early Christian writers, reading through the pre-Nicene writers before the year 325, they mentioned the Holy Spirit quite a bit, but there's no systematic or detailed explanation of the Holy Spirit.
There's little bits and pieces here and there and I'll share some of those in our lessons here. But the early Christians, a lot of times, they're explaining the faith to unbelievers or they're dealing with heresies that they have in their time. And Holy Spirit apparently, that wasn't one of the controversial subjects in the early church, so there's not a lot of writing on it.
Now the original Nicene Creed with 325 was expanded on and what's referred to as the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed from Nicaea and Constantinople, it was amended in 381 to provide a fuller explanation of the Holy Spirit. This is still fairly early. And so from that version of the creed, of the Nicene Creed, it starts off in the form of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
It says," We believe in one God, the Father almighty maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." That's pretty straightforward. And we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the God, the only begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages, God of God, light of light, very God, of very God, begotten not made, one essence with the Father by whom all things are made, and it continues on from there.
And then the part about the Holy Spirit, which we're gonna focus on today, it says, and listen to this. It says," We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, and who spoke by the prophets." And then it concludes," We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church," meaning the universal church, Catholic in that sense.
We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come, amen. So, now the Bible is the standard, not what the early Christians believed. But to me, a statement like this from 381 early in the church, the question I would say is, okay, I see what this is what it says about the Holy Spirit. Is this supported by Scripture? If it is, we're good. If it's not, then we are free to dismiss it.
So I don't see anything in here that's innovative or unscriptural in the creed here. It says about the is one thing some of you may have noticed if you grew up in, let's say, a Catholic or Lutheran church where you recite the creed. It says in the original 381 version of this, it said he proceeds from the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Western Church, the Roman Catholic Church added and the Son, which the Orthodox Church, the Eastern Church never accepted.
So it's one difference between the Eastern and Western views of the Creed. It says about the Holy Spirit," He is the Lord and Giver of life." Well, where do they get that from? And let's think about it. In Genesis chapter one in verse two, it talks about the Spirit of God, right in the opening of the scriptures, as hovering over the waters. And then it says, remember that breath, wind, and spirit are all the same. It says that God breathed into the first man, Adam, the breath of life in Genesis 2:7.
I'm also reminded of what it says in James chapter two, verse 26. It says," For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." Now he's teaching the point about faith without works, but he's basing it on something the Christians already understand. The body without the spirit is dead. So death is the separation of the body and the spirit. That's basically the definition of death. So God breathes the spirit into the body in Genesis chapter 2.
I think also about the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life of the Spirit imparting life in the famous story of the dry bones in Ezekiel chapter 37. I'm gonna read from that. So let's think about this, about the spirit and the breath and the life. In Ezekiel 37, the Valley of the Dry Bones, starting in verse 1," Again, the hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the midst of the plain, which was full of human bones." So he led me around about them.
And behold, there was a great multitude of bones on the face of the plain. They were very dry. Then he said to me," Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered him," Oh Lord, you know this." Then he said to me," Prophesy to these bones and say to them," Oh, dry bones. Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord to these bones. Behold, I will bring the spirits of life upon you. I will put muscles on you and bring flesh upon you. I will cover you with skin and put my spirit into you.
Then you shall live and know that I am the Lord." So I prophesied as he commanded me. And it came to pass while I prophesied that behold, there was a shaking and the bones came together, each one to its joint. So I looked and behold, muscle and flesh grew upon them. Skin covered over them, but no breath was in them. Then he said to me," Prophesy to the wind.
Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus says the Lord, from the four winds, breathe upon these dead men and let them live." So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the Spirit entered into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet an exceedingly great assembly. So this is a beautiful picture here where you see the wind and the spirit and the breath coming into the bodies, the dead bones and bringing life into them.
So this to me, the statement of seeing the Holy Spirit as the Lord and giver of life, I can see that played out in Ezekiel 37 in the story of the dry bones. So this is really helpful to me. Jesus, I think, said something similar. In John 6:63, he said," It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing." So Jesus spoke about the Spirit as the giver of life. So what it says in the creed here from 381, to me, that lines up with what the scriptures are teaching.
The spirit is also associated with bringing life back into bodies at the time of the resurrection. Romans 8:11, it says," 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." So the Spirit gives life initially and the Spirit brings life back to those who have died as well.
That we have the encouragement that the same Spirit dwells in us who raised Jesus from the dead and will raise us from the dead as well. And 2 Corinthians 3:6, it says," The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." So, we see the idea of the Spirit as the Lord and Giver of life from the beginning and throughout the Scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament. I also want to take a look at where it says that the Spirit is worshipped and glorified as God. In Acts chapter 5, let's turn there.
That the Holy Spirit is worshipped and glorified as God. This is the story of Ananias and Sapphira starting in verse one. A certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession and he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife being aware of it and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own?
And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. So he says," You've lied to the Holy Spirit." He says," You've not lied to men, you've lied to God." So Peter is equating the Holy Spirit with God. The Holy Spirit is divine and is therefore worshipped and glorified. The other element here it says in the creed who spoke by the prophets.
Well, I think of what Paul said in Acts chapter 28, it says," When they did not agree among themselves, they departed." This is, of course, this is in Rome. After Paul said one word, the Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers. And then he lays them out, Acts 28, verse 25. So Paul's attitude was, it was the Holy Spirit speaking through Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit spoke through the prophets. Passage in first Peter chapter 1 verses 10 and 11, Peter says the same thing.
He says," Of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied that the grace would come to you, searching what or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit in the prophets who was revealing beforehand the things that were going to be happening in the future.
And then in 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21, Peter says," Knowing first, no prophecy of Scripture is any private interpretation for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." So, while the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, we see the Holy Spirit is inspiring the prophets here as well. Let's note the fluid nature of the Holy Spirit associated with breath, wind, water, and fire throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament.
At the same time, the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force like gravity. You can lie to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has a personality and a will. And the Holy Spirit is divine being referred to as God and proceeding from the Father. It's not created as humans are or as the angels are. So the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, what we refer to as the Trinity, this is something when I was living in a Muslim country and reaching out to people in the Muslim world, they have a real hard time with the Trinity.
I was raised Roman Catholic as a child, so the idea of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all being God, was never something that I struggled with. But going into a Muslim country and having them being told the Christians believe in three gods, not one, I said," No, I certainly don't believe in three gods. I believe in one God, but Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God." They said," Well, can you explain that to us?" And I was kind of dumbfounded about how to do that.
And actually, I found the best explanations that I would define for the nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, would be examples provided by the early Christians. And the examples that they provided would be that the Father is the source of the Son and the Holy Spirit as the sun in the sky is the source of light and heat that emanate from it. That they all come from, they come from a common source of the Father. The Scriptures talk about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit altogether three places.
And in Genesis chapter 1, we see, as I mentioned earlier, Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2, it says that the Spirit is hovering over the water. In Genesis 1:26, God says," Let us make man in our image." And He's using the plural here, not let me make man in my image. And of course, we believe that the Word of God was there and was involved in the creation as well. Irenaeus, Bishop of the Church in Lyon and Gaul, France. Modern day France and Gaul wrote around the year 160 in a work called Against Heresies.
It says," For with him, were always present the word and wisdom, the Son and the Spirit by whom and in whom freely and spontaneously he made all things, to whom also he speaks, saying," Let us make man in our image and our likeness." Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume One pages 487-488.
Other passages that talk about the Father, the Son and the Spirit altogether, Isaiah chapter 42, verse 1, it says," I will put My Spirit upon Him." A very short sentence," I is the Father, My Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and Him is the Son of Jesus." In the baptism of Jesus, which is referred to in the beginning of all four Gospels, we have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all present at the same time.
The Spirit descends in the form of a dove and rests on Jesus in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 11, verses 1 and 2. In Matthew 28 in the Great Commission, Jesus says," Go make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." And the early Christians, the general practice in the early Christians was they'd immerse someone three times in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Spirit.
So baptized in all three, all three were involved in a person's conversion and coming into the new life. Hebrews 9:14, another mention of all three, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit together." How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your consciences from dead works to serve the living and the God, the Father, the Son, the Spirit altogether in Hebrews 9:14." So the character of the Holy Spirit.
Now, a lot of people would start and we say," Well, what's the character? What's the character? What's the nature of the Holy Spirit?" A lot of people start in Galatians chapter 5. The fruit of the Spirit is and then it gives a list of characteristics. Now, as I mentioned earlier, there's no capital or small S in the Greek. So the fruit of the Spirit, if it's capitalized, you think," Oh, that must be the Holy Spirit." But in the original text, there's no differentiation.
This has been added by the English translators, and there are many people believe that it's talking about the fruit of our spirit versus the flute fruit of our flesh. In my personal opinion, the best possible place to start in the Scripture is to understand the character of the Holy Spirit is in Isaiah chapter 11, verses 1 to 3. I'm gonna read from a translation based on the Septuagint. This is Orthodox Study Bible. And this is the verse I start with when I want to explain the nature of the Holy Spirit to someone.
And let's turn to Isaiah chapter 11, reading from translation based on Septuagint." There shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse and a flower shall grow out of his root. The Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, the spirit of the fear of God shall fill him." Now, there's seven characteristics here in Bibles based on Masoretic texts.
There are, I believe there are six most modern Bibles used based on the Masoretic texts. Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament and the Apostles, they're quoting from the Septuagint. And the early Christian writers, when they're commenting about this passage, obviously they're referring to Septuagint also, which is why I'm using that for the Old Testament in this class. Now, the Septuagint, there are seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit.
And the Several Early Christian writers point to this seven-fold aspect of the spirit, the seven characteristics of the spirit. This is the fullest single description of the manifestations of the character of the Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the Spirit of the fear of God. This was the Spirit that rested on Jesus when He was baptized in fulfillment of this prophecy.
And the idea of the sevenfold spirit, the seven characteristic spirit, I was asked once, I wonder if that has anything to do with, in the book of Revelation, several places it talks about the seven spirits of God. And for example, when it talks about the Lamb of God, several places in Revelation, when it talks about the Lamb of God who's seated on the throne in Revelation 5:6, it says that the Lamb has seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God. So think about that.
I also think about in the beginning of Revelation, Revelation chapter one, verses four and five, there's this the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit reference in the greeting in the beginning. It says in Revelation 1:4, it says," John to the seven churches of which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from Him who is and was and is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness." This sounds like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
So the Seven Spirits, or some translations say the Sevenfold Spirits. The reference to the Seven Eyes, this very, the Lamb that was slain on the throne that has the seven eyes and the seven horns which represent the seven spirits of God or the sevenfold spirits of God. This reminds me of prophecy in Zechariah chapter 3:9 where it says that the Lord puts before Joshua in the Septuagint and it's Jesus, which is the Greek, it's the Greek equivalent of Joshua. One stone that has seven eyes.
Now an eye of a stone would be a facet of a stone. I think of a jewel that's cut with seven facets, but literally it says one stone with seven eyes on it, which I think about the story of the lamb. And there's so many examples in the Old Testament where Christ is referred to as a rock. And this is another one. This is a stone with seven eyes on it.
This is Cyprian talks about this in connection with a whole raft of prophecies about Jesus as represented as a stone throughout the Old Testament Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 522. Also, this characteristic of seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit in a work by Irenaeus called Proof of the Apostolic Preaching in chapter nine. This is not in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. This is in a separate work. He talks about this prophecy we just read in Isaiah chapter nine.
I'm sorry, Isaiah chapter 11 about the seven characteristics of seven gifts or measures of the Spirit. And he writes," For after this pattern, Moses received the seven branched candlestick always burning in the sanctuary." So this is, wow, that's interesting. The picture here, this is always burning. The light, it's the candlestick that brings the light like the Holy Spirit does.
The danger in most churches today, one of the greatest dangers is the tendency to focus on certain characteristics of Jesus, you know, focusing on His mercy, His grace, and His love, without focusing on the other characteristics. I think of Romans chapter 11 where it says," Consider the kindness and the sternness of God." We want to have the complete three-dimensional stereo view of who God is. And I think it's the same thing with the Spirit.
We need to have an understanding of the Spirit that encompasses all seven, including the last one. It says," This is the Spirit of the fear of God, the Spirit of the fear of God which filled Jesus." So when you think of the Holy Spirit and describe the Holy Spirit, which of these characteristics do you like to focus on and which ones maybe you'd like to avoid or not think about so much? Let's have a good, healthy view that encompasses all of the characteristics.
Now, it says in Isaiah chapter 11 that the Spirit of God would rest upon Him. So this is the Spirit of the Holy Spirit rested upon Jesus, came down in the form of a dove at the time he was baptized. But Justin Martyr in a dialogue with Trypho, he's having an argument with Trypho, a Jew about Christ. And he, this is around the year 160, and he's explaining this passage. And Trypho is challenging him.
He's saying," What do you mean the Spirit of God rested on Jesus?" The Spirit of God was around beforehand and the Spirit of God came upon many people in the Old Testament. But what's so different about Jesus? And Justin replies, he said, you've asked a really good question here. Truly, there does seem to be a difficulty, but listen to what I say. You may perceive the reason for this also.
The scripture says these enumerated powers of the Spirit came on him not because he stood in need of them, but because they would rest in Him. That is, they would find their accomplishment in Him. So there'd be no more prophets in your nation after the ancient custom. And this fact you plainly perceived. So the Holy Spirit came down and rested upon Jesus. And after the time of Jesus, there were no more prophets like Isaiah and Daniel. This was the end of the prophetic line of the Jews.
He said," Even you're gonna acknowledge that yourself." And then he continues, Justin continues, he says," Solomon possessed the spirit of wisdom." So he had part of the seven characteristics. Daniel that of understanding and counsel. Moses that of might and godliness. Elijah that of fear. Isaiah that of knowledge and so with the others. Each possessed one power or one joined alternately with another. Also, Jeremiah, the 12 prophets, and David, in short, the rest took existed among you. Accordingly, he rested.
That is, he ceased when he came. After whom in the time this dispensation wrote him among men, it was necessary that such gifts should cease from you referring to the Jews. And having received their rest in Him, they should, again, as has been predicted, become gifts which from the grace of His Spirit's power. He imparts to those who believe in Him according as he deems each man worthy thereof. This is from dialogue with dialogue with Trypho a Jew, Justin Martyr Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 243.
So think about this. Justin's making the claim. He says," The Holy Spirit came upon the prophets in the Old Testament, but each received only certain one or two aspects of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit rested fully on Jesus, meaning He would no longer come on the Jewish prophets in the same way. And Jesus had the full power, the full manifestation. So through Jesus, He now gives the Holy Spirit to those who are followers of Him. And Jesus had the full measure of the Holy Spirit.
In John 3: 34, it says that he whom God sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. That Jesus had the entire package. He had all seven and that the Holy Spirit rested upon him and did not come on another prophet after that time. We've covered a lot in this segment, but I just want to take a moment to summarize what we discussed, what the main takeaways are that I see here. The spirit, the meaning of the spirit is similar and overlapping with wind or breath. And the Spirit is a divine.
The Spirit has a personality. The Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life. The wonderful role of the Spirit is bringing life into the human race initially, was involved in the resurrection of Jesus, of raising Him from the dead, is involved in the new birth, and will raise us from the dead in the end as well. The Holy Spirit is worshipped as God. The Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets throughout the Old Testament, that men did not speak except that they were motivated by the Holy Spirit.
And then the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 11, which was fulfilled at the baptism of Jesus, when the Holy Spirit came down on Jesus in the form of a dove, and Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit without measure, we see the wonderful manifold seven characteristics of the Spirit which describe the Spirit for us. And we also see that when the Spirit fully rested upon Jesus, that that marked the end of the line of the prophets that the Spirit had inspired.
In the next segment, I want to take a look at the mission of the Holy Spirit and how that impacts our lives individually as Christians and the Church, and also some wonderful pictures that foreshadow the role of the Holy Spirit that we find in the Old Testament prophecies.