THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

[Anna]

THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Lea Sestieri

“The "Guide for a correct presentation of Jews and the Jewish religion..." (1985), encourages Christians to acquire a more respectful and adequate knowledge of the common heritage of Christians and Jews because this knowledge "can help them better understand certain aspects of the life of the Church"

Although in Jewish scripture the Holy Spirit is never presented as a person but rather as a divine power capable of transforming the human being and the world, the fact remains that Christian pneumatological terminology is rooted in that of the Jewish religion. In preaching therefore it will be necessary to point out this connection, underlining the main aspects.

1. The term: "Spirit" translates the Hebrew word "Ruah" which in its primary sense means breath, air, wind. "Jesus indeed uses the sensory image of the wind to suggest to Nicodemus the transcendent newness of him who is personally God's breath the divine Spirit"... The spirit as irruption and as transcendence: working in history but other than history, who cannot be reduced to history's logic but who installs another logic, that of responsibility and love for others;

2. Ordering power: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep and God's spirit hovered over the water» (Gn 1,1). God's spirit came down on the formless world and this descent produced the miracle of creation: the transformation of chaos into cosmos, of disorder into order;

3. Vivifying power: "The Lord God fashioned man out of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life and thus man became a living being» (Gn 2, 7). The spirit of God is breathed onto the human being of dust and, because of this breath, the human being is transformed into a living being: no longer an animal being but a partner with whom and to whom God speaks and entrusts responsibility for the world;

4. Guiding power: "On him the spirit of the Lord rests, a spirit
of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power, a spirit of
knowledge and the fear of the Lord" (Is 11,2). The Spirit of the
Lord takes hold of certain persons (patriarchs, matriarchs, judges, kings, prophets, wise men etc.,) and by bestowing on them special powers, enables them to act as guides and master interpreters in the world, of the will of God;

5. Healing power: "I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you… I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and sincerely respect my observances." (Ez 36,27). Entering into the human being, the spirit recreates and heals him, overcoming his sin and making him once more a partner of God in the covenant and in the observance of the Torah.

6. Universal dimension: "I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind. Their sons and daughters shall prophesy Even on my slaves men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit" There will come a day when every human being will be possessed by the spirit and this day will coincide with the day of the messiah." ”

7. The feast of Pentecost: «At Pentecost … they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech» (Acts 2f, 1-4). The out-pouring of the Spirit by the Risen Lord coincides with the Hebrew feast of Pentecost, which celebrates the gift to Israel of the Covenant and the Torah. The Spirit of the Risen Lord is not the cancellation but the renewal of the Mount Sinai covenant: responsibility before man producing fruits of justice and holiness in the world.

[Anna]

Why Can't Theologians Explain the Trinity Doctrine?

Many people assume that the Holy Spirit, along with God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son, form what is commonly known as the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity expresses a belief in one God who exists in three distinct but equal persons. Is the Holy Spirit truly a third divine person, along with the Father and Jesus?

In spite of these assumptions, the word Trinity doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. In fact, it did not come into common use as a religious term until several centuries after the last books of the Bible were completed.

Notice this admission in the New Bible Dictionary: "The term 'Trinity' is not itself found in the Bible. It was first used by Tertullian at the close of the 2nd century, but received wide currency and formal elucidation [clarification] only in the 4th and 5th centuries" (1996, "Trinity," emphasis added).

The dictionary goes on to explain that "the formal doctrine of the Trinity was the result of several inadequate attempts to explain who and what the Christian God really is ... To deal with these problems the Church Fathers met in 325 at the Council of Nicaea to set out an orthodox biblical definition concerning the divine identity." However, it wasn't until 381, "at the Council of Constantinople, [that] the divinity of the Spirit was affirmed ..." (ibid.).

We see, then, that the doctrine of the Trinity wasn't formalized until long after the Bible was completed and the apostles long dead in their graves. It took later theologians several centuries to sort out what they believed concerning the Holy Spirit.

And by no means are theologians' explanations of the Trinity doctrine clear. A.W. Tozer, in his book The Knowledge of the Holy, writes that the Trinity is an "incomprehensible mystery" and that attempts to understand it "must remain forever futile." He admits that churches, "without pretending to understand," have nevertheless continued to teach this doctrine (1961, pp. 17-18).

Unger's Bible Dictionary, in its article on the Trinity, concedes that the Trinitarian concept is humanly incomprehensible: "It is admitted by all who thoughtfully deal with this subject that the Scripture revelation here leads us into the presence of a deep mystery; and that all human attempts at expression are of necessity imperfect" (1966, p. 1118).

Why do even those who believe in the concept of the Holy Spirit as a third person of a supposedly triune Godhead, along with God the Father and Jesus the Son, find it so difficult to explain?

Because the Bible does not teach it! One cannot prove something from the Bible that is not biblical. The Bible is our only reliable source of divine revelation and truth, and the Trinity concept simply is not part of God's revelation to humankind.

The Holy Spirit, rather than a distinct person, is described in the Bible as being God's divine power