The רוּחַ
הַקֹּדֶש - the Ruach
ha-Qodesh
The Holy Spirit - God Himself
André H. Roosma
17 July 2014
Via e-mail I received the following question:
Shalom André
Yesterday I had a
conversation with a brother who told me that the Holy Spirit is a Person with
a will of His own. This, a.o. after 1 Cor. 12: 11.
As the church doctrine
says: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I searched
through various commentaries etc. but could not find it, not even in
Scripture.
What is your answer to this?
Thanks and blessings,
...
An interesting and important question. After answering this brother, I
thought: let me devote a brief article to it as well, for I notice that more
people have questions about the Spirit.
For an answer I go to the Biblical Hebrew word that is commonly translated
as Spirit or Ghost. That is רוּחַ - Ruach [H7307].
In the old symbols,1    ,
I read: God connected to flesh, that is:
God connecting Himself with flesh.
To comprehend the meaning of that, just a small detour about spirit, soul
and body in the Bible. The prevailing understanding of those as three separate
entities has a Greek origin. The Bible (a.o.
Genesis 2: 7) teaches that the soul, that is: our complete human
being, came into existence when God blew something of His Ruach, that
is: of His Spirit, as breath of life or human spirit, into our body (flesh).
So, in formula: body + spirit = soul.2
This is essential in our understanding of these things. What we often call
‘soul’ (after the Greeks) in fact is
the spirit. When someone’s life here ends, the body dies and his or her
spirit lives on. Jesus also taught that a spirit or ghost does not eat and all
that kind of physical things which a human being of flesh and blood does, but
but he does have a character, will, feelings and mind, etc. – so he
is a Person (cf. also Luke 24: 39-43; and Job 33: 4).
Jesus also taught that God is a Spirit.
Normally, He does not have a body like we do: „God is Spirit” (John 4: 24; in
Delitzsch’ Hebrew NT: הָאֱלֹהִים
רוּחַ הוּא -
ha-’Elohim Ruach hu’ - God is Spirit, yeah He; cf. 2 Cor.3:17).
And in Genesis 1:2 we already read: the Ruach ’Elohim was
hovering over the surface of the waters; so literally, it talks of: the
Spirit (of) God (the
‘of’ put in between by most translations is a matter of
interpretation in my opinion, and can well be omitted).
About Otni’el it is written in Judges 3: 10 that ‘over him
was’: the Ruach YaHUaH; the Spirit (of) YaHUaH. The same Ruach YaHUaH filled Gideon, came on Yeftah, drove Samson and came mightily on him /
empowered him (Judges 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6), as over Sha’ul, in the
beginning, and over David (1 Samu’el 10: 6; 16: 13;
in 16: 14 we see that He left Sha’ul again). Yesha-yahu
prophesied that this Ruach YaHUaH would stay with, in, by or
on Jesus (Is. 11: 1).
In Yesha-yahu 40: 13 we read: “Who has directed
the Spirit (of) YaHUaH, and what man
taught Him counsel?”
And in Yesha-yahu 59: 19 it is prophesied: “Then they shall fear the Name (of) YaHUaH from the setting of the sun, and His glory from its rising; and He will come
as a violent stream, driven by the Spirit (of)
YaHUaH” (also translated: “... when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit (of) YaHUaH shall lift up a banner against
him.”)
His Name is His identity, His character; and His Spirit is His being; almost
synonymous; and His glory is what we see of Him, His glorious Appearance.
In fact we see in this text also a poetic glimpse of what the churches have
called the Trinity, namely, the One God in three Appearances: the Father:
YaHUaH, the Son Who arises as the shining Morning Star, and the Spirit
Who can be perceived like we perceive the wind: not directly, but through
symptoms or phenomena, by a flag or banner waving in the wind and thus leading
the way for a great army, or by the wind in one’s back, driving one
on.
The addition הַקֹּדֶש - ha-Qodesh is in fact rather clear as well. Literally ha-Qodesh is: the Holy One. So the Ruach ha-Qodesh is the Spirit (of) the Holy One. Remarkable in that context is what
even the occupying forces in that time said about Dani’el: „a man in whom the Spirit of the holy Gods is” (in the Aramaic in which this
is written: the Ruach ’Elahin Qiddashin - Dani’el 4: 8-9, 18; 5: 11; concerning the plural: even the
God of Isra’el is denoted in Biblical Hebrew as ’Elohim - in fact: Gods (plural)).
I conclude:
God and His Spirit are not two Persons, but one and the same Person.
The Spirit is also not a force, but a Person, only without a body.
In the flesh Jesus was an earthly embodiment of this God (cf. 1 John 4: 2); so: God Who is Spirit, in an earthly,
human body. This is de God Who is One, and at the same time great
plural (’Elohim) over against
us, tiny creatures, each in a small singular. Only together with all
saints of all times can we know His immense greatness and love (Ephesians 3: 18) and somehow answer to it, as His Bride
(Rev.).3 That Bride who at the same
time was meant to be His princely fellow-fighter (= Isra’El)
(a role that we may take more serious).
When Jesus sent His Spirit to His disciples at Shabhu‘ót – the Feast oof Pentecost, in fact He only returned in another
form. Therefore, Jesus first had to ascend to heaven. As a sign, tongues
as of fire burned on their heads, it reads. From what we saw earlier about
the palm tree
top from where God spoke in fire to Mosheh and about the great golden Menorah in the temple in
Yerushalem on which 7 flames burned as a sign of God’s
presence, we understand this symbolism: it is God’s Own presence
which is symbolized in that fire and by that light.
We often say that God lives in us or that Spirit lives in us, and those two
are not more that different wordings to say the same thing. The heart of the
matter is that our spirit (once blown into us by God) as host welcomes God as spirit in us and subsequently cooperates with Him
intensely; following where He leads us. So we see that the explanation of
the old word Ruach (as: God connecting Himself
with flesh) manifests itself here on two levels: God Who blows a
breath of life / a human spirit into us, and God Who gives us His Spirit
– so His Own presence – when we ask Him in Jesus.
What a wondrous thing, that this great God wants to live in us, small and
often broken creatures, and so have intimate fellowship with us! Rightly
Paul talked about a Treasure in somewhat raw, earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4: 7)! And what kind of Treasure!
Hallelu YaH !
Notes
| 1 |
More information on the old Biblical script, as
referred to here, is in the Hallelu-YaH Draft
Research Report: ‘The Written
Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic
roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical
script’  , a living document by André H. Roosma, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January 2011).
The word ruach is used in the Bible also for the human spirit
(in translation: with a small - lower case - letter; see footnote 2). The
symbols in the old form of this word allow also for other interpretations:
II. the
Other One/other one (pulling) on your tent
pins and tent walls: the wind (air stream; or a ghost); and so also: breath.
III. ([H7304/-5] pronounced
by the Masoretes as ravach or revach)
a. God’s tentpins and tent walls (positioned
much wider; cf. Is. 54: 2): room, space (also fig.: life space
(lebensraum); cf. the use in Esther 4:14); as verb: to create space,
make wide.
b. the other’s tent pins
and tent walls: space
in between tents (where the wind blows in between); later also more general.
Because a spirit and the wind are both invisible, and because when someone
literally blows out his last breath also his spirit leaves the body, the two
meanings I. (spirit) and II. (wind, air stream, breath) often got mixed a bit
(cf. also our word ‘breath of life’ or the Hebrew neshamah or nishmat chaïm as word also
used for the human spirit, e.g. in Gen. 2: 7).
I appreciate in Hebrew the link between רוּחַ - Ruach (I.) - the Spirit
of God - and רֶוַח -
revach (III.a.) - space; God’s Spirit gives us space! |
| 2 |
In Genesis 2: 7 the word ruach as such is not
mentioned. It is in other, more or less parallel texts, as Ecclesiastes
12: 7, where the writer says:1 Remember also thy
Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years
draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; ... because man goeth to his everlasting home, and the mourners go
about the streets: 6 before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl
is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken
at the cistern, 7 and the dust shall return to the earth as it was,
and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it.
cf. Gen. 2: 7; Num. 16: 22; Job 34: 14-15. |
| 3 |
See also the Dutch
series of articles about the marriage covenant in the Bible. |
Varghese Chacko
Though the general teaching about God is three
persons in one God, I always thought that there is only one God (One Being)
in three manifestations or expressions. This article made my understanding
more clear. Very helpful. Thank you.
André (author)
Thanks Varghese Chacko!
Good to hear these
articles are helpful! Do look further around here!
God bless you!
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