TUESDAY
Yesterday we took a broad overview of our campaign and I encouraged you to embrace the mystery around the spiritual world, surrender to it and wait for the wind to blow (i.e., the Spirit of God to move in power). Today we are going to unpack the meaning of the biblical words for “spirit.”
Jesus tells us that God is Spirit and we must worship him in spirit and in truth. (Jn. 4:24) So, understanding what Scripture says of the spiritual world is vital for our understanding of God himself, and our worship of him. These are important things and vital in the Christian life.
The two biblical words translated “spirit” are rûah in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek. They carry a few foundational meanings:
1. Wind—an invisible, mysterious and powerful force.
2. Breath or Spirit—that which gives life to the material of humans and animals.
3. Divine power—situations where humans are supernaturally empowered to do amazing things.
The distinctions between these three should not be pressed too far. It’s easy to see how they are all connected. At the heart of all of the definitions is an invisible power. On one of their podcasts, I recently listened to The Bible Project guys (Tim Mackie and Jon Collins) describe the biblical use of spirit as simply “invisible energy.” This agrees with the New Bible Dictionary’s description of all rûah as manifestations of divine energy. In his book The Spirit of the Disciplines Dallas Willard describes the spiritual as “an ordered realm of personal power founded in the God who is himself spirit and not a localized physical body.” The word carries many different senses and changes over the course of time, as all words do, but this is the heart of it.
In the creation narrative we see these concepts of “spirit” on display. In this display of God’s power in organizing the creation, we see the Spirit (Wind? God’s personal, powerful presence? In the early Jewish mind they would likely be the same) of God hovering over the water when the earth was without form and void. (Gn. 1:2) God speaks (breaths out) when he creates (Gn. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26). After creating the raw materials of the human, the human is not a living being until God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” (Gn. 2:7) So, in this narrative we see the concepts of wind, breath, and divine power on display.
Now of course, meaning is added to the word over time as language and culture progress. The New Testament uses spirit also to refer to the aspect of the human person’s inner life where the human relates to God. (Ac. 7:59; Rom. 1:9; 8:16) It’s obviously used of God’s personal power and presence in the Holy Spirit. Instead of the Spirit of God being conceived of as only a presence or power, we see in progressive revelation that the Spirit of God is the third person of the Trinity as well. Personal characteristics like grief are attributed to him. (Eph. 4:30) Jesus promises to send his people the Holy Spirit after he is taken up. Q(Jn. 14:26) It’s also used of good spirits and evil spirits as angels and demons.
With this in view, I’m going to end here today to give you some time to reflect on the concept of the word spirit. Perhaps you’ve never tried to put words to your definition of “spirit” and simply relied on a fuzzy picture of it in your head. Merriam-Webster’s 11th ed. Collegiate Dictionary has 14 definitions of the word “spirit”! So, it’s understandable if your concept of the term is fuzzy. It’s hard enough to understand all the ways we use it in English, let alone how the ancient Hebrews thought of it. Take some time today to reflect on this and gain come clarity before we proceed further talking about the power of the Spirit.