There was also a selection from psalm 104 where the psalmist talks about the "Spirit", a reading from Romans where Paul writes about the Spirit helping us in our weakness, and that part of the gospel of John where Jesus promises the Advocate, the Spirit of truth.
That set me to thinking. Did the Hebrews of the psalmist days and Jesus think of the same entity when they used the word "Spirit"? Christians profess belief in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Before Jesus arrived, did the Jews believe in a two-nity, Father and Spirit? Or was referring to the Spirit of God their way of thinking about how God can live and give life to the world?
Assuming that the Spirit in Acts is the same entity that Jesus promised would come, would Jesus have been surprised to see the effect of the Spirit? I suppose the speaking (or being heard) in tongues can be directly related to the charge Jesus gave the disciples, to teach all nations.
Then, I thought about today's Christians and how they regard the Spirit. Is it all the same?
One other thought I had. When everyone in Jerusalem could hear the disciples speak, each in his own language, did that represent the "undoing" of the results of the Tower of Babel, when the people tried to build something that would reach to God and God would have none of it. God tends to get testy in Genesis when humans aspire to god-likeness.
For those who know a lot more of all of this than I do, I'd love to hear your comments.
Your question about how the psalmists viewed the Holy Spirit is a good one.
ReplyDeleteI am sure they did not view the Holy Spirit as a person. The Jews in the time of Jesus did not think of God as more than one person, which is one reason many of them did not want to accept Jesus as "God". To them, this was blasphemy, the same as teaching another God instead of only one God.
Yet, we do not read in the New Testament about any controversy between the Jews and the early Christains about the Holy Spirit. I think this is evidence that there was no controversy, that both the early Church and the Jews understood that the Holy Spirit is the power of God acting in His creation, not a person, and that the idea of the Holy Spirit being a person, like Christ or like the Father, was a later invention.
On the subject on Pentecost, it certainly represents the coming of the Holy Spirit and the start of the New Testament Church, but it means more than that. As I point out in my article, The Secret Meaning of Pentecost, it connects with the Old Testament concept of first fruits and shows that the Church is only the first fruits of souls, the small early harvest, and that there is a greater harvest to come. It helps us understand that every human being who has ever lived and died without hearing the gospel will still have a chance for salvation. It also helps us understand why God allows so much suffering in the world today.
Part of the answer is given in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 37.