God’s Word and God’s Spirit – The Old Testament pattern
Genesis 1 describes God’s work of creation. God creates by His word. In verse two another presence is briefly referred to: “the breath/Spirit (ruach) of God was moving over the face of the waters.”
There’s no further reference to God’s Spirit in this chapter, but what we are conscious of is the audible word of God bringing cosmos out of chaos: that which is formless is given shape (the first 3 days), that which was empty (void) is filled (the second 3 days). As the late great Bruce Smith put it:
‘The breath remains the quiet vessel and vehicle of the word. It is the word you hear but only by the instrumentality of the breath.’[1]
We see this same pattern of God’s word and God’s Spirit working together throughout the entire Bible. As the Psalmist writes:
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath (Ruach) of His mouth.
(Psalm 33:6)
When the Spirit of the LORD comes upon the prophet, He comes upon Him to speak. The largest number of references to the Spirit/breath of God in the OT occur in the book of Ezekiel, where the Spirit of the LORD is the Spirit of life-giving prophecy:
‘The LORD said to me, “Son of Man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.” As He spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard Him speaking to me.’
(Ezekiel 2:1-2)
The LORD’s message is one of judgment and hope for His people—and ultimately, the whole of creation. Just as God, by His Word, through His Spirit, brought cosmos out of chaos, so God’s people will be re-created. In the midst of the spiritual death of exile God reveals his vision of the valley of the dry bones:
‘[The Sovereign LORD] said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones hear the word of the LORD.’”… So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying…the bones came together bone by bone…Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy son of man.”…So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet- a vast army.’
(Ezekiel 37:4,7,9-10.)
God’s Word and God’s Spirit – the New Testament pattern
The Old Testament pattern of God’s Spirit and God’s word culminates in the New Testament with the Word of God made flesh: conceived by the Holy Spirit, and anointed and equipped with the Spirit as God’s Messiah to bring life to the world (Isaiah 61:1ff). From one end of the ministry of Jesus to the other, the eternal Word is always working in company with the eternal Spirit (e.g. Luke 1:41-42, 67-70; 2:25-32; 3:21-22 cf. Isaiah 42:1; 2:7); 3:23-37; 4:1-13; Matthew 12:22-32; Hebrews 9:14; Romans 1:4).
From one end of the ministry of Jesus to the other, the eternal Word is always working in company with the eternal Spirit
As DB Knox put it:
It is by God’s Spirit or breath that we are related to God through His Word…[human] breath must carry words to be means of relationship, so the Spirit of God does not testify of Himself but takes of the things of Jesus, who is the Word and expression of God, and shows them to us.[2]
J.I. Packer famously describes the work of the Holy Spirit in this way:
He is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight shining on the Saviour…The Spirit’s message to us is never, ‘Look at me; listen to me; come to me; get to know me,’ but always, ‘Look at Jesus, and see His glory; listen to Him, and hear His word; go to Him, and have life; get to know Him, and taste His gift of joy and peace.’[3]
This ‘floodlight ministry’ is what Jesus Himself promised the Spirit would do when He came into the world, through what would become the scriptural testimony of the Apostolic witness:
‘I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it know to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.’
(John 16:12-15 emphasis added)
It’s through this Spirit-inspired Apostolic testimony to Christ—what we now know as ‘the New Testament,’ that people from every tribe, language and nation in future generations will come to believe and find life in Jesus’ name (Acts 4:12; 2Tim 3:14-17). Thus, on the night before he died, Jesus prays, ‘My prayer is not for them [the Apostles] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.’ (John 17:20). Or again, on the eve of his pouring-out the Spirit at Pentecost, the risen Jesus Christ tells his disciples that, ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8)
In his very helpful study of the Spirit, He who Gives Life, Graham Cole summarises the message of Acts in this way:
‘There are no pneumatological moments without reference to the Father and the Son…Even Pentecost is about God (the Father), the Son, and the Spirit, with the focus on the risen Christ…The magnificence of the Spirit lies in this self-effacement or divine selflessness. For this reason believers are rightly called “Christians” not “Pneumians.” ’[4]
Jesus, the Spirit and the Bible – what God has joined together let no one separate
We must never divorce Christ and the Spirit in our thinking, nor expect the Spirit to speak to us apart from His Scriptural word about Christ. The Spirit is Christocentric; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and every believer who now calls Jesus Lord has been baptised by the Holy Spirit (e.g. Acts 16:7; Romans 8:9; Galatians 4:6; Philippians 1:19; 1Peter 1:1; 1Corinthians 12:12-13). Everything God says to us He says in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ (e.g. Hebrews 1:1-2; Ephesians 1:3). And it is the work of the Holy Spirit to testify to Christ and bind us to Him; making what is His ours. Once again the teaching of John’s Gospel makes these truths abundantly clear; as Peter Adam reminds us,
In John’s Gospel, all truth comes from the Father, whose ‘word is truth’ (17:7); all truth is found in the Son, who is ‘the truth’ (14:6); and all truth comes through the ‘Spirit of truth’ (16:13): the Son speaks the words the Father has given Him, and passes them on to the disciples (17:8).’[5]
Commenting on John 16:16, John Calvin wrote:
‘The Spirit unites us to Christ, ‘as members to the head, that by hope they possess Heaven along with him. Hence, the grace of the Spirit is a mirror in which Christ wishes us to see him.’[6]
[1] From a talk Bruce Smith gave at the AFES National Conference January 1994, ‘Another Comforter.’
[2] DB Knox, The Everlasting God, (NSW: Lancer, 1988), 65.
[3] J.I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, (England: IVP, 1984), 66.
[4] G.A. Cole, He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, (Wheaton Il: Crossway Books, 2007), 283-4.
[5] Peter JH. Adam, Written for us: receiving God’s Words in the Bible, (Nottingham: IVP, 2008), 244.
[6] John Calvin quoted in, Robert Doyle, ‘The Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son,’ in ed. BG Webb, Spirit of the Living God, Part Two (Explorations 6; NSW: Lancer, 1992),43.
