The identity of the Holy Spirit remains somewhat of a mystery to many Bible readers. This topic is a composite of material excerpted from my previous topics relating to the Godhead: “Tri-unity of God”, “Godhead in Prehistory”, “Holy Spirit Personification”, “Holy Spirit versus Mariolatry”, “Names/Titles of God in the Old Testament”.
In the English language, the word “God” is customarily used for Deity. Only the true God is Divine.
The Bible indicates there are 3 “Persons” in the Godhead, the Godkind or God Family: Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus the Son/Word. They are identical in essence, fully divine, a tri-unity of subsistences having self-awareness. The God Family is uni-plural, as “one” (echad, Hebrew Strongs h259) in nature.
The tripartite Godhead is revealed to us by Jesus the Son’s coming in the flesh and His words in the New Testament (NT), by other scriptures, and by the Holy Spirit (HS) indwelling us as Christians. It’s been said in analogy that the Father is the wall outlet, the HS is the cord, Jesus is the lamp (Re.21:23).
Father God is in heaven. God has operated through the HS and Jesus. Ac.2:34 Jesus ascended into heaven and now sits there at Father’s right hand (and Jesus lives mystically in Christians, Jn.17:21-23 & Col.1:27). The human Jesus wasn’t omnipresent. The HS is on earth…omnipresent. David wrote in Ps.139:7-10, “Where can I go from Your Spirit, where can I flee from Your Presence?” Not anywhere.
The Father sent Jesus. Jn.12:49 Jesus said, “The Father who sent Me has given Me commandment.” The two are distinct. The Father also sends the HS. Jn.14:26 “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send.” Jesus too sends the HS (Jn.16:7). So all three are distinct! But neither Jesus nor the HS sends the Father! They differ in order and subordination. The human Jesus wasn’t omniscient. Mt.24:36 “Of that day and hour no one knows, not the Son, the Father only.” (see “Jesus Is God…Jesus Has A God”.)
The HS belongs to and was part of Father God, has personality, but isn’t the totality of God. God is a triad: 2Co.13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the HS be with you all.” 2Co.1:21-22 “He who establishes us in Christ and anointed us is God, who also gave us the Spirit.” Ep.4:4-6 “There is one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.” (That’s three!) Ac.7:55 “Being full of the HS, Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” He.9:14 “Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without blemish to God.” 1Co.12:4-6 “The same Spirit…the same Lord…the same God.” (Again, that’s three.) 1Pe.1:2 “Elect according to a foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.”
The triune God is thrice holy: One Spirit…one Lord…one Father (Ep.4:4-6). Is.6:3 “Holy, Holy, Holy is YHVH of hosts.” A three-in-one Godhead. The heavenly worshipers in Re.4:8 “Do not cease to say, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the Almighty”.
The terms for God as “Father” and “Holy Spirit” rarely occur as such in the Old Testament (OT).
The Holy Spirit in the OT: Is.48:16 “The Lord God and His Spirit have sent Me.” Job.33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me.” Pr.1:20-23 “Wisdom lifts her voice, ‘I will pour out My Spirit on you.”
Every human has a spirit within. Jb.32:8 “There is a spirit in man.” Our human spirit gives biological life to our body of flesh (Ge.2:7). Ja.2:26 “The body without the spirit is dead.” Without our human spirit, we’re just a clod. Our spirit in God’s image imparts self-awareness and intellect to our brain. It’s a non-physical component which differentiates human mind from animal brain instinct. Our spirit gives us a moral sense of conscience, based mostly upon the self and cultural customs & laws. The HS will join with our human spirit (1Co.6:17); we become linked to God, able to obey God’s morality.
The Holy Spirit, ministering spirits (angels), our human spirits…aren’t an impersonal Star Wars type force! Our human spirit is me, is you, within our flesh ‘suit’. (see “Spirits – Made by God in Light”.)
Ontology is the study of being. God, angels, humans are called personal beings. But God’s Being isn’t finite or limited, as we are limited. Scripture doesn’t define ‘person’ (the term we use in modern English), and doesn’t apply that term to the triune God. The Latin persona was a ‘face’ worn by Greek/Roman dramatic actors. Church fathers applied the Greek term hypostases (entities) to God.
The HS speaks in 1st Person as “Me” and “I” in Ac.13:2. “The Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them to.” Also ref Ac.11:12, Jn.16:13, Mk.13:11, which indicate the HS is personal and speaks. 2Sm.23:2-3 “The Spirit of YHVH spoke by me. The God of Israel.” The HS is God/YHVH. But who was/is this Holy Spirit of God?
Theóphilus, the 6th bishop of Antioch (born approximately 20 years after the apostle John died), was the first to use the term trinity/triad. In 175 AD he wrote To Autolýcus, 2:10. “God, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begat Him, emitting Him along with His own Wisdom before all things.” Theophilus’ triad was “The Trinity of [Father] God, His Word, and His Wisdom.” (Autolycus 2:15)
Wikipedia: Theophilus of Antioch “Theophilus’s apology is most notable for being the earliest extant Christian work to use the word ‘Trinity’ (Greek: τριάς trias), although it does not use the common formula of ‘the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’ to describe the Trinity. Rather, Theophilus himself puts it as ‘God, his Word (Logos) and his Wisdom (Sophía)’ [To Autolycus 2:15], perhaps following the early Christian practice of identifying the Holy Spirit as the Wisdom of God [Autolycus 1:7].”
“This is also expressed in the works of his contemporary, Irenáeus of Lyons, who writes [Ps.33:6], ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by his spirit all their power. Since then the Word establishes, gives body and grants the reality of being, and the Spirit gives order and form to the diversity of the powers; rightly and fittingly is the Word called the Son, and the Spirit the Wisdom of God’. [Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching] ‘In like manner also the 3 days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the 4th is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man.’ [To Autolycus 2:15]”
Irenaeus is called the most important theologian of his time. He lived from 130–200 AD, having been taught by Polycarp (in Smyrna), who was a disciple of the apostle John.
Residing in Lyons, France, Irenaeus wrote in Against Heresies. “The Son is rightly and properly called Word, while the Spirit is called the Wisdom [Sophia] of God”. Ibid 4.7.4 “The Son and the Holy Spirit, the Word and Wisdom [Sophia], whom all the angels serve.” 4:20:3 “God tells us through the mouth of Solomon that Sophia is the Spirit.” Sophia (Strongs g4678) is the Greek term for Wisdom.
Christian historian Robert Grant Greek Apologists of the 2nd Century, p.169 “Theophilus and almost every early Christian theologian agreed the Logos (like Sophia/Wisdom) was originally in God”.
Jesus referred to the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (WSol). cf. Mt.27:43 & WSol.2:13, 18; Lk.11:31 & WSol.8:1. (The apostle Paul referred to WSol too. cf. WSol.13:5, 8 & Ro.1:19-20 KJV “Godhead”.)
Jesus said the Queen of Sheba “Came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon” (Mt.12:42, 1Ki.10:1-4). Jesus also referred to the apocryphal Wisdom of Sirach (WSir)/Ecclesiasticus. cf. Mt.6:14 & WSir 28:2. WSol was written ca 20 BC; WSir was written ca 180 BC in Hebrew.
WSol.7:22, 25 “In herself, wisdom is a spirit that is understanding, Holy. She is the breath of the power of God, and the emanation of the pure glory of the Almighty.” Wisdom is the Holy Spirit, split-off or spirated or emanated through God’s breath/mouth. WSol.8:3-4 “She glorifies her noble birth by living with God, and the Master of all loves her.” Pr.8:30 “I [wisdom] was daily His delight.”
WSol and WSir reflect how Jews believed and interpreted Proverbs & Wisdom in latter BC times. Wisdom is sophia (g4678) in Greek, and chokmáh (h2451) in Hebrew. Orthodox Bible “The Holy Spirit receives eternal existence only from the Father.” Wisdom says in Pr.8:25 LXX, “He begets [gennáo g1080] Me”. Philo On Flight and Finding (p.325) “Wisdom, even if it be most ancient of all other things, still has only second place to that Omnipotent Being.” Father God is the Most High God.
Solomon’s prayer of WSol.9:4, 10, 17, “Give me the wisdom that sits by Your throne…Send her forth from Your holy heavens…Send Your Holy Spirit from on high.” Wisdom the HS sat beside God’s throne in the heavens, as a Queen beside the King’s throne. The real ‘Queen of Heaven’ isn’t Ishtar, or other pagan goddesses (cf. Je.44:17)…rather, She’s the feminine HS.
In Lk.7:35, Jesus indicated His Mother is Wisdom, the HS. Connecting in order the following seven verses will identify the (feminine) HS: Jl.2:28a, Pr.1:20, 23, De.34:9a, Nu.27:18, Mt.1:18b, Lk.7:35.
The Works of Philo, p.85, 331, 405 “The Word [Logos, Greek] has received wholly pure parents…God being the Father and husband of wisdom, the mother of the Word….the Divine Logos flows forth from Wisdom.” Creation reflects/teaches that it’s impossible to have a father without having a mother!
In our various languages, we use terms which correspond to the ancient Hebrew & Greek terms chosen by the Bible writers to identify and describe the ‘Persons’ of the God Family. Jewish and Christian theology usually refers to God in male language and images, yet agrees it doesn’t adequately express all that the Divine is. The Godhead possesses all the masculine and feminine attributes. God is so great!
Wisdom is a personified hypostasis (a Greek term used in early Christian writings) or entity of God’s divine essence.
God reflects masculine roles: Ps.103:13 Father. Ho.2:16 husband. Ps.98:6 king. Ex.15:3 warrior.
God reflects feminine roles: Is.66:13 Mother. Is.42:14 pregnant. Ps.22:9 midwife. Ps.123:2 mistress.
Again, Wisdom is the Holy Spirit. WSol.1:4-5 “Wisdom won’t enter the soul that plots evil. For a holy spirit of discipline flees from deceit.” Again, WSol.9:17 “Unless You have given him wisdom and sent Your Holy Spirit from on high.” Nu.27:18 “Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit.” De.34:9 “Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the Spirit of wisdom.” Omnipresent, at God’s throne in heaven, and within Joshua, was the HS Wisdom. And Wisdom is “Her”.
Jesus was conceived in the virgin Mary by the HS (Lk.1:35 the HS came upon Mary); and John the Baptizer was filled with the HS in his mother’s womb (Lk.1:15). Speaking of Himself and John, Jesus said in Lk.7:33-35, “Wisdom is justified by her children”. Jesus, the Child conceived by Wisdom the HS, speaks of Wisdom as “her”! (As did Proverbs, etc.) Jesus’ words are authoritative and truth!
The Hebrew grammatical gender of Bible nouns has significance. But this doesn’t mean God the HS is literally a woman! Yet the HS is grammatically and figuratively “she/her”.
In OT scripture, the ancient Hebrew (Heb) language attached gender to Spirit essence. The Heb term for spirit (rúach h7307, and Aramaic rúach h7308) is feminine (fem). The Heb term for wisdom (chokmah h2451) is fem. In the OT Septúagint/LXX and NT both, the Greek (Gr) term for wisdom is sophia g4678. Solomon wrote in Pr.7:4, “Call wisdom your sister”. Sisters are of course feminine, not masculine (masc). In Pr.9:1-3, wisdom is “she/her”. WSir.4:11 “Wisdom exalts her children.” WSir.24:18 of Wisdom, “I AM the mother of love that is beautiful. I therefore, being eternal, am given to all My children who are picked by Him.” (Father God picks His elect: Ep.1:3-5, 17, Jn.6:44.) And Jesus knew Himself to be a Child of Wisdom/Sophia/“her” in Lk.7:35.
Elóah h433 is a Heb term for God, occurring 55 times in the OT (mostly in Job and poetic passages). Jb.27:3 “The spirit of God [Eloah h433] is in my nostrils.” The –ah ending is indicative of fem singular. The most common OT Heb term for God is Elohím h430. Elohim is a masc plural ending –im (Father and Son), combined with the fem singular root Eloah (HS/Wisdom) or possibly El. Three.
Also the modern Heb fem term ‘shekínah’ represents the Divine Presence, the OT fire-cloud of glory.
Heb grammar too uses masc pronouns for God. Heb & Aramaic has no neuter (no “it”); all nouns are masc or fem. Again, the Heb term for spirit (ruach) is fem. But unlike Heb, the Greek term for spirit (pneúma) is neuter. The Latin term for spirit (spirítus) is masc. Noun gender varies in languages. In translated languages, gender doesn’t have the significance as in the original inspired Hebrew scripture.
In English, translators render pronouns with the Gr pneuma/spirit (neuter) as he masc, e.g. Jn.14:26. (or it neuter, Ro.8:26 KJV.) Some of this is revisionism. This practice subconsciously makes men seem more like God than do women. Yet in 2Co.6:18, Paul wrote that God said, “You shall be sons and daughters to Me”. In Jn.14:26, the Gr masc term paráclete is translated Comforter/Helper, and refers to the Gr neuter term Spirit. Here translators chose to use the pronoun He. But since God has both masc and fem characteristics (Is.42:13-14, Ps.123:2), Heb personal noun gender is more meaningful. Later languages such as Greek, Latin, English don’t maintain the original Heb gender in translation.
The most ancient of the rare Old Syriac copies, the Siniatic Palimpsest (300s–400s AD), was found in 1892 in the Covenant of St. Catherine by Syriac Professor R.L. Bensly (Cambridge Univ). Jesus’ words in Jn.14:26 read: “But She—the Spirit-the Paraclete whom He will send to you-my Father in my name —She will teach you everything; She will remind you of that which I told you.” The Spirit is feminine to the Syriac church (as the ancient Aramaic ruach/spirit was fem), unlike Greek and Latin grammar.
J.J. Hurtak: “The Spirit is not called ‘it’ despite the fact that pneuma [spirit] in Greek is a neuter noun. Church doctrine regards the Holy Spirit as a person, not a force like magnetism. In the Eastern Church, Spirit was always considered to have a feminine nature. She was the life-bearer of the faith.”
The Westminster Leningrad Codex (1008 AD) is the oldest complete Heb manuscript. In its ultra-literal interlinear English translation online: Is.11:2 “And she rests on him, spirit of YHVH.” Ps.143:10 “Good spirit of you Elohim, she shall guide me.” Nu.11:26 “The spirit, she is resting on them.” Ezk.37:1 “She becomes hand of YHVH on me in spirit of YHVH.” Jb.33:4 “Spirit of El, she made me; breath of Who-Suffices, she is keeping me alive.” (Ec.12:1 “Remember Ones creating you.”…“Us” in Ge.1:26.)
From our Is.11:2. “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on Him [Messiah], the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” The LXX adds “godliness”. Seven attributes! And they’re all fem nouns! Wisdom is primary (Pr.4:7).
In Pr.8:12-14, Wisdom speaks in 1st Person. “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord. Counsel is mine. I AM understanding, strength is mine.” These attributes are all fem! Philo AI1 p.29…On Flight and Finding, p.325 “He called that Divine & heavenly Wisdom by many names….Indeed all the virtues bear the names of women.” It’s not just coincidence.
Oswald Chambers’ Christian devotional, My Utmost For His Highest, is one of the most popular religious books ever written. In it he wrote, “I am the Almighty God’ – El-Shaddaí, the Father-Mother God. The one thing for which we are all being disciplined is to know that God is real.” God is both Father and Mother. El Shaddai (h7706) has been described or defined as the ‘mighty breasted One’.
We may say the Father is the Source, Possessor, Director, Planner. The Son is the Spokesman, the Executor, Mediator, Ruler. The HS is Wisdom, the Omnipresence, the Comforter…and the Glory!
Father God is Jesus’ Father, and Jesus referred to Himself as the Child of Wisdom (Lk.7:35), His Mother. In the NT, Jesus never called Mary, “mother”! He referred to the surrogate Mary as “woman”. Jn.2:4 “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what have I to do with you?” Jn.19:26 “When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple He loved nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!”
Jesus was fully God in the flesh…both His Father and Mother are God! The womb of Mary, the “woman” as Jesus lovingly called her, served to form Him in the flesh to become the God-Man. The 300s AD Apostles Creed reads, “I believe in Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary”. Mary birthed Jesus. Ga.4:4 “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.” Lk.1:35 “The angel said, ‘The Holy Spirit will come, and the power of The Highest will overshadow you [Mary]; therefore the Holy One to be born shall be called Son of God.” Orthodox Study Bible Lk.1:35 “Note the revelation of the Holy Trinity: The Father (The Highest), the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The Father overshadowed the HS upon Mary, and God’s Son Jesus was conceived.
Chinese preacher Witness Lee was part of the Christian work started by Watchman Nee. Lee’s Living With and In the Divine Trinity”, p.39 “Lk.1:35 shows the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary…the Most High, God the Father, overshadowing Mary…and the birth of the holy thing, the Son of God. Thus the entire Divine Trinity was involved in the conception.” The Son was conceived into Mary by His divine Parents, who are both God.
Father God didn’t somehow have sexual relations with Mary, who was engaged to the man Joseph (Mt.1:18). It was adultery to have sex with a woman married or betrothed to another. De.22:23-27 God’s penalty for such adultery was death. Surely, Father God wasn’t an (figurative) adulterer!
Furthermore, Mary was of a different kind…she was the human kind, not the Godkind. God’s principle of biogenesis reflects each creation reproducing only according to its kind (ref Ge.1:11-12, 21, 24-25, 6:19-20, Mt.7:16, 1Co.15:38-39). Father God is Spirit, not flesh, Jn.4:23-24. The term incubus pertains to a spirit having sex with a human woman. Heathen gods, such as Zeus/Jupiter, supposedly had sex with mortal women and produced offspring.
Philo Judaeus (25 BC–50 AD), The Works of Philo, AI2:14:49 “The mother of all things…the wisdom of God.” Again, Jesus indicated He was the Child of her, Wisdom/Sophia, Mt.11:19 KJV. Pr.1:20-23 “Wisdom lifts her voice, ‘I will pour out My Spirit upon you.” (cf. Jl.2:28a) She is the Holy Spirit.
Early church writings in various countries attest to the feminine HS. The fragmentary Gospel to the Hebrews was written in Greek (probably at Alexandria) in the early 100s AD, for Jewish Christians. The HS is Jesus’ Divine Mother in its Christology. In one quotation Jesus declared, “My mother, the Holy Spirit took Me, and conveyed Me to the great mount Tabor”. (cf. Lk.7:35 regarding Jesus’ mother.)
Áphrahat (280–345 AD) wrote in Syriac in Persia. Demonstrations VI “The Spirit, She opens the heavens and descends, and hovers over the waters; and those who are baptized put Her on.” From Aphrahat’s Demonstration X, “As long as a man hasn’t taken a wife, he loves and reveres God his Father and the Holy Spirit his Mother.” (Re.19:7-9 is Jesus’ metaphorical marriage to Christians.)
Éphrem the Syrian (306–373 AD) was perhaps the most significant of all the Syriac language fathers, called ‘the greatest poet of the patristic age’. His Hymnen de Ecclesia identifies the Spirit as feminine.
Robert Murray Symbols of Church and Kingdom, p.25 “The Syriac Fathers, as is well known, attributed female gender to the Holy Spirit in the first centuries after Christ; seeing the Holy Spirit especially as ‘Mother.” The early Eastern Church originally believed the HS was She/Her.
But after some time, the Syriac church lost or suppressed the original OT & apocryphal Jewish concept of the fem HS or shekinah. By the 500s AD, a masc HS was becoming more the norm. Possibly this was due to Western influence, and because some heretical groups misused the feminine imagery.
Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has made Mary a counterfeit or substitute for the scriptural person of Wisdom/Sophia/Mother. Yet a counterfeit presumes a prior genuine! It was Wisdom who sat beside God’s throne as Queen (WSol.9:4). She was beside YHVH at the beginning (Pr.8:22, 30). The original Queen of Heaven (cf. Je.7:18) wasn’t a counterfeit Astarte or Isis…or Mary!
The surrogate Mary carried and birthed Jesus the Son of God. She’s a godly woman. But not a co-redemptrix or mediatrix; not due near-goddess status! The RCC believes Mary was always sinless. However, Mary herself indicated that she too needs a Savior! Lk.1:46-47 Mary exulted, “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior”. Mary knew she was a sinner needing a Savior, as does all of humanity.
The early Syriac writers didn’t present the HS as a literal woman. But by the 500s AD she’d become masculine. It seems the concept of a fem HS became dangerous to the structure of the church. Even by the time the HS had become a confirmed member of the trinity (Council of Constantinople in 381 AD), the HS was described as masc, despite having nurturing fem qualities! But Ge.1:2, 26-27 females too embody God’s image! Male and female both are created in the image (masc) and likeness (fem) of God. Martin Luther reportedly was ‘not ashamed of speaking of the HS in feminine terms’.
Count Zinzendorf (1700–1760) was leader of the Moravian church in Czechoslovakia and America. To Zinzendorf, the HS was feminine, the Creator (Ge.1:2, 26 “Us”) and Mother. He wrote, “She has created the world with the Savior and now is remaking every child until it is a new creation, and becomes one in the spirit with him; She nurses and watches until it is grown.”
Again, in the NT Jesus never referred to Mary as His mother (or to Joseph as His father). By the early 300s AD, the church was embroiled in the Arian controversies. Many didn’t want Jesus begotten before time began. But in the 300s AD, many did want women suppressed. A quandary existed. So they hushed scriptures which related to Wisdom/Sophía the HS too having been “brought forth” in past eternity…though Wisdom herself says in Pr.8:25b LXX, “He begets [gennao g1080] Me”.
Over the centuries AD, Mother Wisdom/Sophia became assimilated into the cult of the virgin Mary. It elevated Mary, the counterfeit or replacement for Wisdom the HS. Mariolatry ensued in the RCC.
For more details relating to the divine God Family, see my other topics: “Tri-unity of God”, “Godhead in Prehistory”, “Holy Spirit Personification”, “Holy Spirit versus Mariolatry”, “Names/Titles of God in the Old Testament”, “Jesus is God…Jesus Has a God”, “Jesus Was the Old Testament God”, “Jesus Is the Messiah”, “Jesus’ Virgin Birth”, “Savior’s Name in Bible Languages”.
Bible Topic Exposition 