The creative power of the Holy Spirit
Series: CREATIO | Bible text: Genesis 1:2 + 2:7
Who and what is the Holy Spirit? In the Hebrew Bible he is called Ruach and is fundamentally located in the creation texts. The Ruach is that which enables and creates life – be it in creation or in re-creation. The Ruach is realised in society in justice, mercy, law and peace.
I read the following joke: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit want to go on holiday. Says the father: «Let’s go to Pakistan.» The son says: «I think we are not so welcome there.«Says the Holy Spirit: «Let’s go to China.» The father says: «That’s where we get kicked out too.«The son says: «Then let’s go to Rome!«The Holy Spirit says with joy: «That’s a great idea, we definitely have to go there, I’ve never been there!«This punch line in no way coincides with my personal opinion! What is true is that God revealed in the persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The terms «Father» and «Son» are easily accessible to us. With both expressions we associate memories, images and feelings. They are social experiences. We have more difficulty with the third person of the Trinity. We simply lack the background of experience. Children might think of a ghost. Adults have associations like the humanities as opposed to the natural sciences. «Ghost» means the intellect of a person. People who work with their hands are practitioners. In contrast, theorists work with their heads. «Mind» therefore belongs to the category of «theory».
In the origin of the term it was completely different. The Hebrews call the third person of the Godhead «the Ruach». To Ruach to adequately paraphrase, we need three words: Breath, wind and life energy. The Ruach is always in motion and sets others in motion. For the Hebrews, the Ruach not an interpersonal experience, but an experience of nature and the body.. In breath and wind, the Oriental experiences the mystery and fascination of life. Both are natural phenomena. In contrast, religious people are often fixated on the supernatural, on miracles. The Holy Spirit, however, is about the mysteriousness of the natural. Ruach reminds us to stay simple, healthy and natural.
To understand the Holy Spirit and His work, it is of utmost importance to understand Him from the Hebrew Bible.
The Ruach in Creation
In the second verse of the Bible, the Ruach for the first time: «And the earth was desolate and waste, and darkness was upon the face of the waters. And the spirit (ruach) of God hovered over the face of the waters.»(Genesis 1:2 NLB). The presence of the Ruach is the condition for what comes now: «Then God said: «Let there be light!», and there was light»(Genesis 2:3 NLB). Creation takes place in close connection between the creative Word and the Ruachthat makes this creative word possible at all. «The heavens were made by the word of the LORD, and all his host by the breath (ruach) of his mouth.»(Psalm 33:6 LUT). Breathing is closely related to speaking. We communicate with the exhalation. Without air in motion there is no voice, no singing and no sound.
In religion class, Frederik learns how God created everything, including people. He listens very carefully when the teacher tells him how Eve was created from Adam’s rib. A few days later, his mother notices that Frederik is not feeling very well and asks: «Frederik, you’re not getting sick, are you?» The son replies: «I have a terrible stitch in my side. I think I’m going to have a wife.» In the story of creation we see that every human being was created through the Ruach is alive: «Then the Lord God formed man from the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath (ruach) of life. Thus man came to life»(Genesis 2:7 NLB).
After God had formed Adam from the dust of the earth, the decisive step comes: God breathes breath into man’s nostrils. Man is created to have the breath of life, he is a breathing being. Breathing is the need that we can least postpone. We consciously do our own drinking, eating and sleeping. Breathing happens automatically. According to Hebrew thinking, man is highly dependent and not – as we in the West often believe – self-sufficient. The movement of life happens silently and unobtrusively.
Breathing is much more than taking in and releasing air. It is the movement of life. We are on the drip of air from the first breath to the last. Every breath is a kind of exercise in trust. We entrust ourselves to the air and allow it to enter our inner being. It is appropriate to trust God as we trust the air we breathe. Because God is as closely connected to our lives as the air we breathe. HE is as important as the air we breathe. When people are gassed, the most natural basis of our lives becomes the enemy. That is why it is so abysmally evil.
The moving air from the mother’s mouth has a mysterious healing power when her child has a wound. Although it cannot be explained scientifically, the pain disappears. Unfortunately, we like to leave breathing exercises to esotericism. Correct breathing is very healthy and has a healing power. Healthy breathing causes a light continuous massage of the lower body. If we do not breathe deeply, the body temperature can drop by up to half a degree, which is the cause of many diseases. In the same way Ruach a healing power when we consciously receive Him and give Him space.
The term ruach is feminine in Hebrew. This is very deliberately chosen. There is a close connection with the process of childbirth. Nothing is as creative as a birth. In the Bible, there is the word ruach related term rewachwhich means vastness, space. During a birth, it goes through the birth canal into the expanse. The people of Israel were led into a new vast land, Canaan. The Ruach never leads into narrowness, into small-mindedness. When faith in Jesus Christ becomes a narrow country, we are on a sickening wrong track. Incidentally, the entire people of Israel were «born of the wind». When they fled Egypt, they were in danger of drowning in the chaotic power of the water from the Reed Sea. But the wind drove the water apart and the people passed through the «birth canal» and then headed towards Canaan, the promised vast land.
The Ruach in the New Creation
The Ruach is that which enables and creates life – be it in creation or in re-creation. In Ezekiel 37 there is the well-known text about the bones of the dead lying around in a field. The text speaks into a situation in which the people of Israel were withered and cut off from vibrant life. Do you also sometimes feel at the end, dried up and without hope? Unfortunately, there are such lows in life.
And that’s when the secret of the Ruach into play. Ezekiel 37 is the most intense text in the Bible about the life-giving power of the Ruach. The term appears 9 times in this chapter alone! Here is an excerpt: «Then he said to me: «Prophesy over the breath, prophesy, child of man, and say to the breath: «Thus says the Lord God: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe on these slain, that they may come to life again.» I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath entered them and they came to life. They stood up and there was a huge crowd of people» (Ezekiel 37:9f NLB). Only the Ruach can once again give a new beginning.
The whole earth sighs and longs for redemption. It is severely stricken. Only the Ruach, the Spirit of God, can create the world anew. It will finally happen when God’s kingdom comes to earth as a new Jerusalem.
The Ruach with the Messiah
The Ruach is also strongly represented in the messianic texts of Isaiah. «On him will rest the Spirit of the Lord – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord»(Isaiah 11:1 NLB). For the first time it says about a person that the Ruach will rest on him. The Messiah is the «Spirit-bearer par excellence» and lives in a permanent relationship with him. The effects of this are wisdom, knowledge and fear of God. A little later it says: «It provides for Justice among the poor and provides justice for the oppressed» (V.4 NLB). Another text says: «[…] I have given him my spirit to bring justice to the nations. […] He will not break the bent reed nor extinguish the smouldering wick. He will bring the right truthfully to light»(Isaiah 41:1–3 NLB). This is an image of mercy.
So the signs of authenticity of the Holy Spirit are not primarily supernatural phenomena or rapture, but tangible justice, mercy and righteousness. What would happen if these Ruach with exactly these effects would rest on every human being on earth? We would have the Garden of Eden 2.0.
Towards the end of the Old Testament we encounter the following promise: «In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will have prophetic dreams and your young men visions»(Joel 3:1 NLB). The time will come when the Ruach Poured out on all people. In Peter’s Pentecost sermon this text is quoted (Acts 2:17ff). The Ruach as breath is in every human being. In him we all live, weave and are. Since Pentecost there has been the offer from God that the Ruach rests in a human being. The condition for this is the personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the conscious acceptance of what He has done for us.. Whoever opens his heart to Jesus, on him rests the Ruach. Such a person will fear God and work for mercy, justice and righteousness in this world. These are then precisely the harbingers of the new creation that began with Jesus Christ!
Questions for the small groups
Read the Bible text: Ezekiel 37:1–14; Isaiah 11:1–4; 42:1–4
- What did you learn about the Holy Spirit today that you were not aware of before?
- What does the term Ruach in contrast to the term Holy Spirit?
- Have you ever thought about breathing? Do a breathing exercise where you consciously breathe in and out. What does this trigger?
- What role does the Ruach have in the re-creation?
- What is the main thrust of the Holy Spirit in our lives? What impact could this have on society?
- How and why can you initiate harbingers of new creation?
