Say What?

A Biblical and Historical Journey on the Connection between the Holy Spirit, Prophecy, and Tongues

Jeremiah Campbell

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781532646997
  9781532647000
• eBook ISBN:
  9781532647017
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Have you ever wondered about the gifts of tongues, prophecy, or the Baptism of the Holy Spirit? So many opinions and points of view vary on these topics. Are they for today? Did they die with the apostles? This book takes a look at these issues with a panoramic journey throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments, their effects in church history, and what that means for us today. If you have ever wondered or struggled with these topics, then this book is for you.

Part I

Understanding the Role of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity

Before we get into the nitty gritty of this book, and the work of the Holy Spirit, we need take some time to understand him, and his role within the Trinity. Many misunderstandings exist about the Holy Spirit, and some people just plain lack knowledge about him. So we’ll start with the basics here. This first part of the book by no means develops a comprehensive pneumatological study (a fancy way to say “study of the Holy Spirit”), but it does give us a good foundation to understand the rest of the book.

Chapter 1

Who Is the Holy Spirit?

The Trinity

For some people, when they talk about the God of the Bible, they think about the Father and the term Yahweh, or Jesus Christ. Few people think about the Holy Spirit. So, to understand him we need to begin with an understanding of the Trinity.

Many people easily think about God as the Father, and about Jesus the Son because he came in human form. However, they struggle to think about the Holy Spirit as a person. We have to realize that God exists far beyond our understanding. Therefore, as simple humans, we relate the different persons of the God-head to things that we can comprehend. A father is something tangible, and Jesus Christ walked with humanity; therefore, we can grasp him. However, for many people, they understand the Holy Spirit like the force in Star Wars—as an energy or power, and that is where they go wrong.

The word “what” would incorrectly describe the Holy Spirit, rather we must use the word “who” when referring to him. God is one and exists in three persons as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a divine influence, not a cloud, not a phantom, nor a concept. He is a person who possesses an intelligence, a will, and emotions. He is God—with all of the attributes of the deity. The Holy Spirit exists as the third person of the Trinity—on par with God the Father and God the Son—this tri-unity does not constitute three gods, but rather one God manifested in three persons.

People try to define the Trinity, but God exists beyond our understanding. However, a couple of popular illustrations help us understand him to a degree.

Some say that the Trinity resembles an egg. Like the Trinity, the egg has three parts, the shell, the white, and the yolk. Though the egg has three parts, it is still one egg. Yet the egg metaphor falls short because God does not exist in three parts, all three persons of the God-head are one God, none exist as just part of God.

Some say that the Trinity resembles a hot cherry pie right out of the oven and cut it into three equal pieces. You see three equal parts in the crust, but when the knife passes through the cherry filling, it flows back together remaining as one pie on the inside. This metaphor is great, and delicious, but also limited, because it doesn’t quite capture the complexity of the Trinity. So, let’s take a look at a biblical understanding of the Trinity.

Some have difficulty with the fact that the word “Trinity” doesn’t appear in the Bible. However, the lack of the word does not mean that the concept of the Trinity does not exist in the Bible. If we take a deeper look at the linguistic context of the Bible, we will see that the people of both the Old Testament, and the New Testament saw the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one, and the same God. So let’s not just look at what the Bible says about God, but how it refers to him also.

The Old Testament

In the Old Testament, God revealed his name, Yahweh or Jehovah, to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14, stating that he is “I AM”. This Hebrew word essentially means “existence”, which appropriately describes God since without him, nothing exists.

The Hebrew people revered the name Yahweh/Jehovah to such a degree that they prohibited its verbal utterance. Their reverence for God’s name reflected the third commandment, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” (Exodus 20:7). The Hebrew language does not use vowels; therefore, pronunciation of written words seemed to vary. So, the pronunciation of God’s name varies as well—Yahweh or Jehovah.

Interestingly I learned that scribes also revered God’s name in writing. Some years ago, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit toured Seattle, near where I lived. Although I can’t read ancient Hebrew, seeing the fragments in the exhibit fascinated me. As I stared at the writings, I noticed that the same word seemed to stand out in various places, as if the writer had put it in bold for some reason. I pointed out the word to one of the exhibit scholars and asked him what it stood for. He smiled and explained the use of the word Yahweh, the name of God. He went on to tell me that the ancient Hebrew scribes held the name in such esteem that when they copied texts and came to God’s holy name, they would lower their pen, pick up a separate pen and use a special ink dedicated exclusively to writing his name. As a result, God’s name also stood out in all of the documents as something special, something set apart, something holy. The biblical authors also used this most holy name, Yahweh or Jehovah, to refer to all three persons of the Trinity, (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) (Martin, Brook and Duncan, 1992, 112).

Moses provides a great example of the special use of the term Yahweh/Jehovah with the Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy. This generation grew up during the forty years in the desert and knew little of what God had done in the generations before. Moses took the opportunity to write about the Father stating, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (6:4). For the word translated Lord in this verse Moses uses Yahweh/Jehovah. This name bears such holiness that the people of Israel did not pronounce it verbally, and when written, it required the use of a special pen. The people of Israel held this name in such sanctity that they would never use it for anyone else.

However, the prophet Jeremiah later used this same name, Yahweh/Jehovah, to describe the future Messiah—Jesus. He stated, “In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). Furthermore, the prophet Ezekiel referred to the Holy Spirit with this same holy name. He stated,

In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign Lord came on men there. I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood (Ezekiel 8:1-3).

So, Moses referred to the Father as Yahweh/Jehovah. Jeremiah also applied the same name to the Messiah, Jesus the Son. Ezekiel used the same name to refer to the Holy Spirit. These three examples merely offer a sample of the Hebrew mindset that God the Father, the Messiah (the Son), and the Holy Spirit constitute one and the same God, not three. The fact that they use the most holy name of God, Yahweh/Jehovah, for all three persons demonstrates an internalized understanding of the Trinity in the Old Testament.

The New Testament

The name Yahweh/Jehovah does not appear in the New Testament, since it comes from Hebrew, and the New Testament authors wrote in Koiné Greek. However, Rabbinic Jewish scholars translated the Old Testament into Koiné Greek centuries before Jesus’ birth in a text called the Septuagint. In fact, studies show that several New Testament authors, and Jesus himself quoted the Septuagint translation when they cited the Old Testament. The connections between the Septuagint, and the New Te...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I: Understanding the Role of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity
• Part II: The Filling of the Holy Spirit in the Old Covenant
• Part III: The Filling of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant
• Part IV: The Filling of the Holy Spirit in Church History
• Part V: The Filling of the Holy Spirit and the Pentecostal Renewal
• Bibliography