Lesson 6: The Spirit of God (Elohim), the Spirit and His Spirit in the Torah.

January 6, 2019 | The Sanctuary UPC

Daniel L. Segraves

The Spirit of God (Elohim)

[1] Balaam had a reputation for successfully blessing and cursing people. He did this in exchange for a “diviner’s fee.”[1] Balaam encountered the Angel of the Lord, who is contextually identified as God Himself.[2] When called upon for his services, Balaam usually resorted to sorcery, but not in this case. Nothing is said about Balaam being filled with the Spirit of God, but he is said to have had the Spirit of God come upon him (Numbers 24:2). He uttered magnificent messianic prophecies under the influence of the Spirit of God.[3]

[2] How is it that Balaam, a soothsayer and hireling whose counsel led the Israelites to trespass against the Lord, could be an instrument of the Spirit of God? The answer to this question reveals an essential understanding of the Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God comes upon a person, it tells us nothing about that person’s spiritual condition or theological accuracy. What it tells us is that God can use any person or thing – as in the case of Balaam’s donkey – to accomplish His purposes.

Summary 

[3] In our examination of the uses of the term “Spirit of God” in the Torah, we have seen that the Spirit of God is God in activity, bringing creative order out of chaos. When the Spirit of God is in a person, that person can be enabled to foresee events in an interpretive way so as to provide creative leadership (e.g., Joseph). When people are filled with the Spirit of God, they may be given skills they did not previously possess so they can accomplish God’s purposes and teach others to do so (e.g., Bezalel). When the Spirit of God comes upon someone, it is no indication of God’s approval of one’s lifestyle or theology, even though this event can result in the divine purpose being accomplished (e.g., Balaam). References to the Spirit of God in these early biblical accounts anticipate the work of the Spirit that would be poured out upon “all flesh” on the Day of Pentecost.

The Spirit  and His Spirit 

[4] The first reference simply to “the Spirit” in the Torah is found in Exodus 28:3. The Lord tells Moses to take his brother, Aaron, and Aaron’s sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, to serve as priests unto the Lord. This would require glorious, beautiful, holy garments. The Lord had already filled gifted artisans with the spirit of wisdom for this task. (See Exodus 28:1-4.)

[5] This anticipates Exodus 31:1-11, where we discover that Bezalel was the first person mentioned who had been filled with the Spirit of God for this purpose. The spirit of wisdom to which Exodus 28:3 refers is the Spirit of God, according to Exodus 31:3.

[6] In Numbers 11:17, the Lord said to Moses, “I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone.” Those upon whom the Spirit would “rest” were seventy elders in Israel (Numbers 11:16, 24-30). The selection of these elders apparently occurred when Moses followed the advice of his father in law, who saw how burdened Moses was in his attempt to judge all the people of Israel alone. (See Exodus 18:13-27; 24:1, 9; Deuteronomy 16:18.)

[7] Although it was wise for Moses to select these men to help him, it was not the final answer for his heavy responsibilities. When the people complained about the manna, Moses said to the Lord, “I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If you treat me like this, please kill me here and now” (Numbers 11:14-15). Not only did Moses need seventy men; he needed seventy men upon whom the Spirit came and rested. (See Numbers 11:25-29.)

[8] Joel’s promise of the outpouring of the Spirit^[4] seems to be the answer to Moses’ prayer: “Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29).^[5] When the Spirit that was upon Moses was placed on the seventy elders, causing them to prophesy, it was a radically new pneumatological concept for the ancient Israelites. When Eldad and Medad prophesied in the camp rather than at the tabernacle, Joshua’s shock was palpable: “Moses my lord, forbid them!” (Numbers 11:28). Moses’ prayer anticipated a day when the Spirit would come not merely upon selected male leaders among the Israelites, but upon all the Lord’s people without regard to gender or social standing.  This is exactly the promise of Joel, and it was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost.^[6]

[9] We will at this point in our study begin to see a pattern forming throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament. That is, when the Spirit comes upon people, their immediate response tends to be supernatural vocalization, as in the case of the Spirit resting on the seventy. They prophesied. It is not always said that this happened, but it is not unusual. This anticipates the Day of Pentecost, when all who were filled with the Spirit spoke in languages (i.e., tongues) they had never learned. It was no surprise for these newly Spirit filled believers to speak under the influence of the Holy Spirit, but it was surprising for them to speak with other tongues. This had never before happened, and it signaled that the Day of Pentecost ushered in a new era surpassing all that had gone before as it relates to the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people.

[10]The next reference to “the Spirit” is located in Numbers 27:18: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him.’ ” As we have already seen, Joshua was full of the Spirit (Deuteronomy 34:9). This equipped him to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land. The laying on of Moses’ hands inaugurated Joshua as Moses’ replacement (Numbers 27:18-23).[7]

Summary

[11]The descriptors “the Spirit,” “His Spirit,” “the Spirit of Wisdom,” “the Spirit of God,” and “the Spirit of the Lord” are virtual synonyms.^[8] Human wisdom alone cannot accomplish God’s purposes. Moses’ seventy elders needed the Spirit to rest on them to provide the help Moses’ required. When the Spirit rested on the seventy elders, they prophesied. This is the beginning of a pattern of supernatural vocalization in conjunction with the coming of the Spirit, a pattern that is finalized on the Day of Pentecost. The prophecy of Joel 2 is God’s response to Moses’ prayer. This prophecy was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. While the same Spirit that rested upon the seventy elders filled the believers who waited in the upper room, the fact that the first century believers spoke in languages they had never learned indicates that their experience with the Spirit surpassed anything before that day. For the first time, people were baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). The presence of the Spirit in a person’s life, together with the laying on of hands, can signal the inauguration of that person for leadership, as in the case of Joshua.

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[1] Biblical references to Balaam are in Numbers 22-24; 31:8, 16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; 24:9-10; Nehemiah 13:2; Micah 6:5; II Peter 2:15-16; Jude 1:11; Revelation 2:14.

[2] See, for example, Numbers 22:35-38.

[3] See Daniel L. Segraves, Reading Between the Lines: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament (Hazelwood, MO: WAP Academic, 2008), 75-86.

[4] See Joel 2:28-29.

[5] This is the only time the descriptor “His Spirit” appears in the Torah.

[6] See Acts 2.

[7] For further insight on the practice of “the laying on of hands,” see the comments on Hebrews 6:1-2 in Daniel L. Segraves, Hebrews: Better Things (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1997).

[8] In addition to the texts studied in this section, see Isaiah 11:2.

Copyright (c) 2018 by Daniel L. Segraves[archive]

Lesson 5: The Spirit of God (Elohim) in the Torah

December 30, 2018 | The Sanctuary UPC

Daniel L. Segraves

The first reference to the Spirit of God in the Torah[1] is found in Genesis 1:2b: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” As we have already seen, this text reveals the role of the Spirit at the time of creation. As the Spirit hovered, “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2a). In connection with Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” – the Spirit of God is seen here as God in action. The Spirit is God doing something, not distinct from God, involved in bringing order out of chaos.

[2] The phrase “Spirit of God” is next used in Genesis 41:38: “And Pharaoh said to his servants, ‘Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?” We may be tempted to dismiss this text from consideration in the construction of a biblical pneumatology since it is Pharaoh who refers to the Spirit of God. But Pharaoh’s declaration follows Joseph’s explanation to him that it was God who enabled Joseph to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. (See Genesis 41:25, 28.) The God of whom Joseph spoke was the God to whom Pharaoh referred.

[3] It is commonly noted that the Spirit of God in this case enabled Joseph to exercise remarkable leadership in potentially disastrous circumstances, and that is true.[2] But we should note also that the Spirit of God in Joseph brought order out of the pending chaos anticipated by the seven years of famine of Pharaoh’s dream. Pharaoh had sought an answer from his magicians, but what they could not do, the Spirit of God enabled Joseph to accomplish.

[4] Bezalel is the next person mentioned as being filled with the Spirit of God. (See Exodus 31:3; 35:31.) The purpose of this filling was to equip Bezalel to make all the furnishings and clothing necessary for use with the tabernacle. This required wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. The phrase “all manner of workmanship” captures in broad terms the intricate artistic skills required to fulfill every detail of the requirements to construct and prepare God’s holy place. Other “gifted artisans,” like Aholiab, were also given wisdom to participate in this project. Bezalel and Aholiab were also gifted to teach others to help with this work. (See Exodus 35:34-35; 36:1-2.)

[5] This is the first time the Spirit of God is specifically mentioned in connection with the granting of specific skills and the ability to teach others. It seems we are beginning to see a glimmer of anticipation of the gifts of the Spirit in the New Testament, where some are gifted as teachers, leaders, helps and with words of wisdom, words of knowledge and – similarly to the case of Joseph and his ability to interpret dreams – with interpretative abilities as in the interpretation of tongues. (See Romans 12:6-8; I Corinthians 12:8-10, 28.)

[6] Balaam had a reputation for successfully blessing and cursing people. He did this in exchange for a “diviner’s fee.”[3] Balaam encountered the Angel of the Lord, who is contextually identified as God Himself.[4] When called upon for his services, Balaam usually resorted to sorcery, but not in this case. Nothing is said about Balaam being filled with the Spirit of God, but he is said to have had the Spirit of God come upon him (Numbers 24:2). He uttered magnificent messianic prophecies under the influence of the Spirit of God.[5]

[7] How is it that Balaam, a soothsayer and hireling whose counsel led the Israelites to trespass against the Lord, could be an instrument of the Spirit of God? The answer to this question reveals an essential understanding of the Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God comes upon a person, it tells us nothing about that person’s spiritual condition or theological accuracy. What it tells us is that God can use any person or thing – as in the case of Balaam’s donkey – to accomplish His purposes.

Summary 

     In our examination of the uses of the term “Spirit of God” in the Torah, we have seen that the Spirit of God is God in activity, bringing creative order out of chaos. When the Spirit of God is in a person, that person can be enabled to foresee events in an interpretive way so as to provide creative leadership (e.g., Joseph). When people are filled with the Spirit of God, they may be given skills they did not previously possess so they can accomplish God’s purposes and teach others to do so (e.g., Bezalel). When the Spirit of God comes upon someone, it is no indication of God’s approval of one’s lifestyle or theology, even though this event can result in the divine purpose being accomplished (e.g., Balaam). References to the Spirit of God in these early biblical accounts anticipate the work of the Spirit that would be poured out upon “all flesh” on the Day of Pentecost.

[1] For our purposes, the words “Torah” and “Pentateuch” are synonyms.

[2] See, for example, Wilf Hildebrandt, An Old Testament Theology of the Spirit of God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 105-06.

[3] Biblical references to Balaam are in Numbers 22-24; 31:8, 16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; 24:9-10; Nehemiah 13:2; Micah 6:5; II Peter 2:15-16; Jude 1:11; Revelation 2:14.

[4] See, for example, Numbers 22:35-38.

[5] See Daniel L. Segraves, Reading Between the Lines: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament (Hazelwood, MO: WAP Academic, 2008), 75-86.[archive]

December 23, 2018 | The Sanctuary UPC

Daniel L. Segraves

Since we have seen the high profile of the Holy Spirit created by Scripture’s literary shape^[1] and some of the biblical testimony to the deity of the Spirit, let’s now examine the implications of the widely diverse references to the Spirit throughout the Old Testament.

[2] As we discovered previously, the Holy Spirit is referred to in various ways. This includes not only “Holy Spirit,” but also “the Spirit of the Lord,” “the Spirit of God,” “my Spirit,” “the Spirit,” “Your Spirit,” and “His Spirit.”  We could organize our study of the Spirit in several ways. We could begin with the first reference in Genesis 1:2 and go straight through the Old Testament until we reached the final reference, which could be Zechariah 7:12; 12:10, or Malachi 2:15.^[2] Or we could organize our efforts by examining all references to “the Spirit of the Lord” together from the first to the last and then all mentions of “the Spirit of God” and so forth. A third possibility would be to arrange our study in topics without regard to the way the Spirit is described. For instance, we could collect all references to the Spirit’s involvement in creation, in the lives of people, in prophecy, and so forth.

[3] We will use a fourth method based on the arrangement of the books in the Hebrew Scriptures. In English translations, the books of the Old Testament are typically arranged in the order of the books in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. We may think the order of the books is insignificant, but Jesus did acknowledge their order as found in the Hebrew Scriptures when He said to unbelieving scribes and Pharisees, “I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes . . . that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar” (Matthew 23:34–35). Genesis records the shedding of Abel’s blood in the first book of the Old Testament (Genesis 4:8), and II Chronicles (the last book of the Old Testament in the Hebrew order of books) records the shedding of Zechariah’s blood (II Chronicles 24:20–21). Jesus referred to something recorded in the first book of the Old Testament and to something found in the last book of the Old Testament, implying that the unbelieving first-century Jewish leaders would be responsible for everything in these books and everything in between. In a way, He was saying, “From beginning to end, you are responsible for what is recorded in the Scriptures.”

[4] Jesus also acknowledged the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures when He said to His disciples, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me” (Luke 24:44). To refer to the “Psalms” in this way does not limit this third section to the Book of Psalms. The third section is referred to as the “Psalms” because the Book of Psalms is the first book in this section. Since Jesus used the Hebrew order in these references to the Old Testament, we should be aware of the possible significance of this order for interpretive purposes. Here is the common order of the books in the Hebrew canon:

Law (Torah; Pentateuch)	Latter Prophets
Genesis	Isaiah
Exodus	Jeremiah
Leviticus	Ezekiel
Numbers	The Twelve (Hosea—Malachi)
Deuteronomy	Psalms (Kethubim, writings)
Prophets (Nebi’im)	Psalms
Former Prophets	Job
Joshua	Proverbs
Judges	Ruth
Samuel	Song of Solomon
Kings	Ecclesiastes
	Lamentations
	Esther
	Daniel
	Ezra-Nehemiah
	Chronicles

5] Not only is the order of the books different from the order commonly found in English translations, but books that are divided in the English translations are not divided in the Hebrew Scriptures. For instance, we think of the “twelve minor prophets,” but from the standpoint of the Hebrew text, these twelve books form one book, known as the Book of the Twelve or, simply, “the Twelve.” Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are not divided into two books each in the Hebrew Scriptures. Ezra and Nehemiah form one book. So when Jesus said that all things written in the prophets concerning Him must be fulfilled, He had in mind a much larger section of the Hebrew Scriptures than we might think of as “prophets.” In addition, some Old Testament persons or writers that we are not used to thinking of as prophets are identified as prophets. For instance, Abraham was a prophet (Genesis 20:7), as was David (Acts 2:30).

[6] To develop a biblical pneumatology, we will examine this subject according to the order and division of the books in the Hebrew Scriptures, beginning at the first of each book. We will seek to construct the doctrine of the Spirit found in each biblical book before moving on to the next book. Finally, we will attempt to construct a comprehensive pneumatology from each Old Testament reference to the Holy Spirit.

[1] This is a reference to the Spirit’s appearance at the beginning and end of Scripture and the beginning and end of the Pentateuch. Literary arrangements like this should not be viewed as mere accidents. They suggest intentional design.

[2] When there is a question about whether the word “spirit” refers to the Spirit of God, the human spirit, or other spirits (e.g., angels, demons, animal spirits), we will seek to be informed by the context in which the reference appears.

Copyright (c) 2018 by Daniel L. Segraves[archive]

This morning I remembered an oral family tradition passed down to me concerning my grandfather, L. D. [Lewis Dudley] Segraves. The story included my grandfather’s role in the life of Billy and Bobby McCool in 1948, when they were eleven year old twins in Southeast Missouri.

I had heard that grandpa baptized Billy and Bobby in Jesus’ name and that he personally picked them up for Sunday school when he was serving as pastor at what was then known as the Apostolic Assembly of Jesus Christ in Kennett, Missouri. Today, I had an impression that I needed to do what I could to verify this tradition, and I needed to do it now.

I know Pastor Mark McCool of the First Apostolic Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, a church planted in 1957 by his father, Billy. Mark is the First Assistant General Superintendent of the Assemblies of the Lord Jesus Christ and a member of the board of directors of Urshan College and Urshan Graduate School of Theology, from which I recently retired. I was able to reach him as he was traveling, and he offered to ask his father to call me.

What a joy it was to hear Bishop McCool, now 82 years old, recount his history and my grandfather’s role in it! 

As young boys, Billy and Bobby lived with their family off of Missouri Route 84 between Haiti and Kennett. Their home was about fifteen miles east of Kennett. Their father was a sharecropper, and they were quite poor. They had no automobile, and the boys hitchhiked to church services. They had no “dress up” clothes, wearing overalls and inserting cardboard into their shoes to over up the holes in the soles. 

Their mother and grandmother had embraced Oneness Pentecostalism with its attendant practice of baptism in Jesus’ name, but they knew of no Oneness church near them. Billy was baptized with the Holy Spirit at a Trinitarian Pentecostal church in Pascola, a small village in Pemiscot County, Missouri. He felt God had called him to preach, and he delivered his first sermon at a Trinitarian Pentecostal church in Braggadocio, Missouri, also in Pemiscot County, dressed in his overalls, a red flannel shirt, and one of his father’s neckties.

In 1948, the church in Kennett pastored by my grandfather began a tent revival that lasted for nine weeks. C. R. Young was the evangelist. The tent was erected in the 1000 block of First Street, and attendance averaged from 500 to 2,000 people nightly, with the highest attendance for a single service at approximately 4,000. Word spread far and wide of this event as people were healed of deafness, blindness, cancer, and goiter, to mention but some of the miracles that occurred. About 223 people were baptized in water in the name of Jesus, and some 150 were baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Among the 223 baptized were Billy and Bobby McCool. They heard of the revival and wanted to go to be baptized. Their mother was reluctant to let them go, because she felt they did not have appropriate clothing. The boys responded, “Unless you forbid us, we want to go!” They hitchhiked to Kennett and were baptized on the same day as Norman Luna. C. R. Young personally baptized them, but Bishop McCool emphasized to me that this was under the pastoral direction of my grandfather Segraves.

My grandpa took a keen interest in Billy and Bobby, recognizing God’s call on their lives. Observing their dress, he collected an offering to buy new shoes for them. When the boys returned home that night, they learned that their parents had no money to buy fuel for their kerosene stove. They had not told their parents about the money for shoes, but they gave the funds to their mother and father for the purchase of the needed fuel.

The next night, when Billy and Bobby arrived for the tent meeting, wrapped packages were waiting for them on the platform. My grandfather called them up and presented the packages to them, which included new khaki pants and shirts to match. They were also given more money to buy the shoes they needed. Up until this point they had worn only overalls.

Others baptized during this remarkable revival included Billy’s and Bobby’s sister, Ola, and her husband, Carl Denny. My grandfather baptized Carl and Ola on the night of their wedding. Carl and Ola had been playing and singing in a bluegrass band called “Chuck Gray and the Mountaineers.” The band had a radio program on KBOA, a station located in Kennett. Mac and Norman Luna, a talented husband and wife team, also played guitar and mandolin and sang in the band. Chuck, who played the banjo,  was suffering from bleeding ulcers.  When his life was transformed during the revival, he renamed the band “Chuck Gray and the Sunnyside Gospel Singers.”

Bishop McCool has had a long and fruitful ministry. He has been preaching for seventy-one years and still believes as he did when he began proclaiming the gospel at the age of eleven. He credits my grandfather with giving him and his brother their first exposure as young preachers of the gospel. Remembering that grandpa drove a Studebaker and had a gold front tooth, he said grandpa was “like Moses” to them, and that he probably picked them up and brought them to Sunday school. He affectionately referred to grandpa as “Uncle Dudley, a dear patriarch and man of God in our lives.”

My heart rejoices to hear of grandpa’s role in helping two young preachers get their start in ministries that have positively influenced many thousands of people.[archive]

[archive]

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Lesson 3: The Deity of the Holy Spirit

December 16, 2018 | The Sanctuary UPC

Daniel L. Segraves

The Holy Spirit is God 

[1] At several places in Scripture the Holy Spirit is spoken of in such a way as to identify the Spirit with God. For instance, the dramatic event of the death of Ananias because of his lie about the price of the land he sold reveals that Peter viewed the Holy Spirit as God.

But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God (Acts 5:3-4).

When Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit, he lied to God. This indicates not only that the Holy Spirit is God, but also that the Spirit is not a mere force or power. The Spirit is a conscious, thinking being with whom one can communicate.

      [2] Paul also understand the Holy Spirit to be God. He wrote,

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (I Corinthians 3:16).

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:19).

For believers to be the temple of God is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. To say one thing is to say the other.

      [3] There are many claims in Scripture that it is inspired by the Spirit. Some of these claims are made by Jesus, David, Paul, and Peter. For example:

Now these are the last words of David. Thus says David the son of Jesse; thus says the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue” (II Samuel 23:1-2).

Then Jesus answered and said, while He taught in the temple, “How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Spirit: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’ ” (Mark 12:35-36).

And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples (altogether the number of names was about a hundred and twenty), and said, “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus” (Acts 1:15-16).

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (II Timothy 3:16).

For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (II Peter 1:21).

The topic is the same in all cases: the origin of Scripture. The terms used include “the Spirit of the Lord” and “the Holy Spirit,” but these words refer to God Himself.

[4] It is quite interesting to note that Peter, who twice credited the giving of Scripture to the Holy Spirit, also saw “the Spirit of Christ” as its source.

Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things which angels desire to look into (I Peter 1:10-12).

How could the Spirit of Christ have been in the prophets when Christ, the Messiah, had not yet come? One possible answer is to note that the term “Spirit of Christ” is a genitive of description, referring perhaps not to the Spirit possessed by Christ but the proclamation of the Holy Spirit about Christ.[1] Another suggestion is that this is a reference to Christ following His resurrection and thus first century prophets, but that does not seem likely in view of the context provided by the three verses.[2]

[5] In the interest of developing a biblical pneumatology, we should note that the only other time the term “Spirit of Christ” appears in Scripture is in Romans 8:9: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” It seems certain here that Paul used the terms “Spirit of God” and “Spirit of Christ” as synonyms. This would mean these terms were understood to be equivalents in the first century. In that case, the deity of the Spirit and of Christ is further underscored, and clarity is brought to Galatians 4:6: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

[6] After the incarnation it was possible to refer to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of His Son because the same Spirit, the same God, who gave the Scriptures by inspiration was now manifest in Christ, the Son of God. A statement of the essential oneness of God, the oneness of the church, and the oneness of saving faith is found in Ephesians 4:4-6: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”

[7] In this text informed by Paul’s interest in the Shema – “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”[3] – we see that there is but one church, one salvation experience, one Spirit, one Lord and God, the Father. We cannot separate the Lord from God. To do so would be to fly in the face of the Shema. God is the Lord, and the Lord is God. At the same time, there is one Spirit, identified elsewhere in Scripture as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Lord. It is because the Lord God is a Spirit being that He can be “above all, through all, and in you all.”

[8] The oneness of the Spirit is also seen in Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free – and have all been made to drink into one Spirit” (I Corinthians 12:13). As in Ephesians 4:4, there is one body and one Spirit.

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all (I Corinthians 12:3-7).

We notice first in this text that the Holy Spirit testifies to the deity of Jesus: He is Lord. Then, it is the same Spirit that grants diverse gifts. These gifts are the manifestation of the Spirit.

[9] But why the references to the same Spirit, the same Lord, and the same God? Some read this as evidence of three “persons” in the Godhead.[4] But to do so is to forget Paul’s commitment to the Shema. Earlier in this same letter, Paul appropriated the Shema to remind his readers of the nothingness of idols and of the existence of only one God.[5] Then, in language obviously informed by the Shema, he wrote: “[Y]et for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live” (I Corinthians 8:6). Perhaps this could be described as a revision or reshaping of the Shema, but it would be more appropriate to see it as an explanation of the Shema in view of the Incarnation. In the words of Richard Bauckham, “Paul offers a Christian formulation of the Shema.”[6]

[10] In view of the radical monotheism of the Hebrew Scriptures, this is a dramatic, inspired move on Paul’s part. If the Lord (Yahweh) our God (Elohim) is one Lord (Yahweh), how can God be the Father and Jesus the Lord? New Testament faith is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. First century Jewish believers saw their faith as having been anticipated by and as having fulfilled the Old Testament. This is seen by the fact that the New Testament quotes from, paraphrases, and alludes to the Old Testament in at least 800 places, although some scholars estimate a much greater frequency of those references.

[11] Because of these deep Old Testament roots, and because Jesus identified the Shema as the first of all the commandments,[7] it is not surprising to see so many references to the Shema in the New Testament. These references need not specifically quote the Shema word for word. The essence of this first commandment was so engrained in Jewish believers that it would not be too much to say that all New Testament affirmations of one God or one Lord or Lord God hearken back to the Shema. There are twenty of these.[8] But when we recognize that even the words “Lord Jesus” reflect the influence of the Shema, the number increases significantly. There are at least 225 such references.

[12] We can appreciate Bauckham’s analysis of I Corinthians 8:6 which demonstrates Paul’s commitment to the Shema. Our difference with Bauckham’s perspective is that the Shema identifies the Lord (Yahweh) our God (Elohim) as one Lord (Yahweh).[9] Bauckham’s conclusion seems to leave open the possibility that God, the Father, is not the Lord but that the Lord is exclusively the Messiah, the Son of the Father. The Shema declares that Yahweh, who is one, is both Lord and God. Bauckham’s “Christian formulation” of the Shema certainly includes the Messiah, but Paul’s use of the Shema points in the direction of the Incarnation.

[13] In a careful examination of the uses of the words “Lord, Lord” as applied by Jesus to Himself in Matthew and Luke, Jason A. Staples demonstrates that “the distinctive double form of ku,rie . . . serves to represent the name YHWH in Greek texts.”[10] Steven J. Beardsley has explored the significance of the word kurios as it is used to refer to Jesus.[11]

[14] What has all of this to do with the Holy Spirit? The reason for this exploration of the use of kurios[12] as it relates to Jesus in the New Testament is to obtain a grasp of the significance of New Testament references to the Shema. What do these references tell us about God? What do they say about Jesus? To what extent, if any, do they inform us about the Holy Spirit? If they do influence our understanding of the Holy Spirit, our belief in the inspiration of both testaments by the Spirit demands that there be no discrepancy of the Spirit’s identity between the two.

[15] The Shema appears first in the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 6:4). In the interest of establishing context, we should note that “the Pentateuch was originally composed as a single book.”[13] The only apparent reference to the Spirit of the Lord in Deuteronomy is near the end of the book: “Now Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; so the children of Israel heeded him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses” (Deuteronomy 34:9). The event this refers to reaches back to Numbers 27:18: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him.”

[16] The Spirit with which Joshua was full was not merely the human spirit. The “Spirit of wisdom” describes “the Spirit of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:2). It is significant for biblical pneumatology that this reference to Joshua’s fullness of the Spirit appears at the conclusion of the Pentateuch while the first mention of the Spirit of God is found in the Pentateuch’s second verse. The same Spirit that hovered over the face of the waters at creation filled Joshua to equip him for his mission of leading the people of Israel into the Promised Land.

[17] If John Sailhamer is right that the first chapter of Genesis, beginning with verse 2, is about the preparation of the land later promised to Abraham and his descendants, the references to the Spirit at the opening and closing of the Pentateuch are even more significant.[14] The Spirit is involved at the beginning of the preparation of the Promised Land and on the cusp of entry into that land under Joshua’s leadership. This literary device, referred to by scholars as an inclusio, heightens the profile of the Spirit throughout the Pentateuch.

[18] The Shema declares, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The New Testament proclaims by its references to the Shema that Jesus is Lord. Finally, as Paul wrote, “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (I Corinthians 12:3).[15] The word “Spirit” may be absent from the Shema, but the Spirit is certainly present in the Shema, for only the Spirit of the Lord can identify the Lord.

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[1] Daniel L. Segraves, First Peter: Standing Fast in the Grace of God (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1999), 55-56.

[2] See Peter H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 62, n. 26.

[3] Deuteronomy 6:4.

[4] Surely this text does not mean that the Spirit is responsible for gifts, the Lord for ministries, and God for activities! Notions like this fragment God into some kind of divine committee. When we see references to “Lord” and “God,” we must keep in mind that the faith of the writers of the New Testament was deeply influenced by the Hebrew Scriptures’ first commandment (according to Jesus [Mark 12:29-30]), the Shema.

[5] I Corinthians 8:4.

[6] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s, 2008), 97. Bauckham points out the careful structure of I Corinthians 8:6: “but for us [there is] one God, the Father / from whom [are] all things and we for him / and one Lord, Jesus Christ / through whom [are] all things and we through him. ¶In stating that there is one God and one Lord, Paul is unmistakably echoing the monotheistic statement of the Shema` (‘YHWH our God, YHWH is one’), whose Greek version in the Septuagint reads: ‘The Lord our God, the Lord, is one’ (kurios ho theos hēmōn kurios heis estin). Paul has taken over all of the words of this Greek version of the Shema, but rearranged them in such a way as to produce an affirmation of both one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. ¶If Paul were understood as adding the one Lord to the one God of whom the Shema` speaks, then, from the perspective of Jewish monotheism, he would certainly be producing, not christological monotheism, but outright ditheism. . . . [T]he Shema` demands exclusive allegiance to the unique God alone. . . . [T]he addition of a unique Lord to the unique God of the Shema` would flatly contradict the uniqueness of the latter. Paul would not be reasserting Jewish monotheism in a Christian way nor modifying or expanding the Shema`, but repudiating Judaism and radically subverting the Shema`. The only possible way to understand Paul as maintaining monotheism is to understand him to be including Jesus in the unique identity of the one God affirmed in the Shema`. But this is, in any case, clear from the fact that the term ‘Lord’, applied here to Jesus as the ‘one Lord’, is taken from the Shema` itself. Paul is not adding to the one God of the Shema` a ‘Lord’ the Shema` does not mention. He is identifying Jesus as the ‘Lord’ whom the Shema` affirms to be one. In this unprecedented reformulation of the Shema`, the unique identity of the one God consists of the one God, the Father, and the one Lord, his Messiah . . . .” (Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 101).

[7] Mark 12:29.

[8] One God: Mark 12:32; Romans 3:30; Ephesians 4:6; I Timothy 2:5; James 2:19; One Lord: Mark 12:29; I Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:5; Lord God: Luke 1:32, 68; I Peter 3:15; Revelation 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 18:8; 19:6; 21:22; 22:5, 6.

[9] ‎יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד

[10] Jason A. Staples, “ ‘Lord, Lord’: Jesus as YHWH in Matthew and Luke,” New Testament Studies (2018), 64, p. 19. Referring to Matthew 7:21-22; 25:11; and Luke 6:46, Staples says, “[T]hese verses thereby place a self-referential use of the divine name on Jesus’ lips, an echo any first-century reader familiar with the Greek Bible would be unlikely to miss. Such applications of the name to the exalted Jesus amount to calling him God . . . . In this respect, the presentation of Jesus in these passages appears comparable to that of Philippians 2 and the creedal statement of 1 Cor 8:6, in which Paul expands upon the Shema to talk of ‘One God, the father . . . and one ku,rioj, Jesus Christ’.” Further, it is Staples’ view that the use of the “double ku,rioj” in Matthew and Luke “seems to confirm that the frequent application of the single ku,rioj to Jesus elsewhere should be understood as echoing the divine name.” In some manuscripts, another “double ku,rioj” is found in Luke 13:25.

[11] “Luke reached back into the common religious cultural context of the early Christians where he obtained his understanding of ku,rioj as Yahweh from the Greek Jewish Scriptures . . . .  When Luke and his Jewish audience heard ku,rioj, they first understood it to mean Yahweh. . . . For Luke, the identity of Jesus was profoundly clear.  Jesus was Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel, born a human being and as such he explicitly replaced Caesar as Lord of all” (Steven J. Beardsley, “Luke’s Narrative Agenda: The Use of ku,rioj within Luke-Acts to Proclaim the Identity of Jesus” [Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 2012], iii).

[12] Some translations, like the KJV, translate kurios as “Lord,” even when the New Testament reference is to an Old Testament text using the Hebrew Yahweh. More recent English translations tend to translate kurios as Lord when the Old Testament text uses Yahweh. This is helpful for English readers because it immediately indicates the deity of Jesus. See, for example, Hebrews 1:10 (NKJV). In nearly every case where Yahweh appears in the Old Testament, the KJV renders it as Lord. The Greek Septuagint, commonly referred to as LXX, renders Yahweh as kurios. Most of the quotations from the Old Testament, as well as paraphrases of and allusions to the Old Testament in the New Testament, are from the Septuagint. Since the Septuagint translates Yahweh into Greek as kurios, so does the New Testament.

[13] Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative, xix.

[14] Sailhamer maintains “that the narratives of Genesis 1 and 2 are to be understood as both literal and historical. They recount two great acts of God. In the first act, God created the universe we see around us today, consisting of the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the plants and animals that now inhabit (or formerly inhabited) the earth. The biblical record of that act of creation is recounted in Genesis 1:1 . . . . ¶The second act of God recounted in Genesis 1 and 2 deals with a much more limited scope and period of time. Beginning with Genesis 1:2, the biblical narrative recounts God’s preparation of a land for the man and woman He was to create. That ‘land’ was the same land later promised to Abraham and his descendants. It was the land which God gave to Israel after their exodus from Egypt. It was that land to which Joshua led the Israelites after their time of wandering in the wilderness. According to Genesis 1, God prepared that land within a period of a six-day work week. On the sixth day of that week, God created human beings. God then rested on the seventh day” (John H. Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account [Colorado Springs, CO: Dawson Media, 2011], iBook edition, “Introduction.”

[15] In I Corinthians 12:3 there is no specific quotation from the Old Testament, but the association of the word kurios (Lord) with Jesus throughout the New Testament provides strong contextual evidence that any use of “Lord” with “Jesus” recalls the Shema’s assertion that there is one Lord who is God.

Copyright © 2018 by Daniel L. Segraves