The Invisible Spirit and the Apostolate
Photo by Atlas Green on Unsplash
Scripture employs several symbols to represent the Holy Spirit. They are: (1) wind/breath, (2) the dove, (3) fire, (4) water, and (5) oil. The preeminent symbol among these is wind/breath. We see this implicitly in the biblical words for “spirit” in the Old and New Testaments. The Hebrew word for “spirit” (ruaḥ) is the same word for “wind” or “breath” in the Old Testament. Likewise, the Greek word for “spirit” (pneuma) is also the same word for “wind” and “breath” in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit as wind is explicitly seen in Acts 2, where the Holy Spirit is poured out on Jesus’s followers at Pentecost. The text says that there was the sound “like a mighty rushing wind” (ESV) that filled the house. Likewise, in John 3, Jesus compares the Holy Spirit to wind when talking to Nicodemus about new birth (i.e., regeneration) as a requirement for entering the Kingdom of God. A final example would be Jesus’s breathing on his disciples after his resurrection. After he breathes on them, he says, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn. 20:22). This is a reenactment of God breathing the breath of life into Adam after forming him from the ground (Gen. 2:7). This act of Jesus, by the way, is teaching us that to be a Christian is more than merely being free from the guilt of sin (justification), but also from the power of sinning (regeneration and sanctification).
The question is, in what way is the Holy Spirit like wind and breath? One shared attribute between them is that they are life-giving. There is no life without breath. This is immediately apparent even in some of these verses referenced above. When the Holy Spirit comes upon the church, it comes to life. When God breathes on Adam, he comes to life. In Jesus, the Holy Spirit enlivens holy passions, desires, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and actions in the church. Likewise, the Holy Spirit will enliven the dead through resurrection in end times the same way he enlivened the dead body of Jesus after his death through crucifixion.
Further still, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3, the Holy Spirit, like wind, blows where it wishes, meaning that he is unpredictable. Put another way, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. Paul says that the gospel is scandalous to the Jews and folly to the Greeks (1 Cor. 1:23). To redeem the world, God takes on flesh and dies a criminal’s death? To gain victory over death, he submits to it? Submission is power? Blessed are the poor, the meek, and the peacemakers? The Messiah will come from Nazareth? He uses Saul of Tarsus, the Jew of Jews, to reach the Gentiles? He calls fishermen to be the authorities of the Kingdom of God? The Holy Spirit, like wind, is unpredictable.
Another point of comparison arises between wind/breath and the Holy Spirit that is very important, powerful, and often overlooked: invisibility. The Holy Spirit, like wind/breath, is invisible. There are several theological implications for the invisibility of the Holy Spirit. To name just a few:
First, the invisibility of the Holy Spirit points to his divinity. The Holy Spirit in his invisibility is incomprehensible. He cannot be fully comprehended by the created. He’s not “measurable by the senses.” As Paul says, the Holy Spirit alone, as God, can search the depths of God (1 Cor. 2:10).
Second, Jesus—not the Holy Spirit—is the preeminent form of divine revelation. The Holy Trinity decided that God would reveal himself to the world most plainly in the form of Jesus Christ. This means the Holy Spirit is frequently in the background in relationship to Jesus. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us that God has revealed himself to us in his latter days through his Son (Heb. 1:1–5).
Furthermore, the invisibility of the Holy Spirit—one can argue—means that often the work of the Holy Spirit both through and in believers is not always perceivable. Let’s explore these.
Faith Over Fruit (The Work of the Spirit Through Believers)
We can all recount times when we look back into our lives and see—with clarity—the workings of the Holy Spirit that we weren’t aware of in those moments. I can even look back on my pre-conversion life and see the way that God was working to draw me to himself, protecting me, preserving me, while I was completely unaware.
One of my students in Haiti was the son of a very prominent witch doctor from the nation’s capital. I asked him how he—the son of a witch doctor—became a Christian with a call to full-time ministry. He said that when he was a young boy, a missionary would visit his father regularly to share the gospel with him. Because of being privy to private conversations in the house, he knew that his father had no intention of becoming a Christian. He was just trying to waste the missionary’s time: “The more time he spends with me, the less time he spends evangelizing others in the community.” As the missionary would come and converse with his dad, however, Junior would be in an adjacent room, listening very carefully to the words of the missionary.
Junior was being drawn out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light by the grace of God that was being poured out through this missionary. The missionary had no idea that he had an invisible audience. Likewise, the witch doctor had no idea that his intention for harm had transformed into good (Gen. 50:20). He would lose his own son to Jesus because of his plans for evil. Proverbs 26:27 says that those who set a trap for others will themselves fall into it. The point is that the Holy Spirit was working, and that work was invisible.
Another very clear example of the invisible work of the Holy Spirit is in 2 Kings 6, where Elisha and his servant arose to face an army with horses and chariots all around them. The servant, who could not see the invisible, was very frightened: “Alas, my master, what shall we do!?” Elijah told him not to be afraid, and asked the Lord to open his eyes to see, and the Lord revealed the mountain full of invisible horses and chariots of fire all around.
We can find this same principle in the story of Joseph and his brother. By selling their brother into slavery, Joseph’s brothers were attempting to pre vent his dream from coming true. God used their evil intentions to fulfill his very will.
Similarly, by killing Jesus, the authorities thought that they were eliminating their enemy, when, in fact, they were the very catalyst for Jesus’s universally redeeming act that would mean his exaltation and glorification. Their attempt to squash their enemy resulted in the reality that at the name of their enemy, “every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord” (Phil. 2:10–11).
The point is this: when one is on the front lines of ministry fulfilling their vocation and things are hard, heavy, and there is an impossible task at hand, it is essential to remember that the Holy Spirit is at work in ways that we cannot see. This means that success in ministry cannot always be measured according to perceivable fruit. To be clear, there is always fruit that results from the Spirit’s work; it is that fruit that is true of all Christians at all ages: the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control). The fruit I’m speaking of is perceivable change in the life of others that you’re called to serve.
The Christian must never forget that the disciples looked on Jesus hanging on the cross thinking that this whole enterprise was an utter failure, while God was doing his best work in redeeming the world.
The Holy Spirit is invisible.
Faith Over Feelings (The Work of the Spirit In Believers)
To the second point, one of the implications of the invisibility of the Holy Spirit is that there will be times in the life of every Christian—but especially clergy—when we cannot feel God’s presence. In these moments, we must obey whether we feel like it, or feel his presence, or not.
In Matthew’s account of the crucifixion he writes, “From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (27:45–46). This is one of the most misinterpreted of all the passages in the New Testament, especially surrounding the person and work of Jesus.
The most common misinterpretation of the text is a literal reading of Jesus’s words, which yields, “God the Father betrayed/abandoned God the Son on the cross.” Most of the time that interpretation suggests that Jesus’s taking on the sin of the world means that the holy God’s presence cannot remain with Jesus without violating His own holiness. This interpretation can be summarized as the “broken Trinity” interpretation of this passage. Although we do not have time to expound upon the logic of this error here, the basic problem is any suggestion that the Trinity can be divided or torn.
So, what is the right interpretation of this passage? I believe the answer lies in Psalm 22. Jesus is quoting the first verse of Psalm 22 when he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These words were originally the words of David that Jesus is reappropriating for this moment on the cross. In that Psalm of David, we see shocking parallels between David’s experience and Jesus’s experience on the cross. For example:
Psalm 22:6–8: “But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head saying, ‘Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”
Psalm 22:15 “my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws…”
Psalm 22:16 “they have pierced my hands and my feet…”
Psalm 22:18 “they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”
With these undeniable similarities, it is clear that Jesus is not just quoting the first verse of Psalm 22, but has the entire Psalm in mind. And, as we learn from the New Testament (and the Dead Sea Scrolls), it was common for Jews during the time of Jesus to look to the Psalms as future-predictive prophecy of the Davidic Messiah to come (Lk. 24:44). By quoting Psalm 22, Jesus is saying, “I am the David for whom you have been waiting.” Complementing this interpretation are the signs and symbols of Jesus’s royalty in the moments of his crucifixion. They clothed him with a purple robe. They crowned him with a crown of thorns. They hung a sign over his head that read, “Jesus, the King of the Jews.” In sum, Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David that his heir would ultimately rescue the Israelites and sit on the throne for eternity.
Another element is at play here, however, that relates directly to the invisibility of the Holy Spirit and its importance for ministry. When we look again at Psalm 22, David is definitively declaring his trust in God in a moment when it feels as if he has been abandoned. Psalm 22 begins as a lament Psalm, but ends as a trust psalm. It says:
But You, O Lord, be not far off; O You my help, hasten to my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth; From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me. I will tell of Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the Lord, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from him; but when he cried to Him for help, He heard. (Ps. 22:19–24)
Once again, Jesus is drawing on all of the content of Psalm 22. He is saying, “it feels like you have abandoned me, but I trust you and will remain faithful!”
It is certain that there will be times in ministry in which it will feel as if God has left. You will not be able to sense his presence, but remember the promise of Jesus: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19–20).
Conclusion
God is qualitatively different from humans in several ways, but two are key for my argument here: (1) his being, and (2) his ethics. Concerning his being, he is uncreated. He is infinite. He has no beginning and no end, unlike created beings. He alone is in the category of “uncreated being.” Concerning his ethics, he is immutably good. He is just, kind, merciful, righteous, compassionate, etc. Ultimately, he is love. He is holy love. The single word in the Bible that captures this kind of love is ḥesed, which can be translated steadfast love. God’s love is qualitatively different than human love. It is disimpassioned. God is immutable, which means he doesn’t change. It means that because he is unchanging, there is nothing that can change him from the outside. He is thoroughly consistent in his character. No external force, not even human sin, can alter God’s love. His love does not wax and wane. It is steadfast. It is steady. This love is why God was willing to die for us while we were sinners.
Jesus conversed with Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee after his resurrection. He asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Each time Peter responded in the affirmative. After each time Peter responded, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you,” Jesus commanded him to “Feed my sheep.” Note something here, Jesus does not ask Peter if he loves his sheep; he asks Peter if he loves Jesus. Yes, we are called to love the sheep, but ultimately, as we faithfully fulfill our call to ministry out of obedience to Jesus, we do so compelled by love for Jesus, and it is a love that is faithful in all circumstances. It is a love that is steady. It is a love that does not wax or wane. It’s a love that is not conditioned on feelings, or fruit, which means that obedience is compelled by love for Jesus.
C.S. Lewis captures this idea in his Screwtape Letters. He writes:
Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy’s will, looks around upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
As we look to the death of Jesus as the example of success in ministry, the measure of success in ministry is not perceivable fruit, it is obedience.
Of all of the symbols of the Holy Spirit that we find in scripture, it is intriguing that the most common is wind. Like wind, the Holy Spirit is unpredictable and an invisible, live-giving force. As Christians obey the command to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19–20), and to live according to the Spirit (Rom. 8), it is imperative that we remember that there will be times in which the deeper, redemptive work of God in and through us is imperceivable.
Matt Ayars is the Lead Pastor of New Beginnings Methodist Church in Madison, MS.