The Spirit and the theology of Creation

So far in this survey of how the Old Testament speaks about the Holy Spirit, we’ve looked at the examples where the Spirit is given as a particular gift to a particular person. In the Torah and Deuteronomistic History, we found a consistent pattern of gifts of practical wisdom and communication for the purpose of leading God’s people. The Prophets largely continued this pattern, but added an emphasis on social justice and, especially in Ezekiel and Joel, looked forward to a day when these particular gifts would be given to everyone in the community (and beyond). Today we’ll turn to the second type of reference to the Spirit in these ancient texts, less common but perhaps more important and influential than the first group: the general presence of the Spirit working in and through all things and all people.

This idea first comes up at the very beginning of Genesis, where the Spirit of God is seen ‘brooding’ over the as of yet ‘formless and empty’ universe (1.2), out from which emerges form and order. This intimate, mothering agency of the Spirit in creation is also seen in Psalm 33.6: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (remembering that in all of our biblical languages, the same words are used for ‘breath’, ‘spirit’, and ‘wind’). In Psalm 104, the Spirit breath of God is connected to God’s providence and to the living breath of animal life:

All creatures look to you / to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them, / they gather it up;
when you open your hand, /they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face, / they are terrified;
when you take away their breath, / they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit [breath], they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalm 104.27-30)

A similar connection is made concerning the creation of humanity: “Then the LORD God formed a human from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath [spirit] of life, and the human became a living being” (Genesis 2.7). The Spirit is so present in the created world that in Psalm 139, the psalmist wonders at its omnipresence: “Where can I go from your Spirit? / Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; / if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Psalm 139.8).

So there is a strong belief in the Scriptures in a general infusion of the Holy Spirit in and through all things that stands in parallel to the belief that the Spirit imparts specific gifts to specific people. This double belief has been maintained in Christian theology, and is something that many find a bit confusing: To the question of ‘Is the Holy Spirit present in everyone’s lives or is it given as a special gift to the faithful?’, the answer is simply ‘Yes’. Both are ancient ideas that have lived side-by-side at the deepest levels of our religious traditions.

So how does this general presence of the Spirit play out?

In general, we can say that throughout the Old Testament, but especially in the Wisdom literature, the presence of the Spirit of God, or breath of life, operates as a powerful image for our continued dependence on God and the folly of opposing God. We first see this at the start of the Flood narrative in Genesis 6. Seeing humanity rise in strength and beauty, and we might infer, forget (as the successful and powerful often do) their dependence on God, God says: “My Spirit [or breath] will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6.3). In other words, if God gives the breath of life to them, God can just as easily take it away; here it’s placing a limit on the human lifespan, but this same contingency on God’s providence is made all the more clear in the flood narrative itself. A similar sense of dependence is found in Job 33 and 34: “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33.4). And,

It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice. Who appointed him over the earth? Who put him in charge of the whole world? If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust. (Job 34.12-15)

And again, in Ecclesiastes, the Teacher says:

Remember [God]—before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12.6-7)

In all of these texts, the same logic is at work: God’s Spirit gave order and imparted life to the world and can — and will — take that life back whenever God pleases. Notice how the theme of Providence — God’s ongoing and loving presence and provision for creation — is connected so intimately with the theme of human dependence. Our spiritual existence, and very breath, is God-given, and so finds its highest purpose in being aligned with the one who breathes in and through us. The quest to do just this ends up being the whole basis of the Wisdom tradition. Here’s how three classic Wisdom texts put it:

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Teach me to do your will, for you are my God (Psalm 51.10-12)

May your good Spirit lead me on level ground. (Psalm 143.10)

The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one’s inmost being. (Proverbs 20:27)

Psalm 51, which is traditionally ascribed to King David, also ties into the royal motif we looked at last time, but here we see that it can also be read in continuity with the whole human vocation to live with our spirit governed by God’s Spirit.

So strong is this link between the human spirit and God’s Spirit in the Hebrew Bible that the two often blend together, with God giving the faithful a ‘spirit of’ justice or grace, which can often seem to be a gloss for the Spirit of God; or on the flip side, God can remove the Spirit from the faithless, ‘giving’ them instead a ‘spirit of’ judgement, despair, or confusion.

A similar creation-based general theology of the Spirit can be found in Isaiah and Ezekiel, alongside their expressions of the particular pouring out of the Spirit upon specific persons. The following lines from Isaiah could be straight out of the Wisdom texts we looked at above: “Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?” (Isaiah 2.22);  “Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor?” (Isaiah 40.13).

But, as we might expect, the Prophets don’t leave it there, but include this universal presence of the Spirit in their visions of the redemption of the whole creation. Let’s look at a few examples. At the end of an oracle of salvation looking ahead not only to Judah’s political restoration after the Exile, but also including the return of life to the desert, hearing to the deaf, and justice to the oppressed, Isaiah writes in classic Wisdom terms of fools becoming wise in their spirits: “When they see among them their children, … Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction.” (Isaiah 29:23-24)

The connection of this cosmic restoration with the renewing power of the Spirit of God present in and through the whole of creation is made explicit a few chapters later: “…till the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert, his righteousness live in the fertile field” (Isaiah 32.15-16). And again: “None of these [animals] will be missing, not one will lack her mate. For it is his mouth that has given the order, and his Spirit will gather them together” (Isaiah 34.16). And, again connecting the restoration of the earth with the renewal of God’s people: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants” (Isaiah 44.3). All this comes to a head in chapter 59, where it is described in terms of a covenant, a formal treaty or contract between two parties:

“As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the Lord. (Isaiah 59.21)

Taking all this together with the previous post, we see something interesting emerge: when looking forward to a day when God’s people would be restored, the two understandings of the Holy Spirit begin to blend together. Most of the Ezekiel oracles I quoted in that post could equally fit in this one. This is particularly striking in the oracle of the Valley of Dry Bones, in which God literally re-creates God’s people:

Therefore, prophesy and say to them:
“This is what the LORD God says:
I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them, my people,
and lead you into the land of Israel.
You will know that I am the LORD, my people,
when I open your graves and bring you up from them.
Iwill put my Spirit in you, and you will live,
and I will settle you in your own land.” (Ezekiel 37:12–14)

We could say that Isaiah has a schema wherein the particular gift of the Spirit is fulfilled in the coming messianic king, whose reign will result in the renewal of the general gift of the Spirit in and through all things. The other prophets, who are less dependent on messianic imagery than Isaiah is, operate under a schema in which the particular gift of the Spirit is fulfilled directly by its merging with the general gift: all things and all people are now empowered to lead and govern rightly.

This is all beautiful theology, and would prove very fruitful in the following centuries. In the next post, we’ll continue this historical survey of the development of the concept of the Holy Spirit by looking at how it was conceived in the literature of the Second Temple period, extending from the Persian period (late 6th Cs BCE) through to the destruction of the Temple by Rome in 70 CE.