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Who is the Shepherd in Acts: The Holy Spirit or Messiah Yeshua?
A Biblical Study |
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by Paul Sumner
Various theologians and historians of Christianity have voiced their views about whether the Holy Spirit—as described in the Bible—is thought of as a Third member of the Godhead. That is: Do the signs of "personality" attributed to the Spirit require that we view the Spirit as a separate, independent, coexistent being, other than God himself or other than the resurrected Messiah? In the history of Christian thought, the Holy Spirit long presented a quandary. The earliest Ecumenical Creeds acknowledge the "reality" of the Spirit, but do not place the Spirit on co-equal par with God (the Father) and Yeshua (the Son of God) in perfect equilateral symmetry. The bishops at the first doctrinal council gathering at Nicea in AD 325 merely concluded: "We believe in the Holy Spirit"; without elaboration. At first, there was no triadic or three-in-one concept in Christian creeds, in spite of some "triadic" (not triune) passages in the HB and NT (Isa 48:16; Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14; Eph 4:4-6; Rev 1:4-5). That initial uncertainty and indecision was officially overcome at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. There, the Holy Spirit was affirmed to be "the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified." [Top] Students of the New Testament, however, have always questioned whether the Bible is so clear about the independent personhood of the Spirit. Attributes of personality are given to the Spirit, but are they "his" as a distinct person separate from the Father and Son? The phrase "God the Holy Spirit" isn't in the Bible. It was coined by theologians. In contrast to doctrinal and terminological innovations of post-biblical church thinkers, the Bible does not give the Spirit his (or its) due, especially at those times when one would expect clarity of testimony.
(1) The testimony of Yeshua himself should be central. He neither prays to nor worships the Spirit. He speaks of the Father being present with him, but not the Spirit—even though he was anointed with the Spirit (Matt 3:16; Luke 4:1, 18). He says the Father is "with" or "in" him (John 8:26-29; 16:32; 10:38; 14:10). Yet he is silent about the Other Person. My judgment is true, for I am not alone in it, but I and he who sent me…. He who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone. (2) Matthew and Luke say "the Holy Spirit" is the literal, biological, "engendering" father of the embyro later named Yeshua. [B]efore they [Joseph and Miryam] came together [sunelthein autous] she was found to be with child by (the) Holy Spirit. (Matt 1:18) Given later creedal formulas that say the Holy Spirit is a "person" distinct from "(God) the Father," these verses create a contradiction. For Yeshua himself—if we take these passages and the gospel accounts seriously—was unaware that the Third Person was his father. Nowhere do the apostles of Yeshua call the Spirit "father" of anyone, much less the father of Yeshua. [Top] (3) In mirroring this pattern in Yeshua's life, his disciples also never pray to or worship the Spirit. The voice of the Spirit is the Voice of Yeshua, the resurrected Messiah: [They were] forbidden [koluthentes] by the Holy Spirit,…the Spirit of Yeshua did not permit them. (Acts 16:6-7) See the full evidence in: Who is the Shepherd in Acts: the Holy Spirit or Messiah Yeshua? and The Messiah and the Spirit [PDF]. When the Book of Hebrews paints a mental picture of "Mount Zion…the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," we are given to see only "God, the judge of all" and "Yeshua, the mediator of the new covenant" (12:22-24). The Spirit is not mentioned. Paul says that for disciples, "there is one God, the Father…and one Lord, Yeshua Messiah" (1 Cor 8:6). When John first describes "the Word of life," he reminds disciples that "our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Yeshua Messiah" (1 John 1:3). He is very clear: "The antichrist [is] the one who denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:22). [Top](4) The heavenly beings and martyrs in the presence of God do not mention the Spirit as a third with God and the resurrected Messiah. "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." (Rev 5:13) These and other many passages show that the later model of a three-membered or triune "God" does not occur in the teachings of Yeshua and his disciples. (I discuss the triadic NT passage 1 John 5:7 at the end of this article.) [Two helpful documents: "Synonyms of Ruach and "Occurrences of 'Holy Spirit' In the New Testament"] [Top] (5) Later Jewish rabbinic literature indirectly confirms the New Testament emphasis on God and his "Lord," Yeshua. Very early, the rabbis began to reject a doctrine of "Two Powers" in heaven, which they said was held by the so-called Minim ("believers"). Until the 4th century (the time of the first Trinity councils at Nicea and Constantinople), the rabbis do not condemn belief in Three, only Two. See rabbinic quotes at the end of "The Heavenly Council in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament."
Some sources on the Two Powers subject include: [Top]
The previous mentioned ideas expressed by theologians and interpreters raise questions and implications. On the one hand, if it is true that God's "spirit" [lower case first letter] in the Old Testament signifies God himself and not a distinct personality second to him, then what catalyst or agent of change entered into the Godhead to create and separate Another Person out of God? And why did a second Spirit of God emerge only after the Old Testament era? On the other hand, if the Spirit in the OT is a Third Person and the ancient Hebrews knew this to be true, why haven't the Jewish people taught this all along, rather than fight so hard against it? Some Christian historians (we saw above) openly admit that the Church's understanding of the Spirit evolved: that the OT prophets and even NT apostles, had no grasp of the doctrine of "the Third Person." These authorities say that only under the guiding hand of that Third Person has the Church been led to this conclusion. If this is true, then the testimony of Yeshua himself must be theologically inadequate, is it not? [Top] For if the "Spirit" with which God anointed him was indeed a Third member of the Godhead, the response of Yeshua to that divine person is, frankly, rather irreverent. He never talks to him or prays to him or seeks his counsel. When he refers to "us," he means his Father and himself. And he teaches that "eternal life" is found in knowing his Father, "the only true God," and the one whom he sent: Yeshua himself (John 17:3). Why is Yeshua silent about the Other Person? Did Yeshua completely miss the whole point of God's gift of the Other Person to him? Did he not understand that he had been endowed with another Presence—his successor, the church's future "Lord and Life-giver" [from Nicene Creed]? Was Yeshua not in full grasp of Christian doctrine? Put another way: Was Yeshua called the Christos, the Anointed One, because God placed on him the Third Person—or because the Father gave him his power to heal and resist sin, his holy nature, and his word-producing, instructing Breath—all definitions of ruach (spirit) in the OT? [Top] In addition to all these provocative passages, we must also consider the texts in which the Father, Son, and Spirit are mentioned in a triune pattern. Some of these include Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, and Revelation 1:4-5. Each passage must be carefully studied in context, but two conclusions can be drawn about each. (1) A triune grouping does not imply or require we see a Trinity of divine persons. Note the triune patterns in Luke 9:26 [God, Messiah, holy angels], 1 Tim 5:21 [God, Messiah Yeshua, the chosen angels], Rev 1:4 [God, seven (S)pirits, Yeshua Messiah], and Rev 3:5 [Yeshua, the Father, the Father's angels]. (2) None of these triadic texts says the Three are united into one Godhead. In fact, they actually distinguish "God" from Jesus and the Spirit. One verse (in some Bibles) does describe a divine Unity among the Three: 1 John 5:7. But this passage has been shown to be a fraudulent insertion in Greek manuscripts by Catholic scribes. (3) The Immersion Command at the end of Matthew (28:19) refers to the triadic "name" of the Three. But everywhere else in the NT, the Jewish apostles do not explicitly follow this command (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; Rom 6:3; Gal 3:27; 1 Cor 1:13, 15). Instead, they immerse people in the "name of Yeshua" not the Triad. This suggests the apostles either never heard of the triune formula, or they understood Yeshua's words to mean something else. [Top]
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Monotheism and the Bible Who is the Shepherd in Acts: The Holy Spirit or Messiah Yeshua?
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