Godhead 09 - Spirit of the Holy 2024

The Holy Spirit is a term used to refer to the Spirit of God in different denominations. It is also known as the Set-Apart Spirit, Holy Ghost, or Spirit of the Holy. The term "Ghost" is not accurate as the Bible does not talk about ghosts, but it does mention spirits. The purpose of the Godhead series is to provide information about different concepts of the Godhead and allow viewers to decide which one they align with. The series has covered various topics such as terminology, the meaning of names, worship, and the general term "spirit." There are problems that arise when people try to explain their beliefs in the Godhead, such as using capitalization to reinforce their position and language barriers. Understanding these problems can help in studying the concept of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit. Some denominations place more emphasis on the Holy Spirit than others. Some people call the Holy Spirit by the term Set-Apart Spirit or Holy Ghost or Spirit of the Holy. We read about it in Scripture. We hear about it in songs and hymns that we sing. But do you know what the Holy Spirit is? Find out all about this term and this concept of Holy Spirit coming up in this teaching. So this teaching is going to be all about the Spirit of the Holy, otherwise known as the Set-Apart Spirit, the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, whichever way you want to put it. I've seen it put all four different ways. Personally, I don't like the term Ghost because Scripture does not teach about Ghosts, as far as the disembodied Casper-like things floating around. No, it does not teach about Ghosts, but it does teach about Spirits. And last week we did cover Spirit in general, which we will recap as we go on. Now for this video, if you would like the notes that we did for this particular episode, you can go to our website at GodHonestTruth.com, click on the post or the link for this episode, which you will find there on the article post, the on-demand video. You'll find the draw slides that you see here on your screen. You'll also find the notes that we took for this episode, and you'll find the transcript if that so happens to be of benefit to you. All available to you from GodHonestTruth.com, and we've made it even easier than that. If you'll go down below in the description, we've provided a convenient link that will go directly to the article post on our website, and that link is down there regardless of whether you're watching on a video platform or an audio podcasting platform. Just go down in the description and click the link. So just a quick recap, the purpose of this entire Godhead series is so that you, the viewer or the listener, can start from a point of knowing absolutely nothing about the subject of the Godhead. You'll learn what the scripture says about various aspects pertaining to the Godhead. You'll learn from historical references and scholarly research on the subject, and finally at the end you'll be able to decide for yourself which concept of the Godhead that you most align with or most agree with. Or maybe you'll say, hey, I don't see the point in this, and might make a decision either way. Whichever direction you go, that's fine with us. You're still a brother or sister in Messiah, so it does not matter as far as salvation goes as to which concept of the Godhead that you most agree with. One particular concept of the Godhead is not required for salvation. So we still love you, we still want to fellowship with you and break bread with you, even if we happen to have differing opinions on which concept of the Godhead we most agree with. Now just to recap the series that we have done so far to date, in episode one we went over the introduction to the series and various terminology that we will be covering during the course of this series. We went over the overall purpose of the series and various terminology, terms like fear-mongering, exegesis and antegesis, the name Yahweh and the name Yeshua. We went over real quickly the word Elohim from the Hebrew and how that pertains to the word God or gods. We also went over the four main concepts of the Godhead, which is the concept of Trinitarianism, Sinitarianism, Biblical Unitarianism or oneness, otherwise known as modalism. We also went over the terms heresy and orthodoxy. We quickly went over what salvation is and how the concept of the Godhead has no plane in your salvation, whether getting salvation or keeping your salvation. In episode two, we went over the words God or gods and the Hebrew word Elohim. We went over the difference between names and titles, invariant nouns, the word Elohim from the Hebrew, as well as the word God or gods and what those words actually mean. In episode three, we went over the Shema, what the Shema is. We went over the difference between ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers. We also explored the concept of unity or unified versus one, whereas in the Hebrew, it's got Yechad for one, but as far as a unit, unified, unity, things like that, would be the Hebrew word Yahi or Yechad. Episode four went over the phrase sons of God, what son of meant as far as a direct descendant, meaning son of so-and-so, or as like an attribute when Yeshua said to the Pharisees, you are the sons of your father, the devil. We also went over how son of God or sons of Elohim referred to angels, how it referred to men, and also especially how it referred to our Messiah, Yeshua. In episode five, we went over the meaning of names. What's in a name, the names of places, names of men, names of women, and went over a little bit further understanding so that you could better understand the meaning of names. In episode six, we went over the phrase name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as it comes from Matthew 28, 19. We went over that phrase, name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We went over baptism and how that was done as compared to how it's done nowadays. We went over the concept of name as authority. We went over the usage of the singular word name, referring to multiple people in Scripture. We also went over the Kama Johaniam, the Lord's Prayer, the Shem Tov, and the Didache. And then we looked at some early writers and how they used both the shortened form and the long form of this phrase, name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Episode seven, we went over the term worship and what that meant. How words in most languages, if not all languages, evolve and change in their meanings over time. We went over the Semitic form and concept of showing respect to someone. We went over how the word worship was used when the translations were originally done in English and how it's went down to nowadays. We also went over various worship in the Tanakh and what that actually was. We looked at worship in the Brit Hadashah and what that actually was. And then we looked at some additional sources for helping the understanding of this concept of worship. Episode eight, we went over the general term of spirit, especially a description of what spirit is, how the Bible draws a distinction between body, soul, and spirit. We went over spirit in Scripture. Many, many references from Scripture about spirit. We went over the four different types of spirit in Scripture as the spirit of man, as spirit being supernatural beings, the spirit of Yahweh, just real quickly because this episode is about the spirit of Yahweh or the Holy Spirit or the set-apart spirit, however you want to phrase it. And then we also looked at spirit as it relates to an attribute, using it like an adjective, like the spirit of jealousy, things like that. We went over various functions of the spirit, how your spirit can be crushed or grieved or revived or things like that. So that was the last episode and the recap up to this point of the entire Godhead series. But just to do a quick recap of last episode in particular about what we covered and what we learned from our study on the general term spirit, we learned that number one, spirit is normally defined as an animating or vital principle held to give life, a supernatural being, temper or disposition, wind, breath, and or an attitude or a frame of mind. That's what spirit is generally defined as. Spirit can also be thought of generally in all encompassing terms as an invisible force, presence, or effect. And we saw that from the scriptures that we examined last episode. The Bible describes a difference between body, soul, and spirit. The Hebrew word commonly translated as spirit is the Hebrew word ruach. And in Greek, the word commonly translated as spirit is the Greek word pneuma or pnevma. I've heard it pronounced both ways, so pneuma or pnevma. And we learned that spirit in scripture can be categorized in four different ways, the spirit of man, spirit as supernatural beings, the spirit of Yahweh, and also attributes like the spirit of jealousy. And we also learned a person's spirit itself, almost like a actual other person, can be revised. It can be moved, broken, crushed, stricken, troubled, all kinds of things. We also learned directly from scripture and the writings of the apostles not to trust every spirit because there are multiple spirits out there in the world. Don't trust every spirit, but test the spirits to scripture to see whether or not they are from Yahweh himself. So that's what we learned last episode when we were learning about the term spirit in general. So in this episode, we're going to be delving deep into the specific subject of the set-apart spirit, the holy spirit, the spirit of the holy, the holy ghost, the spirit of Yahweh, whichever way you want to put it. But in studying this and studying the Godhead as a whole, there are various problems that have crept up over the past two millennia. And this is due to people trying to explain their particular concept of the Godhead and whichever one they most hold to. And these problems offer hindrances to understanding what the Godhead actually is from scripture. It can make the subject more muddy and more confused. So it is helpful to understand these problems ahead of time so that you are aware of them when you're doing your own study and you don't allow these problems to be a hindrance to your own study. Some of these problems that we run into that have been created through tradition and people trying to explain and interpret their own highest belief or their own personal belief in a particular concept of the Godhead, one is the use of capitalization to reinforce their position. We also need to look at various aspects of grammar in the Hebrew and the Greek to better understand the concept of the Godhead and especially the subject of the Spirit of the Holy or the Set-apart Spirit. We also need to take a quick look at what a person is because that is important in trying to understand the concept of the Godhead and especially the subject of the Set-apart Spirit. And then we're also going to take a look at another important problem that comes up a lot of times in scripture or in the study of the Godhead is the subject of personification as it comes from scripture. A lot of people don't really understand this concept of personification as the biblical writers used it. It's a very beautiful way of getting across a point but a lot of people don't realize this and they get trapped when they go to try and learn about the Set-apart Spirit. So we'll go over that as we get into it. But first off, let's take a look at capitalization and how it's used in scripture and in English language in general. Why we should use it, why we shouldn't use it, when should we use it, when should we not use it, various things like that. But first off, take into account the English language. Why would we capitalize certain words and not capitalize other words? Just basic rules for English. Well from yourdictionary.com they list out 11 different instances when we would capitalize something in an English language. For instance, you would capitalize the first letter in a sentence after a period. Obviously, we're used to that. We'd also capitalize proper nouns, names or proper nouns. Capitalize the pronoun I, things like that. Fromgrammarly.com, this is a list of 13 different rules for capitalization in the English language and the one we're going to be focusing on is the capitalization of proper nouns and names. So we need to understand and realize when something is a proper noun or when something is not a proper noun. And this is going to be the crux of this particular section of this teaching, especially as it pertains to the study of the Set-apart Spirit. Now something important to note in your study of scripture is that when you go throughout scripture, understand that the Hebrew text itself did not have uppercase and lowercase letters. Even in today's day and age, there is no such thing as uppercase and lowercase letters as we understand it from English. On your screen here is a screen or a photograph of the great Isaiah scroll as it was discovered from the cave of Qumran. And hopefully you'll be able to see that. If not, you can go look up other Hebrew manuscripts. But if you'll notice here on your screen, you can see that all these letters are the same size. There's no capital letters. There's no lowercase letters. They're all the same size. Now some of these letters extend up above the line. Some extend down below the line, but that's just depending on which Hebrew letter it is. If it's a Sofit letter, things like that. It's the way Hebrew is. But Hebrew does not have capital letters or lowercase letters. Now when we go and look at the Greek of which the scriptures were written in, Greek also does not have uppercase or lowercase letters. It's all the same size. And here on your screen, you can see an unseal of the Greek text from 2 John. This comes from about the 5th or 6th century CE. And here you can see all these Greek letters and they're all the same size. None of them are capital letters. None of them are lowercase letters. So what's up? I mean, how do we know when we're going from the Hebrew or the Greek which words are supposed to be capitalized and which are not? Because Hebrew and Greek both, neither one of them have uppercase or lowercase letters. Well, the truth of the matter is it's all up to the translator. So when it comes to the issue of capitalization, you're at the mercy of the translator a lot of times unless you go deeper into your own studies, searching out the terms in their original languages like Hebrew or Greek, which we try to help you do here on this ministry, on this video podcast. Anyway, taking a look at some things from scripture as far as capitalization goes, we look at Genesis 1, verse 2. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Now here, the translators in most modern day English translations, here they capitalized this word Spirit, even though it's in the middle of the sentence. Look at 1 Samuel 10, verse 6. Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Here again, the word Spirit is capitalized, but once again, it's all up to the interpretation of the translator as to whether or not it is capitalized. Look at Proverbs 20, verse 27. The Spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts. Now here, Spirit is in the lower case. It's not capitalized. Again, in Zechariah 12, verse 1. The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel, thus declares the Lord who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the Spirit of man within him. Once again, Spirit, in this particular verse, is not capitalized. So, we go back to the issue of capitalization. It's all up to the decision of the translator who's translating these various texts as to whether or not they're going to capitalize certain words and not capitalize other words. But the problem really comes in when you're trying to do a study, and it's leading you toward a particular conclusion. And that's not within the purview of the translator. The translator should just translate the text as it is and not try to lead you toward a particular interpretation, their interpretation, by the use of capitalization or non-capitalization. The text, the Bible, should, the information contained within it, that's what should drive the ultimate conclusion that you come to, not how it's translated. And this is a big problem all the time with the capitalization in translations, especially with the word Spirit. Now, in all fairness, some translations don't capitalize where other translations do. For instance, we look in John chapter 14, verse 26. But the Helper, the Set-apart Spirit, whom the Father shall send in my name, he shall teach you all and remind you of all that I said to you. Now, here in the modern translations, translations such as the Scriptures 2009, the ESV, the LSV, the TLV, etc., etc., they all capitalize the phrase Set-apart or Holy and the word Spirit. Both of those phrases are capitalized. That's because that's what the bias of the translators is when they're doing this translation. However, there are other versions, other translations that do not capitalize Spirit in this particular verse. For instance, we look at the Tyndale. Both Comforter and Holy Ghost is lowercase. And the Coverdale, again, Comforter and Holy Ghost is lowercase. In the Great Bible, the Comforter and Holy Ghost, both in the lowercase. In fact, it's the King James where we find the capitalization of both Comforter and Holy Ghost and words like Spirit. Once the King James started capitalizing those, it really became ingrained as tradition to capitalize these certain words. Why? Because that was their interpretation of the text based on their concept of the Godhead that they chose to follow and go after. But in reality, the original writers did not capitalize any of this. It was all the letters they used in Greek, they were all the same size. All the letters they used in Hebrew, they were all the same size. So definitely be aware of this capitalization problem that can creep up when you're trying to do studies in various areas and various subjects, but especially in your study on the subject of the Godhead, in particular, your study of the set-apart Spirit. Now we look at Acts chapter 11, verse 12. And the Spirit said to me to go with them, not doubting at all. And these six brothers also went with me, and we went into the man's house. Once again, modern translations such as the Scriptures 2009, the ESV, LFB, TLV, etc., etc., modern translations will capitalize this word Spirit. So they translate this word Spirit here in Acts 11 and 12. But once again, not all translations have done this. Back in the Wycliffe, the Coverdale, Tyndale, the Great Bible, etc., etc., they all translated Spirit in the lower case, not the upper case. Once again, this all goes back to translator interpretation and what they decide to do with the text when they bring it into English. Now another issue that a lot of people don't understand, especially native English speakers who rarely, if ever, study other languages, is the issue of grammar, both in the Hebrew and the Greek. In other languages, and in particular here we're talking about the Hebrew language and the Greek language, there are genders for various words, various nouns and things like that. In Hebrew, a noun can be either masculine or feminine. In Greek, they have three. In Greek, a noun can be either masculine, feminine, or neuter. This is not something we have in English, but it is something that is in a lot of other languages, and specifically in Hebrew and Greek. So remember, I'm sorry, Hebrew has masculine and feminine, and Greek has masculine, feminine, and neuter. For instance, we go and we look at Genesis chapter 17, verse 24, speaking of Abraham. And Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. Now, obviously, you're talking about Abraham, a person, a male, so you would use he, because Hebrew has he. Greek also has he. Look at Hebrews chapter 11, verse 8. I believe Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he was about to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. Once again, we look at Genesis chapter 5, verse 24. And Enoch walked with Elohim, then he was no more, for Elohim took him. Once again, Enoch is a person, is a male, he's obviously being referred, would be referred to as a he. Hebrew has masculine, and so does Greek. So, when we go into the Greek text, since Enoch is a male person, the same masculine form follows with him. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 5. I believe Enoch was translated so as not to see death and was not found because Elohim had translated him. For before his translation, he obtained witness that he pleased Elohim. So, when we're talking about persons, it stays the same. Masculine, it's masculine, always going to be masculine. Feminine, it's always going to be feminine. Feminine, like Sarah, or Rebecca, or Deborah, Bathsheba, etc., etc. They're always going to be feminine, whether it's used in the Hebrew, or whether it's used in the Greek, or any other language. However, the difference comes in when we look at things that are not people, things that are not persons, concepts, or objects, or things like that. For instance, we look at Exodus chapter 25, verse 23. And you shall make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long, a cubit wide, and a cubit and a half high. Now, here in the Hebrew, this word for table is in the masculine. Every noun, every kind of object has a gender. And in Hebrew, for table, it's a masculine gender. However, we go over to Greek. We look at Matthew 15, verse 27. But she said, Yes, Master, for even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Now, here, the word in Greek is feminine. This would be rather embarrassing if a table was an actual person. But since a table is an object, and it's not a person, then there's no issue. Because, well, it's a table, not a person. This happens with various other things as well. This is important to keep note of because people, persons, things like that, they always maintain the same gender regardless of whatever language they go into. For instance, Yahweh will always be spoken of in the masculine when he's spoken about directly and specifically. Various people nowadays have tried to undo that, but they have done so to their own detriment. It's never worked out, and it's been a travesty of work, whatever they produced. But people, persons, they will always maintain their gender when they go from one language to another. Objects, ideas, things like that, things that aren't persons can change gender from one language to another. It all depends on the rules or the customs of that particular language, both the source language and the destination language. Another concept that we can look at is the word at hand, the word spirit. As we learned last time, the Hebrew word that's most commonly translated as spirit is the Hebrew word ruach. The Hebrew word ruach is feminine. Interesting to take note of, right? However, we go to Greek, the Greek word pneuma or pneuma is neuter, and it's always neuter. And in the Hebrew, the Hebrew word ruach is always feminine. So take that into account. We've got actual people that always keep the same gender, regardless of what language they go into. But various objects and concepts, things like that, they can change because there's not actual people. Tables, lamps, swords, what have you, are not actual people. So they can change gender depending on the customs of whichever language that you're speaking out of the time. And we look at the article, Gender of the Holy Spirit, from wikipedia.org. The grammatical gender of the word for spirit is feminine in Hebrew, neutral in Greek, and masculine in Latin. The neutral Greek pneuma is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew ruach. Daniel Wallace concludes that it is difficult to find any text in which pneuma is grammatically referred to with the masculine gender. In Hebrew, the word for spirit, ruach, is feminine, which is used in the Hebrew Bible as is the feminine word shekinah in rabbinic literature to indicate the presence of God. In the Syriac language too, the grammatically feminine word ruach means spirit. For Semitic languages, such as ancient Syriac, the earliest liturgical tradition and established gender usage for referring to the Holy Spirit is feminine. In Aramaic also, the language generally considered to have been spoken by Jesus, the word is feminine. However, in Greek, the word pneuma is neuter. So looking at the evidence, we look at the text from the Hebrew, the text from the Greek, and we see that ruach, spirit, is feminine. We look at Greek pneuma, and we see that it's neuter. So it's changed gender. Why would it do that? Go back and look at the information we've already presented, the evidence straight from Scripture, and you'll understand why. And you can also see here that in the Latin, spiritus is masculine. So in Hebrew, ruach is feminine. In Greek, pneuma is neuter. And in Latin, spiritus is masculine. This concept of spirit is all, as far as the gender goes, it all depends on which language you're talking about and the customs of that particular language. So in talking about this, and talking about the difference between people or persons and other things like concepts or objects, you get into the issue of what actually is it that defines what is a person and what is not a person. A lot of times, this is self-evident, and we implicitly know this, but when it comes to trying to defend a certain position, you can really get into the weeds. And if you get into philosophy, definition of person, wow. You want your brain to explode, go try and talk to three different philosophers about what person means. Yeah. But anyways, as defined from secular sources such as Merriam-Webster, a person is defined as something that's a human or an individual, the personality of a human being, character or part in, et cetera, et cetera. Then we look at the free dictionary.com. Person is defined as a living human and an individual or specified character, the composite of characteristics that make up an individual personality, the self, et cetera, et cetera. Going on to Wikipedia.org, quote, a person is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness. The defining features of personhood and consequently what makes a person count as a person differ widely among cultures and contexts. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law. And pretty much that's all we're going to say about what a person is. It's fairly self-evident to most people what a person is. When we talk about a person, most entities or beings that are considered a person usually have a name. They're usually self-conscious. They usually have some kind of form. Even spirit beings like angels, you can see a lot of times when they are described in scripture that they have a particular form. Various things like that. They're self-aware. That would all define person. But this is implicitly known and sometimes hard to explicitly define. Yeah, we're not getting into person that much tonight. So it's fairly self-evident. And if you'd like to look more into it, go for it. But like I said, you get into this, you can really get into the weeds with some people and especially philosophers, even Christian philosophers. And yeah, there are Christian philosophers. I did not know this a couple of years back, but I've since discovered that there is such a thing. And they add a lot to the understanding of scripture. So yeah, do your own study. Go further than that. This is just a basic outline and definition of what a person is. Like I said, we all kind of implicitly know this. It's fairly self-evident what a person is. Moving on related to person is the concept of personification. Now, for those of you who may not know what personification is, I'm sure you have come across it sometime in your life, whether it's in the scriptures or outside of scriptures. But personification is a literary device that is used by writers, both scriptural writers and other writers. And it occurs when a thing is spoken of as if it were a person or takes on the attributes of a person. We'll go into examples here in just a moment. But personification expresses relationship and emotion better than simple statements might do. You'll see that as we go through the scriptures as well. But basically personification means taking something that is not a person and describing it as if it were a person, even though it's self-evident that it's not a person. For example, we look in Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 42. I make my arrows drunk with blood and my sword devours flesh with the blood of the slain and the captive from the long-haired enemy chiefs. Now, can arrows get drunk like a person could? No. This is just personification. Same thing with sword. Can a sword eat and devour flesh? No. This is the use of personification, once again. But neither arrows nor swords are a person. Joshua chapter 24, verse 27. And Yehoshua said to all the people, See, this stone is a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of Yahweh, which he spoke to us. And it should be a witness against you, lest you lie against your fellow team. Now, can stones and rocks hear words? Can they hear sounds like a person could? No. This is just an example of personification. Can a stone witness against someone in a trial, in an issue of justice? No. Again, just personification. Psalm chapter 104, verse 19. He made the moon for a point in time, the sun knows it's going down. Does the sun have a mind like a person does? No. The sun is just a created ball of gas. But here, it's personified as having a mind and knowing something, specifically here, the going down of the moon. Isaiah chapter 55, verse 12. For with joy you go out, and with peace you are brought in. The mountains and the hills break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field clap the hands. Once again, can mountains and hills sing with their mouths? No. They're not persons, but they are personified as having attributes of a person, when they're being talked about as singing. What about trees? Can trees clap with their hands? No. Those trees don't have hands, they're just being personified. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 20. A lot of people know this one. Proverbs 1.20. Wisdom calls aloud outside. She raises her voice in the broad places. Wisdom. Is wisdom a person with a mouth that can raise her voice? No. Again, this concept of wisdom is being personified as a literary device with attributes that a person would have, such as raising her voice, using her mouth to make her voice louder. And finally, Judges chapter 9, verses 9-14. Here's a really good example of personification from scripture. Judges 9, 9-14. And the olive tree said to them, shall I leave my oil with which they esteem mighty ones and men and go to sway over trees? Then the trees said to the fig tree, come rain over us. And the fig tree said to them, shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go to sway over trees? Then the trees said to the vine, come rain over us. And the vine said to them, shall I leave my new wine, which rejoices mighty ones and men and go to sway over trees? Then all the trees said to the bramble, come rain over us. So can an olive tree or trees in general or brambles or vines, do they have mouths to speak with? No. Once again, this is just another example of personification in scripture where the writer is taking an object or a concept and giving it attributes of a person as if it were a person in order to get across their point through personification. So that's what personification is. And this is just a small selection of the different instances in scripture where you can find personification. There's a lot of other examples. Go look for yourself. You can find it all over the place in both the Tanakh and the Brit Hadashah. It's a beautiful literary device, but you've got to understand what is going on and that they're using personification. They're using this literary device and these things are not actually people. These things are not actually persons. They're just being personified. See the difference? So now let's move on into the Set-apart Spirit or Holy Spirit. Now that we've learned about some of the problems that are normally run into during the study of the subject, let's look at the Set-apart Spirit. First, we're going to start with Numbers chapter 24, verse 2. And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Yisrael in camp according to their tribes. And the Spirit of Elohim came upon him. The Spirit of Yahweh came upon him. Then we look at the term Ruach HaKodesh, or as far as you can get to Ruach HaKodesh in scripture. Isaiah chapter 63, verse 10 through 11. But they rebelled and grieved in Set-apart Spirit. So he turned against them as an enemy and he fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, Moshe, his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who put his Set-apart Spirit within him? Now here we've got his Set-apart Spirit at the very beginning. That's Ruach HaKodesh. Not exactly Ruach HaKodesh, but as close as you can get. In fact, the actual term Ruach HaKodesh is not ever used even once in scripture. But it gets pretty close in places like Isaiah 63, 10 and also in Psalms chapter 51, verse 11. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Set-apart Spirit from me. And here it's got the phrase literally Ruach HaChah. I'm sorry, Ruach HaChah. Again, it's not Ruach HaKodesh, but it gets really close to the actual phrasing. But once again, we're looking at the Set-apart Spirit, the Spirit of Yahweh, whichever way you want to put it. Then we go on to Acts chapter 2, verses 4, 17 through 18, 33 and 38. Just cut this down for the sake of time and for the sake of the point. We read here, And they were all filled with the Set-apart Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them to speak. And it shall be in the last days, says Elohim, that I shall pour out my Spirit on all flesh. And on your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And also on my male servants and on my female servants, I shall pour out my Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of Elohim, and having received from the Father the promise of the Set-apart Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear. And Kepha said to them, Repent, and let each one of you be immersed in the name of Yeshua Messiah for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Set-apart Spirit. So here we can see that the Holy Spirit, the Set-apart Spirit, the Spirit of Yahweh, is coming down on people at this gathering during Shavuot. Here people like to call it Pentecost, but we know it's Shavuot. But this is also recounting a section from the Tanakh where Yahweh says, I shall pour out my Spirit. And here we can see this coming to fulfillment, or at least one of the times we can see it come to fulfillment, where Yahweh's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is being poured out on these people, on multiple people as well. So here in this particular passage, in this particular section, we can see the Set-apart Spirit, the Holy Spirit, being equated with Yahweh, as being the Spirit of Yahweh. And we go on and we look at Romans chapter 8 verse 11. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Yeshua from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Messiah from the dead shall also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit dwelling in you. So if the Spirit of Him, who is Him, Yahweh. He goes on to say that He, Yahweh, raised Messiah from the dead. And that He shall also give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit when it dwells in us. Galatians chapter 1 verse 1. Shaul, an emissary, not from men, nor by a man, but Yeshua Messiah, but by Yeshua Messiah, and Elohim the Father who raised Him from the dead. So again, we see it is Yahweh who raised Him from the dead. Acts chapter 2 verse 24. Him, Elohim, raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was impossible that He could be held in its grip. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 15 through 21. That the Elohim of our Master, Yeshua Messiah, the Father of obscene, according to the working of His mighty strength, which He wrought in the Messiah when He raised Him from the dead. Once again, we see that Yahweh, the Father, raised Yeshua from the dead. How did He do that? Through the power of His Holy Spirit, through His Set-apart Spirit, through the Spirit of Yahweh, whichever way you want to put it. Further evidence, and there's a lot, we look at Acts chapter 3 verses 13 through 15. The Elohim of Abraham, and of Yitchak, and of Jacob, the Elohim of our fathers, esteemed His servant, Yeshua, whom He delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. But you denied the Set-apart and Righteous One, and asked that a man, a murderer, be granted you. But you killed the Prince of Life, whom Elohim raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. Acts chapter 4 verse 10. Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Yeshua Messiah of Nazareth, whom you impaled, whom Elohim raised from the dead, by Him this one stands before you healthy. So, over and over again, we see that the Set-apart Spirit, the Holy Spirit, raised Yeshua from the dead, but we also see that Yahweh, the Father, raised Yeshua from the dead. How do we reconcile this? By understanding that the Set-apart Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh, just like the Spirit of man is the Spirit of man, right? But our Spirit is not holy, so we can't call our Spirit Holy Spirit, because we are blemished, we have sinned. Yahweh is perfect, so we can call His Spirit Holy. Holy Spirit, Set-apart Spirit. One more, Acts chapter 5 verse 30. The Elohim of our fathers raised up Yeshua, whom He laid hand on, hanging Him on a timber. So, Elohim of our fathers, the God of our fathers, is the one who raised up Yeshua, according to Acts 5.30. So, who is this God of our fathers, Elohim of our fathers? Go back and look at Exodus chapter 3 verse 15. Thus you are to say to the children of Israel, Yahweh, Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Yitzchak, and the Elohim of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my remembrance to all generations. So, Yahweh is the Elohim of our fathers, and it was Yahweh who raised up Yeshua from the dead, through the working of His Holy Spirit. Further evidence, we've seen a bunch from Scripture already, and there's a bunch more that we didn't get into. Like with most subjects, we don't want this to be a two-day conference going on here, making fit through all that. We'll cut it down, but again, go look at the notes that we took for this, go further in your own research, and look at the other scriptures that pertain to this, because there's a whole bunch more. Looking at some scholarly things on this, oh, I'm sorry, one more section, Matthew chapter 1 verses 18 and 20. But the birth of Yeshua Messiah was as follows. After his mother Miriam was engaged to Yosef, before they came together, she was found to be pregnant from the set-apart Spirit. But while he thought about this, see, a messenger of Yahweh appeared to him in a dream, saying, Yosef, son of Dawid, do not be afraid to take Miriam as your wife, for that which is in her was brought forth from the set-apart Spirit. So, Miriam, Mary, conceived through the force of the Holy Spirit. But Yeshua is not considered to be the son of the Holy Spirit. No, he's considered to be the son of Yahweh, the son of God, the son of the Father. This only makes sense. You have a father, therefore you have a son. If you have a son, you obviously got a father. So, how is it that Yeshua was conceived and married through the Holy Spirit, but yet Yahweh is his father? Well, it's because the set-apart Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh. That is why. Once you understand that, then you fully understand basic language and why scripture refers to Yeshua as the son of Yahweh, as the son of the Father. But going on, we look at some scholarly references here from Dr. Merdad Atehi, and he states, In Judaism as a whole, the Spirit refers to God in His active role of relating to His creation and His people. The Spirit is never conceived of or experienced as an entity distinct or somehow separable from God. The Jewish experience of the Spirit is always and essentially an experience of God Himself. The Spirit language is used precisely when God's own personal presence and activity is in view. And then from James Dunn, his work, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? In Jewish thinking, the Spirit of God was more naturally understood as closely identified with God, as a dimension or an aspect of God, or as a way of characterizing God's presence and power. All can think of the Spirit of God as analogous to the human spirit. The new Schott Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. According to the final Old Testament presentation, the Spirit of God is the divine power which proceeds from God in creation and preservation in nature and in human historical life, especially in Israel. This power of God is active at the precise point where energy is manifested, i.e., the Spirit of God is the immediate cause of all things, all kinds of change. It comes and it goes. It is given or withdrawn fully according to the divine will. The New Testament has no elaborated doctrine of the Spirit of God. On the other hand, many allusions simply imply that the Spirit is an influence or a form of the action of God or of Christ. Whereas in the entire Old Testament and in many portions of the New Testament, the Spirit is conceived of as transcendent, intermittent, and frequently miraculous in action, yet side by side with this earlier and common notion, in the later writings of Paul and John, not in the synoptics, the Spirit is presented as an imminent and abiding personal power. So it's starting to make more sense now. We've seen the evidence from Scripture. We've looked out for some of the problems when we've looked at the evidence from Scripture. And now scholarly opinions and interpretations and research is backing up what we've already seen from Scripture. And we go on to look at the Encyclopedia Britannica online. Quote, Christian writers have seen in various references to the Spirit of Yahweh in the Hebrew Scriptures in anticipation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Hebrew word Ruach, usually translated Spirit, is often found in text referring to the free and unhindered activity of God, either in creating or in revitalizing creation, especially in connection with the prophetic word or messianic expectation. There was, however, no explicit belief in a separate divine person in biblical Judaism. In fact, the New Testament itself is not entirely clear in this regard. The definition that the Holy Spirit was a distinct divine person, equal in substance to the Father and the Son, and not subordinate to them, came at the Council of Constantinople in 381, following challenges to its divinity. End quote. So here, again, we're looking back at what the Tanakh stated. We're seeing the evidence from the Brit Hadashah. We've got a little bit of historical information in this quote. But it's all seeming to line up with what we learned straight from Scripture. That's when we started with Scripture first, to get the doctrine from Scripture, and then looking at what some of these scholars have to say about this subject as well. Now, finally, I'll leave you a quote from Kermit Zarley, who puts it very succinctly and very well wraps up everything that we have learned during this episode and from what we can see from Scripture. From Kermit Zarley, quote, The Holy Spirit is to God what the Spirit of man is to man because man was made in the image of God. End quote. And that's what we saw. We saw how Spirit operated in general and what it was in general in the last episode. We looked at tonight's episode and we saw pretty much the exact same thing as, well, the exact same thing as it relates to the Spirit of Yahweh or the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of man. That both, likewise, can be personified. Both, likewise, can be moved in some way, can be grieved or crushed or stricken, various things like that. Again, going back to that issue of personification. But the Spirit of Yahweh, the Holy Spirit, is to Yahweh what the Spirit of man is to man. So, in summary. First, we started off with this episode by recapping the last episode and we brought to our memory, refreshed our memory, a few different things such as Spirit being an animating or vital principle held to give life, a supernatural being, temper or disposition, wind, breath, and or attitude or frame of mind. That we can think of Spirit as something like an invisible force, presence, or effect. And this goes along both with the Spirit of man, the Spirit of Yahweh, and also when Ruach and Numa is translated into other words like wind or breath as well. Also, a person's spirit can be revived, moved, broken, crushed, stricken, troubled. You find the same thing happening with the Spirit of Yahweh or the Holy Spirit. It can be grieved, all kinds of things, just like a person's spirit can be. Capitalization, we learned in English, is for names and proper nouns. And that capitalization is highly dependent on the translator when they're going from one language into English. Whether to translate something or whether not to translate something. It's all up to the translator and you need to understand this problem and look out for it when you're doing your studies. Remember, write this out in your notes. Don't forget it, that the Hebrew language and the Greek language of which the scriptures were written do not utilize capitalization. So there's no capitalization denoting various words in the Hebrew and Greek texts. Regarding this specific subject, I was listening to a sermon in person one time and this preacher was talking about the Holy Spirit and he read a passage from scripture and he said, now look, notice there that the word Spirit is capitalized. And I physically and visibly chuckled because I knew that his point was moot because Greek does not have capitalization and the writer of that particular passage was not capitalizing a particular word in order to emphasize theological interpretation. So whoever's writing that passage that he was reading from, I forget which passage it was, but whoever's writing that passage originally wrote it all in the same five letters. Persons, which remember really quickly, we did not get into depth because that can open up a whole can of worms, worms, especially when you get into philosophy and things like that. The persons which are male or female retain their gender throughout scripture and from one language to another. We saw that with Abraham. We saw that with Enoch. However, non-persons, things like objects or concepts, things like table that we looked at, things like spirit that we looked at, these things can change gender depending on the custom of the language that you're going into or speaking about. And the Bible in many places personifies non-persons, things like arrows, swords, stones, mountains with sun, etc. All these things that we looked at, they were personified as if they were actual persons, even though we know they're not a person. We know a mountain is not a person. We know that trees and vines and arrows and stones are not persons, but in scripture they are given personification as if they were persons. So, look out for that too. It's a beautiful literary device, personification, but you need to understand when personification is being used so you can better understand the particular subject that you're studying. The set-apart spirit refers to Yahweh in his active role, his presence and his power. Look at the example we saw from scripture when Mary got pregnant. It was the presence of Yahweh, Yahweh's spirit that caused Mary to become pregnant even though she was a virgin. And this is why we can say that Yeshua is the son of Elohim because Elohim, working through his spirit, caused Mary to get pregnant. And the set-apart spirit is to God what the spirit of man is to man because man was made in the image of God. And that's just the God honest truth. So, thank you for joining us for this study on the set-apart spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Holy, whichever way you want to put it. 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