The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
Judges 6:35–40
Judges 2021 Lesson #63
July 5, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www. deanbibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Our Father, it’s a great privilege we have to meet together in freedom, thinking about the fact that such a legacy was laid down for us by the Founding Fathers. Such wisdom that came only from Your Word and the way in which You worked to bring all of those men together, both at the Convention for the Declaration of Independence, when they met and wrote the Declaration of Independence and then later at the Constitutional Convention. We pray that we might have men and women dedicated to the Constitution that will rise up, make the leadership sacrifices to stand for the truth, stand for Your Word.
“We realize that that which has occurred in this country is the result of a long process going back at least 200 years. And Father, we know that it will not change overnight, and we pray that we might not put our hope and trust in man, but that we would put our hope and trust in You, that only You can change things, and Father, we pray that You will. But if not, Father, we pray that we might be steadfast in our testimony and our walk with You, never doubting, never getting discouraged, always confident that You are in control. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.”
Slide 2
All right, we are in a study which I began last week as we’re looking at Gideon where we’re told that he was filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit came upon him. Literally it is saying in the Hebrew that he was clothed, or the Holy Spirit clothed Himself, a very vivid imagery. The Holy Spirit clothed Himself with Gideon. The previous two judges had no relation to the Holy Spirit. Othniel was the first, as we’ll see in just a second in our review. But this is unusual. So it’s important for us to understand what is going on in the Old Testament with God the Holy Spirit.
A lot of people are confused. A lot of theologians are confused about this. There’s a number of books that I read when I was younger. Dwight Pentecost’s book, The Divine Comforter, was an outstanding book. Charles Ryrie wrote a book on the Holy Spirit. John Walvoord wrote a couple of different books on the Holy Spirit, all of which are very fine, and a couple of others, none of which I would agree with one hundred percent.
There’s a lot of confusion on certain things, certain things in relation to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, certain things in relation to the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church Age. This whole concept of the filling by the Spirit as distinctive, even though most of those men would agree one hundred percent with our view of the filling of the Spirit and confession of sin, they had a problem in that they confused the phraseology and the verbiage in Ephesians 5:18 with similar verbiage, but different words. It’s critical to understand that. But different words in the Greek in Acts. Acts is not talking about what Ephesians 5:18 is when it talks about the fact that the apostles were full of the Spirit, full of truth. That’s different words and different grammar.
So these are important things to distinguish and have not been faithfully distinguished in our tradition. All of these things have to be dealt with. In fact, I’m thinking about writing a book. I hate saying that because that means it’ll never get done. I have a hard time. There are always too many interruptions. Writing is very time-consuming, and when you’re doing full preparations, three or four, sometimes five times a week, it’s just difficult. Life interferes. But on most of these, I’ve taught many times. And so I have good notes that I’ve developed by teaching through this several times. All I need to do is sit and find three or four uninterrupted hours every day to write. With God, all things are possible. Okay, so that’s the hope.
Slide 3
Now I ran across a quote. Somebody emailed me this morning, and it is a great quote, considering this is the week where we just celebrated our nation’s birthday yesterday with the Declaration of Independence. This is a statement that was made by John Adams. And in this statement, you can see the influence of the Scripture on his thinking. And it’s a warning. He said, “Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes.—How prescient; right out of Scripture—every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure.—Think about that: life, property, reputation, liberty; none will be secure in an anarchy where all are doing what’s right in their own eyes, which is right where we are.
He goes on to say … “and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.” In other words, tyranny. Insightful, 200 years ago.
These men studied so much, and I talked about this on Sunday morning, about the study that was done by Donald Lutz at the University of Houston, where they showed that when examining the citations, the quotations that were put, specifically cited, not just alluded to, in speeches, writings, diaries, letters, whatever, of the Founding Fathers, that they relied on the Scripture. And the quotes that they took, mostly from people like John Locke and Montesquieu and a number of others, were statements they made on the basis of Scripture.
The point is that a Judeo-Christian worldview was so dominant at that time that it didn’t matter whether you were a believer or an unbeliever. You were influenced; you still thought within that system of absolute morality. You still thought God was the Creator. You still believed in those biblical, foundational biblical ideas that we no longer believe in. And without believing in those foundations, we see the same thing happen to us that happened in Israel.
It happened in Israel several times. It happens now before there’s a king. It happens again under Solomon. It gets worse in the Southern Kingdom. And with the split that occurred after Solomon and the Northern Kingdom and Southern Kingdom, that’s just the cycle of the Northern Kingdom related to idolatry.
The Southern Kingdom recovers and then goes through the cycle again two or three times. And this is—we could call it a cycle of civilization. But it is true of those nations that have been heavily influenced by the Bible. And so it is a slide from a nation that is oriented to God and oriented to truth and oriented to absolutes, oriented to grace, oriented to the Cross, and how they deteriorate, how they fall apart, how they collapse under the influence of pagan ideas. People sometimes say, “Well, that’s awfully harsh.”
I read this morning that this killer, this mass murderer that shot and fired indiscriminately into the crowds at the Fourth of July parade up in Highland Park, I think that’s the name of it in Chicago, his mother is some kind of New Age counselor. You know, he grew up in a home where the family life was falling apart. A coach of his when he was young, said that he and his brother were always the last ones to get picked up by the parents. They’d have to call the parents to come pick up their kids after practice. They had a horrible home life. And it was a home life that was deeply entrenched in pagan ideas. Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have terrible, destructive consequences. And we’re not addressing these things. He wasn’t quite crazy enough to be admitted into a mental institution. And we’re not addressing these problems.
We think it’s a gun. It’s not a gun. People had guns everywhere. Some of us remember when we were in high school that there were lots of kids that would drive their pickup trucks to high school with a a 30-06 or shotgun on the gun rack. They would not even lock their cars while they were in school all day. They would get out at three o’clock. They would get in the car, drive out to where all those houses now are out towards Katy. And all of that was just open prairie, and they’d go duck hunting or goose hunting in the fall. And nobody ever was concerned about it.
What changed wasn’t the presence of guns; they’ve always been there. What changed was the soul. What changed was the parenting. What changed was the family environment. What changed was the level of discipline that was expected in the schools. That’s what changed. What changed was a shift spiritually away from God, and that’s exactly what we see in the time of the Judges.
Slide 4
So with Gideon, as with others, there is this statement that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. One thing I wanted to point out here in this slide, I’ve underlined Othniel, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. Those are the only four judges where there’s a statement in relation to the Holy Spirit coming upon them, rushing upon them, clothing Himself with them, something of that nature. So this was even unique at that time period. This is not normative. Not every judge had a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Not every king had a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
We know of Saul, we know of David, but it’s not specifically stated of other kings in the Old Testament. It’s true of the prophets, especially the writing prophets, but for any prophet to speak the Word of the Lord had to be by the Holy Spirit. And as I have worked through this, you had a few priests, you had a few others we were going to look at, and it’s a small number, probably less than a hundred in all of those years of the Old Testament, had any relationship with the Holy Spirit, and that’s just not understandable. We have too many Christians, Church-Age believers, who are reading the experiences of the Holy Spirit in the Church Age back into the previous dispensations, and that just leads to a lot of confusion.
Slide 5
So what do we make of this statement, [Judges 6:34] “But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon”? Last time, I did the introduction to what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. The last verse I have in my list of verses is Zechariah 4:6, which I think should really be the summation of the significance of the Holy Spirit even in the Old Testament.
Slide 6
Zechariah 4:6, “ ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” The Spirit was indeed active even though His ministry was not in the same way that it is in the Church Age because Israel, in the second half of the Old Testament period as it were and just the Gentiles in the period before Abraham, did not have that kind of personal relationship with God the Holy Spirit.
Slide 7
So we started by just asking the question: How would a first-century Jew understand the use of the term Holy Spirit when John the Baptist came along and said, the one that comes after me will baptize you by the Spirit and by fire? They didn’t say, “Wait a minute, what do you mean by the Spirit? What does that mean? They didn’t say, what do you mean by fire?” They already knew that.
People say there’s no Trinity in the Old Testament. Well, you have the mention of the Holy Spirit many, many times in the Old Testament. And you have conversations between one who is divine, who is identified as the servant of Yahweh in Isaiah, who has conversations with God. You have the Angel of the Lord who seems to be identified with Yahweh in many passages and having conversation with Yahweh in other passages. So there’s clearly a plurality of divine Persons in the Old Testament.
Of course, Jews have worked for 2,000 years to try to negate that evidence and to say, no, no, no, they were just strict monotheists. But the strict monotheism of modern Judaism didn’t come in until after the destruction of Jerusalem.
Slides 8 and 9
So I looked at passages in Matthew where there’s an announcement by Gabriel that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit. And Mary didn’t say, “Well, what’s that?” So, it’s assumed they know and they talked about it and they understood exactly what was meant when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove at His baptism or drove Him into the wilderness.
Slide 10
When John the Baptist came along and Luke says that he was filled from the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, they didn’t ask these kinds of questions.
Slides 11 and 12
John not only records some of the events around Jesus’ baptism, where the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove, but also Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3:5 that “unless you are born of water and the Spirit,” and [John 3:6] whatever is “born of the Spirit is spirit.” These clearly show that there is an understanding of this Spirit of God, this Spirit terminology in the Gospels.
Slides 16, 17 and 18
Other passages talk about the Holy Spirit as a separate Person. His involvement in sanctification and in our fellowship, our partnership with God are highlighted. He has these characteristics of a person. He’s called another Helper like Me. That’s what Jesus is using is the word there, allon. He is another of the same kind. He has will.
Slide 19
We are to walk by means of the Holy Spirit, Galatians 5:16. He sanctifies us, 1 Peter 1:2.
Slide 21
The Holy Spirit is ascribed the works of deity, Romans 8:11.
Slide 22
Omnipotence, Romans 15:19. If you didn’t listen the last time, you think I’m going really fast, but this is just review.
Slides 23 and 24
Omniscience, Isaiah 40:13 and 14 as quoted in Romans 11:34, indicating He has omniscience and omnipresence.
Slide 25
So what we see in the Old Testament is this triune expression of the Godhead. The Father is portrayed as the divine architect. He’s the planner. He’s the One in charge. There’s an authority structure in the Trinity.
Second, the Son is portrayed as the project manager. He’s going to oversee the creation, and He’s the revealer of the Father.
And then the Holy Spirit’s the project engineer who oversees exactly what gets done. He’s the One hovering over the earth and mentioned in the second verse of the Old Testament. It’s not like the Holy Spirit is introduced late in the Old Testament: He’s in the second verse of the Old Testament. Almost every book in the Old Testament mentions the Spirit. He’s mentioned in the first book, mentioned in the last book, and He is the One who oversees divine revelation. He brings together creation, regeneration, divine revelation.
Slide 26
Then in the New Testament, He empowers the life of the Church Age believer. The key word in the Old Testament is this word, ruah, that’s used over 387 times. Sometimes, it refers to the everyday breeze, breath, wind, or air. Other times, it refers to something that is vain or futile; other times, it refers to the breath of God that supports life. At other times, it refers to the human spirit.
That is, it’s just a term for either for an attitude or for a frame of mind, or it can be just a summary term for the immaterial part of man. And other times, it has a more distinct meaning. You have to determine each context, each time, and then the Holy Spirit.
It’s difficult to find out how many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Old Testament because you can’t just do a word study on “spirit” because you get a lot of other meanings. Even when I looked up “my spirit,” there’s a lot of times when a human is talking about my spirit. So it came up with about at least 85 distinct references to the Holy Spirit. There’s probably I would guess maybe twice that, but it would take a lot of time to read every single reference. So, this is what the Holy Spirit describes.
We got down here to this second point, tracing the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. And my point here is simply that this isn’t a late development. There’s no evolution of theology, evolution of the Yahwistic religion of the Old Testament, as some liberal scholars have put it. You know, they always come up with some fancy ways to talk about things that they don’t believe really happened the way the Bible says they happened.
So we look at these two books, Genesis, the first Book of the Pentateuch, and then Job. I believe Job may have been written first. I would guess it was the first book written. I think Job was written by Moses, just as the Pentateuch, but you can’t prove that. There’s no evidence of that. That’s just my sense. I’m not the only one who has that opinion, but you can’t be dogmatic about that. There’s no certainty there.
But Job answers the fundamental question people ask. And that is, if there is a loving God, why does He let bad things happen? God addressed that, I believe, in the very first book that He wrote, and that’s Job. And that’s just a theological argument, but I think that it has some bearing. We don’t know.
Slide 28
But it’s clear that in the second verse of the first book of the Old Testament, arguably the oldest or second oldest book ever written, you have a reference to the Spirit of God. And then when you come to Malachi, there’s a reference to the Spirit of God. And there are references to the Spirit of God that are sprinkled in many books all in between so this is not some secondary idea. It’s not something that Christians are reading back into the Old Testament. It’s something that is clearly there.
Slide 29
What we learn in Genesis 1:2 is when God created the earth, at some time after that, something happens. We don’t know what; what fits is the angelic revolt. And that it’s not just simply a statement that the earth was without form and void, but there is a disjunctive conjunction at the beginning which shows a break with what was stated in the verse before.
And that here it says that the earth was three things: without form and void; it was a darkness on the face of the deep. Three terms. The deep is a negative term in Scripture. The darkness is when you come to the the eternal state in Revelation 21 and 22. There’s no sun. There’s no moon. The universe is lit by the glory of God.
The sun is a star, we believe, like many other stars. That would indicate there’s no sun or moon, that there are no stars. The universe will be different then. I believe the original universe was different also. There was an empty space and there was a planet. Because you don’t have the sun, the moon, and the stars until you get to the fourth day. It’s different, and I think that this is the best answer to explain when Satan fell was between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
So there is a regenerative activity that is taking place, a restorative activity, which is part of the role of the Holy Spirit. He is the One who oversees regeneration according to Titus 3:5. And so the Spirit of God is hovering—the word there is like a bird over her eggs, taking care, incubating her eggs—and the Holy Spirit is hovering over the face of the waters. So at the very beginning of Genesis, we see this picture of the Spirit of God in terms of a restorative or regenerative role.
Slide 30
Then in Job 26:13, we’re told: “By His Spirit—that God the Father, by means of His Spirit, as a distinct entity—He adorned the heavens;” so that indicates that God uses the Spirit as an instrument in decorating the heavens. That indicates the Spirit is a distinct Person and has a distinct role. Job 33:4, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” That is a very important verse.
I’m not going to get off into a sidetrack here, but think about this from the perspective of Job, it is the Spirit of God who made him. And the breath of the Almighty, this is the same word that is used in Genesis 2. God breathed into Adam, and he became a living being. So, it is that breath of the Almighty that gives physical life to the individual. That is when I believe the soul is imparted to the baby, to the infant, when it comes out of the womb. That is the ancient interpretation.
Slide 31
Then you have passages like Isaiah 40:13, “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord?” The answer is no one could do that because the Spirit of the Lord is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Who can teach Him anything if He’s omniscient? Isaiah 40:13 “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord or as His counselor has taught Him?”
And then Psalm 104:30, “You send forth Your Spirit,—so Yahweh sends forth His Spirit; that indicates a different entity, and the Spirit is related to creation— they are created; And You renew the face of the earth.” Another emphasis on the renewal role of God the Holy Spirit.
So this, in terms of Genesis 1:2, that is the only reference to this Holy Spirit in Genesis. And there’s some indication possibly in some statement by Pharaoh, but it’s uncertain and ambiguous. He’s probably just speaking of a god and at best, it’s just a generic reference to the Spirit of God.
Slide 32
Then we come to references from Moses and from Exodus on through the post-exilic period. Moses is when they are leaving Egypt. The post-exilic period is when they’re returning from Babylon.
Exodus 31:3 [God] says, “ ‘And I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.’ ” This is talking about Bezalel. God is filling him with the Spirit of God. So that’s a very important aspect. Notice it’s related to wisdom and skill, but in what area? It’s in the area of his craftsmanship. We’ll look at that again in just a minute in the next two verses.
Slide 33
It’s wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and all manner of workmanship. Now, if you take that out and you go to the main clause, [Exodus 31:3] “I have filled him with the Spirit of God … [Exodus 31:4–5] to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship,” we see that the filling here by the Holy Spirit is related to what? Is related to the fact that he’s a jeweler. He’s a goldsmith. He’s a silversmith. He’s a metallurgist. He is a designer of the jewelry and the wood. He is an inspired carpenter to do all of the work and design all of the work for the tabernacle.
So this is not a ministry related to spiritual life or spiritual growth, but related to a skill related to the worship of God and the leadership of God’s covenant people. The word there is mala’ in the Hebrew, which simply means “to fill.” It would be similar to PLEROO in the New Testament. It just means to fill something up.
Slide 34
In relation to leadership skill, in Numbers 11:17, this is after Moses has been trying to do everything himself, and it’s just wearing him out, so his father-in-law, Jethro, comes to him and says, “You really need to learn a little bit about delegating responsibility. And you need to select some wise men. And then you need to give them responsibility over the people, over the hundreds and thousands and ten thousands, so that this is not a burden to you.” So God validates that. And He tells Moses in Numbers 11:17, “Then I will come down and talk with you there—that’s at Mount Sinai—I will take of the Spirit that is upon you—that is talking about the Holy Spirit—and will put the same upon them.”
So these elders of Israel in that generation are also going to have a relationship to the Holy Spirit. But what’s the purpose? The purpose is to give them wisdom and skill at leadership, at applying the Law of Moses, to applying the covenant of God to the people, and to dealing with their conflicts.
Slide 35
After the return from the exile, this is actually the third return, you had two with Ezra, then this third one with Nehemiah. Nehemiah says, [Nehemiah 9:20] “You also gave Your good Spirit to instruct them—talking about the Exodus generation, so that’s relating back to the passage we just looked at—and did not withhold Your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.” Nehemiah mentions the Holy Spirit after the exile. So it runs all the way through the history of Israel.
Slide 36
Then you have passages in Isaiah, and they talk about this, going back to this Exodus generation and subsequent rebellions. It says, [Isaiah 63:10] “But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; So He turned Himself against them as an enemy and God fought against them.”
Slide 37
Isaiah 63:11 says, “Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people, saying: ‘Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit within them?’ ” That is dealing with the leadership. So this is not dealing with the spiritual life; it’s not dealing with spiritual growth.
It has to do with the fact that God has given the Israelites, His covenant people, a mission, and He gives them leaders. And in order to strengthen and enable the leaders, the priests, the prophets, the kings, the administrators, He gives them, at times, the Spirit of God in order to give them abilities to lead the people, to lead His theocratic government. So that brings us to what’s going on in Judges.
Slide 38
What’s going on in Judges is that the Holy Spirit is going to empower these leaders in different ways. He’s going to give them a military skill, a military ability. He’s going to give them an insight into some aspects of leadership, but mostly it’s military. It has some political leadership decisions, but mostly it has to do with military, as we see in in Judges 3:10, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him,—that is Othniel, and the Hebrew is very simple—The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel.”
Judging, this isn’t legislative judging or judicial judging; it is a broad term for leadership. What did he do? He went out to war. So the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him is related to his skill in going to war against Cushan-rishathaim, the king of Mesopotamia.
Slide 39
Judges 6:34 is the second message. So we’ve gone through the other judges, we’ve gone through Ehud, and we’ve gone through Deborah and Barak, and we went past Shamgar. Now, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Gideon, and this is the word lavash, meaning to wear or to clothe. The Spirit of God clothes Himself with Gideon. Now you’d think that if you’re putting Gideon on, it’s an image of filling, but it’s a different kind of word. It’s a very graphic, descriptive sort of word.
Slide 40
Then when it comes to Jephthah, Judges 11:29, “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah,” and he goes out to do battle against the Ammonites. So it’s giving them this military skill at defeating the enemy. And it uses the same terminology that you had in Judges 3:10 with Othniel.
Slide 41
Judges 13:25. There are two or three mentions of the Spirit in Samson. Remember, Samson doesn’t do much that’s good as described in the Book of Judges. Nothing good is said of Samson in the Book of Judges. Judges 13:25, “The Spirit of the Lord began to move—or to impel—him toward Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.” That word is used a couple of times with Samson. How does the Holy Spirit impel him? Is this internal? Is it external through circumstances? We don’t know. It’s just not clear. All we’re told is the Holy Spirit impels him.
Slide 42
Then with the kings, we know of Saul and David. 1 Samuel 11:6, “Then the Spirit of God [ruach Elohim] came upon Saul when he heard this news, and his anger was greatly aroused.” That is against the attack. It’s a righteous anger against the people being attacked by the Philistines. So the Spirit of God came upon Saul, and it’s going to relate to his military skill at defeating the Philistines at that time.
Then we skip to David. By this time, the Spirit of God has departed from Saul because of his carnality, because of his sin. And Samuel is going to anoint David—Samuel the prophet, indicating that the rule of the king was always under the authority of the Word of God.
This was recognized in a very famous work by a Puritan theologian by the name of Samuel Rutherford, who wrote a massive tome on political theory called Lex Rex. The law is king. In other words, the king is under the law. The law comes from God. The king is under God. It’s not rex lex. It’s not the king is over the law. So, the king is subservient to the law and subservient to God.
Slide 43
So Samuel is going to anoint David. 1 Samuel 16:13b, “[A]nd the Spirit of the Lord came upon David—this was the same word used for the Spirit of the Lord coming upon Saul, tzalach, which means ‘to rush upon’ David—from that day forward.” So, it has to do with giving David military skill, defeating the Philistines, defeating the enemies of Israel.
Slide 44
Now 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles are written also after the exile. My point here is to show that this is from Genesis before the Flood, relating what happened before the Flood, written by Moses. The Spirit of the Lord is mentioned through these historical books: Judges, Samuel. He is mentioned in the post-exilic books like Nehemiah, Malachi, and Chronicles. So this isn’t some new idea that pops up somehow near the end of the Old Testament period.
This is really interesting: David gave his son Solomon the plans basically for the temple, the vestibules, houses, treasuries, etc. The plans for all that he had, everything that Samuel had in terms of how to build the temple came to him from David and was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. The plans for all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house, of all the chambers around, the treasuries of the house of God. So it’s all revealed by the Holy Spirit. It is God’s design.
Slide 45
1 Samuel 6:14 talked about the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul because of God’s judgment or divine discipline on Saul. And not only did the Spirit of the Lord leave, but the Lord sent a distressing spirit. Other passages talk about an evil spirit designed to distress Saul and as part of divine discipline on Saul.
David prayed in Psalm 51:11, “Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.” This is a result of his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. So he knows that he has really messed up. And so he’s begging God not to take the Holy Spirit away like he did from Saul, and the Lord did not.
But this does not apply to Church Age believers. There are a lot of Christians who get the idea that “I can lose the Holy Spirit;” I’ve got to pray this prayer. They don’t understand these distinctions between the Old Testament dispensation of Israel, and the dispensations of the law, and the Church Age today.
Slide 46
Hiram, who is the king in Tyre. This suggests that I have a belief that you don’t get the Holy Spirit, a ministry from the Holy Spirit, if you’re not a believer. I think this suggests that Hiram was a believer. And [1Kings 7:14b] “he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill.” These are the same words that were used of Aholiab and Bezalel. He is the project manager for the construction of the Temple. So, in the same way that God gave wisdom and skill and the Holy Spirit to Bezalel and Aholiab, He gives that same wisdom and skill here to Hiram of Tyre.
Slide 47
We have references to some prophets who were temporarily empowered by the Holy Spirit, such as Azariah in 2 Chronicles 15:1–7. Jahaziel, during the reign of Jehoshaphat, in 2 Chronicles 20:1, 22 and 23 mentions the Holy Spirit. Zechariah, during the reign of Joash, who was a prophet in 2 Chronicles 24:20.
Remember when Jesus is talking to the Sadducees and confronting them with their disobedience? He said, you’ve killed all the prophets from Abel to Zechariah. Zechariah is the last prophet mentioned in 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles is the last book in the way that the Jews organized the canon of Scripture. The last book in the English order is Malachi. But the last book in the Hebrew Bible is 2 Chronicles.
So what Jesus is saying is from A to Z, from Abel to Zechariah, you’ve killed all the prophets, from the first book of the Old Testament to the last book of the Old Testament. And that shows that by this time the canon is probably fixed. The Hebrew Old Testament is probably fixed.
Now just as a little teaser of coming attractions, one of the things that we’re going to be focusing on in next year’s Chafer Conference is I have three speakers coming. Two of them you know or are familiar with, Randy Price, who is retiring from Liberty University in about twenty-nine days when he finishes the course he’s teaching right now for Liberty at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And I’m pretty sure he’s moving back to Texas. I don’t know when. But Randy’s going to come, and he’ll be one of the speakers.
Doug Petrovich, whom you know well, is going to be a second speaker.
And then a third speaker is one you don’t know, and that’s Dr. Henry Smith, who is with the Associates for Biblical Research. These guys are going to drill down on a lot of fascinating things related to archaeology and an understanding of how we got the Old Testament. And the thing is, I would say 99% of the pastors that are coming have never heard any of this except for those who come to my Friday morning class because we’re going through a lot of this material, this sort of preparation. But most of this material has just been discovered in the last 40 years.
When I took Old Testament Introduction, which is where this type of material would be covered, we didn’t cover any of this material because nobody had ... Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1948, but they were kept within a small group of scholars. Nobody else ever got to look at them until there was a lawsuit and they had to be released in the 1990s. And I’ve got all of it on my computer now. And so we can all study the fragments from Qumran. And it’s just remarkable the things that we’re discovering. It’s not Scripture, but it helps us to understand how people understood Scripture, which is phenomenal.
The Qumran community understood many, many passages, including Psalm 146 that I talked about on Sunday morning, as Messianic Psalms, Messianic prophecies. Most modern evangelical scholars don’t believe that, which I think is wrong. So, I mean, we’re going to get into a lot of stuff and everybody’s going to be pretty much at the same level, which is pre-K, pre-kindergarten. So these guys are used to talking to audiences that don’t have much of a frame of reference for this, and it’s just fascinating. The guys, the men on Friday morning are just loving it.
Slide 48
So we’ve got all these, and in Micah, Micah 3:8, we read, “But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.” So Micah is recognizing that it is by the Holy Spirit that he’s received this revelation, and he is empowered to bring this conviction to Israel, identifying their sin.
Slide 49
So you have the role of the Holy Spirit in the civil administrators, the elders that Moses appointed, where God promised, [Number 11:17b] “I will take the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same on them.”
Slide 50
Joshua, Numbers 27:18, “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Take Joshua the son of Nun with you,—you know, Joshua didn’t have any parents. He was the son of Nun. Just seeing if anybody’s awake—a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand upon him.” So, Joshua as a general, and as one who would write Scripture is empowered by God the Holy Spirit.
Slides 51 and 52
We also see the role of the Holy Spirit in prophecy as we start to bring this to a close. The role of the Spirit in prophecy in Isaiah 11:2. Now this is interesting. Some of the language here is kind of echoed in Psalm 146 that I touched on Sunday morning. [Isaiah 11:2] “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,—who’s Him? That’s the Messiah, the servant of the Lord—the Spirit of the Lord shall rest on Him—so this is a messianic prophecy—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” So six things are mentioned there related to what the Holy Spirit will manifest in the Messiah.
Slide 53
In Isaiah 30:1, “Woe to the rebellious children—so in several chapters in Isaiah you have these woe judgments. Hebrew for woe is oy. That’s where that comes from. ‘Woe’ is the way to preface an announcement of divine discipline—who take counsel but not of me says the Lord. and who devised plans but not of My Spirit.” So there are two divine personages here. There’s “Yahweh” and there’s “My Spirit.”
Slide 54
Isaiah 42:1, “ ‘Behold! My Servant whom I—Okay, so you have one personage in my servant, that’s the Messiah. Behold my servant whom I, who’s speaking? God the Father—uphold, that is, my choice One, [who is the Messiah—God the Son] in whom my soul delights. I have put my Spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.’ ” Again, that emphasis on justice to the world is echoed in Psalm 146. So that’s why I say those things that it says that God does, that He takes care of the widow, the orphans, He brings justice to the world, all of those things, that is fulfilled only in the Messianic Kingdom. It is not for today.
So what do you have? You have My Servant, one Person, who is also My Choice One, the Messiah, God the Son, and a third Personage, My Spirit. So people say, well, you don’t find the Trinity in the Old Testament. You have three divine Persons here.
Slide 55
Isaiah 61:1–3. Now this is the passage that Jesus partially quotes when He is speaking in the synagogue in Nazareth. He gets up and He reads, He’s supposed to read in the scroll of Isaiah, and He reads halfway through verse 2 and stops because the remainder of verse 2 and verse 3 all relate to the Millennial Kingdom, and that’s not fulfilled in the first coming. The prophecy is, [Isaiah 61:1] “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.” So you have the Spirit, number one, first Personage, of the Lord God, the second Personage, Me, the third Personage. So you have three divine Persons he mentioned here.
[Isaiah 61:1] “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me.” Now notice how “GOD” here is in uppercase. That means that “GOD” there is translated Yahweh; the Lord here in lowercase is translated in the Hebrew word adonai, which is just a general word for “lord or master.”
And then down here you have “LORD” uppercase; that’s Yahweh. Whenever you see Yahweh, there’s an emphasis on God as the covenant God of Israel. [Isaiah 61:1] “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me—Mashiach is the Hebrew word for anointed, so the One who is speaking is the Mashiach; He’s the anointed One. What’s He anointed for?—To preach good tidings to the poor—that’s echoed in Psalm 146. [Isaiah 61:1b] He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,—also echoed in Psalm 146—to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”
In Matthew, this is quoted with reference to what Jesus was doing in His first half of His ministry going to Galilee. In this passage it talks about a light coming to the tribes in Galilee, to Zebulun and Naphtali, and along the coast. So, He’s preaching good tidings, healing the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and opening of the prison to those who are bound.
Isaiah 61:3: “To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” Now that specifically is directed to Israel. But that’s true.
If you look around this world today, you may get depressed. Many people have quit watching the news; it’s too depressing, too discouraging. You’ve got a spirit of heaviness. But what we’re told here is we’re going to have that spirit of heaviness replaced with a garment of praise when we’re in the Kingdom. So that is what we have to look forward to.
Slide 56
Isaiah 63:10–11, “But they rebelled—that is speaking of the Israelites— and grieved His Holy Spirit; So He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people, saying: ‘Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit within them,’ ” What a great passage. Not New Testament. This is Old Testament.
Slide 57
Now when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, and He talks to Nicodemus in John 3 about this new birth, that it is, you must be born by the Spirit and of water. Nicodemus doesn’t go, “What are you talking about?” Jesus mentions the Holy Spirit knowing that Nicodemus should know exactly what He is talking about. This is one of those passages.
Ezekiel 11:5, “Then the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said to me, ‘Speak! “Thus says the LORD: ‘Thus you have said, O house of Israel; for I know the things that come into your mind.’ ” ’ ” Now, when we skip to Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel 37, these two passages relate to the establishment of the New Covenant with Israel. And part of that is that God says He will put the Spirit inside every Jew. This isn’t talking about the Church Age. This is talking about the New Covenant when Christ comes and establishes the Kingdom.
Ezekiel 36:27: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep My judgments and do them.” And Ezekiel 37:14, “ ‘I will put My Spirit in you and you shall live and I will place you in your own land.’ ” So “putting His Spirit in them and you shall live” speaks of regeneration, and many people think that’s what Jesus is expecting is for Nicodemus to connect the dots. He’s talking to Nicodemus in the early part of His ministry.
What was the message in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that Jesus had at the beginning of His ministry? “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” So He’s expecting Nicodemus to connect the dots that they need to be regenerated so that the Kingdom will come. What did He tell Him? “You can’t see the kingdom unless you’ve been born again.” He didn’t say, “You can’t get saved unless you’re born again.” That’s implied, but He’s saying you can’t see the Kingdom unless you’re born again.
Slide 58
Then we have Joel 2:28 and 29, a verse that Peter quotes in Acts 2 and that many, many people take out of context because Joel 2 talks about what will happen when the Lord returns and establishes His Kingdom, and all of the things that are listed here. Of all the things that are listed here, none of them happened in Acts 2. The one thing that happened in Acts 2 was speaking in unlearned languages, and guess what? That’s not mentioned here.
All that Peter is saying in Acts 2 is this that you’re seeing today at the Temple on the Day of Pentecost is similar to the kinds of things that will happen when the Spirit comes and establishes the Kingdom. He’s just emphasizing this is a work of the Holy Spirit. It’s not a work of man.
So the prophecy here is it shall come to pass afterward. Afterward: after what? Well, in the previous verses it’s the Day of the Lord. It’s the battle of Armageddon. Joel 2:28, “It shall come to pass afterward—the battle of Armageddon, after Christ’s victory—that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.” Not all believers. All flesh. All means everybody, and it’s primarily to Israel because those that have survived. At that point the only ones who have survived are believers. Joel 2:28, “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions.” But they clearly understood there was this entity called the Spirit, God’s Spirit. Joel 2:29, “And also on my menservants and on my maidservants, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.”
Slide 59
Zechariah 4:6 says, “So he answered and said to me: ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” ’ ” So the Holy Spirit is clearly a distinct, divine entity in the Old Testament. It’s not just another way of talking about God. There are conversations, as we’ve seen, where you have three personages, especially in those Isaiah passages. The Spirit of the Lord; you have My Servant, the Messiah; and you have Yahweh. Three distinct Personages are clearly present in the Old Testament. Many other passages indicate that, that the Spirit of the Lord is a distinct personality from Yahweh. And in many passages, you have at least those two Persons present.
So the Holy Spirit is active in the Old Testament. He is active in revelation. He’s active in regeneration. He is active through the prophets in giving revelation and inscripturating that which they are to write for Scripture.
But His role is not in the realm of spiritual growth and spiritual maturity like it is in the New Testament. They are not baptized by the Holy Spirit because Christ has not yet come; there is nothing to identify them with yet. They are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit as making us a temple to God. They are not filled by the Spirit with the Word of God as we are in this Church Age.
So none of these ministries that we have today are part of what was happening in the Old Testament. It was completely different. But we have the clear indication that He does empower leaders to fulfill their function. Whether it’s as carpenters, architectures, craftsmen, jewelers, or as military leaders, commanders, or as priests, or as prophets, but it’s not the same as the Church Age. We have to keep that distinction.
So next time we’ll come back and now that the Spirit of the Lord has come upon Gideon, Gideon will be directed to lead the army of Israel. But it’s got to be the right size to lead the army of Israel against the Midianites and the Amalekites and the others from the east.
Closing Prayer
“Father, thank You for this opportunity to study these things and to recognize that we have such a unique privilege because we are permanently indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. And God the Holy Spirit works to mature us in Christ strengthening us in the inner man, and we are to walk by means of God the Holy Spirit. It is as we do this that God the Holy Spirit matures us and strengthens us.
“So Father, it is so important that we have this ongoing fellowship with God the Holy Spirit, which means a partnership in walking to a common goal. And that common goal is the development of the character of Christ, making us Christ-like in this life. And we pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.”