The Holy Spirit that was not yet given

Towards the end of the 2nd century a new and strange idea of God began to invade Christendom. This teaching later came to be known as Modalism or Sabellianism. This teaching is closely associated with a priest by the name of Sabellius who lived in the 3rd Century A.D. According to this teaching, there is only one God who is known by the different modes, roles or faces that He chooses to take upon Himself. Basically, God is known as the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit when He chooses to take upon the role of the Father, the Son and the Spirit respectively.

Another false idea that is part of this teaching is that these roles or modes that God plays are each confined to certain periods of time. The Old Testament period belongs to the Father. Christ’s first advent as a man, is said to be the period of the Son. And finally, after the ascension of Christ, which is followed by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the period changes to that of the Spirit. These periods do not overlap one over the other. When God was the Father, there was neither Son nor Spirit. When He became the Son, the Father and the Spirit were non-existent and when He revealed Himself as the Spirit, there was no Father and no Son. This teaching paved the way for the doctrine of the trinity that was to be later established in the church.

The Bible does not support the ideas of Sabellius and his associates. God and His Son both took part in the work of creation. (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2, 1Corinthians 8:6). The Holy Spirit is also featured in both the Old and New Testaments. However, there are still many people who hold on to this idea about God.

As you can expect, the supporters of this idea take verses from the Bible to support their belief. In fact, these verses, when not properly understood, do seem to strongly support the teaching of Sabellius. One of these verses is found in John 7:37-39.

“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. (38) He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of flowing water. (39) (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” (John 7:37-39)

Was there really no Holy Spirit before Christ’s glorification? The Bible does not say so. In the Old Testament, we find, on numerous occasions, that the Spirit is mentioned. In the first chapter of Genesis, we are told that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:3) At the baptism of Christ, another event prior to the glorification, the Spirit descended in the form of a dove. So, what is this Holy Spirit that was not yet given? What is the difference between the Spirit before and after the glorification? To come to a reasonable conclusion, we shall first examine the work and the qualities associated with the Holy Spirit prior to the glorification of Christ.

The Power of God

Firstly, we know from the article, “Who is the Holy Spirit?”, published in the first issue of The Loins of Truth that the Spirit is the presence, character, nature, mind, understanding, knowledge, wisdom, thoughts and any non-physical and non-tangible elements of God. Apart from these attributes, the scriptures also reveal that the Holy Spirit is the power of God. When people were imbued with the Spirit, they had the power to work miracles, prophesy, dream dreams and the like. Below are some of the examples from the Bible of what I am saying.

When the angel Gabriel appeared before Mary to announce that shewould conceive the Son of God, he mentioned that she would receive the Holy Spirit and the power of God would be poured on her.

Luke 1:35 “And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

Another example that is also found in the Bible is the life and experiences of Samson. There are some who cling to the idea that owing to his physical attributes, Samson was able to kill the lion and even kill a thousand men with only a donkey’s jawbone as his weapon. However, the Bible reveals a different story.

Judges 14:5,6 “Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother,to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold,a young lion roared against him. (6)And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.”

J​udges 15:14,15 “And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. (15) And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.”

In both these occasions in the life of Samson, the Bible tells us clearly that he could do these things because God’s power came upon him when he was bathed with the Holy Spirit. We also witness the Spirit working in the same manner in the life of Christ.

Acts 10:38 “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”

Just in passing, here again we see that the Holy Spirit is both the presence and power of God. Jesus Himself declared that He could do nothing without the Father (John 5:19,30). This means that He cannot perform even a single miracle without the presence of God through the Spirit which God had given His Son liberally.

Powerless to Change

The word of God also reveals that men were under the influence of the Spirit of God as they wrote the Bible and no prophecy was the result of any man’s wisdom or interpretation. (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1: 20,21).However, the fact remains that this same power could not overcome the evil nature that these men were born with. David who wrote the Psalms was moved by the Spirit, but at the same time, a close observation of his life reveals that his sinful nature was unconquered. We observe that he hated his enemies with a perfect hatred (Psalms 139:22). A classic example of this nature is witnessed in his attitude towards Shimei, a relative of Saul, who went all out to curse and pelted stones at David when the latter was fleeing Jerusalem when he was chased by his son, Absalom. On his return to Jerusalem to re-establish his reign over Israel, Shimei once again came to David, but this time around he did not intend to hurl curses or stones at the king but to ask for forgiveness and pleaded that his life may be spared. Though David claimed to have forgiven him, years later, while on his death bed, he once again reminded his son and successor to the throne, Solomon, the past experiences he had with Shimei and made him to vow that he would avenge Shimei on his behalf by making sure that he killed the one who at one time troubled him.

2 Samuel 19:18-23 “And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king, as he was come over Jordan;and said unto the king, Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me,neither do thou remember that which thy servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart. For thy servant doth know that I have sinned:therefore, behold, I am come the first day of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king…Therefore the king said to Shimei,Thou shalt not die. And the king sware unto him."

1 Kings 2:8,9 “And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim,which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the LORD, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword.Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise man,and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood."

We cannot conclude, from the above recorded evidences that David possessed the holy, undefiled nature of Christ who taught us to love, pray and forgive our enemies. The same thing can be mentioned about many men and women of the Bible who were privileged to be under the influence of the Spirit of God. The great men and women who stood out among the many who lived before the glorification, were worthy of mention in the apostle Paul’s list of the men of faith recorded in Hebrews 11. But these same individuals lacked the power that those who live after the glorification have access to.

Hebrews 11:39,40 “And these all,having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”

In other words, the power of the Spirit before the glorification of Christ was powerless to turn a sinner into a saint. So, what can help man overcome sin? What can change our carnal nature?

The Spirit of the Father and the Son

To understand this, we should first remember that the Spirit of God can exist in a conscious state even outside His physical body. And the Spirit of God can unite with the spirit of Christ, the angels and man. In this aspect, the spirit of man differs from the Spirit of God. When Christ came as a man, He did not come with divine powers that should enable Him, among other things, to be omnipresent. So, in order that He might be able to be with his followers wherever they may be, it required that He should get this power again from the Father. For this to happen,His Spirit and the Spirit of the Father should be joined together in a very special way. This was fulfilled in the day of Pentecost, ten days after His ascension, when He was glorified by the Father, in heaven. In His glorification, Jesus once again received the powers of divinity that he shared with the Father from the days of eternity, before his human incarnation here on earth. When the believers in Christ received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the day of Pentecost, they received both the Father and the Son. It is this divine life of the Father and the human-divine life of Christ, blended together, that makes up the Comforter whom Christ promised to His disciples and all who believed on Him.

I do not deny that the Comforter is the Holy Spirit. But the difference between the Holy Spirit now and the Holy Spirit prior to the glorification is that, now the Spirit is not just a power that enabled men to work miracles but most importantly, it is also the life of Christ that had fought and gained the victory over Satan,temptations, sin and death. This partially explains the reason why Christ had to become one of us to give us salvation. And this life can be ours if we are willing to receive it. As Paul puts it, “Christ our life” (Colossians 3:4). This is the Spirit that was not yet given prior to the glorification. In the Old Testament we never come across the terms “Spirit of Christ” or “Spirit of the Son” as in the New Testament. This is because the Spirit in the Old Testament had no special qualities other than power and presence, even though it is true that this Spirit was given through Christ. The coming of the Holy Spirit today is the life of God the Father and the victorious life of Christ. This is the reason why when Jesus spoke concerning the Comforter, He said that if a believer loves Him, the Father and the Son would make Their abode with him.

John 14:23 “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

From the Father we receive the gift of healing, prophesying, and the like.From Christ we receive the power to overcome sin. It is in this way that Christ says that the Father will send “another Comforter” (John 14:16),because it is now a new Holy Spirit with new, modified qualities. And it is from this angle that Christ told His disciples that it was for their benefit that he should leave them and go to the Father so that the Comforter might come. (John 16:7). Therefore,the Holy Spirit is both the spirit of the Father and the Son and not someone else according to the doctrine of the trinity.

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