Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
By
Gary Primo
May 14, 2010
What exactly is Holy Spirit? Some say it is a third person of a triune godhead. Yet the Scriptures say that YHVH our Elohim is one. He stands alone as the Supreme Creator of all physical and spiritual life. Trinitarians have taken it upon themselves to include Yahshua and “the person of the” Holy Spirit as co-creators of all life. Naturally, since there is absolutely no mention of a trinity in the Scriptures, nor is there any thought of a trinity in Hebrew theology, this theory must have its roots outside of the Scriptures. The only religious authority outside of the Scriptures and Hebrew theology is paganism. Therefore, the trinity theory has to be of pagan origin. So what then is holy spirit if it is not a third person of a trinity?
Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
Throughout the Old Testament (OT) holy spirit is described similar to the following example.
Judges 3:10 - And the Spirit of YHVH came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war: and YHVH delivered Chushanrishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed against Chushanrishathaim.
This “spirit of YHVH gave the recipient power over their enemies, to defeat them in war. Their strength and stamina was greatly magnified when this spirit was endowed upon them. It was like YHVH Himself was fighting their enemies for them. They performed superhuman feats, the likes of which had never been seen before. YHVH actually placed the POWER of His holy spirit in them to perform what had to be done. If you check every other reference to the spirit of YHVH in the OT, they are all similar to this example. This is exactly what holy spirit is – the POWER of YHVH. Yahshua was filled with this holy spirit. That is what allowed him to do all the amazing things that he did. He was one with the Father and the Father performed His mighty works through His Son.
The prime objective of a true Believer is also to become one with the Father. One does so mainly through study of the Scriptures, prayer and meditation. But it also takes total belief and trust in YHVH by which we daily place our lives totally in the hands of YHVH, trusting in Him alone.
This phenomenon can perhaps be best compared to a blood transfusion. The doctors do not completely empty the body of old blood before transfusing the fresh blood into it. Instead they siphon off the old blood as they are pumping in the new. In the case of holy spirit, YHVH attempts to infuse His new (holy) spirit into our bodies while we attempt to rid our bodies of our old carnal human spirit. The hope is that eventually our old carnal spirit will be completely replaced by YHVH’s holy spirit. We will know when we are filled with the holy spirit of YHVH, when we can perform the deeds that Yahshua did. Until then we have nothing of which to boast.
Holy Spirit in the New Testament
The concept of holy spirit being a third person of a trinity began to creep into the Christian belief system in around the 3rd century and by the fourth century became the central doctrine of the Christian faith. This change all centered around the Roman law forbidding Roman citizens from Judaising (following the customs and traditions of the Jews). This was the evidence that convicted a Believer in those days. They all kept the customs and traditions of the Jews. The Christian movement began with supposed Believers replacing the customs and traditions of the Jews with their former pagan ones. These pagan traditions came out of the former state religion, which was Mithraism. Finally, with the advent of the Christian Church becoming the official state religion of Rome, All of the former customs and traditions of the Jews were replaced with pagan ones.
In the original writings of the NT, the term “holy spirit” was not personalized. That is it was not preceded by the preposition “the”, and it was not capitalized. It was a clearly seen as a thing, not a person.
How many Christians do we know of that we can say are filled with the holy spirit of YHVH? Since none are performing the works of Yahshua, we can correctly assume that none are filled with YHVH’s spirit. But wait a minute. What can we say of true Believers? Do we know of anyone of them that we can say are FILLED with the holy spirit of YHVH? Are they doing the deeds that Yahshua did? None that I know of, including myself, seem to be filled with this power. Therefore, none of us can boast either. This is an area in which we are all missing the boat, so to speak.
We are all plagued by the trials of daily living. These trials consume our thoughts throughout the day, leaving little time to think of more heavenly things. I have not figured out yet how to drive such thoughts out of my own mind. Yet this is what prevents us from emptying our physical shells of our carnal spirit and filling it with YHVH’s holy spirit.
The problem as I see it is that we all have trust issues. As infants we all trusted our caregivers implicitly. Do we remember jumping from some high point fully trusting our father to catch us? As we grow, we learn that our parents (and/or other caregivers) can not always be counted on to save us from every situation. We learn to distrust. Then we pass puberty and begin to date. We fall in love – fully opening our hearts to that special someone. In most cases, that love fades away, our hearts may have been broken and we learn to trust a little less. We may have any number of romantic relationships after this and each time we break up we trust less and less. Here in the western part of the world divorce has become almost as common as marriage. The women usually get the gold mine and the man usually gets the shaft. Many have become so disillusioned by marriage and they prefer to simply live together. The smarter ones have a legal contract drawn up and signed to protect what they had at the beginning of the relationship. There is no trust anywhere. I have been legally married twice and have lived common law twice. I know that I have trust issues and am having a terrible time getting rid of them. I am not talking about trusting to the point of being stupid. There are plenty of cases when it is wise not to trust. However, we need to recognize when we are carrying our trust issues over into our relationship with YHVH.
With YHVH we need to completely tear down all our defenses and turn our mortal bodies over to Him as empty vessels ready to be filled. That is what becoming one with the Father means. We cannot be truly one with Him until we have allowed Him to completely fill us with His holy spirit. This was/is the relationship Yahshua had/has with the Father. He was the firstborn of all creation. He was raised personally by the Father in a one-on-one relationship for who knows how many years. He started out completely trusting in YHVH and his Father never let him down. He fully trusts that the Father never will let him down. The Father has never let us down either. Rather it is us who have let Him down. It is us who fail to fully trust in Him.
So, now that I have revealed what we must do, the only question is how to do it. This is the hard part. We are carnal beings with carnal minds and hearts. We are our own worst enemies. The carnal mind is constantly striving against all that is spiritual. We like to determine our own destiny. We like to either be our own gods or create our own gods. We strive to be in control of everything around us and it is our natural instinct to defend our powers of control and resist giving over that control to anyone, including YHVH. Totally giving our hearts and minds over to YHVH means emptying ourselves of all pride, arrogance, self-worth, ambitions and dreams, and placing our lives totally in His hands. Every situation in our lives requires us to ask one question, “What would YHVH do if he were in my shoes?” Sometimes we know what the answer is but we want to try things our way first anyway. YHVH always answers our prayers, but sometimes that answer is “no”. We then to seek provide the answer we would like to hear instead of accepting YHVH’s answer. How do we stop ourselves from repeating these patterns?
I confess I do not have the answer. Different ways might work for different people. We are all different in that our life’s experiences have made us all unique. We have individual methods to help us understand and interpret things. We interpret things through the filter of life experiences we have encountered along our journey. What makes sense to us in western “developed” nations may not make any sense at all to someone in 3rd world developing nations. This all affects how we approach YHVH and interact with him. The more we realize our own mortality and lack of ability to save ourselves, the more we turn to YHVH. People in “have not” nations seem to be more spiritually minded than those in nations that have everything. They cannot boast “By my own hand I have become rich”, because they have no riches and no hope of ever becoming rich. Yet they are the richest of anyone on this planet because their life situation leads them to believe that YHVH is their only hope and therefore become more spiritually minded. They don’t care which way the stock market goes. Their only immediate concern is simply feeding themselves and their loved ones. Rather than seeking riches, they merely seek to live one more day.
Perhaps this is what we in the western nations need – to have all our luxuries stripped away, so that we may truly turn our hearts towards YHVH, the only One who can truly save us. This scenario may shortly come to pass. What if the economy collapses? What if a terrible drought comes on our nations and we cannot produce our own food? What if someone pushes the button to start a nuclear war? Whatever happens that may devastate our countries, will prove to be a blessing in disguise as it will hopefully force us to turn our hearts towards YHVH. The old saying is, “The taller you are the further you have to fall.” This saying is especially true of those living in developed nations who are used to all the conveniences our society has to offer. What happens to them when everything is suddenly stripped away? Suddenly they are in a situation that is totally foreign to them. They cannot go to the corner store to get food, because those stores will be empty. Without a job they will have no money. Without all the modern conveniences they will have no gasoline, heating fuel, electricity, a place to live – the list goes on and on. People who do not already have these things will be better off to survive a global catastrophe because survival has always been their prime daily focal point. The more we have the more we have to lose.
Recently I lost my house and everything in it to fire. All my memories and mementos of my entire life went up in flames. I had no home insurance and, being on a fixed income, I could not afford to replace either the home or the contents. My family and I had to rely on the kindness and generosity of family, friends, and neighbors to afford another place to rent and replace all our furniture and other household needs. It was indeed a humbling experience. Even though saddened and depressed by my situation, I see this as a hidden blessing from YHVH. I know that He would never give me too great a trial for me to bear.
But this is only talking of the physical dimensions of the tragedy. I cannot help wondering about the spiritual dimensions of it. Had I become too comfortable, too assured that by my own hand I had gained what I had? Now that I have been reduced to having nothing again, I can more readily see what I was missing spiritually. I have no choice but to rely on YHVH for my daily needs. I see more of an urgency to tear down the walls of mistrust that I have built up over the years and fully trust in YHVH for my salvation. I am ready to jump from that high point, fully knowing that YHVH will catch me (not that I would ever tempt YHVH that way).
My hope is that this article will encourage and prompt all reading it to realize that we all have room for improvement in our spiritual lives and an urgent need to let down all our defenses and allow YHVH to fully dwell in us. There is a magnificent blessing awaiting those who accomplish this feat. That blessing will be being filled with the spirit and the power of YHVH, enabling us to be all that YHVH has designed us to be. We will be of one mind, heart and soul with the Almighty Creator of all life. We will follow in our brother, Yahshua’s, footsteps in being born into the new creation as kings and priests and we will live for all of eternity. What greater blessing is there than that?
I hope and pray that all reading this receive enormous spiritual blessings from YHVH to do the work that lies ahead for us. It is time to roll up our sleeves and put our hands to the plough. Our job is to bring as many as possible to the truth of YHVH and feed them spiritually until they can stand on their own two feet. This is not a light calling. The day is getting shorter and not much time is left. This need is more urgent now than it has ever been. Let’s get to work, my brothers. It is up to us to resurrect the spirit and the power that evidenced itself in the 1st century assembly of Believers in following the way of YHVH in every detail. I repeat, this is not a light calling.
YHVH Bless
Gary Primo