by Stephen Forister
New Covenant believers would do well to grasp the concept of progressive revelation. God has, over the course of human history, unveiled more of His magnificent redemptive plan to successive generations. Old Testament saints knew only shadows and types of the glorious truths that we see fully disclosed today. But redemption is not all that He has shown more fully as the centuries have passed. Indeed, God has progressively revealed more of Himself. He has increasingly unveiled the magnificent Person and ministry of His Son Jesus Christ, at first in often obscure Messianic prophecy, later in the flesh as He walked this earth, now in exalted sovereignty, and soon in apocalyptic power and consummate glory. With the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, God has done something similar. While the Spirit’s essence is eternal and unchanging, His work on earth has changed from one testament to the next. Let us examine how the Holy Spirit has operated in both Old and New Covenant eras.
The Holy Spirit in Old Testament Narratives
Of the 315 occurrences of the capitalized Spirit in the NASB Bible, 78 appear in the books from Genesis to Malachi, and nearly half of those in the historical narrative passages. The Holy Spirit was active in the lives of key Old Testament figures, but in a way quite unlike what we see today. In the Old Testament era, the Spirit would descend upon an individual for a specialized objective, but only for a limited time. His movement was not arbitrary, but neither was it universal and eternal. His activity was ever, so to speak, temporary and specific.
Given the diverse lineup of men upon whom the Spirit fell (some were rather unsavory characters), it can be confusing to discern what His specific purpose was at the time. In the Old Testament, this purpose was never unto salvation, and only rarely for conviction and consecration. God invariably sent His Spirit in this “temporary and specific” way, to both obedient and disobedient men, for the purpose of advancing His covenant relationship with His covenant people, the spiritually impoverished nation of Israel. When He gave His Holy Spirit then, no matter how strange the means seem to our modern ears or whether it resulted in tender mercy or stern discipline, it demonstrated this covenant faithfulness. This may help explain why the Spirit more than once “came upon” the wayward, faithless King Saul, as well as the treacherous, donkey-beating diviner, Balaam. God always had in mind the best interest of His people and the establishment of His kingdom.
Great leaders and obscure men alike knew this condescension by the Spirit. Moses and the seventy elders, Joshua, and judges like Gideon and Samson were all faith giants upon whom the Spirit descended at least once, often to spectacular effect. Some were given to prophesying – though in the narrative accounts we rarely witness the content of these prophecies – and others, like Samson, were bestowed with some extraordinary power or gift. The great prophet Ezekiel notes at least nine different occasions where the Spirit “lifted” him up, “entered” him, “fell upon” him, or “brought” him to see visions and deliver prophesies; no other Old Testament prophet, major or minor, makes even one such claim. But even little known Bezalel and Oholiab were exalted through a special manifestation of the Spirit to become the chief craftsmen of the tabernacle in Exodus 31 and 35.
The Holy Spirit in Old Testament Wisdom Literature and Prophecy
Psalm 51:11, 139:7, and 143:10 are the only incontrovertible appearances of the Spirit in the Psalms and wisdom literature, and all three deal with the relationship of the Spirit to the believer, or at least to the psalmist David. In these passages, David implored God to not take His Holy Spirit from him, asked rhetorically who can hide from God’s Spirit, and prayed that the good Spirit would lead him on level ground. Apart from Ezekiel’s personal experiences, mention of the Spirit in the prophetic books largely looked to the distant future, either to His role in anointing the Messiah, or to serving us, New Covenant believers.
One final word is necessary concerning the Spirit’s role in the Old Testament. New Testament authors Peter and the author of Hebrews reveal the work of the Spirit in writing the very books of the Old Testament through what theologians call verbal-plenary inspiration. Thus, the composition of all Scripture is wholly a work of Spirit-enabled men specially endowed for this purpose.
In every case, from the narratives to the literature to the biblical authors themselves, the Spirit’s work in the Old Covenant era was temporary, isolated, specific, and efficacious toward the progression of God’s magnificent plan of redemption.
The Holy Spirit in the Gospels and Acts
With the advent of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit’s role becomes increasingly diverse, and His influence increasingly apparent. He is present at many of the key moments in the life of our Lord. It is the Spirit who impregnates Mary and who descends upon Jesus at baptism to inaugurate the Lord’s earthly ministry. When Jesus begins baptizing, it is not with water as John was doing, but with the Holy Spirit and fire. The Spirit, too, is responsible for leading Jesus into the wilderness for testing.
Interestingly, the Lord Jesus teaches His disciples that, concerning the Spirit, the best is yet to come. Predicting future persecution, Jesus promises that the Spirit will give them words to speak. He will be given freely by the Father to those who ask, as a child asks his earthly father for his needs. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus discloses that the Spirit is, like Himself, a Paraclete, a comforter and encourager who comes alongside us, teaches us all things, testifies to the truth, and speaks whatever He hears.
Jesus pointedly teaches, however, that the Spirit will only come to impart these blessings after the Lord’s ascension into heaven. After promising that believers in the Messiah would know “rivers of living water,” the apostle comments with this qualification: “this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). Jesus Himself affirms this on the eve of His crucifixion: “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7). In this lengthy discourse, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, is mentioned numerous times – all in the future tense. His teaching is crystal clear: the world had not seen the Spirit in all His fullness yet, but would soon.
In John 20, after the Resurrection, Jesus seems to impart something of the Spirit to the eleven remaining apostles. But this moment serves primarily to heighten the anticipation of the great outpouring of the Spirit some weeks later at Pentecost upon the Eleven and, in some lesser way, upon all the church at Jerusalem. Thus, the Gospel of Luke ends with the same eager anticipation of being “clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49) as the book of Acts begins. Here, the disciples excitedly await “the promise of the Father.” And this word promise is, as any careful student of the New Testament will delightedly discover, inextricably linked, even frequently equated, to the coming of the Holy Spirit.
From the second chapter of Luke’s Acts of the Apostles – a book that many say could just as readily have been titled Acts of the Holy Spirit – we see the Spirit of God unveiled as never before. At Pentecost, He descends in a most overt and explicit manner, with power and flame. The believers speak in the languages of men such that the curse of Babel is momentarily broken. Thousands are subsequently saved, falling under deep conviction at the sermon of one incredibly renewed Peter, who only weeks earlier was still found languishing on the Sea of Galilee, fishing again for fish instead of men.
After Pentecost, however, the apostles become mighty channels of the Spirit’s work. Thousands more know redemption. The sick are healed, the lame made to leap for joy, the sightless given sight, corpses endued again with the breath of life. All that Jesus had done is being repeated by the apostles in the Spirit’s power, but on a monumentally broader scale. The Spirit even speaks directly to the apostles to communicate the next steps in the nascent missionary enterprise as God’s kingdom continues to grow mightily, in spite of and even because of ever-intensifying persecution.
The Holy Spirit in the Apostolic Writings
The epistles show how the Spirit is manifest in and to the New Covenant believer today, and indeed even to unbelievers. For did not Jesus promise that the Spirit would also “convict the world concerning sin… because they do not believe in Me” (John 16:8-9)? Profound gratefulness must be our response, Christians, for we are told elsewhere that the new birth starts with the Spirit’s conviction of the unbeliever’s sinfulness. Thankfully, it does not end there! Mere conviction is not conversion. What the Spirit begins in regenerating God’s elect, He also finishes. It is the Spirit who draws the forlorn and sin-wrecked human heart to the living Savior; it is the Spirit who gives new life to this heart and causes it to believe and cry out for salvation. Regeneration invariably precedes faith. We must be born again in order to believe. This is the work of the resplendent Spirit of God.
The blessed Spirit also continues working in the life of the believer in a way that no Old Testament saint ever experienced. Paul repeatedly teaches that the Spirit of the living God dwells in us, abides in us, lives in us. Imagine, towering luminaries of the faith like Joseph, Moses, Ruth, David, Josiah, Daniel, and Ezra never knew the indwelling of the Holy Spirit the way ordinary Christians do today. Certainly, these and all other true Old Testament saints were saved the same way believers of the New Covenant are today: by grace, through faith in their Redeemer (though they did not know their Redeemer’s name). But for holy living, for pursuing righteousness, for growing in that grace, they knew not the Spirit. “Walking in the Spirit” was an impossibility for the very fact that the Spirit had not yet been given in that way.
Today, according to the apostles, the Holy Spirit indwells us, fills us, sanctifies us, produces spiritual fruit in us, teaches and guides us, convicts us of sin, rebukes us, prays for us, and intercedes on our behalf with groanings too deep for words. The Spirit strengthens us with power in our inner man. He is our sword in the field of battle against principalities and powers. He speaks the Scripture to us and prophesies concerning the future. The Spirit imparts to believers a diverse array of potent gifts for the purpose of edifying the church. He is the church’s pledge, her dowry, a down payment of the sweet and glorious marriage to come.
In Old and New Testaments alike, the Holy Spirit is proof positive that God is at work among His people. In the Spirit we find progressive revelation manifest through both the revealing of the plan of God and the wondrous presence of God in our everyday lives. As members of the New Covenant, we experience God’s Spirit in a way that transcends and far surpasses that of anyone prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us give thanks to God for His Holy Spirit!