A very thought-provoking article. Thank you for sharing. Much to ponder, study and pray about. In the meantime, my spirit resonates with what you have written. I must take it (as with everything) to the Father and allow Him to instruct and correct me. His ways of instruction and correction never cease to amaze me. He is gentle, gracious and patient. But IF we invite Him to confront, challenge and correct us… we better be ready for Him to do just that! He is FAITHFUL and I LOVE Him for that. One step at a time. Blessings and peace to you! 😊
What you’ve described captures the miracle at the very center of salvation: God Himself breathing His own Life into dust. And for the authentic believer, that breath doesn’t just begin the story—it sustains it. The same Spirit who raised Yeshua from the dead now lives within us, not as an abstract force but as the very breath of God continually animating our inner being. Salvation isn’t merely the moment He breathes; discipleship is learning to breathe with Him.
The indwelling Life of Christ is that ongoing Genesis 2:7 reality—God breathing from within the believer, not merely upon them. It is Ezekiel 37 happening in the present tense: dead places rising, dry bones strengthening, hearts awakening. It is Joel 2 fulfilled in the quiet chambers of the soul: restoration, renewal, and the Spirit poured out not around us but through us.
Receiving the Spirit is not acquiring a spiritual accessory. It is receiving the very Life of Yeshua, who now expresses Himself through our thoughts, desires, words, and actions. We don’t carry Him like a possession; He carries us like a living temple. And every act of obedience, every moment of clarity, every surge of courage is the evidence of His breath moving through our lungs.
He breathed—and we stood.
He indwells—and we live.
He fills—and we become vessels of His own Life poured out to the world.
That is salvation. That is the Spirit. That is the miracle of Christ in you.
A valued article that brings hunger to the soul. Thank you for sharing your studies. It brings great hunger to dig deeper than I ever had before into His word. Your writings help me to live and learn beyond tradition that has permeated the church of today.
Shalom Sergio. A great article. Would you mind if I read it in my assembly? I think that would help some people. Because there is much question about the nature of God.
Yes, and the logic is beautiful when you see it through the Hebrew.
While Yeshua walked the earth, HaShem's presence was localized in a body. One place. One set of ears listening, one set of hands touching, one voice teaching in one village at a time. That is incarnation — God's breath compressed into a single human life.
When Yeshua says "it is to your advantage that I go" (John 16:7), He is saying the localized presence must give way to the distributed presence. The same Ruach that hovered over creation (Genesis 1:2), that raised dry bones (Ezekiel 37), that HaShem promised to pour out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) — that breath could not be poured out on all flesh while it was walking around in one body in first-century Israel.
The departure of Yeshua is not God leaving. It is God expanding. From one body to every willing vessel. From localized incarnation to covenantal saturation.
Shavuot (Pentecost) is the fulfillment. The breath that was in Yeshua is now in the room, in the community, in every son and daughter and servant Joel promised. Same God.
I must admit that this discussion is not talking about the Spirit I know personally, working in my life everyday. The Spirit sent by the Father at Yeshua's request is a large part of my daily living experience. I just talk to God as One, all the time. Sometimes it "feels like Jesus" sometimes it feels like my Father. But it's all just Elohim. It's an ongoing conversation, all day long, unless I get involved with people who tend to make too much noise. It takes more effort and concentration to talk with Him then.
David, slow down and read what you just wrote one more time. "I just talk to God as One. It's all just Elohim."
That is the essay. You are already living the Hebrew reality. You talk to HaShem as One because He is One. Sometimes the conversation feels like the closeness of a Father. Sometimes it feels like the companionship of Yeshua. Sometimes it feels like breath you cannot explain. But it is all Him. One God, reaching toward you in different ways, sustaining one ongoing conversation.
The essay is not arguing against what you experience. It is arguing that what you experience is more Hebraic than the theological categories you were probably handed to explain it. You were given a framework that says three persons. Your actual life says one God who shows up. Trust your experience. It lines up with the text better than the creed does.
I’ve only recently become aware that these are my functional beliefs. I’m still just a Goyim grafted into the vine. [if I actually used that word correctly.]
What can I say Sergio. In the past year, you have been one of the few who have opened my eyes and allowed my heart to receive literally something new and refreshing.
I've been convicted to the core and a slow subtle transformation is taking place not just within me but within my household.
This piece simply overwhelmed me. Images crashed my mind and I was left standing in awe!
Sergio,dear Sergio. This information brings tears. I have been confused about the Holy Spirit and many things like the meaning of, "be holy as I am holy" and the vision of dry bones for...well, all my life. I was in junior high when the Jesus movement and Jesus Music transformed Christianity regarding the Holy Spirit, not Jesus really. My grandma was pentacostal. My mother could never speak in tongues and didn't like feeling second rate at church so she left and eventually became Baptist. That is how I grew up. I went to a Bible college in Montana fashioned after Moody. I was a double Bible and music major. I craved not only the ability to rightly divide God's word but also good judgement and the understanding and power to live uprightly and to be merciful to others. I never became a member of any church because I wanted the recognition to be mutual and practical. Because of this, I have brothers and sisters in the Lord from almost every walk and tradition. They are my real church community around the world and nearby. This fact also paints me into a corner of suspicion when I say or do things that surprise someone who thought they knew me pretty well.
Two years ago, I was asked by my church women's ministry to write two studies and participate with a season of studying the Holy Spirit. It did not end well. The more I studied, the less I knew about The Holy Spirit. I was utterly awed but utterly confused as well. In the Psalms and Old Testament, I saw what you are describing, the breath of God like the strong arm of God. The confusion affected a long held problem with dispensationalism which I had rejected long ago without even realizing how I'd outgrown that unbiblical interpretation. Anyway, I (my husband an I) attend an evangelical Presbyterian church and have for most of our marriage.
That participation in the Holy Spirit Bible study ruined my reputation there and created an awkwardness that has not yet been healed, especially during weekly communion, as Imy pastor's wife is very powerful in the church and was the one who rewrote both of my studies and asked me to leave the study. All of this, and I was no closer to reconstructing who the Holy Spirit is in my own beliefs! This deconstruction of such a power point of the Faith has been resting quietly in shambles until this article. All I can say is thank you from the core of my being for helping me know who I worship.
Wow, Laura, I don't even know how to respond to this. I am so sorry that you went through that. It's amazing to me how people will defend ideologies. I am so thankful that this resonated with you. That makes my time and efforts a hundred percent worth every pen stroke. Good luck. I pray that you feel better now, and maybe sharing this with some people might help.
Can you speak to the helper given to believers by Jesus at his ascension and address the passages that the Church uses to personalize and differentiate the Holy Spirit from Jesus and the Father, please?
Yeshua says the Father will send “another Helper.” Then three verses later He says, “I will not leave you as orphans — I will come to you.” Then a few verses after that: “We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” The Helper is not a third party arriving while God stays behind. It is how they are present after Yeshua’s physical departure. Same God. Still breathing.
Sha'ul is quoting Isaiah 63:10 — one of only three times Ruach HaKodesh appears in the entire Tanakh. Look at the grammar: they grieved HIS set-apart breath. The grief belongs to HaShem. The Ruach is how He is present. Rejecting it is rejecting Him.
You can grieve someone's heart. That does not make the heart a separate person.
I’m trying to understand specifically what you are arguing here, and it seems an attempt to offer that the Third Person is nothing more than the breath, and that later Greek ideas convoluted this otherwise original sense that gave way to the Spirit as an Agent and Person? I think there’s a lot to be said here, from the Hebrew text, but there’s a lot to be added here that isn’t in this treatment (a bit too much skipped over and/or assumed without really consulting what is also going on; I understand this is just a blog post, but it’s a weighty topic warranting some exegetical positioning), which strongly suggests that the Spirit is in fact an “entity,” and there was a certain level of ambiguity clouded in the HB which would give way to clarification and revelation in the second testament. There has been so much discussion on these details which cover virtually every verse used and asserted here. The ST personalizes the Spirit, that much is pretty certain from a first-year-Greek understanding (however, in many cases there is a strong argument for things like *pneumati* to mean “the spiritual [realm]”), but what I see mainly here—without getting into binitarian and trinitarian ideas—is a bit of a heavy hand on anti-Stoic and cosmological ideas. Paul explicitly uses these ideas to articulate the Spirit as a received component to the person that is immaterial in nature and activates *energo* within our bodies, utilizing not only cosmological (or, really, physiological) ideas but also cultural ones in borrowing from the idea of sonship and patrilineal descent being granted via receiving of the pneuma (Gal 3.1-5, 14; 4.21-29; 5.5, all surrounding this pragmatic matrix). He doesn’t use these arguments in this proposed covenantal framework, but deliberately uses Stoic frameworks. This is pretty obvious in Galatians, so this can be seen as essentially saying that Paul, and others, were wrong, but we, with our composite understanding of first century and STP Judaism (if indeed authentically hitched to ancient Israelite faith; which is irrelevant, since we’ve got the ST from them) can articulate it better. I appreciate much of this, but it defies the data we have to say that we can only approach the whole canon from one particular, and subjective, methodology and framework. The Hebrew and Greek work *together,* and it is Platonic of us to attempt to overread one over the other, which this can be guilt of doing. It doesn’t understand language fundamentally or sociolinguistics essentially. They mesh. They articulate different angles of, and feed into, the same conceptual blend. I wouldn’t mind getting into the nuance of the Hebrew text here to somewhat substantiate these other points, but I will say that if you aren’t seeing how Paul, for one, is using Stoic cosmology and Greek physiology to argue for the reception of a changing substance, ie the Spirit, I think you’ve glossed over *pneuma* and aren’t familiar with the cultural lexicon and vocabulary Paul uses. I’d recommend reading some of the literature on these ideas as the evidence is incredibly difficult to dismiss. We never have to pick one over the other, or in lieu, but we need to adapt our own understandings to how Scripture presents itself, and it doesn’t do so according to what’s outlined here.
I appreciate the seriousness of this, so let me be equally serious. You make four distinct moves, and each one has the same exact structural problem.
1. You note that Sha'ul uses Stoic pneumatological vocabulary in Galatians. He does. But using a framework is not endorsing its ontology. Sha'ul uses athletic metaphors without endorsing Greek gymnasium culture. Yochanan opens with Logos without endorsing Plato. The vehicle is Greek. The cargo is Hebrew. The question is what Sha'ul loads into the vocabulary — and it is always covenant identity, incorporation into Israel, and Torah-walking. Not Stoic cosmology.
2. You argue that grammatical personalization of pneuma in the Greek text proves ontological personhood. It does not. Hebrew personalizes wisdom in Proverbs 8 — she calls out, she stands at the crossroads, she was present at creation. Nobody builds a hypostasis on Proverbs 8. HaShem's hand, face, and word are all grammatically treated as agents in the Tanakh. None of them are separate persons. Grammatical personhood is a feature of language, not a proof of ontology.
3. You describe the Hebrew Bible as 'ambiguous,' awaiting 'clarification and revelation' from the Second Testament. That is progressive revelation theology, and it assumes the Tanakh is an incomplete draft. The Tanakh is not ambiguous about the Ruach. It is consistent across fifteen centuries: the Ruach is HaShem's, acts as HaShem acts, and never operates independently. If you are reading that as ambiguity, the issue is the lens, not the text.
4. You say I am guilty of privileging Hebrew over Greek — and that this is itself Platonic. But every bilingual conceptual blend has a source language and a receptor language. Ruach is the source. Pneuma is the receptor. I read the receptor through the source. That is not privileging. That is direction. The concepts originated in Hebrew, were revealed in Hebrew, and were understood in Hebrew for centuries before a Greek sentence was written about them.
Sha’ul was not a Greek thinker who borrowed Hebrew illustrations. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, tribe of Binyamin, trained under Gamliel, who quoted and alluded to the Tanakh over a hundred times across his letters. Romans 9–11 is structured as a midrash on Israel’s covenant. Galatians runs its entire argument through Avraham. His ethical instructions in every letter map to Torah categories. He thinks in Hebrew and writes in Greek — the way a bilingual person dreams in their mother tongue and reports the dream in their second language. The language changes. The conceptual architecture does not. To read his Greek vocabulary as evidence that he endorsed Greek ontology is to confuse the pen with the thought behind it.
You said you would not mind getting into the nuance of the Hebrew text.
Shalom brother, preface: all of this is friendly! Haha. No conflict, just talking.
So, you say I have the same structural problem in these points but what you are, respectfully, demonstrating is a fundamental misunderstanding of language and the expression of meaning. Let’s look at a few simple examples.
1. It is not that Paul just uses pneuma vocabulary (pneumatology is different) but that he actually articulates part of the salvation process through the associated metaphor(s) and explicit language. A metaphor expresses through bodily experience and understanding something that is real and it is a false dichotomy to argue that it is only quasi-real versus actually real. This is a modern idea, and doesn’t understand cognition. So no, the vehicle=Greek and cargo=Hebrew is not correct linguistically. The cargo=cargo and the vehicle=fronted and backgrounded concepts in a blend of Hebrew and Greek. We can apply the exact same idea and say that the Hebrew as we perceive it was merely the vehicle for some other cargo that is better received and articulated via another language, unless you suppose Hebrew is some mysterious, heavenly language (it’s not). This also leads to a fallacy on your part of a false qualifier of Hebrew originality with cognitive expression. This isn’t how the human mind works. It’s mystifying the Hebrew. Both languages are doing the same thing. We need to penetrate both, not just one at the expense of the other.
2. This is an anachronistic comparison and entirely neglects the explicit genre concerns present in personifications there versus plain grammatical rules governing simple constructions in the Greek ST. It also fails to take into account the ANE impetus for doing this (lady wisdom) and how the blend takes as a loving women, instructive mother, and nurturing female figure, an input to arrive at this literary and conceptual personification. There is no such motivation for the Holy Spirit—Who is identified as some type of agent-force—in the ST. Anthropomorphism should not be applied here and is a bit silly to attempt to, with all due respect. And I’m not arguing for grammatical personhood on the basis of genders, but in logical, pragmatic, and syntactical constructions differentiating between different subjects, objects, and actors.
3. Refer to #1 above. This is a methodology of mysticism and defies the very nature of God’s teleological canon which is, by its own definition in both canons, progressive revelation. That is a bad term, but we should see it more of compounding revelation. The entire Christian faith (if you want to call it that) is based on a mystery from the HB being now made known and in somewhat surprising ways. You really cut off Christ’s being from that mindset if applied rigorously, and Paul appeals to the bare semantic meaning of the lexeme mustērion, from all we can gather, and makes this fact—at least the sentiment—explicit in Ephesians 3. The entire HB is a big story of Israel being revealed more and more about God, the world, and the human “condition.” The ST introduces so many things here it would crumble the foundation of it to say otherwise.
4. So here is where the language issues come in because this is simply not how language works. It’s a popular idea and has a lot of valid points and applications within a sociolinguistic perspective but that’s not what this textual argument is, and you can’t safely impose a sociolinguistic argument (the only time that works) because we can’t substantiate and evidence one consistent and monosemic reception culture of the HB unadulterated by other groups. In fact Hebrew is so composite from ANE ideas that it doesn’t even have its own “original concept domain” your argument depends on. First, Source and Referent languages are translation terms, which this is not—Paul did not translate from Hebrew but is expressing meaning in Greek with Hebrew ideas behind him, indeed. But language is bodily- and experience-oriented projection and relation onto “words” which express this. A language is always the medium to something else, so for one to invalidate a Greek expression in favor for a Hebrew one is to invalidate the actual domain, which is cognition. On a semantic basis you’d do really well to read James Barr’s work. He’s not right about everything but settles this up easily. Also Saussure for understanding the Platonic views you are superimposing onto the Hebrew here. STP Jews were translating and expressing HB concepts just fine in the Greek for 250 years without a single problem. In fact, the Greek finds so many similarities on a linguistic and a cognitive level with Hebrew it’s as if God planned it!
I think I’ll stop here because it’s late and
I’ll run out of space but these are pretty foundational fallacies you’re building your argument off of. I’m not sure of your background at all (doesn’t matter, this just leans specialist at times) but you are applying a fallacious framework altogether to language and forcing that onto your arguments. My interests are more in, I repeat, the crude dismissal of Greek because you are doing that—you are relegating it to a subservient role to Hebrew which is not correct. It’s just not how we operate as humans. And it’s not how God expresses Himself to us. Ultimately: you are imposing superficial false categories and criteria onto how concepts are being presented between the testaments, dividing them and minimizing one over the other, while, in Paul’s case, misunderstanding how metaphor and allegory works. I think if you moved past the impasse of word studies you’d begin to understand the necessary nuance scholars emphasize in these areas.
Saussure, Barr, cognitive metaphor theory, sociolinguistics. You have argued how language works. You have not opened a single Hebrew passage showing the Ruach acting as an independent agent.
I’ll keep it simple. Sha'ul took a Nazirite vow (Acts 18:18). He entered the Temple, paid for sacrifices, and completed purification rites (Acts 21:23–26).
After all the Greek vocabulary you are pointing to.
This is the same man who told you exactly who he was: “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Binyamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Torah, a Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5).
A man who has adopted Greek ontology does not submit to Torah purification rites.
The pen may have changed. His mind most certainly did not.
The Trinity as a doctrinal formula was formalized in the fourth century using Greek metaphysics. The Hebrew Bible knows nothing of it. What it knows is one God whose breath, presence, and word are His own — not separate persons. Hope that helps, James. But I will always encourage you to be Berean and study the text.
A very thought-provoking article. Thank you for sharing. Much to ponder, study and pray about. In the meantime, my spirit resonates with what you have written. I must take it (as with everything) to the Father and allow Him to instruct and correct me. His ways of instruction and correction never cease to amaze me. He is gentle, gracious and patient. But IF we invite Him to confront, challenge and correct us… we better be ready for Him to do just that! He is FAITHFUL and I LOVE Him for that. One step at a time. Blessings and peace to you! 😊
Thank you, Ashley, for taking the time to read and comment. I look forward to seeing what you do with this. Have a blessed weekend.
What you’ve described captures the miracle at the very center of salvation: God Himself breathing His own Life into dust. And for the authentic believer, that breath doesn’t just begin the story—it sustains it. The same Spirit who raised Yeshua from the dead now lives within us, not as an abstract force but as the very breath of God continually animating our inner being. Salvation isn’t merely the moment He breathes; discipleship is learning to breathe with Him.
The indwelling Life of Christ is that ongoing Genesis 2:7 reality—God breathing from within the believer, not merely upon them. It is Ezekiel 37 happening in the present tense: dead places rising, dry bones strengthening, hearts awakening. It is Joel 2 fulfilled in the quiet chambers of the soul: restoration, renewal, and the Spirit poured out not around us but through us.
Receiving the Spirit is not acquiring a spiritual accessory. It is receiving the very Life of Yeshua, who now expresses Himself through our thoughts, desires, words, and actions. We don’t carry Him like a possession; He carries us like a living temple. And every act of obedience, every moment of clarity, every surge of courage is the evidence of His breath moving through our lungs.
He breathed—and we stood.
He indwells—and we live.
He fills—and we become vessels of His own Life poured out to the world.
That is salvation. That is the Spirit. That is the miracle of Christ in you.
Amen!
Jeremiah 31 in 3D.
A valued article that brings hunger to the soul. Thank you for sharing your studies. It brings great hunger to dig deeper than I ever had before into His word. Your writings help me to live and learn beyond tradition that has permeated the church of today.
🙏 thank you for your kind words Dennis. Deeply appreciated!
Shalom Sergio. A great article. Would you mind if I read it in my assembly? I think that would help some people. Because there is much question about the nature of God.
I would be honored if you shared it. 🙏
What you say is true but Western Christian churches are totally indoctrinated
Can you explain John 16:7? Is Christ Jesus saying he must leave so that God can breathe into us?
Yes, and the logic is beautiful when you see it through the Hebrew.
While Yeshua walked the earth, HaShem's presence was localized in a body. One place. One set of ears listening, one set of hands touching, one voice teaching in one village at a time. That is incarnation — God's breath compressed into a single human life.
When Yeshua says "it is to your advantage that I go" (John 16:7), He is saying the localized presence must give way to the distributed presence. The same Ruach that hovered over creation (Genesis 1:2), that raised dry bones (Ezekiel 37), that HaShem promised to pour out on all flesh (Joel 2:28) — that breath could not be poured out on all flesh while it was walking around in one body in first-century Israel.
The departure of Yeshua is not God leaving. It is God expanding. From one body to every willing vessel. From localized incarnation to covenantal saturation.
Shavuot (Pentecost) is the fulfillment. The breath that was in Yeshua is now in the room, in the community, in every son and daughter and servant Joel promised. Same God.
Same breath.
No longer compressed. Poured out.
Wow! Very meaty! Have to let it digest before I can even comment. Thank you for sharing this.
I must admit that this discussion is not talking about the Spirit I know personally, working in my life everyday. The Spirit sent by the Father at Yeshua's request is a large part of my daily living experience. I just talk to God as One, all the time. Sometimes it "feels like Jesus" sometimes it feels like my Father. But it's all just Elohim. It's an ongoing conversation, all day long, unless I get involved with people who tend to make too much noise. It takes more effort and concentration to talk with Him then.
David, slow down and read what you just wrote one more time. "I just talk to God as One. It's all just Elohim."
That is the essay. You are already living the Hebrew reality. You talk to HaShem as One because He is One. Sometimes the conversation feels like the closeness of a Father. Sometimes it feels like the companionship of Yeshua. Sometimes it feels like breath you cannot explain. But it is all Him. One God, reaching toward you in different ways, sustaining one ongoing conversation.
The essay is not arguing against what you experience. It is arguing that what you experience is more Hebraic than the theological categories you were probably handed to explain it. You were given a framework that says three persons. Your actual life says one God who shows up. Trust your experience. It lines up with the text better than the creed does.
I’ve only recently become aware that these are my functional beliefs. I’m still just a Goyim grafted into the vine. [if I actually used that word correctly.]
Thanks for sharing your sources !!
This is so helpful
🙏 😊 💙
What can I say Sergio. In the past year, you have been one of the few who have opened my eyes and allowed my heart to receive literally something new and refreshing.
I've been convicted to the core and a slow subtle transformation is taking place not just within me but within my household.
This piece simply overwhelmed me. Images crashed my mind and I was left standing in awe!
Thanks for being such a huge blessing in my walk!
Brother, you make it all worth it. Thank you.🙏
Sergio,dear Sergio. This information brings tears. I have been confused about the Holy Spirit and many things like the meaning of, "be holy as I am holy" and the vision of dry bones for...well, all my life. I was in junior high when the Jesus movement and Jesus Music transformed Christianity regarding the Holy Spirit, not Jesus really. My grandma was pentacostal. My mother could never speak in tongues and didn't like feeling second rate at church so she left and eventually became Baptist. That is how I grew up. I went to a Bible college in Montana fashioned after Moody. I was a double Bible and music major. I craved not only the ability to rightly divide God's word but also good judgement and the understanding and power to live uprightly and to be merciful to others. I never became a member of any church because I wanted the recognition to be mutual and practical. Because of this, I have brothers and sisters in the Lord from almost every walk and tradition. They are my real church community around the world and nearby. This fact also paints me into a corner of suspicion when I say or do things that surprise someone who thought they knew me pretty well.
Two years ago, I was asked by my church women's ministry to write two studies and participate with a season of studying the Holy Spirit. It did not end well. The more I studied, the less I knew about The Holy Spirit. I was utterly awed but utterly confused as well. In the Psalms and Old Testament, I saw what you are describing, the breath of God like the strong arm of God. The confusion affected a long held problem with dispensationalism which I had rejected long ago without even realizing how I'd outgrown that unbiblical interpretation. Anyway, I (my husband an I) attend an evangelical Presbyterian church and have for most of our marriage.
That participation in the Holy Spirit Bible study ruined my reputation there and created an awkwardness that has not yet been healed, especially during weekly communion, as Imy pastor's wife is very powerful in the church and was the one who rewrote both of my studies and asked me to leave the study. All of this, and I was no closer to reconstructing who the Holy Spirit is in my own beliefs! This deconstruction of such a power point of the Faith has been resting quietly in shambles until this article. All I can say is thank you from the core of my being for helping me know who I worship.
Wow, Laura, I don't even know how to respond to this. I am so sorry that you went through that. It's amazing to me how people will defend ideologies. I am so thankful that this resonated with you. That makes my time and efforts a hundred percent worth every pen stroke. Good luck. I pray that you feel better now, and maybe sharing this with some people might help.
You made me smile today, Laura. Thank you. 🙏
Can you speak to the helper given to believers by Jesus at his ascension and address the passages that the Church uses to personalize and differentiate the Holy Spirit from Jesus and the Father, please?
Yeshua says the Father will send “another Helper.” Then three verses later He says, “I will not leave you as orphans — I will come to you.” Then a few verses after that: “We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” The Helper is not a third party arriving while God stays behind. It is how they are present after Yeshua’s physical departure. Same God. Still breathing.
More on the 28th. Stay close.
Yes, thank you, and “grieving the Holy Spirit.” That would only apply to a person.
Sha'ul is quoting Isaiah 63:10 — one of only three times Ruach HaKodesh appears in the entire Tanakh. Look at the grammar: they grieved HIS set-apart breath. The grief belongs to HaShem. The Ruach is how He is present. Rejecting it is rejecting Him.
You can grieve someone's heart. That does not make the heart a separate person.
https://laurabartnick.substack.com/p/psalm-12-those-who-split-the-truth?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6r9wf
I’m trying to understand specifically what you are arguing here, and it seems an attempt to offer that the Third Person is nothing more than the breath, and that later Greek ideas convoluted this otherwise original sense that gave way to the Spirit as an Agent and Person? I think there’s a lot to be said here, from the Hebrew text, but there’s a lot to be added here that isn’t in this treatment (a bit too much skipped over and/or assumed without really consulting what is also going on; I understand this is just a blog post, but it’s a weighty topic warranting some exegetical positioning), which strongly suggests that the Spirit is in fact an “entity,” and there was a certain level of ambiguity clouded in the HB which would give way to clarification and revelation in the second testament. There has been so much discussion on these details which cover virtually every verse used and asserted here. The ST personalizes the Spirit, that much is pretty certain from a first-year-Greek understanding (however, in many cases there is a strong argument for things like *pneumati* to mean “the spiritual [realm]”), but what I see mainly here—without getting into binitarian and trinitarian ideas—is a bit of a heavy hand on anti-Stoic and cosmological ideas. Paul explicitly uses these ideas to articulate the Spirit as a received component to the person that is immaterial in nature and activates *energo* within our bodies, utilizing not only cosmological (or, really, physiological) ideas but also cultural ones in borrowing from the idea of sonship and patrilineal descent being granted via receiving of the pneuma (Gal 3.1-5, 14; 4.21-29; 5.5, all surrounding this pragmatic matrix). He doesn’t use these arguments in this proposed covenantal framework, but deliberately uses Stoic frameworks. This is pretty obvious in Galatians, so this can be seen as essentially saying that Paul, and others, were wrong, but we, with our composite understanding of first century and STP Judaism (if indeed authentically hitched to ancient Israelite faith; which is irrelevant, since we’ve got the ST from them) can articulate it better. I appreciate much of this, but it defies the data we have to say that we can only approach the whole canon from one particular, and subjective, methodology and framework. The Hebrew and Greek work *together,* and it is Platonic of us to attempt to overread one over the other, which this can be guilt of doing. It doesn’t understand language fundamentally or sociolinguistics essentially. They mesh. They articulate different angles of, and feed into, the same conceptual blend. I wouldn’t mind getting into the nuance of the Hebrew text here to somewhat substantiate these other points, but I will say that if you aren’t seeing how Paul, for one, is using Stoic cosmology and Greek physiology to argue for the reception of a changing substance, ie the Spirit, I think you’ve glossed over *pneuma* and aren’t familiar with the cultural lexicon and vocabulary Paul uses. I’d recommend reading some of the literature on these ideas as the evidence is incredibly difficult to dismiss. We never have to pick one over the other, or in lieu, but we need to adapt our own understandings to how Scripture presents itself, and it doesn’t do so according to what’s outlined here.
I appreciate the seriousness of this, so let me be equally serious. You make four distinct moves, and each one has the same exact structural problem.
1. You note that Sha'ul uses Stoic pneumatological vocabulary in Galatians. He does. But using a framework is not endorsing its ontology. Sha'ul uses athletic metaphors without endorsing Greek gymnasium culture. Yochanan opens with Logos without endorsing Plato. The vehicle is Greek. The cargo is Hebrew. The question is what Sha'ul loads into the vocabulary — and it is always covenant identity, incorporation into Israel, and Torah-walking. Not Stoic cosmology.
2. You argue that grammatical personalization of pneuma in the Greek text proves ontological personhood. It does not. Hebrew personalizes wisdom in Proverbs 8 — she calls out, she stands at the crossroads, she was present at creation. Nobody builds a hypostasis on Proverbs 8. HaShem's hand, face, and word are all grammatically treated as agents in the Tanakh. None of them are separate persons. Grammatical personhood is a feature of language, not a proof of ontology.
3. You describe the Hebrew Bible as 'ambiguous,' awaiting 'clarification and revelation' from the Second Testament. That is progressive revelation theology, and it assumes the Tanakh is an incomplete draft. The Tanakh is not ambiguous about the Ruach. It is consistent across fifteen centuries: the Ruach is HaShem's, acts as HaShem acts, and never operates independently. If you are reading that as ambiguity, the issue is the lens, not the text.
4. You say I am guilty of privileging Hebrew over Greek — and that this is itself Platonic. But every bilingual conceptual blend has a source language and a receptor language. Ruach is the source. Pneuma is the receptor. I read the receptor through the source. That is not privileging. That is direction. The concepts originated in Hebrew, were revealed in Hebrew, and were understood in Hebrew for centuries before a Greek sentence was written about them.
Sha’ul was not a Greek thinker who borrowed Hebrew illustrations. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, tribe of Binyamin, trained under Gamliel, who quoted and alluded to the Tanakh over a hundred times across his letters. Romans 9–11 is structured as a midrash on Israel’s covenant. Galatians runs its entire argument through Avraham. His ethical instructions in every letter map to Torah categories. He thinks in Hebrew and writes in Greek — the way a bilingual person dreams in their mother tongue and reports the dream in their second language. The language changes. The conceptual architecture does not. To read his Greek vocabulary as evidence that he endorsed Greek ontology is to confuse the pen with the thought behind it.
You said you would not mind getting into the nuance of the Hebrew text.
I will always welcome that.
Shalom brother, preface: all of this is friendly! Haha. No conflict, just talking.
So, you say I have the same structural problem in these points but what you are, respectfully, demonstrating is a fundamental misunderstanding of language and the expression of meaning. Let’s look at a few simple examples.
1. It is not that Paul just uses pneuma vocabulary (pneumatology is different) but that he actually articulates part of the salvation process through the associated metaphor(s) and explicit language. A metaphor expresses through bodily experience and understanding something that is real and it is a false dichotomy to argue that it is only quasi-real versus actually real. This is a modern idea, and doesn’t understand cognition. So no, the vehicle=Greek and cargo=Hebrew is not correct linguistically. The cargo=cargo and the vehicle=fronted and backgrounded concepts in a blend of Hebrew and Greek. We can apply the exact same idea and say that the Hebrew as we perceive it was merely the vehicle for some other cargo that is better received and articulated via another language, unless you suppose Hebrew is some mysterious, heavenly language (it’s not). This also leads to a fallacy on your part of a false qualifier of Hebrew originality with cognitive expression. This isn’t how the human mind works. It’s mystifying the Hebrew. Both languages are doing the same thing. We need to penetrate both, not just one at the expense of the other.
2. This is an anachronistic comparison and entirely neglects the explicit genre concerns present in personifications there versus plain grammatical rules governing simple constructions in the Greek ST. It also fails to take into account the ANE impetus for doing this (lady wisdom) and how the blend takes as a loving women, instructive mother, and nurturing female figure, an input to arrive at this literary and conceptual personification. There is no such motivation for the Holy Spirit—Who is identified as some type of agent-force—in the ST. Anthropomorphism should not be applied here and is a bit silly to attempt to, with all due respect. And I’m not arguing for grammatical personhood on the basis of genders, but in logical, pragmatic, and syntactical constructions differentiating between different subjects, objects, and actors.
3. Refer to #1 above. This is a methodology of mysticism and defies the very nature of God’s teleological canon which is, by its own definition in both canons, progressive revelation. That is a bad term, but we should see it more of compounding revelation. The entire Christian faith (if you want to call it that) is based on a mystery from the HB being now made known and in somewhat surprising ways. You really cut off Christ’s being from that mindset if applied rigorously, and Paul appeals to the bare semantic meaning of the lexeme mustērion, from all we can gather, and makes this fact—at least the sentiment—explicit in Ephesians 3. The entire HB is a big story of Israel being revealed more and more about God, the world, and the human “condition.” The ST introduces so many things here it would crumble the foundation of it to say otherwise.
4. So here is where the language issues come in because this is simply not how language works. It’s a popular idea and has a lot of valid points and applications within a sociolinguistic perspective but that’s not what this textual argument is, and you can’t safely impose a sociolinguistic argument (the only time that works) because we can’t substantiate and evidence one consistent and monosemic reception culture of the HB unadulterated by other groups. In fact Hebrew is so composite from ANE ideas that it doesn’t even have its own “original concept domain” your argument depends on. First, Source and Referent languages are translation terms, which this is not—Paul did not translate from Hebrew but is expressing meaning in Greek with Hebrew ideas behind him, indeed. But language is bodily- and experience-oriented projection and relation onto “words” which express this. A language is always the medium to something else, so for one to invalidate a Greek expression in favor for a Hebrew one is to invalidate the actual domain, which is cognition. On a semantic basis you’d do really well to read James Barr’s work. He’s not right about everything but settles this up easily. Also Saussure for understanding the Platonic views you are superimposing onto the Hebrew here. STP Jews were translating and expressing HB concepts just fine in the Greek for 250 years without a single problem. In fact, the Greek finds so many similarities on a linguistic and a cognitive level with Hebrew it’s as if God planned it!
I think I’ll stop here because it’s late and
I’ll run out of space but these are pretty foundational fallacies you’re building your argument off of. I’m not sure of your background at all (doesn’t matter, this just leans specialist at times) but you are applying a fallacious framework altogether to language and forcing that onto your arguments. My interests are more in, I repeat, the crude dismissal of Greek because you are doing that—you are relegating it to a subservient role to Hebrew which is not correct. It’s just not how we operate as humans. And it’s not how God expresses Himself to us. Ultimately: you are imposing superficial false categories and criteria onto how concepts are being presented between the testaments, dividing them and minimizing one over the other, while, in Paul’s case, misunderstanding how metaphor and allegory works. I think if you moved past the impasse of word studies you’d begin to understand the necessary nuance scholars emphasize in these areas.
Shalom!
Shalom — friendly received and returned.
Two things.
Saussure, Barr, cognitive metaphor theory, sociolinguistics. You have argued how language works. You have not opened a single Hebrew passage showing the Ruach acting as an independent agent.
I’ll keep it simple. Sha'ul took a Nazirite vow (Acts 18:18). He entered the Temple, paid for sacrifices, and completed purification rites (Acts 21:23–26).
After all the Greek vocabulary you are pointing to.
This is the same man who told you exactly who he was: “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Binyamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Torah, a Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5).
A man who has adopted Greek ontology does not submit to Torah purification rites.
The pen may have changed. His mind most certainly did not.
Bring the text. I am still at the table.
Havu lanu yayin v’nidaber 🍷
So there is no Trinity?
The Trinity as a doctrinal formula was formalized in the fourth century using Greek metaphysics. The Hebrew Bible knows nothing of it. What it knows is one God whose breath, presence, and word are His own — not separate persons. Hope that helps, James. But I will always encourage you to be Berean and study the text.