The Holy Spirit - God's Spirit
E-book and Audio series
PART 2 - The Roles and Activities of the Holy Spirit
Chapter 12 - The Work of the Spirit in OT - Pt 2a - A Revealer of Truth
Summary: The role of the Holy Spirit as a Revealer of Truth in OT times (up until the time of the Judges).
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Study Notes - No.12 – Spirit in the OT Pt 2a – Revealer of Truth
(The audio recording elaborates on the points in these notes in greater detail.)
For the last few chapters, we’ve been focussing on the Old Testament. Just a reminder that the Holy Spirit is the intangible arm of God, interacting with mankind, so we’ve begun to look at how God’s Holy Spirit was involved in mankind’s affairs during OT times. It was mentioned that the Spirit had three main activities during that time (not restricted to these roles, but these were the main ones) –
Enabler
Revealer
Guide
In the previous study, we looked at how He sometimes enabled people to perform extraordinary deeds beyond normal human capability – interpreting dreams, performing feats of super strength, gaining artistic skills, carrying out healings, raising people from the dead, etc – evidential miracles. In those ways, the Spirit was acting as an Enabler.
A Revealer of Truth
In this study, we’re going to look at another of those roles where God is interacting with man via His Spirit. This time it is as a Revealer of God’s messages and truths.
One of the main ways God revealed His truths and messages in OT times was via the prophets -
READ 2 Peter 1:21 - Prophets spoke on behalf of God (not always about telling the future)
READ also Hebrews 1:1,2a
Let’s follow the sequence of events through the OT to see why He did this. You may like to refer to the OT chart of events above.
Genesis
In the earliest OT times, God proclaimed His messages to mankind most often by appearing to people in a humanlike form. In the earliest ages, He appeared, probably regularly, to Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Enoch, Noah. Mankind showed its wickedness, so then the world was destroyed by the Flood. God’s appearances to people were a lot less frequent after this. He appeared, but less frequently, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (we did read of some of these appearances in a previous study Gen 12, 26, 32, etc). He appeared to them, but they were rare occasions – so rare that they built altars and sacrificed to God in the places where He had appeared. This phenomenon of the appearances of God in the OT is discussed elsewhere on this website, in the audio series, "The Pre-Existent Christ" (the subject is introduced in http://www.deityandhumanity.com/07-visible-to-adam-cain-enoch-noah--job.html ).
We’ve already talked about how the Holy Spirit is not mentioned as being active in any way during lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and it is only when some supernatural enabling is needed do we later read of the Spirit’s work, interacting with Joseph, who was enabled with the ability to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. In one sense, Joseph could be called a prophet, because He spoke God’s message, though this term is never used of him specifically.
Moses
Things start to change when God began to deal with His people through Moses.
READ Deuteronomy 34:7,10 – a “summary” of Moses’ standing as one of God’s prophets (we’ll come back to this passage in a while)
That passage in Deuteronomy 34 speaks of Moses at the end of his life, but let’s go back about 40 years earlier, to when Moses had led the nation of Israel to Mt. Sinai at the beginning of their long trek. READ Exodus 19:1-11 … 16-20
v.4 – “saw what I did”
v.9 I come to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear and believe
v.11 in sight of all the people
… v.16 – people trembled
Exodus 20:1-17 outlines the “10 commandments” which are given. We will skip over these for the time being.
READ Exodus 20:18-21
v.19 – The people, being frightened of Who and what they saw at Mt. Sinai, said to Moses, "You speak with us, but let not God speak with us". So, for the next 40 or so years, Moses spoke to the people on God’s behalf. He received messages directly from the Lord Himself, not via a vision or a dream, etc. Several times in the Pentateuch we are told that God spoken with Moses "face to face".
READ Num 12:1-10 - This took place a year or two after the giving of the Law at Sinai. Incidentally, it is another demonstration of a miracle with “teaching” again – this time a miracle of judgement).
Moses wasn’t the only prophet. His sister, Miriam was called a prophetess in Exodus 15:20,21; she reiterates this in Num 12:1,2; and there were
elders who prophesied, but perhaps only once, in Numbers 11:25.
Moving forward a few years (approximately 38 years), the people were about to enter the Promised Land, and Moses was soon to die. Moses says to them … READ Deut 18:15-22
v.15 etc. - Many English translations have printed the word "prophet" here with a capital "P" - i.e. Prophet. This is a bit interpretive, and the reader should note the context of soothsayers, etc
v.16 – Horeb = Sinai
This passage certainly does look forward to Christ - THE Prophet of God - in one way, as we may see quoted in Acts ch. 3 & 7). However, for those people about to enter the Promised Land, these verses were telling them how God would speak with them and communicate His messages – i.e.
via the prophets, who spoke as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance to do so - the intangible, interactive arm of God at work. This stood in contrast to the spiritists and so on who abounded in Canaan, where they would soon find themselves.
READ again Deuteronomy 34:5,9-12
v.10 – Moses was a prophet, and there were none like him whom the Lord knew face to face. (It may be argued that there are some possible exceptions – Gideon, Isaiah, Daniel, etc. – but each of these may actually have been visions, or an angel speaking on God’s behalf, rather than the Lord Himself appearing as He did to Moses, or as He did in the earlier days of Genesis.)
God had appeared regularly to Moses in the wilderness, and to a few others whilst in Moses’ presence during that same time, but then these appearances of God to humans really cease after Moses’ death.
Cp. Hebrews 1:1,2a - God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…
As we have noted, the Spirit’s activities vary throughout the ages. We can’t always assume that the Holy Spirit’s ways of dealing with us are the same today as back then.
After Moses: Joshua and the Judges
So God spoke with people from the time of Moses onwards, mainly at first by His Judges (most of whom we are told had the Spirit of God come upon them), and then after some time mainly by way of prophets (who weren’t judges or leaders), and these were given God's words to speak via His Holy Spirit (cp 2 Peter 1:21)
Deuteronomy 34:9 (above) tells us that Joshua was given the Spirit of wisdom, and that this was for the purpose of leading the people as they journeyed into the Promised Land.
(Compare this with Deuteronomy 18, written around the same time. We read of the promise of a prophet just before people enter the
Promised Land.
We will see in a future study that the Spirit was upon the various leaders of Israel of the Judges period, but there’s not much mention of prophets during that time - only two - and one of those was also a judge.
Deborah – Judges 4:4 (more about this aspect of judgement in a later study), and she was also a "prophet” Judges 6:7-10
The Spirit was upon the Judges, and God ruled Israel through them. Up to this time, God’s spirit came upon those who were leaders of His people – Joseph, Moses, Joshua, the Judges - and His will was primarily made known through them.
A Turning Point: Samuel
Let’s now read about the last of the Judges - Samuel
In the time of his youth, it says ...
READ 1 Sam 3:1, 7, 10, 15 (vision, not “face to face” with the Lord)
vv. 19,20 – established as a prophet.
(as an aside - v.19 – "let none of his words fall to the ground" – may mean,
Possibly: (a) everything Samuel said came to pass. Cp. 1 Samuel 9:6
... but probably (b) Samuel took in everything the Lord said, and in the midst of adverse influence, he wasn’t going to let anything sway him from
God’s truth.
READ 1 Samuel 8:1-8 - the people ask for a king (v.5), and in doing so were rejecting God’s way of ruling. From that point on, we start to read of a lot more prophets, who weren’t in positions of leadership.
We'll discuss more about the Holy Spirit’s role as a Revealer, especially working through prophets, when we pick up the thread in the next chapter.
Summary
In early ages, the Lord took on a human form to meet and communicate with mankind. He regularly appeared to people from Adam until Noah’s time (the Flood). After that time, He appeared to people only occasionally, appearing to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on only a few occasions, and the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in their lives.
Afterwards, God’s Holy Spirit is mentioned when God began to speak through people – Joseph, Moses, Joshua and the Judges, the last of whom was Samuel. In these cases, the Spirit seemed to come upon only one or two people in any given era. That was God’s way of ruling His people, and making His will and word known to them UNTIL the people reject God’s rule in this way, and ask for a king. From then on, we start to read of a multitude of prophets, all of whom spoke as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance (to speak to people on His behalf). We’ll look at some of these in the next study.
In the meantime, here's a thought to leave with you.
Throughout the ages, God has gone to a lot of trouble to speak with people in different ways. Today we have the Scriptures, which are God-inspired, “profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Are we keen to learn more of what God would want to say to us? Are we staying in touch? Or are we waiting to hear "special" and "unusual" revelations from God outside of reading His Word?
(The audio recording elaborates on the points in these notes in greater detail.)
For the last few chapters, we’ve been focussing on the Old Testament. Just a reminder that the Holy Spirit is the intangible arm of God, interacting with mankind, so we’ve begun to look at how God’s Holy Spirit was involved in mankind’s affairs during OT times. It was mentioned that the Spirit had three main activities during that time (not restricted to these roles, but these were the main ones) –
Enabler
Revealer
Guide
In the previous study, we looked at how He sometimes enabled people to perform extraordinary deeds beyond normal human capability – interpreting dreams, performing feats of super strength, gaining artistic skills, carrying out healings, raising people from the dead, etc – evidential miracles. In those ways, the Spirit was acting as an Enabler.
A Revealer of Truth
In this study, we’re going to look at another of those roles where God is interacting with man via His Spirit. This time it is as a Revealer of God’s messages and truths.
One of the main ways God revealed His truths and messages in OT times was via the prophets -
READ 2 Peter 1:21 - Prophets spoke on behalf of God (not always about telling the future)
READ also Hebrews 1:1,2a
Let’s follow the sequence of events through the OT to see why He did this. You may like to refer to the OT chart of events above.
Genesis
In the earliest OT times, God proclaimed His messages to mankind most often by appearing to people in a humanlike form. In the earliest ages, He appeared, probably regularly, to Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Enoch, Noah. Mankind showed its wickedness, so then the world was destroyed by the Flood. God’s appearances to people were a lot less frequent after this. He appeared, but less frequently, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (we did read of some of these appearances in a previous study Gen 12, 26, 32, etc). He appeared to them, but they were rare occasions – so rare that they built altars and sacrificed to God in the places where He had appeared. This phenomenon of the appearances of God in the OT is discussed elsewhere on this website, in the audio series, "The Pre-Existent Christ" (the subject is introduced in http://www.deityandhumanity.com/07-visible-to-adam-cain-enoch-noah--job.html ).
We’ve already talked about how the Holy Spirit is not mentioned as being active in any way during lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and it is only when some supernatural enabling is needed do we later read of the Spirit’s work, interacting with Joseph, who was enabled with the ability to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. In one sense, Joseph could be called a prophet, because He spoke God’s message, though this term is never used of him specifically.
Moses
Things start to change when God began to deal with His people through Moses.
READ Deuteronomy 34:7,10 – a “summary” of Moses’ standing as one of God’s prophets (we’ll come back to this passage in a while)
That passage in Deuteronomy 34 speaks of Moses at the end of his life, but let’s go back about 40 years earlier, to when Moses had led the nation of Israel to Mt. Sinai at the beginning of their long trek. READ Exodus 19:1-11 … 16-20
v.4 – “saw what I did”
v.9 I come to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear and believe
v.11 in sight of all the people
… v.16 – people trembled
Exodus 20:1-17 outlines the “10 commandments” which are given. We will skip over these for the time being.
READ Exodus 20:18-21
v.19 – The people, being frightened of Who and what they saw at Mt. Sinai, said to Moses, "You speak with us, but let not God speak with us". So, for the next 40 or so years, Moses spoke to the people on God’s behalf. He received messages directly from the Lord Himself, not via a vision or a dream, etc. Several times in the Pentateuch we are told that God spoken with Moses "face to face".
READ Num 12:1-10 - This took place a year or two after the giving of the Law at Sinai. Incidentally, it is another demonstration of a miracle with “teaching” again – this time a miracle of judgement).
Moses wasn’t the only prophet. His sister, Miriam was called a prophetess in Exodus 15:20,21; she reiterates this in Num 12:1,2; and there were
elders who prophesied, but perhaps only once, in Numbers 11:25.
Moving forward a few years (approximately 38 years), the people were about to enter the Promised Land, and Moses was soon to die. Moses says to them … READ Deut 18:15-22
v.15 etc. - Many English translations have printed the word "prophet" here with a capital "P" - i.e. Prophet. This is a bit interpretive, and the reader should note the context of soothsayers, etc
v.16 – Horeb = Sinai
This passage certainly does look forward to Christ - THE Prophet of God - in one way, as we may see quoted in Acts ch. 3 & 7). However, for those people about to enter the Promised Land, these verses were telling them how God would speak with them and communicate His messages – i.e.
via the prophets, who spoke as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance to do so - the intangible, interactive arm of God at work. This stood in contrast to the spiritists and so on who abounded in Canaan, where they would soon find themselves.
READ again Deuteronomy 34:5,9-12
v.10 – Moses was a prophet, and there were none like him whom the Lord knew face to face. (It may be argued that there are some possible exceptions – Gideon, Isaiah, Daniel, etc. – but each of these may actually have been visions, or an angel speaking on God’s behalf, rather than the Lord Himself appearing as He did to Moses, or as He did in the earlier days of Genesis.)
God had appeared regularly to Moses in the wilderness, and to a few others whilst in Moses’ presence during that same time, but then these appearances of God to humans really cease after Moses’ death.
Cp. Hebrews 1:1,2a - God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…
As we have noted, the Spirit’s activities vary throughout the ages. We can’t always assume that the Holy Spirit’s ways of dealing with us are the same today as back then.
After Moses: Joshua and the Judges
So God spoke with people from the time of Moses onwards, mainly at first by His Judges (most of whom we are told had the Spirit of God come upon them), and then after some time mainly by way of prophets (who weren’t judges or leaders), and these were given God's words to speak via His Holy Spirit (cp 2 Peter 1:21)
Deuteronomy 34:9 (above) tells us that Joshua was given the Spirit of wisdom, and that this was for the purpose of leading the people as they journeyed into the Promised Land.
(Compare this with Deuteronomy 18, written around the same time. We read of the promise of a prophet just before people enter the
Promised Land.
We will see in a future study that the Spirit was upon the various leaders of Israel of the Judges period, but there’s not much mention of prophets during that time - only two - and one of those was also a judge.
Deborah – Judges 4:4 (more about this aspect of judgement in a later study), and she was also a "prophet” Judges 6:7-10
The Spirit was upon the Judges, and God ruled Israel through them. Up to this time, God’s spirit came upon those who were leaders of His people – Joseph, Moses, Joshua, the Judges - and His will was primarily made known through them.
A Turning Point: Samuel
Let’s now read about the last of the Judges - Samuel
In the time of his youth, it says ...
READ 1 Sam 3:1, 7, 10, 15 (vision, not “face to face” with the Lord)
vv. 19,20 – established as a prophet.
(as an aside - v.19 – "let none of his words fall to the ground" – may mean,
Possibly: (a) everything Samuel said came to pass. Cp. 1 Samuel 9:6
... but probably (b) Samuel took in everything the Lord said, and in the midst of adverse influence, he wasn’t going to let anything sway him from
God’s truth.
READ 1 Samuel 8:1-8 - the people ask for a king (v.5), and in doing so were rejecting God’s way of ruling. From that point on, we start to read of a lot more prophets, who weren’t in positions of leadership.
We'll discuss more about the Holy Spirit’s role as a Revealer, especially working through prophets, when we pick up the thread in the next chapter.
Summary
In early ages, the Lord took on a human form to meet and communicate with mankind. He regularly appeared to people from Adam until Noah’s time (the Flood). After that time, He appeared to people only occasionally, appearing to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on only a few occasions, and the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in their lives.
Afterwards, God’s Holy Spirit is mentioned when God began to speak through people – Joseph, Moses, Joshua and the Judges, the last of whom was Samuel. In these cases, the Spirit seemed to come upon only one or two people in any given era. That was God’s way of ruling His people, and making His will and word known to them UNTIL the people reject God’s rule in this way, and ask for a king. From then on, we start to read of a multitude of prophets, all of whom spoke as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance (to speak to people on His behalf). We’ll look at some of these in the next study.
In the meantime, here's a thought to leave with you.
Throughout the ages, God has gone to a lot of trouble to speak with people in different ways. Today we have the Scriptures, which are God-inspired, “profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Are we keen to learn more of what God would want to say to us? Are we staying in touch? Or are we waiting to hear "special" and "unusual" revelations from God outside of reading His Word?
