Is He the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit?
What
happened? Why do we say Holy Spirit now
and not Holy Ghost? If you are like me,
I went through catechism class when I was eleven or twelve and memorized the
Apostles' Creed saying "I believe in the Holy Ghost" and then one new
hymnal and three or four ministers later we're saying Holy Spirit with no
explanation given other than we're just trying to sound more current because
Archaic language makes new comers not want to come back. There has to be a better reason than that and
guess what? There is and so this morning
we'll sift through that a bit.
Now I warn you, we
will be doing some theology this morning, but...this, the Holy Spirit, truly is
an important topic especially for us Canadian Presbyterians. A good many of us are finding out
particularly here in the Presbytery of Grey-Bruce-Maitland through the Natural
Church Develop process that we are weak in the area of our spirituality, our
relationship with our God. So, as part
of the remedy we need to dip into the world of theology for it is a profound
fact that what we believe about God has a dramatic effect on how we live our
faith. If that is the case, then our
weakness in the area of spirituality must derive from a lack of knowing the
Holy Spirit and his work.
So, since this is
a dire matter let's dive in real quick and get some basic facts. First, the Holy Spirit as we meet him is the
breath of the new life of the new humanity the Trinity spoke into existence in,
through, and as Jesus Christ who as God the Son become human lived, died, was
raised, and reigns and will return and all this for us. Second, by the presence and work of the Holy
Spirit God the Father draws us to Jesus and there the Holy Spirit really
present with us graces us to know Jesus personally and to share in Jesus' very
relationship with God the Father. Third,
by the gift of the Holy Spirit the Father and the Son have adopted us into
their relationship so that we know the steadfast love and faithfulness of the
Father as Jesus himself knows it and like Jesus we desire to do our Father's
will in love and gratefully. Fourth, by
the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us we are a new form of human
existence, humans with a new heart that the Old Testament Prophets looked
forward too and which the New Testament simply describes as "in
Christ". We formally were "in
Adam" but through Baptism we have died and been raised from that old life
into the new life in Christ graciously available and abounding in, through, and
as the presence of God the Holy Spirit.
Well, with that
groundwork laid on to the topic at hand and why the change to saying Holy
Spirit rather than Holy Ghost starting with why we said "Holy
Ghost". Well, if memory serves me
English speaking churches picked up the word Ghost primarily because that’s the word the translators of the King James Version of the Bible
chose to use believing that's the word 16th Century English speakers could best
understand. The Biblical Hebrew and
Greek words, "ruach" and "pneuma" both mean either
"breath", "wind", or "spirit". "Spirit" should not be confused
with "soul" which is who I am as a person in all my totality - mind,
spirit, and body - before God and others.
My spirit is how I have effect on others, if that makes sense. If I have a kind and gracious spirit others
will be affected by me in that way. My
kids would probably say I have a grumpy spirit because I'm grumpy all the time
with them. Speaking of the Holy Spirit
in this way, the Trinity in his Love has a will and a plan for his creation and
us. The Father speaks it. The Son is the Word that is spoken. The Holy Spirit is the breath that comes
along with that Word that makes it heard and come into being.
That said, I am
predisposed to say that the translators of the King James Version simply
mistranslated. But, I don't speak 16th
Century English so let's give them the benefit of the doubt. So doing, one good argument for saying Ghost
instead of Spirit is that a ghost seems more personal, meaning more like a
person, whereas using Spirit can depersonalize the Holy Spirit into just being
a force like an esprit de corps or the spirit of the times. Taking personhood away from the Holy Spirit
simply reduces Christianity to being nothing more than spirituality or
spiritual awareness which nearly always devolves into "me" just being
hyper-aware of myself and calling that an experience of God.
The Holy Spirit is
God relating to us as a person. He is
how we know God. By the Holy Spirit we
experience ourselves to be relating to God the Father with and through Jesus
personally and so we relate to God the Trinity as a friend. Friends communicate, get to know each
another, and learn to trust each another.
We call this prayer and are encouraged to learn to pray without
ceasing. Yet, when it comes to God we
are in a friendship with a person we cannot see and so we need the Scriptures
and Christian fellowship and there we find God revealing himself to us in,
through, and as Jesus Christ as a friend who is sincerely motivated by love for
us, who is gracious towards us, and who will stop at nothing to heal our broken
lives even to the point of disciplining us, a process which will culminate in
our realizing that he has died for us.
Therefore, thinking of God the Holy Spirit as a ghost who is in our
lives and who finds ways to communicate God’s grace to us would seem appropriate. That is the upside of the ghost
argument.
On the down side,
well, a ghost is a disembodied spook.
The Holy Spirit is not the Holy Disembodied Spook of Jesus Christ. To say that is a denial of the bodily
resurrection of Jesus, one of the core facts upon which our salvation
rests. Jesus still has a human body…a resurrected, glorified, yet scarred body…and it is in this body that he stands before the Father ever adoring
him, ever worshipping him, and ever praying for us. The human body of Jesus the incarnate Son of
God is the new humanity in which the Holy Spirit brings us to share. If physical humanity is not by the work of
the Holy Spirit in union with the Son of God in Jesus, the crucified one
Resurrected and Ascended, then we have no place in him. He has no new human "being" to
share with us and we cease to be his image here on earth. The Holy Spirit is not the ghost of Jesus
Christ because Jesus is not dead. He still bodily lives.
Well, we’ve talked about the word Ghost.
Now I would like to broach the use of the word Spirit. To do this let's think about a
corporation. Did you know that every
Presbyterian Church in Canada is a corporation?
An interesting thing happens when people incorporate. When a corporation comes into existence,
legally speaking and I would say spiritually speaking as well, a new corporate
person comes into existence. This
corporate person takes on a personality and a particular way of acting towards
and affecting others. The Shell Corporation
has its own personality and distinctive ways of being towards the world than
Exxon does. Nestle and Wal-Mart are
their own persons. So, also is the Roman
Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and even this church. Even our families are corporate persons. When people form groups those groups all have
corporate personalities, spirits that have unique effect on others.
When speaking of the
church we must say that the spirit of a congregation must become like that of
Jesus Christ. This congregation has it’s own corporate personality, its own spirit which must yield to the
Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit
is the spirit of Jesus Christ. This does
not mean that he is the ghost of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the corporate person that is the relationship which
God the Father and God the Son share that affects us. It is by the personal presence of the Holy
Spirit among us and in us that we are brought into that relationship. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of our
adoption, our incorporation if I may, into the life of Jesus Christ and his
relationship with God the Father. Later,
in Romans 8 Paul speaks of our adoption into the family of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwelling in
us makes us to say "Abba. Father." We now share with Jesus his inheritance of all
things.
The life of the
Spirit we now live is fuelled by our knowing in every fibre of our being that
we are the beloved children of God the Father whom he loves as much as his own
Son who gave his life for us to save us from sin and death and who gives his
life to us through the Holy Spirit that we may rise up and live anew and
differently "in Christ". To
live according to the Spirit rather than according to the flesh, as Paul puts
it, is to live life utterly reoriented by the gobsmacking of encountering the
reality of the steadfast love and faithfulness of God personally. Speaking for myself, the most grounding
certainty I can grasp onto in my life that brings everything back when I'm a
mess and feeling hopeless and like a failure is the Holy Spirit making me to
know that God is with me and utterly loves even me as his own child and I can
trust that...I can trust that come what may God loves me and everything works
out accordingly. Therefore, I strive to
live one day at a time, one moment at a time in response to that love. I pray you all know this for yourselves
too. Amen.
