Introduction
I want to posit a few questions to you below as we examine the Ruach Ha Kodesh.
In most statements of Faith, the Ruach HaKodesh as one of the persons of the G-d head. What is a person?
Philosophy says: “I perceive that I am, therefore I am. But what is true reality? Ultimate reality? Elijah saw armies of heaven and Elisha did not until G-d revealed them to him. Balaam’s donkey saw an angel blocking his way and Balaam did not. Yahshua in His risen body passed through walls. …An atom surrounded by protons has greater distance between the nucleus and the orbiting atoms than the distance from the earth to the sun in comparison to size. Science knows if we knew how to rearrange the atoms in our bodies we could walk through walls. When we obtain our glorified bodies we will know how. But back to the Ruach HaKodesh, a person of the G-dhead. How do we know? The Ruach HaKodesh has to be a person according to most declarations of faith. This begs the question what constitutes a person. The criteria for a person is something that possesses Intellect, personality and emotion.
BEING INSTRUCTED AS TO THE PERSON OF THE RUACH HAKODESH.
1. PERSONALITY And scripture says we grieve the HS (emotion). Intellect to process information, personality to interpret, and emotion to grieve
2. EMOTION
3. INTELLECT
THESE ARE THE CRITERIA OF A PERSON. EACH PERSON IN THE “TRINITY” MEETS THESE REQUIREMENTS ACCORDING TO DOGMA. THREE DISTINCT PERSONS IN ONE UNITY. ONE ESSENCE MANIFESTED IN THREE DIFFERENT WAYS.A PERSONS, HOWEVER IS THIS A “TRINITY” OR BETTER AS MESSIANICS’ EXPRESS IT, A COMPOUND UNITY? IS THE RUACH HA KODESH THE EXPRESSION OF THE FATHER, AND SIMPLY DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A SEPARATE PERSON, AS THE DOCTRIE OF THE TRINITY SEEMS TO INFER? IS YAHSHUA THE EXPRESSION OF THE FATHER AND THE PERSON WE ARE TALKING ABOUT IS HIMSELF INFILLED WITH THE SPIRIT THAT IS G-D? WHY DID YAHSHUA SAY THAT HE HAD TO RETURN UNTO THE FATHER BEFORE THE RUACH COULD BE SENT? ALL QUESTIONS SERIOUS MINDED BIBBLE STUDENTS HAVE TO ASK. THESE QUESTIONS WILL NOT BE ANSWERED HERE BUT ARE GIVEN FOR CONTEMPLATION, ELSEWHERE ON THIS WEB SITE ARE THE ANSWERS.
Now to address the subject of the Holy Spirit called the Ruach HaKodesh in Hebrew in a way you may never have heard. You might say with a Jewish flavor.
We are gong to FIRST EXAMINE JOHN 5:19 IN RELATION TO THE RUACH HA KODESH.
JN. 5:19 Then answered Yahshua and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
The phrase “The son can do nothing of himself” is used by many who find Yahshua’ s claim to divinity unpalatable as a proof that Yahshua Himself denied divinity based on this his own statement. He seems to describe himself in a way inconsistent with being divine. It is essential to G-d’s nature that G-d does everything on his own and is answerable only to Himself. They miss the point. For Yahshua is here teaching something about the inner nature of YHVH Elohim AND HOW THE SON AND FATHER RELATE to each other in the eternal unity of ADONAI. Yahshua is teaching that he is humanly capable of disobeying G-d and of having his own contrary will (let us compare Mt 26:39) And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
For this reason the divine son “Learned Obedience” (Hebrews. 5:8) Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and became completely submissive to the Father’s Will through the power of the RUACH HaKODESH (Holy Spirit) who is with him “In unlimited measure” John 3:34. So here, we see the central figure of the Ruach HaKodesh as the agency active in the G-dhead to accomplish the Will of G-d.
IN John 7: 37 we read “on the last day, the great, of the festival.” In Hebrew Hoshana Rabbah, the Greek megale here corresponds to the Heb. rabbah. The seventh, the last day of Sukkot was its climax. Sukkot is the festival where Israel lives in thatched huts, outside to remind them of living in the desert after their exodus from Egypt. It is still celebrated today, as you know. Throughout the seven days of the festival a special cohen or priest had carried water in a gold pitcher from the Pool of Shiloach (Siloam) to be poured into a basin at the foot of the altar by the Cohen haGadol. It symbolized the prayer for rain, which begins the next day on Sh’mini Atzeret; and it pointed toward the outpouring of the Ruach HaKodesh on the people of Israel. The rabbis’ associated the custom with Isaiah 12:3, “With joy shall you draw water from the wells of salvation.” In a suggestive reflection of how the holiday used to be celebrated Moroccan Jews pour water on each other at Sukkot. On the seventh day the water pouring was accompanied by cohanim blowing gold trumpets, L’vim singing sacred songs, and ordinary people waving their lulavs and chanting the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), which includes in it closing verses:
Adonai, please prosper us!
Adonai, Please prosper us!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of Adonai!
We have blessed you out of the house of Adonai.
G-d is Adonai, and he has given us light.” (Ps 118:25-27)
This prayer has Messianic overtones as it is seen from it use when Yahshua made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem a few days before his execution (Mt. 21:9, Mk. 11:9-10) In addition:
“A connection between the possession of the Ruach HaKodesh and ecstasy, or religious joy, is found in the ceremony of water drawing, Simchat Beit HaSho’evah (”feast of water-drawing”) on the festival of Sukkot. The Mishnah said that he who had never seen this ceremony, which was accompanied by dancing, singing and music, (Sukkot 5:4) had never seen true joy (sukkot 5:1). Yet, this was considered a ceremony in which the participants, as it were, drew inspiration from the Ruach HaKodesh itself, which can only be possessed by those hearts whose hearts are full of religious joy (Jerusalem Talmud, Sukkot 5:1)
It was in the midst of this water pouring, trumpet blasting, palm waving, psalm chanting and ecstatic joy on the part of the people seeking forgiveness – and in the presence of the 24 divisions of the priesthood ( see Lk 1:5) that Yahshua cried out in the temple courts “If anyone is thirsty, let him keep coming to me and drinking! Whoever trusts in me, as the Tanakh says, rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being!”
IN verse 39 we see that the Spirit had not been given, because Yahshua had not yet been glorified. In Acts 2:4 “And they were all filled with the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Ghost), and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” We see when the Ruach HaKodesh did come on all men who accepted Yahshua as Messiah.
And we read in:
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
:26 But the Comforter, which is the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Ghost), whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
In verse 16 another comforter is rendered as “parakletes” in the Greek and means “counselor, comforter, exhorter”, or literally “one called alongside.” There are two words in Greek for “another” – “allos” (“another of the same kind”) and “eteros” (“another, of a different kind.”) Here the word in “allos”: a comforting counselor just like Yahshua, namely the Ruach HaKodesh.
Compare the Talmud:
“What is the Messiah’s name? …(Some) say: His name is Menachem the son of Hezekiah, since it is written, (Because Menachem (a comforter) that could relieve my soul, is far form me” (Lamentations 1:16 “ (Sanhedrin 98b)
IN VERSE 26:
The father will send the Ruach HaKodesh in my (Yahshua’s) name and at Verse 15:26 we read, “I Yahshua will send you (the Ruach HaKodesh) from the Father.” Whether the Ruach HaKodesh proceeds from the Father and the Son jointly or from the Father alone seems an issue rather removed from everyday life. Nevertheless, it was over this point of doctrine that the Greek Orthodox Church, headquartered in Constantinople, and the Roman Catholic Church, headquartered in Rome, finally split apart in the year 1054. See verse 17:21 on the scandal of denominationalism.
In the end what is the PURPOSE OF THE RUACH HAKODESH?
TURN TO ACTS 4: 31
31 And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Ghost), and they spake the word of G-d with boldness.
Some of them had been filled before but Ephesians 5:18 instructs believers to keep being filled with the Ruach HaKodesh.
We read that they “spoke G-d’s message with boldness.” this is a sure sign of being filled with the Ruach HaKodesh and it is also the purpose of the filling as we read in chapter 1:8 “But ye shall receive power, after that the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Ghost) is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
That’s the message I want to leave you with. Let’s pray.