The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

On Sunday, Dr. Ezequiel Serrato, who serves Faith Bible Church as Director of Spanish Ministry, opened Week 2 of "Ruach to Pneuma" by greeting the church in Spanish and inviting the familiar Latin American response, bendecidos, "we are blessed." Picking up where Pastor Russell left off, he reminded us that the Holy Spirit is not an it but a Person, the third Person of the Trinity, and that we come to know a person by what He does. So he walked us through three things the Spirit did in the Old Testament. First, creation. In Genesis 1:1-2 the Spirit of God was "moving over the surface of the waters," and Dr. Serrato opened that Hebrew picture of brooding, hovering, the way a bird cherishes her young, the Spirit bringing life and order out of a dark and formless void. If He can do that with the chaos of an unformed universe, Dr. Serrato pressed, imagine what He can do with the chaos in a marriage or a life that feels hopeless. Second, empowerment. He showed how the Spirit came upon judges and kings like Othniel, Gideon, Samson, and Saul for a season and a task, and how that presence could depart, which is why a broken David pleaded, "Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me." Then he drew the line we live on this side of: unlike Saul or Samson, the believer today is indwelt permanently, and even when we sin, the Spirit does not leave. Third, revelation. The same Spirit who empowered the hands of judges inspired the tongues of prophets, carrying along fallible men so that what they spoke and wrote was the very Word of God. He closed with a charge that landed plainly. God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called, just as He did with a slow-of-speech Moses and a cowardly Peter. The Spirit who hovered over the waters is the same Spirit alive in you, and He will never leave.