Holy Spirit And The Art Of Renaming God

For those who can no longer relate to Deity in anthropomorphic terms, relating to God as Holy Spirit can help revive a floundering faith.

It might sound odd to say that renaming God as “The Holy Spirit” is an innovation. As Christians, we’re so used to this divine title. Perhaps we could use a little reclaiming with the renaming. Too often, Christians fall into one of two camps regarding the Holy Spirit. The Pentecostal/Charismatic side tends to overemphasize the gifts of the Holy Spirit, without relating to the Spirit as Divine Being. The rest of Christendom often ignores the Holy Spirit altogether, with the exception of a few days in the lectionary. By reclaiming a relationship with the Holy Spirit, we can understand why renaming God by this title is so revolutionary.

So far, in this “Renaming God” series, we have considered suggestions for new titles you might give to the Almighty.

Renaming God As…

Here are just a few of the names we have covered so far:

For some readers, a few of these names may seem new and strange. In “Renaming God: Finding the God of My Understanding,” I write, “The Bible gives countless names for God, each name reflecting either a different aspect of God’s personality or a unique experience that someone had with God.” Sometimes, you need a new name to help keep your faith fresh. Other times, you need to renew an old name you may have neglected.

Renaming God as “The Holy Spirit”

At first glance, renaming God as “The Holy Spirit” seems like breaking the rules. After all, Christianity has been referring to this third part of the Trinity by this name for over two thousand years. But here’s why I’m comfortable bending the rules a little:

Christians renamed God as “The Holy Spirit.” This title isn’t one of the original ones. It’s a rename. Look through the Hebrew Bible and you won’t find it. At least, not in the way that Christians interpret it. You may find references to God’s spirit of holiness, but that’s not the same thing. Jews don’t believe in the Trinity. That’s why the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) doesn’t name God this way. So, if you’re a Christian who calls God “The Holy Spirit,” you’re already renaming God.

God’s Spirit of Holiness in the Hebrew Scriptures

Christian readers often feel challenged to go back and read the Hebrew scriptures through a Jewish lens. They have been so trained to read the “Old Testament” through the eyes of the New Testament that they often forget the original meanings that the authors intended. Often, Christians reading the Hebrew Bible make the mistake of superimposing Christian Trinitarianism on Jewish monotheism. But when Jewish writers penned words like God’s “spirit of holiness” (רוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ – ruach ha-qodesh) they intended something besides the Christian’s idea of the Holy Ghost.

The Hebrew word ruach means “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” When the Hebrew scriptures speak of God’s spirit, they mean to describe God’s living power, or activity in the world, not a distinct person of the Godhead. Here are a few examples of this word used to describe a characteristic of God, rather than a person of the Godhead:

Genesis 1:2 – … a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
Judges 14:6 – The spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart…
Psalm 51:11 – Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

While Christian readers tend to interpret this phrase, “Holy Spirit” as a third part of the Trinity, this was the furthest thing from the Jewish writers’ minds. In their understanding, ruach or spirit is God’s life-giving power. And the term “Holy Spirit” refers to an essence of holiness, or prophetic inspiration. So, when Christians use the term “Holy Spirit,” they really are renaming this aspect of God according to a trinitarian formula. So, it isn’t breaking my own rules to offer this term in a series on alternative names for God.

A New Testament Understanding of the Holy Spirit

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit shifts from a quality of God to one of the three Divine Persons. The movement is from “the holy spirit” to “Holy Spirit,” you might say.

In Acts 2, Holy Spirit baptizes the disciples with fire and grants the gift of tongues.
Holy Spirit speaks in Acts 13:2, calling Paul and Barnabas as apostles.
In John 16:13, Jesus says that Holy Spirit will guide the disciples into all truth.
And, in Romans 8:26, Paul writes: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words.”

So, for Christians, Holy Spirit is more than a component or feature of God. Holy Spirit is God, Godself. By making Jesus to be God (rather than just a human carpenter/teacher/messiah), and by adapting ruach ha-qodesh so that the phrase represents a third part of the Godhead, Christians moved from the realm of Jewish monotheism to a new kind of belief, trinitarianism.

A Case for the Holy Spirit

In “Does the Holy Spirit Point to Jesus? Or the Other Way Around?” I make the case that while Jesus is at the center of our faith, he never wanted it to be about him. Jesus is the fulcrum, the turning point, between the age of the Father and the age of the Holy Spirit. As such, he points to how we should live in the freedom of a personal relationship with God, rather than relying on sacrifice and priesthood. I write:

Jesus wanted us to model our lives after his. Yet, Jesus never wanted us to make it all about him. He spent his three-year ministry preparing his followers to live without him. If he wanted it to be all about him, Jesus never would have left. He would have stayed in his resurrected body, hanging out on earth for the past couple thousand years to bask in our worship. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he said, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” Jesus wanted his life to be an example for us, but he wanted the Spirit to guide us in his absence.

After he ascended, Jesus wanted his disciples to focus more on Holy Spirit than on Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, or even on Jesus himself. In “Why Christ’s Ascension is Greater Than the Resurrection,” I state that “The ascension makes room for the Holy Spirit’s emergence as the primary leader of the nascent Church.” All too often, Christian churches either act as if they are meant to follow the laws of the Hebrew Bible’s Father God, or worship a divine Jesus. I’ve even heard churchgoers refer to the Divine Being colloquially as “God’n’Jesus,” without noting the Holy Spirit’s role as primary in this age. My case for the Holy Spirit is that, of these three, the Spirit ought to be primary in these days.

“The Holy Spirit,” or “Holy Spirit?”

So, which way should we understand this Ruach-ha-Qodesh? Can we relate to “the holy spirit” of God, as a divine essence, power, or life-giving force? Or, is “Holy Spirit” meant to be spoken more like a proper noun indicating Divine Being, a third part of the Trinity?

Maybe a bit of both.

As I’ve stated throughout this series, many need to rename God because the old understandings no longer work for them. Some get hung up on the idea of God as a Sky-Daddy riding on the clouds. Others question the deification of a man from Nazareth, whose followers turned his legend into messianic glory.

But the name “Holy Spirit,” or even “Holy Ghost” carries none of that baggage. It does not refer to a deity with sophisticated mythologies or anthropomorphic images. While in Christian thought, the Father and Son have literal or metaphorical faces, the faceless Holy Spirit is more like a Great Mystery. Holy Spirit is a divine person who is also a cosmic force, defying imagery and thus becoming more attainable to those who struggle with the Christian “Father” and “Son.”

The Divine Within You

So, is Holy Spirit a Divine Person? Yes. Is The Holy Spirit a thing? Yes. Either way you understand the Ruach-ha-Qodesh— as either an essence or as a person of God— both are perfectly legitimate ways of relating to the Divine. If you have been having a difficult time dealing with God the Father, and deifying Jesus seems challenging for you, try relating to the Holy Spirit for a while. By following Jesus’s example and renaming God as “Holy Spirit,” you can regain a connection to the Divine who is within you.