The Spirit is the reality of all the divine entities and matters. The Spirit is the reality of God, the Father, the Lord, the Son of God, Jesus, Christ, the living God, grace, power, and glory. As such a reality, the Spirit is mysterious. Because the Spirit is mysterious and beyond our understanding, the New Testament uses many different symbols, figures of speech, to describe Him. In this message we shall begin to consider the symbols of the Spirit.
Matthew 3:16 says, “He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon Him.” Here a dove symbolizes the Spirit who came upon the Lord Jesus economically for His ministry. A dove is gentle, and its eyes can see only one thing at a time. Hence, a dove signifies gentleness and singleness in sight and purpose. By the Spirit of God descending upon Him as a dove, the Lord Jesus ministered in gentleness and singleness, focusing solely on the will of God.
John 1:32 also speaks of a dove as a symbol of the Spirit: “John testified saying, I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He abode upon Him.” John the Baptist recommended Christ not only as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) but also as the Lamb with the dove. The Lamb takes sin away from man, and the dove brings God as life to man. The Lamb is for redemption, to redeem fallen man back to God, and the dove is for life-giving, for anointing, to anoint man with what God is, to bring God into man and man into God, and for joining the believers in God. Both are needed for man to participate in God. The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, whose work is to bring God to man and join God to man. On the negative side, the Lamb solves the problem of man’s sin; on the positive side, the dove brings God to man. The Lamb separates man from sin, and the dove joins God to man.
The dove in John 1:32 signifies the Holy Spirit for life-giving, regenerating, anointing, transforming, uniting, and building. The dove is for life, not for power. A dove has no power, but it is full of life and insight, indicated by the eyes. The Bible appreciates the dove’s eyes, for the most beautiful part of a dove is its eyes. In the Song of Songs the Lord praises His seeker for her doves’ eyes (1:15). The dove, therefore, is not a symbol of power but, being lovely, small, and full of life, a symbol of life.
Another symbol of the Spirit is the fine woman seeking the lost treasure of God. This symbol is found in the parable of the seeking woman: “What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek carefully until she finds it?” (Luke 15:8). The lamp signifies the word of God (Psa. 119:105, 130) used by the Spirit to enlighten and expose the sinner’s position and condition so that he may repent.
According to Luke 15:8, the woman sweeps the house and seeks carefully until she finds the lost coin. The word “sweep” indicates the searching and cleansing of the inside of a sinner. Whereas the Son’s finding in Luke 15:4 is outside the sinner, the Spirit’s seeking here is inside, carried out by the Spirit’s working within the repenting sinner.
The Spirit seeks the sinner as a woman seeks carefully one lost coin until she finds it. This means that the Spirit comes to find us out. The book of Acts indicates this. In the Gospels the Son came to accomplish redemption. After the accomplishment of redemption by the Son, the Spirit comes to seek us and find us. Because of the Spirit’s finding of us, we repent and come back to God the Father.
As indicated by the parable of the seeking woman, the Spirit’s work is to enlighten us inwardly. As this seeking woman, the Spirit enlightens our inner being little by little in a fine, careful way. The Spirit enlightens our mind, then our emotion and will, and then our conscience and our entire heart. It is in this way that the Spirit “finds” us.
As the result of the Spirit’s finding us through enlightening us, we wake up and come to ourselves and realize how foolish it is to stay where we are. We do not wake ourselves up; on the contrary, we are awakened by the enlightening of the seeking Spirit. The seeking, enlightening, and finding of the Spirit take place in our heart and result in repentance.
The fact that the Spirit’s finding us takes place within the “house” of our being reveals that we were lost in ourselves, lost in our mind, emotion, and will. Therefore, the Spirit finds us in ourselves. Then, enlightened by the Spirit, we repent. This repentance resulting from the enlightening of the Spirit is an inward matter. No human being or angel is able to do such a subjective work in us. This work can be done only by the penetrating Spirit, for the Spirit is able to penetrate the depths of our being to enlighten us and expose us so that we may realize how foolish we are, repent, and decide to come back to the Father. This aspect of the Spirit is symbolized by a fine woman.
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