What is spirit? We all know the word spirit, and we all bring to it our own understanding. Unfortunately, to many, spirit is an indefinable term, meaning anything metaphysical, anything beyond the realm of our five senses. For the most part, modern man scoffs at the spiritual realm, preferring to assign such things to the beliefs of “unenlightened” cultures, to past or “primitive” societies. This is lamentable, for, as the Bible tells us, “God is Spirit” (John 4:24); the Supreme Being is a Spirit.
But what does the Bible mean when it says that God is a Spirit? Our word spirit comes from a Latin word that means “to breathe.” The words for spirit in the original languages of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek, also come from words meaning “to breathe.” Of course, to human existence, breath is the most basic item. It is significant that God has revealed Himself to mankind as Spirit, for by doing so He indicates that He is as important to man’s existence as man’s very breath. But from another perspective, as Spirit, God is wondrously available to man, as available as the very air that man breathes. No one should be without God, for He is available to all who will “breathe” Him in.
Understanding that God as the Spirit is both important and available to man, we should consider what the Bible tells us about God the Spirit. The revelation in the Bible concerning God the Spirit is not merely doctrine for philosophers of religion; it is more the good news of God’s availability to man. God is the Divine Being and God is the available Spirit; hence, God’s divine nature is available for man to partake of. As the apostle Peter said, we who believe in Christ can “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). It is through God as the Divine Spirit that this can be so.
In the Bible God the Spirit is referred to in many ways, but here we need only consider three of these titles to see God’s availability. These three titles all refer to Him as the Divine Spirit, but specifically they show us an aspect of His being which is of great import and of great relevance to man. Among His many titles in the Bible, the Divine Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, and the Holy Spirit. These three titles tell us much about how God intends to be related to man and are hence worthy of our consideration.
According to the revelation of the Bible, God is triune; that is, God is at the same time one and three. This is beyond human comprehension, as certainly God should be. There is but one God (Deut. 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:4), yet He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). These distinctions are not a theological complexity but the divine reality. The Father is God as the source in the Trinity, the Son is God as the expression of the Trinity, and the Spirit is God as the transmission and realization of the Trinity. God is not only a self-existing Being, but wondrously the Divine Being who makes Himself available to us His creatures as the Spirit. The Spirit of God is God reaching us and applying Himself to us as our portion and supply.
The term the Spirit of God is a common designation of God in the Bible, but it is primarily used in the Old Testament. At the very beginning of the Bible, we find the Spirit of God in God’s creation: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). When God began to restore the universe from its chaotic condition, He moved as the Spirit of God. Throughout the Old Testament the Spirit of God appears, in every case referring to God coming to man and applying Himself to man’s situation.
In the New Testament the instances of His title the Spirit of God refer even more pointedly to the application of His divinity to man’s situation. He is the Spirit of God because He is the Spirit of the Divine Being, bearing His divinity to man and applying it to man’s situation. The apostle Paul says, “But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9). Those who believe in Christ are no longer mere flesh but are now spiritual, as God is spiritual, because the Spirit of God—the Spirit that bears the divine essence to them—dwells in them. This alone is a happy fact: The Spirit of God, as the bearer of the divine essence to man, uplifts man from the fleshy state and makes him a partaker of God’s divine nature.