I don’t read much that comes out of the
wilderness of liberal Christendom (some will argue that’s a good thing, and I
won’t argue back). So it was a little jarring to come across a rather poetic
meditation on the Holy Spirit here that refers to him throughout as “she” and “it”.
Uh, no. Just no.
This is not complicated, actually, and it
shouldn’t be the least bit controversial for anyone who believes the Bible is
God’s word: the Holy Spirit is definitely personal and is referred to in
scripture by both masculine and neuter pronouns, but never feminine. In fact,
this is an area of theology we evangelicals have in common with Catholicism:
they too acknowledge both the personhood and ‘non-femaleness’ of the Spirit of God.
Characteristics of Personhood
As to personhood, I would point out that
the Spirit possesses all requisite characteristics: will, emotions and
intellect.
- Will: He “apportions to each one individually as he wills”, and he “allows” or does not allow as he sees fit.
- Emotions: He can be “grieved” and “outraged”.
- Intellect: He searches the “depths of God”, knows the thoughts of God, teaches spiritual truth, and can be lied to (though not terribly successfully).
Ergo, not merely a force, but a person.
I tend to avoid arguments about the Holy
Spirit’s personhood that depend on Greek grammar. It’s too easy to establish
without becoming overly technical.
Essential Masculinity
The phrase “essential masculinity” is a tad
misleading but I’m not sure what else to call it that is less than a sentence
long. I think liberals and conservatives alike would agree that since God
preceded and initiated mankind (both sexes), applying words like “masculine”
and “feminine” to him is a bit like trying to appreciate the color spectrum on
a black and white TV screen. Our terms of reference are fragmentary and insufficient. Further, because
God is spirit, we would be foolish to try to read back our own experience of living out a
human sex role into our understanding of the operations of the Godhead.
But — and the “but” is
significant — if we believe in the inspiration of scripture, we cannot
deny that, like it or not, God has deliberately chosen to reveal himself to
mankind through the language and metaphors of masculinity: expressions like “Father”
and “Son”. A little reverence and humility are called for.
As to the Holy Spirit in particular, “spirit”
in Greek is pneuma, meaning “wind” or
“breath”. The word pneuma is neuter,
so English translations that employ possessive pronouns like “its” are not being
irreverent, simply grammatical. However, liberal theologians who happily adopt
this convention across the board or opt to use “she” instead (as does the
writer of the article I mentioned) are ignoring the fact that the Holy Spirit is
also referred to as parakletos, or
“comforter”, a noun which grammatically requires masculine pronouns. Further,
there are several places in the NT where pronouns associated with pneuma, despite it being neuter, have been masculinized. This is surely not accidental; the same writer has used neuter
pronouns elsewhere.
Synonymous Expressions
Some argue that this use of masculine
pronouns for parakletos is no more
than a concession to Greek grammar conventions and does not point us in one
direction or the other, but that cannot be the entire story. Why? Because the words
“Holy Spirit” are used interchangeably in the New Testament with the terms
“Spirit of God”, “Spirit of Christ”, and “the Spirit of his Son”. It cannot reasonably be argued that the biblical concept of the Son or the historical Jesus are accurately served by adopting deliberately feminized English.
Some agenda IS being served, obviously. Just not accuracy.
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