Stop here and read Psalm 104 (especially verses 29 and 30) in your own Bible.
Here we see the role of the Spirit in the life and death of every living thing. When the Lord sends his Spirit, life comes and living beings are created. As in Genesis, the coming of the Spirit precedes the acts of creation, but appears as a necessary, preparatory step. The only difference here is that the Spirit is engaged in the ongoing work of creation, even at very small, individual levels, making possible the ongoing renewal of the face of the earth.
Ezekiel
Ezekiel and thousands of others had been taken prisoner to Babylon in 598 B.C., the first time King Nebuchadnezzar subdued the Kingdom of Judah. Throughout his exile, Ezekiel kept warning Judah to repent or be destroyed. Just as they had failed to listen to Jeremiah, they refused his warnings. Nonetheless, like Jeremiah, when Ezekiel learned that Jerusalem had been completely destroyed in 587 B.C., he never gloated. Rather, the Lord sent him a series of prophecies and visions of a new future. One of the best known is his vision of the valley of dry bones, over which he prophesies. The bones are rejoined, sinews and flesh come upon them, and then he prophesies to the breath to return to these dead people and bring them to life.
Stop here and read Ezekiel 37:1-14 in your own Bible.
Though the exiles felt as good as dead because they were without any hope, the Lord gave them a vision of hope through Ezekiel: the Spirit of the Lord can bring forth life even out of a vast valley filled with death. In 37:14, the Lord explains, “I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live.” The Spirit of the Lord makes it possible even for dried-up and scattered bones to live, demonstrating the role of the Spirit in creation and re-creation. The life-giving role of the Lord’s Spirit occurs when the prophet speaks and makes possible the action of the Spirit, showing that the creative and prophetic roles belong together.
Judith
Judith 16:1-17 is a hymn of thanksgiving for the way the Lord delivered Israel from the invading army of Holofernes. As in Psalm 104:30, the Lord’s Spirit is sent out by him to form creatures.
Stop here and read Judith 16:1-17 in your own Bible.
The purpose of this hymn is to praise God for his salvation of Israel during the crisis of the invasion of the land by Holofernes. As part of that “new song” (Jud 16:13), all creatures are summoned to serve the Lord, their creator. As in Genesis, God speaks all the creatures into being, but God also sends his Spirit, who formed the creatures. At the same time, the Spirit of God helps the creatures hear God’s voice, and the formation of creatures by the Spirit makes it hard for them to resist the call of God’s voice. This passage links the Spirit’s role in forming creatures with the power of God’s word to create them and the power of his word to summon them to perform his will. This latter function is a connection between the Spirit’s creative role and his role with the prophets.
Study
Book of Wisdom
One last book treats of the role of the Lord’s Spirit in creation: the Book of Wisdom. This was written in Greek, probably in Alexandria, Egypt, in the first century B.C. Wisdom identifies the Spirit of the Lord as the one who fills the whole world and sustains all things in existence.
Investigate
The Spirit’s Creative Power
Look up the following passages and make notes on the role of the Lord’s Spirit.
| PASSAGE | NOTES |
| Wisdom 1:7-8 | |
| Wisdom 12:1-2 |
The first reading takes the creative power of the Spirit of the Lord to two other levels. The first level claims that the Spirit of the Lord continuously and in an ongoing way sustains all that has already been created. He did not simply give it an original start but is constantly bestowing new life. The second level claims that the Spirit of the Lord is also able to know everything that people say and speak. He notices all unrighteousness, judges it, and punishes it.
Lying to the Spirit
An understanding of the Lord’s Spirit as knowing everything people say and speak stands behind the episode in Acts 5:1-11, when Ananias and his wife Sapphira held back money they had promised to contribute to the Church. Peter called this a lie to the Holy Spirit, who struck each of them dead in punishment. Clearly, the Spirit of the Lord is aware of all unrighteous behavior and punishes it with full divine authority.
Two more passages in Wisdom express the ongoing presence of the Lord’s Spirit in all of creation and the effects of the Spirit to maintain all of reality. Wisdom 12:1-2 simply offers an acknowledgment to God that his Spirit is a moral presence throughout all of creation. Being everywhere and within all things indicates the divine quality of the Lord’s Spirit. God’s infinite nature is omnipresent and is within everything that exists. This teaching is not the same as pantheism, which claims that everything is God. God is the creator of everything, and even his action of creating is one that only God does; everything else is a creature that is limited in space and time, and an infinite gap exists between the creatures and the infinite, uncreated, and eternal God. At the same time, all of creation and everything within creation is sustained in existence by the infinite presence of God. He is within everything, and yet without being merely one thing among the rest of creatures. He sustains all creatures, but they do not sustain him in the least.
The passage further reveals that the omnipresence of the Spirit of the Lord goes beyond simply sustaining all creation. The Spirit also corrects human beings when they sin against God. The goal of his moral correction is that “they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord” (Wis 12:2, RSV-SCE). Jesus will teach that the Holy Spirit of truth will have the same role of correcting people about “sin and righteousness and judgment” (Jn 16:8; also see Jn 16:9-11). In this way, Wisdom indicates that moral virtue and faith are linked to each other, and that both are connected to the action of the Spirit of the Lord acting within creation. People cannot claim to have faith and yet ignore their need for moral improvement. Such is God’s way of leading and guiding people ever closer to himself.
Consider
Wisdom 7:21-30 is a statement that flows from the secrets learned from wisdom about a Spirit that permeates wisdom itself, all other spirits (including the human spirits), and everything else that exists.
The first important point is to accept that the Spirit is capable of penetrating wisdom itself. In saying this, the Book of Wisdom is recognizing that the Spirit is superior to wisdom. Also, the Spirit is able to penetrate all “intelligent and pure and most subtle” spirits (Wis 7:23). This indicates that he is superior to the angels, who are super-intelligent, pure spirits. He is superior to human spirits, who are intelligent, though less intelligent and less pure than the angels. The obvious conclusion one should draw from this teaching is that human spirits should have at least as much respect for God’s Spirit as do the angels, especially since human intelligence and goodness is so inferior to the angels, yet alone God’s Spirit. Having asserted that the Spirit is superior to wisdom, and to angelic and human spirits, the sage then lists some of the qualities of this Spirit.
Investigate
Qualities of the