The Breath of God

Shortly after the resurrection, the Lord, being with the disciples, breathed on them and said to them: "Receive the Holy Spirit". The same breath of God that was life in Adam's nostrils (Gen. 2:7), was here, for the apostles, the Holy Spirit. In Eden it was life to the soul; here it was life to the spirit. This is the breath of which the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in these precious words: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof; but thou knowest not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). Sovereign. Mysterious. So is the Spirit in his action.

This life-giving wind -the Holy Spirit- can be a strong wind or a gentle breeze. At Pentecost it was a strong wind that filled the whole house where they were sitting (Acts 2:2). The strong wind is like the puelche wind that blows in southern Chile. It is so powerful that it carries away the garbage from the streets, sweeps away the dust and everything that is not sufficiently firm. The Holy Spirit also does a cleansing work like this. Everything that is not subject to Christ is carried away. All garbage is removed, all impurity is swept away. How healing to the soul of the believer is this work of the Holy Spirit!

But the Spirit is also like the breeze, and then He comes to still our spirit with a soft and gentle whistling, just as it was with Elijah in that cave on Mount Horeb. His spirit was agitated, his soul troubled. The zeal of his heart had been kindled on Mount Carmel, and now he was descending into the valley of fear. Then God causes a mighty wind to pass before him, breaking the mountains and shattering the rocks; then an earthquake and a fire, but God was neither in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. God came instead as a gentle and soft whistle (1 Kings 19:11-13). How wonderful is the Spirit of God!

In Ezekiel 37 we find a beautiful allegory about the Spirit. There it is shown how, at Ezekiel's word, there was a noise, then a shaking, and the dry bones scattered in the valley were joined one to another. Then there were sinews, later came up upon them flesh, and then skin. "But", he clarified, "there was no spirit in them". Then, as Ezekiel prophesied, "spirit entered into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet". Without the spirit, there were only bones, sinews, flesh and skin, that is, there were corpses, but no men. This is also the case in many Christian environments. There are abundant expressions of the Adamic nature, but not much of the new creation. All that is not of the spirit is of the flesh (John 3:6; 6:63).

Much has been sinned against the Spirit, belittling His work, forgetting and ignoring Him. May the Lord bring down our sufficiency so that we may have the Spirit of God acting freely!

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