God is incomprehensible. This means that, while we can truly know him (because he reveals himself to us), we can never wrap our minds around him. He is infinite, eternal, and triune, and thus he reveals himself to us in ways that fit our capacities. As one theologian puts it, God speaks human to humans, and this makes true knowledge of God possible.

Even so, we still sometimes struggle to know God, and not just in the personal sense of knowledge, but in the basic what-are-we-even-talking-about sense. This is especially the case with our knowledge of the Holy Spirit.

When it comes to the Father, we have a concrete baseline from which to work. We all have earthly fathers (for good or for ill), and thus we have a starting place for engaging with God our heavenly Father. Likewise, when it comes to the Son, we have a concrete baseline in the incarnation. The Son was made man for us and for our salvation. The Gospels give us a magnificent picture of Jesus the Messiah, fully God and fully man, and this enables us to come to him.

“The fundamental work of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant is to point to and magnify Jesus.”

But the Spirit is elusive, even a bit abstract. Though we know and confess him as a divine “person,” we struggle to find a concrete baseline for understanding him. And at some level, this is by design. Jesus tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes, “he will glorify me” (John 16:14). In other words, the fundamental work of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant is to point to and magnify Jesus.

Nevertheless, Scripture does give us a number of images to help us better understand the person of the Holy Spirit.

Wind, Breath, Spirit

The Spirit’s very name (pneuma in Greek) links him to wind, breath, and spirit. Wind is moving air that has significant effects on the world while remaining invisible. In John 3, Jesus tells us that we must be born of the pneuma (John 3:5). He goes on to say that the pneuma blows where it wishes; we hear its sound but do not see where it comes from and where it goes (John 3:8). This suggests that we know the Spirit in the way we know the wind — by his effects.

“We know the Spirit in the way we know the wind — by his effects.”

Like wind, breath is invisible moving air — this time, air that animates a body. God breathes into Adam, and he becomes a living being (Genesis 2:7). In John 20:22, Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thus, we come to know the Spirit’s work by considering the way breath moves in and out and animates our physical bodies.

The word pneuma also refers to a person’s inner disposition or temper of mind. Jesus blesses those who are “poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). Peter describes the character of a godly woman as “the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). We might think of our spirit as the invisible bent of our souls that shapes our visible actions.

River, Oil, Dove

Beyond these, the Bible provides a number of additional images to help us understand the Spirit and his work. In John 7, Jesus describes the Spirit as a river flowing from the lives of his followers.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:38–39)

We might link the river of John 7 to the river of the water of life described in Revelation 22, “flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city” (Revelation 22:1–2). The city is the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, the church of the living God. Thus, the Spirit is the river of living water flowing from Jesus to his people and from them out into the world for the healing of the nations. This is the river “whose streams make glad the city of God” (Psalm 46:4), the river of God’s delights and the fountain of life (Psalm 36:8–9).

Connecting the Spirit to the river of living water also calls to mind the notion that the Spirit is “poured out” upon his people (Acts 2:33; 10:45; Romans 5:5; Titus 3:6), that God’s people are “filled” with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), and that we are baptized in the Spirit just as we are baptized in water (Mark 1:8; Acts 1:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13).

Beyond water, the Scriptures connect the Holy Spirit to the anointing oil used to consecrate priests and kings in the Old Testament. David receives the Spirit when Samuel anoints him with oil in 1 Samuel 16:12–13. Both Isaiah and Peter in the book of Acts pick up this connection in their descriptions of the Messiah.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,     because the Lord has anointed meto bring good news to the poor. (Isaiah 61:1)

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. (Acts 10:38)

Finally, the Bible links the Spirit to imagery of the bird, especially a dove. The Spirit “hovers” like a bird over the waters at creation (Genesis 1:2). And most prominently, the Spirit descends on Jesus “like a dove” at his baptism (Matthew 3:16; John 1:32–33).

God on the Move

If we begin to draw these images together, we see the importance of movement in the descriptions of the Spirit. The Spirit blows like the wind, breathes like air in and out of the lungs, flows like water from a fountain, hovers and descends like a bird. Some images (wind, breath, and spirit) signify both the invisibility of the Spirit and the unmistakable evidence of his presence.

Even more than that, if we examine these images in detail, we see a repeated connection to God’s life, love, pleasure, and delight. The streams of God’s river make glad the city of God (Psalm 46:4). The love of God is “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). When the servant of the Lord is anointed with God’s Spirit, he gives “the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit” (Isaiah 61:3).

This is no surprise since the Spirit is closely tied to God’s love throughout the Bible. Consider 1 John 4. There we learn that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and that to abide in love is to abide in God and to have God abide in us (4:12; 4:16). And we know that we abide in him and he abides in us “by the Spirit he has given us” (4:13; 4:18). It’s almost as though God abiding, love abiding, and the Spirit abiding are different ways of expressing the same reality.

Psalm 36:7–9 brings together God’s steadfast love with the imagery of a bird who provides shelter, the fatness of God’s house (connected to oil), and a river and fountain.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!     The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.They feast on the abundance of your house,     and you give them drink from the river of your delights.For with you is the fountain of life;     in your light do we see light.

Spirit of the Groom — and Bride

All of these reach their climax in the baptism of Jesus. Here we have the incarnate Son of God at a river flowing with water. He is baptized in that water, and as he emerges, the Spirit descends upon him like a dove in what other passages call an anointing. And then God the Father speaks with his breath, bringing all of the imagery together with clear and unambiguous words: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matthew 3:16–17).

In truth, the baptism of Jesus is the beginning of the climax. The Spirit-inspired Scriptures turn our eyes to the incarnate Christ. This Spirit then leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tested, and then propels him back into Israel to announce the arrival of God’s kingdom. God’s Spirit empowers Jesus for his ministry and strengthens him as he walks the Calvary Road. This River is so potent that it flows uphill, as Jesus climbs Golgotha with a cross on his back. And the Spirit blows through the empty tomb so that Jesus, the second Adam, becomes the life-giving Spirit.

Now, the same Spirit is poured out on God’s people, flowing into our lives with God’s love and joy, and out of our lives in fruitful service to others, all while giving us voice so that the Spirit and the bride, God’s Dove and Christ’s beloved, say to their heavenly Groom, “Come!”

We live in times of polarization and fragmentation. In many places, the ties that have historically bound societies together are coming apart.

Our own society has been brewing a strong and growing distrust of everything under the sun. We don’t trust many of our elected leaders and government officials. We don’t have high confidence in our medical and health authorities. We have doubts about the agendas and intentions of large corporations. Our suspicions about media and news outlets have reached new heights. We have been let down by our educational systems at nearly every level. And the church has not been immune to our cynicism. We have even approached the bride of Christ with wariness and uncertainty.

All this fear is exacerbated, of course, by the Internet and the 24/7 news cycle. Social media, in particular, amplifies our distrust and rewards our outrage. As a result, many of us are less happy, less trusting, and more angry than ever. Division and angst have become like oxygen. Over time, it can feel like any remnant of hope might be slowly eroding, like a sandcastle at high tide.

Painful Polarity in the Pews

As I said, the church has not been immune to the polarization. Congregations have had to navigate higher levels of conflict, controversy, and contentiousness. The pain of divisions in our pews is disheartening. Here we are, the blood-bought people of God, united by Christ, but divided over so much else. This state of affairs has some of us wishing we were still arguing over whether to sing contemporary worship songs or what color carpet to lay in the sanctuary.

As a pastor of a church, a church I love to pastor, I would personally be glad to never have to talk about COVID, vaccines, social distancing, and the efficacy of masks ever again. While it was a privilege to shepherd our people through a pandemic compounded by political and social turmoil, it was also punishing at times. I’ve now added “global-health crisis,” “mass protests and riots,” and “the threat of nuclear war” to my list of “things I never learned in seminary.”

It’s good to be reminded that polarization in the church is not new. In fact, it’s a problem as old as the church. Already in Acts 6, the Greek-speaking Jews complained that their widows were being neglected (Acts 6:1). Paul admonishes another church for its divisions, quarreling, jealousy, and strife (1 Corinthians 1:10–11; 3:4). They found superiority in their allegiances to either Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, forgetting that Christ is all in all.

Again and again, through Scripture and church history, when sinful people consistently gather, they consistently sin against one another and eventually turn on one another.

Paradox of Christ

The writer of Hebrews tells us to cast off our sin that clings so closely, and instead look to Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2). By looking to Jesus — and his paradoxical qualities — we find help to navigate our polarized age.

“Jesus doesn’t fit into any of our neat and tidy categories or tribes.”

Jesus doesn’t fit into any of our neat and tidy categories or tribes. He is pro-justice, pro-mercy, and pro-life. Jesus is gentle and lowly in heart, and he also will return to make war against his enemies. He is the meekest man that ever walked on earth, yet he will strike down the rebellious nations and tread the winepress of God’s wrath (Revelation 19:11–15). He will save to the uttermost with unparalleled grace and mercy, and he will rule with a rod of iron.

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) draws out Jesus’s unique and paradoxical qualities in a famous sermon: “The Excellency of Christ.” Jesus is both lion and lamb. He possesses lionlike qualities: ferocious, powerful, regal, and appropriately terrifying. He is full of power, glory, and dominion. A lamb is quite the opposite: gentle, vulnerable, an animal of prey. How can Jesus be both? How is he both judge of all creation and a friend of sinners? How is he both priest and atoning sacrifice? How is he both strong and gentle, worthy and lowly, infinitely holy yet merciful toward his enemies?

This is the wonderful paradox of Jesus. He holds together seemingly opposite excellencies in one God-man.

His Excellencies Undo Us

Typically, we gravitate to the ways Jesus is more like us; we align with those excellencies more natural to our personality and wiring. Who he is, however, admonishes us all to not be one-sided or one-dimensional. Jesus’s example and teaching cuts both ways, admonishing us and encouraging each of us to be more Christlike than we are.

For example, tender believers may be quick to revel in the compassion of Christ: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). They may resonate deeply with Jesus’s weeping outside Lazarus’s tomb (John 11:35). Meanwhile, zealous-for-truth believers might admire his woes to the Pharisees. They may resonate more with Jesus’s rebuke of Peter: “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23).

Those of us who are naturally inclined toward compassion and sympathy need to learn from his courageous conviction. We need to beware of minimizing the whole counsel of God to avoid hurting someone’s feelings or drawing harsh criticism. We will want to unashamedly portray the truth of Christ accurately — all of it — even as we comfort and care for hurting people. And we might be slow to condemn those contending for truth in the public square who don’t do it exactly the way we would. The gospel will necessarily offend some, and standing for truth in a world set against the truth will require courage and boldness, and may even appear quarrelsome in some eyes.

The same is true for those who speak the truth more freely. Some of us are quite gifted at saying the hard thing, but need to grow in doing so with love. If we can speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13:1). We will pray for greater compassion and sympathy, being quick to listen and weep with those who weep. Proverbs reminds us, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). Do our words, and the hearts behind those words, consistently reflect the priorities of Christ? We want to become the kind of paradox that we treasure and follow in Jesus.

As you study him, watch where you lean and where you lean away, and then deliberately lean into the diverse excellencies of Christ. Find courage in his example. Where you are prone to wander, work to realign yourself more and more to our North Star.

Truly Great Excellencies

Excellencies is an old-fashioned word meant to ascribe extreme value to someone or something. Royalty would be addressed as “your Excellency.” For Jesus, however, it’s not just a title, but a true and accurate description of all that he is. He excels in his love and grace, in his compassion and justice, in his rule and reign.

“Jesus has no blind spots, weaknesses, or deficiencies. He is all glorious in his diverse excellencies.”

Short of glory, we’re all in process. We’re finite. We’re sinners being conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Our instincts are being honed by God’s word and the power of his Spirit. And as he conforms us to himself, our glorious Savior — the Lion and the Lamb — lacks nothing. In every circumstance, our paradoxical Savior speaks the perfect word. He never lacks compassion, and he never shrinks back from a rebuke. He has no blind spots, weaknesses, or deficiencies. He is all glorious in his diverse excellencies.

Therefore, strive to think, feel, speak, and do more as Christ would in this polarized world, and delight yourself in daily receiving his all-surpassing glory and goodness.

Then it came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave. (The Pilgrim’s Progress)

These words from Faithful still expose the sweet talk of the old self. We need the Holy Spirit to bring it hot to mind: whatever our lusts promise, however they compliment, when they get us home, they mean to throw us in a pit and sell us for a slave.

The apostle Peter rings the alarm: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). For somebody to assault your body is treacherous enough, but here we find an assault on the soul — and that by our own mutinous passions. Peter pleads, Don’t embrace your soul’s murderer; don’t welcome your soul’s foe through the front gates. These are compelling entreaties for anyone who knows what a soul is. One assumes that discovering our flesh with soul-daggers up its sleeves would be enough to motivate any reasonable person to mandate pat downs at the gates. But then again, we are not always reasonable.

Weaponized Hope

The liquor of sin makes us drunk and stupid. Sin crouches at the door, and its desire is for us. How adamant its demands, how loud its knockings, how dear and costly and bloody the necessary resistance — “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell” (Matthew 5:30).

With such a seductive tyrant, Peter sends another mighty reason to defend the gate, one easy to overlook: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” He does not appeal to us as farmers or carpenters or even as soldiers; he implores the church to kill sin based on our identity as pilgrims and outcasts. Refuse the world’s lusts as a people of the Spirit, a people not of this world, a people not yet home. Heaven’s joys will slay earth’s sins.

Has your heavenly hope ever reached its blade down to earth and stabbed your strongest temptations? Peter wants you to wield your heavenly citizenship; he wants your heavenly home and future to fill the skies with swords that everywhere reach down and behead the lusts of the flesh. “Christian,” Peter urges, “this world is not safe for you — its passions deceive, its pleasures enslave, its glories will perish. Our feet are not yet in Zion. The world and all its desires are passing away, sinking like a cannon-torn ship into the abyss. If you allow them, the appetites of the old you will fasten you to the deck.”

“As we pass through the world, we seek to bless the world with a knowledge of how they, too, can be saved from the wrath to come.”

But Peter also reminds us that a paradise awaits the faithful: a place you half-expect is too good to be real, with a Person you only half-believe will sit you at his table and serve you after all you’ve done (Luke 12:37). But the grace of our Lord is not like man’s, and he has prepared a place, solely from his good pleasure, for us who receive the kingdom. And he sends his apostle with a message: “Beloved, as sojourners and exiles, ready any minute to be called away to feast at my table, make war against that which makes war against your future with me.”

Moses, an Illustration

Isn’t Moses a vibrant example for us? The author of Hebrews thought so. He offers him as a living testimony of a man whose understanding of himself as an exile, a son of Israel in a foreign palace, armed him against the best the world could offer his flesh. His self-understanding birthed his self-denial.

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. (Hebrews 11:24–26)

Moses did not merely prefer to be known as an Israelite, a race of slaves; he refused to be named among Egypt’s household. He would be an exilic son of the true God and not a son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He was a sojourner in Egypt and thus considered the sufferings of his Messiah greater wealth than the dainties of the damned. Manful Moses said in his heart, “Away with this stick you call a ‘scepter,’ away with this name you call ‘noble,’ away with these pleasures you label ‘safe,’ these sins you call ‘joy,’ these idols you call ‘gods,’ and draw near you beatings, you banishment, you scorn and you shame, for I look beyond these griefs to the reward in Immanuel’s land.”

He knew, as Jeremiah Burroughs writes,

There is a great difference between the prosperity of the wicked, and that which the godly have. God carries his people when he exalts them, as the Eagle her young upon her wings, he exalts them to safety (Job 5:11). . . . But when God exalts the wicked, he lifts them up as the eagle lifts up her prey in her talons, he lifts them up to destroy them. (Moses, His Choice, 101)

By faith, he foresaw his people headed toward the promised land and Pharaoh’s crown sunk at the bottom of the sea, motionless. His choosing a home not with the women, the money, the power, the gods of Egypt was eminently practical. In leaving, he left to “a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called [his] God, for he has prepared for [him] a city” (Hebrews 11:16). So, as a sojourner and exile, he abstained from the passions of the flesh and even valued the reproach of the Messiah as better wealth because “he was looking to the reward.”

Exiled to Glory

Christian, you don’t belong in this world — how often do you consider that? Do you openly acknowledge it, and make plain through speech, that you seek a homeland (Hebrews 11:13–14)? And does the hope of home, the glory of home, the God who is your home, equip you to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul?

Peter writes his letter “to those who are elect exiles . . .” (1 Peter 1:1). But this tells us more than that we are not citizens of this world anymore — he does not leave our name tags blank. We are elect exiles, chosen exiles, estranged from the world and forgotten, but at home and remembered by our God, who chose us out of the world by his grace. And as elect exiles, God has chosen us out of the world to serve as a spiritual blessing while in this world:

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9–10)

As we pass through the world, we seek to bless others with a knowledge of how they too can be saved from the wrath to come. We travel along, resisting the world’s temptations and the flesh’s enticements to them, living out our exile in the knowledge it soon will end. Peter summarizes:

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:13–19)

Isn’t that beautiful? Don’t you want to live like this? Shunning shameful and former passions, thriving as obedient children to our holy heavenly Father, fulfilling our earthly exile with that power purchased by the blood of Christ? Such a life requires a mind set fully on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Or, like Moses, a mind looking to the reward.

So, by faith, and as sojourners and exiles, we refuse “to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin,” for we look to a future with Christ. We are exiles, but exiles soon to be welcomed to that homeland of eternal life and glory and fellowship with God himself in the new Jerusalem.