How does the Bible describe God's Spirit? Fr. George Smiga reflects on the relationship between spirit, breath, and human dignity.
Names are important. They color the way the world is perceived. “Husband” and “Sweetheart” may refer to the same person, but each word carries its own nuance. Words are particularly crucial when they refer to God. As pure spirit, God cannot be seen or examined. In naming God, words must be drawn from human experience to capture even a hint of God’s being. Words are always limited, yet we must use them to try to express what is inexpressible. The scriptural word for God’s Spirit is a prime example of such a dynamic.
The Hebrew word for “spirit” (ruach) describes a phenomenon of nature: a movement of air. Ruach can also be translated as “wind” or “breath.” Originally the term was used to describe a gentle breeze, a powerful storm, or the inhaling and exhaling of a living being. But the way moving air can be sensed and yet remain unseen renders it a fitting metaphor for the action of the invisible God. The Scriptures often employ the word in this “divine sense.” When the Bible speaks of the “wind of God,” the “breath of God,” or the “spirit of God,” it is using a movement of air to name God’s presence and power.
Human breath is moving air at its most personal. Without the movement of breathing, human life does not exist. Humans breathe to live. But the breath within them is the breath of God. Job 27:3-4 illustrates this: “So long as I still have life breath in me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak falsehood, nor my tongue utter deceit.” The point is made even stronger in Job 33:4: “For the spirit of God made me, the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive.” Since God is the origin of human life and breath, it is an easy step for the Scriptures to identify human breath with God’s breath.
The belief that God’s breath is within the human person expresses a deep intimacy between God and humanity. The most visual description of this intimate relationship occurs within the second creation account of the Bible, Genesis 2:4-25.
Whereas the creation account of Genesis 1 presents the formation of the various structures of the world—the sky, the gathering of waters, and the heavenly bodies—the story of Genesis 2 focuses on human beings. In Genesis 2:7, God creates by fashioning the first human from the dust of the earth: “[T]hen the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” In this scene, God can be pictured as a potter, forming something new from common clay. But once God’s work has been shaped, it still must live. So God blows into the nostrils of what was made “the breath of life.” The human person comes to life by receiving the breath and spirit of God.
The belief that we carry within us the breath of God instills a fundamental dignity to every human person. People may be characterized as wounded, physically or mentally challenged, strangers, or even enemies. But prior to any of these qualifications, every person breathes. The movement of inhaling and exhaling is the indication of God’s indwelling, the movement of God’s Spirit. Therefore, dismissal of or violence toward any human person is an assault against the very life of God. Whenever we encounter another person, the Spirit of God is in the air. Human breath should remind us of where God is found.
This article has been adapted from The Holy Spirit in the Bible, a new Bible study by Fr. George Smiga.
George M. Smiga, STD, is a nationally known author and lecturer in Scripture and homiletics. A priest of the Diocese of Cleveland,
Fr. Smiga serves on the faculty of St. Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology. He is the author of Little Rock Scripture Study’s Angels in the Bible and The Holy Spirit in the Bible. Fr. Smiga writes a monthly column for Living with Christ and contributes regularly to Give Us This Day. Visit him at buildingontheword.org.
Now available! Includes free online video lectures to help you dig even deeper!
In The Holy Spirit in the Bible, George Smiga unpacks key Scripture passages, exploring the dynamic activity of the Spirit as revealed in the Bible and in our lives today. Learn, pray, and reflect with this informative, thought-provoking resource.
"It is sometimes remarked that, among the Persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the most neglected. George Smiga’s The Holy Spirit in the Bible goes a long way towards leading its readers into prayerful consideration of who the Spirit is and what the Spirit does from a biblical perspective."
Gilberto A. Ruiz, Associate Professor of New Testament, Saint Anselm College
