Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Words as Manifestation of God's Spirit
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Proverbs 18:21
This verse is a little vague in the last phrase. What do you love, death or life? The one that we love we will eat the fruit of. Will we eat the fruit of death? Or will we eat the fruit of life? Anybody's words are spirit; Jesus is not the only one whose words are spirit (John 6:63). The difference between us and Him is that His words are always life. His words are always abundant, eternal, or everlasting life. They surcharge the air to move us, our hearts, our minds, our spirits in the direction that they are moving. If we would yield to them, we can be carried along by them all the way into the Kingdom of God. This is why there is life in them! Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of any of us—that our words are life—because often times our words carry death with them. They do not go forth in the best of attitudes, backed with a unclear understanding of what is really going on, and all too often we speak far too hastily and emotionally. What the Bible calls "spirit" can be communicated. It is almost as if it surcharges the environment. The words and the disposition or environment in which they are delivered and received are important to its communication. How many times have we said something to somebody who became confused, upset, angry, or frustrated at what we said, and we had to apologize or explain further by saying, "Well, that's not what I meant"? Yet, that was how the receiver heard it. Things were communicated that to the recipient colored what was sent. Communication is a terribly difficult aspect of life.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part Four)
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Proverbs 25:11
Jesus says in John 6:63 that His "words are spirit, and they are life." These proverbs add that anybody's words are what the Bible calls "spirit." There is nothing material, nothing visible, happening, but words and attitudes nevertheless generate emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral reactions. They can induce and compel powerful reactions, such as murder, on the bad side, or joy unspeakable, where we just do not have the words to communicate that we are so happy, on the good. Yet, nothing really happens except spirit passing from one person to another—nothing, that is, that we would call physical, material. Nothing touches us but the meaning of a word, a disposition, or an attitude that is communicated.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part Four)
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Isaiah 11:1-4
Each of the qualities of the mind is named to encourage us that this One, Jesus Christ, will hand down judgments of the highest quality. "Spirit" is the general word used to indicate those internal, immaterial, and unseen qualities of mind that energize and activate. We can see, both from God's Word and also from our own experiences, that they can be good or evil, edifying or destructive, clean or foul, generous or miserly, selfless or selfish, cheerful or depressive, positive or negative, etc. However, spirit always affects: It moves, activates, generates, impels, and creates in the direction of its force. Why are cheerleaders used at football and basketball games? Is it not to generate a spirit? One cannot see the spirit that is energized. It is invisible, unseen. This illustration is no different in principle from what the Bible means by its use of "spirit."
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part Two)
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John 6:62-63
Jesus' answer to their incomprehension is to point them to His authority, saying in effect, "If you see the Son of man ascending to heaven, will this not prove where He came from, as well as the authority of His words that you just heard? My flesh cannot benefit you. Stop thinking that I was literally asking you to eat My flesh or drink My blood. It is My spirit, My person in the act of sacrificing Myself, that bestows and sustains spiritual life, even everlasting life. The words that I have spoken to you are full of My spirit and therefore My life." Unbelief lay at the root of their problem, so they could not understand.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Eating: How Good It Is! (Part Four)
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John 6:63
This is a simple yet profound statement. God's Spirit is truly more than words, but to understand this point, it is enough to know that God's words—"the words I speak to you," as Jesus says—are spirit, and they play a large role in producing the abundant life God intends we live. This quality of life is not achieved through physical things. Material things can be helpful, but without the true concepts contained within God's Word, the abundant quality will be missing because true abundance ultimately depends upon spiritual things, not material ones.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Eating: How Good It Is! (Part Three)
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John 6:63
"Life" implies a quality beyond what is available to mankind by nature. This verse provides a firm basis to connect God's pure Word—with its wisdom and guidance as the foundation of a sound mind—to an abundant life.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Eating: How Good It Is! (Part Four)
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John 6:63
Here, the difference between God's Holy Spirit and our spirit is noted. God's Spirit (His Word, His thoughts, His way) always produces life—eternal life—the way God lives. Jesus was made a life-giving Spirit, and He is the High Priest. As High Priest, He is in charge of the administration of life (see II Corinthians 3). The difference between the two covenants is that the priesthood under the Old Covenant could not administer life, but the Priesthood under the New Covenant administers life by providing the Spirit of God to the mind of man. Demons and men cannot truthfully claim what Jesus claimed here, that His Spirit is life. Man's spirit, like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, produces death, because it produces sin.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part One)
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John 6:63
Notice what one of the main manifestations of God's Spirit is: words. The entire revelation of God - the Bible - is composed of words. If His Word is not a manifestation of God's Spirit, we do not know what is! Many of these words are the words of God Himself. Many of them are words of God's servants that have been written down for our admonition. Everything, though, comes down to words because the way of God is a set of ideas. These ideas we put down on paper as words, or when we speak, we speak them as words. We cannot understand them otherwise. The servant of God may do other works. He can perform healings, which are not necessarily manifested as words, although often words accompany a healing, specifically a prayer. Casting out demons is similar, as there is usually a prayer involved. Miracles, too, often involve certain words that are spoken to beseech God to act. But the works themselves - the healings, the casting out of demons, the miracles - are not words, but they are manifestations of the Spirit. However, the primary job of a servant of God is to speak or to write words to convict people of God's truth. So, in the speaking or in the writing of words, he witnesses for God. In the end, in the final analysis, the witness of the Two Witnesses is words. They will give evidence, testimony, for God.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Two Witnesses (Part Four)
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1 Corinthians 2:10-12
God had the gospel preached to us through the medium of words. We believed them, and having been freed from enslavement to deception and spiritual ignorance by God's calling and forgiveness through Christ's blood, we now have access to a new and infinitely larger dimension of life. Beyond that, we now possess the raw material for our minds to produce the fruit of Spirit of God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fruit of the Spirit
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2 Corinthians 5:21
The living Word of God, Jesus Christ, never sinned; there was never a life so completely unleavened as His. Jesus Himself says, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). What came out of Christ's mouth were words that were uncorrupted, untainted by a carnal heart in any way. They were totally and completely spiritual and eternally pure. The Word of God, in terms of His words and His example, has been given to us to be the basis of our thinking.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Freedom and Unleavened Bread
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Revelation 12:15
Revelation 12:15 shows the serpent, Satan, spewing a torrent of "water out of His mouth like a flood"! Aimed directly at the woman, that torrent is a diabolical and merciless attempt to sweep her away! In John 7:38-39, water clearly represents God's Holy Spirit. This usage, in turn, has a direct connection to another usage important to this article and understanding Revelation 12:15-16. In this regard, Paul writes, "That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word" (Ephesians 5:26), and Jesus adds, "It is the Spirit [which] gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Words, like water, have awesome power to do good or bad. They can give life like Jesus' words, or they can devastate and destroy like a flood of water when it is out of control. Interestingly, Revelation 12:15 pictures this flood spurting from the serpent's mouth, the very place on the body where words emanate! This flood may someday materialize as a real army, but today Satan is inundating the world with such a torrent of appealing misinformation that some of God's people are being swept away. They are not yet lost because our God is more powerful than Satan, and He can save from the uttermost. But many are putting themselves into spiritual—and perhaps even physical—danger by being distracted from God's focus, the Kingdom of God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Flood Is Upon Us!
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