BibleProject - An Outbreak of the Spirit in Luke

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Spirit of God E9 — Our conversation on the Spirit of God is turning  the corner from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament. The word for “spirit” in the Greek New Testament is pneuma, and like ruakh, it also means “wind,” “breath,” and personal energy related to a person or deity. While all the gospels mention the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, Luke is the leader by far with 78 references in his two-part collection of Luke-Acts. In this episode, Jon and Tim explore how deeply the Holy Spirit is integrated into the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.CHAPTERSThe Spirit Filling John and Conceiving Jesus (0:00-17:50)The Spirit Anointing Jesus for Ministry (17:50-32:16)The Spirit Spreads to the Many (32:16-45:02)Jesus Gives Up His Spirit and Receives a New Spiritual Body (45:02-1:02:20)OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode’s official transcript.REFERENCED RESOURCESTim quotes from New Testament scholar Andrew Remington Rillera’s book The Lamb of the Free: “The consistent message throughout the entire NT is not that Jesus died instead of us, rather, Jesus dies ahead of us so that we can unite with him and be conformed to the image of his death.”The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. WrightCheck out Tim's extensive collection of recommended books here.SHOW MUSIC“Radiance” by Lofi Sunday feat. solae“Dissonance” by Lofi Sunday feat. Just Derrick“date night” by Lofi Sunday feat. Cassidy GodwinBibleProject theme song by TENTS SHOW CREDITSProduction of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey and Aaron Olsen edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty writes the show notes. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Bible Project Podcast. We're halfway through a series on the Spirit of God. In Hebrew, it's the word ruach. It's the invisible, personal, life-giving energy of God that sustains and empowers everything. Today, we turn to the scrolls in the Bible written in Greek. And in Greek, there's a word that perfectly translates the Hebrew word ruach. That's the word, Nama.

Now, I learned to pronounce this word Numa with a silent P. But there's a lot of new evidence that it was. pronounced Pannuma, or even Penevma. But however you pronounce it, it's the Greek way to talk about Ruach. Penevma has the same range of meaning as the Hebrew ruach, meaning wind or breath or personal energy of a human or of a deity. So we can take everything we've discussed up till now about God's ruach and bring it with us into the New Testament.

We will begin our journey looking at the Spirit of God in the Gospel of Luke. and the Spirit is mentioned more in Luke and Acts than in any of the other narrative accounts in the New Testament. So this is the place, the Gospel of the Spirit. In Luke, an angel tells Mary that she'll give birth to Israel's Messiah, and Mary asks, how will this be since I'm a virgin? And the angel responds, that the Holy Pannuma will come on you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. That word overshadow you. It's used of the glory cloud of God that comes to settle over the tabernacle and then

fill it up with divine presence, the Holy Spirit is filling Mary to bring about a union of divine and human. In the Hebrew Bible, we only encounter a few characters filled with God's spirit. But as the gospel of Luke opens, there's a lot of spirit going down. John the Baptist is filled with the spirit while still in the womb. His mother, feeling John Kick, is filled with the spirit. His father breaks out in a spirit-filled song. And a man named Simeon, filled with the Spirit, meets baby Jesus in the temple. And this is all in the first two chapters. Luke's pulling out all the stops and just trying to say everything about Jesus of Nazareth,

his conception, all his family members. It's an outpouring of the Spirit. This outpouring of the Spirit continues, leading Jesus into his public ministry. And then the Spirit spills out from Jesus to his disciples. We'll look at a story where Jesus sends out 72 of his followers. and they come back rejoicing, telling Jesus that they've been able to do the same things that Jesus does, proclaim the good news, heal the sick, and cast out demons. The Spirit is moving out through the one, Jesus, out to the many.

Even before Pentecost, it was starting. It's pretty wild. And in response to their joy, Jesus starts rejoicing in the Spirit as he prays to the Father. Jesus is saying, this is what you love to do, Dad. You reunite heaven and earth, but in people and in ways that nobody would have ever predicted or saw coming. Today, Tim Mackey and I explore the Spirit of God in the New Testament, beginning with the Gospel of Luke. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim.

Hi, John. Hello. Hello. We're talking Spirit of God. And we get to now move into the New Testament. Yes. Yeah. And we're going to look at the Gospel of Luke.

Yes, we are. And we're going to look at how the Spirit of God shows up in the Gospel of Luke. Yes, in the last conversation, we had a surprise, which are my favorite surprises, is when a whole conversation unfolds that we didn't know what was going to happen. But we recapped in the last episode, all the themes and main ideas that we traced about Spirit of God in the Hebrew Bible. So I don't think there's a need to recap here. What we said is we want to now dive into the New Testament, and then specifically the portrait of the Spirit's role in the story of Jesus in Luke

and then in the story of his followers in Acts because it's a two-volume work. And the Spirit is mentioned more in Luke and Acts than in any of the other narrative accounts in the New Testament. So this is the place. Yeah. The Gospel of the Spirit. It's the one way to think about the Gospel. So should we just dive in? Yeah.

Okay. We're doing an inductive search for the spirit. Inductive meaning... We're just going to go from the first occurrences and trace them through. Yeah. And see where the conversation goes. Okay. All right.

So the Gospel of Luke begins actually not directly with Jesus or Mary, but rather with some relatives of Mary. And it all begins with a priest in Jerusalem, a guy named Zecharias. And he goes in to do... his duties in the temple. He's offering some incense and space of the temple. And he has this vision of a shiny spiritual being talking to him, saying that you and your wife, Elizabeth, even though you're really old, you're going to have a child, like a surprised child in your old age. And now quoting from Luke chapter 1, verse 15, you will rejoice at the birth of this child. and he, that is

it's a son, is going to be great in the eyes of the Lord he won't drink any wine or any like liquor which is, that's a hyperlink to a very significant idea in the Torah.

The Nazarene Thou? Nazarite. Nazarite. Nazarite. Yes. Yeah. Which means somebody who's set apart Nazir means to be set apart. Okay. Yeah. And you grow long hair. Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. So you don't drink the fruit of the garden and have, like, natural long hair. There's other things, too, right? Those are the main ones, and then, like, stay away from all forms of ritual and purity. Okay. As much as possible. Creecely in that way. Yeah, it's like a way that a normal Israelite could take on the priestly level of set apartness.

Okay. He will be filled up with the Penevmatas Agu, meaning the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Holiness. So this is the first mention of Spirit in the New Testament. He will be filled up with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb. That's a rad little puzzle right there. Interesting. What's the puzzle? Well, we typically associate breath.

Yeah. Outside the womb. With something that you take after you're born. Because ancient people knew as much as we do that humans. don't inhale air till we come out of our mother's womb. Because penuma also means breath in Greek. Yes. So the Greek word, Pnevma or Pnevma. Penevma.

Penevma. That Greek word has almost the same exact range of meaning as the Hebrew Ruhach, meaning wind or breath or personal energy of a human or of a deity. Okay. Because it's holy penuma. So it's God's penuma. breath, but it's filling him before he's ever taken a breath of Pnefma. Preloaded.

It's preloaded. So he's so full of God's presence before he even inhales a breath of air. So the first uses of spirit in Luke are one making this play on spirit and breath. John is going to live on God's presence more than his own. Life breath. Yeah. Which is just such a cool image to be so in tune with God's will that it is your life breath, more than your own life breath. When you're a child in the womb, you're not breathing.

Right. But you're still surviving. In fact, thriving. Yeah, and moving and being energized. Yeah, and developing. And once you're outside of the womb, then you start breathing. Yeah. So, okay.

He is going to be filled up with that. spirit in such a way that he's going to channel the spirit and power of Elijah. Isn't that interesting? The spirit of Elijah. The same ruach for Hebrew Bible, an animated spirit of Elijah, because he's an example of somebody who got an extra supercharged boost of spirit. Did we look at any of those? Of Elijah?

No, but the ruach comes on him. Okay. And that is going to be John's. It's an interesting union of John. and Elijah, as it were, connected by and it's connected with power. This is very important. The connection of spirit and power

are super common and significant in Luke. Okay. It's almost, you could say, synonymous. If you've got the Holy Penema in you, you got power. You got power. You got supercharge. Okay, so that's John.

After the angel gives that announcement to Zechariah, the priest, that angel comes to a young Jewish teenage girl named Mariam. And he says famous words to her, you know, don't be afraid, you found favor with God. You are going to conceive in your womb and give birth to a son. You shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, which is what the angel said about John.

He will be called the son of the Most High One, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. like, whoa, okay. Yeah, it's big. This is like royal language here. Son of God and son of David. He's going to reign as a king forever. His kingdom will have no end.

You're like, well, that's right from the book of Daniel, chapter 7. And Mary asks a very practical, practical, intuitive question. How can this be since, she says, I have not known a man, not been with a man. So what we're talking about now is a question of conception. The story is trying to give an account of how it is that Jesus was conceived. Yeah. If Mary never knew a man. And what the angel says is,

the holy Pnevma will come upon you, and the power, Dinaemis, of the most high, will overshadow you. There it is again, the power. Yep, spirit and power. And that's the reason why the holy child, will be called Son of God. So whether or not the answer satisfies all our curiosities, that is the answer to our question.

So Holy Spirit will come upon you. Power of Most High will overshadow you. And then the child that's generated out of that event is called the Holy Child that is the Son of God. Yeah, it's interesting to compare these two stories. John the Baptist, he's going to be set apart with the Holy Spirit. Yeah, filled with the Holy Spirit. Even from the womb.

We're talking about a fetus, even. It's assumed that the child is going to be produced by Zechariah and Elizabeth, like a normal way, even though it's a surprise because they're old. Yeah. But it's Zechariah's son. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get to Mary and takes an even bigger step.

Yeah, because it doesn't say the spirit's going to fill like infant Jesus. What it says is the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you so that the very conception, like the egg, right? The conception is on the brain here. How was this child conceived? And it's not like male seed plus female egg. It's divine energy plus female egg. There's no female egg in this story. The Holy Spirit will come upon you.

The presumption is there is something within Mary that the spirit is joining with to generate. Not the womb. Could be just the womb. Oh, well, okay. But sex is on the brain. Because she asks, I have not known a man. Okay. And so in the place of where you would think like, oh, the man.

In the place of the man. You get the holy Pnevma comes over you, and a child is going to be conceived of that union. But it's a union of divine and human. Right. And so by saying that it is Mary's egg really does highlight the divine and human. Yeah. We're at ground zero of the very important starting point of all Christian reflection on the incarnation. and the union of divine and human

in the womb of Mary. It's Mary's body. Jesus is made of Mary's body, but not of another human's body. Well, because you could say just carried by Mary's body. You're saying made of Mary's body. Yeah, yes.

For sure. For sure. I mean, it's not like a little fully formed human was just like somehow zapped to appear within Mary. It's a child was conceived. I want to make sure we're not taking

this for granted, what's supposed to happen is sperm and egg together. That creates a human. So we're already bypassing the way it's meant to happen. That's right. Yeah. So I guess the question is, why not go one step further and say the whole thing, the whole, the package deal delivered into the womb by the spirit was not Mary at all. Yeah, I see. I see. Was just the transcendent other put in. And then maybe you'd get a more Gnostic kind of idea of Jesus, which is Jesus will actually

just appear to be human. Exactly. It's truly other. Yes. And we know that was a view that took root early in the Christian movement. And you can see debates about that are happening in the letters of John, in the New Testament. And John's like, yeah, that's not who Jesus is or what Jesus taught and what we teach about

Jesus. Yeah. this is why in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and this is early, like in the 300s, the title Theotokos, God birther, her godbearer, was used of Mary, the one who birthed God. Yeah. Which is a bold thing to say.

You can birth a child that's not yours, right? The surrogate mothers. You can be implanted with a fertilized egg. Yeah, yeah. But that's a modern, I don't think that could even have been imaginable. That would not even have been imaginable to the agent. No. Yeah, that makes sense.

Okay. So this story is putting the spirit in the place of, you know, the one providing seed. The Holy Pneuma will come upon you. What's interesting, that word overshadow you. The power of the most high will overshadow you. Overshadow. I'd actually just before we talked, I looked this up again real quick. The Greek word is Episcayazzo, and it's used just a handful of times, actually, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in the Septuagint.

It's used of the cloud that overshadows the glory cloud of God that comes to settle over the tabernacle and then fill it up with divine presence. In Exodus chapter 40, Moses couldn't enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, And then the glory filled the tabernacle. So for settling, that was the overshadow? And then the Septuagint translators, who rendered the Hebrew Bible into Greek, rendered the cloud settling on it with this word, Episcayatso. It's very interesting that Luke uses the word used of God's glory presence that overshadowed and then filled. He uses that same word to describe the spirit coming over Mary.

And it doesn't say filling her, but that is the implication because it's going to fertilize an egg in your womb and then conceive a baby. It's remarkable, man. So just as this glory presence filled the tabernacle to create a little micro Eden in the midst of Israel, so the Holy Spirit is filling Mary to bring about a union of divine and human, which is what Eden is about. Eden's the heaven meets earth spot. And Jesus is divine meets human in the womb of Mary. Many mysteries to meditate on here. Okay, we spent some time there.

That's a good one. So that's the second time the Spirit appears in the narrative. Next appearance is Mary, who's now pregnant, goes to visit Elizabeth, who's also pregnant. So we got Jesus and John in the womb. And when Elizabeth hears Mary enter the room and say, like, hey, Elizabeth, baby John, who's in the womb starts like, jumping, is the word, leaping. And Elizabeth is filled up with the Holy Spirit.

So you have John full of Holy Spirit. Jesus is the product of the Holy Spirit, the womb of Mary, and now the mother, Elizabeth, is full of the Holy Spirit. Then when John is born, Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit, and he prophesies, and he sings this beautiful song in Luke chapter one praising the god of Israel and forecasting in the language of all the prophets what John's about to go do so it's just the spirits everywhere yeah and we went out of our way in the last conversation to say that the spirit in the Hebrew Bible while everyone exists because of God's spirit being filled with God's spirit in this new way doesn't happen to everyone. In fact, it's rare and selective. Yes, yes. And sometimes very problematic. Yeah, yeah,

right. And so right out the gate to get so much spirit, these two characters, John and Jesus, even from the womb. Yes, yes. John from the womb, and then Jesus in some category busting way. Yep. Into the womb. And then... Here's John's parents. Here's John's parents. Yeah. And let's just make a note that just John moving in her belly made her filled with the spirit. Right, yeah. Isn't that, if I'm been tracking the way we've been tracking, that feels like, really? Yeah, this is all surprising.

This is like, whoa, God is really personally involved in the set of events. Okay. He's so present that not just Jesus. A little kick of the womb. But like John, and then his mom. Yeah. And then his dad. And then at the birth, his dad's full of the spirit prophesying.

Got it. You got it. Yep. So we move forward into chapter 2. John is born. Then Jesus is born. And like good, devout Jewish people, Mary, and then the man she's engaged or married to, Joseph, they bring Jesus on the 8th day to be circumcised. And they're in Jerusalem or near Jerusalem, so they bring him into the temple. And there is this guy named Simeon there, righteous man looking for the comfort of Israel, the consolation and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

In fact, it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he wouldn't die before he saw the Lord's Messiah. So he came in the temple in the spirit right when Jesus' parents brought him in to the temple. And so he took him up into his arms. He blessed God and sings this red poem that summarizes the book of Isaiah. It's rad.

So now we've got a simian whose he represents He's a priest, right? No, we're not told. He's just a righteous, devout guy who hangs out in the temple a lot. This sounds like a priest. Yeah, but he's not identified as priest.

He's just identified as a Bible nerd. I think Luke brings him in to turn the Hebrew Bible into a human character because Simeon represents the hope of the Hebrew scriptures. So he's an Israelite who's a Tanakh nerd who's waiting for everything the talk was pointing towards.

Yeah. So he shows up full of spirit as... You got it. As Jesus comes. Yeah. So that's just all the birth story. Yeah. And already it's like, whoa, it's an outbreak of the spirit. It's just spilling out everywhere. Next time it appears, Jesus goes down to meet John, the baptizer.

and John the baptizer said, listen, I'm getting Israel ready through a baptism of repentance, but somebody's coming who's stronger than I am, more powerful, and he's going to baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. And then Jesus shows up to be baptized by John, and what we're told is the Holy Spirit

comes on him in bodily form, some sort of physical form that looked like a bird over the waters, and a voice comes out of heaven. It's the father's voice. You are my son, whom I love, and you I'm well pleased. So Jesus is both conceived by the spirit, by the power, and then that's matched here by this endowment.

This is the more typical, the spirit coming upon somebody. We have models for this from the Hebrew scriptures. Yeah, but never in a bodily form, right? Oh, well, no, this is. very unique. In other words, and whether this was something only Jesus saw, which you can compare the Gospels on this account, but there was some sort of bird-like physical appearance as this presence descended upon him. But your point was that someone in their life having a moment where the Holy Spirit will come upon them so that they can then have the power to do a thing.

Right. That's a very clear Bible idea. That's right. where all these conversations prior of like a child in the womb being filled with the spirit, that's a brand new idea. That's right. I mean, the closest analogy is the human in the garden coming out of the dust of the earth and being filled with divine breath. The divine breath of God blown into the clay of Eden is probably the closest Hebrew Bible analogy to the Holy Spirit entering into the womb of Mary, to generate a life.

And Jesus is both that. So he is a new Adam and he's like a new David. Because here are the spirit coming upon a son of David to become a king to rule. We have language for that from the Hebrew Bible also. So he's 1.0 and 2.0, Jesus. Luke's pulling out all the stops

and just trying to say everything about Jesus of Nazareth, his conception, his transition into public life, announcing the kingdom of God, all his family members, even his extended family members. Yeah. The people around him when he was brought into the temple, even as a baby. Yeah. He's just, he's pouring it on. Yeah.

It's an outpouring of the spirit. Okay. We'll talk about Jesus' baptism a lot. I've never asked, and what sense does Jesus need to be filled with the spirit? Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. In other words, are we meant to imagine that he didn't have the spirit of God in some way?

Or he didn't have enough? Yeah, right. Yeah. I don't think that's what we're supposed to imagine here. But, you know, there's a little moment to this event that Matthew recounts that Luke doesn't, where John the Baptist says, why are you here doing this? Right. Like, I should get baptized by you.

And Jesus says, no, this is necessary to fulfill all righteousness or doing right. Meaning this is how Jesus is identifying himself with Israel in its tragic. condition. And if he's going to rescue his people from their sins, then he has to identify with Israel and join them in their sins, the condition of their consequence of their sins. So I think something similar going on here, where Jesus to truly carry Israel's vocation to its fulfillment, he is going into the waters of the Jordan through them. And just like the spirit was given as a gift to Israel, so now it is coming upon Jesus in especially potent form. What's interesting is the coming of the Spirit is coordinated with the voice

that's announcing something about Jesus that's not new. In other words, he's not right now becoming the Son of God. It's an announcement. It's just saying out loud what was already true of him. It's interesting to think about if Jesus is fully God, fully God's spirit having entered Mary, and this is what we were reflecting on with the story of God

overshadowing Mary that you can't be any more filled with the spirit than that. Right, yeah, if you're... Right, totally. You're tanked up with spirit. Right. I'm going to predict that in the history of

the conversation about that question, that it became important in Christian theology to say that Jesus was already as fully in union with the father as he ever was. Because that's the son's eternal identity is to be fully in union with the father in and through the love and presence of the spirit.

That's like an eternal fact. So what we're watching happen here, however, is the human Jesus experiencing the power of the spirit and whether it's a new way or it's a way that's announcing what has always already been true. Proclamation of what's true. In math, you've got the idea of infinity. And what's kind of crazy about the idea of infinity is like you can add infinity to infinity and still get infinity.

So maybe something similar here. It's like Jesus is fully filled with the spirit. And that doesn't mean you can't get filled with more spirit, right? Because you can add infinity to infinity. I see. Yeah, it's like a math analogy. Yeah, no, thank you. It's just a, it's just, you. It's just, just not a question that was on my mind as I was prepping for this. I think it's a very important question, so I don't want to answer it without giving the time it deserves. Yeah. But it's a good question. Because what's interesting is right after this, we're told Luke 4 verse 1, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness. So it does seem to register. Something happened at the baptism where it's like, okay, it's go time. Got him ready for something.

Now Jesus is full of the Spirit and is led around by the Spirit in the wilderness. And being led around in the wilderness is a hyperlink, big glowing hyperlink. To Israel in the wilderness. And what Israel was led around by in the wilderness was that glory cloud that overshadowed the temple and filled it. Yeah. What was Jesus led by? He was led by the Spirit. So this link, the spirit, Luke is putting into the slot that was filled in the Hebrew Bible by the glory cloud of Yahweh, Luke's putting the spirit into that slot.

Both overshadowing Mary and now leading Jesus around. Is that new? That doesn't happen in Hebrew Bible? That idea of being filled the spirit is kind of like God filling the temple? That connection was already made by the prophet Isaiah. That was, okay. Remember the phrase Holy Spirit appears two times in the Hebrew Bible. Yeah. One of them is in Isaiah 63. And he retells the story of Israel in the wilderness.

And what he says is that when Israel was rebelling against God in their midst, he says they rebelled against His Holy Spirit. Whereas in the wilderness narratives, it's God's presence in the cloud hovering over the tabernacle. and that's who they're, like, rebelling and grumbling against. But Isaiah says they were grumbling against the spirit in their midst. But that was the cloud in the midst. Yeah, so Isaiah's already put the spirit in the place of the cloud. And that's within the Hebrew Bible. Okay.

So I guess you could say Luke's following that lead. Got it. Yeah. Among the scrolls that Luke has internalized the deepest into his language, the Isaiah scroll is at the top of that list. Yeah. So after the baptism in the wilderness then, when Jesus finally enters onto the public scene,

Luke uniquely registers this transition as connected to the spirit. He says Jesus returned, that is from the wilderness, to Galilee in the power. There's power again, in the power of the spirit. And news about him spread all around. He began teaching in synagogues. He came to Nazareth on the Sabbath. And he stood up and read, oh, yeah.

He read from the scroll of the prophet, Isaiah. And what he reads is Isaiah 61, the spirit of the Lord is on me because he's anointed me to announce the good news. So this story of the Nazareth Isaiah scroll moment is unique to Luke. You won't find it in Mark or Matthew or John. And you're starting to pick up the theme.

Like, Luke really wants you to see that the outpouring of the spirit that Isaiah and Ezekiel that Moses hoped for, it's go time. Like, this is happening for the one. Yeah. Well, it's happening for the many, I guess, too. Yeah, it kind of was spilling out from the very beginning to the many around the one. You're right, but it is all about God's becoming human.

Yeah. And there's like this, I don't know, overflow effect of the spirit on the others who are around him. Yeah. because we are just now to where you would say Jesus is starting his mystery and we've already seen like what eight or nine mentions of the spirit yeah exactly so as you go on into the healing stories of Jesus one of the things he's regularly doing is overpowering and exiling spirits so it's the plural of spirit but it's evil or unclean or impure spirits associated with sickness and disease. And so he's going around casting out spirits. Okay, so by calling these other... Some other spirits.

Yeah, other spirits. Yeah, what are these? Because this isn't something we've talked about, right? Not yet. No, I guess not. We mainly talked about the spirit of God so far in this conversation. We talked about Saul getting the spirit of raw. A bad spirit, yeah.

But that's God's spirit directing someone. all towards a bad end. Yeah, so that's different. Yeah, it's different. Yeah, this is when the biblical authors in the Hebrew Bible want to talk about creatures that are not God, but that are not human, they use a different kind of vocabulary to talk about them, sons of Elohim, sons of God, in the plural, meaning members of the class of Elohim, spiritual being. But even there, spiritual being, I have to import the word spirit in English. And sometimes they're rarely in the Hebrew Bible, like a couple times they're called by the plural of ruach, ruhot spirits. Okay.

Other times they're called angels. Okay. So. It's that category. This is that category. Spirits. But in Greek, it was more common just to call them spirits. Called spirits.

And in the Greek and Roman world, that was, we're talking about invisible forces that you can't see them. but they have visible effects in the world, and they can influence human beings. And in Jesus' imagination, if you see somebody who's sick, they're infected with death, as it were. They're under the influence of... Oh, spirit.

A corrupting, yeah, penema. A spirit of death. And so he sees his healings and his exorcisms is all bound together as one thing. So there's a story in chapter 10 where he sends out 70 of his disciples to go do what he's been doing, which has announced that the kingdom of God is here. Oh, is this hyperlinked to Moses's 70?

Yes, for sure. Yeah, Moses and the 70 elders. Yeah. And then Jesus sends out the 70 for sure. Cool. Yeah. And they come back saying, look, even the daemonion, the demons, are subject to us in your name.

And Jesus said to them, yeah, you know what? while you guys were out announcing God's kingdom coming, healing people, exercising demons, Jesus says. This is Luke 10, verse 18. I watched the satan fall from heaven like lightning. You guys are challenging his authority over the human family. And I have given you authority to step on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.

And nothing can injure you. So he's not talking about snake handling. Yeah, he's talking about spiritual forces. Spiritual forces, yeah. Yeah. So it's great Genesis 3 hyperlinks right here, stomping on snakes. So what does it mean that a seed of the woman will come to crush the head of the snake in Genesis 315? One of the things that means is that the Messiah comes and shares out of the overflow of his spirit abundance with 70,

who then go and deliver people from sickness and disease. That's stomping on the serpent's head. Yeah. It's cool. It's really cool. But then he says, listen, this is super cool. But you shouldn't rejoice in this. And you're like, really?

Why shouldn't I have a party right now? This is really cool that that happened. Don't rejoice that the spirits are subject to you. Rather rejoice that your names are recorded in the skies. Here's what's really cool, is heaven and earth are being rejoined. You just got to participate in some little bits of earth being reunited with heaven. And what you should rejoice in is that you are a part of the family of peoples that God has called to reunite heaven and earth. Your names are written in the skies.

You're part of the crew, God's using to reunite heaven. heaven and earth. That's what recorded in the skies. You just helped bring a bit of the kingdom of heaven to become real down here on earth in the people's bodies. You can be excited about the fruit of what's happening. The thing you should really be excited about. Yeah. So you're being called to be the people to do this. Yeah. So recording names is either alluding to like census or more probably like family genealogy membership. Kind of like where's your name written in the family? Yeah. You know, family trees, this kind of thing. Because there will be. be times when they're not going to see this kind of fruit of announcing the kingdom of God.

There'll be times when you'll be rejected. There'll be times when you get thrown into prison. You can even die. And times when you'll get killed. So don't rejoice in the circumstances that come about when you announce the kingdom of heaven. Just rejoice that you get to be a part of the family that's God's chosen to reunite heaven and earth. And sometimes that'll mean people get healed. But it won't always mean that. Verse 21. At that moment, Jesus rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit. Yeah, what do you think that looked like? I know. You know, Jesus, he's a complex figure, but one thing that does strike me,

especially when I read Luke's portrait, is he's somebody who was really grounded and centered and joyful. Like, had some kind of deep joy. He was also always thrown parties, big feasts, you know. He was throwing them? They were being thrown. Yeah. But they were being thrown by his followers. And he loved to join in and facilitate the party.

Like with Matthew, the tax collector. And then he invites all his friends. He rejoiced greatly. Yeah, he had a deep joy. He starts just talking to his friends. father. So notice the Trinitarian implications here. You have Jesus who's rejoicing in

the spirit talking to the father. It's like a little Trinitarian conversation is going on here. You are the Lord of skies and land, he says, you, father. And you've hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. This is what you love to do,

dad. Whatever humans assume they know and they build systems, right, of power and value around a certain vision of the world. And you just love to upset the apple cart, Dad. You love to surprise people because all things have been handed over to me by my father. This is Daniel 7 language. The son of Adam receives authority and rule over all things. And no one knows who the son is except for my dad. And no one knows who the father is except for the son.

and whoever the son desires to reveal him. So Jesus has beginning to share his kingdom of God mission with others, spreading, and has the surprising effect, right, where all these other people are able to do what Jesus has been doing. And Jesus is saying, like, this is what you love to do, Dad. You reunite heaven and earth, but in people and in ways that, that nobody would have ever predicted or saw coming. And you love to work like this.

You so love to work like this that who you really are is actually a mystery. And the only one who knows the heart of that mystery is me. And I'm going to tell my followers who you really are. This is like a little clue from Luke to say, watch the language of Jesus and the life of Jesus, and you will see revealed there the unique apocalypse, a revelation of who God really is.

But this is coming from the Trinity, from the Son, rejoicing in the spirit. And then turning to the Father. Turning to the Father. Anyway, this is a rad little passage to meditate on. There's a lot going on here. There is a lot. But when he says you've hidden these things, he's talking about what we just talked about, which is the 70 going out and spiritual forces having to give away.

and he's saying, okay, this is not normal. Yeah, the inbreaking of God's heavenly kingdom on earth. It's not happening through the priests. It's not happening in Jerusalem. It's not happening through any influential people. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, we know the 12. We know their names and kind of some of their vocations.

But the 70, we're just told they're the 70. But they have to be as diverse a group. as the 12. Yeah. And none of the 12 were like influencers, you know, in the first century. And that's how God loves to do it. He loves to work through the poor, the vulnerable. So Jesus is saying, like, look, I'm so closely connected to what God is doing.

And I am the one in which God is doing it through that when I reveal that, and let other people come in and participate in that. This is just going to be normal. Right. Yeah, this is actually the world right side up from God's value said. Yeah. And so there's just this moment that Jesus has, which is like, you guys are experiencing this as like some unique, wild special thing.

Yeah. And what I know is what you're just getting a taste of is what creation is meant to be. You know, there is that sense of the pride of a father. Just thinking about this. Yeah. When you see like your kid really enjoy something for what it's meant to be or really do something in the right way and connect to it. And you just realize like, oh, they just took their first step into something really wonderful. Yes.

It's exactly where my mind went. It's so funny. We're both middle-aged dads. So that's like where our minds go. Yeah. No, man, watching your kid have an experience of joy, of delight. And you're just like, that's it, man. That's the real.

that's the good stuff right there. Or watching your kids have a moment where they really love and help someone, like true altruistic love from your own kids towards another. And Ryan, you're just like, that's it, man, that's the good stuff, that's real life. That's maybe something like Jesus rejoicing in the spirit when he watched his followers began to channel the life of heaven into these sick and hurting people on earth. It's such a cool story to think about it that way. So the 70 come back and they're like, Jesus, you wouldn't believe it.

Like spiritual powers. Yeah. We're like giving way to us. Yeah. Like this is un, you should have been there. And Jesus is like, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see you're excited about that.

I'm so glad you're excited about that. Yeah. But like, what you're tapping into is going to be just normal life now. Yeah, sure. And is the way of new creation. And so the thing you should be really excited about is that you are being called. to now. Yeah, the many. The spirit is moving out through the one, Jesus, out to the many. Even before Pentecost, it was starting. Yeah. And how cool this is hyperlinked to the Moses's 70s.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. That's fantastic. In the next chapter, what Jesus says is that when he is confronting a spiritual force of evil, which might manifest in the form of sickness, or there's a woman that heals who's back, she's a hunched back, she's permanently bent over, and he heals her so she can stand up straight. He describes that as I'm liberating her, setting her free from the power of the Satan. She's been bound by Satan. So when Jesus does stuff like that, exorcisms and healings, in chapter 11, verse 20, he says that he is casting out demons by the finger of God. And when I'm doing that, then you know that the reign and the rule of God is come here. He uses this very unique phrase, finger of God.

Yeah. That's the Ten Commandments phrase, right? Yes. So the phrase, finger of God, used three times in the Hebrew Bible. Okay. Two times it's about the writing of the Ten Commandments on the tablets. And one time, it's in the mouth of Pharaoh's magicians. Oh.

who by like plague number six or seven, they're just like, Pharaoh, dude, let the people go. Don't you know the finger of God is on you? So it's a figure of speech to describe the direct. Yeah. I mean, it would be really weird right now, sitting at this table if I took my index finger and just like put it on your forehead. Yeah.

I would feel like an invasion of you. And we're good friends. But you would feel like, dude, that's a little like close. Yeah. Yeah. So something like God puts his finger on you. Yeah. It's about the precision presence of God.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's so interesting is there's a parallel saying to this in Matthew. Jesus says he same words. But when he says, I cast out demons by the, and Matthew has by the spirit of God in Matthew chapter 12. Okay. So it's this cool little variant. between this saying of Jesus

and Matthew and Luke, he casts out demons by the Spirit of God or he cast out demons by the finger of God. And in a way, they're just two ways of talking about the same thing. Isn't that cool? The finger of God. Jesus is God's finger.

Maybe another metaphor would be like, there's a figure of speech in English where like surgical precision. Yeah. And thinking of God getting so closely but carefully involved in someone channeling all of his attention into one singular point. Yes.

Yeah. Through Jesus, the finger of God is addressing people in these moments of need and crisis. It's like how a magnifying glass channels light into a very specific point, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. So that's just a sample of Jesus' healings in announcing the kingdom of God of spirit language. And what's interesting is after chapter 11 in Luke, language about the Spirit of God kind of goes silent in terms of a number of occurrences.

There's some demons and spiritual forces that are called that. It's almost, I wonder, if Luke's kind of preparing you for the clash of the symbol. Oh, okay. Because after some silence with spirit vocabulary in Luke in the late teens, when Jesus is hanging on the cross is Luke chapter 23. He's hanging on the cross. Like he's dying. And in verse 44 of Luke 23, it was the sixth hour and darkness fell over the land until the ninth hour. It's like some decreation imagery. The sun was obscured. The curtain of the temple was torn into, oh man, that's a whole thing. Yeah. We don't have time to go down. Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying,

Father, into your hands, I commit my pennevma. And having said this, he exiled his last breath. What's the word for breath there? So it's pnevma, spirit, but as a verb, with the eke preposition means out. So to exhale, to breathe out. But it's got the penuma root? Yep, it's got the same penuma root. So he gives his Pnevma to the father.

Breeze it out. And then he exhales the bear English word. So what's so amazing is, in Luke, these are Jesus' last words. And they're not even his words. They are right from a poem that we call Psalm 31. And it's really remarkable to read the words Jesus quotes, just the lines before and the lines after. Okay.

So the poem begins, In you, O Yahweh, I take refuge. Don't let me be put to shame. Rescue me by your righteousness. Incline your ear to me. Quickly, rescue me. Be my rock of refuge, a fortified fortress to save me. You're my rock.

You're my fortress. For the sake of your name, lead me, guide me, bring me out of the net that they've set for me in secret. You are my refuge. Into your hand, I commit my ruach. So interesting. Someone dying. Yeah.

I mean, you can't think of a more appropriate poem for him to quote. But notice the note of confidence. So committing my spirit into the father's hands, yes, it's a surrender, but in the context, it's a note of because I know that you're going to rescue me. It's a note of hope. Jesus is giving up his rock, trusting that his father's going to give it back again.

That's what he's signaling here. Yeah. Very powerful. So he's actually joining Adam and Eve outside of Eden, giving back his breath. Yeah. Trusting that everything that has happened up to this point, that this isn't the end. Yeah, that phrase that he breathed his last really becomes more poignant to this whole conversation. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. That all humans take their first breath filled with God's spirit. It's on loan to us. And then one day we will. give it back and into the dust. Yeah. And Jesus gives his breath back.

Yes, and he gives it back to the father, knowing that the father will rescue him. And confident. That is. That this won't be his last breath. Totally. That's right. Exactly. So this is Luke's way of showing us that Jesus' death and resurrection doesn't mean that we won't die.

So in that sense, he doesn't die instead of us, but to use... kind of the phrase of New Testament scholar Andrew Rilera. And Luke, Jesus doesn't die instead of us. He dies ahead of us before us. Yeah. And so that his way out of death as the father rescues him and gives him breath back into a new creation body becomes the parting of the waters. Right?

The wind blowing on the water. Yeah. So the dry ground can emerge. So a way is opened up through death. And we can walk through that way. You just brought Exodus. I did. But that's how that Psalm ended.

We didn't read the last line. Oh, yes. You have redeemed me. Yeah. After into your hands, I commit my ruach. You have redeemed me. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's so funny then in the next chapter when Jesus appears, like risen from the dead. This is in chapter 24. All of a sudden, the disciples are gathered in an upper rim in verse 36 of chapter 24. All of a sudden, Jesus was just standing there. in the middle of them, saying shalom. And they were just startled, like, freaked out. And they thought that they were looking at a phnevma, meaning like a ghost.

Like an apparition. Like not really a human. Just got to look like one. And so Jesus said to them, well, why are you troubled? We've just got to be tongue-in-cheek. It's like, what do you mean? Yeah. Why are you doubting?

in your hearts. Look at my hands and my feet. It's me. Touch me. See, does a spirit have flesh and bone like you see that I have? And when he said this, he showed him his hands and feet. It was really tricky because later in the New Testament, you're going to read, Paul say, whatever new creation is, flesh and blood can't inherit it. Flesh and blood cannot inherit. So whatever Jesus is saying here is not negating what Paul is also saying. Because whatever kind of flesh and bone Jesus has, it also isn't normal because they think they're seeing something other. And the language they have to describe is they're seeing a penethma. But there is this category of thought when we talk about spirit is that there's material and there's spirit. There's the visible, tangible, and then

there's the ethereal, it's powerful, but you can't grab it, you can't contain it, you can't feel it except for its effects. You can see its effects, you can feel its effects, you can be empowered by it. So there's this flesh versus spirit, or material versus spirit. Yeah, and maybe even to zero in on that, because we have come of age and grown up at the height of a culture to basis of its kind of worldview is that matter is what is real. And all there is. And all, in fact, there is no reality except for matter, which would have been utter folly to people in the ancient world.

Because what ancient people took for granted, what the biblical authors take for granted is the material that we see around us is sort of like the secondary result of something that is upstream of it, which is an energy, a force, a person. And whatever is most real, it's not the stuff that you and I see, because that's constantly changing and falling apart. But it's the thing driving it all that it's enduring and real. And what Jesus is saying is what the resurrection means

is that there's a form of materiality that is a new creation kind of material, which is so united with the divine spirit that it's matter plus infinity as one thing. Yeah.

As opposed to you and I, which are matter, not plus infinity, because you and I are falling apart and we're going to die. But Adam and Eve were matter plus God's breath. That's right, yeah.

And they could have existed forever in that state. Yeah, yeah, if they hadn't been so stupid. Which is also true of me. Yeah. and true of you. But are you saying that Jesus resurrected is even more than that? Like, Adam was matter filled with God's spirit.

Could have existed forever. But when Jesus's flesh and bones, you're saying, is even different? Yeah, Paul will talk about the first Adam was made of dust. Yeah. So the second Adam, he says, is spirit. But by that, he doesn't mean the opposite of material. What he means is like the most real thing. So Luke is trying to tell us,

and this is the mystery of the incarnation, that the infinite, immaterial, father, son, spirit, community that is God, has taken on human flesh, become human flesh and bone, precisely to transform it, to have it transcend its material origins,

to become, what do you call it? I don't know. Transphysical was the term that NT Wright developed in his book on the resurrection. Yeah, it's a form of physicality, but it transcends our imagination for what matter even is, because it's matter brought into unity with the infinite life and energy of God. And that's what Luke is trying to give language to in the mystery of this scene. Really? Of them saying they thought they were seeing a spirit,

it. And what he says is, no, it's me, flesh and bone, but yet he can just appear in a rim and then not be there. And he's matter plus the infinite spirit of God in a new category of existence altogether, at least from our point of view. Yeah. And what's crazy is Luke wants us to envision that Jesus has that existence like right now for you and I sitting here real time. Like when we talk to Jesus or pray to him, he exists in that way right now. And that's the kind of embodiment I will be transformed into. It's pretty wild. Yeah, I need more time in that.

Yeah, good. Great. Let's take like six more hours. Okay. To think about it. Okay. Where I'd like us to go next is the Spirit and Acts, like part two of the story, and explore the main things Luke wants us to see in his language of the Spirit in the book of Acts.

And then we'll go into the letters of the apostles of Paul and then Peter and Hebrews. It's wild, man. It's a category breaking kind of stuff. It's like 2,000-year-old documents, and they still break our imaginations for what's real, you know? Okay. To Axe. To the book of Acts we go. Thanks for listening to Bible Project podcast.

Next week we'll look at the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles. Or you could say the acts of Jesus through the Spirit. At the beginning of Acts, the Spirit breaks out, filling the house that the disciples are in, landing on them with fire,

and filling them. As if they are God's temple. Luke's claim is that the hope of the Hebrew prophets of a new, restored, Eden, temple presence, that's what happened. Bible Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit. And we exist.

to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we create is free because of the generous support of thousands of people, just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, my name is John, and I'm from Tiger to Oregon, just outside of Portland. Hi, my name is Heather Lewandowski, and I'm for Portland, Oregon. I first heard about the Bible Project at a booth at my church. I use Bible Project for my personal devotion and enhance learning. I first heard about Bible Project one Christmas when my church showed animations about love and peace and joy.

That explanation of Shalom really changed my understanding. That was awesome. My favorite thing about Bible Project is its creativity of telling God's rescue plan for our life. I now use Bible Project to get a smart overview of books of the Bible before I dig into them, whether that's for my own learning or to help others. My favorite thing about Bible Project, I'd say it's the back and forth discussions between John and Tim, or John brings up things that I know many of us wonder about, and Tim gently lays out things to think about. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Bible Project is a nonprofit funded by people like me. Find free videos, articles, podcasts, classes, and more on the Bible Project app. And at Bibleproject.com.

Hi, my name is Ariel. I'm from Sandy Oregon, and I assist Tim, John, and our CEO, Steve. Day to day, I have a lot of tabs open. I've usually got three versions of my calendar open, as well as a couple email inboxes open to. Every year has looked a tiny bit different. And I get to know so many different parts of our organization, and I feel like I'm finally able to give back in a way that I haven't been able to before, and it has been seriously a blast. There's a whole team of us that make the podcast come to life every week.

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