158. A Supplement

Since the Holy Spirit is the subject of this chapter, it is very worthwhile to point out that nowhere in the Word of the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit mentioned. The "spirit of holiness" occurs in three passages, once in David (Psalms 51:11), and twice in Isaiah (Isaiah 63:10-11). The Holy Spirit is of course frequently mentioned in the Word of the New Testament, both in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles. The reason for this is that the Holy Spirit first came into existence when the Lord had come into the world. The Holy Spirit emanates from him on behalf of the Father. The Lord alone is holy (Revelation 15:4). This is why the angel Gabriel mentioned to Mother Mary "the Holy One that will be born from you" (Luke 1:35).

Now, it says, "The Holy Spirit was not yet in existence, because Jesus was not glorified yet" (John 7:39), and yet before that it says that the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth (Luke 1:41) and Zechariah (Luke 1:67), and also Simeon (Luke 2:25). The reason for this is that the spirit of Jehovah the Father filled them, and this is called "the Holy Spirit" because of the Lord, who was already in the world.

This is why no passage in the Word of the Old Testament says that the prophets spoke on behalf of the Holy Spirit; they spoke on behalf of Jehovah. It constantly says Jehovah spoke to me, the word of Jehovah came to me, Jehovah said, says Jehovah. So that no one will doubt the truth of this, I want to list the references in Jeremiah alone where these expressions occur:

Jeremiah 1:4, 7, , 19; , 9, 19, 22, 29, 31; 3:1, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16; 4:1, 3, 9, 17, 27; 5:11, 14, 18, 22, 29; 6:6, 9, 12, 15-16, 21-22; 7:1, 3, 11, 13, 19-21; 8:1, 3, 12-13; 9:3, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 22, 24-25; 10:1-2, 18; 11:1, 6, 9, 11, 17-18, 21-22; 12:14, 17; 13:1, 6, 9, , 25; 14:1, 10, 14-15; 15:1-3, 6, 11, 19-20; 16:1, 3, 5, 9, 14, 16; 17:5, 15, 19-21, 24; 18:1, 5-6, 11, 13; 19:1, 3, 6, 12, 15; 20:4; 21:1, 4, 7-8, 11-12; 22:2, 5-6, 11, 18, 24, 29-30; 23:2, 5, 7, 12, 15, 24, 29, 31, 38; 24:3, 5, 8; 25:1, 3, 7-9, 15, 27-29, 32; 26:1-2, 18; 27:1-2, 4, 8, 11, 16, 19, 21-22; 28:2, 12, 14, 16; 29:4, 8-9, 16, 19-21, 25, 30-32; , 8, 10-12, 17-18; 31:1-2, 7, 10, 15-17, 23, 27-28, ; 32:1, 6, 14-15, 25-26, 28, 30, 36, 42; 33:1-2, 4, 10, 12-13, 17, 19-20, 23, 25; 34:1-2, 4, 8, 12-13, 17, 22; 35:1, 13, 17-19; 36:1, 6, 27, 29-30; 37:6-7, 9; 38:2-3, 17; ; 40:1; 42:7, 9, 15, 18-19; 43:8, 10; 44:1-2, 7, 11, 24-26, 30; 45:2, 5; 46:1, 23, 25, 28; 47:2; 48:1, 8, 12, 30, 35, 38, 40, 43-44, 47; 49:2, 5-7, 12-13, 16, 18, 26, 28, 30, 32, 35, 37-39; 50:1, 4, 10, 18, 20-21, 30-31, 33, 35, 40; 51:25, 33, 36, 39, 52, 58.

These are just the passages in Jeremiah. It says the same thing in all the other prophets. It does not say that the Holy Spirit spoke; and it does not say that Jehovah spoke to them through the Holy Spirit.

41. 4. Love and wisdom are united in God. All the goodness of love and goodwill comes from God, and so does all the truth of wisdom and of faith, as any wise person in the church knows. In fact, all human reason is capable of seeing that this is true, once it is aware that love and wisdom originate in the sun that surrounds Jehovah God in the spiritual world; or to put it another way, once it is aware that love and wisdom come from Jehovah God through the sun that surrounds him. The heat radiating from that sun is essentially love, and the light radiating from it is essentially wisdom. From this it becomes as clear as day that love and wisdom are united at their source - namely, God, who is the origin of that sun.

This point can be visualized [by thinking] of the sun in the physical world. It is nothing but fire. Heat radiates from its fieriness; light radiates from the glow of its fieriness. At the outset, then, heat and light are one.

[2] As they radiate, however, they are separated, as you can tell from the fact that some objects they strike take in more heat and some more light. A more extreme separation occurs in us. With us, the light of life (intelligence) and the heat of life (love) are distinct. This separation exists because we need to be reformed and regenerated, and this will not happen unless the light of life, or intelligence, teaches us what we should want and what we should love.

It is important to know that God is continually building a partnership between love and wisdom in us, but if we are not facing God and believing in him, we ourselves are constantly separating the two.

The greater the partnership within us, then, between these two things - the goodness of love or of goodwill and the truth of wisdom or of faith - the more we become an image of God and are raised toward heaven and even into heaven where the angels are. On the other hand, the more these two things are separated in us, the more we become an image of Lucifer and of the dragon and are cast down from heaven to earth and then below the earth into hell.

When love and wisdom have a partnership in us, we become like a tree in springtime, when heat joins equally with light to make the tree bud, flower, and bear fruit. On the other hand, when love and wisdom are separated in us we become like a tree in winter, when heat withdraws from light, making the tree bare and bald of all its foliage.

[3] When spiritual heat, or love, withdraws from spiritual light, or wisdom, or equally when goodwill withdraws from faith, we become like humus that rots and becomes acidic - worms breed in it, and if seedlings come up at all, their leaves are covered with little leaf-eating grubs. Then enticements to love evil, which are really cravings, burst forth in us. Rather than controlling and restraining them, our intelligence loves them, takes care of them, and feeds them.

In a word, to separate love and wisdom or goodwill and faith - two things God is constantly trying to bring together - is comparable to taking all the redness out of a face so that it becomes as pale as death, or taking all the whiteness away from the redness so that the face becomes as inflamed as a firebrand.

Separating love and wisdom is also comparable to breaking a couples marriage bond and turning the wife into a prostitute and the husband into an adulterer. Love is like a husband, and so is goodwill; wisdom is like a wife, and so is faith. Their being separated causes spiritual prostitution and whoring, in the form of falsifying what is true and contaminating what is good.