What is the Spirit - Greek Spirit

The worship of the One God as three beings under the names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is pagan polytheism and cannot be interpreted from the Bible.

The modern "Christian" view of "spirit" is not based upon any Biblical interpretation; we are told in history that it is a natural product of most "lower races" who have a felt need to make their god into a family. Among these primitive people "spirit" inhabits all things such as corn and people. When a person dies their "spirit" lingers around to be fed, clothed, housed and intertained. After all, in the pagan views of the world, mankind was created to relieve the "gods" of their burden. Jesus, on the other hand, came to relieve spiritual believers of the burden imposed by all religionists.

If you do not feed these gods and worship them to appease them they might do you bodily harm. The modern fear of "Ghosts" and the interpretation of God as the ghost of a dead god is a product of this "lower race" which has "gone uptown."

However, the Hebrew and Greek words "spirit" mean the mental disposition of a Being. Scripture makes this perfectly clear if we have our eyes open.

The modern triad of three separated "gods" or "persons" is a product of ancient Babylonian religious thought which had its beginning in the garden of Eden and attacked the monotheism of Israel until she was almost destroyed. Indeed, historic anti-semiticism may be partially based upon their faithfulness to the belief in One God.

In the Babylonian Triad, Enlil, the wind god, is described in almost identical terms used to describe the Holy Spirit as a separated member of the "god family." Click for Babylonian myths.

Some Classical Views

Pseudo-Apollodorus Library vol. 1.3

According to Hesiod, Sky (Uranus) was a son of Earth (Gaia), but afterwards lay with his own mother and had by her Cronos, the giants, the Cyclopes, and so forth.

This ancient view where the goddess is both mother and spouse of the god,

produced the Mother of the god idea in many pagan religions.

Unfaithful Jewish women worshipped Tammuz / Ishtar in the temple (Ezekiel 8) while the men held their "sunrise service" as they worshipped Shamash, the sun god.

"The myth of such a marriage is widespread among the lower races. For example, the Ewe people of Togo-land, in West Africa, think that the Earth is the wife of the Sky, and that their marriage takes place in the rainy season, when the rain causes the seeds to sprout and bear fruit. These fruits they regard as the children of Mother Earth, who in their opinion is the mother also of men and of gods, In the regions of the Senegal and the Niger it is believed that the Sky-god and the Earth-goddess are the parents of the principal spirits who dispense life and death, weal and woe, among mankind. Similarly the Manggerai, a people of West Flores, in the Indian Archipelago, personify Sky and Earth as husband and wife; the consummation of their marriage is manifested in the rain, which fertilizes Mother Earth, so that she gives birth to her children, the produce of the fields and the fruits of the trees. The sky is called langit; it is the male power: the earth is called alang; it is the female power. Together they form a divine couple, called Moeri Kraèng.

Genesis 1 uses the symbol of the "spirit" hovering or copulating over the face of the waters. However, Jesus warns (Matthew 13) those with ears that He used parables from the foundation of the world to fool those who did not already love the truth from whatever source. Unfortunately, the symbols provide "fodder" for modern songs and sermons while the Spiritual truth totally escapes the performers.

Classical Writers

Among the classical writers the word "spirit" is used as Paul used it. They understand the "spirit" to be the ghost of a dead person or, as the Greek definition demands, "the mental disposition" of a person. Therefore, "the spirit of sonship" is not another person but the mental disposition of a son:

Aeschylus Agamemnon 765

But an old Hubris tends to bring forth in evil men, sooner or later, at the fated hour of birth, a young Hubris and that irresistible,

unconquerable, unholy spirit, Recklessness, and for the household black Curses, which resemble their parents.

Aeschylus Agamemnon 1175

Surely some malignant spirit, falling upon you with heavy swoop, moves you to chant your piteous woes fraught with death. But the end I am helpless to discover.

Aeschylus Agamemnon 1431

Clytaemestra

Listen then to this too, this the righteous sanction on my oath: by Justice, exacted for my child, by Ate, by the Avenging Spirit, to whom I sacrificed that man, hope does not tread for me the halls of fear,

Aeschylus Agamemnon 1545

and crown your unholy work with an uncharitable gift to his spirit, atoning for your monstrous deeds? And who, as with tears he utters praise over the hero's grave,

Aeschylus Eumenides 860

and do not, as if taking the heart out of fighting cocks, plant in my people the spirit of tribal war and boldness against each other. Let their war be with foreign enemies, and without stint for one in whom there will be a terrible passion for glory;

Aeschylus Seven Against Thebes 445

and when it comes it will not be anything like the sun's mid-day heat. And against him, even though he is a big talker, a man of fiery spirit, mighty Polyphontes, is stationed, a dependable sentinel.

Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 3.8

And another thing you have to remember: today your fellow citizens as a body have put the city and the constitution into your hands as a solemn trust. Some of them are present, listening to this case; others are absent, busy with their personal affairs. Respect them therefore, and remember the oaths which you have sworn, and the laws; and if I convict Ctesiphon of having made a motion that is illegal, false, and injurious to the state, annul the illegal motion, fellow citizens; confirm the democratic government for our state; punish those whose policies are opposed to the laws and to your interests.

If in this spirit you listen to the words which are about to be spoken, I am sure that your verdict will be just, faithful to your oath, and salutary alike to yourselves and to the commonwealth.

Spirits

Aeschylus Agamemnon 460

In anxious fear I wait to hear something shrouded still in gloom. The gods are not blind to men with blood upon their hands. In the end the black Spirits of Vengeance bring to obscurity that one who has prospered in unrighteousness and

Aeschylus Libation Bearers 125

spirits that watch over my father's house, and Earth herself, who gives birth to all things, and having nurtured them receives their increase in turn. And meanwhile, as I pour these lustral offerings to the dead, I invoke my father: Have pity both on me and on dear Orestes!

Aeschylus Persians 685

I feel alarm, and I accept her libations in kindly mood; while you, standing near my tomb,

make lament, and with shrill cries that summon the spirits of the dead, invoke me piteously. Not easy is the path out of the tomb, for his reason above all, that the gods beneath the earth.

Antiphon Third Tetralogy 1.3 (Loeb)

For the victim, robbed of the gifts bestowed by God upon him, naturally leaves behind him the angry spirits of vengeance, God's instruments of punishment, spirits which they who prosecute and testify without giving heed to justice bring into their own homes, defiling them with the defilement of another, because they share in the sin of him who did the deed.

Antiphon Third Tetralogy 4.3.7

Assertions as outrageous as this, or even more so, befit one guilty of such a crime as he. We, on our side, have clearly established how the death took place: we have shown that there are no doubts about the blow which caused it: and we have proved that the law fixes the guilt of the murder upon him who gave that blow. So in the name of the victim we charge you to appease the wrath of the spirits of vengeance by putting the defendant to death, and thereby cleanse the whole city of its defilement.

Antiphon Third Tetralogy 4.4.10

As the defendant has been cleared so completely of the charges made, we lay upon you in his name a more righteous behest than did our opponents: in seeking to punish the murderer, do not put him who is blameless to death. If you do, [the slayer no less than the slain will bring the wrath of heaven upon the guilty: and if the defendant is put to death without scruple, he causes the defilement brought upon his slayers by the spirits of vengeance to become twofold.

Antiphon (480 - 411 BC)

Using the word body and spirit exactly as does Paul in Romans 7 and 8, Antiphon asks:

"Often at such an hour as this,

when the body has given up the struggle,
its salvation is the spirit,
which is ready to fight on in the conscience that it is innocent.

"On the other hand, he whose conscience is guilty has

no worse enemy than that conscience;
for his spirit fails him which his body is still unwearied,
because it feels that what is approaching him
is the punishment of his iniquities.
But it is with no such guilty conscience that I come before you. (Antiphon On the murder or Herodes 5.93)

This is exactly how Peter used the SPIRIT term:

Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38NKJV

This is the gift of A holy spirit or mental disposition which is only possible when our "acceptance of the counsel of God" forces us to obey and receive the REMISSION OF SINS.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 1 Peter 3:21

A holy spirit is defined by Peter by the use of the Greek word:

Suneidesis (h4893) soon-i'-day-sis; from a prol. form of 4894; co- perception, i.e. moral consciousness; - conscience.

Suneido (h4894) soon-i'-do; from 4862 and 1492; to see completely; used (like its prim.) only in two past tenses, respectively mean. to understand or become aware, and to be conscious or (clandestinely) informed of: - consider, know, be privy, be ware of.

Paul confirmed this by warning those whose "temple's most holy place" still has a veil and it is impossible to come boldly before the Throne of Grace to see and worship Christ the Spirit:

But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. 2 Cor 3:14

But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. 2 Cor 3:15

Nevertheless when one turns (converts) to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 2 Cor 3:16

Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Cor 3:17

Paul confirms what Jesus said about Himself to the other apostles:

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; John 14:16

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. John 14:17

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. John 14:18

While the Apostles were also promised supernatural powers, the gift of A holy spirit or Christ (the name of the Spirit) living in our hearts or minds to allow a co-perception of the Word of God which is WRITTEN in a language not perceptible to the non-regenerate.

"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that

times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, Ac.3:19

Refreshing means you become A NEW MAN of VICTORY:

Andronikos (g408) an-dron'-ee-kos; from 435 and 3534; man of victory; Andronicos, an Isr.: - Andronicus.

Nikos (g3534) nee'-kos; from 3529; a conquest (concr.), i.e. (by impl.) triumph: - victory.

Nike (g3529) nee'-kay; appar. a prim. word; conquest (abstr.), i.e. (fig.) the means of success: - victory.

For whatever is born of God overcomes (nikao) the world. And this is the victory (nike) that has overcome the world our faith. 1Jn.5:4

And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations Re.2:26

Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Re.2:15

Nikolaites (g3531) nik-ol-ah-ee'-tace; from 3532; a Nicolaite, i.e. adherent of Nicolaus: - Nicolaitane.

Nikolaos (g3532) nik-ol'-ah-os; from 3534 and 2994; victorious over the people; Nicolaus, a heretic: - Nicolaus.

Pseudo-Apollodorus Library vol. 1.279

"These examples show that in the opinion of the Greeks the ghosts even of foreigners could serve as guardian spirits of a country to which they were attached by ties of gratitude or affection; for in each of the cases I have cited the dead man who was thought to protect either Attica or Troy was a stranger from a strange land. Some of the Scythians in antiquity used to cut off the heads of their enemies and stick them on poles over the chimneys of their houses, where the skulls were supposed to act as watchmen or guardians, perhaps by repelling any foul fiends that might attempt to enter the dwelling by coming down the chimney.

"4.103. So tribes in Borneo, who make a practice of cutting off the heads of their enemies and garnishing their houses with these trophies, imagine that they can propitiate the spirits of their dead foes

and convert them into friends and protectors by addressing the skulls in endearing language and offering them food.

While Paul clearly identifies the Holy Spirit with the Mind of Christ, and Peter warned that Paul still used symbolic language, he becomes the primary resource for three separated gods belonging to a family of god "kinfolks." Indeed, as he warned the Corinthians, "fools love to be fooled." If we just read Paul and do not try to interpret him we will find that the Spirit Christ is quite competent to say what He meant.

Click Here to see how the Classical Writers, the church Fathers, and modern teachers of many groups interpret Father, Son and Spirit to steer clear of polytheism -- the worship of three gods.

Rather than being a sign of spirituality, it is a sign of insecurity and spiritual lostness to get into a panic trying, like David, to find the "lost god." Paul warned the ritualistic Athenians that "He is not far from all of us." The spiritual value of understanding the "Holy Spirit" as the Mind of Christ which is the Mind of full Deity (Colossians 1:9) is that we can worship "in spirit" and in devotion "to truth" and will not have to go to a central sanctuary to find God in His temple manned by His "agents" or priests and "mediators" and "mediatrixes" elevating the audience into the presence of the gods. This means that worship can be continual as you practice the presence of Lord Jesus Christ Who is our physical image of the invisible Spirit Deity.

This also means that you can obey Jesus and Paul in "laying your collections by yourself" so that you can direct it to those in need without a middle man.

The "spirit" is almost always the SPIRIT OF some human mental disposition:

What is the Spirit - Greek Spirit - Classical Spirit