Spirit of Torah
Part 2: The spirit in the ministry of Messiah
MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

    Last week we talked about the role of the Spirit in the Tanakh/Old Testament. We found that the Spirit was very active amongst God’s people in order to enable them to accomplish God’s will. We even saw that the Holy Spirit filled and indwelled some of God’s people. This week we will see the Spirit’s role in the ministry of Messiah Yeshua, and we will take a look at some of the other work He did in the Gospel writings. To begin I will start with a passage from last week’s message.

    But a branch will emerge from the trunk of Yishai, a shoot will grow from his roots.  The Spirit of Adonai will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and power, the Spirit of knowledge and fearing Adonai —he will be inspired by fearing Adonai. He will not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but he will judge the impoverished justly; he will decide fairly for the humble of the land. He will strike the land with a rod from his mouth and slay the wicked with a breath from his lips. [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 11:1-4]

     This is a prophecy of the Messiah and describes the nature of the Spirit which would empower Him to do the work He came to do. Of course, the idea that Yeshua operated under the power of the Holy Spirit and talked to the Father, seeking only to do His will, all may seem to be obvious to some and perplexing to others when taking into account that all three are the same God, and I am not here to attempt to make sense of the Trinity. I’m smart, but not that smart. We do see that though all the same God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit function as three separate entities or persons.  Just as we saw last week that the Holy Spirit played a hand in the Creation of the universe, we also see Him playing a major role in the birth of our Messiah.

    Here is how the birth of Yeshua the Messiah took place. When his mother Miryam was engaged to Yosef, before they were married, she was found to be pregnant from the Ruach HaKodesh. Her husband-to-be, Yosef, was a man who did what was right; so he made plans to break the engagement quietly, rather than put her to public shame. But while he was thinking about this, an angel of Adonai appeared to him in a dream and said, "Yosef, son of David, do not be afraid to take Miryam home with you as your wife; for what has been conceived in her is from the Ruach HaKodesh. [Mattityahu/Matthew 1:18-20]

     The idea that a spiritual entity could impregnate a human woman would be downright freaky if it wasn’t God doing it. Even still, to be Miriam and be found to be pregnant and know you had never been with a man would be a bit scary, especially when you consider the rumors what would likely result. Thankfully, the Spirit also had angels to help both Miriam and Yosef understand what was going on. Here again, I’m not going to try to explain how it happened, but all we need to know is God can do anything, including impregnate a virgin, to accomplish His will. It is also important to recognize that Yeshua was conceived not of human origin, but of the Holy Spirit of God Himself. Yeshua was also the product of the Holy Spirit working in the life of a young woman who feared God.

    As soon as Yeshua had been immersed, he came up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, he saw the Spirit of God coming down upon him like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with him."
 [Mattityahu 3:16-17]

     This is the next time we see the Spirit in the life of Yeshua. Here He is preparing for the beginning of His ministry on earth. Up to this point He was a stone mason (Mk.6:3) as Yosef was. (tekton is the Greek word, which given that stone was the primary building material of the area, with the exception of doors or fences, Yeshua most likely worked more with stone than wood, thus a stone mason more than our modern concept of a carpenter) Now He is going to go about the task of teaching Torah and performing miracles to draw people to the Kingdom of God. For this, His own human intellect and strength would not suffice. He would need the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
    Then the Spirit led Yeshua up into the wilderness to be tempted by the Adversary. [Mattityahu/Matthew 4:1]

     Here we see that Yeshua did not work by His own agenda or schedule. He had a public relations coordinator who did all that for Him. This was the Holy Spirit. Of course, on this occasion, it seems the Holy Spirit was not being very nice. He led Yeshua into the wilderness to fast for 40 days and nights, which would be difficult to begin with, but He would also be tempted by the Adversary. Why would He do this?

    For we do not have a cohen gadol unable to empathize with our weaknesses; since in every respect he was tempted just as we are, the only difference being that he did not sin. [Messianic Jews/Hebrews 4:15]

     The Holy Spirit led Yeshua into the wilderness for three reasons. For one, He was building the credibility of Yeshua for His followers then and for us now. He truly has been tempted in every way as we have been. Where ever we have been, He has been there in one way or another. Second, He was showing us that the Holy Spirit will at time lead us into difficult situations, even temptation, but always for a purpose and always with a way to successfully defeat the enemy. Third, it gave Yeshua a chance to show how we defeat temptation; Torah. All three temptations given by the Adversary were answered by the two edged sword of God’s Word. We have the same weapon at our disposal today. As a bonus reason for all this, it is always fun to make the Adversary think he will win and then watch him fall flat on his face. Of course, only God has the prerogative to do that.

    But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you! [Mattityahu 12:28]

     The Holy Spirit made Yeshua into a demon slayer extraordinaire. He was a priest, king, and rabbi, but also a warrior through the power of the Spirit. With as much doubt that humans had to the divinity and Messiah-ship of Yeshua, the evil spirit had no such doubt. They proclaimed Him to be the Son of God, but obeyed Him only by the Spirit’s power in Him.

    Yeshua returned to the Galil in the power of the Spirit, and reports about him spread throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone respected him. Now when he went to Natzeret, where he had been brought up, on Shabbat he went to the synagogue as usual. He stood up to read, and he was given the scroll of the prophet Yesha`yahu. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of Adonai is upon me; therefore he has anointed me to announce Good News to the poor; he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the imprisoned and renewed sight for the blind, to release those who have been crushed, to proclaim a year of the favor of Adonai." After closing the scroll and returning it to the shammash, he sat down; and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He started to speak to them: "Today, as you heard it read, this passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled!" [Luke 4:14-21]
 
     Yeshua is seen here going to the synagogue as He did every Shabbat and read from the same Scriptures we have available to us today. Freaky huh! What’s more, is we have been commissioned to announce Good News to the poor, proclaim freedom to the imprisoned, and everything else Yeshua said He had come to do, and we do it by the power of the same Spirit. Yeshua was the Son of God, but gave up His divine power to come to earth as a human being in every respect except that He was without sin. What He did in His ministry, especially that which was supernatural was by the power of the Spirit inside Him.

    "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send you from the Father — the Spirit of Truth, who keeps going out from the Father — he will testify on my behalf. [Yochanan/John 15:26]

    "Just as the Father sent me, I myself am also sending you." Having said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Ruach HaKodesh! If you forgive someone's sins, their sins are forgiven; [Yochanan 20:21-23]
 
     The last verse was after Yeshua’s resurrection. Basically, what He is telling them is, “I hope you were paying attention, because it’s your turn. I’m giving you the Spirit so you can do what I did.” That gift has not ended. Our Messiah extends the same Spirit to us today. Does this mean we can raise people from the dead and walk on water? Yes. If it is part of accomplishing God’s will. Just ask Peter. He knows all about walking on water.

    "If you love me, you will keep my commands; and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforting Counselor like me, the Spirit of Truth, to be with you forever. [Yochanan/John 14:15]

     Here is a key to the Kingdom that I feel the church is missing. We see in this verse a direct correlation between Torah and receiving the Spirit of Truth. We know that Yeshua is the Messiah because of what was written about Him in the Torah and the prophets. To separate Yeshua from Torah is to strip Him of that which makes Him the Messiah. In a similar way, without Torah as a foundation, there is no way of knowing that the “spirit” in us creating supernatural experiences through us is really of God. In order for us to have the Spirit of Truth in us, we must have the truth of God’s Word in us. Torah and the Spirit cannot be separated.
     This is not to say that the Spirit does not work through those who are not Torah observant. However, most Christians, even if by accident, live a certain amount of Torah in their lives by simply following a basic Judeo-Christian ethic, which itself is mostly based on Torah. It think it is this semi-Torah observancy that enables the Spirit to fill and empower anyone today. However, it is like the gate on a dam. The more it is opened, the more water can pass through. The more righteous we are, based on the laws of Torah, taught to us by the Spirit by the way, the more the Spirit is able to communicate God’s will to us and the more He is able to work through us in the ways He did in the life of Yeshua and those of the Tanakh. 
     Yeshua lived a difficult, but amazing life. He did great things to show the truth of who He was and the reality of the Kingdom. It was never His intention for His miracles and teachings to remain with Him. He has commissioned all those who would be His talmidim to go forth into all the world and do what He did, say what He said, love people the way He loved them, pray to the Father as He prayed, and do it all with the same Word and the same Spirit that He did. 
     You may never bring sight to a blind person, but if you are truly living a life according to God’s Word, filled with the Holy Spirit, as God will dictates, God can use you to do even greater things than that. What’s more is as much as God’s Spirit can do through one person, consider what He can do through a body of Believers who live the same way.