The great Evangelist Billy Graham remarked, “The Holy Spirit illuminates the minds of people, makes us yearn for God, and takes spiritual truth and makes it understandable to us”. The Bible declares that the Holy Spirit is God and it also tells us that the Holy Spirit is a divine person, a being with a mind, emotions, and a will. In the Old Testament, we find the Holy Spirit was active and present at Creation. We also note how He was active in the lives of individuals but not in the same personal way and to the same degree after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven. We first meet the Holy Spirit during the last Passover meal with the disciples when Jesus revealed the work of the Holy Spirit. We meet Him again when He visits the disciples in the book of Acts to bring all truth, comfort, guidance, wisdom, knowledge, and fear of the Lord.
Just as God is the Triune of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit is One but with seven distinct expressions known as the seven spirits of God. The seven spirits of God and the Holy Spirit are actually one and the same but the question remains, why are there seven? Seven is God’s perfect number because it refers to perfection and completion. We can find a few references to the seven spirits in the book of Isaiah and Revelation. The references include Isaiah 11:1-3 “ And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: 2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; 3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:” Then we have references in Revelation .3:1 “ And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” Revelation 4:5 “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.” And finally, Revelation 5:6 “And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.”
Very little literature and divine writingis available on the ‘ Seven Spirit of God’. We can take a look at the seven spirits as follows from Isaiah 11:2:
1. The Spirit of the wisdom. 2. The Spirit of the Lord. 3. The Spirit of understanding .4. The Spirit of counsel. 5. The Spirit of power. 6. The Spirit of knowledge. 7. The Spirit of the fear of the Lord
I Corinthians 2:10-11 “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. “
Dr Ashwin Drummond
laddertheaven.co.in