But for them, it is a view theologically defensible and accompanied by psychological, sociological, and scientific benefits of recognizing “the new supernature” developing within vast consciousness changes happening in the human evolution. [30], They take the Oneness of God to mean the "familial" unity which exists between them, which unity is not seen in any other depiction of the Godhead by the various non-Hebrew peoples. [27] The LDS Church believes that before we lived on earth, we existed spiritually, with a spirit body with defined gender,[28] and that the Holy Spirit had a similar body, but was to become a member of the three personage Godhead [29] (Godhead consisting of God, or Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost). [3] Most English translations of the New Testament refer to the Holy Spirit as masculine in a number of places where the masculine Greek word "Paraclete" occurs, for "Comforter", most clearly in the Gospel of John, chapters 14 to 16. Sermon Delivered 1-1-05 Part Two, Messianic Judaism - The Torah and the Testimony Revealed - Haas genealogy, "The Union of Nazarene Jewish Congregations/Synagogues", "Lecture at Moravian Theological Seminary", http://divinebalance.org/ebooks/finding_holy_spirit_mother.php, More Than Just a Controversy: All About the Holy Spirit, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender_of_the_Holy_Spirit&oldid=970802080, Wikipedia articles needing rewrite from March 2011, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from August 2016, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 2 August 2020, at 13:56. But the respective 'perfections' of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband. Most are composed about the same time as the Biblical gospels in the 1st and 2nd century AD. [45], Some scholars associated with mainline denominations, while not necessarily indicative of the denominations themselves, have written works explaining a feminine understanding of the third member of the Godhead. There was real meaning in calling the Spirit 'She'. Both forms contain very old Jewish Christian source material. The Holy Spirit plays varied roles in Judeo-Christian traditions: acting in Creation, imparting wisdom, and inspiring Old Testament prophets. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gender is seen "as an essential characteristic of eternal identity and purpose". A 14th Century fresco in a small Catholic Church southeast of Munich, Germany depicts a female Spirit as part of the Holy Trinity, according to Leonard Swidler of Temple University. As we see in this article by Dr. Hurtak, the notion of femininity played an extremely important and significant role in the thinking and belief system of the intertestamental authors. [citation needed], In 1977, one of their leaders, Lois Roden, began to formally teach that a feminine Holy Spirit is the heavenly pattern of women. [22][23][24], Discovering Biblical Equality maintains that viewing God in masculine terms is merely a way in which we speak of God in figurative language. The same position is still held in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church. Each week Worship Together gives away Free Lead Sheets and MP3s to brand new songs from some of your favorite worship leaders like Chris Tomlin, Hillsong UNITED, Tim Hughes, Passion and Brenton Brown plus new voices you'll love. 32:11-12, Proverbs 1:20, Matthew 11:19, Luke 3:22, and John 3:5-6. In Christian theology, the gender of the Holy Spirit has been the subject of some debate in recent times. Although all Christian Churches accept the union of three persons in one Godhead, the Eastern Church, particularly the communities of the Greek, Ethiopian, Armenian, and Russian, do not solidify a strong union of personalities, but see the figures uniquely differentiated, but still in union. It is found in earlier writings of Syriac Christianity such as the Odes of Solomon[9] and in the Gnostic early-third-century Acts of Thomas. Far from being the overbearing patriarchal advocates as they are often portrayed, more recent findings reveal an innate sensitivity and appreciation for the feminine aspect of Divinity than has been previously suspected. These authors include Clark H. Pinnock,[16] Thomas N. Finger,[17] Jürgen Moltmann,[18] Yves M.J. Congar,[19] John J. O'Donnell,[20] Donald L. Gelpi,[21] and R.P. 祢盼望掌权 ni pan wang zhang quan (G Key) Jesus Loves Me This I Know (You Gave Your Life For Me) – C Key & A Key 荣耀的呼召 rong yao de hu zhao (E Key & F Key) But Mayr contends that Augustine “skipped over the social and maternal aspect of God,” which Mayr thinks is best seen in the Holy Spirit, the Divine Ruach Ha Kodesh. Mayr, who studied under the renown German theologian Karl Rahner, said he came to his view during his study of the writings of St. Augustine (AD 354-430) who saw that a significant number of early Christians must have accepted a feminine aspect of the Holy Spirit such that the influential church father of North Africa castigated this view. The Spirit is not called “it” despite the fact that pneuma in Greek is a neuter noun. In the New Testament She is the presence of God in the world and a power in the birth and life of Jesus. There is only one God and He is the third divine person of the Trinity. Likewise in Hebrew thought, Ruach Ha Kodesh was considered a voice sent from on high to speak to the Prophet. Spiritual insights recorded in the Book of Knowledge: Keys of Enoch carefully remind us that we are being prepared to understand that just as the Old Testament was the Age of the Father, the New Testament the Age of the Son, so this coming Age where gifts are poured forth will be the Age of the Holy Spirit. So far in Western traditional theology, the voices advocating a feminine Holy Spirit are scattered and subtle. Gregory of Nazianzus in the fourth century wrote that terms like "Father" and "Son" in reference to the persons of the trinity are not to be understood as expressing essences or energies of God but are to be understood as metaphors. The Passion of Christ, the essence of why God took on flesh is bound up in this and it seems only right to try to understand it a little better for in the understanding is a more transformed, more holy life. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. The cross of Jesus. The Holy Spirit: The Feminine Aspect Of the Godhead, The Dead Sea Scrolls and The New Testament, Copyright 2020 All rights reserved Academy for Future Science. There are also some other independent Messianic groups with similar teachings. Each week Worship Together gives away Free Lead Sheets and MP3s to brand new songs from some of your favorite worship leaders like Chris Tomlin, Hillsong UNITED, Tim Hughes, Passion and Brenton Brown plus new voices you'll love. In Hebrew the word for Spirit (רוח) (ruach) is feminine, (which is used in the Hebrew Bible, as is the feminine word "shekhinah" in rabbinic literature, to indicate the presence of God, Arabic: سكينة‎ sakina, a word mentioned six times in the Quran). Who Is the Holy Spirit? That said, it does raise an important question of whether our human spirit is gendered to match our physical gender. In the New Testament as Pneuma (Romans 8:9). The grammatical gender of the word for "spirit" is feminine in Hebrew (רוּחַ, rūaḥ),[1] neuter in Greek (πνεῦμα, pneûma) and masculine in Latin (spiritus).