This is such an important question as we start to work through the question of what the Bible teaches about the life and ministry of the Holy Spirit. I might as well declare my hand right at the outset, not that you’ll be surprised! I’ve been around long enough for you to know that I think the Old Testament (OT) is an intrinsically Trinitarian book – and that those who worshiped God on the OT related to God consciously and knowingly as Trinity. In other words: Of course the HS is present in the OT… and known. God has always revealed Himself and related to His people and His creation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Sometimes you do come across this idea that in the OT no-one really knew the Holy Spirit, and that perhaps they didn’t even know there was a Holy Spirit. We can fall into the trap of adopting an evolutionary model of revelation, so that in the OT everyone is basically strict monotheists, and then in the NT Jesus turns up (He is God, but prays to God); then the Holy Spirit turns up (at Pentecost, and now there’s three of them!!) – and the Church has to spend the next 3 or 4 hundred years figuring out the doctrine of the Trinity, which it finally does in the Council of Nicaea.
In a more sophisticated version of this model, we might concede that certain people in key roles – the prophets, priests and kings – somehow experienced the Spirit, though perhaps they weren’t aware of it, or weren’t entirely sure what was going on… Generally however it is thought that their experience was temporary – given for a specific task, and possibly ‘external’ (as opposed to the internal abiding of the Spirit that the NT Church experiences?). Let me just say in passing that in the NT (e.g. compare Micah 3:8 and Acts 4:8) and throughout Church history as well, people can know the Spirit’s (temporary) equipping and empowering for specific tasks; and that this doesn’t reflect at all on the indwelling of the Spirit in those people…
My own feeling is that it is hard to reconcile this with the OT’s own testimony and testimony, and the experience and awareness of the OT saints. When you read the OT itself (and the NT reflection on the OT experience) there is a much clearer vision of God as Trinity (you might remember this from our Deep Church event in our first JCL term).
The first mention of the Holy Spirit is in Gen.1:2, the Holy Spirit is there, and is recognized as being there. The Spirit’s explicit role in Creation continues to be consciously celebrated as such throughout the OT (see e.g. Ps.104:30; 33:6; Job 34:14-15. watch out too for the link between the Spirit, the Breath of God and the wind of God). We also see the Spirit in the Garden of Eden, and then again explicitly mentioned in Gen.6 where we’re told that He will not always strive with a fallen humanity that is corrupt and that is fighting the life He longs to impart to them.
We see the HS at work in and through the people of God – Joseph; Bezalel & Oholiab; Moses and the elders of Israel; Joshua; the Judges; the schools of the prophets under Samuel (i.e. not just Samuel, or Saul); Nehemiah 9:19-20, tells us that the Spirit was with the people of God throughout the wilderness wanderings (see also Ps.106:33); Amasai… He is frequently spoken of in the devotional live of the ancient church (Ps.51:11; 139:7; 143:10). The Prophets are full of references to the Spirit, knew the Spirit’s work (e.g. II Kings 2:16), and it is clear that they are fully aware that they are being inspired by the Spirit (e.g. Num.24:2; II Chron.15:1-3; repeatedly in Ezekiel)… I could go on, but really all you need to do is search for ‘Spirit’ in Bible Gateway, or in a Concordance, and see how often and in how many contexts the Spirit of the Lord is explicitly referred to.
Those in the NT see great continuity with their OT counterpart’s experience of the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5 cf Num.27:18; Acts 8:39 cf I Kings 18:12 / II Kings 2:16; Acts 10:44-45 cf I Sam.19:19-24; I Cor.14:20-21 cf Is.28:11-12; I Cor.14:39 cf Num.11:26-30; Eph.4:30 cf Is.63:10).
Jesus also sees Himself and His relationship with the HS prophesied in the OT (Lk.4:16-21); and the Apostles make sense of their experience of the Spirit based on the prophesies about the HS from the OT. Pentecost, far from being an unexpected event that caught the Church off guard and sent them into a tail spin for three centuries as they re-thought their entire theology of God, was in fact prophesied and anticipated.
Now, having said all that, there is an important sense in which the Church’s experience of the Holy Spirit is unprecedented after the Ascension of Jesus. Maybe the best way into this is to tackle a passage from the teaching of Jesus that people often appeal to when they are wanting to argue that the Holy Spirit is a phenomenon the OT Church didn’t know.
John 7:37-39
Let’s look at this carefully. In v.35, the religious leaders are concerned that Jesus is going to go and teach the Greeks. We know this will happen in due course – it’s something else that is prophesied in the OT. The Gospel will go to all the nations of the world, and the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28-32 cited in Acts 2).…
But for these religious leaders this would be a negative thing (remember how the Jewish leaders react when Paul talks about the Gospel going to the Gentiles in Acts!). In response to this spiritual superiority complex and ego-centrism, Jesus says that anyone who comes to Him will receive the Spirit… Notice first of all that no-one is surprised or confused by Jesus’ mention of the Spirit (as if this was something - or Someone - they had never heard of before). Secondly, that Jesus’ declaration that Gentiles will also receive the Spirit simply enrages the Pharisees (vv.47-52). The ‘they’ in v.39 is referring to the ‘Greeks’, who have not yet become Christians. You might remember from our Deep Church last term the connection between the Ascension of Jesus, when the nations becomes His inheritance (Ps.2:8), and the subsequent globalization of the Church. And this new global mission of the Church will require a new empowering of the Holy Spirit, and a new gifting.
Insofar as the mission of the Church is new, there is a new outpouring of the Spirit, a clothing with power from on high (Lk.24:49). This will enable a new chapter in the life of the Church. But the Day of Pentecost is emphatically not the birth of the Church; nor is it unanticipated, nor is it the Church’s first experience of the Holy Spirit. But as is so often the case, the Spirit seeks to enable the Church to proclaim Christ… and now their mission extends to the ends of the earth.