False doctrine or heresy is of course not new. Most fallacies have gone around, been around and gone around again - for generations! "Nothing new under the sun", as they say. But perhaps the prevalence and frequency of inaccurate teachings occurring now, within what should be considered mainstream Christianity is new. Anyway, I have heard heresy before, as we all have, but it still surprises me every. single. time. I know it shouldn't. I guess maybe in reality, it doesn't...it simply leaves me feeling desperately nauseous, but mostly heartbroken.
Does anyone remember the laughing movement in the 1980's? Supposedly the Holy Spirit would come upon congregations of people and they would break out in uncontrollable laughter. Well for starters, the Holy Spirit is always a gentleman (we will get to that) and He is always in control and commands the Christian be in control, so I think we have to consider this trend was heresy. Thankfully, it has gone by the wayside. But I remember the first time I heard of the "laughing movement". I cringed! I thought, "Oh brother!" But when I actually watched a video of it taking place, I honestly felt a demonic spirit in action as I watched. And I don't usually like to go there, (discussion of demonic spirits) as an answer. But there are times, one simply cannot deny it. That was one time.
I have been a Christian long enough to see many trends come and go. Some have been worse than others. The pendulum swings one way, and then swings the other; eventually righting itself. We are in the Hands of a Mighty God, after all, and He has promised not to lose his church. Still, I think it is important to discuss something that is clearly not Biblical which may be taking place within our church. And we are commanded in Scripture to not let heresy continue. I know this, yet I sometimes hesitate. I do not want to offend anyone. I want to be obedient to the Lord as I discuss any issue. This issue, I couldn't let slide as merely a pendulum swing.
It seems there is a new trend where some chose to refer to the Holy Spirit as "She". I was heartbroken, sickened, shocked, all of the above, to learn of this trend among truly born again Christians.
I have been a Christian long enough to see many trends come and go. Some have been worse than others. The pendulum swings one way, and then swings the other; eventually righting itself. We are in the Hands of a Mighty God, after all, and He has promised not to lose his church. Still, I think it is important to discuss something that is clearly not Biblical which may be taking place within our church. And we are commanded in Scripture to not let heresy continue. I know this, yet I sometimes hesitate. I do not want to offend anyone. I want to be obedient to the Lord as I discuss any issue. This issue, I couldn't let slide as merely a pendulum swing.
It seems there is a new trend where some chose to refer to the Holy Spirit as "She". I was heartbroken, sickened, shocked, all of the above, to learn of this trend among truly born again Christians.
"From where is this coming?" I asked myself. Research time. "Who is saying what, now?" I thought. I knew there would be a higher source teaching this; even pushing it. One does not usually stand out so boldly on ones own belief without having backup. I will address where it began in Part 2.
In truth, I have felt, for sometime now, that increasing heresy was going to happen within some groups of Christianity. I have seen a slippery slope for a while now. There have been many false doctrines coming out of especially the younger generations of Christians. The Bible warned it would happen. We should not be surprised.
Many times it isn't from a Biblically ignorant group. But sometimes it is from a Biblically arrogant group or leader. Sometimes misunderstanding of Scripture is where arrogance will lead. (And again, I am only talking of the leaders here.) They know their Bible, and I am sure they love their Bible. They obviously study their Bible. But we find some in this day and age who are always looking for a new twist; the next big thing. Too often, it seems to be about bringing attention to themselves. In an attention seeking world, they want attention. Many love to expound upon their knowledge and share what they believe. But sometimes it seems they have a practice of one-upping each other or others within the Christian community. At least, it appears that way to those on the outside. I'm sure that isn't the case, at least consciously, from those doing it.
I believe they love and know the Lord...certainly those at the lower echelon of these groups love the Lord. But it is my belief that they are purposefully being deceived by those at an upper echelon...maybe not all teaching within these upper ranks try to deceive, but I believe there to be a dangerous deceitful leadership at the helm of some who claim to be Christians. Besides distorting theology, I believe it is for a political purpose. I have written about this before. It is not conservative politics. It is an infiltration of the church by the left and it is intentional. With that preface let me get to the most recent controversial belief that we are beginning to hear.
Apparently the newest popular belief/trend making its way through some modern thinkers in Christendom is that the Holy Spirit is and should be considered female. I am sure most don't realize it, but this latest heresy is about to undue, in a seemingly innocuous way, everything Christianity stands for and teaches.
That may sound dramatic. Let me explain. Maybe to some this new teaching/belief sounds innocent enough. It absolutely is not.
6 Points of Danger
Why is this new fad (for lack of better word - pendulum swing might be more Scriptural) dangerous?
1. It denies the Trinity. If the Holy Spirit is female, the Trinity cannot possibly be 3 in 1.
2. It undoes all Scripture where the Holy Spirit is referred to as He or Him. (John 14: 26; John 15: 26; John 16:7 to list a few.)
3. If the Holy Spirit is female, Mary could not possibly have been impregnated by the Holy Spirit. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear the argument now. "God is Spirit; He is neither male or female", the argument will go. But...
4. God chose to reveal Himself to us as Male - Father, Son, Holy Ghost - He used this analogy for a reason. This new heresy purposefully denies God's very deliberate intent that we perceive Him, understand Him and know Him as a Male.
6. Finally, it is inaccurate. And no one gets to purposefully spread inaccurate interpretation of Scripture. The warnings throughout Scripture are many. I will choose this one, Galatians 1:6-10 King James Version (KJV):
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
And yes, this heresy changes the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If one is changing the gender of the Holy Spirit without full understanding and explanation of the Hebrew, one is changing God's intent and on dangerous ground. Sorry, not sorry.
We should actively question anything that goes against previous teachings, that which we know to be true for centuries in our faith. If we hear something that is convincing on the outset (like when we study a word in Greek or Hebrew) but it seems to be contrary to our faith, we then need to dig a little deeper. We should teach ourselves to hear a warning alarm in our minds. When something seems inaccurate or different, we need to prayerfully go on a deeper search. We need to consider the full counsel of the Word of God. We cannot believe merely a snippet someone might be telling us; even if we have previously trusted that person. That is the only way we are prevented from being led astray. We need to be Bereans (Acts 17:11 ) and we need to rightly divide God's Word (2 Timothy 2:15).
Ok. Let me move on with more about this latest trend and the danger of it.
Feminine, Not Feminine
First, why is this determination of a female Holy Spirit inaccurate? Those who teach it use the translation of Hebrew to justify this belief. The Hebrew word for "spirit" (ruach) is feminine in Genesis 1:2. But they incorrectly let it end there, supporting a false doctrine.
There are some things we need to know about the Hebrew language, as well as the Greek, if we are going to use them to translate Scripture. The old adage "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." applies well here. The gender of a word that is used in these languages cannot be left alone. There are only two genders in their languages - male and female. And there is neuter or neutral. Each noun is labeled with one or the other in the way it is spelled or pronounced. But it doesn't have anything to do with actual gender - male or female. Let's use the noun "throne". Now obviously "throne" has no gender, but it is assigned as a masculine noun in the spelling and enunciation.
One cannot assign a gender to anything without determining what else is being said in context. That is their grammatical rule! The rule is called - "grammatical gender". Every language has rules to follow before understanding any language in full. It is extremely important to utilize this as there is no proper understanding without knowing and applying the grammar of the language.
Think of it this way, just because I name my mare with a name that represents the masculine in Spanish such as Loco, that doesn't mean my mare is a male. As I write or speak and call her a mare, I let it be known she is obviously a female horse. The masculine wording I chose as her name will not EVER change the fact she is female. That would only occur in someone's mind that doesn't understand the entire situation. But that will never make it truth. One must read and listen to the statement in the entirety of its context for full understanding.
Think of it this way, just because I name my mare with a name that represents the masculine in Spanish such as Loco, that doesn't mean my mare is a male. As I write or speak and call her a mare, I let it be known she is obviously a female horse. The masculine wording I chose as her name will not EVER change the fact she is female. That would only occur in someone's mind that doesn't understand the entire situation. But that will never make it truth. One must read and listen to the statement in the entirety of its context for full understanding.
Let me use another example using the English language. When I was growing up, it was part of our language to understand that when we use the pronoun "he" or another masculine pronoun, it was not meant as identifying gender. It meant it could be either. People understood that. It was common and it was a rule of grammar of the English language. The woman's lib movement was offended by this, so it gradually changed. But we cannot change the meaning of the history of our language by ignoring that once common rule. It certainly didn't make the subject male or female for fact, it was usually used when the gender was an unknown or both genders were included.
Further, one cannot pick and choose to follow some grammar rules from a particular language anymore than one can pick and choose to follow only the Bible verses they like, while mostly using them out of context. If one is going to interpret or explain from a foreign language, one must understand how the language works, the rules and understanding of the language - accurate grammatical usage of the language is imperative in understanding the correct meaning!!
In other words, in the Hebrew language, it is understood in use, that everything is to be applied in context. The gender of the word is not determined by its spelling or endings but by the complete context where it is used.
From Bill Mounce, the founder and President of BiblicalTraining.org:
"The Hebrew language only has two grammatical genders: masculine (זָכָר) and feminine (נְקֵבָה). Therefore, every Hebrew noun has an inherent grammatical gender. In the case of the noun רוּחַ, the grammatical gender is feminine. Yet, this does not mean the natural gender of the Holy Spirit is feminine."[1]
Let's look at the very first use of the word Spirit in the Old Testament:
"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Genesis 1:2 KJV
The Hebrew word for God in this verse is the Hebrew word "Elohim" - Masculine. The Hebrew word for Spirit here is "ruach", as are all most all usages of the word spirit in the Old Testament. In the original text, the word for Spirit is (רוה) (ruach) and is attached a feminine grammatical gender. As explained earlier, all nouns in both Hebrew and Greek are only either masculine or feminine. The noun is wind or breath. And when read or spoken in context - the grammatical gender reveals it is masculine. Why? Because when the Hebrew language rule of grammatical gender, is considered and the word is looked at in context, the word is clearly masculine, because it is a word talking about God i.e. "Elohim" - Masculine. Using the full counsel of the Word of God , we know God is Male and that must be applied. We know clearly God chose to reveal Himself to us as Male. To distort this is to change God's meaning and we are warned against doing that in Scripture many, many times.
Revealed in both the Old Testament (Yahweh) and New Testament, but it is in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is given to us whom we know as the Spirit of God/Jesus - a Triune God! I will write about that in my next post. As a Triune God, God chose to manifest Himself to us as His Son. He came to earth as a Male. I am not going to argue what might or might not be in the spirit realm. That would be folly. And further I don't need to know about it, because I know fully that God wanted to be known and understood as a Male. It is really that simple. And we had better not deviate from that!! That is a very dangerous thing to do!
If He is not seen as He intended us to see Him, many would see Him as a hypocrite, because the Bible is filled with messages teaching us He is the Groom, with the church being the Bride. We see in Scripture that He wanted to describe marriage in a way we can relate to Him in our own marriages. That the male should be head over the family, as He is head over us. He relates to us as the Father and that He loves us as His children. He offered us the greatest sacrifice, the greatest gift of a Son. To distort this and apply a different gender to the Holy Spirit is only to bring confusion to believers, but more importantly to unbelievers! We cannot allow that to happen.
Everything is destroyed - and I do mean everything - if we try to relate to a Triune God in the feminine. This was never His intention. The Jewish people understood that as they know their language i.e. their grammatical rules and its correct usage. The Bible was written to us in these languages. Old Testament - Hebrew and New Testament- Greek and if we are to use those languages to gain greater understanding, to decipher, to dig deeper, then we must understand all the rules of those languages - exactly as we would be required to do in learning any language. It isn't any different than when we research customs of those nations and/or the era and times to gain greater understanding. It must be done accurately and without supposition!!
Anyone who has ever studied a foreign language learns certain things (understanding, tricks, punctuations that change meaning) about each language. We aren't required to take foreign languages within our primary and secondary education for nothing. There is a purpose. And the understanding of that right now, because of this heresy taking place is probably one of the most important reasons I would ever be able to think of to learn languages.
Now to the reason for my heartbreak. Someone already knows this. Trust me, if I know this, someone at the top pushing this belief knows this truth. IT IS INTENTIONAL DECEPTION. And I will not be silent regarding it.
Shame on anyone attempting to change what God has said and said very plainly! Apparently they do it for their own purposes! Some time, some place, one simply has to consider tradition, and question when someone or something has strayed from it. Those are our warning signs.
I use the quote below reluctantly, because I am not a fan of the Gospel Coalition or John Piper. It comes from John Piper's site Desiring God. I have a few problems with Piper, I consider him part of the problem of much of what I have talked about, regarding incorrect doctrine and political bias. I do not usually even quote someone with whom I disagree, because I fear that leads others into areas which perhaps they shouldn't go. I will use the quote here because it is so accurate; but also because many that listen to Piper and those around him are some of the very ones that are being led astray - maybe the truth will reach them coming from someone they trust. Further Piper, Tony Reinke (who wrote the article footnoted) and Bruce Waltke are all are Reformed Theology of which I disagree, so I do not want to be seen as promoting or agreeing with that theology. I simply do not want to be seen promoting something with which I do not agree. (I am not saying any of these men are teaching the false doctrine of a feminine Holy Spirit -obviously from this quote, they are not.) So with that disclaimer and a desire to stand on what I believe, this is the Biblically accurate statement by Bruce Waltke:
"And yet God’s self-chosen titles matter. Masculine titles for God are not the evidence of “religious conditioning,” but the product of God’s self-disclosure. God has chosen to reveal himself with masculine titles, and we receive those titles by faith because, in the words of theologian Bruce Waltke, “It is inexcusable hubris and idolatry on the part of mortals to change the images by which the eternal God chooses to represent himself” (Old Testament Theology, 244).[2]
And I will repeat what Bruce Waltke says which Reinke quotes:
"It is inexcusable hubris and idolatry on the part of mortals to change the images by which the eternal God chooses to represent himself"[3]
