Rethinking John 7.39

One of the major points I made in my volume Biblical Theology. The Convergence of the Canon (CUP, 2020), is that one must allow the OT to be the OT, which means not reading everything from the NT back into the OT. Among the things this includes is not reading the references to ‘the spirit of Yahweh’ in the OT as if it were a reference to the Holy Spirit. No, it’s a reference to the powerful living presence of Yahweh which among other things created the universe, rescued the Hebrews from Egypt, provided various miracles etc. The handful of reference to ‘the holy spirit’ in the OT (2 in Isaiah, one in Ps. 51) in context refer to Yahweh’s spirit— for example when David begs Yahweh, cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me….’ Note that it is Yahweh’s own spirit he knows about and refers to. One has to have an understanding of progressive revelation to real understand how God over time reveals more and more of his divine identity. This brings us to John 7.39 where John the evangelist makes a direct pronouncement as follows: “—“By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given,...