“Turn back at my reproof, lo, I pour forth to you my spirit, I make known my words with you.” (Prov. 1:23, YLT)

God’s poetry defines his synonyms and metaphors. They are usually couplets having two parts or lines. The first line or half of the couplet is repeated in different words in the second half. Thereby actions and objects are made equal to each other.

In Prov. 1:23, “pour forth” becomes “make known” and “my spirit” becomes “my words” in the second half. Therefore, God’s spirit equals God’s words, and pouring forth equals making known, or we could say revealing.

When God poured forth His Holy Spirit upon His prophets (messengers), He was putting His words directly into their minds, revealing to them His mind, which then poured out through the prophet’s mouths. They were God’s megaphone, His messengers.

“²⁰this first knowing, that no prophecy of the Writing doth come of private exposition, ²¹for not by will of man did ever prophecy come, but by the Holy Spirit borne on holy men of God spake.” (2 Pet. 1:23, YLT)

The purpose of the Holy Spirit was always moving the men of God, His messengers to speak God’s words, to reveal God’s mind to the people. The Holy Spirit provides the Holy words of God, the mind of God.

“⁸the Spirit where he willeth doth blow, and his voice thou dost hear, but thou hast not known whence he cometh, and whither he goeth; thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit.’

⁹Nicodemus answered and said to him, `How are these things able to happen?’

¹⁰Jesus answered and said to him, `Thou art the teacher of Israel — and these things thou dost not know! <sup>11</sup>`Verily, verily, I say to thee — What we have known we speak, and what we have seen we testify, and our testimony ye do not receive;” (John 3:8-11, YLT)

The prophets of old were moved by the Holy Spirit to speak of what they heard and saw, to testify of both the words and the visions to the people.

“²In the fifth of the month — it is the fifth year of the removal of the king Jehoiachin – ³hath the word of Jehovah certainly been unto Ezekiel son of Buzi the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar, and there is on him there a hand of Jehovah.” (Ezek. 1:2-3, YLT)

God’s Spirit came upon Ezekiel from time to time, whenever He willed the time to be right. Ezekiel was a messenger, but the Holy Spirit was not always active at every moment of Ezekiel’s life. The Holy Spirit moved Ezekiel to speak God’s words whenever the Spirit willed it. “The Spirit where he willeth doth blow…”

Ezekiel was not the only prophet or messenger whom God sent during the Babylonian captivity. Jeremeiah (about 647 – 580 BC), Hulda (about 642 BC), Habakuk (about 628 – 617 BC), Daniel (taken to Babylon about 617 BC, along with Ezekiel), Obadiah (probably 586 BC at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction); all these were God’s messengers and prophets with Ezekiel in different places and times during that period.

So, let’s consider this question for a moment: did being filled with the Holy Spirit mean that the Holy Spirit occupied the prophet’s body? What does being “filled with the Holy Spirit” mean?

“⁹Jesus saith to him, `So long time am I with you, and thou hast not known me, Philip? he who hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how dost thou say, Shew to us the Father?

¹⁰Believest thou not that I [am] in the Father, and the Father is in me? the sayings that I speak to you, from myself I speak not, and the Father who is abiding in me, Himself doth the works;” (John 14:9-10, YLT)

“and be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, for your proving what [is] the will of God — the good, and acceptable, and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2, YLT)

“⁵For, let this mind be in you that [is] also in Christ Jesus,…” (Phil. 2:5, YLT)

“And finally, being all of one mind, having fellow-feeling, loving as brethren, compassionate, courteous,” (1 Pet. 3:8 YLT)

How do we have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus?

“⁷now they have known that all things, as many as Thou hast given to me, are from Thee, ⁸because the sayings that Thou hast given to me, I have given to them, and they themselves received, and have known truly, that from Thee I came forth, and they did believe that Thou didst send me.” (John 17: 7-8, YLT)

“²⁰`And not in regard to these alone do I ask, but also in regard to those who shall be believing, through their word, in me; ²¹that they all may be one, as Thou Father [art] in me, and I in Thee; that they also in us may be one, that the world may believe that Thou didst send me.” (John 17: 20-21, YLT)

“¹⁰but to us did God reveal [them] through His Spirit, for the Spirit all things doth search, even the depths of God, ¹¹for who of men hath known the things of the man, except the spirit of the man that [is] in him? so also the things of God no one hath known, except the Spirit of God.

¹²And we the spirit of the world did not receive, but the Spirit that [is] of God, that we may know the things conferred by God on us, ¹³which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Holy Spirit, with spiritual things spiritual things comparing,

¹⁴and the natural man doth not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are foolishness, and he is not able to know [them], because spiritually they are discerned; ¹⁵and he who is spiritual, doth discern indeed all things, and he himself is by no one discerned;

¹⁶for who did know the mind of the Lord that he shall instruct Him? and we — we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2:10-16, YLT)

“through their word”…We have the same mind of Christ through Christ’s spirit / words. We know His word because He spoke it, revealed it to us. Revealing equals making known. It is the knowing and abiding in His word that makes us of the same mind of Christ, that makes us one with Christ, and one with the Father.

Being filled with the Spirit = being filled with the word of God. Of the same mind of Christ = doing the will of the Father, abiding in His word.

It is the knowing, having the Spirit, the mind, the word that is revealed from the Father through His Holy Spirit to His messengers, and His Son. Being filled with the Spirit is to be filled with the knowledge, the word, the mind of God’s Spirit.

How do we abide in His word, or His Spirit if we do not know it? How do we know it if we do not read it and study it?

A few more thoughts to explore in the next part (b) of this Part V.