Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ John

[Bahu]

As the title said, I need some clarification. Apparently the Holy Spirit has some feminime feature (I don't know the right word), and that's what the Hebrew word for "Spirit" indicates. So why is that in this passage, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as "Him"?

[jimwalton]

The Holy Spirit has no feminine feature. The Hebrew word for "spirit" is ruach, meaning breath or wind, or even "mind." The Greek word for "spirit" is pneuma, again with no particular feminine feature.

In John 14.15, "Counselor" (παράκλητον [parakleton]) is masculine singular. It was a word for one who defends against accusation and to represent a client in court or to transact business for him. These were exclusively men in the ancient world.

In John 14.17, the Spirit is identified as a "him."

In John 14.18, Jesus says that as the Spirit comes, Jesus will come to them, identifying himself with the Spirit. Jesus was male.

Why is God often referred to as a male, though we consider God to be genderless? I would have several thoughts.

1. Maleness avoids the sexual connotations of the female. In many ancient cultures, “God” was a sexual being, image, and concept, and this was to be avoided at all costs. The male imagery avoids the problem that men have as they look at women. For men and women, it’s better to have God as a guy. We have to keep in mind that God is not male or female. He has no gender. Sometimes God is portrayed as a mother hen. Whatever communicates best. It’s just a label of revelation, not a reality of theology.

2. While feminine images are used throughout Scripture to describe God’s compassionate and loving nature (Isa. 66.12-13; Hos. 11.1-4), it’s important to note that God is never addressed as Mother. This phenomenon is unique compared with the cultures surrounding the original biblical writers. Most ancient Near Eastern societies had a goddess as the main cult figure or at least to complement a male god—Asherah in Canaan, Isis in Egypt, Tiamat in Babylon. If patriarchy is responsible for cultures portraying God as male, then we would expect goddess worship to reflect a matriarchal society—one in which women are given superior status or at least equal to men. But this is not the case. Even today, many societies devoted to goddess worship remain oppressive toward women. Devotion to the goddess Kali in Hinduism, for instance, has never resulted in better treatment of women, even among Kali devotees.

3. Maleness in the ancient world implied lordship over creation and intimate, personal love far better than femaleness would. One might ask: Couldn’t gender-neutral terms communicate the same ideas? No, because if we use gender neutral terms, theologically we could too easily turn God into an “it,” and if we include the feminine, it’s a short jump to God the Mother gave birth to Christ, or to creation, or to us as his children. It is fraught with theological potholes or Towers of Babylon.

4. Katelyn Beaty: Gender-neutral language for God is pastorally incomplete. In trying to save conceptions of God from patriarchy we make Him cold and unapproachable: “Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.” God is more than what God does.

5. Katelyn Beaty: All gendered God-language is metaphorical. God is not a biological male. It lends itself to intimacy rather than mere sovereignty.

6. Katelyn Beaty: If the language is painful, it’s men, not the language, who need reform.