Q+R: Baptized by the Spirit, Union with Jesus, and the Spirit’s Help in Reading the Bible

Tim Mackie and Jon Collins open with a question-and-response episode concluding their series on the Spirit of God, which traced the theme through the Bible and early Christian theology. They thank listeners for unusually thoughtful questions but note they cannot answer them all. Jon then admits that his wife noticed his irritation with the pronunciation debate over the Greek word pneuma. He has resisted changing “Torah” to “Torah” and initially resisted “pnevma” as well. Tim explains that “pnevma” is the modern Greek pronunciation, while “pneuma” reflects a historically inaccurate Western academic tradition popularized by Erasmus.

Answering Zach from Grand Rapids, Tim explains that biblical themes cannot be traced merely through one word. Greek baptizo means “to immerse,” and the Septuagint uses it when Naaman is told to immerse himself in the Jordan seven times in 2 Kings 5; the Hebrew verb taval means to dip or plunge. The larger biblical pattern begins with the Spirit hovering over the waters in Genesis 1, continues through Noah’s flood and the Spirit-driven waters receding, and reaches the Sea of Reeds, where the waters bring death to Pharaoh but deliver Israel. The Spirit leads people through chaotic waters toward new life.

Tim connects the baptism motif to Isaiah’s promises that God will pour out his Spirit and water onto dry ground, as well as to the promise that God will remain with his people through water and fire. Baptism can therefore mean being immersed in the Spirit, who is both the guide through death-dealing waters and the life-giving water that renews the wilderness. Paul assumes this background when he describes baptism in Romans 6 as dying and being raised with Jesus. Peter makes the connection explicit in 1 Peter 3: Noah’s eight family members were brought safely through the flood, corresponding to baptism—not merely the removal of dirt, but an appeal to God through Jesus’ resurrection.

Responding to Chris, the hosts say their avoidance of gendered pronouns for the Spirit was partly instinctive and, for Tim, partly intentional. Scripture uses every grammatical possibility. In Hebrew, ruach (“wind,” “breath,” or “spirit”) is feminine, and Ezekiel often refers to the Spirit with feminine pronouns; Tim used “she” in his Ezekiel translation. Greek adds neuter nouns and pronouns, and Acts sometimes uses them for pneuma, while John uses both neuter and masculine forms. Since grammatical gender does not necessarily imply personal gender, and Scripture uses masculine, feminine, and neuter language, the hosts prefer to remember that all language about God is metaphorical.

Answering Asha from New Zealand, Tim says Paul’s apparent paradox—“it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”—concerns the relationship between divine and human agency. In Galatians 2:20, Paul says he died “through” or “by means of” the Torah’s consequences so that he could live to God; his association with Jesus means Jesus’ faithful life, death, and resurrection become his own life. Paul can also say he worked harder than the other apostles, then qualify that it was not him but God’s grace working through him. The Spirit makes this union possible without eliminating the human person.

The hosts distinguish Paul’s “flesh” from mere physical embodiment. In Galatians 5, the flesh represents short-term, self-focused gratification of bodily desires, while the Spirit guides people into a new kind of embodied life. Paul’s “fruit of the Spirit”—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—cannot exist without bodies and relationships. The Spirit does not lead people to escape the body but directs embodied life toward durable participation in new creation. Tim describes this as joint agency: people make real decisions and act, yet do so through power supplied by the Creator’s intimate presence.

Responding to Stefan from Germany, Tim and Jon reject the idea that passages such as Jeremiah 31:34 and John 16:13 mean Christians should avoid teachers, scholarship, or serious study. Jeremiah’s promise that everyone will “know” Yahweh concerns intimate relationship and transformed desires, not the elimination of information or instruction. The apostles describe the Spirit raising up teachers within the church, so the Spirit’s work through other people and the Spirit’s work directly in an individual are not mutually exclusive. Biblical knowledge does not guarantee knowing God, but it can deepen relationship with God by providing context, much as learning a parent’s life story can deepen an adult child’s understanding.

Lisa asks whether the sevenfold Spirit in Revelation is the same as the sevenfold Spirit associated with Isaiah 11. Tim says Revelation’s imagery is very likely John’s meditation on Isaiah, even though Isaiah never literally uses the phrase “sevenfold Spirit”; readers infer the number from the structured list of the Spirit’s attributes. Revelation 1 mentions seven spirits before God’s throne, Revelation 3 associates Jesus with the seven spirits and seven stars, and Revelation 4 identifies seven burning lamps before the throne as the seven spirits of God. The seven spirits correspond symbolically to the seven churches and represent something singular expressed in multiple manifestations.

The hosts close by acknowledging that their study clarified the Spirit while leaving substantial mystery: God’s wind and God’s action, human and divine agency, and whether the Spirit is singular or plural, masculine or feminine. Tim offers an analogy from improvisational jazz: a song can originate through one musician, exist as written notation, and then be performed by many musicians in distinct but recognizable ways. The Spirit similarly gives one divine life multiple embodied expressions. They thank listeners, announce that the next series will return to the Psalms after Psalms 1 and 2, and explain that BibleProject is a crowdfunded nonprofit whose resources are free.