III. God's Spirit and Word in the Time of the
Promises
702
From the beginning until "the fullness of time,"60 The joint
mission of the Father's Word and Spirit remains hidden, but it is at work.
God's Spirit prepares for the time of the Messiah. Neither is fully revealed
but both are already promised, to be watched for and welcomed at their
manifestation. So, for this reason, when the Church reads the Old Testament, she
searches there for what the Spirit, "who has spoken through the
prophets," wants to tell us about Christ.61
By "prophets" the faith of the Church here understands all
whom the Holy Spirit inspired in the composition of the sacred books, both of
the Old and the New Testaments. Jewish tradition distinguishes first the Law
(the five first books or Pentateuch), then the Prophets (our historical and
prophetic books) and finally the Writings (especially the wisdom literature, in
particular the Psalms).62
In creation
703
The Word of God and his Breath are at the origin of the being and life of every
creature:63
It belongs to the Holy Spirit to rule, sanctify, and animate creation,
for he is God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son.... Power over life
pertains to the Spirit, for being God he preserves creation in the Father
through the Son.64
704
"God fashioned man with his own hands [that is, the Son and the Holy
Spirit] and impressed his own form on the flesh he had fashioned, in such a way
that even what was visible might bear the divine form."65
The Spirit
of the promise
705
Disfigured by sin and death, man remains "in the image of God," in
the image of the Son, but is deprived "of the glory of
God,"66 of his "likeness." the promise made to Abraham
inaugurates the economy of salvation, at the culmination of which the Son
himself will assume that "image"67 and restore it in the
Father's "likeness" by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is
"the giver of life."
706
Against all human hope, God promises descendants to Abraham, as the fruit of
faith and of the power of the Holy Spirit.68 In Abraham's progeny all
the nations of the earth will be blessed. This progeny will be Christ
himself,69 in whom the outpouring of the Holy Spirit will "gather
into one the children of God who are scattered abroad."70 God
commits himself by his own solemn oath to giving his beloved Son and "the
promised Holy Spirit . . . [who is] the guarantee of our inheritance until we
acquire possession of it."71
In
Theophanies and the Law
707
Theophanies (manifestations of God) light up the way of the promise, from the
patriarchs to Moses and from Joshua to the visions that inaugurated the
missions of the great prophets. Christian tradition has always recognized that
God's Word allowed himself to be seen and heard in these theophanies, in which
the cloud of the Holy Spirit both revealed him and concealed him in its shadow.
708
This divine pedagogy appears especially in the gift of the Law.72 God
gave the letter of the Law as a "pedagogue" to lead his people
towards Christ.73 But the Law's powerlessness to save man deprived of
the divine "likeness," along with the growing awareness of sin that
it imparts,74 enkindles a desire for the Holy Spirit. the lamentations
of the Psalms bear witness to this.
In the
Kingdom and the Exile
709
The Law, the sign of God's promise and covenant, ought to have governed the
hearts and institutions of that people to whom Abraham's faith gave birth.
"If you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, . . . you shall be to me
a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."75 But after David, Israel
gave in to the temptation of becoming a kingdom like other nations. the
Kingdom, however, the object of the promise made to David,76 would be
the work of the Holy Spirit; it would belong to the poor according to the
Spirit.
710
The forgetting of the Law and the infidelity to the covenant end in death: it
is the Exile, apparently the failure of the promises, which is in fact the
mysterious fidelity of the Savior God and the beginning of a promised
restoration, but according to the Spirit. the People of God had to suffer this
purification.77 In God's plan, the Exile already stands in the shadow
of the Cross, and the Remnant of the poor that returns from the Exile is one of
the most transparent prefigurations of the Church.
Expectation
of the Messiah and his Spirit
711
"Behold, I am doing a new thing."78 Two prophetic lines were
to develop, one leading to the expectation of the Messiah, the other pointing
to the announcement of a new Spirit. They converge in the small Remnant, the
people of the poor, who await in hope the "consolation of Israel" and
"the redemption of Jerusalem."79
We have seen earlier how Jesus fulfills the prophecies concerning
himself. We limit ourselves here to those in which the relationship of the
Messiah and his Spirit appears more clearly.
712
The characteristics of the awaited Messiah begin to appear in the "Book of
Emmanuel" ("Isaiah said this when he saw his glory,"80
speaking of Christ), especially in the first two verses of Isaiah 11:
81
There shall come forth a shoot
from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of
his roots.
and the Spirit of the LORD
shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and
understanding,
the spirit of counsel and
might,
the spirit of knowledge and
the fear of the LORD.
713
The Messiah's characteristics are revealed above all in the "Servant
songs."82 These songs proclaim the meaning of Jesus' Passion and
show how he will pour out the Holy Spirit to give life to the many: not as an
outsider, but by embracing our "form as slave."83 Taking our
death upon himself, he can communicate to us his own Spirit of life.
714
This is why Christ inaugurates the proclamation of the Good News by making his
own the following passage from Isaiah:84
The Spirit of the LORD God is
upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good tidings to the
afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to
the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim
the year of the LORD'S favor.
715
The prophetic texts that directly concern the sending of the Holy Spirit are
oracles by which God speaks to the heart of his people in the language of the
promise, with the accents of "love and fidelity."85 St. Peter
will proclaim their fulfillment on the morning of Pentecost.86
According to these promises, at the "end time" the Lord's Spirit will
renew the hearts of men, engraving a new law in them. He will gather and
reconcile the scattered and divided peoples; he will transform the first
creation, and God will dwell there with men in peace.
716
The People of the "poor"87 - those who, humble and meek, rely
solely on their God's mysterious plans, who await the justice, not of men but
of the Messiah - are in the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit's
hidden mission during the time of the promises that prepare for Christ's
coming. It is this quality of heart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit,
which is expressed in the Psalms. In these poor, the Spirit is making ready
"a people prepared for the Lord."88
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