Why is the Holy Spirit symbolised by wind?

Question 4149

The picture of the Spirit as wind is woven into the very words the Bible uses for Him, since the Hebrew ruach and the Greek pneuma both mean wind or breath as well as spirit. When Scripture presents the Spirit as wind it is drawing on something we all know, an unseen power whose presence we feel by its effects even though we never see the thing itself.

From the breath of life in Eden to the rushing wind of Pentecost, this image runs across both Testaments and stands among the great symbols of the Spirit. To watch how the Bible handles the Spirit as wind is to learn how God gives life, how He cannot be controlled, and how the new birth comes about in a soul.

Wind as the breath of life

The story opens with breath. God formed the man from the dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being (Genesis 2:7). The same word stands behind the Spirit as wind, so that from the first page the giving of life and the breath of God are bound together. Where the breath of God moves, the dead live and the lifeless stand up.

Ezekiel saw this acted out in the valley of dry bones, where the prophet was told to call the wind, the ruach, to breathe on the slain that they might live (Ezekiel 37:9, 10). The Spirit as wind is the giver of life to a people as good as dead, which is exactly the work He does in regeneration. Just as no creature gives itself breath, no sinner gives himself new life. It comes from outside, from the Spirit who moves as He wills.

There is a quiet dignity in this for the believer. Your spiritual life is not a flame you struck for yourself and must somehow keep alight by willpower. It was breathed into you by God, and the breath that gave it sustains it. When the Lord Jesus stood among His disciples after the resurrection He breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), drawing once more on the picture of the Spirit as wind. The Author of life had become the giver of new life, and He gave it by His own breath.

The Spirit as wind and the new birth

The Lord Jesus reached for this very picture when He taught Nicodemus about the new birth. The wind blows where it wishes, He said, and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:8). The Spirit as wind is free and unforced, and the new birth He works is His own doing rather than the achievement of human will.

This does not cancel human faith. In Ian’s reading of Scripture, faith precedes regeneration in the logical order, so that the one who believes the gospel is then born anew by the Spirit. Yet the new birth itself is the Spirit’s act, mysterious as the wind, beyond our managing. We feel the effects, a changed heart, a new love for God, a turning from sin, even when we cannot trace the hidden working that produced them. This is the heart of our study on receiving the Holy Spirit.

Wind that cannot be controlled

One of the plainest lessons of the Spirit as wind is that He will not be tamed. We do not bottle the wind or command it to blow on demand, and neither do we manage the Spirit. He moves where He wills (John 3:8; 1 Corinthians 12:11), distributing His gifts as He chooses rather than as we prefer. This is a needed corrective to any teaching that treats the Spirit as a power to be released or directed by the sufficiently confident believer.

The believer’s posture before the Spirit as wind is therefore one of readiness rather than command. We hoist the sail, so to speak, and wait for the wind of God. We give ourselves to prayer, to the word and to obedience, and we trust the Spirit to move in His time and way. The church that tries to generate its own wind by noise and technique has forgotten that the Spirit as wind answers to God alone, a caution worth holding against every form of charismatic excess.

This is not an excuse for idleness, as though we had nothing to do but wait. A sailor who never raises his sails will go nowhere even in a gale. The point is that our activity is responsive rather than commanding. We do the things God has told us to do and look to Him for the breath that makes them effective, knowing that the most diligent preacher cannot convert a soul and the most fervent prayer cannot bind the Spirit. He gives life as He wills, and our part is faithfulness while we wait on Him.

Wind that is unseen yet known by its effects

Part of why the Bible reaches for the Spirit as wind is that it answers a real difficulty. People sometimes complain that they cannot see the Spirit and so are unsure whether He is real or at work in them. The wind meets that worry head on. No one has ever seen the wind, yet no one doubts it when the trees bend and the sails fill. The Spirit as wind is known by what He does, and His effects are as plain as a changed life.

This is a great comfort to the believer who looks inward and finds little to point to. You do not measure the wind by staring at the air. You watch the leaves. In the same way you do not assess the Spirit’s presence by hunting for a feeling but by looking for His fruit, a softening towards God, a hatred of sin that was not there before, a love for the people of God and for the Lord Jesus. Where these appear, the Spirit as wind has been moving, whatever the emotions happen to be doing.

It also keeps us humble about others. We cannot trace exactly where the wind has been or where it is going, and we are poor judges of the hidden work of God in another soul. The Spirit as wind blows on the unlikely and passes over the self assured, and the history of revival is full of surprises that no one managed or predicted. Our part is to spread the sail of prayer and the preached word, and to leave the wind to God.

The mighty rushing wind of Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost came, the sign that heralded the Spirit’s coming was a sound like a mighty rushing wind that filled the whole house (Acts 2:2). The Spirit as wind arrived not as a gentle breeze but as a gale, marking the birth of the church and the opening of the new order in which the Spirit indwells every believer. The same breath that gave Adam life and raised Ezekiel’s bones now filled a room of waiting disciples.

That wind has never stopped blowing. Every conversion since is another instance of the Spirit as wind giving life where there was death, and the church advances not by its own strength but as the wind of God carries the gospel forward. The believer lives, prays and serves in the current of that same Spirit, whose coming we trace from promise to fulfilment in our answer on the Spirit in the Old and New Testaments.

So, now what?

If the Spirit moves like the wind, then the wise believer learns to set the sail and wait on God rather than to strive and force. Give yourself to the ordinary means He loves to use, the reading of Scripture, honest prayer and glad obedience, and trust Him to breathe life into them in His own way.

And take heart if you cannot trace His working in you. You may not see the wind, but you can see the leaves move. Where there is a new hatred of sin and a new love for the Lord Jesus, the Spirit as wind has plainly been at work, and the One who began that good work will carry it on.

When the wind seems still and your soul feels becalmed, do not despair and do not try to manufacture a storm. Keep the sails up. Return to the word, keep praying even when prayer feels dry, stay among the people of God, and wait on Him with patience. The same Spirit who came as a mighty rushing wind at Pentecost has not grown weak or weary, and He still delights to fill the sails of those who are simply waiting on God.

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8