Holy Spirit: Like a Dove

Act One: A Hovering

We open the Bible to its first page, in the beginning, to see our eternal God ready for the work of Creation. Three-in-One: The Father makes the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). The Word, the Son, brings life and light into the world; through Him all things are made (John 1:1-4). And the Spirit hovers over the waters of earth, “brood[ing] like a bird above the watery abyss” (Genesis 1:2 MSG). 

From the start of our story with God, we see Father, Son, and Spirit working in tandem, knit together by their love and mission. Father, we can imagine. Jesus, we know. Holy Spirit, more of a mystery. And so the writer of Genesis aids our ability to picture Him – as a bird. Hovering. Brooding. Like a dove.

The original Hebrew readers of the story of Creation would’ve been familiar with the word employed for ‘hovering’, rachaph – a word that always describes birds.¹ An image that helps us see what God’s Spirit is doing. Such hovering in the Hebrew worldview demonstrates “an active, personal presence preparing the primordial chaos for God’s creative word.”² Holy Spirit prepares as He hovers, much as a mama-bird prepares the nest for her coming family, makes ready for new life by brooding over her eggs. 

And just as a mama-bird brings on the power to protect her babies from predators, so the Spirit carries within Himself a power – the same power He used to make “the heavens beautiful” and to pierce “the gliding serpent” (Job 26:13). Such hovering represents the power of God’s divine presence at work in the world.

Personal. Preparing. Present. Full of power.  This is Holy Spirit. The One we cannot see shows up in Scripture – sometimes, like a dove. One who descends and searches. One who makes ready and heralds new creation. Forever hovering over those in His care and empowering them.

Act Two: A Flood

God looked upon earth generations after sin and wickedness had entered His creation and saw that “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). One man out of all the earth had goodness in his heart. One man. Noah, who by faith “built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, …condemned the rest of the world, and received the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7 NLT). 

The relentless flood washes away all the wickedness and cleanses creation. As the waters recede, Noah sends a dove out to search the earth for land. After his first scouting trip, the dove returns to the ark with an olive branch, a telling sign of new life. In doing so, the dove heralds new creation, becoming a symbol of peace and a representation of God’s “Spirit bringing the good news of the reconciliation of God and man.”³ 

A friend once told me that sometimes things must die – so that new life can form. So while Holy Spirit in us works to prepare our hearts and minds and spirits for the work of God, sometimes His presence feels more like a flood that pushes through with a power that cleanses and makes new. Such holy flooding washes away anything separating us from God so that only righteousness remains.⁴ Holy Spirit’s presence rains down power into our relationship with Him in order to make us new in Christ. 

Act Three: A River

We’ve seen Holy Spirit hovering like a dove over water at Creation. We’ve witnessed a dove heralding a renewed creation after a flood of water. And there’s one more scene in which to watch a dove do His thing – at the river of Jesus’ baptism.

All four Gospels use the same language, the exact imagery of Holy Spirit’s coming down to rest on Jesus – “like a dove” (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). This is not figurative language. This is Holy Spirit arriving on the scene “in bodily form” (Luke 3:22) – to be seen. To let it be known that this moment marks a new creation. Tyler Staton describes the four Gospel writers as ‘connecting dots’ for their Jewish contemporaries so that the picture becomes clear: “God created the world when his Spirit spread wings over the waters of chaos like a dove. God recreated the world when his Spirit spread wings over the waters of Jesus’ baptism like a dove.”⁵ 

Jesus enters the waters of the Jordan River not as a sinner in need of repentance and rebirth but as the Son of God ready to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). The Son understands His part of the mission – to become the Way believers are made righteous before God. He also knows this anointing of the Spirit initiates the beginning of His ministry on earth. This is the scene where the Father speaks words of Jesus’ messianic identity, authority, and commissioning. This is where the Spirit descends like a dove onto Jesus as visible evidence of His Sonship and power.⁶ 

It’s so important for us to grasp that Holy Spirit alights upon the Son as “the empowering agent of Jesus’ ministry.”⁵ From the moment the Dove lands, Jesus steps into the holy work of ushering in the Kingdom of God, the re-creation. And He does so “full of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 3:1), “led by the Spirit” (Matthew 4:1). 

After His testing in the wilderness, Jesus heads home to Nazareth, “in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14), where He proclaims Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled in Himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me” to do God’s work (Luke 4:18,21). In doing so, Jesus claims his identity as the long-awaited Messiah, and He embodies the power of the Holy Spirit (see Matthew 12:28).⁵ 

For many of us, this teaching of Holy Spirit as the ‘empowering agent’ of Jesus’ ministry is new. For a lot of our lives we have either been taught or assumed that Jesus’ power came through His divinity, but that theory falls apart when we consider that Jesus told us His followers would do all the works He had done – and even greater things (John 14:12). There’s no way we humans can do anything that Jesus did if everything He accomplished happened by His own power.* Scripture certainly paints the picture of Jesus relying on Holy Spirit power: 

“And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

Acts 10:38 NLT

We know Jesus as fully divine and fully human, and the writers of the New Testament help us understand that while Jesus’s body contained the fullness of deity (Colossians 2:9), He also chose not to grasp or use that deity (Philippians 2:6). Instead, He relied on Holy Spirit for the power He needed to heal, set free, and raise the dead. In other words, Jesus fully modeled for us the way to do the works He did while on earth. By the Spirit.

Act Four: A Windstorm 

The risen Christ assures His disciples that after He ascends to heaven, His Spirit will come and anoint them with the same power He’d been given (Acts 1:8). Turn the page, and the promise becomes a reality. Rushing in as a windstorm, Holy Spirit fills the house and every believer in it (Acts 2:2-4). Everything changes in an instant. Men and women who had cowered in fear moments before, rush into the streets to tell the good news to anyone who will listen, sharing Jesus boldly with power and with new abilities of speaking in foreign languages, preaching, leading people to repentance and faith, performing signs and wonders (see Acts 2). 

In other words, Jesus’ followers are doing all the works He did – yet not by their strength or sheer force of will but by Holy Spirit (see Zechariah 4:6). The followers of Jesus “were anointed at Pentecost by the very Spirit who anointed Jesus at his baptism” — to do the work He had modeled with the power He had provided.⁵ 

We can read the book of Acts to see Christ’s faithful followers continue what He had begun. Lest we place them on a pedestal, however, let us recall that these are “ordinary people filled with the Spirit of Jesus doing the stuff of Jesus.”⁵ Therefore we, ordinary people that we are, don’t want to ever forget that we are “anointed by the Holy One” – because this should change everything for us (1 John 1:20). We don’t have to cower in fear or carry all the weight of our burdens by ourselves anymore. We don’t have to strive in our own strength or give in to hopeless apathy. We. Have. Power, living right inside of us.

Picture it with me: Holy Spirit hovers over and in our hearts. He floods our inner beings with His presence and rests on us just as He did at the Jordan River. He fills us with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:19-20).

So while the dove certainly represents peace and purity, the truer biblical metaphor of a dove stands for much more: the “promise of supernatural power through the Holy Spirit.”⁵ For us. So that He can work through us.

Friends, we are established in Christ by the Father who anoints us and gives us the Spirit in our hearts just as He did for His Son (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). Poetically speaking, the Divine Dove has descended upon us to give us new life (5:17)! And that means we have all we need to step into the world to do all the works of Jesus – the presence, the preparation, and the holy power of God alighting on us. Like a dove.

This week our prayer comes from the lyrics of a worship song called, “The Dove.” ⁶ Please join me as we pray. Father God, help us to re-story our minds in such a way that what we know about You gets shaped by You. Help us to remember that You’re always present and that your Spirit will always, always be in us and with us. Help us to recall all the truths about all that has gone before us so that our faith will grow:

God was there at the beginning
His Spirit brooding like a dove
Spoke the Earth into existence
Formed creation that He loved

Man was born of perfect image
Made to be a friend of God
Meant to dwell within His presence
Yeah, it’s where we all belong

When sin had spoiled creation
The Creator sent a flood
On the cusp of new beginning
He again released the dove

And after all the searching
It found a place to land
On Christ, the perfect Son who would
Redeem it all again

Looking for the branches
It landed on the Vine
The One for our redemption
Who would bridge eternal life

Holy Spirit, the truth, the living water
All we need is more of You, we want more of You
Holy Spirit, the helper and the healer
All we need is more of You, we want more of You

Yes, Holy Spirit, we want more of You. It is in the holy name of Jesus and by the power of the Spirit that we pray, amen.

*Pastor Jon Thompson gives some mighty big teachings on Holy Spirit in his book and talks entitled, Convergence. He and his church have been living out the reality of ministry sourced by the power of the Spirit for years. And now he generously shares with other churches what they’ve learned and how they’ve come to minister the way they do. He always begins by building the foundation of Jesus as empowered by the Spirit to do the work He was given while here on earth. Tyler Staton echoes the same exact message in his book, The Familiar Stranger. I highly recommend resources by either of these men. They challenge us to reframe our thoughts in order to align them with Scripture so that we can step into ministry in the power of the Spirit!

PS — Please remember that throughout this series, we want to move through information gathering and to Holy Spirit experiencing. As such, I will be adding an ‘experience’ of Holy Spirit each week in our “Rhythms” section below. I hope you’ll jump down there to see how you might stretch yourself in the way of experiencing more of the Spirit in your life. You can trust I’m doing the same!!

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – Lisa Harper’s book, Believing Jesus, and companion Bible study^ by the same title.
• 2 – Biblehub for rachaph
• 3 – This GotQuestions article on Holy Spirit as a dove
• 4 – Carolyn Moore’s Bible study, Encounter the Spirit^
• 5 – (3) – Tyler Staton’s book, Familiar Stranger^ has an incredible chapter on Holy Spirit as “Dove” 
• 6 – Jon Thompson in his book (and talks on the same subject), Convergence^
• 7 – This week’s song-prayer, “The Dove” is brought to us by Belonging Co. and Kari Jobe. You will find this and many other Holy Spirit songs on our Holy Spirit Playlist on Spotify.
• 8 — (quoted below in our Experience section) Seedbed’s Wake Up Call is currently doing a series called, “All the Things” — and it’s all about stepping out in the power of the Spirit to do ‘all the things’ of Jesus. It’s gentle and wise teaching. And there’s intentional preparation that equips us with practical steps for taking Holy Spirit in us out into the world. So good!
• Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.
• My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.

• The rhythm we’ll employ for our summer Holy Spirit series falls in the category of a weekly experience.
  • This week we want to focus on experiencing the presence and power of Holy Spirit in us. If you have not been one to experience much of Holy Spirit in the past…
  • One thing you can do is simply ask Him to reveal Himself to you.
  • You can invite Him to do His work of preparation in your heart in such a way that you will more readily receive and recognize Him when He is at work.
  • You can ask Him to give you spiritual eyes to see Him, to become aware of what He is doing in and around you.
    
    This kind of power leads each of us into fuller faith and greater trust that we have been anointed by the same Spirit and power and Jesus!This week we want to focus on experiencing the presence and power of Holy Spirit in us.
• If you’re already experiencing awareness of Holy Spirit’s presence, ask Him to lead you into a fuller experience of His power. Ask Him for a fresh filling, a holy flooding that awakens you to the power already in you. Ask Him to lead you, “full of the Spirit,” into the work He has for you. And maybe that begins with asking someone if you can pray for them!⁸

• We’re all called to share the truth about who Jesus is. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. May we use our whole selves to tell others about our holy God!!

Featured Photo by Claude on Flickr
“All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Zrng N Gharib on Unsplash.
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