The Sound of the Spirit

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:7,8). In this passage of scripture Jesus was conveying a little known message to Nicodemus the Pharisee about an infallible truth that is vital to the understanding of new testament believers. Jesus is describing something very simplistic here, and it is something as he said, that is present with “every one that is born of the Spirit.” This is one of those passages that is better understood if you look at it in the original Greek language that it was written in, so that is what we will do in short order here. What I want to do here is look at the key words in the passage, and in doing so we will leave out the easily understood words like ‘the,’it,’ ‘be,’ and the like. First off, the word “wind’ in the Greek is the exact same word as the word "spirit,” and that word is ‘pneuma.“ Next we have the word ‘bloweth,’ which is the same Greek word as the word ‘breathe.’ That word is ‘pneo.’ The word ‘listeth’ is from ‘thelo,’ which means ‘to will.’ The last key word in the passage is ‘sound,’ which comes from the Greek word ‘phone,’ which is defined as "a SOUND or tone, a VOICE, or a SOUND of uttered words.” Okay, those are the key words that make up this passage, and whatever these words sum up to mean by their true definitions from the original language that they were written in, is something that takes place every single time that a person is born again according to what Jesus called being born again. So let’s look back at these words and put them together in that manner with the whole of the passage, with absolutely no twisting of meanings whatsoever. Here is what it comes out to say: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The Spirit breathes where it will, and you hear its voice [sound of uttered words], but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is EVERY ONE that is born of the Spirit.”

So it is evident that Jesus was telling Nicodemus that every time the Spirit of God comes into a person, it is accompanied by the SOUND of words which are uttered by means OF the Spirit. When the holy Ghost first came back from heaven, it came in exactly that manner: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting… And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to SPEAK with other tongues, as the Spirit GAVE them UTTERANCE” (Acts 2:2,4). As I said, that experience on the day of Pentecost was in perfect unison with what Jesus said to Nicodemus about the new birth.Later when the Gospel went to the Samaritans by Philip, he and the apostles in Jerusalem knew that the Samaritans were yet to receive the Spirit even though they had experienced great and miraculous things by their faith in Jesus (Acts 8:5-8,14,15). So how DID everyone know that the Samaritans had not received the Spirit? After all, they certainly experienced life changing things by faith in Jesus and the power of God. Simple. Everyone knew the sign that accompanied the new birth each and every time it is experienced, and that sign had not shown up with the Samaritans. Still later when the Gospel finally went to the Gentiles by Peter, the Spirit fell on those Gentiles shortly after Peter began preaching. The scripture says that the Jews who came with Peter “were astonished… because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 10:44-46). So how did they KNOW that these people had received the Spirit right there and then? Was it because these Gentiles “confessed Jesus as the Lord?” Not there. Was it because they “accepted Jesus as their personal saviour?” No again. Did Peter have them recite a “sinner’s prayer?” Not hardly my friend. Maybe they just flat “got saved” because they believed? Afraid not. Did Peter wait around a few months to see what kind of fruit they would bear? Didn’t take that long.

Peter and the believers who accompanied him knew of a certainty that these Gentiles received the holy Ghost right there on the spot AS SOON AS “they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.” They recognized the sign that God chose to accompany the new birth, and that sign is that “sound of uttered words” by means of the Spirit that Jesus had told Nicodemus about. Anyone who chooses to argue against this established truth of God either doesn’t want to come clean completely, or doesn’t want to be persecuted for not committing themselves to the testimony of men, as Jesus didn’t (Jn. 2:23-25). The plain truth is that God designed the new birth in accordance with the natural birth, even as all spiritual truths can be explained by their parallels in the natural world (Rom. 1:20). When a living child is born, it has a birth cry that shows it is alive, and so it is with the new birth: “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). Yes friend, when someone receives the “Spirit of [divine] life,” that same Spirit itself audibly declares them to be a child of God. And lest any should say that this ‘crying’ can mean a silent cry, we have the meaning of the Greek word for ‘crying’ to look to: ‘crying’ is from ‘krazo,’ which is defined as, “to croak [as the cry of a raven], to cry aloud, or to speak with a loud voice.” The word always means something audible, and as the verse says, it is THE SPIRIT that cries out from our hearts when it comes INTO our hearts. If there is no utterance of the Spirit, it is simply because there is no Spirit to give the utterance. So in conclusion, we can either acknowledge that it is God’s Gospel, or we can try to make it ours. Personally I love having it God’s way. There is so much more peace in agreeing with him. Amen.