WORD STUDY – BY MY SPIRIT – ברוחי

John 4:23-24 “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. (24) God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth.”

Zechariahז 4:6: “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This [is] the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Zechariah 4:6 is a very popular verse that we use to express our understanding that it is not our strength or power that will accomplish anything of the Lord, but it is His Spirit. To that I say “Amen” and I totally, 100% agree that we can use this verse as a proof text to that truth. However, in my studies of the ancient rabbis and sages I have also come to realize that God often speaks more than one message is such verses. We, in the Western, scientific, logical, mathematical world would have a real problem with that. In our culture that verse can only mean one thing and one thing only and if we pull out another meaning we are reading into the passage and searching for things that are not there. But the Jews teach 70 faces to Torah, many messages in one passage. That is common in the Semitic cultural, it just doesn’t fit ours. But since the Bible was written in a Semitic culture, I search for additional messages like the ancient rabbis and sages.

What is this second message? Let’s look at the context. This was written to Zerubbabel, the Persian governor overseeing the protection of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Over 40,000 Jews returned from exile in Persia to Jerusalem under the Persian king Darius who provided armed support for the returning exiles. The problem was much like we have today. The Jews returned to a land that was settled by other people while they were dispersed from their homeland and these people who grew up in Palestine, were not pleased with these exiles returning.

Zerubbabel saw himself protecting the Jews in the building of the temple, but Zechariah, the prophet who went to Jerusalem with them had a vision. In that vision he received the message that the temple would not be built by might or power but by the rauch, Spirit of God. What we overlook, however, is that the temple was built utilizing the might and power of the Jews and Persians.

The word for might is chyil. This word carries the idea of self-sufficiency. It is a word used for using sources of power such as wealth or influence to control others and accomplish production. The temple would not be rebuilt with the wealth and power of the Persian Empire, but indeed they were there and protected the Jews. This word for power is koach which is the word for strength. In its Semitic root it is a word used for a lizard or a reptile type animal. A lizard, can look very intimidating and fearsome. So we conclude the word koach means power in the sense of intimidation as the presence of the Persian army backing the Jews up. But koach also means something else. Some lizards, like the chameleon have the ability to change its color and adapt to its surroundings.

I believe that Jesus was referring to this passage when he spoke to the woman at the well as this passage likely had a prophetic meaning as well as its present meaning. Jesus told the woman at the well that we do not worship God in a building but in the Spirit. I believe Zechariah 4:6 not only addresses the building of the temple, but has a secondary prophetic meaning of worship. It looked forward to the time when we would worship God in the Spirit as Jesus said in John 4:24. The word Spirit in the Aramaic is also the word ruch identical the Hebrew word rauch. We could also read it not only as worship in the Spirit but also worship flowing from the Spirit.

So if this passage in Zechariah is also speaking of worship, which I firmly believe it does, how does that play out? How many times do we worship and praise God with chyill, self sufficiency. We literally will ourselves into feeling what we think is God’s presence by shouting “yippee and all that.” We dance, we sing, we shout, we clap our hands trying to bring the Spirit, rauch to us and the congregation. Rather than the dancing, singing, clapping and shouting being the result of the Spirit already manifesting Himself in us. Our worship leaders feel their well-rehearsed music presentation, carefully choreographed to start off slow and build to a loud burst or the other way around and ending with a soft, quiet song is what brings about the worship.

To try and bring about the presence of the Lord by these manifestations is chyill, self sufficiency, trying to do it ourselves. These manifestations should only come through the Spirit not the Spirit coming from the manifestations. Worse is to try to worship God through the power or koach, more correctly by adapting to the cultural or surroundings. I grew up in a church that had a choir, an organ and piano as well as a soloist giving a special number. This soon lost all meaning and people attending soon just endured all this thinking that was worship. Then a new generation with a charismatic movement came about and people abandoned the so called dead churches and began to have a heartfelt worship experience which abandoned the hymns, organ, piano and soloist and was replaced with guitars, drums, keyboards and a worship team each with their own mic. People sang from the heart, sang when the Spirit of God moved them but as I attend many different congregations researching my new book on worship and praise I find all the churches I have visited have replaced the choir with a worship team and the organ and piano with a keyboard, drums and guitars. The hymn books are gone and modern songs show up on a screen. They say the churches are getting with the times, but I wonder if they are not just copying the worship services where there was a move from God and like the chameleon they just adapt into the culture. The church across town has a keyboard, drums, guitars, worship team and modern songs on a screen and look at all the people there and they have a move of the Spirit every week, why we can do that and build our church. Fine but is it koach or the Spirit of God? For you see Jesus said in John 3:8 “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.” The Spirit of God moves when He wants to move, He is not subject to any musical performance, hand clapping, shouting to call Him down. The ancient pagans used to call their gods down with shouting, hand clapping, loud, fast music, emotional appeals, drums and instruments.

Of course, we don’t believe that we can call the Spirit of God down with our chyill self sufficencies or koach doing what works with the congregation down the street. – Do we?