7: The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (Part Three)

In association with Holy Spirit and the coming kingdom, there is also an association of the Holy Spirit in the Messiah as he brings this kingdom:

The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of Yahweh— (Isaiah 11:2)

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1)

Come near me and listen to this: “From the first announcement I have not spoken in secret; at the time it happens, I am there.” And now the Sovereign Yahweh has sent me, endowed with his Spirit. (Isaiah 48:16)

The Spirit of the Sovereign Yahweh is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners (Isaiah 61:1)

Messiah Jesus is preeminently the empowered one, the Spirit-filled one, the one who will fulfill the promise of the outpoured Spirit and the one who will dispense the Spirit, if we may use that term. So when John the Baptist comes announcing the kingdom and the Messiah (the Lord Yahweh, in essence), here is how he describes it:

After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with^[e] water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. (Mark 1:7,8)

And this is why when Jesus, after his resurrection, meets with his disciples and tells them that in a few days they will be baptized with/in the Holy Spirit, they ask him if he is restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time (Acts 1:5,6). The Holy Spirit’s outpouring and the Messiah’s giving of the Spirit are expectation builders for the coming of the kingdom.