On the Seventh day of Christmas...

On the 7th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, seven swans a-swimming
The seven swans a-swimming remind us of the seven gifts, or seven fold gift, of the Holy Spirit.

This concept comes from a couple of passages of scripture:
In the book of Revelation the seven spirits of God, or otherwise translated, seven fold spirit of God is mentioned in four different places.
In an effort to discern the passages, three possible explanations arose; the seven spirits of God are symbolic of the Holy Spirit, with the number ‘seven’ being the number pertaining to God, or the seven spirits of God refer to seven angelic beings, or else it is a reference to Isaiah 11:2 “The Spirit of the Lord 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 the Lord—“ This passage is a prophecy about the Messiah.

The last explanation is from where the traditional church has developed the understanding of the seven gifts of the spirit. In some traditions they’ve interpreted these gifts to be: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord. ‘Piety’ appears to be in place of the “spirit of the Lord”, as we read that from the scriptural reference these gifts are:
1. The spirit of the Lord resting on him
2. The spirit of Wisdom
3. The spirit of Understanding
4. The spirit of Counsel
5. The spirit of might
6. The Spirit of Knowledge
7. The Spirit of the fear of the Lord
Though spoken of as individual gifts, the Spirit is one and the gifts tell us of the nature of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit of the Lord resting on him”, signifies the presence of God. This was with Jesus when he walked this earth, but when he gave us His Spirit it means that the presence of God is with us too.
The Spirit of the fear of the Lord is not about fear and trembling, though it could be if we were to come face to face with God and understand the fullness of His being. The Hebrew word “Yirah” which is mostly translated as fear is also about awe and reverence, amazement, mystery and wonder. It is the kind of feeling you might get if you were to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

I believe the references in Revelation are about the Holy Spirit, and the number seven is to signify that this is God. The number 7 also signifies the completeness and rest that the Spirit brings.
Also from the book of revelation we hear about the number of the beast, and at that point people tend to skip to find out what the number is and forget that God tells us clearly what the number means because it is a man’s number. We were created on the sixth day and the number that signifies humankind is six, but the number that signifies God is SEVEN.

Now, it is the seventh day of Christmas and I suspect that there may be a link between the seventh day of creation and the seven fold spirit of God. On the seventh day God rested from his work.

Genesis 2:1-3 “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

The seventh day became holy because God blessed it and made it so. Throughout the Bible the number 7, came to represent completion and perfection and rest. An interesting point is that God rested on this day because it was completed. He didn’t begin again after resting, and he didn’t rest because he needed to rest. This holy rest became a commandment later on in the story of the Israelite nation and a bone of contention, with the Pharisees when Jesus walked the earth. But I believe that this Sabbath is actually a declaration of the revelation to come in the New Covenant.

Jesus is famously quoted for saying that the Sabbath was created for mankind and not mankind for the Sabbath. The Pharisees were so particularly zealous in trying to keep the law that they dissected to an incredible degree it to understand just what actions they needed to do to keep it. Some may have had the motive that they wanted to do as little as possible to meet the requirements, but I’m sure many more were zealously striving to understand the fullness of the instruction.

We humans are often like that. We want a recipe to follow so that we can feel reassured that we are getting it right. God gave them a recipe in the Torah, but as Jesus made very clear in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, no human can fully follow the “recipe”. The recipe became rule upon rule and heart intentions, love and freedom were not understood by those keepers of the law. When we rely upon the keeping of the law, we can become deluded into thinking we keep it and we become judgmental about those who obviously fall short.

For example, the movies we’ve seen that portray the Italian Mafia. They can be brutal murderers and crooks and yet devout Catholics. Why? Because they still haven’t realized the message of Christianity… they think that there is a “recipe”. They confess, they receive absolution… etc. And so the mistake of the Pharisees is repeated – and they are not the only ones to get it wrong.

The book of Hebrews has some interesting things to say about the Sabbath rest that is blessed by God:
Hebrews 4:9 -11“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.”

This is not talking about Saturday worship of God, or Saturday refraining from outward works of labour, but about the refraining from labouring to attain God’s acceptance.

I once met a lady, and she was like many others who’d I met, who was active in the church and involved in so many activities. She hoped that God would accept her. She knew her sin and she worked and gave and worked and gave, praying that God would accept her.

Jesus has brought us that acceptance, so if we are now trying to earn acceptance we are not living by faith and not entering the blessed rest that God has provided. In Jesus we are unconditionally accepted. When this message dawned on that particularly lady there were tears streaming down her face.

But how does this tie in with the Holy Spirit?

From Jeremiah 33:31 ““The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
God has declared that in this new Covenant he will write his law on our hearts, and he will personally teach us. How does he accomplish this? He accomplishes it by that seven fold Holy Spirit. Firstly it is a spiritual reality, which then begins a lifelong process. Hebrews 10:14 “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy”.

The Holy Spirit came upon Jesus when he was baptized and it was just as Isaiah prophesied. The gift of that Spirit is, as we earlier discovered, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of Knowledge, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.

John the Baptist told the people about the Holy Spirit in Mark 1:7-8 “And he was preaching, and saying, "After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. ”I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

The Bible lists many other effects of the Holy Spirit, sometimes referred to as fruit and also there are other specific gifts. But this seven fold Spirit is what we receive, and it sanctifies us… Jesus has made us spiritually perfect and the presence of God rests on us - the Torah is being accomplished in us, by this gift.

The Sabbath was meant to be a time of being with God in prayer – that is, it is a day of being dedicated to God and in God’s presence. It was a prototype of the Good News and New Covenant where we acknowledge that we can not please God with our efforts and actions, and we cannot attain perfection, therefore we need to cease our religious activity and rest. Although resting, we now have every day as a Sabbath as we are constantly in this “rest” ordained by God and constantly in union with him through the gift of his Holy Spirit.

We believe that there is a time when Jesus will come again, but this time will be to judge the living and the dead.
Hebrews 10:37-39 “For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”
Just as we are saved by faith, we continue our Christian life by living in faith.
Do you want the recipe of how to be found worthy of God, so that you can strive and work to make that grade? You can have it, but if you think you can achieve it you are only deluding yourself!!! The only way to the father is through Jesus, the way the truth and the life. Every day is the Sabbath in the New Covenant. We are constantly dedicated to God and always have God’s presence with us by his Holy Spirit. And so we can rest always … and rejoice, because this is amazing Good News.
I recently saw the movie, Big Hero 6. At one point in this a number of science geeks are told by the youngest, “You need an up-grade”. He takes their strengths and refines them so that they use their gifts to become super-heroes. We do have abilities to do all kinds of good works that God has already prepared for us, but we need an up-grade. The Holy Spirit seven fold gifts is the power source and the new program, like the program disc that makes an old operating system from the last century, brand new and way better.