Exodus 28:1 ¶ And take thou
unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of
Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office, even Aaron,
Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons. 2 And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron
thy brother for glory and for beauty. 3
And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise hearted, whom I have
filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s garments to
consecrate him, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. 4 And these are the garments which they
shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a
mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother,
and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. 5 And they shall take gold, and blue, and
purple, and scarlet, and fine linen.
Consider the way spirit is
used in this context. The spirit of
wisdom is not a character trait. It is a gift from God. He has filled
certain people in regard to the ability to create these garments for the
priests with the spirit of wisdom. This
is distinct from the Holy Spirit (Luke
11:13) or the Spirit of Christ (1Peter 1:11)
or the Spirit of God (Genesis
1:2), all the same Spirit emanating from God, which the translators under the inspiration given to them by God
showed us with a capital S each to
signify the origin of that Spirit. The
Spirit, uppercase S, is God in operation with a will while
the spirit, lowercase s, is a thing either given to man or woman.
Numbers 5:30 Or when the spirit
of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and
shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute upon her all
this law.
A lowercase s signifies
a power, an understanding, a skill, an emotion, or some other sense of
understanding and wisdom.
Isaiah 11:2 And the spirit
of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the
LORD;
It is interesting that some neuroscientists speculate that
consciousness doesn’t seem to emanate from within a person but that a person’s
mind is like a cellphone that receives a communication from somewhere else. We
can hear someone speaking through the phone but they are not in the phone.
Of course, neuroscientists don’t necessarily believe that there is
a world of spirit from where consciousness comes. But having no satisfactory
explanation of why we are self-aware any more than a theoretical physicist can
logically explain why there is something rather than nothing or an evolutionary
biologist can show why such a complex thing as life should exist rather than
just rocks and dust without inventing their own gods, dead and inert, but prime
causes beyond our experience nonetheless, they consider consciousness as
something that uses the brain, rather than something the brain creates.
Of course, there are many theories of consciousness. Many believe
that our thoughts are the results of neurons in the brain firing up but they
can’t tell you whether a thought requires ten neurons or ten thousand. It’s all
guesswork right now. However, these theoretical scientists have faith in their
religion that all truth will eventually come from their inquiries.
Nevertheless, our rapid explosion of actual scientific knowledge
since this Bible was translated in the early 17th century and the
resultant technological advancements where in the last century we have been
propelled forward faster than in all previous centuries combined is not because
of extra radiation in the atmosphere or the superiority of modern man’s brain.
Knowledge, wisdom, and understanding has been given to us. We
learn how to appropriate it and use it but we did not create it.
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