Does the Holy Spirit produce life itself ?
The climax comes when God says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Though nothing is said about the Holy Spirit here, the Bible shows that the image and likeness have to do with the spiritual and moral nature of man. Paul prays that God would “strengthen [believers] with power through his Spirit in [their] inner being” and goes on to urge them to “put on the new self, created to be like God [in the image and likeness of God] in righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 3:16; 4:24). It is reasonable, therefore, to believe that the Holy Spirit was just as active in Genesis 1:26–28 as He was in Genesis 1:2, if not more so.
Genesis 2:7 gives more details. “The LORD God formed [molded, shaped as a potter would] the man from the [moist] dust of the ground [red earth], and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [Hebrew, “lives”], and the man became a living being [person, individual].” Again, though the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, it is reasonable to believe He was active along with the Father and the Son.
Older commentaries tend to find significance in the Hebrew plural, “breath of lives,” taking it to refer to animal and intellectual life, or physical life and spiritual life. The Bible does show that a person’s own spirit comes from God and will return to Him (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Luke 23:46; see also John 19:30 where Jesus gave up His Spirit). Other passages also emphasize that God is the source of life and that His Spirit produces it (Job 27:3; 33:4). If He were to withdraw it, all life would come to an end (Job 34:15).
However, possession of the “breath of lives” is used to describe all those who died in the Flood (Genesis 6:17; 7:22), as well as the animals who entered the ark (Genesis 7:15). Thus, a more logical view recognizes that the Hebrew plural is not speaking of different kinds of life here. In Hebrew, the plural is often used of fullness or of something that flows. (Water is always plural in Hebrew.) It is also used of something that shows many aspects or expressions. (The words face and heaven are also always in the plural in Hebrew.) The attention in Genesis 2:7 is, therefore, not so much on the kind of life as on the source of life. The “breath of life” may simply mean God’s breath or Spirit which produces life, which gives man his life—breath” or “faculty of life. In any case, the New Testament contrasts what Adam received to what Christ is. He, the last Adam, is more than a living soul. He is a life—giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45).
Horton, S. M. (2005). What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit (pp. 21–22). Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House.
