Seven Spirits Of God

Q

I was listening to a christian call in show and a question was asked regarding these seven Spirits of God as to their identity. The pastor answered that he honestly didn’t know…but offered various spiritual attributes of The Lord…spirit of wisdom, etc.

I have studied Revelation and came away with their being seven angels. Revelation 5:6 says : “…in the midst…stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” In the beginning of Revelation, Jesus speaks of the “seven stars…and the seven golden candlesticks” which represent respectively the “angels” and the “churches” He would go on to address. So, I am asking you what The LORD has revealed to you about all of this.

A

The use of the phrases seven stars and seven golden lampstands in Rev. 1:20 can be confusing to this issue but the Lord described them as being the angels of the seven Churches and the churches themselves.

The phrase “seven Spirits of God” is different from these. It appears in the Book of Revelation in three places Rev, 3:1, Rev. 4:5, and Rev. 5:6. The phrase is first used without explanation in Rev. 3:1, then in Rev. 4:5 it describes seven lamps blazing before the throne of God, and in Rev. 5:6 it refers to the seven eyes of the Lamb.

Some study Bibles place an alternate translation in their footnotes calling the seven spirits the sevenfold Spirit. To me this makes more sense because in the symbolism of Revelation the descriptions given as blazing lamps around the throne of God and the seven eyes of the Lamb fit the description of the Holy Spirit sent out into all the Earth (John 16:5-11).

We see this seven fold Spirit in Isaiah 11:1 as resting on the Messiah. There the Spirit of the Lord is described with seven attributes; wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge, a fear of the Lord, and a delight in the fear of the Lord. (Remember, in Hebrew the word “fear” stands for reverence.)

Therefore I believe the seven spirits (sevenfold Spirit) in Revelation is a reference to the Holy Spirit.