What are the seven spirits of God?

Seven is distinctly symbolical of perfection, and there is nothing perfect outside of what is divine. We read of the “seven Spirits which are before His throne” (Rev. 1:4), not meaning that there are seven Holy Spirits, but rather a sevenfold perfect activity of the one Holy Spirit. In the same way there were seven lamps, but only one candlestick, that is viewing it as a whole. So Revelation 3:3-4:5, 5:6, speak of “the seven Spirits of God.”

The seven Spirits then refer, beyond fair doubt, to the Holy Ghost acting with all variety in the way of government ("before his throne"). How different from the truth of the same Spirit sent forth from heaven, and baptising the saints into the one body of Christ here below! But there is no just ground for thinking of created spirits or angels in this connection any more than in Rev. 5:6. Never do the seven Spirits pay worship to God; and the reason is, that they mean God's Spirit. It is only in Christianity and the church that we know God as He is — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In government, whether of Old or in Apocalyptic scenes, He is not so revealed. But it is an offence against truth to mix up Creator and creature. It is the completeness of the Holy Ghost's energy as an overruling power. What the application of this may be depends on the context where it is used. It is in relation to Christ dealing ecclesiastically in Revelation 3, and again in His relation to the earth in Revelation 5; but it is always the Spirit in full variety of governmental power, rather than the same Spirit viewed in His unity as forming the church into one body. This we have had already in the Pauline Epistles, where the proper sphere of the Christian as a member of Christ's body is treated especially, and indeed only there.

Revelation 1:4. Vol. I. pp. 53, 248. — C. H. D. is mistaken in imputing to the Papists, if he mean them only, the idea that "the seven spirits" refer to seven presence-angels; for so also thought Clement of Alexandria and Andreas of Caesarea in ancient, and Beza, Hammond, Stuart, etc. in modern times. But evidently to wish grace and peace from at least two persons of the Godhead, adding a third source in mere creatures, however exalted, is an unworthy thought, and the more, as these supposed angels are put between persons unquestionably divine. The truth is, that, if the Holy Ghost be here spoken of in a peculiar way, it is because the scope of the Revelation so requires. Therefore is it not the Father, but "He who is, and who was, and who is to come," Jehovah the Governor, the Eternal; and in exact accordance the Spirit is regarded not in His unity, but in his various perfections as acting governmentally ("before the throne"). Compare Isa. 11:2, where we have a sevenfold variety of attributes as to the Spirit in connection with the Lord Jesus: also Rev. 3:1; Rev. 4:5; and Rev. 5:6: Zech. 3:9; Zech. 4:10. Next, as to Mr. H. Noel's question, I think it will be found that, though in principle the Holy Ghost be invoked in addressing God, for He is God, in fact the general doctrine and practice of the New Testament, after Pentecost, are founded on His actual, personal presence in the Church, as well as in each Christian here below; and therefore what we find in the Epistles is rather praying in than to the Holy Spirit.

The way in which the Lord presents Himself is wonderfully suitable. "These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars" (verse 1). This is a new point of view in which to see Christ. In Revelation 1 "the seven Spirits" were distinct from His person and connected with the throne. The seven Spirits of God refer to the Holy Spirit of God, viewed in His various perfections and the ways in which He works; and this not so much in the church as towards the world. In Rev. 5, when the churches are done with, the Lord Jesus is described symbolically as 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 — the Holy Ghost as acting with a view to the government of the earth. It is not the Holy Ghost in all the fulness of the blessing into which He brought the church in its unity or dwelling there. It is the expression of the Spirit in fulness of quality and power to make good God's will on earth.

— “He that has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.” “The seven Spirits of God” is a perplexing expression to some. In the epistles of Paul the unity of the Spirit, “one Spirit,” is a cardinal truth. But in the apocalyptic phrase “seven Spirits” are taught the fulness, completeness, and diversified attributes and actions of the one Holy Spirit. The Spirit in diversified governmental action as distinct, yet in conjunction with Jehovah and Jesus Christ, seems the thought intended in Revelation 1:4; while in Revelation 5:6 the perfection of power and fulness of spiritual intelligence, exercised governmentally by the Lamb, is the force of the expression there used. The fulness of the Spirit is in Christ. He exercises the power of the Spirit whether towards the Church (Rev. 3:1) or towards the world (Rev. 5:6). Whatever, then, the state of the Church may be — fallen, ruined, corrupt, dead — there is in Him Who is in the midst of the golden lamps adequate spiritual power.

All the more, if possible, not less, there comes to those addressed this greeting of grace and peace from the whole glorious Godhead. It is what we need first to realize before we enter upon communications of such a nature as we have here: — grace in which we stand, unconditioned grace which can never fail, therefore, in its fulness of blessing for the people of God, whatever their circumstances; and peace, that we may be able to contemplate the sorrows and the evils that are before us — waves which, the higher they are, will only the more cast us upon the Rock of refuge. Always, under all circumstances, broken to pieces as the general Church may be, confusion everywhere, the world and Church mixed up beyond hope of disentanglement, — amid discordant voices, each with a different rendering of "the things that are," contradicting each other with warnings and with promises in the face of all the unity which the Church as the temple of God, indwelt by the Spirit of God, implies, — yet unfailingly is there "grace and peace" for every one who is invited of God to listen to what His voice shall utter, after all so easy to be distinguished, one would say, from every contradictory voice of man that can be. Grace and peace are what this whole communication from Him means.

"Grace," then, "and peace" are "from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come." That is a very different title of God from that which we find in the epistles in the same connection. It is not "from our God and Father," though of course He is this, but from the unchangeable One, the ever-present, ever the same. This is but the translation of "Jehovah," as we see at once; and "Jehovah" is the covenant-God and at the same time God in government. It is not our relationship to Him of which we are reminded, but of His necessary relationship to time, and all things therefore that are in time. The One who was before all, who abides through all, is the One upon whom all created things are necessarily dependent. "Who is" is put first. That He is, is the one great fact for all of us; but then, He "who is," was. There has been no beginning for Him, and there has been no change. He "who is," "was," and He "who is" and "was" is He also "who is to come." There will still be no change, as there will be no successor to Him. Grace and peace from such a One as this, how much it means for us, perfectly revealed as He is now also in the Man Christ Jesus, known in the depths of His love by the redemption which He has accomplished for us! This is not what is spoken of here, but it is what is necessary that grace and peace should be to us from Him. Then it is "from the seven spirits which are before His throne." We see at once the style of Revelation in this. The seven spirits are but the sevenfold energy of the One, the Holy Spirit, acting in accordance with the mind of Him who is upon the throne, and in the energy implied by that throne itself. Revelation is the book of the throne; and that is what gives character to all that we have here. The seven spirits carry us on to where they are pictured as "seven lamps of fire before the throne," light-giving necessarily as God's acts are, for God's ways show forth His nature — Himself, whose ways they are. These seven spirits carry us back to the eleventh of Isaiah, where we find them in connection with the King of Israel, the Rod out of the stem of Jesse, of whom it is said, "And the Spirit of Jehovah 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." Here we have the arrangement of the lamps in connection with the candlestick of the sanctuary, which, as we know, were in three pairs, with a central stem. This central and uniting stem bears witness that the Spirit is the Spirit of Jehovah, the covenant-God. The branches give us the character displayed; the pairs, their character as witness, three pairs bringing in the number of divine fulness and of manifestation; the whole seven, the complete display of God in these ways of His. In Isaiah the seven spirits are in connection with Christ as Man. They make Him "of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, so that He does not judge after the sight of His eyes, nor reprove after the hearing of His ears, but judges with righteousness the poor, and reproves with equity for the meek of the earth."

“Upon one stone are seven eyes.” In the book of Revelation, the seven spirits, the seven lamps, and the seven eyes are one and the same, but with different significance. “The seven Spirits which are before His throne” (Rev. 1:4) signify the fullness of God’s Spirit, who leads the government of the world. In Revelation 4:5: “And seven lamps of fire, burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God,” we see the fullness of the Spirit in casting light upon, and bringing into judgment that which rebels against God’s government on earth. In Rev. 5:6, the Lamb with the “seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God which are sent into all the earth” signifies Christ with the fullness of His knowledge (combined with the fullness of His power — the seven horns) to execute God’s counsels regarding the earth.

In Zechariah 3:9 the stone with the seven eyes portrays Christ in the fullness of His knowledge of God’s thoughts. He was the full expression of these, for God Himself did engrave the graving upon it. Christ as Man here below, the once-rejected stone, was God revealed in flesh, the Truth. In Him, God made Himself known; and in Him, God will make Himself known on the new earth during the glorious reign of the Son of man.

“And I will remove the iniquity of this land in one day” (v. 9). Then will not just the people that was represented by Joshua be cleansed, but the whole land.

Six is the highest number below seven, and seven in the symbolism of Scripture stands for spiritual perfection, for complete fullness, which can only be true of what is Divine, or the product of the working of divine power or grace. So we get in Revelation 4:5, “Out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.” It is not that there are seven Spirits of God, there is but One, but seven sets forth the fullness and perfection of His operations.

Dr. B. (p. 20) confounds "the angel" with "the Spirit" in Acts 8:26, 29, 39 (cf. Acts 12:23 and Acts 13:2), as he misinterprets "the seven Spirits" in Rev. 1:4 and 4:5, of angelic beings. Think of creatures, however exalted, placed between the Eternal and the Lord Jesus, and sending grace and peace to the saints! That the Holy Ghost should be presented, not in His unity as in the rest of the N.T., but in the divine perfections of His power in the great book of prophecy, as in Isa. 11, might be a difficulty to his mind; but piety ought to have preserved a believer from a statement so hazardous, unsound, and irreverent. In p.18 (note) he even seems unwilling to allow that spirits of just ones made perfect were certainly those of men in the separate state, and to suggest the alternative of "their angels"! His view of Heb. 12:22-24, as referring to the Heavenly host in contrast to 18-21 or Earthly things, is a manifest blunder; for the very first object is Mount Zion, which is assuredly not heavenly, though the most GOD-honoured site of earth. It is really a series of glory which rises from earth up to GOD, and then descends again. The divine purpose comprehends all things to be put under Christ, whether heavenly or earthly (Eph. 1; Col. 1)

Rev. 8:2. — “And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.” That the angels here referred to are a distinguished and select number seems evident from the insertion of the definite article, “The seven angels,” as also from the highly honoured place assigned them, “who stand before God.” “The seven” are distinguished from the seven who pour out the Vials (Rev. 15:1). Only of the trumpet angels is a special position (“before God”) predicated.

There are distinctions amongst the angelic hosts. They are distributed into various orders and ranks, but all, from the archangel down to the least, are servants. They have no relationship to God founded on redemption. They are servants, and never rise out of that position, nor do they desire it. The two great characteristics of angel life are unquestioning obedience and activity in service (Ps. 103:20; Heb. 1:7, 14). The “presence angels” is a familiar Jewish thought. They are supposed by some to be identical with the seven Spirits before the throne (Rev. 1:4), and by others the term is regarded as a borrowed expression from the apocryphal book of Tobit. Both are wrong. Why depart from obvious simplicity and force an interpretation for which there is really no adequate reason? What the angel Gabriel said of himself, “I am Gabriel, who stand before God” (Luke 1:19), is here said of these seven presence angels. As to the number, seven, they represent the full power of God in judicial judgment.