The Finger of God – Working Wonders

The Finger of God – Working Wonders.

“And Jesus told them, ‘If it is through the Holy Spirit, the finger of God, that I cast out demonic spirits, if it is actually God’s finger that I am pointing at those demons, then the Kingdom of God has swept over you unawares, and the reign of God has already come upon you.”  (Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20). 

God leaves His fingerprints everywhere, because that finger of His is always working. God has a finger? Yes, it is now time to bring the Holy Spirit into the conversation. Scripture and Christian thinking ever since the early church supports the idea that the finger of God is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. God’s finger represents the power of the Holy Spirit, and in fact is the working member of the Godhead that demonstrates God’s power and accomplishes His will.

“Many non-Jewish people are coming into obedience to the Faith by the power of the Spirit of God, which is displayed through mighty signs and wonders, both in word and deed.” (Romans 15:19).

It’s easy to think about the Holy Spirit as like the wind or a breath, since spirit, wind and breath are the same word in Hebrew, “ruach.” God’s Spirit is often thought of as Divine Energy or Life Force as well, since He serves in that capacity in the world. But it stretches the imagination a bit to think of the Holy Spirit as the finger of God’s right hand. A finger is tactile, an actual physical object that we can imagine. The wind, breath and energy, though, are formless, without shape. We can hold onto a finger, but of course we can’t grasp the wind or a breath. To feel the wind in our hair or a breath on our face is a completely different experience than being tangibly touched by a finger. But as we will see, we can be inspired by, or literally inspirited by, the finger of God as well as a divine wind or life force. Don’t we all have a desire to be “touched” by the Spirit?

“Most clearly supported in the Bible is that the finger of God indicates the working power of the Holy Spirit as He is made manifest in actions that are out of the ordinary, like casting out demons and working wonders.”  (Father Raneiro Cantalamessa, Come, Holy Spirit).

Early Christians were convinced that the Holy Spirit, the finger of God, was inseparable with Jesus when He worked miracles in His ministry. They attributed the signs and wonders to the Holy Spirit, as Paul clearly states in Romans 15:19 above. The Holy Spirit is the meeting place where God meets with God’s creatures. It is where His supernatural power touches human need by the finger of God. The miracles accomplished by the finger of God were an important part of the Christian message, and validated the legitimacy of what the apostles were asked to do after the ascension of Jesus.

“Signs and wonders are not all that the power of the Holy Spirit can achieve. They are simply the high notes in a song whose melody continues lower notes too. They are lights that surprise us in order to show us what sort of energy is at work in a quieter way everywhere in our everyday life.”  (R. Cantalamessa).