John, to the seven churches in Asia: grace to you and peace from He Who Is and Who Was and Who Is to Come, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne… ~Revelation 1:4 [Kingdom New Testament]

Who are these “seven spirits”?

There are two main interpretations.

The first interpretation is that they are the seven angels of the seven churches in Asia. These are the seven angels who John saw when the Lamb opened the seventh seal in Revelation 8:2. In early Judaism there was a concept of seven archangels, or “angels of the presence”, before God’s throne, so there is some precedence here. Their names are kind of cool, so for extra credit, they are: Uriel, Rafael, Raguel, Michael, Gabriel, Saiquael, and Jeremiel.

The second interpretation is that the seven spirits are, in fact, the one Holy Spirit. John uses the number seven quite frequently. In his time and culture, seven represented fullness or completion. There is some very early commentary linking the seven spirits to the Septuagint version of Isaiah 11:2-3. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament which the New Testament writers quoted extensively from. In this version, Isaiah writes of the seven traits of the Spirit of God which are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord (in the Hebrew version there only 6). Apringius of Beja made this link way back in the mid 5th century, and before him, Victorinus of Petovium (died 304 A.D.) quoted this Isaiah passage in order to interpret the seven spirits of Revelation 1:4 as the Holy Spirit. Also, it was quite common in John’s day to open a letter with a greeting in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so this interpretation would give that traditional Trinitarian opening.

So what? What are we to take from this?

Well, I’m glad you asked. There is a third way to look at this passage which I think sort of ties the two main interpretations together, and is wonderfully encouraging. This third way is the idea that there is a share of the Spirit for each of these seven churches and, indeed, for every church following Christ. Again, John may very well be choosing to write to seven churches in order to convey that this is for every church. I shall leave you with the words of William Barclay who states it beautifully:

In Hebrews 2:4 we read of God giving “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” The word translated gifts is merismos, and it really means shares, as if the idea was that God gives a share of his Spirit to every man. So the idea here would be that the seven Spirits stand for the share of the Spirit that God gave to each of the seven Churches. It would mean that no Christian fellowship is left without the presence and the power and the illumination of the Spirit.