When Sutherland delineated the beams of light streaming into the green cosmos from a dark opening at the top of the tapestry, he was fulfilling one of the design specifications of his commission. He was, somehow, to represent the Glory of God without depicting God himself. This idea was eventually merged with that of the 'Holy Spirit'. The source of the light cannot be seen, but he introduced the bird symbol, a dove, to indicate the nature of its biblical message. The biblical reference to the connection between Spirit-Dove-Christ is at Jesus' baptism (Mark 1:10). Here Sutherland was following a long artistic tradition connected with representations of the apostles gathered in Jerusalem after the Crucifixion. A dove is usually placed in the centre of a blaze of light from above representing the Holy Spirit- Jesus' closest followers became a 'church' for the first time. This event is celebrated by the festival of Pentecost occurring on Whit Sunday.

Pentecost is sometimes taken in a more general sense as sudden intellectual 'illumination'. A new understanding arising from meditation on the symbolism of Sutherland's tapestry may be regarded as a 'Pentecostal event'. Laurens van der Post has said that great symbolic art bears 'witness to the Pentecostal nature of all art. In this context he was referring to the imagery of the Portuguese poet Camoes in his epic Lusiad, in which he develops a metaphor of the Cape of Good Hope as a symbol of the failure of European culture to deny love to the subjected peoples of its empires (7.001).

A representation of the Holy Spirit was not part of the committee's written design specification for the composition of the tapestry: The idea seems to have been suggested by word of mouth, and Sutherland thought its depiction as a surge of spiritual energy would look well emanating from an opening in the green background at the top of the tapestry. The actual inspiration was a childhood memory of seeing pigeons released through a hole high in a church wall at Easter. He felt this would give a certain element of space- the green ground was a wall yet not a wall. Nearly everything in the design of the Holy Spirit element was calculated to be in a sense ambiguous. Reading the background as a wall, it seemed to Sutherland not a bad idea to make an opening in the wall through which, far beyond the opening, there might be something visible. The design of the bird, particularly compared with that of the eagle of the tetramorph, is the most simple expression of a natural form in the entire tapestry, although carries its most complex spiritual message.

The flood/dove episode conveys many messages to reinforce human relationships, such 'hope', 'love', and 'fidelity'. However, as a time marker, it connects the viewer to events related in Genesis when, ten generations following the creation of Adam and Eve, God gave mankind a fresh start after the Flood. When the dove returned with its message that the world had become habitable once more, God established a covenant with Noah and his progeny. This provided a social framework to resolve any post- deluvial problems of corruption and violence, and a guarantee that the Flood episode would not be repeated. However, anyone guilty of breaking His moral law in future would be punished individually for the crime.

From this point, the Old Testament follows the trials and tribulations of the blood lines of the ancient Israelites through the offspring of Abraham to the coming of Jesus. During this long period, God attitude to humanity began to be perceived less than of a vengeful tribal deity, concerned only with the survival and moral welfare of a small group of Middle East communities, and more as a giver of moral law devoted to the well-being of all humanity. The epoch of the Old Testament provides the common history from which the great religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have developed. It has been said, in this respect, that Monotheism is therefore either the greatest delusion of the human mind, or a genuine path of the advance of universal moral wisdom.

Sutherland chose not to take John's Revelation vision as his model for Christ in Glory, which incorporated thrones on which sat twenty-four elders, dressed in white with crowns on their heads. This was a break in tradition because from the ninth century, John's imagery was sculpted above church portals, and also incorporated the another important notion of Revelation of a coming time for God to judge the dead. Instead, Sutherland took as his model for the central figure, with its supporting cherubim, from the Old Testament vision of Ezekiel (1:26-28). This was the source of John's Revelation image of Christ in Glory and its illustrations of a vengeful God of Christians. According to Ezekiel:-

There came a voice from above the expanse over the heads of the tetramorphs as they stood with lowered wings. "Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD".

The central Christ figure at Coventry is a less dramatic version of this Hebrew Lord of pre-Christian times. Also, by incorporating a small human image at His feet Sutherland establishes links with the religious imagery and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, where dwarf human figures stand below their immense God-rulers and spiritual mediators. He introduced further ambiguity by adopting a naturalistic style for the facial features, neck, and shoulders of the central figure, but gave the bulk of its body a more non-human, yet biological, character. In this figure we are therefore situated not only on the cusp of the development of Christianity, but also at the outer edge of continuity in the evolution of natural forms.