Again, comments from a blog conversation.
I think as Trace noted we’ve probably got a lot of agreement here but even perceived disagreement can produce some interesting exploration if seasoned with both honesty and generosity. 🙂
1. Part of what we’re rubbing against here is the difference between Biblical theology and systematic theology. An attempt to undertake a theology of the Holy Spirit (HS) through the OT is a difficult task indeed and simply applying NT expectations to the OT usually yields some strange results. What do we make of King Saul’s experience with the “spirit of the LORD” in 1 Sam 10:6-12? What about the elders of Israel prophesying and the two who did so in the camp? Fitting passages like these in a systematic theology derived mostly from the NT has given theologians and expositors fits. 🙂
2. I think there are problems with some of the common language and assumptions about the HS in the NT as well. It is common in American evangelical circles to talk about the HS as a “possession”, as the HS in me… I think this is sometimes an unfortunate reduction, because I think a more consistent appropriation of Paul’s theology is that we are in Christ and therefore we are in the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ) rather than the other way around. The HS Is not primarily a power we wield, we are the property of the HS and we are wielded by it, albeit and unfortunately too often reluctantly, like a mule who is less than accommodating.
3. One of the governing teachings that Jesus gives us about the Holy Spirit, which is also very much in line with what we know about the entire Godhead, is that the Holy Spirit blows where it wants and wills. We don’t employ it, it employs us. The Holy Spirit doesn’t explain itself.
4. Another aspect that I find too often neglected in American evangelical language about the Spirit is the older observation of the work of the Holy Spirit both in the world in general (called “common grace” in my Reformed tradition) and in people’s lives BEFORE they make an overt profession of faith in Christ. Classical Christian theology does not endorse a timeline that “I was out there and stumbled upon information about Jesus, I liked what I heard and decided to follow.” Theology has long held that we can’t choose to follow Jesus without the HS working in our hearts to prepare us. This is called quickening or regeneration. This belief of traditional Christian theology recognizes that the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives comes way before our embrace of it. Too often I hear Christian drawing a very hard line between what professing Christians are doing BECAUSE they have the HS without recognizing that in fact the Holy Spirit works on people who are not Christians or who are perhaps not yet Christians or are perhaps that strange group that are almost Christians or perhaps even Christians and they themselves don’t know it or don’t know it yet. I can’t prove that such a group exists, but I suspect it does. Life is strange that way and this God that we serve reaps where he does not sow”, or does he. 🙂
5. Your points are well taken in terms of the powerful transformation of the Apostles. In Acts it is very clear that Pentecost is the line of demarcation between hapless, hopeless stumblers behind Jesus and these remarkable men and women who in a couple of hundred years changed “the world”.
6. And this brings me to your point about the transformative power of “the word”. Biologos.org is reposting some shorter versions of a lot of what NT Wright is doing in his longer book that Rachel is going through.
Again, I think we have a language problem in the evangelical world that is probably a legacy of the modernist/fundamentalist feud that has transformed the American church sometimes in unfortunate ways. The word is transformative because of how the Holy Spirit uses it. The Bible is not a member of the Trinity. Evangelicals keep using it like a flag, but the subtext that gets communicated is that the Bible is somehow divine or magical. It is neither. It is human words inspired by the Holy Spirit to achieve the ends that the Lord intends.
If you read some John Calvin you might want to read about how he pairs the Holy Spirit with the Bible. The Holy Spirit uses the Bible. Unless the Holy Spirit is using the Bible it does nothing. There is no power in the Bible. It has power to the degree that it is used by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is transformative and the Bible is an agent in transformation as used by the Spirit.
7. With respect to leaders today, you’re probably looking at leaders in affluent, secure North America. Leaders are often revealed in moments of desperation and danger. Find those places and you’ll find inspirational leaders. There are heroes in the world today, most of those stories we won’t know until the assembly of Christ is complete and we have time and capability to appreciate them. Also always know that all leaders have their flaws, sometimes dramatically so. Most who are seen as leaders today will be forgotten in a generation. We are a short lived, short remembered creature in this age.
8. With respect to Calvin, it is difficult (without reading history) to appreciate how broad and influential Calvin was to the development of the Protestant world. Calvin was a second generation reformer whose gifts were to synthesis, process, and systematize what the maelstrom of the first generation of reformers were spinning out in the midst of their melees. Calvin was a refugee (a Frenchman in Switzerland), a pastor (his preaching load and work load was crushing), a scholar (he was incredibly productive), a sickly, often miserable man (had could be generous, but also surly, short tempered and unpleasant) and one of the better Biblical exegetes of his generation (which Wright and others often note). There are biographies that are too hagiographic. I like Herman Selderhuis’ recent biography. I think its fair and even handed on this complex man.
It’s important to recognize that part of why Calvin is so influential is because of his book “The Institutes of the Christian Religion” that was a hugely popular book in Europe as the Reformation continued to impact the cultural conversation.
Calvinism tended to flourish in those spaces in Europe (Switzerland, the Netherlands) where the refugees of other power centers (France, Spain, Germany) had to flee from. Calvin gets a bad rap via Servitus but the truth was that people who couldn’t fit into the dominating influences of the RC and Lutheran churches tended to clump around these refugee centers that practiced greater tolerance. The two main branches that have carried on the tradition came from England (Presbyterian churches) and the Netherlands (Reformed churches, my tradition).
The noisiest Calvinists in America today tend to be “Reformed Baptists” that are an American hybrid of sorts between Calvinism and some American baptist fundamentalisms. Neal Plantinga, my systematics professor when I was in seminary said of Arminianism “Yes it is a heresy, but it’s our heresy”. Arminians too are mostly Calvinists too. Calvin and his teachings impacted Protestantism far beyond what the label reflects today which is part of the reason why labeling a Calvinist is a tricky thing.
9. Part of why I may sound inconsistent with respect to faith is probably because of my Calvinism. Calvin was notoriously inconsistent too, as was Augustine who Calvin really follows. Calvin held both a strong vision of election, that God is the author of our salvation and apart from the work of the Holy Spirit all of God’s benefits for us are not intelligible. If you look also at how Calvin taught and lived he also believed that we are responsible for what we do and must respond to God’s gifts to us. Are we responsible? Yes. Is God the primary agent? Yes. Do these two things seem incompatible? Yes. Why is Calvin so inconsistent in this? Because he’s reading the Bible and the Bible says the same thing. Jesus talks election all the time, and quickly cries out “let those who have ears hear…” Paul does the same thing, and they both come by it honestly from the Old Testament. Its in that tradition that I stand. I have to bear witness to the limits of our agency conditioned by history, time and space, and also the necessity of decision. If I short change either side problems happen, so I’ll stick with my inconsistency. pvk
Leadingchurch.com 
Uh, Paul. I’m sure you didn’t mean to, but you used the impersonal pronoun “it” to describe the Holy Spirit. It sticks out most noticeably in points 2 and 3 above. Can you still edit?
Some of your post reminded me of this quote by R.A. Torrey:
If we think of the Holy Spirit as so many do as merely a power or influence, our constant thought will be, “How can I get more of the Holy Spirit,” but if we think of Him in the Biblical way as a Divine Person, our thought will rather be, “How can the Holy Spirit have more of me?”
R. A. Torrey, The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit as Revealed in the Scriptures and in Personal Experience (New York; Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1910), p.8.
One helpful distinction made by Presbyterian-Reformed Ministries International (a Reformed/Presbyterian charismatic teaching ministry), is that of the Spirit within and the Spirit upon. In the OT we see the work of the Spirit primarily has He comes ‘upon’ people. This is episodic: for a specific purpose and limited time. In the NT we see the Spirit coming upon people also, but after Pentecost we also have the Spirit within. The Spirit within produces the fruit of the Spirit and transforms our character so that the old self dies, and the new self comes to life.
The Reformed tradition, including our confessions, strongly emphasizes the work of the Spirit within. We call it the work of sanctification. But we don’t talk very much, and our confessions don’t even mention, the empowerment ministry of the Spirit (the Spirit upon). Calvin didn’t say much about the empowering work of the Spirit, and tended toward cessationism (on the use of “extraordinary” spiritual gifts). That’s too bad, on the one hand, since we’ve missed it for so long. It’s not too bad on the other, since we don’t have to change/challenge our confessions on a point it does not address.
Thanks Rich. I actually paused on “it” and did the whole “he or she” debate but didn’t want to draw attention to the inclusive language debate, then I was going to make a parentheses and say “I intend this to be a non-gender specific yet personal ‘it'” but thought that too would be distracting so I left it as “it”, but now I don’t know again. 🙂 Maybe I should just say “fill in the pronoun here that won’t make you stumble over these other issues that distract. I believe the Holy Spirit is a PERSON because the trinity has three of them. 🙂 ) pvk
I like the “within” and “upon” distinction. That’s helpful. I do believe in “within” but don’t want “within” to take away from the freedom of the person of the Holy Spirit, which I know charismatic ministries generally respect quite well.
That being said I think my reading of the NT has really impressed upon me the alignment in Paul of being “in Christ” and therefore “in the Spirit” in that conception.
How two persons relate, our self and the person of the Spirit is always a complicated thing. Persons, by definition are agents and where there are multiple agents there will be conflict or agreement as well as nuance. I think God wants this or they (maybe this is the best pronoun for the Trinity) wouldn’t have have populated the universe with other persons. Oh how complex we are!
Thanks again Rich for your comments. I appreciate your intelligence and wisdom in this stuff. Good to have your voice back a bit more in my life. 🙂 pvk
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Thank you for re-posting this. I saw your comments and they brought me to your blog (which I am very much enjoying). I’ve been a Christian for several years now and have gone back and forth trying to study and work out how the Holy Spirit works and fits into the Trinity. Scripture that I struggle with is in Acts 8:4-24 regarding the receipt of the Holy Spirit after they were believers and laying on of hands. It seems to imply (and is adamently interpreted by some) that even if you are a believer, the only way to receive the Holy Spirit is by the laying on of hands. Of course there is also the interpretation that “speaking in tongues” is the only true evidence of a believer receiving the Holy Spirit. I do not agree with either of these views and do not see where they line up with the rest of the teachings of the NT or OT. I also tend to think these interpretations seem to limit God/Holy Spirit. I also know that there are some things and aspects of God that I will never full understand/know. Your comments above are helpful in attempting to get clarity and understanding. I would greatly appreciate more direction/insight that you may have regarding Acts 8.
Thanks for your comment Casie and for following up. Here are a few thoughts that I hope you’ll find helpful.
1. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that we’ve had groups taking the positions you’ve described. Paul doesn’t seem to teach this position as such, and as and many other have noted it isn’t consistently presented in this way in the book of Acts. This is a more recent teaching in the Christian church and whereas that doesn’t mean it should be dismissed, it is one of the data points. Most are not willing to say “the Holy Spirit left the church in the 1st century and then here in our little movement the Spirit returned…” Other sects have made this claim including the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses. Most historical Christian churches while having differences between them at least recognize that God has been working through his church since the time of the New Testament, Holy Spirit and all.
2. The story of Philip (the deacon) and Simeon the Magician highlights some aspect partly due to the other elements of the story. What in Simeon’s heart did Philip need to address? One of my first friends I made in Sacramento 15 years ago said to me upon learning I was a pastor said “Preachers are kingdom builders, they build their own kingdoms.” He had for years watched ambitious preachers build churches and ministries and in his estimation their driving force was ambition, ego, and to make a name for themselves. This is a sad but unfortunately a common thing and it stands completely opposite the master we follow. Read in the Old Testament about the Holy Spirit and pride. The Spirit is with the humble and flees the proud.
In this story Simeon associates with the believers and joins with them but then wants to become a franchise. What this showed is that he didn’t understand what was really at the heart of what was happening. Part of the reason the story is told (similar to Ananias and Sapphira) is that the church ought not to be corrupt or tolerate corruption. The emphasis on the story is not a teaching on how to transmit the Holy Spirit.
3. The book of Acts is notoriously inconsistent in terms of conveying all sorts of things, including evidence of the Holy Spirit. Note that in next story there is no mention of the Ethiopian Eunuch and the Holy Spirit at all? Would Philip baptize him and not “give him the Spirit”? In the next story with Paul’s conversion Ananias lays hands on Saul and he’s healed. No mention of the Spirit. Then we’ll have Peter in the house of Cornelius with Peter being rather tentative about all that is going on but then he sees that the Spirit has been given to these “god fearers” already (no laying on of hands) and then its followed up with water baptism apart from circumcision.
Can you find a pattern? I think the abiding pattern is Jesus’ own teaching about the Spirit, like the wind it goes where it wills. There can be tongues, but sometimes no tongues. It can be quiet, producing long, slow fruit or it can come on like a fire.
One thing that is too often forgotten is that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a force or a power or a personal possession that we wield. The hallmark of personhood is choice. The Holy Spirit is not electricity that we transmit or water that we harness. The Holy Spirit does what he/she/it wills. Like a person it can accept invitations, accept or reject requests, but it can never be manipulated or controlled by us. Persons may have patterns and practices and norms, but those don’t detract from personhood and they certainly cannot from a divine person.
Thanks for your question. Hope it helps. pvk
It does! Thanks!!!