Miraculous Gifts for Today: a Critique of Cessationist Exegesis of I Corinthians 13

Bitter polemics all too often fill the contemporary conversation concerning the place of miraculous, spiritual gifts in the church. One of the problems with this debate is that both sides of the discussion already have their theological agenda in place prior to approaching the text. By doing so they read their prefabricated theology onto the text. Neither side, then, is able to discern the voice of the text from their own voices. The Reformed[1] and Dispensational theologians have traditionally held to a Cessationist position – that is, that the gifts of tongues, prophecy and knowledge,[2] ceased sometime after the death of the apostles. On the other hand, the Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals ardently believe that these gifts are for the church today and are normative for the contemporary church.

In the next few posts, most of my efforts will be spent on the Cessationist position as that is the side I am most interested in engaging.[3] I will examine their exegesis of both I Corinthians 13:8-11 and I Corinthians 14:1-25. I will begin with a brief examination of certain Cessationist arguments concerning 13:8-10 and conclude with a much longer examination of their arguments from I Corinthians 14. By the end, it will be demonstrated that, despite the exegetical prowess of so many Cessationist writers, their concerns often steer away from Paul’s and therefore they miss the point of these passages.

Contra Cessationism Post 1: Of Deponent Verbs and Rhetorical Effect

It has been successfully argued that the contemporary Cessationist position goes back at least to the Reformers polemics against the Roman Catholics in the 16^th and 17^th centuries regarding claims of miraculous events. Combine these fierce debates with an Enlightenment epistemology which denied the existence of miracles as well as the validity of experience as an adequate means of theological formulation and the way is paved for Cessationism to take a strong hold in the modern world.[4] For the contemporary discussion it was the 19^th century Protestant theologian Benjamin B. Warfield who, in response to Pentecostalism, shaped this discussion for years to come.[5] Warfield contended that the “extra ordinary charismata” were restricted, quite clearly, to the Apostles. These gifts served as an authentication[6] of Apostolic authority and, therefore, ceased upon the death of the apostles. His position has taken numerous paths in the Cessationist scholarship, especially in relationship to I Corinthians 13.

Cessationists often use I Corinthians 13:8-12 as a proof-text for undercutting the validity of tongues and other gifts for the contemporary church. Many assert that the verbal voice change in vs. 8 indicated the cessation of tongues. That is, in vs. 8-10 prophecy and knowledge are said to katarghqh,sontai,[7] that is, to be rendered powerless. The passive voice is significant here because with tongues Paul shifts to the middle voice, pau,sontai.[8] The middle voice, Cessationists argue, is reflexive, indicating tongues will have ceased in and of itself prior to the arrival of the perfect thing[9] of vs. 10. Tongues will cease on their own as opposed to prophecy and knowledge which will be stopped by an outside force.

There are two major problems with this reading, however. First, it does not acknowledge the likelihood that this word choice is merely a rhetorical tool employed by Paul for stylistic reasons. The structure of the verse quite clearly demonstrates this. The verse is set up in a chiastic fashion, whereby pau,sontai is given meaning in light of katarghqh,sontai :

A. ei;te profhtei/ai(katarghqh,sontai\

B. ei;te glw/ssai( pau,sontai\

A’. ei;te gnw/sij( katarghqh,setaiÅ

In other words, since the “A” envelopes, thus providing contextual meaning for “B”, there are clear structural reasons for concluding that Paul may merely intend a stylistic variation in the switch in verbal voice in vs. 8.

Second, the first critique of this Cessationist argument is reinforced by a much larger concern: the failure to understand the use of this verb in the middle voice throughout biblical literature.[10] The future tense of any verb is frequently accompanied by the middle voice. However, the middle voice quite frequently takes on active force. Known as deponent verbs; these verbs are middle in form, but active in force/meaning. To figure out whether we are dealing with a middle voice verb or a deponent verb we must observe how the middle voice form functions with a specific verb, for “one knows what force the middle voice has only by careful inspection of all occurrences of the verb being studied.”[11] Concerning pau,sontai, the evidence overwhelmingly points to deponent usage, as DA Carson has noted:

In the New Testament, this verb prefers the middle; but that does not mean the subject “stops” under its own power. For instance, when Jesus rebukes the wind and raging waters, the storm stops (same verb, middle voice in Luke 8:24) – and certainly not under its own power.[12]

In other words, that the verb, though in middle form, most often takes an active force as it is most often deponent.[13] This suggests the Cessationist reading of this text leaves much to be desired. The requirement lies with them to demonstrate that this verbal voice shift has any bearing on the argument at hand. They need to show why this occurrence of pau,sontai is not a deponent when the word prefers the deponent nearly everywhere else in the New Testament.

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[1] Through the promptings of scholars like Wayne Grudem, many Reformed theologians are actually abandoning Cessationism altogether. So this is become less of an issue for that movement as time goes on.

[2] Because of the nature of this discussion it is important to define ones terms at the beginning. By tongues, I mean a spiritual gift given by the Holy Spirit that manifests itself in inarticulate utterances which are directed to God as a prayer or praise, though it may also take the form of song. By prophecy I do not mean sermonic rhetoric, but rather a spiritual gift whereby the Spirit gives particular insight into the life of the community that the prophet would not otherwise have known, which then compels the prophet to speak his word from God for the edification of the community. By knowledge, again I do not mean mere capabilities of retaining massive amounts of information, but rather the supernatural ability to know and understand certain things pertaining to the life of the community and their relationship with God that the person could not have accessed through natural means.

[3] I primarily critique the Cessationist position, first because I come from the Reformed and Dispensationalist traditions, so I want to engage “my own.” Second, I critique them here primarily because I repeatedly see their exegesis (again, because I have more experience with them) is faulty in that they assume a position prior to coming to the text and that prior theological commitment has bearing on their exegesis. Finally, I do this because once it has been established that these gifts are normative for the contemporary church, it is at that point we can begin to critique the Pentecostal exegesis, which in many ways also needs to be critiqued.

[4] J. Ruthven, On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Postbiblical Miracles, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplementary Series. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). Ruthven acknowledges that certain church fathers held to certain Cessationist views, but historically speaking he demonstrates that this is a response to the excesses of the heresy Montanism, not solid biblical exegesis.

[5] It should be acknowledged that prior to Warfield, Thomas Aquinas was the most influential Cessationist in the history of the church. His arguments were not primarily polemics against the Montanists, rather, he suggests tongues have ceased because the decrepitude of the body and the perfection of knowledge in the eschaton. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolas S. Pauli: 1 ad Cor., 385, sect. 789.

[6] Though I don’t have time to go into this, this claim, itself, is questionable. The miracles never authenticated the apostles, the miracles authenticated the message of salvation offered by the apostles. There is a difference, and a failure to discern this is to nearly deify the apostles. I heard a Cessationist preaching on the radio recently and he appealed to Hebrews 2:4 saying that this text demonstrated the connection of these gifts specifically with the apostles. Unfortunately, this is wrong. The passage actually connects the “signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit” to “it,” which in context is “this salvation. (vs. 3) ”“To be sure [the apostles] did signs and wonders, but these signs and wonders did not authenticate them; rather the signs and wonders authenticated the Lord Jesus and the message about Him. There is no scriptural reason, certainly no specific text, that would prevent Jesus from granting an outpouring of signs and wonders to His church in this century or any other century for that matter.” Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: A Former Dallas Seminary Professor Discovers that God Speaks and Heals Today. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993), 249.

[7] Future/Passive/Indicative/3/Plural

[8] Future/Middle/Indicative/3/Plural

[9] John F. MacArthur, Jr., The Charismatics: A Doctrinal Perspective. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1978), 165.

[10] Carson is much more direct here, calling this failure an irresponsible interpretation of the middle voice. D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of I Corinthians 12-14. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987), 66.

[11] Carson, 67.

[12] Carson, 67.

[13] This is why most English translations from the KJV to the NASB translate the verb as active: “shall pass away.”

The Spirit and the Word

The Spirit and the Word are inseparable. They, together, are the means by which God created and sustains the world in Genesis. By His word God calls forth all of creation. By the Spirit He works chaos into cosmos. God has called the world into being with the breath of His mouth (ruach) and has made everything by his word (Ps. 33:6).

At times in the OT “spirit” and “word” are even interchangeable. Ancient Jews found it difficult to draw too sharp of a contrast between them. This is because they understood the creative and providential potential of both.

Ancient people believed they could create reality through the spoken word. The spoken word “is regarded as the medium of owners which effectively influence events.”[1]

And even today, though we hardly believe it, human words have the ability to create worlds. By gossip or negativity a world of despair may be created around a person. By love and grace a world of godliness may flourish around someone else.

If we are to have a renewed understanding of the Spirit in the church today, we need to also regain a new understanding of the power of words. With our words, we need to create a world where the Spirit and spiritual things may thrive and prosper. Clearly we do not take the freedom from God to choose to act on His own, but we can still work to create an environment that is ready when God does choose to act. This is done through a connection of Spirit and word.

Notice how so many of our spiritual charisms (gifts) essentially involve words: Tongues is itself a verbal gift, teaching and prophesy are gifts most often employed through spoken word, discernment involves distinguishing whether a spoken word came from God or not, and what would encouragement be if it did not involve a word of hope? And the list could go on.

In a world where everything has already been said, and much of our rhetoric is merely adding to the noise, we need to recover a sense of connection between the Spirit and words. If we fail to do this, “our words may well make a good deal of sense, but they will be devoid of power; it may be that they will explain something, but they will move nobody. They will be ineffectual, idle, fruitless.”[2]

We live in a world where words are considered either hurtful or meaningless. People do not trust the words of lying politicians, the words of cheating pastors, nor the words of even their own family members (“I love you.” doesn’t even mean anything anymore because it’s been so overused and commercialized!).

The church, to them, is just another political entity vying for power, a power to hurt other people. This is how the world sees the church – and we’ve given them no other model! But “if we really want the Spirit to place words on our lips, we need to live constantly in an attitude of death to our own glory, seeking only the glory of God.”[3] We need to stop our self-seeking and squelch our power-hunger. We need to humbly live in the Spirit and employ the words of humility and love.

A fresh recovery of the Spirit goes hand in hand with a recovery of our ecclesial rhetoric. From the individual struggling with gossip, to the larger community struggling with our political rhetoric, from the Pentecostal emphasizing the Spirit to the Protestants emphasizing the Word, we cannot forget that these are inseparable. The Spirit and the word, together, create and sustain worlds. As long as we ignore the value of both in the contemporary church we will continue to reap the harvest of spiritless meaninglessness.

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[1] Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament Vol. II. 69.

[2] Raniero Cantalamessa, Come Creator Spirit. 233.

[3] Cantalamessa, 236.

The Continuum of the Sacred: The Spirit and the Un-Mundane

In a previous post I argued that everything is sacred. That is, all aspects of our lives are sacred because the Spirit permeates all things. Taking a bath is sacred. Baptism is sacred. Doing the laundry is sacred. The Eucharist is sacred.

What I unwittingly communicated in that post, however, was that taking a bath and getting Baptized are sacred in the same way and to the same degree. And though Luther says that every time we wash our face we should think of our Baptism, I am convinced that this reasoning is flawed. There is something distinctively set apart about the sacraments. That is, the sacraments are holy in a different way and to a different degree than taking a shower is holy.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think I was on the right track in that post, I just think there were implications of that line of reasoning that I hadn’t explored. In this post, I want to suggest that the problem with the previous post wasn’t so much that I uplifted the bath (which was the intent), but that in doing so I unfortunately drug Baptism down to the level of a bath.

Instead of positing an “everything is equally sacred” model, I want to continue to suggest that everything is sacred, including a bath, but that all things are not sacred in the same way or to the same degree. While a bath is sacred because the Spirit is present with us during that time, there is a very real sense in which the church has always held that Baptism is a time and ritual which invokes the Spirit in a special way. The sacraments of the church invite the presence of the Spirit in a distinct way. So, yes, my bath might be sacred because the Spirit communes with me there – indeed, some of my best times of worship and fellowship with the Spirit have been while showering – but it is not sacred in the same way as Baptism.

To illustrate this I want to pull from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Under the Old Covenant, the people of God worshiped and met with Yahweh at the Temple. The Temple and its objects were all considered “holy” or set apart from common use. But within the Temple there was a “Most Holy Place.” The existence of the Most Holy Place didn’t negate the holiness of the other spaces and objects, it merely suggested that there is a continuum of holiness. Everything in the Temple was holy, but this particular space and the objects within that space were more holy and holy in a different way.

So too it is with the Spirit’s activities in the life of the church. Mundane things such as eating and drinking can be made holy by the presence and activity of the Spirit of God. But there are some things which are Most Holy. Baptism, the Eucharist, the gathering together of the community on Sunday – these things are Most Holy. Common time, which is never common because of the Spirit, becomes increasingly holy. Common objects, such as bread and wine, become Most Holy during the Eucharist. And common water becomes Most Holy during Baptism.

Everything is still sacred. But some things are more sacred and in a different way.

And what was once routine was now the perfect joy – Switchfoot

The Spirit and Ceaseless Prayer

I’ve always found impossible Paul’s imperative to “pray without ceasing.” I mean, seriously, who has time for that? Even Luther’s comment that he’s so busy that he feels he has to pray for 3 hours a day doesn’t quite get at Paul’s impracticable “without ceasing” requirement – 3 hours is hardly “without ceasing.” Surely Paul doesn’t expect me to kneel beside my bed for all 16 waking hours.

But what if “without ceasing” isn’t a measurable category? What if I can’t set my stop-watch count this kind of prayer? What if I can’t gauge it? What if it can’t be calculated by the time I spend on my knees next to my bed or verbalizing prayers from the Lectionary?

I had a liberating thought a while back: Unceasing prayer can only be done in communion with the Holy Spirit…..Here me out before you say, “Thank you Captain Obvious!”

You see, this kind of prayer cannot be put on our check-list of spiritual activities for the day. Rather, it is a continual and constant communion with the Spirit throughout the day. It is the recognition that the Spirit, as a person, is always present and always engaged with us. Like the face of the Deep in Genesis 1:2, the Spirit hovers over us, always drawing us out of the chaos and into communion.

This is also a recognition that all our mundane tasks – “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Dt. 6:7) - can be done in communion with the Spirit, with an ever increasing awareness of the Spirit’s nearness. God is not distant, God the Spirit desires us to delve deep in Trinitarian fellowship.

So, while Luther’s 3 hours is important (especially as a discipline), we cannot restrict our communion with the Spirit of God to 1/8 of our day. The Spirit’s presence permeates every aspect of our lives. Every cry of our heart against injustice, even the ones we don’t utter prayers for, is heard by the Spirit as an appeal to the Father to set things right. When we hurt the Spirit groans and prays for us – even though we haven’t uttered a word.

No longer do I find Paul’s imperative an impossibility. No longer do I assume I don’t have time for that. No longer am I convicted by Luther’s prayer life in comparison with mine. Ceaseless is as simple communion with another person. It is the desires and thoughts which invite God to establish His kingdom on earth. It is our efforts to work with the Spirit to display, as true image bearers, God’s name in a chaotic and rebellious earth. It is the orientation of our being to God’s Spirit. It is our groanings to have heaven touch earth in such a way that Christ is revealed in all his goodness. In these things we draw deeper into communion with the Spirit, deeper into participation in the divine nature. In these things we pray without ceasing.

Hovering Over the Face of the Deep: The Spirit in Creation

For all our debates about the nature and genre of the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, I’m amazed by the lack of discussion surrounding the meaning of the Spirit’s activities in 1:2 where the text reads, “And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.”

We’ve been so sidetracked by other questions, often questions the text isn’t even asking, that we’ve overlooked this odd and fascinating feature of the Creation narrative – the presence and activity of God’s Spirit.

Neglecting the Spirit’s role in creation is easy for us, not only because we’re distracted by the Creationism vs. Evolution questions, but also because we’ve severely limited the Spirits role in the Christian life to conviction of sin and assurance of salvation. Or, more specifically, we’ve limited the Spirit’s role to our subjective devotional lives.

But prior to the need for conviction of sin and the need for assurance of salvation, the Spirit was involved in the work of creation. Contrary to our privatized Pneumatology, the fingerprints of the Spirit are clearly displayed in the cosmos.

But what do those finger prints look like? And why was the Spirit hovering over the deep?

By placing the Spirit within Genesis 1:2, where we have the beginning of a movement from darkness and void to order and light, the author suggests the Spirit is the agent by which creation is given form and order. The Spirit is not removed from the creation; the Spirit is intimately with the creation, guiding its development and progress along with the spoken word of God.[1]

The Spirit’s hovering over the face of the deep is significant. For the ancient Hebrews, the sea was a force of chaos and unruliness. Often mythologized in Babylonian religions, the chaotic character of the sea is confirmed by numerous biblical accounts: Noah’s Flood and the destruction of the entire world, the crossing of the Red Sea, Jonah and the whale, Jesus and the calming of the Storm.[2] Even more telling is in Revelation when the sea is the place from which the great Beast comes (13:1) and, ultimately, a place to be destroyed in the new creation: “and there was no longer any sea.”(21:1)

Furthermore, within our narrative, it is important to note that the deep is possibly a subtle reference to a Babylonian deity, Tehoim, “a belligerent and monstrous ocean goddess.”[3] If so, Genesis 1:2 would have been an especially comforting verse for ancient Hebrews wrestling with the constant pressures of Babylonian culture and religion. Not only are the chaotic waters of the deep under the Spirit’s dominion, but implicitly and subversively, Babylonian religion is stripped of its power and demonstrated to be inferior to the religion of Yahweh. For in our narrative, the Spirit is holding at bay the chaotic forces of the world – Babylonian religious and cultural influence, to be more specific. The Spirit drifts over the deep and demonstrates the dominion of God over the disorder soiling the life of an exiled people attempting to be faithful to Yahweh’s covenant “in a foreign land.” (Ps. 137:1-4)[4]

I know the objections will be that there are no forces of evil yet b/c Genesis 3 has not yet occurred. But, again, like the Creationism debates, I don’t think that’s the question the narrative asks.[5]

Rather, it assumes some sort of rebellion has already occurred. You see, the pre-Fall narrative is replete with numerous subtle references to Babylonian deities, and even words which indicated violent subjugation (1:28).[6] Furthermore, such an answer also accounts for the mysterious serpent in Genesis 3 – another possible allusion to a Babylonian deity, and one which would, again, make a lot of sense to an ancient Hebrew person struggling with the constant influences of Babylonian religion and culture.[7]

Thus, what we’re learning from Genesis 1:2 is that those forces of chaos, those things in the world that are disorderly and unruly, are still held in check by the Spirit. The Spirit is already at work to bring the creation back to its original intention – the order of God.

The implication of this is, yes, that there were forces of death operative within creation prior to Genesis 3, but those forces of death were not yet operative within humanity or the earth in which humanity resided. But these forces of death are being checked by the Spirit. Indeed, even though the narrative makes subtle references to pagan deities, these subtle references are subtle precisely because the narrator wants the reader to see that the sea was created by God and that God is in control. The sea is not a deity, it is part of Yahweh’s creation and He is sovereign over it as the Spirit hovers over the deep and keeps it in its place (Ps. 140:9). “The author here plainly understands God’s act of creation to have involved some type of conflict with cosmic chaos, but also clearly portrays Yahweh as being more than up to the task.”[8]

So what is the Spirit doing hovering over the face of the deep? Displaying and maintaining God’s sovereignty over creation. Demonstrating God’s intimate concern for the details of His creation. And ensuring the ancient reader that God maintains control over the chaotic influences and forces of false religion. The gigs up: the Sea is demythologized and shown to be part of creation. It is not an independent agent, and insofar as chaotic forces do control the sea, Genesis 1 will not allow us to despair, as if Yahweh has lost his sovereignty.

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[1] For a great discussion on the closeness of the Word and the Spirit, see Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament. Vol. II (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 49-50. Eichrodt argues that there are times in Israel’s history where the “word” and the “Spirit” are nearly identical in nature and indistinguishable from one another.

[2] Also see Job 7:12 when Job asks God is he is a cosmic opponent that needs to be guarded and watched – like the Sea and the Dragon.

[3] Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapter 1-17. NICOT. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), 110.

[4] Obviously this assumes a later date for the final composition of Genesis. I have no problem saying the sources go back much further, but the final redactors included these stories with these details to communicate certain and specific theological truths to their contemporaries in exile.

[5] Notice how the narrative never says the “deep” was “good.”

[6] In 1:28, the word the first of the 2 words for “dominion/rule” is an extremely violent one. It is used elsewhere in Hebrew literature to refer to pillaging after war. The question, then, becomes, why is there a need for violent subjugation if the creation as a whole is still under God’s rule?

[7] The serpent, like the sea, is de-mythologized and is demonstrated to be merely a creature made by the Lord God, not a deity to be worshipped (3:1).

[8] Greg Body, God at War.

Everything is Sacred: A Pneumatology of the Mundane

Is Sunday more holy than Thursday? Are the Eucharistic elements more sanctified than my Wonder bread and Welch’s grape juice? Is a church sanctuary more holy than the public park?

For modern Christians the answers are generally, Yes, each of the former is more holy or sanctified than the latter.

But I want to argue in this post that the Spirit of God is active in all things – even those mundane or common objects, times, or places. In other words, Sacred Space need not be limited to cathedrals or communion tables. Sacred Time need not be restricted to Sundays or Lent. And Sacred Objects need not be restricted to Bibles, crosses or pulpits.

Rather, encountering the Spirit of God occurs with mundane things, places, and times:

 Simple kitchen tables where we meet God each morning for our devotions
 That old, tattered watch our grandfather gave us with the Bible inscription on the back, continually challenging us to faithfulness
 Thursday night dinners with old friends who challenge you to love God more.

The sacred is found in the mundane. As one scholar put it, we can and do encounter God in “quite unreligious, commonplace experiences.”

This does not mean nothing is sacred for the Christian. Rather, it means all times, places, and objects are sacred:

 Paul tells us all days are to be lived for the Lord, not just the Sabbath.
 All meat comes from God, even if it’s sacrificed to idols.
 The temple of the Holy Spirit is not built by human hands, but is the community, ekklesia, of God.
 Whatever you do with your hands do with all your might – not with eye service and pleasers of people, but unto God!
 Whether you eat or drink (mundane tasks, are they not?), do it all to the glory of the Lord.

However highly hallowed or wholly humdrum, everything must be considered consecrated.

And if everything is sacred then nothing is merely mundane. No person, no task, no object, no place and no time can be considered God-forsaken:

 As believers in a crucified savior, every person is considered sacred to God and therefore to us.
 As kingdom workers, even term papers and taxes become sacred.
 As resident aliens, each place we go the kingdom of God accompanies us.
 As agents of redemption, we redeem the time and demonstrate God’s sovereignty over all ages.

When Christians understand that nothing is mundane we are also able to see the all pervasive presence of the Spirit in all created things, great and small.

The Spirit’s presence in Genesis 1:2 suggests that the Spirit has always been involved with the creation. And now through Jesus’ death the Spirit reveals that all creation falls under Christ’s redemptive purposes (Col. 1).

In recognizing this we have the ability, indeed privileged, to observe the Spirit’s workings in the mundane tasks, we are able to be present – that is, not continually distracted by what/who is coming up next or later. We can focus on our task at hand precisely because we know that the Spirit is at work in this task, no matter how trivial. We work with the Spirit to call all things to the redemptive purposes of God.

Let me illustrate this: When I do the dishes for me wife, no matter how mundane that seems to me, I am enacting loving service within our home. I not only demonstrate my love for her as a husband, but I actually demonstrate the love of Christ for her. This demonstration of love is prompted by the Spirit. The Spirit compels me to creative means of loving my wife. But that creativity need not be only and always big-feats of romance (as important as that may be). Rather, my wife feels most loved when I simply clean the bathroom or take out the trash. Everything is sacred in our marriage – even pee stains around the toilet! (or, rather, the absence thereof) If I ignore the mundane, my wife will feel unloved.

So it is with the Spirit. The Spirit does not always and only need our great missionary allegiance. The Spirit wants us to be faithful in all our little tasks. Our excellence and present-ness in all things mundane turn those things, places, and people into sacraments – means by which we encounter the living God through physical realities. It is here that something “as ordinary as a sleeping child, as simple and objective as a flower, suddenly commands attention.” And it does so because the presence of the Spirit.

Everything is sacred, brothers and sisters. Everything.

Could it be that everything is sacred?
And all this time
Everything I’ve dreamed of
Has been right before my eyes.

-Andrew Osenga “Sacred”

The Spirit is Not the Marlboro Man

The Enlightenment, autonomous individual, that rugged, Marlboro man who needs nothing but his own cigarettes and skepticism, has fallen on tough times. To some extent[1] Postmodernity is the driving force of decay, falsifying our sense of self and reviving the idea that humans find their truest identity within community. I’m skeptical of what kind of community can ultimately be produced under a postmodern worldview, but whatever the case we can at least rejoice in the resurgence of the old axiom, “No man is an island.”

 

So it is with the Spirit: The Spirit of God is not an autonomous self. The Spirit finds identity within two communities: The community of the Trinity and the community of Ecclesia – the church. Ever longing to bring these two communities into union, the Spirit actively comes forth from the Father in wooing joy, enjoining the church to greater participation in the divine nature.

 

Trinitarian Community

The biblical picture of the Spirit is divine power and life. Within the Trinitarian community, the Spirit as power and life is the means by which the persons of the Trinity love one another. In Augustine’s terms, as cited earlier, the Spirit is the “bond of love” within the Trinitarian dance.

 

As the bond of love, the Spirit is seen here in terms of relationality. The Spirit relates to and submits to the other persons of the Trinity without losing individuality and identity. The community is not forced upon the Spirit in the sense of overshadowing the Spirit as an individual person. But neither is the individual person of the Spirit the primary concern overriding the community. Within the Trinitarian community there is a dance of love whereby each member sacrificially loves the others and places the others above themselves. This is essential to the nature of God and therefore to the nature of the Spirit.

 

Community of Ecclesia[2]

The Spirit is not restricted to heavenly relationships, but has willfully and ecstatically chosen to participate in the human community we call the church.[3] “Spirit brings persons together in heaven and on earth, being both the medium of the communication of Jesus with the Father and the medium of our communication with brothers and sisters.”[4]

 

The Spirit is the bond of love between the church and her savior. She sweeps the church up in her arms, carrying us to the Father, urging us to further sanctification, and all the while liberally lavishing on us the love of our Lord.

 

Yet the Spirit is not merely a force pushing us to God; the Spirit leads us with a chord of gentleness and compassion, convicting us when we fall behind, bestowing grace on us when we fail, and grieving with us when we mourn.

 

Furthermore, the relationship of the Spirit to the church is not just vertically oriented. The Spirit moves us to further union with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Spirit works amongst Calvinists and Arminians, Complementarians and Egalitarians precisely because none of these systems can fully conceptualize Ruach. The wind cannot be constrained in our canisters of theological conjecture.  

 

The love of the Trinitarian community was perfect before the Creation. Yet that perfect love desired (did not need) someone to share its love with. God created humanity and called out Israel and then the church as the object of His affection. God desires to draw us, through the Spirit, into that Trinitarian dance of love whereby there is mutual submission and communion. The Spirit is the church’s answer to its individualism and self-focus by wooing us to participation in Trinitarian love. We were “created in the first place to reflect God’s own perfection, and [our] destiny is to participate in the very life of God.”[5]

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[1] I qualify this statement because there are aspects of Postmodernity which cling ferociously to the myth of the autonomous individual. So, it is neither the final answer nor is it the only challenge to individualism.

[2] I hope to expand on these thoughts later, so excuse what is left out in this brief rundown.

[3] Let me add at this point that I do not think the Spirit is restricted to Ecclesia either. But I will spell that out in a later post.

[4] Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love. 39.

[5] Pinnock, 41.

The Person of the Spirit: Emotion

Persons have emotions. Even unborn babies respond emotionally to certain stimuli. But when we think of the Holy Spirit we don’t think of a person, we think of a force or energy. This is largely because, in our minds, the Spirit does not have emotion.

 

We don’t think the Spirit has emotions for two reasons. First, on a popular level, we simply do not read our Bible’s close enough. Our preconceptions of the Spirit as a force and shadowy ghost color our ability to see those texts which speak of the Spirit’s emotion. Second, on a more academic level, Classical theism has, since Augustine, argued that God does not really have emotions. That is, all those texts which speak of God being angry, or happy, or regretful are anthropopathic: primarily human passions or emotions cast on God. God does not really feel anger, in Classical theism, “anger” is just a human way of explaining certain theological realities.

 

This is largely because in Classical theism God cannot change. Having a vast array of emotions leaves open the possibility of changing from one to another. God is perfect and any change from perfection is imperfection. Since emotions require change, this would necessitate that God moves about in various levels of imperfection.

 

To me, this betrays more of a Platonic view of perfection than a biblical view of perfection. For Plato, for everything on earth there was a perfect heavenly reality. The earthly things could change, fade, improve or destruct, but the heavenly reality would remain perfectly changeless. Augustine, taking this idea, placed it upon God – God, the ultimate heavenly being, cannot change. And if God cannot change, then God cannot feel real emotion b/c that necessitates change.

 

The biblical view of God, one that is more Hebraic than Greek,[1] is that God is not Immutable (that is unchanging). Rather God can change and still be perfect. Perfection does not require changelessness according to the Bible and genuine personhood necessitates emotion and thus, change.

 

There are many Scriptures that people use to prove that God does not change. They are all similar to “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.” What these texts really demonstrate, however, is not that God doesn’t change or have emotion, but that, from a faithfulness perspective, God will honor His covenants. When he makes a promise, you can be guaranteed that He will keep it. His character does not change, even if His emotions do.

 

That said, allowing God to have emotions is important in this discussion because for us to recover a notion of the Spirit as a living person, we must recover the Spirit’s emotions.

 

Just a quick list of the Spirit’s emotions should suffice for now:

 

Deep Agony: Ephesians 4:25-32. Compare with Christ in Matt. 26:37, where the same word is employed to describe Christ’s agony during the Passion.

 

Intense Desire/Jealousy: James 4:5. This is also Paul’s word for a longing to see someone whom he has been separated from.

 

Groaning that demonstrates solidarity with out weaknesses: Romans 8:26

 

Insult or outraged: Hebrews 10:29. The word here is a hapaxlegomena, so the exactly meaning is ambiguous. But either translation communicates emotion.

 

Ability to participate in loving union/fellowship: Philippians 2:1.

 

Desires that war against the flesh: Galatians 5:17

 

Love: Romans 15:30.

 

Let us not shackle the Holy Spirit by our theological presuppositions or our inattention to biblical texts. Viewed in light of good biblical exegesis, the Spirit is a person who expressed genuine emotion. I know our “assumptions about what is ‘proper’ for the divine nature to be like can make it difficult for us to take seriously what God’s nature is like as revealed in the gospel.”[2] But let us make an effort to see Spirit as revealed in Scripture: emotions, change and all.

 

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[1] I’m not bashing Greek philosophy here! I’m just critiquing it. There are many great ideas in Christian theology (such as the Trinity) that we have formulated using the tools of Greek philosophy.

[2] Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1996), 31.

Experiencing the Spirit

A few months ago I wrote a post charging myself with being Too Skeptical for the Holy Spirit. I lamented, really, the fact that my Pneumatological Hermeneutic of Suspicion is always in over-drive. A few weeks later I wrote a post delineating those Christian beliefs I considered Dogma, Doctrine, Opinion or Heresy. Theotica pointed out that my Dogmas (those things I considered essential to the Christian faith) were overwhelmingly Christological. I realized, in frustration with myself, I had very little to say about the Holy Spirit.

A Hermeneutic of Suspicion is not entirely responsible for this. My tradition (Evangelical/Southern Baptist) rarely touches on the 3^rd person of the Trinity. It’s hard to develop a thoughtful theology when there’s no consistency within the community’s rhetoric.

Our communal avoidance of the Spirit is borne out of at least two factors: 1. we are afraid allowing the Spirit to have control will turn us into Pentecostals,[1] and 2. our view of the Bible restricts our Pneumatological experiences.

Let me explain the second point.

I’ve always loved the authoritative emphasis Evangelicalism places on the Bible. While in certain respects I have no problem with this, I also feel it has led to an unfortunate dichotomy between the Scripture and experience; a dichotomy which is, itself, not scriptural.

John Stott argues in his discussion on the Holy Spirit, “God’s purpose for our lives is to be found in Scripture and not in experience.”[2] Stott argues the Holy Bible, above our experiences of the Holy Spirit, should direct our Christian lives. He says this primarily because he distrusts experience, not because he distrusts the Holy Spirit. The Bible must be the medium of the Holy Spirit.

But here’s the fundamental flaw: All our experiences of the Spirit, including the illumination given by the Spirit to understand the Bible, are still experiences. As Ruether says, “Human experience is both the starting point and ending point of the circle of interpretation.”[3] There’s nothing outside of experience (or the text!). This distrust of experience is an epistemological left over from the Enlightenment, not from a biblical worldview.

The problem with appealing only the Scriptures, and avoiding experience, is not only that everything is an experience, but the Bible only Speaks of experiencing the Spirit. Experience is how the biblical authors knew the Spirit. They didn’t have a Bible on which to rely.

The Luke-Acts narratives, for example, spill over with experiences of the Spirit’s outpouring. Furthermore, Paul appeals to his audience, not to only search the Scriptures (the Old Testament) for their awareness of the Spirit, but to look within their own communal experiences for evidence of the Spirit’s work:

What, don’t you know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Or

If there is any consolation in Christ, any comfort from His love, any fellowship of the Spirit, then make my joy complete…

Indeed, some of Paul’s statements only make sense with the assumption that his churches experience the Spirit: Did you receive the Spirit by works of Torah or by believing what you heard? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to gain perfection by the flesh? (Gal. 3:2-3). His question only works because of the experiential quality of their reception of the Spirit.[4]

Paul assumes his audience will acknowledge, from experience, the Spirit’s work among them. Paul is no Enlightenment scholar suspicious of experiencing the Spirit. He see’s the Spirit at work in his churches, in his mission, and in his life. This is no subjective reality to Paul: don’t you know!

By placing the Bible above the Holy Spirit, we’ve in essence claimed the Bible is objective and public knowledge and the Spirit’s activities are subjective and private. In this, we’ve not only violated our Scriptural foundation, but we’ve denied the 3^rd person of the Trinity out of a preconceived, prefabricated, position of suspicion. For all our arguments about the Historical Jesus, maybe we need to reexamine the ways we’ve abandoned the Historical Spirit.

Part of the churches New Covenant is that the Spirit of God will personally abide with the people of God. This is not an abstract doctrine waiting to be delineated; it is an experience – an experience of a person. When the church gathers, God is present in person.[5] Until we regain this personal, relational, experiential aspect of the Spirit, our churches will continue subject themselves to Enlightenment philosophy instead of the biblical worldview we claim we posses.

The person of the Holy Spirit, not the Bible, is the down-payment of God’s eschatological promises (Eph. 1:14). The Spirit in our midst reminds us that God has already purchased his church and the victory is already won. Christians ought to be the most hopeful of all people for we have the Spirit in our midst reminding us that God has already defeated sin and death. By our failure to experience the Spirit in our midst, we are robbed of that personal assurance.

In the end, this is what I wanted to communicate:

1. Everything is an experience. You cannot avoid experience in your theological, biblical or, especially, your pneumatological reflection.
2. Our fear of experience not only betrays an Enlightenment epistemology as opposed to a Biblical one, but straight-jackets the Holy Spirit – indeed, probably even grieves the Spirit.
3. Paul’s assumption is that the Spirit is experienced by his churches. In contrast to Paul’s churches, I doubt many evangelicals could say, “Yes, Paul, we know from experience that we have fellowship with the Spirit; we know from experience that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.” This is a major flaw in not only our Pneumatology but also our Ecclesiology.

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[1] The SBC even has a restriction on its missionaries – if a person has ever spoken in a “prayer language” they are disqualified from missions work

[2] Quoted by Walter Kaiser, “The Baptism in the Holy Spirit as the Promise of the Father: A Reformed Perspective. Perspectives on Spirit Baptism: 5 Views. Ed. Chad Owen (Nashville: Broadman and Holeman, 2004), 15.

[3] Rosemary Radford Ruether, Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. Ed. Letty M. Russel Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1985.

[4] Gordon Fee, Paul, the Spirit and the People of God. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 87.

[5] I suppose the pragmatic denial of the Spirit’s fundamental personhood is another reason my tradition doesn’t trust Spirit experiences.

What’s in a Name: Thoughts on the Personhood of the Spirit

It is difficult for Western Christians to conceive the Spirit as person and not merely a force or energy. Persons generally at least have names, gender, and emotion, after all. On one level, the Spirit seems to have none of these. The problem is exacerbated when we read Augustine and he speaks of the Spirit as the “bond of love between the Father and the Son.” It is not so much that Augustine is wrong here, but by describing the Spirit this manner robs the Spirit of personhood in favor of function. Influential as Augustine is in Western Christianity, this depersonalization has ravaged our pneumatology.

 

Though there are many things that make up personhood. In the next few posts I wish to engage the name, the gender, community and the emotions of the Spirit. The goal is to begin building a more complete and functional understanding of the Spirits nature as a person.

 

To an ancient Jew a person’s name provided information concerning the person’s character. To know someone’s name, was to know who they are and what they’re about. It was more than just information used to catalogue someone in their mind as differentiated from another person. A person’s name was identical to the person.

 

The difficulty with understanding the Spirit as a person is that Spirit isn’t exactly a name. The Father’s name is Yahweh, the Son’s name is Jesus, but the Spirit seems to lack a name. And without this identifier we are stuck with thinking of the Spirit, not as a person, but an impersonal force. This misconception simply won’t do. In order to move past it, we need to understand that the Spirit does, indeed, have a name: Ruach.

 

Like its Greek counterpart, Pneuma, Ruach has a plethora of meanings ranging from a light breeze to breath, or even a fierce wind. We must understand from the outset that ancient Jews did not draw a sharp distinction between Spirit and wind; indeed, we need to appreciate the fact that “wherever we read ‘wind’ in the Scripture, people of biblical times also understood ‘spirit,’ and wherever we read ‘spirit,’ they also understood ‘wind.’”[1] The symbol and the signifier are interconnected.

 

So, if the importance knowing the Spirit’s name lies in understanding the core of the Spirit as a person, then what does the name Ruach (wind or breath) tell us about the Spirit?

 

First, Ruach informs us that, like a natural wind, the Spirit cannot be tamed. The Spirit is free from the box of any particular cultural construal. The Spirit transcends and supersedes all our finite conceptions. To yoke the Spirit would be like taming the wind: if the wind were tamed it would no longer be wind, it would be dead and lifeless air. To bottle up the Spirit for one’s political or social agenda is impossible. In our attempts to do so, we inevitably demonstrate that it is not the Spirit we have caged with our ideological agendas, but an idol forged in our image. We cannot tame Ruach.

 

Second, Ruach, like breath, communicates life. The Spirit gives the breath of life not only to human beings but to the entire cosmos. This breath demonstrates that the Spirit’s concern extends beyond our human interests to the whole of creation. Indeed, just as the Spirit breathed life into the first creatures in Genesis, so too the Spirit longs to breathe new life into a redeemed world, not just redeemed human beings.

 

Furthermore, the Spirit breathes life into the church. The church does not survive on her own efforts or energies. For all our scheming, planning, and strategizing, this is not how the church perseveres in life. Our identity is not wrapped up in programs or number of baptisms; our identity is rooted in the life giving breath of the Spirit. Neither the church nor the individual Christian life is sustainable through suffocating programs and agendas which inhibit our breathing the fresh air of God’s Spirit.

 

Third, the name Ruach, like breath, communicates intimacy. “Breath is that which is most ‘inward’ and intimate, most vital and personal to a human being.”[2] It is through the Spirit that the church has intimate fellowship with the Father (Eph. 2:18-22). “We know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” (I John 4:13) Just as the Spirit was Jesus’ “inseparable companion,”[3] so too the Spirit is warmly present. When we are lonely or infirm, the Spirit is there when no one else it. The Spirit groans on our behalf, knowing that our sufferings are but a momentary affliction that the Triune God longs to redeem.

 

Finally, when we add the word Holy before Spirit, we recognize the non-triviality with which we approach Ruach. Ruach is not like you and I. Holiness does not merely describe the moral quality of Ruach, it describes Ruach’s very being. Holiness is an essential ontological attribute to the Spirit. Being in the presence of Ruach is to be in the presence of the holy. This does more than just make the hair on the back of our neck stand up. The holy is frightening and terrible. To be in the presence of a person who knows us so intimately (all our secrets, all our failures, all our high-handed sins), a person who could, like a fierce wind, cast us away, a person who cannot be bridled by our agendas; to be in this person’s presence is fearful. Indeed, the presence of the Holy Spirit is “disturbing, upsetting, and awe-ful.”[4] I do believe that love is God’s central attribute. But that love is Holy Love.

 

A name is a symbol that creates worlds. By recognizing the Spirit’s name, we are invited into a world of gentles breezes and fierce storms. While only goodness can be found in this name, there remains nothing safe about the Holy Spirit. Transcendent but immanent, tangible yet holy, the tension is purposeful in the symbolic world created and sustained by the name Ruach.

 

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[1] Raniero Cantalamessa, Come Creator Spirit: Meditations on the Veni Creator. (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 8.

[2] Canatalamessa, 10.

[3] Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit. XVI.39, 32.140C.

[4] Bernhard Anderson, Contours of Old Testament Theology. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 45.