On the Road to Emmaus

What is “spirituality?” Or, what does it mean to be “spiritual”? Spirituality is often understood as that which relates to the immaterial spirit or soul in contrast to that which is physical or material. In another sense, spirituality is that which relates to a certain form of religion or religious belief. Then “spirituality” means a vague or ethereal sense of “religiosity,” “mysticism” or “devotionalism,” which is restricted to a private sphere of internal experience and practice.

The Christian notion of “spirituality” is different. Biblical spirituality always means “Life in God’s Spirit.” At this point I would like to give a few brief vignettes of the Holy Spirit and see how they compare to the definitions of “spirituality” given above.

1) The Holy Spirit is the operative power in the creation of Heaven and Earth - Genesis 1:1-2 – In the beginning  God  created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and  darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was  moving over the  surface of the waters.

2) The Holy Spirit is the life-force which keeps all living things alive – Psalm 104:29-30 - You  hide Your face, they [all living things] are dismayed;   You  take away their  spirit, they expire and  return to their dust. 30 You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;  And You renew the face of the earth.

3) The Holy Spirit raised the body of Jesus from the dead – 1 Peter 3:18 – “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”

4) The Holy Spirit will raise all from the dead at the end of the age – Romans 8:11 – If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

5) The Holy Spirit will be the regenerative energy of the entire creation’s revitalization – Isaiah 32:14-15 – ““For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; 15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.”

If we consider these 5 snapshots of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit is vitally connected to the “physical” and “material” world – its creation, preservation and restoration. Therefore any biblical sense of “spirituality” as “life in God’s Spirit” cannot center in the contradistinction between what is “physical” and “spiritual,” “material” and “immaterial,” “visible” and “invisible.” Christian spirituality is patently not “spiritual” in this sense. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of Creation, the creative energy that interpenetrates the entire universe with the gracious and life-giving personal presence of God. This is very exciting because as we shall see, Christian spirituality is not a detached and isolated private practice, nor the abandonment of the life we love and long for, but centers around the God of grace and infinite delight brining about the transformation and restoration of the physical, material, bodily, visible, and public world.

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