As we continue to explore the meaning of Pentecost in light of the narrative of Old Testament history, today our journey brings us to Ezekiel 37. In this passage, the prophet Ezekiel is given a vision in which he sees a valley full of dry bones. In verse 11, the interpretation is given by God, saying that “the bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.” Interestingly, God says that these bones are the whole house of Israel, as opposed to were. The bones represent the existent Jewish people. What this means is that we are dealing with a metaphor. Ezekiel was seeing bones that represented the nation of Israel (unless you think that bones are in the habit of speaking).

While being metaphor, the aspects of the vision are still extremely significant. The interpretation God gives has three parallel phrases:

1) Our bones are dried up – in other words, their rotting flesh has completely decomposed and only bones are left – they are completely dead – way beyond the state of for example, the boys who Elijah and Elisha resuscitated (1 Kgs 17; 2 Kgs 4). There is nothing of them left to be raised from the dead.

2) our hope has perished – we’ll come back to this one in a minute.

3) we are completely cut off – the same word is used in Psalm 88 to describe complete and utter desolation, similarly using death as a metaphor: “I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like one who has no strength, forsaken among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, and they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep.

What about that second phrase? What hope has perished? What is all this dreariness about? Again, the vision clues us in. Why might there be a large number of bones gathered in one location? In Jewish tradition, dead persons are to be buried relatively quickly and to leave bones unburied was both ritually and socially unpropitious. Even if someone was left unburied, that would not explain why in this one valley, so many bones were amassed together, unless they all had died in that place. I think the best explanation is that the bones belonged to people who died in a battle, a battle in which Israel was decimated. This would certainly then allude to the invasion and subsequent destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BC. When Israel speaks of their “hope perishing,” by this they mean the exile.

The exile was the period in Israel’s history that began in 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem and burned it to the ground, including the temple. Of those who survived, many were taken into captivity to Babylon, while many others were left to pick up the pieces. Regardless, Israel as a national, social and political entity was annihilated. As a religious entity, however, they endured, specifically in relation to what they called “our hope.” I think perhaps on one level their “hope perished” in that their normal human desire to live a long and happy life had been abruptly curtailed. However, it is significant that the bones spoke collectively of “our hope” (singular). It is the national hope of Israel, the expectation rooted in their history of living under the promises of God. This goes all the way back to the promises to Abraham, that to him and his seed God would give great blessing and bless all the nations of the earth through them, which in context means being God’s solution to the problem of sin (cf. Gen. 3-11). Yet how would they be God’s agents of blessing if they were constantly being harassed, oppressed and dominated by foreign powers? How could this future be true if all the institutions of Israel’s religious and national identity had been destroyed?

The solution to Israel’s desolate state is the Spirit of God – “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.” The Spirit of God will be the agent through whom this metaphorical resurrection of the nation of Israel will take place. Israel’s hopes will be restored and fulfilled my means of the Spirit of God “breathing” new life into them and bringing them back to their land.

Fast forward a couple hundred years. Israel had been back in their land, having returned from Babylon, since 536 B.C. Nevertheless, there was still a strong belief that the exile had not yet fully ended. They were back in the land, but were still under the domination of foreign powers (Click here for more on the notion that the exile was believed to have continued past the geographical return from Babylon). Leaving aside the Gospels (which confirm the same general point I am about to make), when the sound of a great and mighty wind enters the house where the disciples were gathered, as recorded in Acts, we are meant to understand this breath of God as (an at least incipient) ending of the exile and the restoration of God’s people. In Greek (and Hebrew) the word for wind and breath (and Spirit for that matter) are the same word. This doesn’t mean that they did not differentiate between those concepts, but the ambiguity enabled authors to add layers of nuance and allusion to their texts. When the wind blew upon the 120 Jewish believers in Jesus, they were experiencing the Ezekiel 37 breath of God which launched the beginning of the restoration of Israel and the ending of exile. All of God’s promises were being answered “yes” in and through the Messiah Jesus. The people of God were being restored. There would be a worldwide family descended from Abraham that would be a blessing to all the people’s of the earth, dealing with the problem of sin and overturning the effects of the fall.

While Ezekiel 37 mostly has the national identity of Israel in mind, Acts 2 (together with the rest of the NT) has in view the full extent of the Abrahamic promise to address the woes of sin and death. In Ezekiel 37, the “resurrection” was metaphorical – speaking of the return of Israel from exile. However, beginning with Jesus, this “resurrection” suddenly became literal. When God restores his people, he does more than revive national hopes, but enables the completion of the Abrahamic mission by destroying the power of death itself. All who receive this life-giving Spirit participate in the very power that raised Jesus from the dead (cf. Eph 1.19) and are guarunteed a share in the final resurrection (Rom. 8:11). As God welcomes his people Israel home from exile, he also welcomes all of humanity back from the exile of death they had shared ever since Adam and Eve were “exiled” from the Garden of Eden, immortality escaping their grasp. All are invited home to experience the fullness of life in and through allegiance to Jesus the Messiah and Lord of the world.

At the end of each post in this series, I’ve been commenting briefly on a developing “praxis of Pentecost,” i.e., what kind of practical expressions, lifestyle, etc., flows out of an understanding and experience of the Spirit poured out on Pentecost. The Spirit of God is ever and always the Spirit of the Resurrection, whom the universal Church confesses as the “Lord and Giver of Life.” As long as the Spirit is the Giver of Life, it is the enemy of death and all that causes death. A truly “pentecostal” person will never acquiesce to the “death drives” of our modern culture, whether they be associated with the death of innocent “expendable” lives (abortion, euthanasia), the sickness that robs the life of the body, poverty that denigrates the dignity of life, the narcissism of our image-obsessed culture that effaces the true beauty of life, behaviors that abuse and destroy relationships (unbridled sexuality, violence), diseased philosophies and theologies that kill the meaning of life, reckless political, economic and domestic practices which damage the world God created and loves, or the brutality of war. I am not here making a moral statement related to the whole “just war,” but all Christians must be at least eschatologically opposed to war (Isa 2:4; 46:9; 60; Hos. 2:18; Mic. 4:3-4; Zech. 9:9-10). A “Pentecostal” Christian, alive with the energies of the resurrection flowing through their members, opposes death in all its forms, eagerly acting as an agent of the restoration of true life, in collaborative partnership with the Holy Spirit.

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In my last post I described the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost as forging the Church as a New Humanity, reversing Babel’s curse of social and national disintegration. Today I would like to look at the coming of the Holy Spirit as establishing a New Covenant marked by the dynamic corporate experience of God.

As with last time, my intention is to interpret Acts 2 through Old Testament narrative of Israel’s history as alluded to in the passage. Previously looking at Genesis 11, we now turn to Exodus 19. This is the beginning of the account of Moses receiving the Law on Mount Sinai. God comes down upon the mountain with manifestations of fire, smoke and the loud sound of a trumpet. These are common aspects of a Biblical phenomenon called a theophany (literally, “God-appearing”) in which God becomes perceptible in a visible and physical display (cf. 1 Kgs 19:11; Isa. 66.15; Ps. 18).

Immediately following the exodus from slavery in Egypt, this event is what solidified Israel’s identity as a nation through their covenant with God. It is likely that this moment was what later writings referred to as the “creation of Israel” (Isa. 43:1, 15). Israel was offered the covenant by God and when they agreed to the words God spoke, they became his special possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex. 19:6). Their incorporation was two-fold: (1) to have a unique relationship with God and (2) to be priests to the rest of the earth. As a nation, they received promises analogous to those offered to Abraham, which included a special relationship with God, and that he would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. As Abraham (whose covenant in Genesis 12 comes strategically following Genesis 11) was called by God to be the agent of His solution to the problem of sin amassed in Gen. 1-11, so now Israel as a nation carries that priestly task.

Of significant note, is that while God came down upon the mountain, only Moses was allowed to come near to God. Eventually, Aaron, the priests and the seventy elders were permitted to come to the mountain, but only “at a distance.” With the exception of Moses, those permitted on the mountain were told that “they shall not come near.” Furthermore, the people at large were not permitted to come close to the mountain.

Now we turn to Acts 2. Pentecost was traditionally a harvest festival (Exod. 23:16; 34:22; Lev. 23:15-21; Num. 28-26), but came to be associated with both the renewal of the covenant with Noah and the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai. It is certain that Jews in the first century associated Pentecost with the Noahic covenant, as it is attested in literature from before that time (The Book of Jubilees 6:17-21; ca. 150 BC). However it is less certain whether it was yet affiliated with the Giving of the Law (though it certainly was in the second and third century). What would make us think then that Acts 2 is meant to be understood in light of Mount Sinai?

First, the great sound and the fire descending upon the believers parallels the sound and fire that accompanied the Sinai event. In Rabbinic writing, fire was commonly used as a symbol for the Torah. Furthermore, nowhere in the Bible is there an emphasis on both the descending of fire and a great sound in a theophany except for in Exodus 19.

Second, Philo, a prolific Jewish writer in the century before Jesus, spoke about the giving of the Law in this way: “Then from the midst of the fire that streamed from heaven there sounded forth to their utter amazement a voice, for the flame became articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience, and so clearly and distinctly were the words formed by it that they seemed to see rather than hear the” (On the Decalogue 46).” This shows us that in time the New Testament was written, the Giving of the Law was being spoken of in terms of communication by fire (“tongues of fire?”) that became recognizable to the audience in their language.

Third, Luke consistently uses Moses typology to talk about Jesus. Jesus is the “prophet like Moses” of whom it was promised that God would raise up. In Luke 9:35 a voice from heaven tells the people to listen to Jesus, much like Israel was to listen to Moses. Moses was “raised up” by God, but Jesus was “raised up” by resurrection (Acts 2:34-36). Moses “received the living words and gave them” (Acts 7:38) but Jesus receives the Holy Spirit and gives it to his disciples (Acts 2:33).

It seems then, that Pentecost is meant to be understood in parallel to the Giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai. Obviously, much could be said about the relationship between the Law and the Spirit, but that will have to be said at another time and place. For the present, I would like to simply focus on the theophany aspect. If Pentecost is a New Sinai (following the New Exodus in Jesus’ death and resurrection – cf. Lk. 9:30, when Jesus speaks to Moses and Elijah about the exodus he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem), notice how instead of God descending upon the mountain, he descends upon the entire community of believers. Rather than the people remaining at a distance while only Moses approaches God, the community of women and men is the place where God manifests his theophanic presence. The Church, the New Covenant people, become a theophany in person.

The Church is the mountain upon which God descends in theophanic glory and like Israel, takes up a priestly vocation to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth – to be agents through whom God deals with the problem of sin and restores the creation to Himself and to His intentions for it. As Moses proclaimed the Word of God to the people after God met him on the mountain – the assembled believers began proclaiming the mighty acts of God to those who were in Jerusalem.

As I asked previously, so now I ask – what would a “praxis of Pentecost” look like, in light of this understanding? I think, in relation to what has been said here, it begins with the recognition and celebration of the fact that God is with us. There is much to be said concerning intercession for God’s presence and purposes as well as much to be said about the experience of God-forsakeness (cf. Ps. 22). Jeremiah spoke of a time when there would be a New Covenant and one person would not tell another to “know the Lord” because they all would know the Lord. This time of New Covenant has come and is an experienced reality in the community of believers. Few could deny our need to know the Lord in deeper and clearer ways. I am even aware of a deep reticence within myself to speak concerning my knowledge of God, conceivably in order to maintain some form of humility. However, I think we need to find a way to speak positively about our knowledge of God – to recognize that God has descended in our midst, that he dwells among us, and we do indeed know Him. Perhaps a way forward in this is the awareness that the Church corporately is the location of this New Covenant theophany. Individual, all of “see in a glass dimly,” (1 Cor. 13:12) but together “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).

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This is a continuation in a series on Acts chapter 2 and the account of the Day of Pentecost. Pentecost was an epochal event. The way it is described in the Acts of the Apostles indicates that more is going on than a lively outreach — there has been a dramatic intervention of the covenant-creator-God to deal with the problem of sin, overturn the effects of the fall and inaugurate the eschatological age of righteousness, peace and joy. The technical term for this is inaugurated eschatology, in that while a future consummation awaits us in the new heavens and new earth, the life, power and reality of the age to come has already become present in partial form (already but not-yet). In a mysterious manner, the future and the present have intersected and overlapped so that God’s future for the world has rushed into the present time, filling it with the joy of promise fulfilled and the hope of untold possibilities that yet remain.

This becomes especially clear when the passage is understood in light of the larger narrative of Scripture and the numerous passages that are alluded to or quoted. Today I want to look at one passage in particular: Genesis 11. This chapter records the infamous ”Tower of Babel” incident. It is critical to see where this story occurs in the unfolding narrative of the book of Genesis and the Old Testament as a whole. Genesis 1 and 2 record the creation of the world and all its life. Human beings are given the blessing and command to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. They are commissioned to be God’s vice-regents on earth, administrating and increasing his gracious rule through their ever expanding family. You’ll have to believe me on this one, since I don’t have the time to develop it, but Genesis 2 is intentionally evoking the imagery of the temple and it is intended for us to understand the Garden of Eden as a temple, a sanctuary, the dwelling place of God’s glory. Therefore Adam and Eve’s tasks of cultivating (i.e., expanding) the garden and forging a family that will fill the earth can be understood as the call to fill the earth with the dwelling of God’s glory through their world-wide family. Note the dynamic interplay here between the God-blessed relationship (marriage/family) and the God-commissioned rulership.

As grand as this seems, the plan gets muddled rather quickly, with Adam’s sin in Genesis 3, Cain’s murder of Abel in Genesis 4, and the growth of violence as documented in the Noah account. Nevertheless, despite “The Fall,” the original commission remains and Noah and his descendants are called to “be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.”

This brings us to Genesis 11. Here I would like to propose an alternate (yet complementary) explanation of why God took such issue with Babel. Of course it is clear that they were attempting to build their “tower” to make a name for themselves. This undoubtedly included some aspect of pride. However, I cannot imagine that God was threatened by a supposed “take-over” scheme and that he needed to stop it before it got out of hand. In fact, it is likely that the “tower” they were building was in fact a ziggurat and is a spoof on the temple of Marduk in Babylon, whose name “house with the uplifted head” suggests a claim that it reached to the heavens. (See commentaries on Genesis by Wenham and Sarna). Thus, they were not trying to take over the role as gods (something that would likely have been a ridiculous thought in the ancient world), but were building a shrine for God/god(s). Additionally, though attention often focuses on the “tower,” in the text it mentions that they were building a “city and a tower.” When God comes down, he comes to “see the city and the tower.” After their languages are confused the text says they “left off building the city,” with no mention of the tower. In the text, the tower is never conceived of by itself, apart from the city or even as a focal point.

This becomes further significant when the builders give the reason for their project – “otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” The central motivation was to consolidate the human race in one central city. Here we come to the main problem with the Babel building project – it is a direct violation of God’s primary command (which is actually a blessing) to the human race – “be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.” They were never instructed not to build towers. They were never even instructed how to avoid pride. They were however, instructed to fill the earth with the world-wide family as the means for ruling the earth and filling it with God’s glory. The main sin of Babel was a refusal of the blessing of creation, fertility and vice-regency with God and thus the invention of measures to derail its fulfillment. God’s comments are not against the tower, but against the entire building project understood in this light. Thus God confused the languages of the people and scattered them across the earth. Though commonly thought of as anti-climactic, certainly much less severe than the flood, there are several reasons why this judgment is the definite low point thus far in the Bible.

“First, the Flood left no permanent mark on humanity; though the generation of the flood was destroyed, humankind was preserved, and continued to grow. The scattering of humanity, however, is of lasting effect. There are no survivors of Babel.

Second, what is destroyed at Babel is the community of humankind as a family; hitherto, as the genealogies have witnessed, humankind is one family, and the Flood has only accentuated that fact by making one family in the narrowest sense of the word co-terminous with humanity. But the punishment of Babel divides humankind irrevocably from one another (as did also the first sin in its own way). Now humanity is no longer one “people” or “kin-group,” but “nations.” (David Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, pp. 70).

It is critical to see what happens on Pentecost in light of what was previously said or we will miss the epochal nature of the event. We will not see that what follows is indeed God dealing with and overturning the problem of sin and its effects. The idea of the disintegration of humanity and the loss of a unified family is not often seen as a direct and central aspect of sin and the larger Fall (viewed as Genesis 3-11, not just Genesis 3). Indeed, alienation is a significant theme throughout Genesis 1-11 and is central to a truly biblical understanding of sin.

So what happened at Pentecost? What we see is the beginning to undo this dispersion of nations and languages. At Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak in other languages and people from many nations, gathered in Jerusalem, each heard them speaking in their own native language. What is going on? The advent of the Spirit is actually reversing the curse of Babel. Adam’s and Cain’s sins alienated humans one from another, while Babel divided the nations and destroyed the common family of humanity. The Spirit of God, however, brings diverse peoples together as one family and one “kin-group.” The Spirit forges the Church as a new humanity which is reunited as a downpayment and sign of God’s eschatological purposes to bring all peoples to unity before God (cf. Zeph. 3:9; Psa. 22:27; 86:9-10; Isa. 2; Jer. 16:19; Zech 2:11). That which was alienated is now reconciled. That which was contentious is now at peace. Those who were enemies are now family.

It is no coincidence that immediately following the outpouring of the Spirit, Luke describes the profound community life shared among the early believers, meeting together day by day, having all things in common, providing for all in need, devoting themselves to the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42ff.). The “they” in Acts 2:42 undoubtedly included many of the 3000 converts mentioned in verse 41. This means that this early apostolic community likely had “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene…Cretans and Arabs” (v.9).  This theme of ethnic diversity and unity continues to be a major theme throughout the book of Acts (esp. once Gentiles get in the picture) and through much of the Pauline epistles. Over and over again, unity emerges as a central theme and pastoral concern of early Apostolic Christianity.

To conclude, I want to give a few thoughts on a potential “Praxis of Pentecost” (praxis simply refers to practice, as distinguished from theory). If one of the major things the Spirit was doing on Pentecost was uniting the people of God as a new humanity, a new “kinship-group,” what might that mean for those of us who endeavor to walk in that same Spirit? I would suggest that a major priority of the Spirit is the preservation and the advancement of unity in the Church. While this of course begins with individuals one to another, it expands to include entire congregations and communities, to all believers in a given geographical region and indeed, the unity of ecclesial bodies over the entire earth. Shortly before his death, Jesus’ priority in prayer was for the unity of those who would follow him – unity that would mirror the divine life of the Trinity and functioned as the sign par excellence to the world. To be people of the Spirit means to be those of whom unity is a central value and priority. Let us ask the Lord to root out tendencies toward enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy and things like these (Gal. 5:20-21) from our own hearts and to fill us with deep and profound love for those with whom we are in immediate spiritual relationship. Let’s not stop there though – let’s ask the Lord to fill us with a deep love for the whole church, to be open (indeed eager!) to receive from and be in relationship with individuals, groups and traditions that are different than our own. May the prayer of Jesus be our own – that the Church would be one – as He and the Father are one!

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The coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, as described in Acts chapter 2, was an epochal and unrepeatable event in salvation history. This was not simply the first time the disciples received the Holy Spirit (remember, Jesus breathes on them in John 20 shortly after his resurrection). Neither was Pentecost simply the first is a series of similar events. Rather, as this series will attempt to show, Pentecost, taken together with the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, marks the inauguration of God’s future for the world breaking into the present (search for tags “inaugurated eschatology”). Pentecost was a turning point in the Creator God’s plan to deal with the problem of sin by overturning its effects and redeeming the entire creation. Pentecost was the beginning of the church operating in the authority of Jesus and manifesting God’s Kingdom and salvation on earth as it is in heaven, as a token, sign and pledge of the day when God’s reign will fully come in the restoration of the entire cosmos. This has broad and far-reaching implications for the present life and mission of the People of God.

I imagine this sounds slightly different than the oft-heard sequence: Jesus died for our salvation, the resurrection confirmed the efficacy of the cross and the coming of the Holy Spirit empowers us to announce Jesus’ death. I would like to challenge this sequence in favor of an alternate one: the Father sends Jesus to became Incarnate for our salvation; Jesus lived among us for our salvation; Jesus, being baptized, was given the Spirit by the Father for our salvation; Jesus died for our salvation; Jesus was raised from the dead by the Father for our salvation; Jesus ascended into heaven for our salvation; and the Holy Spirit came for our salvation. This approach prefers to see the entire sequence accomplishing our salvation as a vital and coherent unity. This may tweak our understanding of “salvation” and at the same time gives salvation an overall Trinitarian shape. It also reminds me of Thomas Cranmer’s Great Litany of 1544 (which incidentally, was the first piece of liturgy ever written in the English language), which for our salvation and deliverance implores the benefits of the entire soteriological (salvation) sequence:

…by the mystery of they holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and submission to the Law; by thy Baptism, Fasting and Temptation…By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension; and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost: Good Lord, deliver us.

Today is the day in which Pentecost is liturgically commemorated in the Western Churches (those that are not Eastern Orthodox). This is the last of the fifty day celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus and begins what is commonly referred to as “Ordinary Time,” which lasts until Advent in December. To be “ordinary” means there is no overarching liturgical commemoration marking this season in the way there is for example, during Advent and Lent. I like to think of “Ordinary Time” as the “Season of Pentecost.” That would make the largest season in the church year (varies year to year, but as much as 29 weeks) focused on the messy task of the Church empowered by God’s Spirit setting out to implement in worship, word, deed, life and love, what had been accomplished in the events commemorated from Advent through Pentecost.

So in honor of this season, I would like to take a number of posts over the next few weeks to explore, to the best of my ability, the meaning of Pentecost and the Coming of the Holy Spirit. In order to do this, I will one-at-a-time explore Old Testament passages which are alluded to in the second chapter of Acts. As is true of much of the New Testament, Acts 2 has many allusions to the Old Testament. This is not simply as a bit of cultural coloring, but precisely because the author wants us to understand these events as in dynamic continuity with the ongoing and unfinished drama the Old Testament is telling. This is especially the case because the authors (indeed, the early church) believed that these events functioned as a critical and climactic turning point in the narrative. What had been promised and prophesied in earlier days was coming to pass in their own days (this is exactly what Peter says in his sermon later in the same chapter).

In this narrative tour, our first stop will be the Tower of Babel…

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In the last post I developed the idea of flesh/spirit, particularly from the angle of eschatology. To understanding the Spirit biblically, it must be considered in light of eschatology because the Spirit is the life and power of the age to come. The Spirit is not simply a force or power, but a person who is drawing the entire created order towards God’s future, renewing life and overcoming the powers of death and disorder. Understanding what the “flesh” is, has extremely practical implications for the life of faith and the orientation of one’s focus with regard to sanctification.We all know the “flesh” is bad and we should be against it, therefore the identification of this enemy is crucial in warring against it. In the last post I employed the methodology that we start with the solution and then explicate the problem rather than vice versa. Instead of beginning with a description of the flesh, we first described the nature of the Spirit and then were able to discern the contours of our enemy “the flesh.” In that post we looked at the Spirit through the lens of eschatology. Now we will look at the Spirit through the lens of the Trinity and seek to explicate “the flesh” from that perspective.

The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that God’s own being resides in the inter-relations between Father, Son and Spirit. The foundational underlying reality of God’s being is not the individual persons of the Godhead, but their communion of love with each other. Since humans are made in God’s image, this tells us that contrary to Boethius, the “basic atomic reality of humanity,” the essential indivisible constituency of humanity is not the individual, but the community. The existence of the community is ontologically and biologically prior to the individual. Our true humanity is only expressed, not as individuals, but as persons in loving relationship. This illuminates the fundamental characteristic of holiness – perfect love. The holy person is the person who loves in relationships. Notions of holiness cannot be abstract, detached or impersonal. Rather, they must be concrete, involved and relational.

The Trinitarian understanding of human relationality also illuminates the negative dimensions of human existence that holiness and sanctification seek to overcome. Sin is often understood as either “pride” or alternatively “self-centeredness.” Advocates of both views often claim Augustinian grounding. Some see understanding “self-centeredness” as an improvement over “pride” in that it is rooted in a Trinitarian theology of love. Sin is disordered and inwardly focused love rather than simply pride. The phronema tes sarkos, the “mindset of the flesh” is thus understood as a “self-centered mind-set” or “mind set purely on human goals and values.” The problem with humanity is that it is inwardly bent in pursuit of self-sovereignty, self-glorification, self-promotion, self-sufficiency, self-importance and self-gratification.

However, what the doctrine of the Trinity tells us is that we cannot allow the individual to be the fundamental unit of reality. Thus our foundational concepts of sin and depravity cannot be at center individualistic. Sin and the flesh cannot be confined to the isolated disorder of the individual. They cannot solely be understood or explicated in terms of self-centeredness. They cannot be explained only with reference to the self if it is truly impossible to rescind one’s relational nature. As long as one exists in relationship, others are involved. Therefore the nature of sin and the disordered motivation of the flesh are better viewed as an active anti-love or even hatred towards others. One’s attitudes towards one’s self and the actions of one’s self always involve others in the form of their presence or absence.

Self-sovereignty always means other-subjugating. Self-glorification always means other de-valuing. Self- promotion always means other-diminishing. Self-sufficiency always means other-rejection. Pursuit of self-importance always means other-insignificance. Misbegotten self-gratification always entails the utilitarian exploitation of others or the refusal to be generous to others. The sin of “self” is in fact not merely the “sin of self.” It must always be interpreted and articulated in the light of the relationality that one fails to exist without. Hence, these self-bending sins are all in fact forms of anti-love, or even hatred.

This demonstrates that the application of the centrality of relationality to harmartiology (the doctrine of sin) does not “reduce” a concept of sin. Humans are not in fact indicted for “selfishness” alone but for various forms of hatred and violence against others. The concept of sin through the doctrine of the Trinity seems to actually radicalize the doctrine of sin. This furthermore necessitates that any solution to the notion of sin, as manifested in a form of positive holiness and sanctification, must radically address that while humans have an insatiable craving for relationship and an instinctual urge to abscond their unavoidable sense of loneliness, they simultaneously possess an, at times insidious and at times unambiguous, fear, aversion and hostility towards the very thing they crave.

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In the first part of this series I discussed my desire to take some time in this Pentecost season to give extended reflection to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. In this post, I would like to back track a little and simply give some general thoughts on the path I would like to follow as well as some of my reasons for desiring to do so.

Our goal here is to establish some lines of thought developing a spirituality, an understanding of the life of faith, that corresponds to the central event of Christian faith: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Some spiritualities begin with the cross. This is not a problem in itself. It can be however when this focus on the cross makes the center of the spirituality the “mortification of the flesh” or of “desire” and takes a morbid and masochistic downward spiral. Some spiritualities focus on the position of enmity between the believer and the world. This can lead to the “do not taste,” “do not touch” mentalities where being “spiritual” was equated with not going to movies, not playing cards, not dancing, not smoking and not drinking. For others, the center of spirituality is the “spirit realm” in contrast to the “natural realm.” Here “spirituality” means participating in a prescribed set of activities (prayer, fasting, reading the Bible, etc.) with the goal of transporting one into the “spiritual” realm and detaching one from the “natural realm.”

The difficulty with all of these spiritualities is that they introduce a split (dualism) between the believer and those things which are foundational to our lives: the earth, our emotions, our bodies, and our relationships. Without these dimensions, we would not have possessed existence at all, yet it seems alluring to us that there is a superior mode of existence without them. These spiritualites also create a further split between those who are in “full-time Christian ministry” and are able to devote themselves to these “spiritual” activities and those who are not. Hence the overwhelming majority of what the overwhelming majority of Christians do day-to-day is condemned as patently “unspiritual.”

Unfortunately, much of Christian spirituality throughout history and to the present day has reflected a Gnostic disembodied spirituality rather than the full-blooded earthiness belonging to the Jewish roots of our faith. The splits described earlier are largely related to the influence of what is called Gnosticism. Gnosticism has been the primary heresy that Christianity has had to battle throughout its entire history, though you will almost never hear about it today. Yet do not be lulled to sleep! Gnosticism is make an aggressive comeback in its explicit forms and its implicit forms have never really been eradicated from the Church. It’s basic teaching is that the material world is evil and that the spiritual world is good. The Gnostics sought to arrive at a place of enlightened knowledge which enabled them to escape from this world and the evils of the body. Hence the Scriptures repeatedly need to assert not simply Christ’s divinity, but his humanity (1 John 4) and not the existence of an after-life, but an embodied eternal life (1 Cor. 15).

Only in its Gnostic transmutations is Christianity an “other-worldly” religion. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is the power that brings forth all created things (Genesis 1; Psalm 104.29). In the New Testament, the Spirit is the Spirit of the resurrection (Romans 8.11) and thus is the power that brings permanent life and vitality to the created order.

The spirituality of the Bible has its feet firmly planted on the ground and does not seek to escape this world for a superior one. The Christian hope has ever and always been the resurrection of the body and the new creation of all things. In such we are not awaited to slip off into the bliss of a disembodied heaven, free from the entanglements of physicality. Rather, we long for the power of heaven to come to earth and renew its life.

Frank Lake, in his massive work Clinical Theology confirms this while describing the problem of the schizoid condition. The schizoid condition is not the same as schizophrenia but refers to an individual “characterized by (1) an enduring and maladjusted pattern of behavior manifesting avoidance of close relations with others, (2) inability to express hostility and aggressive feelings directly, (3) thinking unduly directed towards oneself and the inner personal view of the situation, at the expense of the information actually available from the external world, (4) a shut-in, seclusive, withdrawn, introverted personality. Many of these traits can seem to parallel an introspective condition.

Concerning the schizoid condition, he says: “When schizoid theologians write theology largely by introspection, they distort it in a Gnostic direction…He has no primitive memory of a secure cosmos centered in a source-person who comes in answer to his need…His spirit truly exists at depth in a godless chaos. Natural mysticism and religion can offer him no credible external objects, and his dread of trusting the ‘out there’ makes him very suspicious and a little contemptuous of those who naturally think of God in these terms. He can only hope to sink down into a sub-personal ground of being below the chaos.”

The spirituality of the Bible, the spirituality of creation and new creation, the spirituality of resurrection, does not split life in two, thus quenching its vitality. It does not force a believer to split off from the earth, the body, emotions, relationships or affairs in the external world. Indeed, as Jesus is the resurrected one, his lordship is unrestricted and extends into all areas of life. Hence the spirituality of the resurrection can be found in politics, ecology, economics, human services, manual labor, education, medicine, the arts and every area of culture, civilization and society.

Rather than confirming a schizoid position of fear, the Holy Spirit fosters a courageous openness to the world, a graceful acceptance of the body, an honest expression of emotion and an active engagement in relationship. It forms in us the vitality and hope necessary to arise out of our apathy in which we had grown so accustomed to what was unmistakably “unspiritual” – in that it promoted and enforced death, destruction, division, hatred and injustice.

The spirituality of the resurrection does not remove us from this uncomfortable position of awakened conflict with the death-drives of our age but is itself the unrest that is in motion towards the new creation of all things. This spirituality is itself the awakened groan which fills the entire creation, until it is “set free from its bondage to decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God…And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.” (Romans 8.22-24)

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Following my last post concerning Pentecost, I want to spend some of this season following Pentecost offering meditations on the Holy Spirit. Specifically, the direction I want to go is developing a spirituality and an understanding of life in the Spirit that accords with the primary event of Christian faith, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In such we will explore the interconnection between the life in the Spirit with our relationship to the earth, our bodies and other humans.

“…inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories (e.g., the resurrection and ascension).” 1 Peter 1:10

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.”

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1.10). In Romans 8, Paul calls it the “Spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead.” The Spirit of God is the Spirit of the Resurrection. The work of the Spirit is profoundly and essentially linked to eschatological movement towards the final resurrection, the triumph of life and the defeat of death. This emphasizes the significance and permanence of our physical bodies.

Matthew 19:28 – “Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world (the regeneration), when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

Titus 3:4-7 – “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

The Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of the resurrection, is the power of the new creation, the being who infuses new life into that which has grown fragile, frail and approaching annihilation. The Spirit hails the dawn of the eschatological age, the recreation of all things and the gift of eternal vitality.

Ephesians 1.19-20 – “[that you may know] what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.”

In this passage, Paul identifies the power of the Spirit at work in us, as a power at work in the body, manifesting the triumph of life over death. The primary signs of the apostles validating this testimony of Jesus were again power at work in the body, in healings, creative miracles and resuscitations (cf. Acts 3.16, etc.). Furthermore many of the climactic descriptions of God’s redemptive work in humans are descriptions of the resurrection, in which God’s power is at work in the human body.

Philippians 3.21 – “[he] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body”

Romans 8.23-24 – “…and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”

1 Corinthians 15.51-54 – “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death is your sting.”

1 Corinthians 15.16-19 – “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished (are lost). If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Understanding this should convince us that there is nothing inherently wrong with the physical world and bodily life. Nothing in the world God created caused our alienation and provoked the groan of all creation. None of the groan we feel is from our essential existence in the world, but rather from our broken existence in the world. The world is good. The world has been broken, but full freedom is coming.

This should free us to rejoice in the present. The Spirit’s nearness does not causes us to despise the world but join in God’s profound love of it (cf. John 3.16). As Jurgen Moltmann has said, “God’s blessing enhances vitality and does not quench the joy of living. The nearness of God makes this mortal life worth loving, not something to be despised.” In the Spirit of the Resurrection we participate now in the renewal of life and rejoice in the vitality and passion for life He gives.

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This past Sunday was Pentecost, a day on which believers for many, many years have celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell with and within the people of God.

Even before it was a celebration of the Spirit coming from heaven, it was commemorated by Jews for the coming of God’s law, “from heaven” at Mount Sinai after they were freed from slavery in Egypt. I don’t know about you, but I personally have a hard time believing that the gift of the Spirit “just happened” to be given to that fledgling Jewish movement around 30 AD, on the same day they were remembering God’s gift of the Law. God could have chosen any day to launch this fearful group of disciples who were hiding in a back room and launch them into public, joyful, powerful mission in the world. Why this day? Was it just a coincidence?

The plot becomes thicker when we remember that the death and resurrection of the Messiah took place in context to the celebration of Passover, the commemoration of Israel’s freedom and deliverance from slavery in Egypt, which we now call the Exodus. The Jewish people were celebrating their deliverance from Egypt as Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. The Jewish people were celebrating the giving of the law at Mount Sinai following their deliverance from Egypt, as the Holy Spirit descended, filled and empowered a small Messianic movement who had seen the resurrected Lord with their own eyes.

What can this mean except that what God was doing in and through Jesus the Messiah and the Holy Spirit was not in absolute discontinuity with Israel’s history with God. Rather, it was in dynamic continuity with their historic experience of God’s covenant love and His faithfulness to the promises He had made. In a very real sense, what was happening was a New Exodus. God was being faithful to his covenant people yet again. He was delivering them out of slavery, not simply from slavery to one nation, but from all the powers of darkness and evil. In a marvelous way, this salvation was being offered universally to people of all nations.

In the first Exodus, God gathered Israel to Himself from Egypt. Now, in this New Exodus in the Messiah, people of many nations were being drawn to Him. On the first day the Spirit fell, there were people from all over the then-known world celebrating the Passover. When the Spirit came upon the disciples, they began speaking about the great works of God, that is of the resurrection of Jesus, and each person, regardless of their national origin, heard them speaking in their own language. Could this be a reversal of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11? There, all the people spoke one language, but because they planned evil together, God scattered them by giving them all different languages so they could not understand each other. In some way, at Pentecost, God began regathering humanity out of its long exile to which it was sent by the fall of Adam and Eve and the separation of the nations at Babel. Though from diverse nations and cultures, these people were experiencing unity with God and each other through the gift of the Spirit and fateful events from millennia prior were being overturned by the mighty hand of God.

Let’s not allow this season pass us by without celebrating and remembering the great acts of God in the resurrection of the Messiah and the gift of the Spirit. Through them a New Exodus is happening in which all who call on His name will be saved and even the “entire creation will be set free” (Rom. 8.23). Death has been defeated. The Holy Spirit has been sent forth, renewing the face of earth. It is the “unrestricted presence of God in which our life wakes up” and all things are made new (Rev. 21:4). Where relationships were severed, personally, corporately, nationally and culturally; the door has swung open for them to be renewed and restored by the power of the Holy Spirit. “On this day the Lord has acted. Let us rejoice and be glad in Him!” (Ps. 118:24).

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