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On June 3, 2020 By In Church, Culture

Overcoming Division in the Spirit of Pentecost

This past Sunday, Western churches celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples gathered in Jerusalem. The Spirit came with a sound “like a mighty rushing wind” (Acts 2:2) and alighted upon the disciples in the form of tongues of fire, incorporating them, us, as the body of Christ. He brings us in to participate, through union with Christ, in the Divine life.

The Holy Spirit forms at Pentecost a New Humanity; just as the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters at creation, just as the dove is sent out by Noah over the waters when the world is judged and renewed, so now the Spirit comes over the new creation, the Church. The Spirit descended upon Christ at His Baptism in the form of a dove, and now, in union with the crucified and resurrected Christ, the Church is formed as the New Humanity.

Just what is new about this New Humanity? Much in every way. But for one, what is new is that, through the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus and effected in us by the Spirit, our fleshly divisions are overcome. Humanity since Babel is torn apart by division, marked by the confusion of language and religious confession. The story of humanity post-Babel is a story of ever-deepening division. Peter Leithart says, “Under Babelic conditions, division becomes institutionalized and permanent. After Babel, flesh separates from flesh.” a

Reversing Babel

God sets out at war against the flesh, against the dominion of sin and death. He covenants with Abraham to bless all the families of the earth. The Lord intends to put death to death and bring humanity to peace with God and with one another.

At Pentecost, the Lord reverses our Babelic division. The Spirit rushes in and breaks through the divisions of the flesh. At Babel, the Lord confused the language of the people; now, at Pentecost, “each one was hearing them speak in their own language” as the disciples proclaimed “the mighty works of God.” (Acts 2:6, 11) The story that unfolds in Acts and through the Epistles is the story of the Spirit working out this new unity in the body of Christ. We are all baptized into Christ, and in that baptismal water the Spirit does away with division between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, “for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” brought into the family of Abraham (Gal. 3:26-29). We have been made one body in Christ: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free- and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor. 12:13)

The Church as Model Society

We are seeing these fleshly, Babelic divisions playing out ever-more heatedly in America today. Police brutality and abuse of power, rioting and looting, violence in the streets, deepening partisan divides, fighting over social media, all make clear that our culture is in chaos, living according to the flesh.

The only hope for our divided culture is the peace-giving Spirit of Pentecost. And this peace is found in the body of Christ, the Church. The Church is the New Humanity in Christ, where our fleshly divisions are overcome and all are one in the one Body of the Lord, where we relate to one another in self-giving love. What’s more, the Church is the model-society; we are called to embody in our communal life ideal human society, shaping the world around us. The Church is brought up into the Divine life in union with Christ and by the Spirit, we live out that life among our brethren, and we carry those gifts as we are sent out to disciple the nations.

In His High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prays that the Church will be one “so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (Jn. 17:21) Christians have no business feeling frustrated and wringing our hands about current affairs around us. It should be no surprise to us that our society is gripped by division, hatred, and fear, when there is division in the Church. Our call to the world is to repent: repent of brutality, hatred, looting, division, and embrace the peace achieved by Christ and bestowed by the Spirit. But we cannot truly expect that to happen until we repent of our own disunity as the people of God, seek peace with one another, and embody the life of self-giving love of our Triune God.

  1. Delivered from the Elements of the World, p. 86.  (back)

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On June 6, 2019 By In Theology

What If I Can’t Feel the Holy Spirit: A Thought for Pentecost

The Bible doesn’t teach us that the Holy Spirit announces his presence by an internal feeling that he is there.

When you are on a tourist vacation in a foreign country, you will find yourself constantly checking wherever you have hidden your wallet. You are making sure it is still there. Without it, you will be in great trouble. It carries your identity and your power.

One sad way to live the Christian life is to labor with constant checking that the Holy Spirit is still there, to worry regularly about verifying salvation. This is a very common condition. But it doesn’t need to be.

There are multiple passages that we can misread to lead us into slavery to fear about our salvation. Since we face Pentecost this Sunday, let’s look at a misreading of a verse dealing with the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit’s Presence

In Romans 8, Paul says that true believers have the Holy Spirit, and false believers don’t. Do you have the Holy Spirit? How do you know? What if you can’t feel the presence of the Holy Spirit? If you can’t feel the Spirit, are you not a Christian? (more…)

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On June 5, 2019 By In Worship

What is Pentecost?

Many Christians know little about the Church Calendar, which means that many evangelicals will treat this Sunday like any other day. This Sunday marks the beginning of the Ordinary Season (not in the mundane or common sense, but the term comes from the word “ordinal,” which probably means “counted time”). This season is composed of 23-28 Sundays, and it fleshes out the mission of the Church. To put it simply, Pentecost is the out-working of the mission of Jesus through his people.

Some pastors–myself included–usually take these few months to focus on passages and topics pertaining to the specific life of the Church, and how the Church can be more faithful and active in the affairs of the world. The Pentecost Season emphasizes the unleashing of the Spirit’s work and power through the Bride of Jesus Christ, the Church.

Liturgically, many congregations wear red as a symbol of the fiery-Spirit that befell the Church. The Season brings with it a renewed emphasis on the Church as the central institution to the fulfillment of God’s plans in history. As such, it brings out the practical nature of Christian theology. Joan Chittister defines Pentecost as “the period of unmitigated joy, of total immersion in the implications of what it means to be a Christian, to live a Christian life” (The Liturgical Year, 171).

Pentecost as Spirit-Work

There is a Spiritlessness in Reformed teaching and worship today. Pentecost exhorts us to be spiritual (Spirit-led) while emphasizing the titanic role of the Third Person of the Trinity in beautifying the world to reflect the glory of the Father and the Son.

Calvin was known as the “Theologian of the Spirit.” This is hardly manifested in many of his followers who tend to flee from the implications of  Spirit-led applications, choosing a mental overdose of theological categories. However, the Spirit is crucial to the forming and re-forming of any environment. It communicates our thoughts, emotions, and prayers to our Meditator. The Third Person of the Trinity intercedes on our behalf in the midst of our ignorance (Rom. 8:26-30).

Further, the Spirit draws individuals (John 6:44) to enter into one baptized community of faith. The Spirit, in the words of James Jordan, is the “divine match-maker.” He brings isolated individuals into a Pentecostalized body, a body that has many parts, but one Head.

So, let us embrace this Season! Let us join this cosmic Pentecostal movement and embrace the mission of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

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On June 5, 2018 By In Theology

Water, Spirit, Fire, pt. 3

In the previous essay, we saw that fire is a work of the Holy Spirit. The two are related so closely that they cannot be separated. Now we turn our attention to the Spirit’s relationship to water. Many have understood Spirit baptism to be a dry baptism, one that is of a spiritual nature only. John the Baptist does set up a contrast between himself and Jesus: John baptizes with water but Jesus will baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16).

This is interpreted to mean that Jesus will baptize with the Spirit and fire and nothing else. James Dunn maintains that the Greek baptizo [to baptize] does not specify water as the element of baptism, and that its use in relation to Spirit baptism is “obviously a metaphor.” Spirit baptism does not refer to any performed ritual. Dunn goes so far as to say that baptizo isn’t an essential description of Spirit baptism and that “other metaphors might just as well have been used.”[1] He continues:

He [John] certainly gives no indication that he thought the latter [Spirit and fire baptism] was a form of water baptism, or involved such. The assumption must be that he too took it merely as a metaphor…Water is set over against Spirit as that which distinguishes John’s baptism from the future baptism…Christ’s baptism will not be in water but in Spirit and fire.[2]

Dunn’s view is common among baptistic and charismatic Christians, whereas sacramental Christians see water baptism and Spirit baptism as two sides of the same coin. They are linked together so closely that it may be said, “Water baptism is Spirit baptism.” Scripturally, both positions have strengths and weaknesses. When mining the book of Acts, Dunn’s position appears to have the upper hand. The baptism of the Spirit sometimes occurs before water baptism or after an additional ritual, the laying on of hands. At the very least, one would not conclude that Spirit and water necessarily function together. (more…)

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On May 29, 2018 By In Theology

Water, Spirit, Fire, pt. 2

In the introduction we saw that Matthew and Luke are the only gospels which include “fire” in John the Baptist’s narrative. If Matthew and Luke are the priestly and prophetic gospels, the inclusion of fire is of great importance. Priests are servants of the altar, working with fire every day. They were to keep the fire burning day in and day out (Leviticus 6:9, 12-13). Their primary duty was sacrificial worship, which included placing offerings into the fire (Leviticus 1:7-9). This fire may have also been used to put men to death (Leviticus 20:14, 21:9).

Prophets, too, are associated with fire. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel employ the use of fire more times than any other book of the Bible. Elijah is perhaps our greatest prophetic example, considering he and John the Baptist are closely associated in the gospels. Elijah calls fire down from heaven, once upon the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:24-40) and again upon the captains of Ahaziah (2 Kings 1:9-18). Now John prophesies a similar judgment (Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17). John functions as a new Elijah, warning unfaithful Israel of impending doom. Elijah called upon YHWH to bring fire down from heaven; John calls upon YHWH incarnate to do the same.

Fire is not always a picture of judgment, however. Fire is often a source of blessing and the presence of God himself. He appears to Moses at the burning bush and leads Israel by fire at night (Exodus 3:2; 13:21). He descends upon Mount Sinai “in fire” (Exodus 19:18; 24:17). The fire of the altar, mentioned above, was lit by God to show his glory and acceptance of worship (Leviticus 9:23-24; 2 Chronicles 7:1). (more…)

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On May 22, 2018 By In Theology

Water, Spirit, Fire, pt. 1

John the Baptist says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11). Much debate surrounds the nature of this statement and what exactly it prophesies. Sacramental, baptistic, and charismatic Christians have differing interpretations when it comes to baptism and the reception of the Holy Spirit.

The objective of this series of essays is to investigate the relationship between water, Spirit, and fire baptism(s). To do so we will explore the following questions: What is the purpose and meaning of baptism by John? What is the purpose of Jesus undergoing baptism by John, and does it relate to Christian baptism in any way? Does the phrase “Spirit and fire” denote one baptism, or does it speak of two? Is Spirit and fire baptism waterless, or is water a necessary element? For our introduction we will begin by reviewing preliminary data from the gospel accounts. (more…)

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On July 4, 2017 By In Theology

Upgraded Humanity: What was Biblical history for? (Part 1)

One of my favorite novels of the nineties was the “cyberpunk” thriller Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. (Content warning: not a Christian book.) The most unrealistic element in the book, however, was the posited “true meaning” of the story of the Tower of Babel. In the book’s retelling, humans used to be programmable using something a lot like machine code. Consciousness and free will came about through a virus introduced into the human race at Babel.

To repeat: this was the most unrealistic part of the novel, but it allows conflict as Hiro Protagonist (his real name—the novel doesn’t take itself too seriously) discovers a global conspiracy to reverse the virus and make humans programmable again. I took it as a metaphor for the quest for unity versus the value of freedom despite the social costs.

How Do You Upgrade Human Software?

But recently I’ve been thinking again about this fictional alternative to the Biblical story and the Bible’s own information about how humans are upgraded. After all, at Babel, something like a change in human “software” did miraculously take place. God wiped out a vocabulary and rules of grammar in people’s brains and uploaded new words and grammar rules in their place. The analogy to computer programs isn’t that much of a reach.

But when God called Abram (the story that follows the story of Babel and the scattering of humans into diverse nations), he does so in a way that makes clear that Abram is his “tower.”

And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:3-4; ESV)

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3; ESV)

We know from the miracle of Pentecost that God wanted the divisions imposed at Babel to be ameliorated so that a unity could be provided through the Gospel.

But what was the purpose of history between Babel and Pentecost? What was God doing?

Maybe we should ask ourselves how human “software” is normally “installed” or changed. Unlike what some science fiction may lead you to imagine, one can’t change thinking and behavior simply by plugging the brain into a computer. Brains are part of bodies, not machines.

How do people normally acquire language? Outside of the events of the special creation of Adam and Eve and the tower of Babel, we get our language from being immersed in a speaking and acting culture from the time we are born. We learn language not only by listening, or listening and watching, but by bodily interacting with others. We learn through our bodies.

And perhaps that’s the answer. Consider what the Bible tells us about God feeding Israel with manna in the wilderness. He gives them food to gather day by day six days a week. Any attempt to save up for the next day is frustrated because it becomes inedible except on the sixth day. On that day, they can gather for the daily bread and for the seventh day. And on the seventh day no manna appears on the ground.

God didn’t simply tell the people to work six days and rest on the seventh; he trained them to do so. (more…)

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