discovering the holy spirit

As a newbie twenty-something Christian I was taught that the Holy Spirit first showed up at Pentecost when the disciples were in the upper room following the resurrection of Jesus. There they awaited "power" from on high. The Spirit arrived like "flames of fire" and empowered the disciples to bravely proclaim the Good News about Jesus. It was a great story and made quite an impression. My Christian friends went on to explain that one of the great differences between Jews and Christians was that Christians had the Spirit of God and Jews did not. Jews only had the Law, the Torah. It came then as quite a surprise to me when I actually read the Bible and discovered that the Spirit of God had been around a bit longer than a month or so after Jesus' resurrection. So I wondered what was this Spirit thing, how long had it been around and why would Christians want to claim the Jews never had it? Here is what I discovered.

First I learned that the Spirit of God is personal; that the Spirit is not "The Force." Even though the Hebrew (ruach) and Greek ( pneuma)terms for Spirit also refer to breath and wind the Spirit is more than a mere force. We see this in the opening words of the scripture (Genesis 1:2) in which we read about the Spirit of God hovering over the pre-creation chaos as God prepares to bring order to creation. This sense of the "personhood" of the Spirit can also be glimpsed in Job 33:4 where Job says, "The Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." The Spirit is also connected to the image of Wisdom which has a life of its own.

The second thing I learned was that the Spirit of God is not only personal but that it has been around as long as God has been around (again note that it was present at creation and that if is identical to Wisdom, that Wisdom is part of God's essence). In some of the most ancient books of the Old Testament we read of God's Spirit being at work, giving people gifts to use, causing them to have ecstatic experiences, encouraging people to rebuild the Temple, calling men and women to prophesy and then telling them what to say. 
Those stories led me to my third discovery, that the Spirit is God's agent of both creation and renewal. One of the most profound uses of this imagery is in Isaiah 42:1 where we hear God say, "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom I delights; I have put my Spirit within him; he will bring forth justice to the nations." The reference is to the suffering servant whom God has called to take on the sins of the world in order that the world might be made new. In a sense anywhere the world or the church is being made new, God's Spirit is there.

I even learned why the church taught that only Christians had the Spirit. The reasoning is in some ways complex, yet at the same time rather straight forward. When the church and the synagogue split apart (somewhere between 40-70 years after Jesus' death and resurrection) the church adopted a very strong anti-Jewish bias. This bias was based partially on the persecution of Christians by the Jews because the Jews saw the Christians as heretics. We can read of this anti-Jewish bias in the Gospel of John and in Revelation. This bias slowly but surely influenced every aspect of Christian doctrine, including that of the Spirit. The Jews, along with every other non-Christian group, were seen as outsiders who were not entitled to God's Spirit. The Spirit became a possession of the church. 

Unfortunately for the church, scripture tells us that the Spirit "blows where it wills." In other words God's Spirit is not a possession of the church. The Spirit of God is as free as God to go wherever it wishes and do whatever it pleases…including impacting non-Christians (there are Biblical warrants for this). Our challenge then is to be open to the Spirit when it comes that we might be renewed and empowered for ministry and mission.

dealing with the holy spirit

Presbyterians have never been big fans of the Holy Spirit. I believe that is because we are not sure what to do with it. Both God and Jesus seem very predictable. We can study them. We can write books about them. We can place them in neat little pockets. The Holy Spirit on the other hand seems to be very unpredictable. The Spirit shows up at unexpected moments, causes people to speak in tongues, dance in crazy ways and utter often uncomfortable prophecy. The Spirit is the wild card in how God deals with the world. If we are not careful the Spirit might make us do things that are not as orderly as we would like. None-the-less the Spirit is just as important for the church as are the other two members of the Trinity (God the Father and God the Son).

The Spirit of God appears in the New Testament in its earliest writings, those of the Apostle Paul. In fact the role of the Spirit is critical for Paul's understanding of how God and Christ work in the world. We see this in that a believers' faith journey is entirely dependent upon the Spirit. Faith begins when the Spirit enters into the life of an individual and insures our adoption (Romans 8:15) as God's children. This same Spirit then gives us a new way of seeing the world; through Christ's eyes and not through our own (Romans 7:6). The Spirit gives us hope (Romans 5:5), helps us to pray (Romans 8:26), shows us God's love (Romans 15:30), guarantees our salvation (II Corinthians 5:5) and empowers us to say that "Jesus is Lord" (I Corinthians 12:3). We see additional evidence of the Spirit in Paul's life. Each time Paul makes a move from one location to another it is the Spirit of God that drives him (Acts 16:5-7 is a good example). 

Paul's experience and understanding of the Spirit appear to coincide with that of writer of Luke-Acts. In Luke it is the Spirit that incarnates Jesus in Mary, fills Elizabeth, Zechariah and Simeon, descends upon Jesus at his baptism, sends Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted, anoints Jesus for ministry, and according to Jesus is a gift that will be given to the people. The book of Acts continues this focus on the Spirit where the Holy Spirit is mentioned more than 50 times. 
Just as the Spirit played a key role in Paul's life it does the same for the other Apostles. The Spirit helps the Apostles discern God's will, empowers them to proclaim the Good News, demonstrates the presence of God and God's salvation, helps them see the future, fills believers and guides their journeys. Some commentators have said that the book should not be called the Acts of the Apostles but the Acts of the Holy Spirit. While the other Gospels mention the Holy Spirit it is not as central to their story telling as it is to the author of Luke-Acts.

The Holy Spirit continued to play a role, though not as prominent in the writings of the early church fathers. The Spirit finally got its due when it was incorporated into the Creeds of the church in 381 at Constantinople. In that rewriting of the Nicene Creed the bishops added the language, we Believe in "the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, Who proceeds from the Father, Who is worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son, Who spoke through the prophets." These words are a reminder that the Spirit is integral to the life and work of God's people.

All of this brings us back to the Presbyterian reluctance to deal with the Spirit. Once again, if the Spirit plays this large a role in the scriptures and the Creeds why haven't we emphasized the Spirit more? My answer would be not only that the Spirit is unpredictable (as noted above) but that the Protestant church wanted to lift up the importance of the scriptures above all else. This meant that the scriptures were more important than church tradition as well as personal religious experience. If the church were to proclaim that the Spirit was still speaking and acting then it might mean that the scripture was not closed, new understandings of faith and life might emerge and people might worship in ways that were not decent and in order. This was simply too much to bear as the Protestant Reformation worked out its fundamental belief structure. Fortunately as time has gone by even we Presbyterians have begun to reassess the work of the Spirit.