“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). “The Spirit of God”
In the opening words of the creation accounts “a wind from God swept over the waters” (Gen 1:2; NRSV). “Wind,” the Hebrew ruach, is often translated here by “Spirit” as “the Spirit of God was brooding over the waters” (see John 3:8). The “Spirit of God” at work through his prophets and among his people (1 Sam 10:10) permeates the Old Testament record, described also as “the Spirit of the LORD” (1 Sam 10:6) and as the “Holy Spirit” (Ps 51:11). John Wesley, the spiritual mentor of those of us who call ourselves Wesleyans, wrote in 1773 that The title "holy," applied to the Spirit of God, does not only denote that he is holy in his own nature, but that he makes us so; that he is the great fountain of holiness to his church; the Spirit from whence flows all the grace and virtue, by which the stains of guilt are cleansed, and we are renewed in all holy dispositions, and again bear the image of our Creator. The New Testament also describes the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 12:3), God at work, but gives the Spirit a new and fuller meaning. .Wesleyan Christians have always been committed to life “in the Spirit” for we believe that “anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom 8:9; NRSV). The New Testament uses varied expressions to speak of the Spirit’s presence and work in the hearts and fellowship of God’s people. A favorite with Wesleyans is the fullness of the Spirit: “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). We take, however, our terminology of being “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:3) mostly from the book of Acts. “The Holy Spirit”
The fullness of the Holy Spirit in Acts takes on a twofold meaning. First, it characterizes our Church age as the age of the Spirit’s coming into the lives of the people of God in fulfillment of prophetic promise—Isaiah 32:15, Ezekiel 32:26-27, Joel 2:28-29—as well as the promise of John the Baptist and Jesus (1:4-5). This hoped-for fulfillment of life in the presence and power of the Spirit of God was now at hand. Acts vividly describes the epic moment for the disciples of becoming the Church: When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be3TheTheT tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (2:1-4). The birth of the Church was now complete. What they are to be is plainly evident—a people “filled with the Holy Spirit,” enabled to witness to the world (1:8; 2:4, 32; 4:34; 5:32). When Saul, the early persecutor of the Church and later apostle to the Gentiles, was arrested on the road to Damascus by the risen Lord (9:3-6), the Lord instructed his disciple Ananias in a vision to go see him. As he came to Saul, he laid hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road . . . has sent me so that you may see again, and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (9:17). Saul, later renamed Paul, with this act was now an authentic and integral part of the Church he had attempted to destroy (8:3; 9:1-2). Second, the fullness of the Spirit is to be renewed daily as Spirit-filled disciples face the challenges of the hour. Not long after Pentecost, Peter and John were put in prison for healing a crippled man (3:1-10) and “proclaiming . . . in Jesus the resurrection of the dead” (4:1-4) to the people. The next day the Jewish authorities brought the two apostles before them and asked, “By what power or name did you do this?” Acts reports that “Peter, having just been filled with the Holy Spirit” (4:8 NASB margin), boldly answered that they did these things “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead” (4:10). As the narrative of the early Church continues, the disciples met on the release of Peter and John to pray, and again “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (4:31). To be “full of the Holy Spirit” (7:55; see 6.3, 5; 13:9) was the significant characteristic of those in the service of the early Church. The Holy Spirit empowered their mission as the Church in the world: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses . . . to the ends of the earth” (1:8). The Apostle Pl wrote later that his ministry to the Gentiles was conducted “through the power of the Spirit” (Rom 15:19). In the “spirit” of Pentecost, that first day of a Spirit-filled church, Christians are defined once and for all as those who live and serve in continual renewal of their relation to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, As our theological mentor expressed it so well, the life of God in the soul of the believer. . . implies the continual inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit: God’s breathing into the soul, and the soul’s breathing back what it first receives from God; a continual action of God upon the soul, . . . the . . . unceasing presence of God, the loving, pardoning God, manifested to the heart, and perceived by faith; and an unceasing return of love, praise, and prayer, offering up all the thoughts of our hearts, all the words of our tongues, all the works of our hands, all our body, soul, and spirit, to be one holy sacrifice, acceptable unto God in Christ Jesus. As the church, as the people of God, as the disciples of Jesus, as Christians, our first clue as to who we are and how we are to live—in daily holy obedience to the Holy Spirit--was revealed on the Day of Pentecost and in the first days of the early Church. Such a life, empowered by the gift of the Spirit given first on the Day of Pentecost, is our privilege. “The Spirit of Jesus” The Christian’s relation to the Holy Spirit is uniquely a relation to Jesus: “the Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7). The Holy Spirit was instrumental in Jesus’ conception and birth (Luke 1:35), the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus at his baptism (Luke 3:22), and Jesus began his ministry full of “the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14; see 4:1). The Gospel of John expresses this truth beautifully on the lips of the Baptist: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven like a dove, and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘the man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God” (1:32-34). As the one on whom the Spirit remains during his ministry, Jesus brought the kingdom of God into the midst of human affairs: “if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28). Jesus thus enables us to pray as he taught us, “your kingdom come” (Matt 6:10). For as “the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33 NRSV), Jesus, by virtue of his death and resurrection, is the one who sends to us “the Spirit of truth” from the Father fulfilling in our lives the promise of Pentecost (John 15:26; see 14:16-17; 16:7-11). After his resurrection, Jesus said to his fearful disciples, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” With these words, “he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:21-22). From that day to this day, the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and the Christian was and is not only “the Spirit of Jesus” (Phil 1:19) but even more the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9). Christ is the “anointed” one “who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4). This is the “Son . . . who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Jesus’ earthly life, the Incarnation, as well as the Crucifixion and the Resurrection all define who the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Pentecost is and what it is about now in our lives. “The Spirit of Christ”
William Greathouse reminds us that what we know as “the Christian experience of the Holy Spirit” comes “to its clearest expression in the Epistles.” So as we listen to the witness of the New Testament Epistles it is the life of the Son of God, Jesus the crucified and risen Christ, which we are enabled to live out in the world by the Spirit. The Apostle Paul declares to the Romans that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (8:2; NRSV; see 7:6). To the Corinthians he sums up this life in words both daring and profound: “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). This characterizes the quality of life the Spirit of Jesus the exalted Christ is at work in us to live out through our lives. The Spirit filled Christian is caught up into the “life-spirit” of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1—7:28)! The epistles likewise are concerned about the work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, as developing the mind of Christ in the fellowship of the Church. Christians cannot “say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3; they are to “live (lit., ‘walk’) by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16; see Rom 8:4-5, 14); for them “the kingdom of God is . . . joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17)—all this because God has given them his Spirit in their hearts “as a first installment” or “guarantee” (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; NRSV) of their hope for “a house, . . . eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1; NRSV; see Rom 5:5; 8:11). Since “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10), we as Christians may it our aim in life to please the Lord (2 Cor 5:9). As people of “a new covenant” our help is in “the Spirit [who] gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). Paul was certainly Spirit-inspired to write, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17-19). No wonder the Apostle could pray for the Ephesians I “that you might have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:18-19; see Col 1:19). Amazingly, this same “the Spirit of Christ” had been long at work in relation to the people of God; it was within the prophets predicting “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1 Pet 1:11). And the final invitation of the last biblical prophet is thrillingly “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life freely” (Rev 22:17; NRSV).
A WESLEYAN UNDERSTANDING OF THE FULLNESS OF THE SPIRIT
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). “The Spirit of God”
In the opening words of the creation accounts, “a wind from God swept over the waters” (Gen 1:2; NRSV). “Wind,” the Hebrew ruach, is often translated here by “Spirit” as “the Spirit of God was brooding over the waters.” The “Spirit of God,” described also as “the Spirit of the LORD” (1 Sam 10:6) and as the “Holy Spirit” (Ps 51:11), at work among his people and especially through his prophets permeates the Old Testament record (Micah 3:8; see 1 Pet 1:11). The New Testament also identifies the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 12:3), God at work, but gives the Spirit a new and fuller meaning. We see this in a favorite expression among Wesleyans, “filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18), which the book of Acts uses frequently to speak of the Spirit’s presence in the hearts and fellowship of God’s people. “The Holy Spirit”
Being “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:3) possesses a twofold meaning in Acts. First, it characterizes the Church age as the age of the Spirit’s coming into the lives of the people of God in fulfillment of prophetic promise—Isaiah 32:15, Ezekiel 32:26-27, Joel 2:28-29—as well as the promise of John the Baptist and Jesus (1:4-5). This hoped-for fulfillment of life in the presence and power of the Spirit of God has come. In an epic moment the disciples become the Church: When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be3TheTheT tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (2:1-4). What the Church is to be is now fully visible—a people “filled with the Holy Spirit,” enabled to witness to the world (2:32; 4:33; 5:32). When Saul, the early persecutor of the Church and later apostle to the Gentiles, was arrested on the road to Damascus by the risen Lord (9:3-6), Ananias was sent to him that he might “see again, and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (9:17). Saul, later renamed Paul, with this act became an authentic and integral part of the Church he had attempted to destroy (8:3; 9:1-2). Second, the fullness of the Spirit is to be renewed daily as Spirit-filled disciples face the challenges of the hour. Soon after Pentecost, Peter and John were put in prison for healing a crippled man (3:1-10) and “proclaiming . . . in Jesus the resurrection of the dead” (4:1-4) to the people. The next day the Jewish authorities summoned the two apostles and asked, “By what power or name did you do this?” Peter, “having just been filled with the Holy Spirit” (4:8 NASB margin), boldly answered that they did these things “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead” (4:10). As the Acts narrative continues, the disciples met on the release of Peter and John to pray, and again “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (4:31). To be “full of the Holy Spirit” (7:55) was the significant characteristic of those in the service of the early Church. The Holy Spirit empowered their mission to the world: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses . . . to the ends of the earth” (1:8). This “power of the Spirit” (Rom 15:19) characterized as well Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles. In the “spirit” of Pentecost, that first day of a Spirit-filled church, Christians are those who live in continual renewal of their relation to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. As our theological mentor, John Wesley, expressed it, the life of God in the soul of the believer. . . implies the continual inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit: God’s breathing into the soul, and the soul’s breathing back what it first receives from God; a continual action of God upon the soul, . . . the . . . unceasing presence of God, the loving, pardoning God, manifested to the heart, and perceived by faith; and an unceasing return of love, praise, and prayer, offering up all the thoughts of our hearts, all the words of our tongues, all the works of our hands, all our body, soul, and spirit, to be one holy sacrifice, acceptable unto God in Christ Jesus (Sermon 19, “The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God”). As Christians, our first clue as to who we are and how we are to live—in daily holy obedience to the Holy Spirit--was revealed on that first day, the Day of Pentecost. Such a life, empowered by the gift of the Spirit, is our privilege as the Church. “The Spirit of Jesus” The Christian’s relation to the Holy Spirit is uniquely a relation to Jesus: “the Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7). The Holy Spirit was instrumental in Jesus’ conception and birth (Luke 1:35); the Holy Spirit equipped Jesus for ministry at his baptism (Luke 3:22); and Jesus went forth full of “the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14). The Gospel of John expresses this truth beautifully on the lips of the Baptist: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven like a dove, and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘the man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God” (1:32-34). As the one on whom the Spirit remained during his ministry, Jesus brought the kingdom of God into the human scene: “if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28). Jesus thus enables us to pray as he taught us, “your kingdom come” (Matt 6:10). For as “the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33; NRSV), Jesus, by virtue of his death and resurrection, sends us “the Spirit of truth” from the Father fulfilling the promise of Pentecost (John 15:26; see 14:16-17; 16:7-11). After his resurrection, Jesus said to fearful disciples, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Then “he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:21-22). From that day on, the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church was and is not only “the Spirit of Jesus” (Phil 1:19) but even more the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9). Christ is the “anointed” one “who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4). This “Son . . . loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). The Incarnation, as well as the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, all define who the Holy Spirit is as the Spirit of Pentecost in our lives. “The Spirit of Christ”
As we listen to the clear witness of the New Testament Epistles the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (8:2; NRSV), the life of the crucified and risen One, which we are enabled to live out in the world. In words both daring and profound, “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). The Spirit filled Christian is thus caught up into the “life-spirit” of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1—7:28)! The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ develops the mind of Christ in the fellowship of the Church. Christians cannot “say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3); they are to “live (lit., ‘walk’) by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16); for them “the kingdom of God is . . . joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17)—all this because God has given them his Spirit in their hearts “as a first installment” or “guarantee” (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; NRSV) of their hope for “an eternal house” (2 Cor 5:1; see Rom 5:5; 8:11). Since “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10), we Christians make it our aim to please the Lord (2 Cor 5:9). As people of “a new covenant” our helper is “the Spirit [who] gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). Paul was Spirit-inspired to write, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17-19). No wonder the Apostle prayed for the Ephesians “that you might have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:18-19).
Frank G. Carver Professor Emeritus of Religion Point Loma Nazarene University