Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Leaven Leaven
Volume 8 Issue 3 Theology and Ministry Article 7
1-1-2000
The Holy Spirit in the Churches of Christ The Holy Spirit in the Churches of Christ
James W. Thompson [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven
Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology
and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Thompson, James W. (2000) "The Holy Spirit in the Churches of Christ," Leaven: Vol. 8 : Iss. 3 , Article 7. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol8/iss3/7
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Leaven by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
Theology and Ministry 129
The Holy Spiritin the
Churches of Christ
BY JAMES W. THOMPSON
Several years ago a student from a Pentecostalchurch remained after class to follow up on our dis-cussion of the Holy Spirit, which had been a majortopic of the evening's lecture from Romans 8. Dur-ing the conversation he expressed his amazementthat the Churches of Christ, with their great empha-sis on Acts, devote little attention to the Holy Spirit,particularly to the charismatic gifts. His canon-within-the-canon was also Acts. But instead of see-ing Acts as the book of conversion stories and churchorder, he saw it as the book of the Holy Spirit and asthe warrant for the Pentecostal experience as it ispracticed in his tradition. For him, Acts was the bookof the Holy Spirit, which is manifest throughhealings, divine intervention in human plans, andspeaking in tongues.
In the Restoration tradition, Acts has been readanother way. The primary canon-within-the-canonfor the Churches of Christ has included Acts, thePastoral Epistles, and Hebrews.' Although we haveproclaimed ourselves to be the people of the NewTestament, insisting on the authority of the entireNew Testament as a constitution for church life, thiscanon-within-the-canon has influenced our readingof each book within the New Testament. This read-ing was largely shaped by Alexander Campbell'sinterpretation of the New Testament, for Campbellbequeathed to us a strong concern for an ecclesiology
that is primarily associated with form and structure.Hence our canon-within-the-canon has consisted ofthose books that are known in Protestant scholar-ship as "early Catholic."
This focus on the early Catholic literature has hadsignificant consequences for our understanding ofthe Holy Spirit, inasmuch as our own hermeneuti-cal principle has focused on those books in whichthe doctrine of the Holy Spirit recedes into the back-ground. In the Pastoral Epistles, where the faith ofthe church is preserved through the teaching office,the Spirit prophesies future conditions in the church(1 Tim 4:1), equips Timothy for service (2 Tim 1:6),and renews the believer at baptism (Titus 3:5), but itis not the focus of attention. In Hebrews, where theauthor affirms that God's revelation in Jesus Christsurpasses the" many and various ways in which Godhas spoken," the community has" tasted ... the pow-ers of the coming age" (Heb 6:5 NIV), but the expe-rience of the Holy Spirit does not playa significantrole in the author's argument. Indeed, anyone whois familiar with the Pauline insistence on the role ofthe Holy Spirit as empowerment for Christian con-duct will note a startling difference in Hebrews,where the author's pervasive appeal to "hold on" tothe confession (d. Heb 10:23) is made without refer-ence to this empowerment. The Holy Spirit is some-times mentioned as the author and interpreter of
1
Thompson: The Holy Spirit in the Churches of Christ
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2000
130 Leaven, Fall 2000
Acts is the book both of churchorder and of the churchempowered by the Holy Spirit.
scripture (cf. Heb 3:7;9:8), although in most instanceseither God or Christ has this role. The signs andwonders that confirmed the word spoken by theLord appear to have belonged to the previous gen-eration (Heb 2:3).
Acts is the book both of church order and of thechurch empowered by the Holy Spirit. No reader ofActs could dispute Luke's focus on the church's em-powerment by the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit is theinitiator both in the founding of the church and inthe significant turning points in the narrative. Thegift of tongues descends on the people at Pentecost,at the conversion of Cornelius, and at the conver-sion of those who had known only the baptism ofJohn. God's spokesmen are filled with the HolySpirit. Thus Luke's narrative celebrates the divineoutpouring of the Spirit in the church and the char-ismatic experience. Nevertheless, as our own expe-rience has shown, Acts can be read alongside thePastoral Epistles as the book of church order, inwhich the elders at Ephesus function as paradigmsfor the ongoing leadership of the church. In this casethe many references to the Holy Spirit are under-stood within the larger context of Luke's idealiza-tion of the church's origins. If we understand Actsas an apologetic in which Luke defends the divineorigin of the church, the focus on the Holy Spiritwould serve Luke's purpose of celebrating the ex-perience of the first generation. Thus a canon-within-the-canon that takes the second-generation literatureas its starting point is unlikely to emphasize the ex-periential aspects of Christianity that are attested inother traditions. This starting point has shaped ourunderstanding of the Holy Spirit.
Taking the literature of the second generation asthe hermeneutical key to the New Testament, wehave formulated a canonical reading that has al-lowed us to synthesize into our system the passages
that emphasize the experiential aspects. This syn-thesis appeals to two exegetical traditions that in-volve the charismatic experience. The first exegeti-cal tradition involves the book of Acts, which hasbeen incorporated into this system through an in-terpretative tradition including both Acts 2:38 andActs 8. In some circles in Churches of Christ, the giftof the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:38 has actually been readas a subjective genitive, that is, the gift that the HolySpirit gives. An interpretative tradition from Acts 8,which seems amazingly uniform in our churches,argues that the Holy Spirit that the Samaritans didnot receive until the apostles laid hands upon themwas actually the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit,which could be transmitted only by apostles. ThusActs provides a welcome proof text for distinguish-ing the gift of the Holy Spirit from the miraculousgift of the Holy Spirit and for a cessationist interpre-tation, according to which the miraculous gift ceasedwith the apostles. From my experience in thechurches and in the classroom, I have always beenamazed at the consistency of the catechetical instruc-tion among Churches of Christ on points of exegesisthat involve the Holy Spirit.
The second exegetical tradition involves the in-terpretative tradition of 1 Corinthians 12-14. The in-terpretation of to teleion as the completed canon hasallowed us to limit the experiential aspect of the HolySpirit to the first century. The exegetical traditionsthat involve these two passages provide a coherentsystem that has been widely influential in ourchurches. The gift of the Holy Spirit has been distin-guished from the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit.In keeping with this system, some of our church lead-ers have insisted that the Holy Spirit works onlythrough scripture, although I am convinced from myown experience that the majority have held to a be-lief in the indwelling of the Spirit.
Today we are experiencing extraordinarychanges. In recent conversations with my studentsand others, I have noticed in them a pressing desireto rethink our understanding of the Holy Spirit, es-pecially our traditional cessationist view. This inter-est may reflect a variety of separate phenomena. Onephenomenon involves the popularity of the believ-ers' church model of the church as the communityof the Holy Spirit. This model appears to employ as
2
Leaven, Vol. 8 [2000], Iss. 3, Art. 7
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol8/iss3/7
its hermeneutic key, not the church of the Pastorals,but the model of the early Pauline churches that ismost clearly reflected in 1 Corinthians 12, where eachmember of the body has received the Spirit's gift.This model places an emphasis on pneumatologythat has seldom been given in Churches of Christ.Other phenomena may include a postmodern rejec-tion of the traditional rationalist approach and thewidespread influence of Pentecostal movements inAmerican culture.
Despite the major shift away from the uniformityof understanding of the Holy Spirit, one aspect re-mains the same: our theology of the Holy Spirit hasbeen worked out in a polemical context that has de-fined the issues for discussion. Our polemical inter-ests have left us with a myopic understanding thatruns deep within this movement. Whether moti-vated by a desire to reinvigorate the church with thecharismatic experience or to maintain a cessationistposition, mention of the Holy Spirit tends to beframed in terms of the charismatic experience thatis best known to us from 1 Corinthians 12-14. Dis-cussion of the Holy Spirit seems always to come backto the experiential phenomena and to be framedwithin a narrow focus. Such a narrow focus, I amconvinced, is a major distortion of the biblical doc-trine of the Holy Spirit. Thus I suggest that we ini-tiate a process of reflection that will move us awayfrom the myopic nature of the discussions we haveinherited. This process of reflection will engage thevaried witness of the New Testament and the Chris-tian tradition and will not be framed entirely by ourown polemical interests. I suggest that our theologyof the Holy Spirit should begin with an observationof both the unity and the diversity of the earlychurch's experience of the Holy Spirit.
The Unified Witness of the Early ChurchOur reflection on a theology of the Holy Spirit
should begin with the acknowledgment that, despitethe variety of the New Testament witnesses, thecanon reflects a united witness to the conviction thatGod has empowered the church through his Spirit.This united witness suggests that the church, fromits inception, has experienced the Holy Spirit as apower in its midst.
Theology and Ministry 131
I suggest that our theology of theHoly Spirit should begin with anobservation of both the unity andthe diversity of the early church'sexperience of the Holy Spirit.
The conviction that God had poured out his Spiritas a sign of the eschatological moment appears tohave been uniformly held by earliest Christians. Theearliest church attested its experience of the Spirit.It appealed to the words of Ezek 36:26-27: " A newheart I will give you, and a new spirit I will putwithin you .... And I will put my spirit within you,and cause you to walk in my statutes and be carefulto observe my ordinances" (RSV). The importanceof this eschatological experience of the Spirit is sug-gested in the significance attached to the Spirit inthe Synoptic tradition, John, and the Pauline tradi-tion. In all these traditions, the Spirit empowers thedisciples for their ministry. According to the Synop-tic tradition, the disciples can go on speaking inJesus' name, not worrying about what to say, becausethe Spirit will tell them what to say (Matt 10:19; Luke12:11). According to the Iohannine tradition, theSpirit is the" other paraclete," who guides the churchwhen Christ is absent, reminding the community ofthe words of Jesus. In the Pauline tradition, the Spiritis active in the community. Even in the early Catho-lic Epistles, which seem to celebrate form over theSpirit, the presence of the Spirit is assumed. Theunited witness to the presence of the Spirit in theNew Testament writings suggests that the church,from the beginning, experienced the divine empow-erment described in Joel and Ezekiel.
This unified witness suggests that the earliestchurch knew itself to be the eschatological people ofGod. It confessed that the Spirit was within its midst.The experience of the Spirit, therefore, was a con-stituent element of early Christian experience.
3
Thompson: The Holy Spirit in the Churches of Christ
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2000
132 Leaven, Fall 2000
Paul and the Diversity of the Early ChristianWitness
Although the New Testament appears to presenta unified conviction of the presence of the Holy Spiritin the church, it also points to a diversity in its ar-ticulation of the role of the Holy Spirit, a diversitytha t reflects the church's need to restate its confes-sion under a variety of situations. A fruitful area ofresearch would compare the theology of the HolySpirit in the early Pauline communities, the laterPauline communities, the Gospel of John, and Acts.James Dunn has argued that these are four distinc-tive views and that these views reflect a church mov-ing between the vitality of the experience of the HolySpirit in the early Pauline churches, the attempt tomaintain order in the Pastoral Epistles, and the laterattempts in Luke-Acts and John to maintain the vi-tality of the Spirit in their churches.' Although I amnot in full agreement with Dunn's analysis, I sug-gest that he has made valuable observations aboutour need to look at the diversity of the witness andto recognize that the New Testament moves betweenthe celebration of the power of the Spirit and theneed to stabilize the community under authoritativefigures.
The Pauline corpus allows more insight into therange of understandings of the power of the Spirit.Paul knows the Spirit as experiential empowerment.When he is involved in a debate with the Galatiansover works of law, an essential aspect of his argu-ment is the one from experience: "Did you receivethe Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing withfaith? ... Did you experience so many things invain?" (Gal 3:2-4 RSV). For Paul, the presence of theSpirit is assumed rather than argued. He assumesthat his readers will acknowledge that "God's lovehas been poured into our hearts through the HolySpirit which has been given to us" (Rom 5:5 RSV),that they will acknowledge that they were all bap-tized in one Spirit (1 Cor 12:13), and that they willrecognize the Spirit as the guarantee of future glory(2 Cor 1:22;5:5). The coming of the Spirit was, there-fore, an identifiable event that was experienced inthe community as empowerment and attested in avariety of ways.
Throughout the Pauline corpus,the Holy Spirit is theeschatological power forsanctification and the moral life.
This empowerment was experienced through thevariety of charismata that were active in the church,a variety that may be seen in the lists that Paul givesin 1 Corinthians and Romans. In addition to the char-ismatic phenomena of tongues, prophecy, andhealings, the gifts involve faith, ministry, encourage-ment, acts of mercy, and other services to the com-munity in the continuation of God's power. Paulwishes to go to Rome to impart a spiritual gift (Rom1:11). The capacity to remain unmarried and avoidsexual temptation is also regarded as a charisma (1Cor 7:7). Moreover, the abundance of gifts broughtabout through the collection is the result of God'scapacity to multiply every charis (2 Cor 9:8). Spiri-tual gifts, therefore, were not limited to the phenom-ena of 1 Corinthians 12-14, but were experienced inevery sphere of the community's existence. JamesDunn has indicated that God's charis is not only adeed of the past bu t an ongoing power in thechurch's life.
[G]race describes not merely the past act of Godinitiating into the life of faith, but also the presentcontinuing experience of a relationship with Godsustained by divine power (Rom 5:2; d. CoI3:16).... No one can read such phrases as" all graceabounding to you," "the surpassing grace of Godupon you," "the richness of God's grace lavishedupon us" (2 Cor 9:8, 14; Eph 1:7f.) without realizingthat we are dealing with an experiential concept ofgreat moment. ... "Grace" was for Paul a tangible andverifiable reality as much as its correlative" Spirit" (2Cor 8:1).3
Throughout the Pauline corpus, the Holy Spiritis the eschatological power for sanctification and themoral life. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit inthe proclamation of the gospel that Paul's hearersfirst experienced the power of the Holy Spirit (1
4
Leaven, Vol. 8 [2000], Iss. 3, Art. 7
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol8/iss3/7
Thess 1:5). The Holy Spirit is both the power andthe norm of their new conduct, a way of life thatthey in turn offer as worship to their Lord (Gal 5:16-26; Rom 8:2, 4-14; 12:1-2). Thus Paul can admonishthe Galatians, "If we live in the Spirit, then let uswalk in the spirit!" (Gal 5:25), and can speak of walk-ing kata pneuma (Rom 8:4-5). As the community ofthe new covenant, their lives are written, not withink, but with the Spirit of God (2 Cor 3:3). The Spiritis thus the power for the ethical existence, for Chris-tian conduct is determined by the Spirit, and Chris-tian believers are those who walk by the Spirit (d.Rom 8:4; Gal 5:16) and are led by the Spirit (Rom8:14; Gal 5:18).4
Paul also recognizes that the mere claim to thepossession of the Spirit is not evidence that one hasthe gift. Indeed, in 2 Corinthians he must counterthe charge that he is not a man of the Spirit. Oppo-nents have made an impressive case, based on theirappeal to ecstatic experience, that they, and not Paul,possess the Spirit. Paul counters their claims by anappeal to his weakness as the demonstration of thepower of God in his own ministry. Therefore Paulknows that the appeal to experience is not tanta-mount to possessing the Spirit. Indeed, God's powercan work through human weakness when the powerof the Holy Spirit is not self-evident to observers.
Paul's experience with the Corinthians is a re-minder that the Holy Spirit was then, as it is now,both a gift and the occasion of major problems forthe church, for the experiential phenomena are thesource of division, acrimony, arrogance, and jealousywithin the church. One may ask whether the charis-matic community of Corinth lasted for an extendedperiod. James Dunn wrote:
I conclude then that Paul's theory of a Christiancommunity bonded together into a developing unityby the diversity of charismata did not translate verywell into practice. Out of the sparse informationwhich comes to us from this period it would appearthat three out of the four churches with whom Paulwas in correspondence were in one degree or an-other threatened by the presence of (certain) charis-matic phenomena. Charismata which were intendedfor the building up of community seemed rather tobe destroying it (d. 2 Cor 10:8; 13:10).5
The Pauline literature is a vivid testimony to the
Theology and Ministry 133
difficulty of maintaining the living witness to thepower of the Holy Spirit without surrendering thechurch to counterfeit claims to the Spirit's power.Paul's task was both to appeal to the experience ofthe Spirit and to protect the church from the forcesthat could have destroyed it. Thus the task of thechurch today, as it was in ancient times, is to seekdiscernment and wisdom.
Concluding ReflectionsOur study of the New Testament texts on the
Holy Spirit suggests certain approaches for the re-flection on the Holy Spirit today. We have observedthe near unanimity of New Testament witnesses intheir understanding of the church as the people em-powered by the Spirit of God. At the same time, wehave also observed the variety of manifestations ofthe Spirit. The New Testament knows both the com-munity of gifts in 1 Corinthians and the church struc-tured by offices in the Pastoral Epistles. I suggestthat the two models exist in continuity and that themodel of the Pastoral Epistles was the natural de-velopment from the Corinthian model. We shouldbe cautious, therefore, in our claim that either is thenormative understanding of the Holy Spirit. If theNew Testament attests both understandings of theSpirit, we should be open to both expressions of theSpirit's activity. The traditional restorationist view,with its emphasis on order and structure and its un-derstanding of the charismatic gifts as phenomenaof the first generation, stands in a biblical traditionshaped by the Pastoral Epistles and Hebrews. Thistradition is continued in the work of Ignatius, Clem-ent of Rome, and the church fathers. The more expe-riential expressions stand in the tradition of 1Corinthians and the early Pauline correspondence.
Our reflections from the New Testament shouldremind us that, in our preoccupation with our ownpolemical interests, dimensions of early Christianexperience have been ignored in our discussion andpractice. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the com-munity as it interprets scripture was important toearly Christianity, and it would offer a significantdimension for us today. The role of the Holy Spiritin sanctifying the moral life is also a forgotten as-pect of the work of the Holy Spirit.
We will do well to recognize, with the Gospel of
5
Thompson: The Holy Spirit in the Churches of Christ
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2000
134 Leaven, Fall 2000
John, that "the wind blows where it wills." The HolySpirit is not a matter of human manipulation. TheSpirit's coming does not depend on our own will-ing, but on God as the giver. We may pray for a re-newal and sing the song of God's renewal by theHoly Spirit, which may come to different generationsin different ways. We live, nevertheless, with theconsciousness that has empowered Christians of allages, the consciousness that the believing commu-nity does not live by its own resources, but by theresources of the Holy Spirit.
JAMES W. THOMPSON teaches in the College of Bib-lical Studies, Abilene Christian University, andserves as the editor of Restoration Quarterly.
Notes (Notes from "Eschatology")I Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Oxford
University Press, 1933),314.2 E.g., "If ... the conception of the Kingdom of God is an
eschatological one, then it is impossible to make use of this con-ception in dogmatics." Julius Kaftan, quoted by his studentRudolf Bultmann in Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York:Scribner, 1958), 13.
3 Johannes B. Metz, Theology of the World (New York:Herder, 1969), 90.
4 See Richard Hughes, Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Storyof Churches of Christ in America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1996), especially chapter 6.
Notes1 See M. Eugene Boring, "The Formation of a Tradi-
tion: Alexander Campbell and the New Testament," Dis-ciples Theological Digest 2 (1987): 5-62.
2 James Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (Philadelphia:Westminster, 1975), 359.
3 Ibid., 203.4 Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Tes-
taments, vol. 1 (Gbttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992),305.
5 Dunn, 270.
(Notes continued from "Selected Bibliography")in Hans Kling, Does God Exist? An Answer for Today, trans.Edward Quinn (New York: Vintage, 1981),573-76. A less ac-cessible version is found in Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology,vol. 1, Reason and Revelation. Being and God (Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1951), 204-10.
6
Leaven, Vol. 8 [2000], Iss. 3, Art. 7
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol8/iss3/7
