Theology

Across the denominations of Christianity, there is a wide spectrum of beliefs concerning the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in the world today. Some Christian groups fall to one extreme, namely, encouraging unrestrained emotional highs in the Spirit and focusing on miraculous sign-gifts such as speaking in tongues and faith healings. Other groups nearly deny the presence or work of the Spirit altogether, at least in practice if not in word. A corrective is needed.

A fair amount has been written on the Holy Spirit, in the last century especially. The contribution of this thesis is to analyze the work of the Spirit in the Bible theme by theme, across both Old and New Testaments, in order to deduce the role of the Spirit for the Church today. Each theme is given its respective weight in Scripture, thereby correcting any tendency to overemphasize a certain aspect of the work of the Spirit.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is vast continuity from the Old Testament to the New. The ancient Israelites saw the Spirit guiding them by inspiring prophecy, wisdom and divine gifts, and being the very presence of God in their midst. The situation is very much the same in the New Testament. However, under the new covenant, inaugurated by the death and vindication of Christ, the Spirit takes on a new key role, regenerating and sanctifying believers, and testifying within them about their genuine adoption as children of God. In this deeper relationship with God, the Spirit helps and guides believers into unity with the Lord and in the ethical Christian walk.

The perspective of the Old Testament prophets is key to interpreting how the Spirit was poured out in the early Church and today. The prophets saw that God would do a new thing with his Spirit in the Messianic age, and that future obedience to the new covenant would only be possible by this unprecedented outpouring of the Spirit. Paul especially takes up this theme, noting how every aspect of the Christian walk can only be truly done by means of the Spirit indwelling each believer.

Therefore, believers today err when we don’t allow the Spirit to be the center of our devotional life, pointing us to Christ, empowering a bold Christian walk and witness, and enabling our fellowship with God. This perspective corrects both extremes of the spectrum, either expecting the Spirit to work mainly through fits of emotion or manifestation of miracles or expecting far too little of the Spirit at all in our walk with God.