Holy Spirit

Owen, John (1616-1683)
Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library --
Description: Pneumatologia--or, 'Owen on the Holy Spirit,' as the work has generally been called--is perhaps one of the best known, and most highly esteemed of John Owen's treatises. Pneumatologia is divided into five parts. The first part contains a general and preliminary account of the Holy Spirit. The second part addresses the operations of the Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments. The third part discusses the doctrine of regeneration. The fourth part addresses the doctrine of sanctification, and the role of the Holy Spirit in it. The final part contains arguments extolling the reader to holiness. This is a beloved treatise, as John Newton once wrote to a correspondent: "We are favoured with many excellent books in our tongue, but I with you agree in assigning one of the first places as a teacher to Dr. Owen. I have just finished his discourse on the Holy Spirit which is an epitome, if not the masterpiece of his writings."

This essay was published in The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, edited by Christopher A. Beeley and Mark E. Weedman, for the CUAP Studies in Early Christianity (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018); this is the uncorrected proofs. Exploring the humanity and divinity of Jesus, the Son's relation to the Father, and the agency of the Holy Spirit, it is one of five essays suggesting Johannine contributions to trinitarian discussions in the early church.

Explorations of Tolkien's latent theology abound, but very little focused scholarship proposes to discuss how Tolkien's legendari-um portrays an understanding of the Holy Spirit, especially in light of Tolkien's Roman Catholicism. This essay explores three major features of Tolkien's work that provide insight into this ghostly person of the Trinity. The Silmarillion provides detailed insight as to the exact identity of the " Flame Imperishable, " while its characters demonstrate the indwelling of this Flame. St. Paul explains the gifts of the Holy Spirit in his first letter to the Corinthians and Tolkien seems to mimic many of these gifts in the characters of the nine members of the Fellowship. Lastly, the Great Eagles represent the workings of the Holy Spirit, both as servants of Manwë and as agents of eucatastrophe.

This study explores common ground and affinities between Christian Orthodoxy and Pentecostalism in theology, spirituality, cosmology, anthropology and the understanding of rites and sacraments. The focus is on the understanding and perception of the Holy Spirit, with regard to spiritual experience, personal transformation and the life of the Church. It also reflects on the African religious heritage of Christianity in the formation of these forms of spiritual experience and expression. The role and development of African Instituted Churches is taken into view, aware of their common heritage with Pentecostalism and of their distinctness. The context of ecumenical exchange between Pentecostalism and the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches in the 20th century is considered as background for the realization of convergences. The growing awareness in both Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy of their common ground, based in the hermeneutics and spirituality of early Christianity is recognized and recommended as field for further engagement. The common affirmation of both Churches of a spiritual world view in contrast to the positivistic ‘naturalistic’ world view of secular Enlightenment – as distinct from the spiritual branch of Enlightenment in which Pentecostalism is rooted through Pietism – is recognized as common ground for mutual understanding and critical difference to mainstream Western secularism. This study thus aims at fostering a better mutual understanding of Pentecostal and Orthodox Churches and of their epistemological agreements with regard to the challenges of secular cultures.

The Bible was almost entirely composed by Jewish writers. An examination of its Jewish or Hebraic roots provides considerable fresh insight into the Christian faith and worldview—particularly in respect of covenant, community and creation.

Covenant forms the dominant paradigm governing the biblical worldview. The new covenant inaugurated by the Messiah likewise forms the dominant paradigm governing the New Testament. Each biblical covenant is associated with a community. A “covenant community” who receive a vocation commensurate with the relationship into which they have been brought.

The biblical view of creation ultimately anticipates its global renewal, whereupon heaven is united in harmony with earth, God dwelling amidst his people. En-route to this finality, the biblical worldview incorporates the bondage of creation to the effects of sin and its partners: death, disease and decay. Amidst this corrupted creation, the vocation of the covenant community is to be an incarnate Messenger of Hope. Both recipient and giver of New Life; a sign, symbol and harbinger of creation‟s ultimate, glorious liberation from bondage.

The thesis seeks to express the message of Scripture according to Scripture’s own priorities. It uses biblical rather than philosophical terminology, presenting the Bibles message within the framework of a primarily Hebraic worldview. To aid recognition of vital theological threads woven throughout the biblical narratives, the thesis develops a graphical “panorama” of the biblical narrative.

Significance and Value of Findings

Traditional, post-Enlightenment theologies—i.e. reformed, dogmatic, systematic, critical, non-contextual etc.—having undergirded Western Christendom during the past two centuries, are presently creaking under the strain of post-modern, post-colonial critiques and worldviews. In order for Christian faith and community to flourish within this hostile cultural climate, the challenge of missiological renewal and reformation needs to be embraced, so that Christian theology, missional praxis and culture to flourish in new ways.

Insight into the Jewish roots of Scripture and, in particular, the biblical covenants and the vocational communities of both Israel and the Church, proffers a significant contribution towards such a renewal, potentially rendering a widely appealing paradigm: centering upon God‟s commitment to creation, in partnership with his covenant community; incorporating the combating of evil through pursuit of this-worldly peace, justice and dignity for human beings; lived out amidst the biblical backdrop of an ultimate Judgement and Regeneration.

Within an increasingly agnostic West, a covenant, creation and community centred worldview offers fresh insight and a significant contrast to the individualistic drift of modern, protestant-evangelical culture and praxis, with its dualistic perspective of earth and heaven and concomitant focus upon personal salvation and eternal heavenly “escape‟ from earth‟s “mortal coil.‟

Within the increasingly Christian South—where community-centred readings of Scripture are normative and worldviews are more free of anti-biblical, secular, atheistic and materialistic philosophical presuppositions—burgeoning, missional Christian communities can relate readily to a biblical theology of covenant, creation and community as a vital, educational, theological introduction to the Bible.
Finally, the recognition and incorporation of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith builds a small, but potentially significant, cultural bridge with the Jewish people.

Conclusion

By aiming at a biblical theology based upon an Hebraic worldview centred upon creation, covenant and community, this Thesis seeks to provide an educational resource inviting people to enter into and comprehend the worldview, culture and theology of the Bible, rather than the worldview, culture and theology of the West.

Throughout history there have been two major understandings of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The first is the indwelling of the transcendent timeless God within the timeless soul of a body/soul, dualistic anthropology. The second is an all-inclusive view in which either everything is God, pantheism, or everything is within God, panentheism. Adventism has traditionally rejected both of these understandings. Adventism teaches a monistic anthropology, denying the indwelling of the soul and a panentheistic point of view. How then is Adventism able to define the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? In order to begin to answer this question it seems fitting to study the prophetic voice of the Adventist church and come to at least an initial interpretation of Ellen White's understanding of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In this article an initial understanding of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will be presented through a limited in-depth chronological study of four significant sources of the writings of Ellen White, rather than a surface study of her entire works. These are excerpts from Steps to Christ, " Growing Up Into Christ " (chapter 8), a letter written to Sister Wessels, Sr., referenced in Special Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, Series A No. 9 pg. 75-80, Desire of Ages, " Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled " (chapter 73), and Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 8 section 5. The results of this study show White's understanding of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as an abiding in Christ through a devotional interpersonal relationship of faith demonstrated most clearly in transformation of character for the Christian believer.

"Our words indicate our thoughts, but our thoughts don't make anything happen…. It's not the same with God." In Speaking the Love of God: An Introduction to the Sacraments, Dr. Jacob W. Wood shows how Christ gives his Church the power to speak with God's voice in the seven sacraments. In this foundational guide to the sacraments, discover the power of the signs and words that transform us by grace and prepare us for glory.

A booklet about the Holy Spirit and the "Spirit filled life". The thesis in this booklet is that it is the Holy Spirit that makes the objective reality of the Word of God and what Jesus has accomplished for us into a subjective reality in the life of the believer; and that the Holy Spirit is necessary for anyone to experience the new life that the New testament talkes about. Some of the subjects being discussed: the Holy Spirit as a person; the gifts and fruit of the Spirit; how to test what's from the Spirit and not; how the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus.

One of the staples of the discipleship diet for the past thirty years in evangelical circles has been the spiritual gift survey. Various shapes and sizes abound (just do a quick internet search), with some robust tests reading like a Christian Meyers-Briggs analysis and others feeling more like a pop quiz out of the back of People Magazine. Regardless of form, Christians have been encouraged to take these surveys in an effort to discern their roles within the body of Christ. Whether required in a membership class, administered in a small group meeting, or simply referenced in a Sunday sermon, identifying your spiritual gift(s) has become an integral part of Christian discipleship.

Despite the good intentions of disseminating spiritual gift surveys, there are some significant problems with approaching the biblical concept of spiritual gifts through the framework presented by these surveys. In fact, the problems are so significant, the time has come to call for a moratorium on such tools.

Translators have historically held incredible power to influence millions of Bible-readers over the eons. Many impressive developments have occurred in the field of textual criticism and lexicology over the last century. Today we can access dozens of English translations, Greek interlinears, and lexical aids online for free. In no other age have Christians had better access to biblical tools for personal study than today. Even so, rather surprisingly, many Bibles contain wild distortions, especially on texts related to dogmas long ago etched in the stone of infallible tradition. In what follows I intend to expose one of the smoking guns of text tampering as it relates to the holy spirit. I want to delve into the world of how translators go about their task, of how Greek grammar translates into English, and how theology consciously or unconsciously gets injected into translations. In particular, I am interested in exposing one of the most flagrant (mis)translation practices found in virtually all English Bibles: rendering impersonal Greek pronouns as personal in English when referring to the holy spirit. What I present here is neither sectarian nor ground breaking. Anyone who can read Greek can verify what I am saying. I will cite mainstream Trinitarian scholars to backup these very points.

Oxford.  Cambridge.  Harvard.  Princeton.  Yale…  These schools are recognized as some of the most respected universities in the English-speaking world.  George Whitefield, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, D.L. Moody…  These men stand out as some of the most influential Christians in the last 300 years.  What do these two short lists have in common with each other?  These are places and people greatly used in extraordinary movements of the Holy Spirit in recent centuries, and specifically related to collegiate campuses.

Clark H. Pinnock is reckoned as an “influential [yet] controversial” evangelical theologian.  He belonged to the Baptist tradition and worked as a long-time professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. Stanley Grenz observed that Pinnock “has been lauded as an inspiring theological pilgrim by his admirers and condemned as a dangerous renegade by his foes. Yet no story of evangelical theology in the 20th century is complete without the inclusion of his fascinating intellectual journey from quintessential evangelical apologist to anti-Augustinian theological reformist.”

In the Spirit of Life, Moltmann focuses on the personal and shared experience of the Spirit as a point of departure from the regular emphasis on the objective word of the proclamation, and the spiritual institutions of the church. (327) While talking about the efficacy of the Spirit, he notes, “My starting point is that the efficacy of Christ is not without the efficacy of the Spirit, which is its goal; but that the efficacy of the Spirit is nevertheless
distinguishable from the efficacy of Christ, and is not congruent with that or absorbed by it.” As traditionally, Christology and Trinity have been given disproportionate attention over Pneumatology, Moltmann is arguing for a complementary understanding of the two disciplines – Christology and Pneumatology.

The aim of the article is to examine the role of the Holy Spirit in the mission of the Church in the view of the author of the Acts of the Apostles. First, the specificity of Luke’s pneumatology (Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles) was presented in comparison with other synoptics and Paul’s approach to this subject. In comparison with Mathew and Mark, Luke’s teaching about the Holy Spirit is much more developed. The difference between Paul’s and Luke’s pneumatology (in particular Acts) is that the Apostle of Nations presents mainly the work of the Holy Spirit in the believers, whereas Luke demonstrates Holy Spirit in actions through believer’s in the mission of the Church. This activity applies especially to three areas: giving God’s power to serve in the Church, inspiring and directing evangelization, strengthening the Church and encouraging it. At the end of the article the similarities between the teaching on the Holy Spirit in the Acts and in the Gospel according to John.

God the Father is the author and initiator of our salvation. He restores our communion—lost in Adam—by revealing his love for us in Christ’s atonement for our sins through the Holy Spirit and by imputing to us Christ’s righteousness. He does this by the Holy Spirit by means of bringing about the necessary condition to lead us into repentance and into the obedience of faith, which glorifies the Father for his work of mercy.

Irenaeus is an early church father who wrote to formulate Christian doctrine in opposition to the Gnostics. In his thought, the Holy Spirit plays a vital role in the Bible story from creation through to new creation. This essay focuses on his role in the believer as the presence of the age to come - that the indwelling of the Spirit is a deposit of what awaits.

Paradigm: The paper develops a metaphor from the river of Ezekiel 47 to describe the four stages of spiritual movements proposed by Gustavo Gutiérrez and Walter Principe culminating in "the healing of nations."

Thesis: If the Vineyard aspires to become a spiritual movement capable of transforming not just churches but societies and cultures, they must consider founding a distinctively Vineyard college in the liberal arts tradition. Such a college is the Vineyard’s best hope for forming a multi-generation community of sufficient spiritual and intellectual depth to “heal nations” by fulfilling their mission of “proclaiming and practicing the full message and reality of the kingdom of God.”

Support: The paper briefly sketches three possible arguments in defense of this thesis: 1) an argument from scripture, 2) an argument from history, and 3) an argument from Vineyard distinctives.

(Invited Workshop Presentation)

The question concerning the mysticism in Pascal's thought is very complex. This paper aimed to explore this subject by analyzing some very important text, like the Mémorial, the Mystère de Jésus, the 4th letter to Mlle de Roannez and some other pensées. The specific goal is not to draw a doctrine, but rather to show the effort made by the philosopher of a correspondence between the development of a personal experience of the sacred and his whole theological thought and spiritual practices.

In this article, the passages about demon-possession in John (7:20; 8:44, 48; 10:19-21) are considered from an anthropological perspective. Scholars often interpret these passages by referring to Johannine theology. Yet, the anthropological theories of possession show that the notion of possession has sociological aspects as well. To be possessed by a demon and be filled with a spirit can be regarded as two dimensions of possession, and they serve to enhance social status. Viewed in this light, by accusing Jesus of being demon-possessed, Jesus' opponents reinforce their established status. On the other hand, John depicts Jesus as being possessed by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, Jesus' followers have enhanced their social status by claiming to be possessed by the same spirit and identifying themselves as a spirit-possessed community. The article concludes that the Johannine notion of possession is not simply a description but much more than that, it is a language of identification.

Lo Spirito è uno dei termini più importanti dell’epistolario di Paolo, impiegato soprattutto nella riflessione antropologica, etica, noetica ed escatologica. Paolo pensa allo Spirito come una dynamis che agisce nella vita di ciascun credente, in quella della Chiesa e di tutto il creato, in vista della piena ed universale realizzazione della salvezza, la quale è sinonimo di vita nuova ed eterna, in comunione con Dio, quando il suo Spirito pervaderà ogni realtà esistente.

In contemporary theological discourse, the Western doctrine of the Trinity, as articulated by figures like Thomas Aquinas, is commonly criticized on the grounds that it presupposes an underdeveloped theology of the Holy Spirit that denies the third person of the Trinity the fullness of divine personhood. This paper will demonstrate that the standard critique of the Western doctrine of the Holy Spirit springs from a misapprehension of the term ‘person’ as it is traditionally used to refer to the divine persons. In offering a counter-narrative concerning the nature of divine personhood—and a corrective reading of Aquinas’ thought—this paper will aim to throw into relief the full personhood of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, it will suggest that some of the key critiques of Western Trinitarian doctrine that are thereby resolved may actually be said to apply to the work of its critics.

In dit artikel beschrijf ik de rol die de heilige Geest speelt in het leven van Jezus tot en met zijn hemelvaart en de uitstorting van de Geest op Pinksteren. Vervolgens maak ik zichtbaar dat er een analogie is met het werk van de heilige Geest in het leven van de gelovigen. Zoals het leven van Jezus uitloopt op de hemelvaart en de uitstorting van de Geest, zo vinden we in de brieven op meerdere plaatsen een bespreking van de gaven van de Geest. Deze benadering maakt het mogelijk zicht te krijgen op de betekenis van de vervulling met de Geest, onderscheiden van bekering en waterdoop.