One of my greatest struggles with Christianity is coming to an understanding of the Holy Spirit. I can understand the role of God the Father and the role of God the Son, but understanding the role and person of the Holy Spirit has always left me less than satisfied. It is for this reason that I have chosen to examine the role of the Holy Spirit. My hope is that my study can allow some of you to have a fuller grasp of why we must rely on the Holy Spirit’s guidance and leading as we build up this community of believers.
I have chosen four roles which I believe best encapsulate the function and person of the Holy Spirit. My wish here is not to limit the Holy Spirit to these four roles; I believe that there are an infinite number of ways in which the Spirit may choose to work. Rather, my intent is to create a groundwork for understanding four of the basic functions the Holy Spirit carries out on this earth.
The Holy Spirit is the person of God who is the active agent in this world through whom all of mankind is directed toward God. Even this basic statement creates a number of questions by which my reader may be distracted; questions regarding the nature of the trinity, God’s involvement in this world, and God’s interaction with non-Christian persons. I cannot begin to explore these questions in this paper, but I do acknowledge that these are reasonable lines of inquiry.
As an active agent, the Holy Spirit works in at least four distinct ways. First the Holy Spirit works to draw the pre-repentant individual toward God. The Holy Spirit works to diversify the kingdom of God through individual giftings. The Holy Spirit works to bond the Church together through baptism and communion with God. Finally, the Holy Spirit works to reveal the will of God to the seeking post-repentant individual and community.
Drawing man toward God
There is debate as to whether God the Holy Spirit can interact with a pre-repentant individual. I would argue that it is impossible for the pre-repentant individual to find salvation in Christ without the urging of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works to draw the pre-repentant individual toward God. I would further argue that God does not give up on anyone and the Holy Spirit will continue to knock on the door of the hearts of all those who have not turned toward God until their hearts cease beating.
Rick Richardson does an excellent job of presenting several theologies of evangelism in his book Evangelism Outside the Box. In one section, Richardson focuses on John Wesley’s four steps into the Kingdom of God. The first step and the step that is the focus of this section is the awakening of the soul. After the soul has been awakened to the concept of and desire for God, the individual can move on to experiencing Wesley’s final three steps: community, conversion and transformation (pp. 54-55).
In his book, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, John Piper argues that the soul is awakened through the human act of preaching (p 62). Piper seems to imply that the Holy Spirit may work through the preacher, but the Holy Spirit does not work directly on the pre-repentant individual; there must be an intermediary step.
On the contrary, I would argue that the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of working on a pre-repentant individual’s heart in order to awaken them to a desire to search out God. There seem to be many cases of this presented throughout history and two mammoth cases presented in the Bible, one in each testament. In the Old Testament, there is the case of God hardening pharaoh’s heart in regards to the release of the Israelites from Egyptian captivity (Exodus 7-14). The second obvious case is Saul on the road to Damascus when God worked directly in awakening Saul to the Gospel of Christ (Acts 9).
The Holy Spirit seems to be at work in awakening the pre-repentant individual and drawing them toward God. The Holy Spirit is free to do this in any way that God (the trinity) deems appropriate. Often times the Holy Spirit will gift a post-repentant Christian ahead of time to be ready to play a role in the awakening of a pre-repentant individual’s soul. This gifting is the role of the Holy Spirit which is the next topic for our discussion.
Diversifying the Kingdom on earth
In The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky writes: “The work of Christ concerns human nature…[t]he work of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, concerns persons, being applied to each one differently.” Lossky goes on to say, “the work of Christ unifies; the work of the Holy Spirit diversifies. Yet the one is impossible without the other.” (pp 166-167)
The Holy Spirit diversifies the Kingdom of God on earth through the bestowment of spiritual gifts. I believe that God gifts every Christian to best minister to the community that God has placed him or her in. We do not get to choose our gifting, nor do we get to limit God in what he is able to gift. God gifts to meet His needs. It is our responsibility to be in constant communion with God, searching out how we can best use these giftings to minister to our small slice of the world.
In the modern culture that has existed for the last two hundred years, with its emphasis on science and logic, there has not been as much need for God to gift his children with the gift of tongues or healing or exorcism. To a modern culture, these are not effective means of ministry. Therefore, it does not surprise me at all that we see a limited gifting in these areas. I suspect that as we move into a post-enlightenment society, a society that focuses more on spirituality and dichotomous truths, God will begin to gift people more and more with the gift of tongues, healing or exorcism, as these giftings will once again become useful for ministry.
Karkkainen, in his work on Pneumatology, suggests that the Eastern Church (and Lossky in particular) put too much emphasis on the idea of a twofold divine economy: the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit (pp 17, 109). I agree to the extent that the ultimate power residing in these two economies comes from the same place. I would suggest that viewing the works of Christ and of the Holy Spirit separately is merely a tool that fallible human beings can use to begin to understand the infinite infallibility of God.
Bonding the Church together
The Holy Spirit bonds the church together through baptism and through both individual and corporate communion with God. It is at this point that we, as Quakers, differentiate ourselves from other Christian denominations. The other denominations will agree that there is a spiritual aspect to both baptism and communion, but they will not place such an emphasis on the Holy Spirit’s work in both baptism and communion as to reject all physical ceremony that goes these works.
The thirteenth proposition in Robert Barclay’s Apology For the True Christian Divinity reads:
“The communion of the body and blood of Christ is inward and spiritual, which is the participation of his flesh and blood, by which the inward man is daily nourished in the hearts of those in whom Christ dwells; of which things the breaking of bread by Christ with his disciples was a figure, which they even used in the church for a time, who had received the substance, for the cause of the weak; even as “abstaining from things strangled, and from blood;” the washing one another’s feet, and the anointing of the sick with oil; all which are commanded with no less authority and solemnity than the former; yet seeing they are but the shadows of better things, they cease in such as have obtained the substance.”
Communion is fellowship with God. This can and should occur at both an individual and a corporate level. Centering upon the Holy Spirit is the means by which we have this fellowship with God.
Baptism is also an inward and spiritual event performed by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3:5-6) It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that Christ left us after his ascension to heaven, that births us into a new life.
These acts of communion and baptism bond the church together into unity under the banner of God. Lossky drives this point home when he writes, “the spirit is present with everyone who receives Him as if there were but one receiver, but bestows sufficient and complete grace on all” (p. 166). Few Christians would disagree with this statement or the idea that the Holy Spirit is actively involved in each of these events. The only disagreement that our heritage brings to the table, is the question of the necessity of physical elements. Even this disagreement can be viewed as minor. Leonard J. Vander Zee, the reformed author of Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper wrote, “[t]he sacraments have no capacity to affect us in any way apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in awakening and assuring our faith through them.” (p. 55)
Revealing the will of God
Finally, the Holy Spirit works to reveal the will of God to the seeking post-repentant believer and to the seeking Church. In Acts 6, a dispute came up over how to distribute food to the widows. The Apostles needed to do other ministries so they appointed others to oversee the distribution of food. When these men were selected, the Apostles prayed and laid their hands on them. A problem came up that needed to be dealt with carefully. The church prayed and the Holy Spirit provided a solution. The best way to deal with the controversy was given to the Apostles because they kept their focus on God and his will.
The post-repentant believer can ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit just as easily as the pre-repentant individual. When we ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit, we attempt to accomplish what we believe is best for God. When we keep our focus on the leading of the Holy Spirit, we can accomplish what God thinks is best.
The root of most sin is the attempt to supplant God’s will with our own. When the believer stays centered on the leading of the Holy Spirit we lessen the frequency of our sinfulness. The less sinful we are, the more God is able to accomplish through us. This does not limit what God is capable of accomplishing, it just limits how useful we can be to accomplishing God’s will.
The individual or community that is not actively seeking the will of God can never be a success for God. The only way we can measure our success is against the ruler of what God wanted us to accomplish. God communicates this standard to us via the Holy Spirit. When we seek out guidance from the Holy Spirit, we are able to understand where we are trying to go, how we can get there, and whether or not we eventually arrive.
This brief position paper cannot begin to touch on the other roles the person of the Holy Spirit has played over the centuries or will possibly play in the future. It is important to consider the roles the Holy Spirit played in creation, the various covenants, Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection, the early church, and church history up to modern times.
I would argue that the Holy Spirit has played many roles over the course of human existence. The four roles I have touched on here are the roles that I believe the Holy Spirit plays most prominently in our contemporary age. How the Holy Spirit fulfills these roles, and even the roles themselves, may change over time. I believe that at any time and/or place, the Holy Spirit functions in the way that will best allow God’s children to minister to the communities around them.
In our contemporary society, the Holy Spirit draws, diversifies, bonds and reveals in ways that are very specific to our culture. As we go out and share the Gospel of Christ with the world, I would suggest that we pay particular attention to how the Holy Spirit wishes us to engage with different cultures. Different cultures have different needs, but the Holy Spirit is big enough to meet all of our divergent needs.
Works Cited and Consulted
Barclay, Robert. Apology for the True Christian Divinity. Public Domain: 1675.
Copeland, Mark A. “The Leading of the Holy Spirit”. Sermon series. http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_outlines/hs/hs_09.htm.
Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. Pneumatology. Baker Academy, MI: 2002
Lossky, Vladimir. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, NY: 1976.
Piper, John. The Supremacy of God in Preaching. BakerBooks, MI: 1990
Richardson, Rick. Evangelism Outside the Box. InterVarsity, IL: 2000
Vander Zee. Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. InterVarsity, IL: 2004.
Wright, J. Robert. “Holy Spirit in Holy Church: From Experience to Doctrine”. Angelican Theological Review. Summer 01, Vol. 83 Issue 3, p443, 12p.
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