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87
BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT: THE ISSUE OF SEPARABILITY
Gordon
Article 7 of the “Statement constitution
blies of God reveals:
and
by-laws
of the General
AND
SUBSEQUENCE
D. Fee*
of Fundamental Truths” in the
Council of the Assem-
expect baptism
All believers are entitled to and should
and
ardently
earnestly
seek the
promise
of the Father, the
in the
Holy
Ghost and
fire, according
to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal
ministry (Luke 24:49;
experience
11 :14-16 ; 15:7-9).
sentiment should be
noted,
reflects
experience
of all in the
early
Christian church. With it comes the enduement of power for life and
service,
the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the
Acts
1:4,8; I Corinthians 12:1-31). This
experience
is distinct from and
subsequent
to the
of the new birth
(Acts 8:12-17; 10:44-46;
expressed
in this
statement,
to Pentecostalism.
Rather,
groups, reaching
it it at in
The
theological
is not
unique
a classical view of
many pietistic
least as far back as early
Methodism,
and found
subsequently various holiness and
deeper
life
movements, namely
that there is for all believers a “baptism in the
Holy Spirit,”
which is separate from and
sequential
to the initial
experience
of conversion. Indeed two of the best known defenses of this
position
were written
by
none other than the first
president
of
Moody
Bible
R.A.
Torrey,
and one of the founders of Gordon-
Institute, Conwell
baptism
empowering-for-service
A.J. Gordon.’ The
uniquely
construct was to
sign
that such a
separate timing itself,
Theological Seminary,
Pentecostal contribution to this
theological
insist on the
gift
of
tongues
as the evidential
had indeed taken
place,
and to insist on the
dimension of the
experience.2
Since Pentecostals
experienced
their
“baptism”
after their conversion
they
have also
regularly argued
for the biblical nature of both their
experience
of
baptism
and its
timing (as
and
subsequent).
And since
they
tend to make the
of the
experience
of
equal significance
to the
experience
those who have
opposed
the Pentecostal
position
have also
generally
believed themselves to have dealt a crippling blow to the Pentecostalism when
they
have
argued exegetically
its
timing (as
the Pentecostals
express it).3
against
1
88
The
purpose
of this
present paper
is to
open
the
question
of separability
and
subsequence
once
again,
and
(1)
to
suggest
that there is in fact
very
little biblical
support
for the traditional Pentecostal
position
on this
matter,
but
(2)
to
argue
further that this is of little real
consequence
to the doctrine of the
baptism
in the
Holy Spirit,
either as to the
validity
of the
experience
itself or to its articulation.
I. The Pentecostal
and the
Baptism
in the
Spirit
In order to understand the doctrine of
“subsequence”
one must first
try
to understand the Pentecostals themselves – and how this doctrinal stance came to be so cherished.
Pentecostals have often been accused
of exegeting
their own experience
and then
looking
to the Bible to
support
it. In
part this
may
be true; but it is important to know
why they
have done so. On the one hand, their
experience
itself has been so empowering,
so
thoroughly life-changing,
both in terms of personal
obedience to God and readiness and
empowerment
for witness,
that
they instinctively
know that it must be of God – and therefore must be biblical.
But
since,
on the other hand, for them that
experience
was subsequent
to their
conversion, they
turned to the New Testa- ment for the basis both of the
experience
itself and its
timing. Their reasons for this are clear. All the
early
Pentecostals carried with them to their
experience
the traditional Protestant view of Scripture, as inspired of the
Spirit
and made effective
by the
Spirit through Spirit-anointed preaching.
Thus the Pente- costals felt a
great urgency
to
verify
their
experience by
the interpretation
of
Scripture.
For them the Bible was still
central; and since their own
experience
of the
Spirit
was so
vital, they knew that the God of the Bible and the God of their
experience had to be one God. Hence
they automatically expected
to find the evidence for their
experience
in
Scripture.
Their under- standing
of Scripture,
therefore,
seemed both reasonable – and
perfectly plain.
In the course of
articulating
this
experience biblically,
how- ever, they
felt a special urgency to
press
for all the
aspects
of the experience –
not
only
the
experience itself,
but also
especially its
necessity
as a work of grace subsequent to salvation. But in so doing, they exposed
their flanks to some
exegetical
and herme- neutical weaknesses; and
they
ended
up trying
to
persuade others of the
rightness
of their
experience
on
grounds
different from their own
experience
of the
Spirit.
2
89
The Pentecostal
experience historically
came out of a
deep dissatisfaction with
“things
as
they
are” in
light
of
“things
as they
were” in the New Testament
church, plus
a deep spiritual hunger
for the latter.
They belonged
to that tradition of
piety that cried out, “0 God, fill me with
yourself
and
your power
or I die.” Out of that
hunger
and
cry, they experienced
a
mighty encounter with God the
Holy Spirit.
Then
they
turned around (especially
in the second
generation)
and tried to
bring others, many
of whom did not share the same dissatisfaction or
deep spiritual hunger,
to their same
experience through
the more cerebral route of a biblical
apologetic; they
thus
became,
in a sense,
a kind of
living
contradiction.
What I
hope
to show in the rest of this
paper
is that the Pentecostals are
generally right
on
biblically
as to their
expe- rience of the
Spirit.
Their difficulties arose from the
attempt
to defend it
biblically
at the
wrong point.
It should be noted here that the biblical
support
for the concepts
of
separability
and
subsequence
is
basically
twofold: ( 1 )
The use of biblical
analogies (Jesus himself,
who was born of the
Spirit
and was
subsequently
anointed of the
Spirit
at his baptism,
and the
apostles,
who had Jesus breathe on them on Easter
Day [interpreted
as regeneration] and were
subsequently baptized
in the
Spirit
at
Pentecost);
and
(2)
the use of biblical precedent
in the Book of Acts
(in Samaria [Acts 8],
in Paul
[Acts 9],
and in
Ephesus [Acts 19]).
Although
some
things
can be said in our favor for some of this,
there are some clear
exegetical/
hermeneutical weaknesses in the classical
presentation:
1. Arguments from biblical
analogies
are
especially
tenuous. They may
function well in preaching, but for
theology they
serve less
well,
for at least two reasons:
a. The whole
question of intentionality
becomes a crucial one here. It can seldom be demonstrated that our
analogies
are intentional in the biblical text
itself,
as it was
inspired by
the Holy Spirit.
Indeed it is more
likely
that
they
are irrelevant altogether.
b. Furthermore, it will be difficult to
gain
universal
agree- ment on
what,
in
fact,
in the biblical text does serve as an appropriate analogy.
It seems to me that no one can
easily deny the
importance
of the descent of the
Spirit
on Jesus at his baptism.
But it will be
equally
difficult to
get very many people to see the
appropriateness
of the
relationship
of that event to his birth as an
analogy
for
subsequent
Christian
experience.
Like- wise,
the
uniqueness
of the event of Pentecost in Salvation
3
90
history,
not to mention the
exegetical
difficulties of demon- strating
that John 20:22 refers to a
regenerational experience, makes that
analogy equally
tenuous –
although, again,
who will
deny
the
significance
of the event of Pentecost for the apostolic ministry.
Analogies, therefore,
are
just
that –
analogies.
But
they
can scarcely
be treated as the biblical stuff on which to build Christian
theology.
2. On the second matter, the function of biblical
precedent
for the construction of Christian
theology,
I have
already
had much to
say.4 4
Let me here
repeat my
own conclusions. Events narrated in
Scripture
that have clear divine
approbation,
and especially
when there is a
repeated pattern,
have the
highest level of
viability
as
repeatable patterns
in the
ongoing
church. The
problem
occurs when one would elevate such
patterns
to be mandatory patterns – necessarily repeated,
or otherwise one is sub-biblical in some
way.
Moreover,
in the case of the three narratives of Acts, there are some
exegetical
concerns as well, as to whether
they
intend what Pentecostals see in them. For
example,
it is extremely unlikely, despite
his use of mathetai to describe
them,
that Luke intended us to see the
people
in Acts 19 as Christians in
any real.sense, especially
since
they
knew
nothing
of the
coming
of the
Spirit, the sine
qua
non of
truly
Christian
experience,
and since
they receive Christian
baptism
at this
point, implying
that their previous baptism
was not Christian.
The narratives of the Samaritan’s and Paul’s conversions do indeed reflect the
coming
of the
Spirit
as
subsequent
to what appears
to be the actual
experience
of conversion. But the problems
here are several. In the Samaritan
case,
for
example, Luke
actually says
the
Spirit
does not come on them until the laying
on of the
apostles’
hands. In order to
square
this with Paul’s statements in Romans 8, James Dunn has
argued
that Luke does not consider them to be
genuine
believers before that.5 But that seems to run
aground
on the rest of
linguistic evidence used to describe them
prior
to the
laying
on of
hands, all of which is Lukan
language
for Christian conversion.6 Indeed the resolution to this tension is most
likely
to be found at the
linguistic
level. One
simply
must not
press
Luke’s
phenomeno- logical
use of Spirit
language
into service for
theological precision. Although
Luke
says otherwise,
we may assume the Samaritans and Paul to have become believers in the Pauline sense
–
that without the
Spirit they
are none of His. For
Luke, however,
the phenomenological expressions
of the
Spirit’s presence
are what
4
91
and,
almost
of” or
“filling
with” the
Spirit.
the Pentecostals do seem to have precedent,
for
subsequence
for
tongues
evidence. But is this
single precedent
divine
pattern,
or is
it,
as most New Testament
a
unique
event in the
early history?
it serve as a better
precedent
than Cornelius
And in
any
or
scholar, I have
against
some in no sense
matter,
after
all,
is neither
into that has biblical
validity.
he describes as the “coming
Thus in the case of Samaria, a biblical both certainly,
as the intended
scholars think,
case, why
does
Ephesus?
In thus
arguing,
cherished Pentecostal abandoned
to
point
out some understanding
subsequence
nor
tongues,
presence; question
of
Spirit-baptism –
as a New Testament
interpretations,
what is essential to Pentecostalism. I have
only
tried
inherent flaws in some of our historic
of texts. The essential
but the
Spirit
himself as
dynamic, empowering
and there seems to me to be little
that our
way
of initiation
–
through
an experience
Whether all must
go
that route seems to me to be more moot; but in
any
the Pentecostal
experience
itself can be defended on
as a thoroughly biblical
phenomenon.
And
that I now turn.
case, exegetical to
grounds
II. The
Holy Spirit
in the New Testament
differentiates
if there is one
thing
that
century
and
experience
of the
Ask
any
number of
to define or
life,
and the most
of
I think it is fair to note that
the
early
church from its twentieth
counterpart,
it is in the level of awareness
and
power
of the
Holy Spirit.
from all sectors of Christendom
conversion or Christian
feature of that definition would be its
general
lack
role of the
Spirit.
in the New Testament. The
Spirit
is
he is the sine
qua
non, the essential
life. Nor is he a mere datum of theology;
as
powerfully present
in their lives.
be said of the
early church, they
were first
of the
Spirit.
In order for us to understand them on this matter, we must appreciate
the
essentially eschatological
and of their
understanding
of the
Spirit.
can
fully appreciate,
the
Spirit
was an
the clear
evidence,
the sure
sign,
that the
had set the future
presence
people today
describe Christian
noticeable
emphasis
on the active,
dynamic
It is precisely the
opposite no mere addendum. No, ingredient
of Christian
rather he is
experienced, Whatever else
may
and foremost
people
ence,
way
that
very
few of us eschatological reality – New
Age really
had
dawned,
nature
of their exist- For them, in a
that God
5
92
inexorably
in motion, to be consummated
by
a second
coming of the Messiah. Thus for Paul the
Spirit
was the
arrabin, the down
payment,
the
deposit,
on the future
reality
that was itself guaranteed by
the down
payment (2 Cor. 1 :21-22 ; Eph. 1:13-14). And for Luke the
outpouring
of the
Spirit
on the
Day
of Pentecost was the
eschatological
fulfillment of the
prophecy
of Joel. So much was this so that in the Joel
quotation
in the Peter speech
he alters the words “after these
things”
to “in the last days.”‘
Such an
understanding,
of
course,
is a reflection of contem- porary expectations,
which were based on a twofold under- standing
of messianic
hopes: ( 1)
that in the New
Age
the Messiah would be the
unique
bearer of the
Spirit,
as
expressed in the
prophecies
of Isaiah
11:1-2; 42:1; and 61:1-3 (thus reflecting
one of the Old Testament motifs of the
Spirit,
that he was
necessary
for
leadership
in
Israel);
and
(2)
that a part of the New Covenant that would be ratified in the New
Age
would be the
outpouring
of the
Spirit
on all of God’s
people (e.g.
Ezekiel 36:26-27;
Joel 2:28-30, thus
reflecting
the other Old Testament motif that the
Spirit
was
responsible
for all
genuine prophecy).
These
eschatological expectations
had been intensified dur- ing
the intertestamental
period by
a theology of the
“quenched Spirit,”
in which the was seen as time in which there was no
Spirit
in the land
–
present
hence the failure of the succession of the prophets8 –
and in which the
Spirit
was thus
pushed
into the future as the ultimate
expression
of the
Coming Age.
It is precisely within this context that we are to understand the ministry
of John the
Baptist. According
to
Luke,
he was filled with the
Spirit
from birth
( 1:15),
and he grew and became
strong in the
Spirit (1 :80),
thus
indicating
a renewal of the
prophetic tradition. In his own announcement of the
coming
Messiah the two
great prophetic
themes combine: “I saw the
Spirit
come down from heaven as 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” (John 1:32-33).
Thus in Luke
3:16,
when asked whether he himself was the
promised Messiah,
he
emphatically
denied it in terms of the
Spirit
which the Messiah would
pour
out on all people:
“I
baptize
with water. But one more
powerful
than I will come … He will
baptize you
with the
Holy Spirit
and with fire.” John thus coined the term,
“baptism
in the
Holy Spirit,”
as a metaphor
taken from his own
sphere
of activity; and he did so in order to contrast his own
ministry
with that of the Messiah who
6
93
the
prophetic
hope, of course,
would usher in the New
Age,
the
age
of the
Spirit. Although
had in it the
promise
of the
Spirit
for all
people individually,
that is not the
emphasis
in the
metaphor itself. Rather it is John’s
way
of speaking of the Messiah’s most essential
quality, namely
that he would usher in the messianic age
as the
age
of the
Spirit.
Thus the
Spirit
in the New Testament is an
eschatological reality.
The
Spirit belongs
to the
Future,
to the
coming
of the New
Age.
This is the
key
to
everything
in the New Testament. What is essential to
understanding
the
ministry
of Jesus is that He announced that with his own
coming
the
Kingdom
of
God, the New
Age
of righteousness and justice, had
already begun.
In the
synagogue
at
Nazareth,
the messianic
prophecy
of Isaiah 61 : 1,
that the
Spirit
would rest
upon
the Messiah to
bring justice and the time of God’s favor, is announced to be fulfilled “in
your hearing” (Luke 4:16-21).
When accused of
casting
out demons by
the
power
of
Beelzebul,
he
announces,
“If I by the
Spirit
of God cast out demons, then the
Kingdom (the Rule)
of God has come
present upon you.”
The
Spirit
is crucial to all of this. For Jesus
himself,
divine though
he
is, the key
to his
truly
human life was the
presence
and fullness of the
Spirit (Luke 4:14, 16; 5:17;
Acts
2:22; 10:38). With
him,
the Messiah – the one
uniquely
anointed with the Spirit
and
power –
had come. But is was
only
the
dawning
of the New
Age,
the
beginning
of the
End,
the
inauguration
of the Rule.
Therefore,
the
power
is
there,
but it is held in tension as veiled
power –
there for
others,
while he himself
experienced weakness, servanthood, deprivation,
and
finally
crucifixion. This is followed
by
resurrection.
Surely
now comes the End: “Will
you
now restore the
kingdom
to Israel?” That’s the
wrong question,
Jesus
implies.
It is for
you
to receive
power,
when the Spirit
comes,
so that
you may
be witnesses to me.
It is in the context of all this that we are to understand the outpouring
on the
day
of Pentecost. Above all
else,
the
coming of the
Spirit
meant that God’s
people
also had been ushered into the New
Age.
“This is
that,”
shouts Peter. “The
Spirit
is
here; the New
Age
has
begun.”
What we must understand is that the
Spirit
was the
chief element,
the
primary ingredient,
of this new existence. For them,
is was not
merely
a matter of
getting saved, forgiven, prepared
for heaven. It was above all else to receive the
Spirit,
to walk into the New
Age with power. They simply
would not have understood our Pentecostal
terminology – “Spirit-filled
Chris- tian.” That would be like
saying
“Scandinavian Swede.”
They
7
94
simply
did not think of Christian initiation as a
two-stage process.
For
them,
to be Christian meant to have the
Spirit,
to be a “Spirit person.” To be
“spiritual,” therefore,
did not mean to be some kind of
special Christian,
a Christian elitist
(except perhaps
at Corinth, where that was their For
– failure).
them,
to be
spiritual
meant to be a Christian not over
against
a nominal
(or carnal, etc.) Christian,
but over
against
a non- Christian,
one who does not have the
Spirit.
The evidence for this is thoroughgoing in the New Testament. In Luke-Acts
everywhere
it is the
presence
of the
Spirit
that marks off the
people
of the New
Age.
That is exactly the
point
of Paul’s
question
in Acts 19:2.
They
were
obviously
not Chris- tians because the one essential
ingredient
was
missing.
So also in John. It is the
Spirit
that will mark the
people
who believe and who are thus destined for eternal life
(John 7:37-39; etc.).
And of course in Paul it is everywhere. In I Corinthians
12:13,
when
trying
to establish how it is that all of them have become one
body
in he singles out two
–
Christ, metaphors for fullness of the
Spirit
all have been immersed in the same
reality, Spirit, and all have been made to drink to the fill of the same
reality, Spirit.
In
Galatians,
to counter the
heresy
of the
Judaizers, at the start of the
argument proper
in
chapter 3,
he asks the one crucial
question:
“I would like to learn
just
one
thing
from
you; Did
you
receive the
Spirit by observing
the
Law,
or
by believing what
you
heard?” This was
clearly
his
way
of asking about their experience
of
becoming
Christians. So also in I Corinthians 2:6-16,
where he is setting out a contrast between the Christian and
non-Christian,
as to
why
one can
penetrate
to the wisdom of the cross while the other cannot. The reason is that one has the Spirit;
the other does not. That is, one is a Christian; the other is not.
Likewise,
in Romans
8, the whole point
is that there are two kinds of existence: the one, kata sarka, means to live under the old
order,
under
Law;
the
other, kata pneuma,
describes life as it is lived in the New
Age (cf.
2 Cor.
5:14-17).
Thus the basic imperative
for Paul is not “Love one
another,”
but is found in Galatians 5:16: “Walk in the
Spirit.”
Note, finally,
that nowhere does the New Testament
say,
“Get saved,
and then be filled with the
Spirit.”
To
them, getting saved,
which included
repentance
and
forgiveness obviously, meant
especially
to be filled with the
Spirit.
That all believers in Christ are
Spirit-filled
is the
presupposition
of the New Testament writers. Thus the
imperative is, “Keep
on
being
full of the
Holy Spirit” (Eph. 5 :18).
On this
analysis
of
things,
it seems to
me,
all New Testament
8
scholars factor
95
would be in general agreement. that must be
noted,
and
perhaps
with me. Because for most Christians
the
community,
presence. interchangeable.9
quiet, pervasive phenomenological dynamic quality, phenomena. about;
evidence;
Holy Spirit Apostles gave Acts. Christians was
But there is one further
here some will
part
in the
history
of
as
company
church the
Spirit
was believed in but
scarcely experienced a
powerful presence,
either in the individual life or in the
there
grew up
the idea that the
Spirit
was a quiet, unobtrusive
presence.
For the earliest
Christians,
it was
quite the
opposite.
The
Spirit
was
always thought
of as a
powerful
Indeed the terms
Spirit
and Power at times are
nearly
For them life in Christ meant life in the
Spirit, and that meant life characterized
by power,
not
simply by
some
force. The
coming
of the
Spirit
had
life was characterized
by
a
evidenced as often as not
by extraordinary
The
Spirit
was not someone one believed in or
he was
experienced, powerfully experienced
in the life of the church. Thus Acts
1:8,
“You shall receive
power
when the
comes
upon you;”
Acts
4:33,
“with
great power
the
witness to the
resurrection;”
and
throughout
On the
Day
of Pentecost what
happened
to the first
was
something
one could see and hear
(Acts 2:33);
it
the
visible, phenomenological dimension of the Spirit
that Simon wanted to
buy (Acts 8);
and in Cornelius’ household the
of the
Spirit visibly
and
phenomenologically
is what convinced Peter and his
companions
that the Gentiles too had
the
promise
of life. Such a view of the
Spirit
was normal for them. Indeed that such is the
presupposition
of the
early church is the
only way
one can make sense of 1 Thessalonians
and I Corinthians 12-14. These are not isolated
anymore
than the Lord’s
in the Pauline churches. It was the
abuse,
of what was normal that called for the corrective.
coming
received
5:19-22 occurrences, occurrence distortion,
Supper
is an isolated
or
triumphalism (the power
was often veiled
the
Pentecostals’ ability
to correctly,
with their adequate
norm
lives
Thus the
Spirit
was not
only
the essential matter of the
early believers’
understanding
of their
eschatological existence,
but he was
powerfully present among
them. This was no false
Corinthian
error).
As with their
Lord,
their
in weakness
(see
1 Cor.
2:1-5;
2 Cor. 12:1-12),
but it was manifest
power
nonetheless.
read the New Testament existence so
Indeed,
it was
frustration over the less-than-
in their own
along
of anemia that
they experienced
and in the church around
them,
that led to their
seeking
for the New Testament
experience
in the first
place.
The
question, of course, is, if that was the
norm,
what
happened
to the church
9
96
that an
understanding and
subsequent
lies.
in the
succeeding generations.?
of the Pentecostal
Historical
It is in
pursuit
of that
question
experience
as separate
Reasons for the Rise of a
III. Some
Suggested
and
Subsequent Experience
Separate
that most Pentecostals
square
was not in fact Christian,
but was
necessary
to go back
questions. disallows
reforming solution, the
components
me that the
components
have
with the biblical is that it does not seem to
in the
Spirit,
which
or
becoming
a
to”
The
problem
data as it has
just
been
presented
with their own
powerful experience
a
part
of their
conversion,
in fact
“separate
from and
subsequent that conversion. Is their
experience
then not biblical? or is it
and
reinterpret
the bibilical data to
square it with our
experience?
I would
argue
no to both of those
The
typical evangelical
or reformed
exegete
who
a
separate
and
subsequent experience simply
must hide
his/ her
head in the sand,
ostrich-like,
to
deny
the – the biblical
–
reality
reality
of what has
happened
to so
many Christians. On the other hand, the Pentecostal must be
wary
of
the biblical data to fit his or her own
experience.
The
it seems to me, lies in two areas:
( 1 ) An examination of
of Christian conversion as
they emerge
in the New
Testament,
and
(2)
an
analysis
of what
happened
to Christian
experience
once the church entered into a second and third
generation
of believers.
A. Without
belaboring any
of the
points
in detail, it seems to
of Christian conversion that
emerge from the New Testament data are five:
of
sin,
with the
consequent
Christ. This, all
agree,
is the
prior
work of the
Holy Spirit
that leads to conversion.
2. The
application
of the atonement in the
person’s
the
forgiveness
of the
past,
the
cancelling
of the debt of sin. I would tend to
put repentance
here as a
part
of the
the
prior grace
of
God,
which is also effected
by
the
1. The actual conviction of the individual to
including
response
to
birth,
4. The
empowerment miraculous, plus
drawing
life,
to
gifts
and the
Spirit.
3. The
regenerating
work of the
Holy Spirit
that
gives
new
that
brings
forth the new creation.
for
life,
with
openness
obedience to mission. This is the
component that Pentecostals want to make
subsequent
to numbers I to
3,
tradition wants to limit
simply
to fruit
but tends at times
seemingly
to omit
altogether.
and that the Protestant and
growth,
10
97
5.The believer’s
response
to all this is
baptism
in
water,
the offering
of oneself back to God for life and service in his new
age community,
the church. This act
obviously
carries with it the rich
symbolism
of elements 2 and 3
(forgiveness
and regeneration),
but in itself effects neither.
Obviously,
not all will
agree
with this assessment of
things. But this is one New Testament scholar’s
understanding
of the varied forms in which the biblical data come to us. The crucial
item in all of this for the
early
church was the work of the
Spirit; and element 4, the
dynamic empowering
dimension with
gifts, miracles,
and
evangelism (along
with fruit and
growth),
was a normal
part
of their
expectation
and
experience.
B. The
problem
lies with what
happened
to element 4 in the subsequent history
of the church. The fact that it effectively got lost can
scarcely
be denied. Christian life came to consist of conversion without
empowering, baptism
without
obedience, grace
without love. Indeed the whole Calvinist-Arminian debate is
predicated
on this
reality,
that
people
can be in the church,
but evidence little or
nothing
of the work of the
Spirit
in their lives.
Cheap grace,
Bonhoeffer called it. That such so- called Christian life exists can not
only
not be
denied,
but one may
have
ruefully
to admit that it represents the vast
majority
of believers in the
history
of the church.
However, surely
no one will
argue
that such should be the norm – even if it is now
quite normal. The
question is,
how did such an
understanding
of Christian life and
experience
come into existence?
The answer seems to be twofold: First, it needs to be noted that the New Testament documents are for the most
part
all written to first
generation
adult converts and therefore
simply do not describe or address the needs of the second and third generation.
What we have described above as the normal Christian
experience
was in fact normal for
converts,
those about whom the Acts is written and to whom Paul’s letters were written. But for a second or third
generation,
who
grow up
in Christian
homes,
conversion is seldom so
life-changing
–
nor would I
argue
that it
necessarily
can or should be. But what happens
is that the
dynamic, experiential quality
of the Christian
life,
as life in the
Spirit,
also seems to be the first element to
go.
Thus there arose a generation that “never knew about the
empowering
of the
Holy Spirit.”
Secondly,
and
by
far the more
devastating,
was the eventual tie of the
gift
of the
Spirit
to water
baptism,
a tie that one is hard-pressed
to find in any of the biblical date. 10 And then when bapti.sm
is eventually transferred from adult converts to infants
11
98
in Christian
homes,
which meant that
they, too,
had now received the
Spirit,
the
phenomenological, experiential dimension to life in the
Spirit
was all but eliminated.
The result was the unfortunate omission of this
valid,
biblical dimension of Christian life from the life of most Christians in the
subsequent history
of the church. And it was in
response
to this sub-normal Christian
experience
that one is to understand most
pietistic
movements within
Christendom,
from Montanism at the end of the second
century through
the charismatic movement in the latter half of the twentieth. It is
that one is to understand the
precisely
out of such a background
Pentecostal movement with its
deep
dissatisfaction with life in Christ without life in the
Spirit
and their
subsequent experience of a mighty
baptism
in the
Spirit.
If their
timing
was off as far as the biblical norm was
concerned,
their
experience
itself was not. What
they
were
recapturing
for the church was the
empowering dimension of life in the
Spirit
as the normal Christian life.
The fact that this
experience
was for them
usually
a separate experience
in the
Holy Spirit
and
subsequent
to their conversion itself is in itself
probably
irrelevant. Given their place
in the
history
of the
church,
how else
might
it have happened?
Thus the Pentecostal should
probably
not make a virtue out of a
necessity.
On the other
hand,
neither should others
deny
the
validity
of such
experience
on biblical
grounds, unless,
as some do,
they
wish to
deny
the
reality
of such an empowering
dimension of life in the
Spirit altogether.
But such a denial, I would
argue,
is in fact an
exegeting
not of the biblical texts but of one’s own
experience
in this later
point
in church history
and
making
that normative. I for one like the biblical norm
better;
at this
point
the Pentecostals have the New Testament
clearly
on their side.
*Gordon D. Fee serves at Gordon Conwell
Theological Seminary
as Professor of New Testament. He is an ordained minister of the Assemblies of God.
‘See R.A.
Torrey,
The
Baptism
with the
Holy Spirit (New
York: Revell, 1897),
and A.J.
Gordon,
The
Ministry of
the
Spirit (Philadelphia:
American
Baptist
Publication
Society, 1894). ‘-For the matter of tongues, see especially article 8 in the Assemblies of God “Statement of Fundamental Truths.” See article 7
for
quoted above for a statement about
empowering
service.
3See, e.g.
Frederick Dale Bruner, A Theology of the
Holy
and the New Testament
Spirit.
The Pentecostal
Experience
Witness
(Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans, Publisher, 1970), pp. 153-218.
12
99
4See “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent – A Major Problem in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” in Russell P. Spittler, ed.
Pentecostalism
Perspectives on the New
(Grand
Baker Book
House, pp.
118-132;
Gordon D. Fee and
Rapids: 1976),
Douglas Stuart,
How to Read the Bible for
All Its Worth
(Grand Rapids:
Zondervan
Publishing House,
1982), 87-102.
5James D.G. Dunn,
Baptism
in the
Holy Spirit (SBT
2nd Series 15; London: SCM,
1970), pp.
55-72.
6Dunn himself
acknowledges this;
his arises in with Paul and
trying
to fit Luke into
difficulty starting
that
must
theological
mold. This forces him to
say
that the
language
mean
matter see I.H.
something slightly
different here. On this Marshall, The Acts
of
the
Apostles (TNTC:
Grand
Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1980), pp.
154-156.
7Ernst Haenchen The Acts
of
the
Apostles,
A
Commentary (Philadelphia:
Westminster
Press, 1971), p.
179 argues that the text of B (meta
tauta)
is original on the
grounds
that “in Lukan
theology
the last
days
do not
begin as soon
as the Spirit has been
outpoured.”
Here is a clear case of one’s
theology (Conzelmann’s,
in this
case) prejudging one’s historical sense. It is this text that refutes Haenchen and Conzelmann.
8See, e.g.,
Zechariah 13:2-3. During the intertestamental this understanding
is reflected in I
period
Maccabees 9:37; 2 Baruch 85:3; and Josephus, c.Ap.
1.41
9See especially the
synonymous parallelism
in Luke 1:35:
“The
Holy Spirit
will come
upon you,
and
the power of the most
high
will overshadow
you.”
Cf. the
promises
in Luke 24:49 and Acts
1:4-5;
where the same interchange
takes Thus in Luke
5:17,
the
“power”
that was present
with Jesus to heal is place.
clearly
the
Spirit.
IOThis has been demonstrated
especially
in the
exegesis by Dunn
in his
Baptism
in the
Holy Spirit (See
above note
5).
13
