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Pentecostal Theology, Volume 24, No. 1, Spring 2002
Editorial
Salvation and Spirit Baptism: Another Look at
James Dunn’ s Classic
Frank D. Macchia
It has been over thirty years since James Dunn wrote his classic, Baptism in the Holy Spirit , and nearly as long since I Ž rst read it as a young grad- uate student in the mid-1970’ s. I have since read a few of Dunn’ s books with great interest, convinced that especially his earlier work is very signiŽ cant for Pentecostal theologians. I have followed the debate that has developed between Dunn and valued Pentecostal colleagues over the issue of Lukan pneumatology and the theological “ separability” of Spirit baptism from conversion/initiation. I value that debate, but I have always felt that the Pentecostal discussion of Dunn’ s work on Spirit baptism needed to take place more directly at the core of the book’ s central the- sis. So, in preparation for this editorial, I took Dunn’ s classic up and read it again. Below are a few brief responses.
First, I was reminded of how forcefully Dunn had argued for a uni- versal witness among the diverse voices of the New Testament to the cen- trality of the gift of the Holy Spirit as the essential core or “ nerve center” (102) of Christian life and identity. For Dunn, all soteriological categories emerge from this divine act of bestowing the Spirit and the experience of receiving the Spirit. There is no such thing as a “ legal” justiŽ cation or divine word of forgiveness or acceptance that does not involve this divine bestowal and experience of the Spirit: “ JustiŽ cation is impossible with- out receiving the Spirit, for the gift of the Spirit effects the righteousness which constitutes a right relationship with God” (136). Similarly, neither is the possession of the Spirit merely assumed to have occurred as a result of receiving the sacrament of water baptism: “ In earliest days of Christianity, possession of the Spirit was a fact of immediate perception, not a logical conclusion to be drawn from the performance of an ecclesiastical rite” (149). The event of receiving the Spirit that makes one a Christian in favor with God is an immediate experience of God that is vibrant and involves felt changes in a person’ s life. Not only is the centrality of our experience of the Spirit implied in Luke’ s account of the early Christian communities, it is Paul’ s assumption for Dunn as well: “ the gift of the Spirit for Paul is the same as justiŽ cation by faith . . . It is clear that this
© 2002 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden
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reception of the Spirit was a conscious experience (Gal. 3:2-4)” (p.113). Commenting on 1 Thessalonians 1:5-9 and 2:13, Dunn states further that for Paul the experience of the Spirit “ was certainly a very vivid, perhaps even emotional experience” (105).
Dunn does credit the Pentecostals with focusing on this experience of the Spirit as the heartthrob of the Christian life, an insight from the New Testament that, as Morton Kelsey or Emil Brunner have reminded us time and again, has been nearly lost to modern theology. Dunn remarked con- cerning the Pentecostal charge that historic Protestant and Catholic churches have to a degree neglected this immediate experience of the Spirit:
Our examination of the NT evidence has shown that they were wholly justiŽ ed in this . . . It is a sad commentary on the poverty of our own imme- diate experience of the Spirit that when we come across language in which the NT writers refer directly to the gift of the Spirit and to their experience of it, either we automatically refer it to the sacraments and can only give it meaning when we do so . . . or else we discount the experience described as too subjective and mystical in favor of a faith which is essentially an afŽ rmation of biblical propositions, or else we in effect psychologize the Spirit out of existence (225-226).
Secondly, Dunn even accepted the Lukan and Pauline tendencies to view the gifts and signs of the Spirit as involved in and signaling the reception of the Spirit. Dunn remarked concerning how we know the Spirit has been received: “ And in case it should be thought that I have been less than just to the Pentecostals let me simply add in reference to these ques- tions that Pentecostal teaching on spiritual gifts, including glossolalia, while still unbalanced, is much more soundly based on the NT than is generally recognized” (229). Dunn also roots this Christian charismatic experience of the Spirit in Christ’ s own experience of the Spirit (a point that he takes up again and expands in his Jesus and the Spirit ). In my view, Dunn helps the Pentecostals by revising the Reformation principle of Christ alone to Christ and the Spirit alone . There is much potential here for the development of a pneumatological soteriology among Pentecostals that would fulŽ ll the basic thrust of their preaching and nar- rative theology.
Without wanting to patronize Dunn, my temptation is to say that Dunn’ s classic is more thoroughly “ Pentecostal” than he himself may have real- ized. After all, if, as Dunn admits, the Pentecostals have focused on the immediate and life-transforming experience of the Spirit as the nerve cen- ter of the Christian life, this fact is of no minor consequence for the cen-
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tral thesis of his book. Pentecostalism Ž nds itself in that Pietistic stream of the Christian church that locates the genesis and sustenance of the Christian life in the immediate and life-transforming experience of the Spirit. One may read an occasional Pentecostal textbook written under a Reformed Evangelical in uence that will separate a legal understanding of justiŽ cation or otherwise “ implicitly” pneumatological understanding of salvation from a richly experiential understanding of Spirit baptism as a distinct and separate experience. But one receives quite another impres- sion if one listens carefully to grass-roots Pentecostal preaching and teach- ing, where most Pentecostal theology is done. There one will usually Ž nd an understanding of salvation as deliverance from the bondage of sin and death through a mighty work of the Spirit of Christ that liberates and transforms in dramatic and felt ways. Spirit baptism, if separated from this experience of salvation, is often viewed as the crowning fulŽ llment or out ow of what had occurred in salvation. In fact, I had never even heard of forensic justiŽ cation in substance or terminology until I arrived at a Pentecostal Bible College, even though I was raised in a Pentecostal church and pastor’ s home that was rich in biblical teaching and preach- ing. God’ s forgiveness and acceptance was always spoken of among us as a life-transforming event of the Spirit.
I do not wish to minimize the importance of Dunn’ s quarrel with Pentecostalism over the issue of the “ separability” of Spirit baptism from conversion/initiation, although not all Pentecostals globally have held to this doctrine, and there have been a variety of viewpoints expressed among those who have. Quite frankly, this topic is not exactly a burning issue among most Pentecostal scholars. On one level, we can afŽ rm the fact that Luke’ s focus in Acts is directly on the results of the Spirit’ s recep- tion in the signs and gifts of the Spirit that accompany this reception as well as in the behavior and witness of the believers who have received. Implied, however, is the fact that the people who have received the Spirit have been changed. Whether or not Luke’ s understanding of the recep- tion of the Spirit can serve theologically to enlighten our understanding of conversion to Christ or initiation into the Christ life is a difŽ cult issue. The difŽ culty in separating Luke’ s understanding of Spirit baptism from a theology of conversion/initiation is the implication that Luke’ s under- standing of this gift is supplementary to the Christian life (as Max Turner has argued). I do not think that most Pentecostals would view Spirit bap- tism in this way. If Spirit baptism is vital to one’ s experience of the abun- dant life of Christ in the world today, it must play a role in how we
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understand conversion/initiation. We may be dealing with the deŽ nition of terms here but the implications of such discussions are important to the future of Pentecostal pneumatology.
More basically, the popularity of separability with regard to the under- standings of Spirit baptism among Pentecostals does re ect a hermeneu- tic that has value but requires guidance. Pentecostals have often read the biblical text as a narrative that sets a pattern for how we experience God today. Consequently, the journey of the apostles from the resurrection of Christ to Pentecost became for many Pentecostals the same journey that the church must make today from faith in the risen Christ to the experience of the Spirit in power for in-depth praise (especially in tongues) and pow- erful service granted at Pentecost. This pattern then forms the basis for a Pietist ecclesiology in which the revived inner core, the ecclesiolae in ecclesia, is distinguished from the spiritually slothful in the churches. The idea that much of the “ slothful” church can thus still be “ stuck” in-between the resurrection of Christ and Pentecost is not exegetically supportable for Dunn, and for many this hermeneutic and the ecclesiology related to it is rather elitist. According to Dunn, for believers today to go through the same journey as that of the original apostles, Christ would have to die and rise again and the Spirit bestowed weeks later again and again.
On the other hand, Dunn does imply that the crisis of conversion/ini- tiation through the bestowal and experience of the Spirit can take place over a certain process. Dunn refers to Paul as “in the process of becom- ing a Christian” through a “ crisis experience extending over three days” (74). He concludes that “ Paul’ s conversion was one single experience last- ing from the Damascus road to the ministry of Ananias” (77). He implies something similar with regard to the Samaritans, stating that perhaps “ the full owering of the Samaritans’ faith was also delayed” until the deci- sive moment of their reception of the Spirit (67). Indeed, one must allow for a certain process of Christian initiation/conversion if the bestowal of the Spirit is essentially a life-transforming and charismatic experience. Experiences often take time to occur. If there is the possibility of a process from one’ s confession of faith in the risen Christ to one’ s experience of the reception of the Spirit, some have wondered whether or not the jour- ney of the original apostles may function as an analogy for it, at least for the obedience and patience displayed by a Paul or a Samaritan as they waited on God to complete the work of initiation/conversion in them. The Pentecostal hermeneutic, though in need of careful guidance, is rec- ognized as having value.
Pentecostals need to face the elitism and exegetical problems implied
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in saying that large segments of the church have not received the Spirit as have the churches depicted in the Book of Acts. In dialogue with Oneness Pentecostals, the role of water baptism in the experience of Spirit baptism will also need to be addressed. On the other hand, James Dunn may need to consider the full implications of his remark concerning the real “ poverty of our own immediate experience of the Spirit” in the churches (225). If many in the churches lack a conscious experience of the Spirit, what does this say to Dunn’ s conviction that the reception of the Spirit in the New Testament was a felt and immediate experience? Is not Dunn implying that many in the churches today have had an initia- tion/conversion to Christ that lacks fulŽ llment in some sense? Is this not the problem that the Pentecostal doctrine of separability with regard to Spirit baptism, despite its inadequacies, has attempted to take seriously? In other words, is there not an alternative between viewing Spirit bap- tism solely as a divine act of saving us with no necessary or immediate connection to the kind of experience of the Spirit depicted in Acts (life- transforming, doxological, empowering, charismatic) and making Spirit baptism absolutely dependent on a religious experience, or a certain under- standing of this experience (glossolalic or otherwise), so that millions in the churches are said to have no part in it? The former assumption leads to the subordination or neglect of the experience of the Spirit in Christian identity and the latter leads to the tyranny of experience.
What makes Dunn such an intriguing dialogue partner for Pentecostals on this question is his assumption that the reception of the Spirit in the New Testament is essentially a perceptible experience that is life-trans- forming and charismatic. Yet, he also assumes that Spirit baptism ordi- narily occurs with faith and repentance. Pentecostals can dialogue with Dunn precisely at the tension between these two assumptions. Perhaps we can strive in dialogue with him toward a notion of Spirit baptism as a complex experience that has a foundation in faith and repentance but Ž nds a sense of fulŽ llment in the conscious awareness of God’ s presence and calling that may take some time to spring forth in the life of the Christian. The New Testament illustrates the ideal, namely, that the recep- tion of the Spirit is the decisive moment of one’ s Christian identity and that this reception is a life-transforming and charismatic experience. When the ideal does not occur right away among those of sincere faith, is not the Pentecostal there to remind us that something is missing? We may not decide for theological reasons to deny them their full- edged identity as people of the Spirit but we can point to a certain lack of fulŽ llment in that identity, indeed in that Spirit baptism, without the experience of God
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in vibrant praise, heart-felt consecration, and powerful calling and gift- ing. At any rate, I would like to see the Pentecostal interaction with Dunn move forward.
Of course, Dunn is not the only dialogue partner of importance for Pentecostals and Charismatics. In the essays that follow, various authors grant us a pneumatological reading of Eastern Orthodoxy, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley that connects the pneumatological foundations of salvation and the Christian life implied in these great voices with Pentecostal and Charismatic concerns. Pentecostal and Charismatic theologies can gain much from the neglected pneumatological richness of these voices. Not only will Pentecostals and Charismatics be blessed theologically from such readings of these voices, they will also be further empowered by such studies to articulate the theological signiŽ cance of their experiences and readings of Scripture to other traditions and movements in the church.
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