Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
World Guild Award Winner As the renowned scholar Thomas Oden noted, "No subject of Christian teaching is more prone to fanaticism and novelty and subjectivism than that of the Holy Spirit." The Bible's own metaphors for the Spirit are as elusive as they are evocative—wind, oil, flame, water, dove—making pneumatology a mysterious study. But shying away from the topic is no solution. Gordon Smith encourages us to seek both fresh understanding and fresh experience of the Spirit through openness to learning more, no matter what our theological tradition. In this way, as we hold biblical convictions firmly but gracefully, the guiding principles of discernment and humility will help us intentionally live Spirit-responsive lives day by day. Welcome, Holy Spirit is a much-needed master class with a trustworthy and encouraging teacher. How can we cultivate an understanding of the Holy Spirit that helps us experience the presence of the Spirit in worship, in witness, in joy and sorrow, in seasons of blessing and times of difficulty alike, all the while honoring the fullness of the Trinity? An attentiveness to the Spirit need not replace Christ as the focus of our lives and worship but can rather bring us truly into the presence of the living and ascended Lord. It is to this end that we pray, "Welcome, Holy Spirit."
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 295
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
WELCOME, HOLY SPIRIT
A THEOLOGICAL AND EXPERIENTIAL INTRODUCTION
for joella
Contents
INTRODUCTION
PRELUDE
Images and Metaphors for the Holy Spirit
1
The Spirit in the Gospel of Luke and ActsThe Ascension and Pentecost
2
The Spirit in the Gospel of JohnOne with the Father and with the Son
3
The Spirit and Creation
4
The Spirit and Christian Initiation
INTERLUDE
Holy Spirit Experiences
5
The Spirit and TransformationFrom Beginnings to Maturity in Christ
6
The Spirit and the Word
7
The Spirit and the Church Local
8
The Spirit and the Church Global
CONCLUSION
A Call to Intentionality
Introduction
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit”? More specifically, what does it mean to declare all that is included in the affirmation, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets”?1
What does it mean to be truly trinitarian—affirming Father, Son, and Spirit—in our faith, worship, Christian life, and witness? And what does it mean that we believe that the Spirit is the Lord, the Giver of life?
Answering these questions is not easy; this is complicated territory that challenges us intellectually and experientially. Thomas Oden has noted that “no subject of Christian teaching is more prone to fanaticism and novelty and subjectivism than the Holy Spirit. . . . The work of the Spirit deserves especially careful attention precisely because it is so prone to subjective manipulation and ideological abuse.”2
This is a sobering observation, yet we cannot avoid the question of what it means to believe in the Holy Spirit because it matters too much. There is no other way to live the Christian life except in the fullness of the Spirit. There is no other way to be the church except in the fullness of the Spirit. There is no other way to be the church on mission except in the grace and power of the Spirit. And there is no other way to worship and pray except in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18). We have so much to gain and nothing to lose by developing the theological and experiential capacity to fully embrace the life and ministry of the Spirit—to be attentive to the presence of the Spirit in the church, in the world, and in our personal life, work, and ministry.
Critical reflection on the person and ministry of the Spirit can be an encouraging and hope-filled exercise, but we need to be discerning. Oden is right; this can go wrong. For our own sake and for the sake of the church and the world, we need to get this right, and this means learning the art of discernment. We need to find the life-giving dynamic captured in 1 Thessalonians 5, when the apostle urges his readers on the one hand to “not quench the Spirit” (v. 19), but then quickly adds: “but test everything” (v. 21). This is our objective: to approach this critical and essential topic with open hearts and eager minds but also with careful thought, willing to ask hard questions that in the end strengthen the life of the church and our own experience of the Holy Spirit. We can turn from both cynicism and naiveté; we can be theologically astute and eager to live in the grace of the Spirit.
This requires that we ask the right questions—most notably four foundational questions about the Holy Spirit, each of them regarding how the Spirit relates to something else. First and foremost, we ask: What is the relationship between the Spirit and Christ? As part of that question, we ask what it means to confess the Holy Spirit as one with the Father and the Son within the Holy Trinity.
Second, we ask: What is the relationship between the Spirit and the created order? This includes asking about the relationship between the Spirit and the world (the cosmos), and the relationship between the Spirit and materiality—the physicality of the created order.
Third, we ask: What is the relationship between the Spirit and the Word—that is, the Scriptures?
And fourth, we ask: What is the relationship between the Spirit and the church?
In so many respects, our doctrine of the Holy Spirit—our pneumatology—comes down to these four questions. Thus, for example, if you were to try to get a read on the pneumatology of a particular Christian tradition or denomination, you could ask these four questions. A pneumatology that is faithful to the biblical witness and the creedal heritage of the church will give attention to each of these. All four of them need to arise at some point in our reflections on the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit, but the first is the most critical. Nothing in our understanding of the Spirit is on track if we are not clear about the relationship between the Spirit and Christ. To this end, it is helpful to think of what follows through two images: the compass and the boundary. The compass speaks of the need for clarity about our direction—we need to be clear on our “true north.” The boundary—a metaphor from the soccer field—speaks of what it means to be truly “in bounds.”
The compass is Christ. Christ Jesus is the north star; he is the author and finisher of our faith. Thus, we keep our eyes on him. Hans Urs von Balthasar expresses this well when he writes: “We must bear in mind . . . that our participation in the Spirit always remains conditioned through the Son sent to us by the Father, the Son of Man who died on the Cross and rose from the realm of the dead and who pours himself out forever to the Church in the Eucharist to prove the Father’s love.”3 The first epistle of John stresses that we are not to trust every spirit but test the spirits, and the key evidence is that the spirit that comes from God acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Thus, the compass for our reflections will be the incarnate, crucified, risen, and ascended Lord. It is not our projections of Christ, but the Christ who is the embodied, suffering, and ascended Lamb.
This point cannot be overstated. Many Christian communities have what would seem to be a powerful emphasis on the ministry of the Spirit and insist that they are “Christ-centered.” Yet frequently the Christ of whom they speak is a “spiritized” Christ—not the incarnate, crucified, and ascended Lord. Thus, we must insist that the reference point for the ministry of the Spirit is the Christ who is revealed in the Scriptures.
If the compass is Christ, the boundaries of the playing field are what we mean to speak of God as both one and triune. We need to stay within the ancient creedal witness to the triunity of God, and also need to consider some of the ancient trinitarian heresies and note how remarkably relevant they are today.
If we stay within these historic boundaries and keep our focus on Christ, we can eagerly delve into these reflections with an open heart and an eager mind, ever open to new and surprising expressions of the Spirit in our world, in our churches, and in our individual lives. We will study what it means to believe in the Spirit while we pray: “Come, Holy Spirit, come.”
In our learning, one of the wisest things we can do is read widely and be open to the witness of other theological and spiritual traditions than our own. Frequently, it seems that Christians only read books or listen to speakers on the Holy Spirit to affirm their own perspective or experience. But we need the gentle corrective and wisdom of others. Thus, in what follows I will not hesitate to draw on Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical, and Pentecostal voices, along with other perspectives, including those of the Global South. Catholics need to be reading Pentecostal theologians and writers; evangelicals have much to learn from Orthodox voices.
Further, we need to consider the ways in which the church traditions where we were formed—as children or through our initiation into Christian faith—understood and engaged the Spirit. We need to come to terms with both the strengths and the limitations of our own theological and spiritual traditions/experience.
So as you read, keep three perspectives in mind. First, think in terms of your own denomination. Our experience of the Spirit is never purely personal or individual; our encounter with the grace of God is always derivative of the life and witness of the faith community. Thus, it is appropriate to ask: What is the theology and experience of the Spirit in the church community that has formed you and of which you are a part?
Second, ask about your own experience. What does all of this talk about the Holy Spirit mean for your own journey of faith in Christ? Where are you being nudged, called, or beckoned? What is being asked of you, and in what ways might it be that the Spirit could be invited to be more fully present in your life experience—in your relationship with Christ, with the church, and in other relationships? Look back as well and allow your own experience of the grace of the Spirit to inform your reading and reflection on this crucial topic.
And third, ask this question: How does your learning about the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit inform your engagement with the world—with your neighbors, with those of other religious faiths, and with your social and cultural context? What does your learning about the Spirit mean for your personal engagement with what God is doing in the world? What does it mean for your work and for living out your vocation?
As I have noted, in order to say “I believe in the Holy Spirit” we need to have clarity about the relationship between the Holy Spirit and Christ Jesus. Thus, the first two foundational chapters will probe this relationship by considering the Holy Spirit in Luke and Acts and then the witness to the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John. Then I will address the other questions: The Spirit and creation, the Spirit and the Word and the Spirit and the church. And, in between, attention will be given to the Spirit and personal experience. But first, a prelude: an invitation to consider the classic metaphors of the Spirit that emerge in Scripture and that are testified to in the history of the church.
Prelude
Images and Metaphors for the Holy Spirit
ONE OF THE KEY DEVELOPMENTS in Christian theology and hermeneutics in the last generation has been a rethinking of the place of metaphor in language, communication, and understanding, and thus in our response to what we come to see to be true or significant—and, in particular, in how we speak about God.1 We have come to see that we cannot read Scripture well without having some sense of how metaphors function in language and thought: that, indeed, we cannot think theologically without the use of metaphor. This means we should be students of metaphors and realize how powerful they are in shaping our understanding and experience.
We might ask, then, how metaphor and images of the Holy Spirit in Scripture might inform our understanding and experience of the grace of the Holy Spirit and also serve as a teaching tool. There are five key metaphors for the Holy Spirit used in Scripture: the wind or breath of God, the oil of anointing, the flame of God, living or flowing water, and the dove or the hovering bird. Is there an image that is particularly meaningful to you—and, perhaps, is most present to you now—that evokes for you the gracious ministry, presence, and grace of the Holy Spirit? Further, is there an image that might be particularly meaningful for the church community of which you are a part, given that that image is evocative within your cultural and social context?
In what follows, I am going to highlight these five key metaphors for the Holy Spirit in Scripture. These metaphors are lenses into the mystery of the Holy Spirit, and yet they have limits. We must not overplay these metaphors or read more into them than the biblical witness justifies. We can learn to accept the limits of metaphor so they are not misused. We cannot arbitrarily determine meaning by saying, “Well, this image means this to me.” We need to let text and context shape our appreciation for an image, along with the witness of key voices in the history of the church. Further, the metaphors do not have a one-to-one correlation to what they are depicting. It is not that the meaning is ambiguous; rather, the image is multitextured. That is why with the Holy Spirit we rightly speak of multiple metaphors or word pictures, and see how they complement and reinforce one another.
With these caveats, we can now consider the five key or central metaphors for the Holy Spirit in Scripture and allow them to shape our understanding and experience.
THE SPIRIT AS THE WIND OR BREATH OF GOD
For many biblical scholars, this is the primary image of the Spirit in the Scriptures. It certainly seems to be the most common. However, as Anthony Thiselton notes, it is not always clear when the Hebrew ruach (which can denote “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit”) is speaking of breath or wind, or when it does actually indicate the third person of the Trinity.2 Yet there are uses of ruach that are indisputably a reference to the Spirit, and these merit our attention. Each is significant to our understanding of and appreciation for the ministry of the Spirit in the world, in the church, and in our own lives.
The biblical narrative opens with a description of the breath of God that brings order and beauty out of darkness and chaos: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2). From this grand opening, we come to the creation of human persons in Genesis 2:7: “Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” Taken together, these remarkable texts give us an appreciation for the physicality of the created order as good but not truly alive until it is infused with the breath of God, the Spirit who animates all of creation.
The Spirit inspires—that is, in-breathes—and what receives this breath comes alive. The Scriptures are inspired or in-breathed by the Spirit, and it is this inspiration that makes the Scriptures a life-giving text (more on this in chapter 6). The created order and the Scriptures are alive—living—by virtue of the wind of God.
Connected with this is the vision of the prophet Ezekiel, who wrote to the people of Judah while they were in exile. Ezekiel’s own sense of call came through the breath of God—on the wind, one might say (Ezekiel 1:4). But not only did his calling to prophetic ministry come on the wind, but also his vision of death and life in Ezekiel 37, one of the most evocative examples of this metaphor in Scripture. He observes the unforgettable valley of dead bones and is himself taken up in the new life that is being breathed into those bones:
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD.” (Ezekiel 37:9-14)
Later, Pentecost is described through the lens of this metaphor: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:1-2). We come to Pentecost aware of the teaching of Jesus, where the image of the Spirit as breath or wind is quite prominent. First, in John 3:8 Jesus speaks of the presence and grace of the Spirit at Christian initiation, saying that we must be born from above, born of the Spirit. Then he adds that the wind blows where the wind blows, clearly indicating that this initiation into Christian faith is not something that we as individuals or as the church control. It is of God, more specifically of the Spirit. Second, we have the remarkable conclusion to the Gospel of John, when Jesus breathes on his disciples and exhorts them to “receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
It is appropriate to read these references in light of Genesis and Ezekiel and affirm that the animating and inspiriting grace of the Spirit is at the heart of creation, at the heart of the church and thus at the heart of life of the Christian. The same one who “himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25) is the one who infuses our broken lives and communities with new and healing life through his breath, the wind of God. And so our yearning for life is then a yearning to be filled with the Spirit so that, in the language of Ezekiel, we might live.
THE SPIRIT AS THE OIL OF ANOINTING
The metaphor of oil is a powerful way by which the grace of the Holy Spirit is appropriated into the life and witness of the Christian community. Typically, those churches that take the ministry of the Spirit seriously will be ever ready with the oil of anointing to represent the presence and power of the Spirit in their community life and in the life of each individual Christian believer. This image is definitely linked to the ministry of the church, and will typically thus be connected to the laying on of hands in Christian community. We are not self-anointed; we are anointed by those who represent Christ to us through the church.
The image of oil in the New Testament is an echo of what we find in the Old Testament. Exodus 25:6, Leviticus 8:30, and Numbers 4:16 all speak of the holiness of the oil of anointing that sets apart someone or something for a particular purpose for the people of God. Exodus 30:30 reads: “You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, in order that they may serve me as priests.” Note also the reference to anointing in 1 Samuel 16:13 and the anointing of David by Samuel.
In the New Testament we find that Jesus, in continuity with both the prophetic and priestly lines, is anointed as Messiah and prophet, and is conscious that in this anointing the Spirit of God rests on him and has set him aside for the work to which he has been called. At the beginning of his ministry—described in Luke 4—he references the words of the prophet Isaiah in speaking about his own call and anointing:
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1)
The early church testified to this in Acts 10:38, when Peter speaks of Jesus as one who was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power.
Many have also been intrigued by the references in both Luke and John to the women who anointed the feet of Jesus. In the Gospel of John it is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anoints Jesus’ feet (John 12:1-8). But in Luke the woman is unnamed and referenced as one who is a “sinner” (Luke 7:38-50). What are the Gospel writers telling us here? What does it mean that someone from the margins, one might say, provided this anointing—not on the head, the typical place of anointing (as Jesus himself notes in verse 46), but the feet? Is there some sense that this from-the-margins anointing was a further sign of Jesus’ identity and calling?
The precedent of anointing for those in leadership—as priests, prophets, or kings—in the history of Israel and then in Jesus has found expression in the church in the setting aside of those who are called into religious leadership. Those ordained to preach and preside within the Christian community are confirmed for this ministry through having hands laid on them and being anointed with oil. The oil represents the presence and power of the Spirit on the life and ministry of those ordained: we lay hands on them, we anoint them with oil, and we pray that the Spirit who has called them to this ministry would empower them and guide them in this work. Again, this is not a self-anointing but the confirmation of the Christian community that this individual has been called of the Spirit and has chosen to accept this call and depend on the Spirit’s gifting and empowerment to serve with humility as the representative of Christ in the midst of God’s people.
And yet the New Testament also seems to speak of the anointing of all of God’s people. In 1 John 2:20 and 27 the writer of the epistle speaks of each of his readers as having received the anointing grace of God. Then also 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 reads: “But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.”
It is no surprise, then, that the early church eagerly embraced oil as the symbol of the presence of the Spirit at Christian initiation —ideally linked to water baptism. There is a deep logic here. In Christian initiation, why would we not follow the precedent of Acts 8:14-18, or that of the experience of Paul when Ananias came to him and laid hands on him that he would receive the gift of the Spirit (Acts 9:17)? And the most compelling symbol to represent this gift is oil. Thus for the ancient church, Christian initiation was a twofold rite: water baptism and the laying on of hands, with the oil of anointing to speak to the grace and presence of the Spirit in the life of the new believer. The church, through a presiding minister, anoints the now-baptized Christian, inviting the Spirit to rest on, guide, and empower this new follower of Christ.
There is another distinct usage of the oil of anointing: the ministry the church has to those who are sick, both physically and emotionally. Perhaps following the precedent set by Jesus’ disciples—see Mark 6:13, where the disciples were praying for and anointing the sick—we have the clear call in James that those who are sick are invited to approach the elders so that they can be prayed for with the laying on of hands and anointed with oil (James 5:14). While there is not in this text an explicit link to the Holy Spirit, we can take it as such because the readers of James would have assumed a link between oil and the Spirit. Thus, Christian communities with a more explicit understanding of the ministry of the Spirit typically see the anointing of the sick as a prayer for the Spirit to come and bring healing and strength to those who are in pain and suffering.
In each of these, the typical practice in the history of the church has been for the person presiding, whether priest or pastor or elder, to make the sign of the cross on the forehead. But for some, much more oil is used. In some cases, the rite of initiation includes water baptism and the laying on of hands, with the head of the newly baptized literally bathed with oil.
Finally, we must note the link between oil and joy, reflecting Hebrews 1:9, where it is said that Jesus received the “oil of gladness.” Ambrose of Milan made this an important theme in his “On the Holy Spirit.” He quotes Hebrews and insists that the Holy Spirit in Christ is the oil of gladness that, as he puts it, is “the joining together of many graces giving a sweet fragrance.”3 Ambrose goes to some length to demonstrate that the references to oil in the life and ministry of Jesus are references to the Holy Spirit.
But what most catches attention in Ambrose’s references to oil and the Holy Spirit is how he links oil and joy—saying that, indeed, those who have been anointed by the Spirit are graced with a profound and resilient gladness. Those who serve the church in the fullness of the Spirit do so with joy. Those who are initiated into the faith enter into a community that is marked by a deep and resilient joy (see Acts 2:46). We can also affirm that those who are anointed as the sick and suffering come to know the grace of God—evident in the joy that comes in healing but also in the grace of God in the midst of suffering when healing is delayed.
THE SPIRIT AS FIRE
In his little book The Divine Conquest, A. W. Tozer devotes a whole chapter to the image of the Holy Spirit as fire.4 Tozer was taken by the idea that fire indicated the presence of God: whether it was Moses at the burning bush that was not consumed (Exodus 3:2); the fire at the center of Israel’s wilderness camp and then in the holy of holies; or the experience of Ezekiel, for whom fire is linked to splendor and the glory of God (Ezekiel 1:4, 27-28).5 Then, of course, fire is also referenced at Pentecost alongside the mighty wind. There is something powerful in the idea that the “appearance of fire” over the tabernacle for the people of Israel in the wilderness now speaks of the Spirit who at Pentecost was poured out over all people and all of creation.
As Tozer observes, fire indicating the presence of God is a key theme in Scripture. We read that John the Baptist foretold that one was coming, more powerful than he, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). And, indeed, on the day of Pentecost, what appeared over the disciples in the midst of the wind were divided tongues of fire (Acts 2:2-3). Tozer concludes that the reference in Matthew to baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire is a sobering one—the text speaks of chaff that will be burned up with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:12).6 This fire does not destroy but brings healing and wholeness. It is a purgation that may not be all that comfortable but is deeply needed. This is a reminder that we need to get beyond the idea that the presence of God is all about nice or powerful feelings—the not-uncommon notion that the manifest presence of God is about ecstasy and heightened emotion. Rather, this image reminds us that those who truly long for the presence of God are willing to go through pain and discomfort akin to the rehabilitation program for the addict that leads to resolution, healing, and wholeness.
No one in the history of the church has spoken to this more powerfully than the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic and reformer Saint John of the Cross. His extended poem “The Living Flame of God,” along with his own commentary on the poem, speaks of the Spirit as the fire that purifies: the fire of God that courses through our beings and orders our affections. This is the image for those who, like the addict, long for freedom and crave holiness deep in their souls. They are willing to face purgation in order to know healing. The image is not so much that of a flame that is alive as it is a flame that “makes the soul alive in the living God.”7
What is striking in this poem is that the presence and power of the Spirit as a flame is the fruit of love.8 The love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), and this love longs for us to be made whole. This makes us not comfortable but free; we become those who lean into the love of God, knowing that the Spirit’s grace and power, over the long haul, will lead us to holiness. In other words, the Spirit does not intend to make us feel good. Rather, the Spirit, the living flame of love, purifies. As John of the Cross notes, we might sometimes feel the warmth of this love, but he stresses that it “is not gentle, but afflictive.”9 The essential emotional quality to this transformative work of the Spirit is “dry.” He references Lamentations and the fire in the bones that instructs us, and then also Psalm 66:10-12, which speaks of being tried by fire.10
This image, then, calls us to reverence and awe. It reminds us that we are in the presence of the God who is a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Thus, no doubt our liturgies and approaches to worship will be marked by delight and joy, but just as surely we will want to bend the knee, to be silent in the presence of the holy one of Israel, and to graciously if not eagerly accept the penitential way. This image of the Spirit is a fitting one for the season of Lent, as we pray that the Holy Spirit will come and burn through our sin-sick souls and make us whole.
If images of the Holy Spirit have particular resonance with an ethnic group or culture, holy fire comes to mind when we think of the people and land of Azerbaijan. The name of the country means “the place of sacred fire,” and in the south, near the city of Astara, there is a remarkable blending of water and fire at a spring known as Yanar Bulag. Continually lit by natural gas, it is known to those who head there on pilgrimage as the “fire spring.” Further north is the fifth-century Armenian Orthodox community of Nij, in what is the ancient region of Caucasian Albania. The church there has on its wall a fascinating depiction of flames coming out of three strands of the cross. One cannot help but wonder, given the significance of a living flame to these ancient people, if this would not be the image of the Spirit that would most resonate with them.
Finally, this image of the Holy Spirit is also associated with calling or vocation. The burning bush for Moses was the occasion of his calling to partner with God in leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, and it is interesting to see an allusion to fire in Paul’s exhortation to Timothy: “For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:6-7).
The reference to “rekindling” or, as in other translations, “fan into flame,” is linked to what follows: that this gift, this flame, indicates not the Spirit of fear or cowardice, but rather of power, love, and discipline. Thus, it seems that the two potential meanings come together here—the idea of calling, but also of how we are called to live out our calling with depth and maturity and a life of holiness, a theme that is emphasized throughout 2 Timothy. We see this link as well in Isaiah 6. The evocative question, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (verse 8) is preceded by the living coal that is taken from the altar and touches the lips of the prophet (verse 6), removing his guilt so that, with clarity and conviction, he can respond to the call with the words, “Here am I; send me!” (verse 8).
THE SPIRIT AS LIVING WATER
There are hints along the way in the biblical narrative that may suggest linking the Holy Spirit with water, but it is without doubt Jesus himself, in the Gospel of John, who speaks this way about the presence and ministry of the Spirit. In John 4, he is at the well with the woman of Samaria and in his theological conversation with her he speaks of the water from the well but then also of the living water and then concludes: “The water that I will give will become [for those who drink of it] a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). We might wonder, as we read of this noon-time encounter between this woman and Jesus what is meant by this water—that is, what is this living water to which Jesus refers? But then a few chapters later we are left with no doubt whatsoever as John makes the link oh-so-clear:
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39)
While there is no question that there is something of comfort and encouragement in the image of still water, when this image is linked to the Spirit the usual referent is to living or flowing water, as for example we see it and hear it in the words of the prophet Isaiah: “For I will pour out water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring” (Isaiah 44:3).
