Israel Empowered by the Spirit to be the Isianic Witness to the Gentiles

For Luke the charismatic ‘Spirit of prophecy’ is very much the power and life of the church, and so probably of the individual too. It is the means by which the heavenly Lord exercises his cleansing and transforming rule over Israel as much as the means by which he uses her as the Isaianic servant to witness his salvation to the ends of the earth (Max Turner 1998:347).

The bestowing of the Spirit on Pentecost didn’t mark the end of God’s dealings with Israel and a transferring of God’s salvific dealings solely to the Gentiles, but was rather the initiation of Israel’s glory age. They were empowered to be the witnesses to the nations as prescribed in Isaiah. The height of Israel’s existence is their mission to the Gentiles and that is being fulfilled right now in these last days. There remains a distinction in ethnicity between Jew and gentile, no doubt, but both constitute a single people of God who are constituted by the same means of calling upon the name of their common Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all the nations are blessed.

The Pauline Necessity of the Spirit in Sanctification and Christian Ethics

The following quote is from Scot McKnight’s commentary on Galatians in The NIV Application Commentary series:

McKnight (1995:272):

I know of no Christian parents or youth leaders, or for that matter any pastors who seriously believe what Paul teaches in verses 16-26 (of Galatians 5), that the sole foundation of Christian ethics is dependency on the Spirit and a life of freedom in the Spirit….I have met only one person who ever expressed this view of Paul in a definitive and, to him, practical way. That person was F.F. Bruce…

I would add Gordon Fee to that list in my own experience as I also shared this same conviction in my study of the reality of Spirit-fullness in the New Covenant. McKnight continues:

To be sure, Paul knew that when a person was controlled by the Spirit, that person was holy. He also knew that a person who lived in the Spirit lived in a loving way. Thus, he knew that the Old Testament moral guidelines and the teachings of Jesus on holiness, righteousness, and compassion would be confirmed by anyone who lived in the Spirit (1995:273).

Needless to say that we can be accused, just like the early Galatians, of wanting to derive our ethic from the law or traditions of men. I am not opposed to the “3^rd use of the Law” in relation to our sanctification, but if such is taught in a way that doesn’t necessitate the presence of the Spirit, then we may very well be acting like the early Judaizers.

It is sometimes said that the Holy Spirit is the neglected members of the Godhead. Study of Scripture, however, will make clear that the Spirit is the one who regenerates our hearts, accompanies the inward call, adopts us into our relational standing as children of God, seals the believer as an objective member of the New Covenant, empowers and guides our sanctification, as well as gifting the Church for ministry. I’m sure that there are pastors out there emphasizing this dynamic, however I resonate with McKnight when he claims F.F. Bruce as the first scholar which emphasized these points in Pauline Pneumatology. For me, it was the pages of Gordon Fee’s, “God’s Empowering Presence”, that had confirmed all that I had believed from my own study of Paul’s theology of the Spirit.

“Prophetic Community”

Pastor Jim is preaching a series on “Salt & Light” at Cornerstone Worship Center (Nampa, ID) and  a week and a half ago took us into Acts 2/Joel 2 wherein we find the famous prophetic statement:

“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit,
and they shall prophesy.’”

In teaching this passage, Pastor Jim referenced a phrase that he later shared was from the ministry of Jerry Cook. The phrase is “the prophetic community.” The words resonated with me; this concept that we have an identity together that is not as much about the specific things we do, but is about who we are in the eyes of God, seemed to shift around in my soul. The idea is that, whilst visions, dreams, prophecy etc. are all realities to be expected, the instances of manifestation are not the thrust of the passage.

Part of our mission as the church (which is God’s people together, and in a specific way a locally identifiable body of believers) is to proclaim and speak forth the good news of Jesus Christ, the hope of redemption in Him, and man’s need for a Savior. In a conversation with my good friend Jon Brown he stated that evangelism is the one purpose of the church that will not continue in eternity. Worshiping God, loving one another, glorifying Jesus and finding our truest satisfaction in our Maker, these things will remain. But it is appointed once to a man the opportunity to believe on Jesus. With death comes the end of decision.

Charismata III from St. Vincent Ferrer

St. Vincent Ferrer
Famous Dominican missionary, born at Valencia, 23 January, 1350; died at Vannes, Brittany, 5 April, 1419.

“…It would be difficult to understand how he could make himself understood by the many nationalities he evangelized, as he could speak only Limousin, the language of Valencia. Many of his biographers hold that he was endowed with the gift of tongues, an opinion supported by Nicholas Clemangis, a doctor of the University of Paris, who had heard him preach.”

Before the end of the year 1392, St. Vincent being forty-two years old, set out from Avignon towards Valencia. He preached in every town with wonderful efficacy; and the people having heard him in one place followed him in crowds to others. Public usurers, blasphemers, debauched women, and other hardened sinners everywhere were induced by his discourses to embrace a life of penance. He converted a great number of Jews and Mohammedans, heretics and schismatics. He visited every province of Spain in this manner, except Provence and Dauphine. He went thence into Italy, preaching on the coasts of Genoa, in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Savoy, as he did in part of Germany, about the Upper Rhine and through Flanders. Numerous wars and the unhappy great schism in the Church had been productive of a multitude of disorders in Christendom; gross ignorance and a shocking corruption of manners prevailed in many places, whereby the teaching of this zealous apostle, who, like another Boanerges, preached in a voice of thunder, became not only useful but even absolutely necessary, to assist the weak and alarm the sinner. The ordinary subjects of his sermons were sin, death, God’s judgments, hell, and eternity. He delivered his discourses with so much energy that he filled the most insensible with terror. A great number of his sermons have come down to us, some in Latin and many in the vernacular. By them one seizes the man and the saint to the life. They are masterpieces of naturalness, intelligence, picturesqueness and, at moments, poetry. In their kind there is nothing better. And they all develop one same theme.

Charismata II

From this general period on, records indicate that the most likely center of activity of tongues-speech is the monastic movement. Antony, founder of anchor-itic monasticism in Egypt, was involved with healings, extraordinary perceptions and exorcisms. Pachomius, who in the meantime established coenobitic monasticism in the southern provinces of Egypt, was reported to have prophesied and to have exercised xenolalia. Jerome relates the account of a monk, Hilarion, using xenolalia in a battle with a demon-possessed man.’

In Palladius’ Lausiac History 17 the story is told of Macarius of Egypt who received “the gift of fighting spirits and of prophecy.” Also the church historian Sozomen (EH 3:14) writes that Macarius was endowed with divine knowledge, wrought extraordinary works and miraculous cures, and restored a dead man to life. The work entitled Fifty Homilies of Macarius of Egypt was most probably not authored by Macarius but by someone unknown to us. Speaking of his own day the writer (Homily 36:1) specifies tongues as one of the gifts of the Spirit and tells (Homily 29:1) about some who possessed gifts of the Spirit but failed because they fell short of love. Isidore supported (Ep. 2:246; PCC 78:685) the exercise of spiritual gifts in the Christian community. Palladius’ Lausiac History 1:1–5 relates ecstatic experiences of Isidore and adds numerous accounts of the presence of the charismata among the monks up to his own day. Palladius tells about the problem with demons (18:6), about the gift of healing (12:1), the gift of knowledge (38:10), the gift of prophecy (17:2), and of visions (32:1).

Harold Hunter JETS 23:2

Charismata

Writing in the Journal of Evangelical Theology 23:2 Harold Hunter says:

The Cappadocian fathers, all of whom had been monks, uniformly spoke of the contemporary exercise of charismata and perhaps also tongues-speech. In his Shorter Rules 278, answering the question of how a man’s spirit prays while his understanding remains without fruit, Basil states that “this was said concerning those that utter their prayers in a tongue unknown to the hearers.” Gregory Nazianzen talked (Oration 32; PCC 36:185; Oration on Pentecost 41:12; On the Holy Spirit 5:12:30) about the charismata and perhaps tongues-speech as still present in his day. Likewise Gregory of Nyssa spoke frequently of the charismata.
The reaction of Epiphanius to the Montanists and Alogi was that the church should maintain the veritable charismata (PCC 41:856). Using present tenses, Epiphanius says of the work of the Holy Spirit: “To this one is given wisdom by the Spirit, to another tongues and to another power and to another doctrine.” When enumerating the attributes of the Holy Spirit, Didymus the Blind says that the Holy Spirit is “a fountain of exhaustless charismata.”

Former Assemblies of God Pastor Andrew McIntyre Weighs in on “Initial Physical Evidence”

I posted a review of some comments from William and Robert Menzies book, “Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal Experience” (here).

It drew a clarifying comment from Endued blogger, Matt:

I’m unclear Pastor Rick if it is your position that the baptism of the Spirit is BOTH conversion AND the initial filling, such as the Third Wave view (As I understand it), or is the Baptism of the Spirit what happens at conversion and then there is later an initial filling of power? Just curious, I’m still undecided on it.

Matt

My response:

Matt, I hold that the prescribed patter of initiation into union with Christ comes from Peter in his Pentecost sermon: “Repent, Be Baptized, Receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit”. Let me clarify that a bit…I don’t believe in baptismal regeneration, nor do I believe that their is a singular reception of the Spirit that comes AFTER one repents and is baptized. In the Ordu Salutis (order of salvation), I believe that one can’t repent apart from some work of the Spirit, which I would call regeneration. Even my Wesleyan friends would acknowledge a prior work of the Spirit in bringing one to faith. Once one repents and is baptized, it is impossible for them to be a believer and not have the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9). So, in a theological rendering of initiation, one isn’t a Christian apart from the Spirit.

Now what does Peter mean when he says that one will receive the Gift of the Spirit in the package including repentance and baptism? I actually DON’T hold that this is the gift in a “Sonship” paradigm, or merely a converting work of the Spirit that Peter is offering. I think Peter is referring to the work of the Spirit has had been witnessed in the disciples. So in my ordu salutis, I would make a distinction between the work of the Spirit preveniently bringing one to repentance (Regeneration), the adoptive sealing work of the Spirit that indwells the believer who has repented and is baptized, the sanctifying fruit-bearing work of the Spirit that follows the life of the believer in a gradual manner that is different for various believers, and the empowering work of the Spirit that now proceeds from the life of the believer in context to their union to the Church for the edification of the Church.

If anything, I am willing to make even more than 2 distinctions in the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. What I am opposed to is stating that their is a primary secondary work that necessarily requires tongues as the infallible proof that you have gotten the second work. Luke doesn’t give an exact paradigm. The Samaritans reception of the Spirit in some sense was lacking following their repentance and baptism (Acts 8). This is seen as exceptional and not normative. I think folks argue for too much when they say that the Samaritans weren’t “saved” (James Dunn) and that Pentecostals argue for too much when they claim Acts 8 as a prooftext for what they consider to be normative. I’m willing to grant that Acts 8 was a “two step” process and don’t even feel the need to give some practical reasons for why it needed to be that way. For Peter in Acts 10, the Gentiles got up and spoke in tongues while he was preaching!!! Their repentance was assumed and they were admitted to the waters of baptism following this demonstrative act of God’s acceptance. It would be silly of me to say that Acts 10 is normative and that people must get up and speak in tongues in the middle of a sermon before they can be baptized. Essentially, Acts is a unique transitional period and God is pretty much doing things as He wills. While Peter prescribes repentance, baptism and reception of the Gift of the Holy Spirit, we have two accounts here: where full reception of the Spirit was lacking following baptism (Acts 8 and where tongues preceded baptism in Acts 10).

I’m okay with attributing to the Spirit His sovereign freedom in these matters. If someone insisted that they were baptized with the Spirit subsequent to salvation and spoke in tongues, I would affirm that as a work of the Spirit. If someone spoke in tongues during an evangelistic message at some local park, I would accept that as a work of the Spirit and encourage baptism. So while I hold the “one baptism many fillings” paradigm as the prescribed norm, I am okay with the Spirit working in a “two step” process if that’s how people want to read it. Essentially, I am opposed to the doctrine of “initial physical evidence” which dogmatically asserts that Spirit-baptism is a “necessarily” distinct second work of grace that is validated solely by the manifestation of tongues, thus dogmatically asserting that this is how the sovereign Spirit MUST WORK. Like I said, I am the first to say that the Spirit has worked this way, and continues to work this way, and does give tongues as a manifestation of the reception of the Spirit (in fact I would argue that the Spirit not only bears fruit, but will normatively manifest Himself in a “charismatic” manner, whether it be tongues or a great zeal for administering mercy). What I am not willing to say is that the Pentecostal position is the prescribed normative view. While I hold the broad “Evangelical Charismatic” position as what I see as the normative paradigm, there is room enough for me to acknowledge that the Spirit can act in an analogous fashion to what the Pentecostals expect. They, however, can’t grant such charity to me. They can’t say, according to their doctrine, that I have been baptized with the Spirit in an empowering fashion unless I give testimony to tongues in my life. They would have to say I am lacking the baptism of the Spirit and am still deficient in some sense for having not spoken in tongues.

It drew the following comment from Assemblies of God Pastor Andy Harris (
http://www.centralonthehill.com
):

Rick,
The “initial, physical evidence” doctrine as you note is the primary thing that distinguishes traditional Pentecostalism from the wider evangelical world. That, of course, and the fact that the largest Christian missions force in the world is led by those who hold to the “initial, physical evidence” doctrine. The Pentecostal explosion in global missions is the greatest defense of a subsequent experience of empowerment for Christians and
that speaking in other tongues is the initial, physical evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit which is promised to all believers (Mark 16:16-17; Acts 1:8, 2:4, 38-39, et al).

My response was as follows:

Andy, I am grateful for the success of “Evangelical” missions, including the Pentecostals. I would even go so far to say that there is a correlation to the success of distinctly Pentecostal missions in various parts of the world. Their emphasis on the empowering work of the Spirit, spiritual warfare, and the imminence of God in an experiential fashion are all good. I am still 99% Pentecostal. It is my heritage and I don’t repudiate it. I also differ on how I understand God’s Sovereignty from most Pentecostals, but that would still be compatible within the confession of faith.

I would disagree with you however in stating that the success of Pentecostal missions validates “initial physical evidence”. My goodness, Mormons and Islam is growing as well, does that validate Joseph Smith and Muhammad? They would argue along the same lines. I am gracious enough to say that there is a correlation of Pentecostal pneumatology and practice on a broader level to their “success” on the mission field, but to insinuate that the success is owing entirely to “initial physical evidence” and that such a doctrine is validated by the “success” is logically erroneous. Does the success of non-Pentecostal missionaries validate their convictions that none should speak in tongues? Does the overwhelming “success” of the Anglican Church on the African continent validate the 39 Articles of Religion and prove infant baptism to be true?

And now, a recent friend I have met, who is a former Assemblies of God pastor, Any McIntyre has chimed in:

First, let me frame my comments, especially for Andy, by saying that I used to be an Assemblies of God minister for 22+ years and had been a member of the Assemblies of God for over 40 years. I also have two degrees from A/G schools (B.S. & M.A.T.S.). And, finally, I have no axe to grind against the A/G; instead, I have many great memories from the two churches that I was privileged to pastor.

A Response to William and Robert Menzies “Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal Experience”

I think that Pentecostals William and Robert Menzies, whose scholarship I much appreciate, are misunderstanding Charismatic Evangelicals like me in suggesting that I am undermining the Pentecostal emphasis of an empowering work of the Spirit. My thoughts are below:

Menzies and Menzies (2000:48) respond to Dunn’s argumentation that Pentecost was not a subsequent work designed for empowerment, but rather the inception of New Covenant experience and sonship:

In other words, for the Evangelical, Spirit-baptism is equated with conversion. It is that which makes a person truly a Christian. By way of contrast, most Pentecostals insist that the Spirit came on the disciples at Pentecost not as the source of new covenant existence, but rather as the source of power for effective witness. Thus Pentecostals generally describe Spirit-baptism as an experience (at least logically, if not chronologically) distinct from conversion, which unleashes a new dimension of the Spirit’s power; it is an enduement of power for service.

I am pleased to see that Menzies and Menzies are willing to grant that Spirit-baptism need not be chronologically distinct from conversion. I would say an amen to granting a logical distinction within Pneumatology regarding the empowering work of the Spirit from the regenerating work of the Spirit; however Menzies and Menzies (2000:48) don’t seem all that pleased by such a concession on my part, and the part of most of Evangelicalism:

The differences outlined above cannot be simply dismissed as semantic games played by theologians, ivory-tower stuff with no bearing on the life of the church. While “one baptism, many fillings” may be affirmed by Evangelicals and Pentecostals alike, our different understandings of the nature of this baptism (and subsequent fillings) dramatically impact the contours of our faith and practice. Consider this: If the Evangelical is right, then Pentecostals can no longer proclaim an enduement of the Spirit that is distinct from conversion and available to every believer—at least not with the same sense of expectation….Furthermore, if the Evangelical is right, Pentecostals can no longer maintain that the principle purpose of the Pentecostal gift is to grant power for the task of mission. In short, a Pentecostal perspective on Spirit-baptism is integral to our continued sense of expectation and effectiveness in mission.

Well, I am either some weird Evangelical or Neo-Pentecostal for saying this, but I think that Menzies and Menzies create a false “either or, all or nothing” dichotomy. I hold the Evangelical position and still believe that we need to note that Pentecost was an empowering work, that is part of the ongoing work of the Spirit in the life of the believer. I hold to the “one baptism, many fillings” position and see how it is wholly consistent with emphasizing both regeneration and the need for ongoing empowerment.

A Few Thoughts on James Dunn’s “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”, His Disagreements with Dispensationals and Similarities with Oneness Pentecostals

The below are some notes from my research. These quotes are taken from the following:

Dunn, J.D.G. (1974). Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the New Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in relation to Pentecostalism today. London, UK: SCM Press

J.D.G. Dunn (1974:47) dialogues directly with dispensational readings of Joel 2:28-32:

Dispensationalists often argue that Peter did not consider Pentecost a fulfillment of the Joel prophecy; e.g. M.F. Unger: ‘ “This is that” means nothing more than that “this is (an illustration of) that which was spoken by the prophet Joel”’ (Bib.Sac. 122 [165] 177). This is special pleading. Luke (and Peter) clearly regard the outpouring on the 120 as at least the beginning of the outpouring on all flesh, and the ‘last days’ in which ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts 2:21) have certainly arrived.

Dunn (1974:46) actually thinks that Joeline fulfillment on Pentecost is central to the whole idea of a new age:

…it was only at Pentecost that the Joel prophecy was fulfilled. In the old two-age view of Jewish eschatology the gift of the Spirit was one of the decisive marks of the new age. Certainly for the first Christians the gift of the Spirit was the decisive differentia which marked off the old dispensation from the new…

While J.D.G. Dunn (1974:53-54) makes it quite clear that he rejects the two step emphases of Pentecostal theology, he does highlight the Pentecostal experience as somewhat paradigmatic in a qualitative fashion of what it means to be a Christian:

In one sense…Pentecost can never be repeated—for the new age is here and cannot be ushered in again. But in another sense Pentecost, or rather the experience of Pentecost, can and must be repeated in the experience of all who would become Christians. As the day of Pentecost was once the doorway into the new age, so entry into the new age can only be made through that doorway, that is, through receiving the same Spirit and the same baptism in the Spirit as did the 120.

What I find ironic about Dunn’s pleading is that while he offers correctives to the classical Pentecostal understanding of Spirit Baptism, he seems to almost be saying that a Pentecostal experience of some sort is proof that one is truly a Christian. In Dunn’s fifth chapter, titled “The Riddle of Samaria”, he contends that the Samaritans’ conversion was deficient under Phillip because there was no manifestation of the Spirit. Such reasoning is consistent with Dunn’s overall thesis that conversion was a radical experience that was noted by some sort of manifestations.

I don’t want to lump Dunn’s arguments with those of “Oneness Pentecostals”, but he sounds similar on many points. They take the traditional Pentecostal emphasis of tongues, but rather than tie it with a subsequent work of Spirit Baptism, they instead view it as normative in initiation. Essentially, “Oneness Pentecostals” believe that one must speak in tongues to validate their initiation into the Christian faith. Dunn does not believe that tongues are a singular sign, nor a normative sign for Christian initiation, but when he questions the Samaritans’ initiation because they weren’t manifesting the Spirit in an analogous fashion  to Pentecost, he does seem to argue that one needs to prove their faith by manifesting the Spirit in some radical or extraordinary fashion.

My Angst with Dispensational Defiance of Rejecting an Apostolic Hermeneutic of the Old Testament

The cited material comes from Robert L. Thomas’ volume, “Understanding Spiritual Gifts”. Thomas (1999:141), who is an able exegete and professor at the Master’s Seminary, evidences nonetheless a priori commitment to a systematic paradigm that influences, in my estimation, a reading of certain texts, namely Joel 2:28:

Prophets in the future will minister to people of Israel and the world at large during the seventieth week of Daniel, after the rapture of the church (Joel 2:28). They will not be the prophets described in relation to the gifts of the Spirit bestowed on members of the body of Christ because the church will no longer be on earth during that period.

Thomas’ dispensational paradigm won’t allow him to see any application of Joel 2:28 to the church, even in the face of Peter’s application of such to the “Church”. While Dispensationals will respond by stating that Peter’s application of Joel was only applicable for the nation of Israel, this ignores the fact that Peter offers the same promised Spirit to those “afar off”, to all who would repent and be baptized. 3000 Jews repented on the day of Pentecost, so one can’t say that the Joeline promise was pulled from the table because of Israel’s rejection. Israel’s acceptance opens the door for the same promise to extend outward to include even Gentile believers, which was the great scandal of the Gospel. While I admit that Peter may have been speaking better than he knew, it is clear for me, that according to Luke’s recounting the Joeline promise was distributed to Gentiles and would continue to be dispensed upon all who turn to Christ in repentance.

For Thomas to run roughshod over Peter’s application and state so clearly that Joel’s application is relegated only to Daniel’s seventieth week to a specific number of prophets who are mainly ministering to the Jewish nation is a rejection of the expansion of this promise to the New Covenant. It is a reading of Joel that ignores the fact that Peter applied it in a way that contradicts a priori hermeneutical conviction that Joel must apply to ethnic Jews and within a brief appointed time in God’s eschatological theme. Dispensationals wish to deal with the OT on its own terms, which is commendable, but almost treat the Apostolic hermeneutic of the OT as erroneous and an inconvenience. Do these Dispensationals really understand the OT better than Jesus and the Apostles?

Thomas (1999:134) also argues against the application of Joel 2:28-29 to the current New Covenant era based on the fact that not “all” prophesy:

Based on Numbers 11:29 and Joel 2:28-29, the expectation of all God’s people was that everyone would prophesy, but God has appointed only a limited number to be prophets. The idea that Christians should seek the gift as thought it were available to all is misleading if it is available only to a restricted number of Christians.

I agree that not all prophesy, but hardly see that as proof that Joel is not being fulfilled. It is like saying that the New Covenant promises of salvation being extended to all people isn’t literally being fulfilled because not all people are saved. Should we dare claim the promises to people and encourage them to seek salvation knowing that not all are saved? Thomas is presuming that to be faithful to Joel’s promise, all of God’s people must prophesy. The irony is that most Dispensationals don’t even believe that all will prophesy when Joel is fulfilled in Daniel’s seventieth week. Thomas thinks that, “The idea that Christians should seek the gift as thought it were available to all is misleading if it is available only to a restricted number of Christians.” Well, apparently Paul had no problem encouraging the Christian community to desire prophecy (1 Cor. 14:5). Peter presumed that the collective Christian community was endowed with “charismata”, including speaking gifts (1 PT 4:10-11).

If Thomas thinks it erroneous for Christians to be so mistaken as to dare seek prophecy, he stands in contradiction to Paul and Peter. Paul and Peter apparently didn’t share Thomas’ exegesis and theology on this point. Prophecy is not only available to the Christian community, but they are actually encouraged to seek it. While not all will prophesy, this is hardly proof against the fulfillment of Joel 2:28-29, which Peter seem convinced was the best explanation for the observed behavior on Pentecost. Who are we to believe in this matter? I would encourage Thomas and dispensational to stop accusing folks like me of altering the literal meaning of “all” in Joel 2:28-29 when there is Apostolic precedent that the text wasn’t understood, nor applied in that manner.

As much as I disagree with a Covenantal view of Joel’s application within the New Covenant, they at least view Pentecost itself as fulfillment of Joel 2:28-29. While they restrict the fulfillment to Pentecost, they prove more faithful to Peter than the Dispensationals do.

Craig Keener’s Argument for the Continuation of “Charismata”

NT scholar Craig Keener makes what I have always found to be a simple and logical conclusion on the implications of Pentecost and Peter’s preaching to the continuing nature of the New Covenant with relation to Spiritual gifts.  This excerpt is from his volume, “The Spirit in the Gospels and Acts”. Keener (1997:197-198) contends against the notion that the accompanying signs of the Spirit’s reception in Acts was confined to some brief era:

The phrases “and your children” and “As many as God shall call” likewise make clear that Luke does not envision the outpouring of the Spirit as a past, temporary gift; if Luke does not regard it as still available, then by his argument God’s calling, the new era, and the availability of salvation must have also been retracted. In this case Luke expects his Christian audience to reject the whole point of Peter’s sermon, as he reports that Peter’s unrepentant Jewish hearers did. The implications of such an interpretation run totally counter to Luke’s theology; clearly he assumes that Pentecost’s endowment of the Spirit and dynamic manifestations of the Spirit such as glossolalia are to continue until Jesus’ return. If “the last days” did in fact begin on Pentecost (2:17), and if, in the words of many scholars today, Luke’s view of the kingdom is “already” as well as “not yet,” Luke believes that Spirit baptism remains normative for God’s community, both to Israel and to “far off” Gentiles.

Jesus’ Dependence Upon the Holy Spirit, His Impeccability, and Our Sanctification

In my reading of James B. Shelton’s volume, “Mighty in Word and Deed: The Role of the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts”, I offer the following quotes and thoughts.

There is much discussion if the Spirit, for Luke, was primarily an empowering agent for ministry and witness, or also an agent of renewal and transformation. I think that Shelton (1991:57-62), in his chapter, “The Holy Spirit and Jesus’ Temptation”, shows that there is adequate Lukan material to suggest that Jesus’ triumph over temptation is paradigmatic for believers’ today as well. Shelton (1991:60) states:

Luke’s use of “full of the Holy Spirit” and “led by the Spirit” makes it doubly clear that Jesus’ temptations were real and that he was truly human. He relied not on his own power and resources but on God’s.

Shelton (1991:60) elaborates:

While Luke maintains that Jesus experience as God’s Son through the work of the Holy Spirit is unique, he also shows that in his humanity Jesus is dependent upon the Holy Spirit to overcome temptation and carry out his ministry. this is why Luke use the same terms to express Jesus’ relationship with the Holy Spirit and that of believers. This is good news to Luke’s readers. The temptations of Jesus are real, as real as anyone else’s dilemmas. Jesus does not rely on the uniqueness of his Spirit-generated birth (LK 1:35) or his office of Messiah to win over temptation. He overcomes evil as God expects all people to triumph—through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Shelton (1991:61) concludes the chapter by the following summary:

Thus for Luke enduring the temptations is not merely a staged act by a divine being incapable of being tempted, but it is a lifestyle of a human being endowed by and dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Luke’s emphasis on the Spirit in the temptation narrative is simultaneously sobering and encouraging for the followers of Jesus in their struggle with evil.

I hold to the impeccability of Jesus, meaning that He could not have sinned. Even so, I sometimes think the debate on the issue a vain thing as it only speaks to hypotheticals. The fact is that HE DID NOT SIN. That’s what matters in the whole enchilada. Having said that, I don’t think that taking a position of the impeccability of Christ is contradictory towards Shelton’s emphasis on Jesus’ dependence upon the Spirit to overcome very real temptations.

The fact is that God ordains “means” to fulfill His purposes. Jesus dependence upon the Spirit, His prayers, and learning of the Scriptures were all “means” which enabled Him, in a very real way, to live a life fully devoted to the Father, thus fulfilling all righteousness.

While we aren’t Christ, we are encouraged to employ the very same means in our own sanctification. We are to learn the Scriptures, pray, and walk in the power of the Spirit. While our faith is built upon the foundation of Christ’s righteousness as being ours, He does also serve as an example for our sanctification. After first answering “What Has Jesus Done?”, are we then able to answer “What Would Jesus Do?”. In fact, we answer the latter question by first understanding the former.

Joel, Pentecost, Peter, Ladd, and the Millennium

From Ladd’s “New Testament Theology”

Ladd (1974:344) speaks of the “last days” paradigm that Peter employs from Joel:

The promise given to Israel to be fulfilled at the Day of the Lord, said Peter, has now been fulfilled, not to the nation, but to a group of men who believed in the messiahship of Jesus. Furthermore, Peter adds an expression that gives the event pointed eschatological significance. He substitutes for Joel’s “after this” the words, “and in the last days” (Acts 2:17). In the prophets, “the last days” was an expression designating the time of the Kingdom of God, the messianic era.

Ladd (1974:344) adds:

Peter reinterprets Joel by asserting that the outpouring of the Spirit also belongs to the last days. By so doing he also reinterprets the meaning the meaning of the last days themselves; he separates the last days from the Day of the Lord and places them in history. The last days have come. The last days are the days of the Spirit who has now been given. In some real sense of the word, the messianic era has come, the eschatological salvation is present.

As for the placement of the millennium, Ladd (premillennial) cautions against an unhealthy preoccupation on the matter, “American evangelicalism has placed an unwarranted emphasis on this doctrine of a millennium” (1974:204).

Though Ladd holds to a premillennial position, he is not of the dispensational mold and has rightly recognized that Jesus inaugurated the messianic age in His ministry and in the outpouring of the Spirit upon the Church. Ladd does believe that Jesus will occupy an earthly reign as part of the consummating process, but he does not confine Joel’s fulfillment solely to that earthly reign. I am appreciative that Ladd emphasizes some fulfillment, though he fails to fully qualify what exactly it is. I don’t think I could qualify perfectly what the inauguration is in detail either, so we stand on common ground. We’re clearly agreed that it would be wrong to say that nothing has been inaugurated.

Is it possible that the Joel 2 speaks of Armageddon, and the promised restoration occurs contingently on Pentecost, where blessing now comes to Israel, which awaits yet another day of battle (Gog), whereas the enemies are permanently cut off from the land? We would therefore be in the time of restoration for Israel right now, awaiting the final climatic event. In my preaching series through Joel, I saw this a plausible eschatological scheme. Pentecost inaugurates the restorative age for the “new Israel” (Joel 2:18-27), which will culminate in Christ’s second advent and permanent judgment over the nations (Joel 3), which then ushers in a fully restored age.

Craig Keener on Pentecost’s Eschatolgoical Significance

All excerpts are from Dr. Craig Keener’s volume, “The Spirit in the Gospels and Acts”.

Keener (1997:193) sees eschatological significance in the three Pentecostal signs of wind, fire, and tongues:

The external signs more clearly function as divinely bestowed symbols of the impending kingdom of God. Wind (Acts 2:2) would have convinced the gathered believers that the coming age had arrived, for it symbolizes the breath of resurrection life in Ezek 37…

Keener (1997:193) adds:

Fire, of course, could symbolize the imminent time of eschatological judgment (Acts 2:3)….The fire, therefore, serves as a small reminder of the fire to be unleashed in God’s vengeance at the end of the age.

Keener (1997:193-194) remarks lastly about the significance of tongues:

The clearest sign in Acts 2:1-12 that the power of the eschatological kingdom is erupting into history is the phenomenon of glossolalia in 2:4….the Spirit of prophecy was an eschatological phenomenon, and…Luke recognizes speaking in unknown tongues as a form of  prophetic (i.e., inspired) speech, and uses this phenomenon to mark the fact that in the new era all God’s people would be prophets in some sense (Joel 2:28-29).

Keener (1997:195), though not elaborating on the nature of God’s eschatological reign, does affirm that Peter clearly taught that it had commenced in Pentecost, “Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:14-40 clearly connects baptism in the Holy Spirit with prophetic witness and the present experience of God’s future reign.” He later adds, “…this anointing is evidence that the time of Israel’s salvation has come…”

Justin, Trypho, and Spiritual Gifts

Here are some quotes from Ronald Kydd’s volume, “Charismatic Gifts in the Early Church”:

Kydd (1997:27) notes that Justin Martyr (100-168? A.D.), in his dialogues with Trypho, actually taught that Spiritual gifts existed, not due to some “apostolic” pre-canon ad hoc intent, but as part of the ongoing ministry of Christ to His people:

…Justin hurried on to point out that even in the present, some 50 or 60 years after John’s death, there were Christians who prophesied. He also told Trypho very plainly that these gifts had been transferred to the Christians from the Jews.

Kydd (1997:27) notes that Justin understood the transfer from Jew to Christian of the Spiritual gifts to take place through Christ as part of God’s plan, and not because of some lack of divinity in Christ:

What Trypho wanted to know was if Christ needed these gifts of the Spirit, how could he be regarded as preexistent. An absence of these abilities or characteristics would imply that Jesus was something less than fully divine. The answer Justin gives is noteworthy. Christ did not receive these gifts because He needed them but rather because His having them was part of God’s intention to remove all gifts from the Jews, and He carried this out by giving them all to Christ.

Kydd (1997:27-28) continues, “Then, in fulfillment of prophecy (Justin cites Ps 68:16 and Joel 2:18f.), Christ began to dispense these among Christians.”

Kydd (1997:28) thinks that the rationale provided in Justin’s thought on Spiritual gifts presumes that they continued in the Church and would continue in the Church as related to her endowment with the gifts in the first place:

The obvious goals of this material are to show why Christ received the gifts of the Holy Spirit and to explain what he then did with them. This is the first attempt in early Christian literature to account for the presence of the spiritual gifts in the Church. In the process of developing his thinking on this question, Justin, almost incidentally, provides evidence supporting the idea that spiritual gifts were still to be found among Christians of his day….He thought they were still part of Christian experience.

This is an excerpt of the referenced material from Justin’s dialogue with Trypho:

Now, that [you may know that] your prophets, each receiving some one or two powers from God, did and spoke the things which we have learned from the Scriptures, attend to the following remarks of mine. Solomon possessed the spirit of wisdom, Daniel that of understanding and counsel, Moses that of might and piety, Elijah that of fear, and Isaiah that of knowledge; and so with the others: each possessed one power, or one joined alternately with another; also Jeremiah, and the twelve [prophets], and David, and, in short, the rest who existed amongst you. Accordingly He³⁴⁶ rested, i.e., ceased, when He came, after whom, in the times of this dispensation wrought out by Him amongst men,³⁴⁷ it was requisite that such gifts should cease from you; and having received their rest in Him, should again, as had been predicted, become gifts which, from the grace of His Spirit’s power, He imparts to those who believe in Him, according as He deems each man worthy thereof. I have already said, and do again say, that it had been prophesied that this would be done by Him after His ascension to heaven. It is accordingly said,³⁴⁸ ‘He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts unto the sons of men.’ And again, in another prophecy it is said: ‘And it shall come to pass after this, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and on My servants, and on My handmaids, and they shall prophesy.’^[1]

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^[1] Roberts, A., Donaldson, J., & Coxe, A. C. (1997). The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol.I : Translations of the writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325 (243). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.