The Author of Life
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:26
Several years ago an installment of the comic strip Family Circus depicted a youngster listening intently to the pastor’s sermon. Suddenly his ears caught a term he didn’t understand. The boy turned to his mother and whispered to her that he knew the Father and the Son. “But who is the Holy Spearmint?” he inquired.
At one time, the Holy Spirit seemed to be the unknown, undiscussed, unmentioned person of the Trinity. Christians felt at home with talk about Jesus the Son and even about God the Father, but not the Spirit. So foreign was the Holy Spirit to many Christians that he might just as well have been the “Holy Spearmint.”
All this has changed in recent years, however. During this time, we have witnessed the phenomenal growth of Pentecostal churches. And successive waves of the charismatic movement have lapped on our ecclesiastical shores. These developments have set off an unparalleled explosion of interest in and talk about the Holy Spirit.
This new interest has triggered a seemingly incessant production of books about the Spirit and an apparently unending onslaught of seminars and conferences focusing on the Spirit’s role in our lives. Yet we often appear as confused about the Third Person of the Trinity today as at any time in the past.
Our confusion moves in several directions.
In this chapter we take up these questions. Our goal is to understand who the Spirit is and wherein the focus of the Spirit’s work lies. Specifically, we view the Holy Spirit from two angles:
The Spirit and the Triune God
“I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Throughout the centuries these simple words from the Apostles’ Creed have capsulized the church’s belief about the Third Person of the Trinity. As Christians we have not only placed our trust in God the Father and Jesus the Son. We have also entrusted ourselves to the Holy Spirit. Like the Father and the Son, the Spirit is worthy of our trust and adoration, because he is fully personal and fully divine.
But how do we know this? How can we affirm that the Holy Spirit is person and deity? How is it that he is worthy of the same praise that the Father and the Son deserve? In our attempt to understand this we will traverse two pathways. These two roads converge in the church’s lofty confession, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit in the Bible
Our lofty understanding of the Holy Spirit as fully personal and fully divine is a great treasure. But the people of God have not always been aware of his identity. Nor did this awareness simply fall full-blown out of heaven one day. On the contrary, the Christian teaching about the Spirit stands at the apex of a long history in which God worked with people in bringing them to understand his triune nature as well as the place of the Holy Spirit within it.
We now trace the high points in this history, noting three grand moments:
The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament era. When we look for the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, we must keep in mind that the ancient Hebrews did not possess the fullness of divine revelation we now enjoy. Consequently, they did not know God in his triune identity—as Father, Son, and Spirit. Nor were they fully cognizant of the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity.
Nevertheless, the Old Testament people had a profound awareness of God’s Spirit. This grew out of the Hebrew word for “spirit” (ruach), which was connected to the ideas of “wind” (Gen. 8:1; Exod. 10:13) and “breath” (Ezek. 37:1–10).1
The ancient Hebrews were aware of the close connection between breath and life. Breathing indicated the presence of life. And the cessation of breathing meant that life had come to an end. This connection led them to use the term “spirit” to refer to the life principle in living creatures (Gen. 6:17; 7:15, 22). But they knew as well that God is the source of all creaturely life. As a result, “spirit” also referred to the divine power that creates and sustains life—that is, God’s own Spirit.
The Hebrews knew as well that God’s Spirit is holy. That is, he is morally upright. Because he is holy, the Spirit cannot remain with humans who sin. No wonder David cried out, “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). This servant of God remembered how God’s Spirit had forsaken the disobedient King Saul. Confronted with his own adultery, David feared that the divine power would now abandon him too.
But what exactly did the ancient Hebrews understand by the Spirit? Rather than seeing him through trinitarian eyes, they viewed the Spirit as God’s power at work in the world. Specifically, the Spirit was God at work in two central aspects of the divine program.
According to the Genesis creation narrative, the Spirit was active when God called the universe into existence. The Spirit of God “was hovering [or ‘brooded’] over the waters” (Gen. 1:2), and then God spoke the series of creative words.
But above all, the Spirit participated in the creation of humankind. Adam became a living being when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils—that is, when God gave to Adam God’s own animating Spirit (Gen. 2:7).
The Spirit is not only God at work originating life. He is also the power that sustains life (Ps. 104:29–30; Isa. 32:15). All living creatures owe their existence to God’s Spirit. But this is especially true for humans (Gen. 6:3; Job 27:3; 34:14–15). Indeed, when God recalls the Spirit, life ceases (Gen. 6:3; Eccles. 12:7).
The Old Testament repeatedly recounts the stories of people whom God empowered in special manners. Sometimes the coming of God’s Spirit merely enhanced the skills (Exod. 31:1–5; 35:31) or the leadership abilities (Judg. 3:10; 6:34) that people already possessed. But other times, the Spirit’s presence resulted in superhuman feats. For example, the endowment of the Spirit allowed Samson to display extraordinary physical strength (Judg. 14:6, 19; 15:14).
The prophets were repeatedly the recipients of a special endowment of God’s power through the Spirit. Sometimes they found themselves under direct divine control (1 Sam. 10:6, 10; 19:19–24). More generally, however, the presence of the Spirit resulted in the prophets sensing a compulsion to speak on behalf of God (Num. 24:2–3; 2 Chron. 15:1–2).
Whatever form it took, the Spirit’s presence provided the resources necessary to complete a divinely ordained task.
After Israel settled in the promised land, the Spirit’s endowment was increasingly connected to political and religious leaders. Above all, kings, priests, and prophets were the bearers of the Spirit.
Despite the Holy Spirit’s presence among them through their leaders, Israel’s experience of the Spirit was ultimately unsatisfying. Throughout the Old Testament era, the Spirit’s endowment always remained transient. As King Saul learned to his detriment, no one—not even the leaders of the people—could presume to possess the Spirit permanently. And the Spirit’s endowment was limited primarily to special people. Not everyone in Israel enjoyed direct access to God’s Spirit. Rather, the people were dependent on their leaders and others God chose to mediate his presence among them.
The unsatisfying experience led God’s Old Testament people to direct their attention to the future. They eagerly anticipated a grand day when God’s Spirit would dwell permanently among them—and within them all.
These hopes were fueled by the prophets who spoke of the future coming of the anointed one (the Messiah). Not only would the fullness of the Spirit rest on him (Isa. 42:1), the Messiah would also pour out the Spirit on the people. When this glorious event occurred, all God’s people—from the greatest to the least—would know God and enjoy the fullness of the Spirit (Jer. 31:34).
The Holy Spirit and the Christ. According to the New Testament, the hopes and expectations of God’s Old Testament people were fulfilled in Jesus. He is the Christ, a title that means “anointed one.”
Indeed, Jesus came as the anointed one, the one uniquely endowed by the Spirit awaited by the prophets. The New Testament writers emphasize the important role the Spirit played in Jesus’s life.
The Spirit’s central role dated to the beginning of Jesus’s earthly sojourn, for the Spirit was responsible for our Lord’s conception (Luke 1:35). His role began in earnest at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, as at his baptism the Spirit endowed our Lord for his divinely given task. And this role was equally important at the climax of Jesus’s mission, for through the power of the Holy Spirit God raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 8:11; see also 1:4).
From conception to resurrection, therefore, the Spirit was at work in Christ’s life. He guided our Lord’s steps (e.g., Matt. 4:1) and empowered our Lord to carry out his ministry (Matt. 12:28).
As the one uniquely endowed by the Spirit, Jesus was also the one through whom the outpouring of the Spirit would come. As John the Baptist said, Jesus would “baptize” his followers in the Spirit (John 1:29–34).
Jesus himself promised that he would give his disciples the full measure of the Spirit, who would be a well of living water flowing from their inner being (John 4:14; 7:37–39). Following Jesus’s departure his Father would send another “Advocate” to empower them for their mission (John 14:16; 16:7). The coming Helper would teach the disciples, reminding them of the Lord’s instructions (John 14:25–27) and guiding them into truth (John 16:12–15). This same Spirit would testify about Jesus to the world (John 16:7–11) and assist the disciples in taking their stand as Christ’s witnesses (John 15:26–27).
The Holy Spirit and the church. The glorious fulfillment of this promise occurred at Pentecost (Acts 2:1). After completing his earthly ministry, the exalted Lord poured out the Spirit on his followers on that day.
But Pentecost was no mere passing occasion. This event marked a milestone in the history of God’s activity in the salvation of humankind. At Pentecost, the Spirit entered the world in a unique way. And in so doing he inaugurated a new age, the age of fulfillment (1 Pet. 1:10–12).
The outpouring of the Spirit signaled the birth of the Spirit-endowed, Spirit-empowered, Spirit-led community—the church. And it commenced the age of the mission of the church. Beginning with Pentecost, the Spirit took on a new role. Throughout this age, the Spirit would focus his work on the new community, the fellowship of the followers of Christ.
In the same way, the reality of Pentecost was not limited to the disciples upon whom the Spirit fell on that day. Rather, Pentecost embraces all believers. It extends to every Christian in every nation and in every generation. We all now enjoy the presence of the Spirit, who forms us into one fellowship (1 Cor. 12:13). Through our union with Christ and his community, we participate in the fullness of the Spirit. Because we are believers, we have experienced Pentecost; we have received the endowment and the empowerment of the Spirit. In fact, if we do not “have” the Spirit we do not even belong to Christ (Rom. 8:9).
Since Pentecost, therefore, the Spirit enjoys a new identity. He is the mediator of the presence of the risen and exalted Jesus within his community. The Spirit is the teacher, leader, and empowerer of the church; he indwells the community on the Lord’s behalf.
But his present role does not exhaust the Spirit’s place in the life of the community of Christ. There remains a future aspect of his activity. This, in turn, suggests a further dimension of the Spirit’s identity.
The Spirit will one day transform us into the likeness of Christ. This transformation will involve not only our inner person but each of us in our total being, including our body. As Paul declared, through the Spirit, the God who raised Jesus will “give life” to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11).
Appropriate the power of God’s Spirit, which is in us through our union with Christ.
This future event will likewise mark the liberation of creation from the bondage it now suffers. On that day the entire universe will participate in “the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).
In the meantime, the indwelling Spirit acts as the “down payment” guaranteeing our future salvation (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13–14). And he has already begun his transforming work within us (Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 3:18).
In short, the waiting is over! The Spirit is come! We live in the era of Pentecost! Therefore, rather than praying for the Spirit’s arrival, our task is to be “filled” constantly with the Spirit and to “walk” in the Spirit. That is, we are to appropriate the power that is ours, because the Spirit promised by our Lord is now within us.
The Spirit and the Trinitarian Life
In the preceding pages, we traced the footsteps of the Spirit from the Old Testament era to the church age. But to sharpen our understanding of who the Spirit is, we must return to the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine provides the context for us to see the Spirit’s eternal identity within the Triune God.
The Spirit within the eternal God. Christian confessions of faith link the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son as together being the one God.2 We declare that throughout all eternity the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity.
But how ought we to understand this statement? Who is the Spirit within the one God? What is his eternal identity?
To answer this question, we must invoke once again our earlier conception of the Trinity. Specifically the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the relationship between the Father and the Son. This insight carries glorious implications.
As we noted in chapter 2, the primary movement in the eternal God is what the church fathers called the eternal generation of the Son. Throughout all eternity the Father shares his life with the Son, and the Son draws his life from the Father. This eternal dynamic forms the identity of both the Father and the Son. The First Person of the Trinity is the Father of the Son. And the Second Person is the Son of the Father.
The Father and the Son are not only distinguished from each other; they are also bound together. What unites the Father and the Son? In a word—“love.” Throughout all eternity the Father loves the Son, and the Son reciprocates the Father’s love. The bond between them is the mutual love they share. This suggests that the secondary movement in God is the eternal “spiration” or “procession” of the Spirit, as the Spirit of the relationship (i.e., love) between the Father and the Son.
But we want to say more about the reality of the Spirit. Indeed, throughout the ages Christians have affirmed that the Holy Spirit is eternal and divine. Can we continue to affirm this?
Yes, if we remember one crucial point. The love between the Father and the Son is a relationship between eternal persons. The Father loves the Son with an eternal love, and the Son reciprocates that love eternally. This means that the bond they share is likewise eternal and divine. The love that unites the Father and the Son is the Spirit, the third member of the Trinity. Therefore, like the Father and the Son, the Spirit is eternal deity.3
This conclusion is confirmed by an interesting connection the Bible draws between the divine character or essence and the Holy Spirit. John writes, “God is love” (1 John 4:8)—that is, “love” characterizes God’s own eternal essence. According to Jesus, God’s eternal essence is also “spirit” (John 4:24). With great precision, therefore, the Bible uses the same word “spirit” to speak both of God’s eternal nature and of the third member of the Triune God, the Holy Spirit. In the same way, we can conclude that “love” characterizes both the eternal essence of God and the Holy Spirit.
We may readily affirm that the Spirit shares with the Father and the Son eternal deity. Perhaps more difficult for us to understand is how the Spirit can also be personal. Indeed, some Christians find it easier to think of the Spirit in impersonal terms. In their minds, he is more like a force—a mysterious divine force, perhaps—but nevertheless an impersonal force. They cannot see him as personal, alongside the Father and the Son.
The difficulty may become even more acute if we speak of the Spirit as “love.” In our minds, love is often merely an abstract, impersonal concept. If the Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son, the Spirit must be an impersonal force, like the attraction that draws people together.
The Bible, however, teaches that the Spirit is fully person. The biblical authors refer to the Spirit as “he,” not “it.” Likewise, they attribute personal qualities, such as intellect, emotion, and will, to the Spirit.
How can this be? How ought we to understand this biblical language? How is it that the Spirit is personal rather than merely impersonal?
The answer lies in the Spirit’s close connection to the Father and the Son within the Triune God. The Father and the Son, of course, are persons. We may add: they are uniquely personal, the most personal of all persons. It follows from their uniqueness as persons that the relationship they share is likewise unique. Theirs is not merely some abstract, generic “love,” but a unique relationship, a uniquely personal love. Consequently, we affirm that like the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit—the one who binds them together—is uniquely personal. The Spirit is the Third Person of the Triune God.
Perhaps we can see this more clearly when we consider that our tendency to depersonalize the Spirit may be connected to our inclination to treat “love” as an abstraction. Love, however, is not something that exists “out there” as an independent idea in some realm beyond personal relationships. Rather, “love” is a description of how persons relate to each other. It is a way of characterizing a bond between persons. A person who loves someone sacrifices for the sake of the other.
This is how we use the word “love” to characterize human beings. For example, if I say “My father was a loving man,” I am not speaking about some abstract quality he possessed. Rather, I mean to inform you about how he acted, how he related to people he met and knew, including how he treated me, his son. I am suggesting that in his relationships with others—whether with his wife, children, congregants in the churches he served, or neighbors—he consistently gave of himself in order to benefit them.
How much more is this the case when we talk about God! The love between the Father and the Son is no mere abstract, impersonal force located in a realm of ideas disengaged from the First and Second Persons of the Trinity. Nor is it a quality they each possess independently of the other. Rather, the love uniting them is embedded in their relationship. And because they are uniquely personal, the Spirit of their relationship is personal as well.
The biblical language about God and the Spirit confirms our conclusion in yet another way. The Holy Spirit is person, because he is the personal character of God. “God is love,” the Bible affirms. We have seen how the doctrine of the Trinity forms the foundation for this statement about God’s eternal character. God is love, because throughout all eternity the Father loves the Son and the Son returns the Father’s love. The love that binds the Father and the Son is the essence of the one God. But our God is personal. Therefore, his essential nature—the unique love that binds Father and Son—is likewise personal. And this unique love is the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity.
But why should we expend so much energy on this point? What difference does it make whether or not the Spirit is personal?
It makes all the difference in the world—and beyond the world, in eternity! The personhood of the Spirit is not merely an abstract question that provides fodder for theological disputes. The church father Athanasius showed us once and for all why this is the case. He set forth the significance of this tenet of our faith in his challenge to those in his day who sought to depersonalize the Spirit. Athanasius pointed out that our eternal salvation is at stake here. Only if the Spirit is fully person, the very personal presence of God with us, does the Spirit’s presence in us mean that we have fellowship with the living, personal God.
As Jesus himself indicated, the Spirit mediates our union with Christ and with his Father (John 14:16–21). If the Spirit to whom we look for this fellowship with Christ and his Father is not the personal God, then we are still alienated from God. We are lost forever.
But thanks be to God, the Third Person of the Trinity—the Spirit of the fellowship between the Father and the Son—has drawn us into fellowship with the Father and the Son!
O spread the tidings ’round, wherever man is found,
Wherever human hearts and human woes abound;
Let ev’ry Christian tongue proclaim the joyful sound:
The Comforter has come!4
The Holy Spirit: The Completer of God’s work in the world. We noted in our discussion of the Triune God how each trinitarian person has a specific role within the one activity of God in the world. The Father functions as the source or originator who sends the Son and the Spirit. And the Son fulfills the Father’s will in the world so that the Spirit may be sent.
The Spirit, in turn, completes the divine work, so that the grand goal of community may indeed come in its fullness. The Spirit, therefore, is the great Completer.
The Spirit’s role as the Completer arises from his identity within the eternal Trinity. To see this, we must remind ourselves that God’s program in the world is itself an outworking of the dynamic within the eternal, Triune God.
In our discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity, we suggested that the entire drama of creation and redemption flows out of the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son. God is self-giving love—namely, the love shared by the Father and the Son, who is the Holy Spirit. The loving Father willingly created the world. And the Son willingly acted on behalf of the Father to make salvation available to fallen humans. But the divine work is not yet complete. We must be brought to share in the salvation the Father has planned and the Son has purchased.
This is the task of the Spirit. Because he is the Spirit of the divine Father-Son relationship, the Spirit enters the world to complete the divine plan. The Spirit’s goal is to bring us to share in the fellowship the Son enjoys with the Father. This work will be finished only at the end of history, when God establishes the new heaven and the new earth.
Until that great day, the Spirit brings us to experience a foretaste of the glorious future community that we will enjoy throughout eternity. As we noted earlier, the Spirit is active within us, thereby providing the guarantee that we will participate in God’s future (Rom. 8:16–17; Eph. 1:13–14). And the Spirit is likewise actively renewing the natural world, thereby guaranteeing that one day God will refashion the universe into the new heaven and new earth.
Throughout the remaining chapters of our study we will be developing these great themes of our faith. In the meantime, reminding ourselves of the glorious work of the Spirit on our behalf ought to lead us to offer heartfelt praise to the Triune God.
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!5
The Spirit and the Scriptures
As the Third Person of the Trinity sent into the world, the Spirit’s mission is to complete the program of the Triune God. To this end, the Spirit is both the source of life and the power that renews life.
The Spirit will attain his ultimate goal one future day, when God establishes the glorious community for which we are created—the fellowship of the redeemed people living in a renewed world and enjoying the presence of the Triune God. En route to that day, the Spirit is at work creating and nourishing spiritual life.
Central to the work of the Spirit in this enterprise is the Bible. By means of Scripture the Spirit bears witness to Jesus Christ, guides the lives of believers, and leads the people of God. In fact, the Spirit has chosen to focus his work in the world through the Word of God inscripturated in the Bible.6
The Bible, therefore, is the Spirit’s book. He is the inspirer and illuminator of Scripture. The Bible’s purpose is instrumental to the Spirit’s mission. And the Spirit, in turn, always works in accordance with the Bible. In short, there is a reciprocal relationship between the inscripturated Word and the Spirit.
But we can say more about this connection between Word and Spirit. To do so, we focus our attention on three statements that capsulize the integral relationship between the Spirit and the Scriptures:
The Spirit Stands at the Foundation of Scripture7
As Christians we are a “people of the book.” We declare that the Bible is the foundation of our faith and the source of guidance for our lives. In acknowledging Scripture in this manner, however, we are not glorifying a mere book. Rather, we are actually looking beyond the Bible to the Spirit who addresses us through its pages. We honor Scripture because it is the vehicle through which the Spirit chooses to speak.
Two concepts clarify the foundational role the Spirit exercises toward Scripture:
Inspiration refers to the activity of the Holy Spirit that led to the writing, compiling, and canonizing of the Bible as the book of the church.
Viewed from one perspective, inspiration speaks of the special work of the Spirit in guiding or “superintending” the lives of prophets, apostles, and other authors and compilers so that what they came to write or collect is Scripture (Jer. 36:1–2; Ezek. 11:5; Mic. 3:8; 2 Pet. 1:21).8
Viewed from another perspective and as a result of the first, we may speak of the biblical documents themselves as “inspired.”9 They reflect what God desired to have written. Indeed, because of the Spirit’s activity we can say with Paul, “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16).
We may bring these two aspects together in a single, terse definition:
Inspiration is that work of the Holy Spirit in influencing the authors and compilers of Scripture to produce writings that adequately reflect what God desired to communicate to us.
Defining inspiration is relatively easy. More difficult is determining exactly how the Spirit worked in the production of the documents that became our Bible. Specifically, we wonder, what means did the Spirit employ in influencing the writers and compilers of Scripture? Here we can offer no simple answer. If we look at the clues found in the Bible itself, we must conclude that the Spirit used a wide range of means.
Certain texts, for example, imply that they arose through divine dictation. God himself gave human agents the very words they recorded (Exod. 19:3–6; Lev. 1:1; Num. 7:89; 12:8; 1 Sam. 9:15; Isa. 6:8–9; Rev. 14:13).
Many other passages, however, suggest a more indirect means. They clearly indicate that godly people were active agents in the process of writing and compiling Scripture (Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16; 28:25; 1 Cor. 14:37). The active participation of human authors explains why we find in the Bible a wide variety of writing styles, varying accounts of the same events, and even outbursts of human emotion (2 Cor. 11:1).
Then there are those sections of the Bible that indicate they are based on eyewitness accounts or that report the encounters certain persons had with God (Exod. 24:1–11; 1 Kings 22:19; Isa. 6:1–5; 2 Cor. 12:1–4).
And still other texts suggest that the compilers drew from the wisdom of ancient cultures or from previously existing documents (e.g., 1 Kings 11:41; 14:19, 29).
Can we bring together this great variety into a single theory of inspiration? Probably not. At best, we can venture only a broad statement in an attempt to summarize what the texts themselves suggest. Perhaps we must be content with only a summary, largely descriptive statement:
By direct command, a sense of urgency, or simply a personal desire or compulsion, God’s Spirit moved spiritual persons within the faith community to write or compile from dictation, experience, tradition, or wisdom those documents that reflect what God desired to have recorded in order that the divine purposes might be served.
The Spirit’s work did not cease with the compilation of the canon. Rather, he has spoken through Scripture throughout the ages and continues to speak to succeeding generations through the Bible (John 14:26).
To say “the Spirit speaks through Scripture” means that he causes the Bible to “come alive” to us—dulled as we are by sin (1 Cor. 2:6–16; 2 Cor. 3:14–17; 1 John 5:7, 11). When he speaks, we gain an awareness of the significance of the biblical texts for life in the present. We may designate this ongoing activity illumination.
For purposes of clarity, we readily treat inspiration and illumination as two separate tasks of the Spirit. However, we must keep in mind that they are in fact two dimensions of the Spirit’s one activity in and through Scripture.
We find inspiration and illumination operating together when the Bible was being written and collected. The ancient peoples heard the Spirit’s voice through the various individual books that now form our Bible. As a result, they preserved and brought together these writings as inspired Scripture. And reflection on previously collected inspired documents gave rise to subsequent books.10 The biblical community formed the documents into one Bible, because they found these writings to be the vehicle through which God’s Spirit addressed them in their own circumstances.11
In a similar manner, the Spirit attunes us today to understand and apply Scripture to our present situation. We too encounter God in the pages of the Bible. And as a result of his illuminating activity, we are drawn to confess that this is the Spirit’s book, the product of his inspiring, superintending activity.
One major difference separates our experience from that of Israel and the early church, however. The ancient people of God heard the Spirit’s voice speaking through an as yet incomplete Bible, through a canon to which they were adding texts. The Spirit now speaks to us through the completed canon, the whole Bible. We are not writing additional books that the church will one day add to the Scriptures. Rather, the Bible is complete, and nothing we write can claim to be the chosen vehicle of the Spirit in the way that the sixty-six books of Scripture are.
The Spirit Addresses Us through Scripture
The Bible is the Spirit’s book. But what exactly does the Spirit accomplish through Scripture? Simply stated, the Spirit addresses us through the message of the Bible. By speaking to us in the pages of the Bible, the Spirit seeks to nurture our spiritual life and to create in us a new identity. This occurs in several ways.
As Christians we naturally view the Bible as the place—ultimately the only place—where we can find the message of everlasting life. Believing this, we readily look to Scripture in order to be nourished in our faith.
Drink deeply at the well of the Spirit by feeding hungrily on the “bread of life.”
This natural Christian craving for the Word of God is in keeping with the role that Scripture ought to play in our lives. The old Pietists used to say, “The truth of Scripture claims us.”12 By that they meant that as God addresses us through Scripture, the Spirit lays hold of us in the midst of life. The Word of God provides spiritual nourishment so that we might grow in Christlikeness and in service as disciples of our Lord. Indeed, as Peter suggests, what milk is to the newborn child, Scripture is to the believer (1 Pet. 2:2).
The ultimate goal of the Bible, therefore, is what we may call “spiritual formation.” As Christians our chief desire ought to be that we be formed spiritually through the Bible, in order to please God in every aspect of our lives.
With this goal in view, we must diligently apply ourselves to the reading of Scripture. Using the best tools we have, we ought to direct our efforts toward the task of discovering the meaning of the biblical text. But we do not apply ourselves to Bible study merely to gain knowledge about the text itself. Rather, our intent is to allow the Spirit to address us through Scripture, so that we might be instructed as to what we should believe and how we should live. Through the words of Scripture, the Spirit desires to encourage us and to empower us to love God and others as we should. And through the Bible he also seeks to sustain us and renew us in the battle against the enemy.
As we read and study, therefore, we patiently listen for God’s voice. We anticipate that the Spirit will address us through the text.
Break thou the bread of life, Dear Lord to me,
As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea;
Beyond the sacred page I seek thee Lord,
My spirit pants for thee, O living Word.13
Throughout the centuries, Christians have acknowledged the Bible as the foundational document of the Christian community. But why? The answer lies in what the Spirit accomplishes through Scripture. The Bible provides the foundation of our faith, in that through its pages the Spirit directs us toward the new identity that is ours by faith in Christ. Indeed, as he speaks through the Bible, the Spirit creates in us this new identity.14
To understand this dynamic—to discern how the Spirit bestows on us a new identity through the pages of Scripture—we must remind ourselves of how we form our personal identity.
Each of us is confronted with the question of the meaning of our lives. We ask the foundational personal questions: “Who am I? Why am I here? How can I make sense out of my life?” As we find answers to these questions, we gain a sense of identity. Indeed, personal identity is the product of the process of bringing all our life into a meaningful whole. But for this to happen we must discover a framework by means of which we are able to see that the diverse and divergent aspects of our lives somehow fit together.15
There are several possible sources for such an identity-giving framework. Your identity may arise from a sense of vocation, a sense that you have a great task to accomplish during the short span that you are alive. Or you may derive this framework from the belief that you are a participant in something that is larger than your life.
Christians discover in the Bible the “interpretive framework” by means of which our lives come together—make sense—as a unified whole. This interpretive framework is linked with the biblical narrative, the story of God at work in the world bringing creation to a glorious future goal.
The Spirit addresses us through this narrative. Through it, he invites us to see our lives in the light of God’s work. He summons us to link our personal stories with God’s story and the story of God’s people. Through the “old, old story,” the Holy Spirit calls us into God’s new community. And the Spirit leads us to view our personal lives from the perspective of this ancient Gospel narrative. As we look at all of life from this vantage point, our lives begin to make sense. And we begin to see a unity within the variegated experiences that form the ingredients of our existence.
We must take this a step further. How exactly does the Bible provide a special interpretive framework for our lives? Succinctly stated, the Spirit speaking through the Bible leads us to reorient our lives on the basis of the biblical story of God’s past actions and in accordance with the scriptural vision of God’s future.16
Through the biblical narrative the Spirit transposes us back to the events that lie at the foundation of Christ’s community and form the basis of our participation in that community. At the heart of this story is the Gospel narrative—the recounting of the passion and resurrection of Jesus and the subsequent sending of the Spirit at Pentecost.
But the Spirit’s goal is not merely that we might gain knowledge of these events as facts of ancient history. Rather, he seeks to draw us into the story. He wants us to see our lives—to organize the seemingly disorganized, pointless events of our existence—in the light of what God has done for us in Christ. Through the recounting of the narrative, the Spirit draws our present into Christ’s past. The Bible calls this process union with Christ, for through the Spirit, Jesus’s death and resurrection become real in our spiritual experience. In this manner, the gospel narrative of Jesus’s life becomes the structure—the interpretive framework—by means of which we now understand our own lives.
From this point on, we speak of our lives by appeal to words related to “before” and “after.” We divide our journey into the “old life” and the “new life.” We talk about the former days when we were “lost,” “strangers,” “at enmity with God.” But then we quickly add that through Christ we are now “saved,” “reconciled,” and “members of God’s family” or “God’s new community.” And we cite specific incidents in our lives that illustrate what we mean. We talk about the futility of our former way of living. We narrate the events surrounding our encounter with God in Christ. And we add examples of how our lives are different now.
The biblical authors declare that God has a glorious goal for us, which includes the entire universe. They present a vision of a new creation in which we—created for community—will live in harmony with each other, with all creation, and above all with God (Isa. 65:17–25; Rom. 8:18–21; Rev. 21:1–5).
We orient our lives according to Christ’s past and God’s future.
Addressing us through this biblical vision, the Spirit draws us to view our lives in the light of God’s future. He brings us to orient our goals and aspirations so that they fit with God’s goals. And he assists us in discovering a personal purpose for living, a vocation that links us as participants in God’s program for the world.
The Bible not only provides the interpretive framework from which Christians derive their identity; the Spirit addressing us in Scripture actually fosters growth in us in living out that identity. Through Scripture the Spirit leads us to discover what it means to live in accordance with God’s story. He teaches us what Christians ought to believe and how they ought to act. And the Spirit moves us to appropriate the power he has made available to us. By linking our lives to God’s future, the Spirit admonishes us to open ourselves and our present to the power of God’s future, which is already at work in our world.
As the Spirit’s Book, the Bible Is Our Authority
Through the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit addresses us. For this reason, we honor the Bible as our authority. But what does “honoring the Bible” mean? And to what extent is Scripture authoritative for us?
For many Christians the authority of the Bible is connected to its veracity or truthfulness. Indeed, as believers we acknowledge that the Bible is true and therefore authoritative. Two pairs of theological words underline this belief. They come together in this affirmation:
Because the Bible is given through verbal, plenary inspiration, it is infallible and inerrant.
The words “verbal” and “plenary” summarize what we believe about the extent of biblical veracity. Because the Bible in its entirety is the Spirit’s book, it is true in its entirety.
“Plenary inspiration” means that the Holy Spirit’s involvement in the writing and compiling of Scripture extends to the entire Bible. All that is found within Scripture is the product of the Spirit’s activity (2 Tim. 3:16). We need not pick and choose where we think the Spirit will speak. Instead, we must be open to his address everywhere in the Bible.
“Verbal inspiration” declares that the Spirit’s involvement extends to the very words of Scripture. To understand the importance of the Spirit’s superintending of the choice of words, let’s remind ourselves of the dynamics of communication.
When we talk face-to-face with others, we have many vehicles through which to communicate. In addition to the actual words we say, we “speak” through such tools as gestures, body language, and tone of voice. But when we communicate through written documents, we are dependent on the words themselves to convey our meaning.
Think of what this means for God’s decision to communicate with us through words—that is, the Word of God inscripturated in the Bible. To say “The Spirit inspired the Bible” means to affirm that he played a role in word selection and word order.
As we have already seen, it would be a mistake to assume that the Spirit dictated every word of Scripture. Nevertheless, we believe that his activity ensured that the words of the text are able to convey God’s intended message to us.
Because the Bible is the Spirit’s book, we can trust it. Or stated theologically, we believe Scripture is infallible and inerrant.
“The Bible is infallible” means that these writings are “not liable to deceive.” Because the Spirit moved in the lives of the authors and compilers of Scripture, we can believe them. They do not intend to lead us astray.
“The Bible is inerrant” means that the Bible accurately presents what God desires to teach us. The central goal of Scripture, of course, is to convey theological and ethical truth. But it also touches on other areas of human knowledge. When it does so, the information it provides is accurate to the extent that is necessary to serve the purposes of its author.
To say the Bible is infallible and inerrant is to declare that Scripture is totally trustworthy. Consequently, we must approach the text humbly and expectantly, open to being taught by the Spirit.
Declarations about the Scriptures such as these are helpful reminders of the foundational role the Bible ought to play in our lives. We read Scripture expecting to find out what we should believe and how we should live.
But we must remember that in the end we are speaking about the Holy Spirit, who addresses us through Scripture. In offering our lofty affirmations about the Bible, we are affirming our faith in the Spirit, who announces his revelatory message through the pages of Scripture.17
Thus, the Bible is trustworthy and authoritative because it is the vehicle of the Spirit. The Bible’s infallibility and inerrancy derive from the veracity of the Spirit, who speaks truly through it. And the Bible’s authority is nothing else but the authority of the Spirit who illumines its divinely inspired, revelatory message.
The Bible is authoritative because it is the Spirit’s book. But if it is to serve as our authority, it must become our ultimate authority. And its authority must reach into every dimension of our lives.
Why is this so? Why can’t we merely compartmentalize the Bible into some “religious corner” of our lives?
The all-encompassing authority of Scripture arises from the all-encompassing nature of religious commitment. Try as we will, we cannot successfully marginalize theological convictions to the fringes of life. Such commitments eventually work their way out of the closet and begin to color other areas as well.
Placing ourselves under the teaching of the Bible commits us to view the world through eyes informed by Scripture. We strive to make our foundational commitments square with the Bible. We desire to be informed and motivated by convictions derived from Scripture and the biblical community.
And like all religious convictions, a biblically informed outlook will not remain in the closet or cellar of our being. Indeed, biblical convictions demand that they permeate our attitudes and actions in every facet of life.
In short, if we acknowledge the Bible as our authority, we are committing ourselves to the task of living out in every area of life what the Spirit is saying through the Scriptures. We are committing ourselves to the goal of becoming obedient disciples of our Lord. As Christians, we desire to connect belief with life. For this to happen, we must open ourselves to the Spirit to bathe our hearts with Scripture until our lives reflect the very mind, character, and vision of Jesus.
May the mind of Christ, my Savior
Live in me from day to day,
By His love and pow’r controlling
All I do and say.18
Indeed, this is exactly what our Lord demands. He admonished his disciples to put into practice his teachings (Matt. 7:24–27). As James reminds us, the Christian life means being “doers” and not only “hearers” of the word (James 1:22–25 NRSV).
Contrary to what many Christians assume, being a doer of the word is not some grievous burden. On the contrary, it is the greatest privilege a human can ever experience. As we place ourselves under the tutoring of the Spirit, who speaks through the Scriptures, we discover the divine design for human life. We find in the Bible the only sure foundation on which to build a life that is not only meaningful now but also will count for eternity.
Knowing this, we can sing heartily:
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!19
Mastering the Material
Having Read This Chapter, You Should Know:
For Connection and Application