Paul's Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

St. Paul’s Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

The apostolic testimony to the Holy Spirit is given by Paul, James, Peter, John, Jude and the author of Hebrews. One thing must be stated at the outset regarding the apostolic theology of the Spirit. They all, with full consent, take for granted the corruption of man’s nature. Thus, they refer to the Spirit as the Originator and Source all the saving, sanctifying and comforting influences that Christians experience. 1 They do not stop to inquire how the renewing of the Holy Spirit is to be harmonized with the freedom of the will – as if these questions were not part of their concern. Nevertheless, the fact of men’s responsibility along with the proclamation of converting grace and the renewing of the Spirit is set forth with a gravity and exigency to which the solution of these questions could add no further weight – if it were possible to solve them.

We do not find in any of the apostles the sheer volume of allusions to the Holy Spirit’s work in saving and sanctifying as we find in the Epistles of St. Paul. This is most accurately, besides other reasons, to be ascribed to the fact that Paul had not know Christ after the flesh 2 but had received his revelations more through an inward communication of the Spirit than by direct discourse with the Lord. Paul has this distinguishing feature, quite different from the other apostles.

Paul most emphatically affirms that Christ is never to be conceived of apart from the Spirit, and, conversely, that the Spirit is never to be conceived of apart from Christ. The memorable passage where he says, “Now the Lord is that Spirit,” 3 shows the close connection in which Paul places Christ and the Spirit and how fully he understands their joint mission. We will look at several features of Paul’s theology of the Spirit, but the above point should be constantly borne in mind as the groundwork and underpinning for all of Paul’s understanding of the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle gives us quite an ample testimony to the dignity of the Spirit. In Acts we find him saying that the Spirit spoke by the prophet Isaiah 4 and that the Spirit testified from city to city that bonds and imprisonment awaited him. 5 In his own Epistles, Paul declares that the Holy Spirit sustained him in his ministry. 6 Paul appeals to the Spirit and calls Him to witness. 7 But in demonstration of the aforementioned connection in Paul’s theology of the work of the Son and the Spirit, we advert to the fact that Paul uses the same expression, sent forth (εξαπεστειλεν), to describe the Spirit’s mission as he used to describe the Son’s mission 8

The titles Paul uses for the Holy Spirit are quite numerous, and revealing of his understanding as well. For instance, he calls Him the Spirit of God, 9 the Spirit of His Son, 10 the Spirit of Christ 11 and the Spirit of Him that raised Christ from the dead.12 If we look at the economy in which the Spirit is sent, He is said to be shed on us abundantly. 13 If we examine the titles He is given by Paul in view of the blessings and benefits derived from Him, He is called the Spirit of grace, 14 the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, 15 the Spirit of adoption, 16 the Spirit of life, 17 the Spirit of meekness 18 and the Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 19

Paul invariably attributes to the Spirit the instigation of the Christian life. Thus we find him saying, “No man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” 20 And in another place he says, “He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” 21 Whether or not we interpret the phrase “washing (laver) of regeneration,” as referring to baptism (which is not correct), the last phrase (renewing of the Holy Ghost) must be construed as referring to the active operation of the Spirit at the commencement of the Christian life. Since it is to this shedding or pouring out of the Spirit to which salvation is traced, this cannot be referred to mere doctrine. The personal Spirit is mentioned as the producing cause.

One may ask how men can said to be saved by the renewing of the Spirit when the salvation is in Christ. The answer is obvious. There is a chain, or series of events, of which no link may be lacking.

We are saved by divine purpose. God has so decreed and chosen us to salvation before the foundation of the world.

We are saved by the atonement as the meritorious basis of all.

We are saved by faith as the bond of union to Christ. We are saved by grace as contrasted to works we have done.

We are saved by the truth that conveys God’s testimony.

And we are saved, as it expressed here, “by the renewing of the Holy Ghost,” as producing faith in the heart. So we find the Spirit called the Spirit of faith, 22 that is, the Author or producing cause of faith.

Therefore we may unhesitatingly affirm that the commencement of the Christian life must be attributed to the Holy Spirit absolutely and completely.

Of all Paul’s epistles, it is perhaps to the Galatians that his doctrine on the economy of the Spirit is most full. This was, of course, due to the circumstances which necessitated the letter in the first place. We are all perhaps conversant with the history of the Galatian church. They had no sooner been founded than they were subjected to the test of counterfeit teachers. Representatives from the Pharisaical party of the Jews insisted that an adherence to certain Jewish rites was necessary for justification before God. Paul replied to this error by stating that they had not received the Spirit through works of the Law, but by the preaching of faith. The ordinary saving gifts of regeneration and holiness, as well as other supernatural gifts, were not received by any performance of the ceremonial and moral law.

The next thing Paul demonstrates is that the promised Spirit was procured by the vicarious death of Christ. This proves the assertion made earlier about Paul’s view of the joint mission of Son and Spirit. The giving of the Spirit is connected with the atonement. Paul says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” 23 The meaning of this passage is that the death of Christ was the purchase of this gift – the promised Spirit. The final article (ινα) leans on the words that describe Christ’s sacrifice.

Next Paul describes the Spirit of adoption as given only to those who are sons by faith. 24 This is to further show that works are excluded and that the reception of the promised Spirit is exclusively due to the merits of Christ. This is why he says, “That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” 25

The last part of the Epistle displays the Spirit’s work in another light. The last two chapters set forth the graces of the Spirit and the Christian’s fruitfulness. The same Apostle who, in the first part of the Epistle was anxious to assert the Christian’s freedom and bid that we stand fast in it, is not less anxious to set forth the Spirit’s renewing and sanctifying influence. As the believer’s being led by the Spirit, Paul adduces their liberty from the curse of the law as a proof. 26 Then after cataloging the works of the flesh, he specifies as the fruit of the Spirit “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and temperance.” 27 He calls these fruit, as if they grew on a living tree. George Smeaton asserts that Paul means that against such people there is no law, arguing that των τοιουτων is an allusion to people. 28 Thus from living by the Spirit Paul argues the duty of walking by the Spirit 29 and concludes by referring to the duty of sowing to the Spirit. 30

In short, we may say that in Paul’s theology, the Spirit is the Source of the saving faith of believers, the Renewer of their natures and the Sanctifier of their lives. All these operations of the Spirit are connected to the work of the Son. Never do we find in Paul the work of the Spirit mentioned without a direct link to the work of the Son. This is, to my mind, the one distinctive feature of Paul’s theology of the Holy Spirit. This is exactly as it should be, for Christ Himself said, “He will glorify me.” 31

1. See Eph. 3:16; Rom. 15:13

2. 2 Cor. 5:16

3. 2 Cor. 3:17

4. Acts 28:25

5. Acts 20:23

6. Rom. 15:19

7. Rom. 9:1

8. Gal. 4:4-6

9 Rom. 8:9

10. Gal. 4:6

11. Rom. 8:9

12. Rom. 8:11

13. Tit. 3:6

14. Heb. 10:29

15. Eph. 1:17

16. Rom. 8:15

17. Rom. 8:2

18. Gal. 6:1

19. 2 Tim. 1:7

20. 1 Cor. 12:3

21. Tit. 3:5

22. 2 Cor. 4:13

23. Gal. 3:13-14

24. Gal. 4:6

25. Italics mine

26. Gal. 5:18

27. Gal. 5:22

28. George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

29. Gal. 5:25

30. Gal. 6:8

31. John 16:1

Word Games

Have you ever had a discussion about the Bible with an avowed skeptic? I have had more than my fair share. I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked about Cain’s wife. One of the common arguments I have encountered (Maybe it isn’t really common. Maybe it just gets sprung on me a lot.) is that the Bible is mistaken scientifically because it says that Jonah was swallowed by a “great fish,” in one passage – and by a “whale” in another. Whales aren’t fish therefore the Bible is wrong. That’s pretty much how the argument goes.

I usually explain – if the person is sincere and not just being a wiseacre – that the New Testament Greek word is κῆτος (kētos). This word was adapted by Latin and Latinized as cetus. The scientific names that animals and plants are given are Latin. The scientific name for the order of marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and porpoises is Cetacea. Critics of the Bible err when they cite this as mistake in the Bible. It is important to point out that both the Greek kētos and the Latin cetus were broader terms than our modern scheme for naming and classifying animals. The word kētos was applicable and acuurate to describe any large sea creature. We must never reply that people in Biblical times didn’t know that whales are mammals. The skeptic would simply point out that the Bible is supposed to be divinely inspired. If God inspired it, then He is mistaken about whales.

I can endure this sort of faulty reason from unbelievers. One cannot expect them to be aware or conversant with Bible languages. But I can’t endure this sort of logic when it is used by so-called Christians!

Throughout my childhood (I grew up in a Pentecostal church) I heard countless references to ‘Holy Ghost power.” If was not uncommon to hear that the Greek word for power is δύναμις (dunamis). This word is the source of our English word dynamite. It was then inferred that when the Spirit’s power was moving in our midst (whatever that’s supposed to mean), it would be explosive.

But this is the same mistake as the one about κῆτος. Dunamis was used long before dynamite. Dynamite derives its meaning from dunamis, not the other way around. Cetacea derives its meaning from κῆτος, not the other way around.

I propose a rule for preachers and teachers: If you are not fluent in the Biblical languages, don’t make pretensions of knowledge about them. Don’t do word studies and don’t try to explain the shades of meaning and nuances. If you don’t know what you’re talking about then don’t talk about it. 

A Wee Little Man

And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. Luke 19:1-6

I am always amazed at those who preach the role of man’s free-will in salvation from this passage. Surely, the opposite is here shown.

The typical Arminian evangelistic approach to this passage goes like this: Zacchaeus was trying to get to Jesus. He was a short man so he couldn’t see over the crowd. He had to get to Jesus, so he came up with a way. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, you know. Well, Zacchaeus saw a sycamore tree and climbed up it. He was doing everything he could. He had to overcome every hindrance to get to Jesus. When Jesus saw him up in the tree, He was impressed by this man’s persistence. Then Zacchaeus invited Jesus and His disciples over to his house. Later that day, Jesus said, “Salvation has come to this house today.” You see you have to get fed up with your life of sin and find a way to come to Christ. And on and on – You get the picture. Let me hasten to say that I have tried to paint a better picture of that type of evangelistic appeal than I have generally ever heard. Usually, the sermons are far worse than that.

But this is the exact opposite of what this passage teaches. First of all, the passage gives not so much as a hint of anything in Zacchaeus but curiosity. We are running way ahead of ourselves to assume anything righteous to Zacchaeus’ motives. He was simply curious. A huge crowd is coming down the road, huddled around someone and everyone seems excited. Zacchaeus is short and can’t see over the crowd to see what all the buzz is about. So, he climbs a tree. That is all that this text permits us to say. As far as Zacchaeus’ character is concerned, he was a crook. The text calls him a publican, which is always a bad thing in the New Testament. Publicans were tax-collectors. They were known to be thieves because they either skimmed money off the top of their collections or charged more than was actually owed so they could keep the extra. But more than just being called a publican, he is called the chief among the publicans. That surely means he was a thief. The fact that his repentance manifested itself in repaying what he falsely collected is clear proof of this.

More important though is what Jesus actually did. Jesus stopped, looked up and called Zacchaeus by name. One wonders how Jesus knew his name. Of course, as God, Jesus knows everything. Surely it is not without significance that Jesus calls by name a man whom he had never met before. More importantly, notice that Zacchaeus did not invite Jesus to his house; Jesus invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ house and pronounced that salvation had come to it with Him.

This is how it always works. Jesus invites Himself into someone’s life. They hurry to Him and receive Him with joy. Jesus brings salvation with Him. He calls whom He chooses.

God Is Motivated By His Glory

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Rev. 4:11

The Scriptures portray God’s zeal for His glory as the primary motivation behind all His acts. This is why I take issue with the very popular notion that God’s love is His central attribute. True, the Bible says that “God is love,” but it tells us this once, while it tells us the God is holy countless times. This does not mean to suggest that God is holier than He is loving, but that in the grand scheme of things, God willed to theopneustically accentuate His holiness more often than His love. God’s holiness is His glory. How many times does the Bible speak of the “beauty of holiness.” By this we mean to say that whenever God acts in any way, His principal impetus is His commitment to His glory before anything else. When God decreed the plan of salvation for His elect, His glory was the first and foremost concern. He did it out of love, but He did it for His glory first! Consider Paul’s statement that “every tongue will confess that Christ is Lord, to the glory of God.” 1 This tells us that the ultimate purpose and plan of God in the salvation of the elect and damnation of the lost is the recognition of Christ’s glory – which, since the Son is of one essence with the Father (ὁμοούσιος), brings glory to the Father as well.

God repeatedly calls Himself, “a jealous God.” 2 If we ask for what is He jealous, the obvious answer is: His glory. In Exodus 20:5 when God first declares His jealousy, it is in connection with the ban against idolatry. Idolatry is demeaning to God’s character in that it suggests that the image is a suitable substitute for the Reality. We are accustomed to viewing jealousy as sinful, but it is because our jealousy is always misdirected. People very seldom are as zealous for God’s glory as they are for their own. The few times it has occurred, God has taken special notice of it. 3 

This is a difficult concept for some people because of the apparent selfishness on God’s part in being thus motivated. Human self-centeredness is sinful precisely because it puts self before God. It places the interest of an insignificant, finite worm of a man before the interests of the great, ineffable, inscrutable glory of God παντοκράτωρ! In this, it is idolatrous. Likewise, it would be idolatrous (if such a blasphemy could be imagined!) for God to place any interest before His own. It is an unsullied, utterly wholesome selfishness: it is a commitment to the Greatest, All-Perfect Self: the source of all inferior selves, indeed selfhood itself.

If God is so committed to the advancement and display of His glory, we are quite mistaken if we do not do the same thing.

In Psalm 19:1, David proclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” There are physical phenomena in the design of the universe that absolutely stagger the human imagination. Astrophysicists and cosmologists refer to these marvels as the “anthropic principle.” This is a sophisticated way of saying that all of the various design characteristics of the entire universe are so perfectly suited for human life, that this must be the reason behind them. In other words, whether the universe was created by God or simply evolved, it exists in order to support human life. Many non-Christian physicists unashamedly advocate this.

Yet, even though Christian apologists are correct when they note that such meticulous attention to detail shows God’s unfathomable love for His creation, the Psalmist tells us that this is more an expression of God’s glory than His love.

1 Phil. 2:9-11

2 Exodus 20:5; 34:14; Nahum 1:1

3 Numbers 25:10

An Observation on Election, by B.B. Warfield

“The marvel of marvels is not that God, in his infinite love, has not elected all of this guilty race to be saved, but that he has elected any. What really needs accounting for—though to account for it passes the powers of our extremest flights of imagination—is how the holy God could get the consent of his nature to save a single sinner. If we know what sin is, and what holiness is, and what salvation from sin to holiness is, that is what we shall feel.

“That is the reason why meditation on our eternal election produces such blessed fruits in our hearts and lives. That God has saved me, even me, sunk in my sin and misery, by the marvels of his grace, can only fill me with adoring praise. That he has set upon me from all eternity to save me, wretched sinner that I am, how can I express the holy joy that fills my heart at every remembrance of it? This is the foundation of all my comfort, the assurance of all my hope.

“‘Sure I am,’ says John Arrowsmith movingly, just to the point, ‘Sure I am that our blessed Savior once said to his disciples, ‘In this rejoice, that your names are written in heaven’; and that nothing doth more inflame a Christian’s love than a firm belief of his personal election from eternity after he has been able to evidence the writing of his name in heaven by the experience he hath had of an heavenly calling and an heavenly conversation. When the Spirit of God hath written the law of life in a Christian’s heart, and therewith enabled him to know assuredly that his name is written in the book of life, he cannot then but melt with flames of holy affection, according to the most emphatic speech of Bernard — “God deserveth love from such as he hath loved long before they could deserve it;” and, “his love to God will be without end, who knoweth that God’s love to him was without any beginning.” ’ ”

From the sermon: Election, God’s Grace Before Time, by B.B. Warfield