The Spirit in the Epistles, Part 2: The Spirit of Christ

In the most recent post in this series looking at the development of ideas about the Holy Spirit, we saw how the Epistles continued an ancient tradition of associating the Spirit of God with revelation, whether through Scripture, prophecy, public defense, or evangelism, and the confirmation of that revelation as true. This is particularly true of truth surrounding the identity of Jesus. As John put it plainly: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (1 John 4.2). Unsurprisingly, the identity of Jesus — and the newfound identity of Christians ‘in him’ — was a major concern for the early Church. This is the theme we’ll be looking at today.

But first we need to take a quick step back and remind ourselves of some of what we learned earlier in the series. From the earliest strands of the tradition, the Holy Spirit was associated with empowering particular individuals for leadership — especially kings. A symbol of this empowerment was their anointing with oil, so a king could be referred to as an ‘anointed one’, in Hebrew messiah, and in Greek christos. The prophets used this imagery to describe a coming leader who would restore not only the nation’s fortunes, but bless the whole world in the process. Some even understood this blessing to involve these specific anointings of the Spirit of God to be given more generally, to all of the faithful, as a result of this reign. Over the centuries, these ideas began into crystallize into a belief that God would send a heavenly Anointed One, or Messiah, to usher in a new reign of God’s Kingdom.

Jesus’ disciples became convinced that he was this Anointed One, ‘the Christ’. And, just as the Holy Spirit fell upon him at his baptism and empowered him to teach and perform miraculous healings, so too did those who followed him — who not only recognized that he was the Christ but committed themselves to following his way — receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, becoming themselves ‘anointed ones’ in the name and authority of the Anointed One. The Spirit of God thereby became the defining feature of the early Christian community. As we saw in the Acts of the Apostles, it even displaced circumcision and the Law as the primary identity marker for them:

The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10.44-47)

Note here the connection between the gift of the Holy Spirit and the ritual of baptism; since these earliest times, the two have been separate but closely linked throughout the Christian traditions. Even as baptism replaced circumcision as the major ritual of belonging among Christians, what this meant was the presence of the Spirit in their lives. As Paul put it: “[C]ircumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code” (Romans 2.29), and “now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are enslaved in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the written code” (Romans 7.6). We can also see the presence of the Holy Spirit as the primary identity marker for Christians in the following passages, which are just a small sample of such references:

• Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death (Romans 8.1-2; cf. 8:9-11)
• But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6.11)
• And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. (1 John 3.24)

This new identity had big consequences, not just for who could be considered faithful and who couldn’t (’the Gentile Question’, for which the Spirit was the decisive answer), but also for how the new community understood itself within salvation history. This is to say, the general pouring out of the Spirit upon the faithful in and through the Messiah was an apocalyptic concept, something that would mark the end of the age. And so the first Christians understood themselves as participating in an apocalyptic age of the Spirit, as the ‘first fruits’ or ‘down payment’ of the Kingdom of God:

• … who has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a down payment. (2 Corinthians 1.22; cf. 2 Corinthians. 5.5)
• … not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8.23)
• God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. (2 Thessalonians 2.13)

This identity was much more than just being on a new ‘team’. It meant a whole new way of life, in and through the Spirit. As Paul wrote, “[A]nyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Corinthians 6.17), and “If, then, there is … any partnership in the Spirit…” (Philippians 2.1). Once again this is not a new teaching, but one that was reframed in the new messianic age. There had long been a creation-based theology of the Spirit, in which the Spirit was the very breath of life and so existed in continuity with the human spirit. Inasmuch as the human spirit was aligned with God’s ways, it was governed by God’s Spirit. In the early Church, all of this manifested in the belief that the new way they were experiencing the Holy Spirit empowered them to a completely transformed way of life:

• … so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. (Romans 8.4-5)
• For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. (Romans 8.14)
• … asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (Colossians 1.9)

Nowhere is this connection between the Spirit and right living more clearly expressed than in the famous ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ passage from Galatians 5, which contrasts the new way of the Spirit with the ‘old’ way of what Paul calls ‘the flesh’, which is his way of talking about being trapped by our bodily appetites:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. … [I]f you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5.16-26)

The Spirit was likewise a source of, and call to unity:

• For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12.12-13)
• making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling (Ephesians 4:3-4)
• I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel (Philippians 1.27)

So great was was this sense of the presence of the Spirit that for the nascent Christian community, their own bodies replaced the Temple as its rightful dwelling place:

• Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3.16; cf 1 Corinthians 6.19)
• …in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2.22)
• like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2.5)

And all of this — the new identity, the changed way of life, the unity, the Temple imagery — is about continuing Christ’s ministry and way of life. The Holy Spirit is after all “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8.9, 1 Peter 1.11). As Paul wrote to the Philippians:

If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus:

who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death
— even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name that is above every other name … (Philippians 2.1-9)

While the Spirit is unquestionably understood to be a gift, and a gift that comes with power, it is not ‘magic’. We don’t just become Christlike automatically upon our baptism. It is a gift, but also a responsibility, and a vocation to be lived out. It’s therefore possible to “grieve,” “quench,” and “outrage” the Spirit by rejecting this vocation (Ephesians 4.30, 1 Thessalonians 5.19, Hebrews 10.29).

But again, the Spirit does not leave us un-strengthened or unable to live out this vocation. And, in fact, offers each of the faithful their own unique vocations as part of the whole. And it is to that theme that we’ll turn in the next post.