CHAPTER 3
PREPARING A BODY: THE SPIRIT IN REDEMPTIVE HISTORY
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ”
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Heb 10:5–10 ESV)
The writer to the Hebrews understands the Son’s incarnation and active obedience as the sweet-smelling sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving that humanity was created to raise to the nostrils of God. In the first five verses, he tells us that the bloody sacrifices of animals cannot take away guilt; on the contrary, they are perpetual reminders of transgressions. The conscience is never at peace, even if these sacrifices cover over guilt until the advent of the true Lamb of God. In the previous chapter the writer adds that Christ offered his blood as a propitiatory sacrifice “through the eternal Spirit” precisely in order to “purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (9:14 ESV).
In other words, Jesus offered up a thank offering—the living sacrifice of obedient praise—and the guilt offering on our behalf. These two types of sacrifice have traditionally been identified with Christ’s active and passive obedience. Because Christ has fulfilled all righteousness and absorbed our curse, we may now participate in him as grateful children. In view of his mercies, we now offer ourselves to God—not to appease his justice for our guilt, but to be a “living sacrifice” of thanksgiving (Rom 12:1–2).
Here we have an important intersection for this chapter and those that follow. Indeed, one way of summarizing the whole Bible is the preparation of a body—a human body, animated by the Spirit. There is a progression from Adam to Israel to Mary to Christ and then to his worldwide ecclesial body.
PREPARING A BODY: ADAM TO ISRAEL
The Old Testament is, as Luther observed, the manger in which the baby Jesus is laid. We see this preparation of a body first in the creation of Adam, as God breathed the “breath of life” (nishmat khayyim) into him and he became a “living being” (nephesh khayyah; Gen 2:7). It expands outward to include the whole family of Adam and Eve, though already with Cain appears the first murderer of the prophets and persecutor of the church (see Luke 11:50–51). Replacing Abel, Seth and his line are distinguished by the announcement, “At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD” (Gen 4:26).
Eventually, the world is filled with corruption as the Spirit is grieved. “Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years’ ” (Gen 6:3 ESV). A better translation in my view is the older KJV rendering: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man. . . .” The Spirit’s work in common grace is not to indwell the wicked but to restrain them and to fertilize the natural seeds of truth, goodness, and beauty that the Father has planted through his Son’s mediation. The gist of this passage as a prelude to the flood is that human beings became so seared in their conscience that they were willfully dismissive of the Spirit’s restraining impulses. It is significant that the apostle Paul identifies the root of sin in fallen humanity as ingratitude: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom 1:21 ESV). As N. T. Wright has argued recently, the root problem is that human beings have rejected their vocation, surrendering the authority that God gave them as his stewards to the idols.1 Better simply to limit the lifespan. Soon even Noah’s family was compromised. But God was still determined to prepare a body: a human person who renders at last a thankful life, the appropriate response of a covenant servant who has received everything already from the hand of a good Father. God called Abram and by his evangelical promise kept preparing a body from the patriarch’s own loins and barren womb of aged Sarah.
Centuries later, God fulfilled his oath, leading his people out of Egypt toward the land of promise with the Spirit hovering above them to direct and to provide for their needs. At Mount Sinai, the church became a nation and once in Canaan the Spirit took up residence—eventually permanent residence—in the temple. The smoke of burning carcasses billowed up to heaven, providing merely a temporary and typological covering for sins until the Lamb of God should come. With a canonical reading we recognize that there is a close association between the heavenly cloud and the Holy Spirit (Neh 9:19–20; Isa 63:11–14; Hag 2:5; Acts 2), which may be implied already in Genesis 1:2. Yet as the northern and southern kingdoms turned their back on Yahweh as king, the Spirit evacuated the sanctuary and raised up enemies to cart the divided people into captivity: Israel to Assyria and, later, Judah to Babylon.
Through the prophets, however, the Holy Spirit kept preparing a body. Israel’s whole history was the fate of the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham and David, who on numerous occasions the serpent attempted to cut off.
Thus, far from being a flight away from this world and its history, the unfolding plot of Scripture coalesces around the preparation of a body within space and time in order to liberate everything that has the breath of life in it, humans and beasts. Not only the goal but also the means are taken from creaturely reality. The Holy Spirit sanctifies ordinary people, places, and things for his extraordinary operations. Although he is never bound, he freely binds himself to these creaturely means that make him accessible to us: Moses’s staff, the pillar and cloud, the brass serpent in the wilderness, the tabernacle and temple; the ark of the covenant, showbread, and incense; Samuel’s anointing oil and the bloody sacrifices. Wherever the Spirit is in residence, the whole land flourishes with rich food and wine; when he evacuates the sanctuary, the land is no longer holy but common.
In all these ways, we see the inextricable bond between the Spirit’s way of working in creation and in the new creation. “And if sin had not come in,” Kuyper observes, “we might say that this work is done in three successive steps: first, impregnating inanimate matter; second, animating the rational soul; third, taking up His abode in the elect child of God. But sin entered in, i.e., a power appeared to keep man and nature from their destiny.”2 The goal is not to destroy creation and create again, but to recover creation and even to raise it to a greater glory than ever before. “Redemption is therefore not a new work added to that of the Holy Spirit,” Kuyper adds, “but it is identical with it. . . . He undertook to bring all things to their destiny either without the disturbance of sin or in spite of it; first, by saving the elect, and then by restoring all things in heaven and on earth at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.”3 This is the end to which the inspiration of Scripture and the preparation of the body of Christ are means.4
PREPARING A BODY: THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION
The revelation of the triune mystery unfolds progressively through the history of the covenant of grace. Gregory of Nazianzus explained, “The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son, and suggested the Deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us, and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of Himself.”5 Yet all along it was the Spirit hidden behind the scenes who kept the promise moving forward, over the deep trenches and barbed wire that human beings had placed in his path, preparing a body for the Son from the flesh of Israel.
As I will explore below, the Spirit gave us Jesus in the incarnation. Yet even before preparing the virgin’s womb, he was preparing Israel as his manger through the prophets. The Spirit’s ministry of proclaiming Christ began not at Pentecost, nor even in the announcement to Mary, but all the way back in Genesis 3:15. Already the Spirit was taking that which belongs to the Son and making it the common fund of the saints. Israel was waiting for its Spirit-anointed deliverer because the Spirit had been spreading his wings of revelation over his people, fertilizing the seeds of hope.
The Trinitarian and christological maxim “distinction without separation” is evident in the way Scripture speaks of its own character as divine and human. The unbounded Spirit binds himself freely to creaturely means, separating and uniting. In creation the Spirit was working with the medium of water, dividing it from the land to provide a hospitable environment for covenantal communion. In providence he is sent forth from the Father to sustain creation and to “renew the face of the ground” (Ps 104:30). Thus, nothing in creation that he takes to hand as his instrument is alien to him; it is already the product of his perfecting agency. He not only knows how every created thing or person works but is the one who makes it work. Of course, he could work immediately without bothering with such creaturely means, but that is not his ordinary way.
It is the Spirit who overcame the tendency of prophets and apostles to suppress the truth and to quench his light, not by sheer force but by liberating them from bondage and sweetly inclining their hearts to his will. There is a legitimate analogy between the Son’s humiliation in the incarnation and the Spirit’s inspiration. “For the joy that was set before him,” the eternal Logos was willing to set aside his glory to assume our nature, the form of a servant, for which he was exalted above every name (Heb 12:2 ESV; Phil 2:5–11). Analogously, the Spirit was unashamed to descend to our level by uniting his ineffable communication to the comparative poverty of human language, and in the process created a work of simple and in some cases even rustic prose that is exalted beyond all other literature.
Scripture itself is the product of both types of speech acts. There is the objective ex nihilo fiat, “ ‘Let there be. . . .’ And there was. . . .” (This is equivalent to “thus says the LORD.”) But there is also the subjective fruit-bearing effect (“ ‘Let the earth bring forth. . . .’ And the earth brought forth . . .”). The Holy Spirit is engaged in both, of course, but his work is especially evident in the latter. It is the Spirit who fulfills the word originating with the Father. For example, in the inspiration of Scripture the Spirit acts not only upon the human writers nor merely with them to bring to mind the central content (the Word in the words), but within them. The Spirit does not subvert but rather sanctifies their speech, employing their ordinary linguistic, cultural, social, and personal idiosyncrasies that he has himself brought forth in his providential activity throughout their life to that point.
Thus the Spirit employs many methods in the process of inspiring the sacred oracles, speaking “at many times and in many ways” (Heb 1:1 ESV). We do find direct divine discourse in places—even instances of dictation from God to humans. “Thus says the LORD” corresponds to the “let there be . . .” speech-act in creation. But the bulk of the Bible consists of no less inspired “let the earth bring forth . . .” types of revelation that point up the organic and natural aspects of the process. There is, for example, no reference to a vision or to any direct command from the Lord to Luke in either his Gospel or in Acts. Luke simply says that “it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3; cf. Acts 1:1). There is hardly anything more creaturely—indeed, more ordinary—than interviewing eyewitnesses and compiling a composite report. It requires a greater miracle to “bring forth” an inerrant text from sinful prophets and apostles than if their own personality and agency had been suspended, rendering them as mere secretaries of the Spirit’s dictation.
And yet this creaturely mediation takes nothing away from the fact that it is God who speaks: “For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:10–11 ESV); “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16). The Thessalonians are commended for having accepted the apostolic proclamation “not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thess 2:13 ESV). “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21).
No doubt recalling Jesus’s discourse—that the Spirit will “teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26 ESV) and “he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13), Peter writes:
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Pet 1:10–12 ESV)
Paul explains that the apostles “impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor 2:7 ESV), adding:
These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Cor 2:10–13 ESV)
It should not surprise us, then, that many if not most of the earliest patristic references to the Holy Spirit occur in the context of discussing the nature of Scripture and its inspiration. In the words of the Creed, “we believe in the Holy Spirit . . . who spoke by the prophets.” In fact, the inspiration of Scripture became an argument for the Spirit’s full divinity. Just as our salvation required no one less than God to regenerate, indwell, sanctify, and glorify us, so we could have no assurance that Scripture represents God’s word to us unless the one who inspired it is God himself.
THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE PROPHETS
The Spirit came upon Moses at signal moments to lead the covenant people toward the promise. There were others too who received this special anointing for their task. God singled out Bezalel of Judah as the supervisor of the artists and craftsmen in the building of the tabernacle. “I have filled him with the Spirit of God,” Yahweh says to Moses (Exod 31:3; cf. 35:31). It was this same Spirit who had led his people through the wilderness by cloud by day and fire by night, and who had spread his wings over the confused mass in creation to turn a house into a home, erecting a terrestrial copy of the heavenly temple. Employing a cast of human characters, the Spirit builds and beautifies the homes that he indwells. Just as he was marking out boundaries and transforming chaos into an ordered cosmos in creation, he empowered Bezalel to build the tabernacle according to the Father’s word, the content of which was ultimately nothing less than Jesus Christ. Already the Lord was preparing a body for himself, a faithful covenant son whose obedience would be better than sacrifices, and the tabernacle directed faith to the one who became flesh and tabernacled [eskēnōsen] among us (John 1:14).
When the people brought suit against Moses (and ultimately Yahweh), instead of wiping out the camp, the LORD condescended by calling Moses to appoint seventy elders:
And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” (Num 11:24–29 ESV)
Three noteworthy points arise in the light of later revelation. First, the Spirit is not said here to indwell Moses or the elders but rather to be upon them for carrying out their office. Second, a portion of the Spirit’s presence upon Moses is given to the elders, in contrast with Jesus, to whom the Spirit was given and who himself “gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34 ESV). Third, Moses recognizes that the reason for the people’s obstinacy is their hard hearts; they resist the Holy Spirit (described as “grieving the Spirit” in Isa 63:10 and Ps 78:40). His longing for Pentecost points up the weakness of the old covenant in comparison to the new.
In the midst of Israel’s idolatry under Ahab and Jezebel, God raised up Elijah. Just before the Lord takes him to heaven in the whirlwind, Elijah tells Elisha, “ ‘Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.’ And Elisha said, ‘Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me’ ” (2 Kgs 2:9 ESV). A chariot and horses of fire then appeared, and Elijah went up to heaven (v. 11). Tearing his own garment in two, Elisha takes up Elijah’s cloak and immediately parts the Jordan as the inauguration of his Spirit-endowed mission and then crosses the river (vv. 9–14). Such episodes anticipate Christ’s prophetic ministry, as we will see. Yet the point to make thus far is that the Spirit is preparing a body, Israel, from which the world’s Messiah will come.
Besides prophecy, the Spirit is associated with kingship. God instructed Samuel to anoint David as king. “And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward” (1 Sam 16:13 ESV). By contrast, “the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the LORD tormented him” (v. 14 ESV). It is intriguing that Israel’s first king sought power by his own strength and became deranged, filled with hatred and violence toward the Lord’s anointed. By contrast, David faces Goliath armed only with a slingshot, “that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s,” he tells his menacing opponent, “and he will give you into our hand” (1 Sam 17:47 ESV). It was by the Spirit who had “rushed upon” David at his anointing (1 Sam 16:13) that an ordinary, even unlikely, agent—a young shepherd—was given victory through the ordinary and unlikely means of a rock in a slingshot.
Yet not even David failed to quench the Spirit, as he confessed in Psalm 51 after his adultery and murder, pleading, “take not your Holy Spirit from me” (v. 11 ESV). And although they were not all equally bad, his heirs fall short of David’s heart for the Lord, and we hear nothing about the Spirit “rushing upon” the kings of Judah.
As the focus of these office bearers narrows, all concentration is upon one anointed servant in whom all three offices of prophet, priest, and king will be united. This becomes especially evident in the ministry of Isaiah. In his day, Judah itself had succumbed to unbelief, idolatry, unrighteousness, and injustice. Yet like David’s riposte to Goliath, Isaiah assures David’s successors that God will bring judgment and deliverance. Only this time, the judgment is upon the covenant people, but the deliverance will include a remnant of Judah along with that of every nation. “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (Isa 11:1 ESV). Wherever we encounter the promise of fruit-bearing, we should expect to find the Spirit, and that is precisely what we find in the following verse: “And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.” Because the Spirit will be upon him, this Servant’s “delight shall be in the fear of the LORD” and he will judge the earth with righteousness until the whole world is at peace (vv. 3–9).
In Isaiah 32 the holy land is envisioned as desolate—like the garden of Eden after the fall—barren, as cosmos returns to chaos. The women are to beat their breasts “for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers” (v. 13).
For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. (vv. 14–17 ESV, emphasis added)
The key Servant-Spirit passage is Isaiah 42:1 ESV: “Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” This association of the anointer with the anointed is carried forward throughout Isaiah’s prophecies. Yahweh pledges the outpouring of the Spirit in chapter 44:3 ESV: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” Then again: “ ‘Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.’ And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit” (48:16 ESV). The unidentified speaker is the Spirit-endowed Servant, which means that all three persons of the Trinity are in this scene: The promise-making Father, the Servant-Son, and the Spirit who is also sent upon the new Shepherd-King.
“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD. “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from this time forth and forevermore.” (59:20–21)
On this basis Israel is cheered with the vision of nations streaming to the light that has dawned in her midst (ch. 60). The Father is preparing a body for his Son and by his Spirit.
The prophet recounts God’s faithfulness again in chapter 63, with multiple references to the Holy Spirit as both the offended party and the merciful God:
But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit. . . . Like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest. So you led your people, to make for yourself a glorious name. (vv. 10–14 ESV)
Notice here that the central goal of the biblical drama—God dwelling in the midst of his people, giving them rest on all sides—is identified specifically with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descends periodically from the everlasting Sabbath into the trial of the work week that lies under the grip of sin and death, to keep history moving toward the promise of his everlasting rest (Heb 4:1).
But the new covenant that the writer to the Hebrews has in mind is far greater than the old in its vision. God will not only dwell in the midst of his people through the typological ministry associated with the tabernacle and the temple, but the eternal Son will be with us—indeed one of us—as the living temple. And yet as great as this is, God’s presence still remains external to us, as a marvelous historical monument, until the Spirit is poured out. Then he will unite us to Christ, making us living stones with Christ as the cornerstone; members of his body, of which he is our head. The Spirit who was upon the prophets and upon the Servant, Jesus, “without measure” will indwell all of his people (John 3:34).
Nearly two centuries later than Isaiah, sharing the fate of Judah in exile, Ezekiel repeats the prophecies of the Spirit’s outpouring: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezek 36:26–27 ESV). Then there is the vision of the valley of dry bones, representing Israel. The prophet is told to prophesy—or preach—to the dry bones, through which God himself commands life to enter them:
Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live . . . And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD. (Ezek 37:5, 13–14 ESV)
Later God pledges, “And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD” (Ezek 39:29).
Ezekiel’s prophecies climax in the departure of the Spirit from the temple (10:18–11:23) and the Spirit’s return to the end-time sanctuary in chapter 43. In both cases, it is through the east-facing gate, just like the cherubim-guarded gate in Eden from which Adam and Eve were sent “east of the garden” (Gen 3:23–24). Ezekiel sees a vision:
And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. . . . As the glory of the LORD entered the temple by the gate facing east, the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the temple. (Ezek 43:2, 4 ESV)
Here God promises to dwell forever in the midst of his people (vv. 7–9). From below the eastern threshold of the temple, water gushed toward the east into a great river whose fresh water gives life to trees, and the nets of fishermen break with their catch. The leaves on the trees “will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing” (47:1–12 ESV). The entire series of visions directs us back to Genesis 1–2 and forward to the glorious temple of Revelation 21–22, with the Spirit as the vivifying and fructifying presence of God in the capitol of the new creation. The Spirit who evacuated the temple will return to it, only it will be greater than Solomon’s temple in its glory days.
After the exile, Nehemiah acknowledges to the Lord:
Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, “This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,” and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. (Neh 9:18–20 ESV)
The prophets looked forward to a certain degree of restoration under Cyrus king of Persia but far beyond it to a more glorious day. It will be a day not for restoring the geopolitical nation of Israel or the rebuilding of an earthly sanctuary but for the erection of the final end-time temple made without hands. In that vein, Joel delivered his famous prophecy:
And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. (Joel 2:28–32 ESV)
Some take the prophet to be referring here to the end of the age. However, I am inclined to see the ominous portents—“wonders in the heavens and on the earth,” including blood, fire, smoke, darkened sun, and bloody moon—as typical apocalyptic language where metaphors taken from nature signal cataclysmic turning points in history. Only such striking imagery can convey the fact that the old age is passing away and, with Christ’s resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, the new age is dawning.
Haggai prophesies the glory of the future temple: “My Spirit remains in your midst” (Hag 2:5 ESV). How can this be? There was no evidence at all that this was true. The remnant had returned to rebuild the ruins, and through Haggai God called them to rebuild the temple. But how can the Spirit already be present “in the midst” of his people without the temple or the restored theocracy in the land?
My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in; and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. . . . The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts. (2:5–9 ESV)
THE INCARNATION
No greater instance of the Spirit’s working through creaturely media may be found than in the incarnation itself. Far from working above nature only through immaterial means, the Spirit works within complex mystery of genetics and gestation over which he has presided from the beginning, uniting the eternal Son to our flesh. Through the power of the Spirit, the Son assumes our humanity completely, not only in body but in soul. He is more than one of us, but not less. As history moves toward the Messiah’s appearing, the spotlight narrows from Israel generally to the tribe of Judah and from Judah to the line of David. The Spirit is preparing a body, but that body has actually been narrowed down to one literal person, the true Israel, in whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. Hence, the body narrows to one person but then grows from that person to include people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” as the true nation of kings and priests (Rev 5:9–10).
The angel explains to Mary in Luke’s Gospel that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you,” ensuring that the fruit of her womb is no less than the Son of God (1:35 ESV). The description of the Spirit coming “upon” (epi) Mary as the “power” (dynamis) of the Most High to “overshadow” (episkiasei) her evokes the many instances of the Spirit’s work throughout history. We recall the Spirit “hovering” (MT: merakhepet; LXX: epephereto) over the waters in creation (Gen 1:2). In the Song of Moses the LORD is compared to “an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings . . .” (Deut 32:11 ESV). In the wilderness the cloud “covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled [LXX: epeskiazen] on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exod 40:34–35 ESV).
The same Greek verb (episkiazō) used in the LXX version of this last passage is used by Luke to describe the annunciation. Like the formlessness and void (MT: tohu wabohu) of Genesis 1:2, Mary’s womb lacked any inherent potential for generating life. The virgin herself acknowledges this (Luke 1:34). But the Spirit of God will move (brood, flutter, hover: episkiasei) over the waters so that what she conceived was nothing less than “the Son of God” (v. 35). The virgin replies, “Let it be done to me according to your word,” (v. 38 ESV) because the same Spirit who was at work in her womb is already at work in her heart to bring about her “amen!” to the word of promise. Wherever we encounter not only the Father’s speech in the Son, but the Spirit’s bringing forth of inspired speech from human witnesses, the new creation dawns. The Spirit prepares a body for the Son.
Even prior to the conception of the Word, the Spirit has conceived faith in Mary’s heart. Mary reflects the orientation of the faithful covenant servant to the Spirit. “Let it be done to me according to your word,” she replies to Gabriel. Already, even before the “let there be . . .” fiat-word of the incarnation itself, the Spirit has “brought forth” the fruit of a faith-filled openness to the Spirit who has prepared Mary for this momentous announcement of the gospel. Even before hovering over Mary’s womb, the Spirit fluttered over her heart to win her joyful consent even though she is overwhelmed with astonishment. It is the faith that says with the apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20 ESV). This is the first miracle of the Christmas story: that a sinner would turn in faith to the word of promise through the power of the Spirit.
As confirmation, “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” when she greeted Mary as blessed along with the fruit of her womb (Luke 1:41–42), as were Zechariah (v. 67) and Simeon (2:25–26). In each of these cases, mention of their being filled with the Spirit is the ground for the prophecy that they utter concerning the salvation that has dawned in Christ. After four centuries of no revelation, there is a trickle of Spirit-inspired speech—yet a portentous trickle indeed. The Spirit is preparing a body by his word.
The conception of Jesus was of the ex nihilo variety: “ ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen 1:3). But his gestation and delivery were normal, though no less dependent on the Word and Spirit: they belonged to the “ ‘Let the earth bring forth. . . .’ And the earth brought forth . . .” type of speech-act (cf. Gen 1:11–12 KJV). Jesus was not a child prodigy: “And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom”; these are typical associations of the Spirit’s work in preparing Old Testament prophets (Luke 2:40 ESV). “And the favor of God was upon him. . . . And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:40, 52 ESV). “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb 5:8 ESV). He was not born outside of time or our human nature, but was born in “the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4 ESV).
Once more we see that the Holy Spirit’s work is not to be set in opposition to nature. Even when the Spirit’s operations transcend natural possibilities, they remain extraordinary acts within and through nature. Thus, already in the incarnation Jesus begins to win our redemption. The Spirit will come upon Mary, the angel declares, and “therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:35 ESV). The Spirit’s preservation of “our Mediator” from original sin in “his holy conception” comforts us with the news that he “with his innocence and perfect holiness covers, in the sight of God, my sin, in which I was conceived and born.”6 Jesus was not conceived under the headship of Adam, with original sin imputed, since he came to earth as the eternal Son to be a new Adam and the new head of his people.7 Original sin is not essential but merely accidental to human nature; the Son could and did assume our humanity to the fullest extent without inheriting Adam’s guilt and corruption.
And once again we see the impact of metaphysical dualism on the sixteenth-century radicals. The God-world antithesis was so marked that many Anabaptists held a form of docetism, with the Son believed to have assumed “heavenly flesh” rather than a true humanity from the virgin Mary in the power of the Spirit.8 Following the doctrine of Kasper Schwenkfeld and Melchior Hoffman, Menno Simons argued that “there is no letter to be found in all the Scriptures that the Word assumed our flesh. . . .”9 The Polish Reformed theologian John à Lasco took the lead in challenging this view as taught by Menno Simons, and Calvin criticized it in the Institutes, charging it with a gnostic (specifically, Manichaean) confusion of sin with humanness and invoking the anti-Apollinarian patristic rule that whatever the Son did not assume he did not save.10 While the doctrine had an ambivalent reception among Menno’s followers, Mennonite historian Leonard Verduin argues that it was grounded in a deeper divide between God and the world that included “discontinuity in the area of Christology.”11 In Verduin’s view, the doctrine reflected the more general opposition between God and the world (including the visible church).12
Downplaying the reality of the incarnation is surely one way to undermine the significance of the Holy Spirit. In spite of the rhetorical emphasis on the Spirit over against creaturely reality, it is actually spiritual reality that this type of piety has in mind. What is the need for the Holy Spirit in the incarnation if the Son merely donned a quasi-human nature from heavenly material? Yet there are more orthodox ways of downplaying the humanity of Christ and therefore the importance of the Spirit. I share Sinclair Ferguson’s verdict: “This aspect of the Spirit’s ministry has suffered considerable neglect in the history of theology, despite noteworthy exceptions. Abraham Kuyper was right when he wrote that ‘the Church has never sufficiently confessed the influence the Holy Spirit exerted upon the work of Christ.’ As early as the Isaianic portrait of the Messiah, he had been viewed as the Man of the Spirit par excellence (Is. 11:1, 42:1; 61:1).”13 Given the fact that the Spirit’s mission is to place the spotlight on Christ, it is not surprising that Christian theology has placed most of its weight on Christology. However, apart from a robust pneumatology, even Christology suffers, as the saving significance of Christ’s humanity is eclipsed by the entirely appropriate emphasis on his deity.
It is important to see that even from his conception, Jesus was endowed with extraordinary gifts that were due not specifically to his deity, the glory of which he set aside, but to the rich bestowal of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was weak, as we are, but his face was turned wholly to his Father as a flower fastening its life to the sun. “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work’ ” (John 4:34 ESV). Not only in his incarnation but in his life and ministry, Jesus was always dependent on the Spirit as he fulfilled his Father’s word (Matt 12:28). It is certainly true that his miracles reveal his divinity, as the disciples recognized: “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matt 8:27). Yet these wonders also identify Jesus as the Spirit-endowed Servant hailed by the prophets.
Not only the gifts but the Giver himself was given to Jesus by the Father, as our Lord himself divulged: “For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34 ESV). The prophets received the Spirit in varying measures. Elisha begged Elijah for “a double portion of your spirit on me” (2 Kgs 2:9 ESV). Jesus, however, is given the Holy Spirit entirely. He is not only a prophet, of course, but he is a prophet—the prophet greater than Moses—and his bestowal with the Holy Spirit here is not to be conflated with the eternal relations of the immanent Trinity. It is a redemptive-historical event that equips Jesus as the Servant of the Lord to fulfill his earthly ministry on our behalf. Even as he set aside the glory owing to his deity, Jesus was already receiving endowments upon his humanity in order to enrich us all. Furthermore, Jesus exercised these gifts and increasingly won greater blessings by his obedience. He increased in wisdom, understanding, counsel, and the fear of the LORD (the very characteristics that would identify the Spirit-endowed Messiah according to Isaiah 11:2–3) and learned the Scriptures that spoke of him (Luke 2:52). “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb 5:8).
At his baptism by John, Jesus was already beginning “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15)—not only for himself but for those whom he represented:
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’ Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Matt 3:16–4:1 ESV; cf. Mark 1:12–13)
Luke’s version reads, “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit . . . was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1–2a). In Matthew’s version, the verb anēchthē translated above as “led up” is actually stronger: “drove out” or “launched,” like a ship. The Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness to recapitulate the trial of Adam and Israel for forty days and nights and upheld Jesus in this trial. Instead of demanding the food that he craved, he endured the test by invoking the Word of God in the power of the Spirit (vv. 10–11; cf. Luke 4:8–13).
The Spirit did not lead Jesus above natural life with its exposure to dangers, trials, temptation, and suffering, but deeper and deeper into it. We may with profit consider this in our own trials and temptations. We may think that the Spirit is the one who works miraculously—above this world and its dangers—to keep us from going through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps 23:4 ESV). However, not even in this unique life of the sinless Savior was the Spirit-anointed life one of hovering above ordinary existence in the world. The Spirit led the Savior into the wilderness where he experienced not only the demonic powers and principalities that ran riot like pirates pillaging and destroying, but beheld the face of their captain himself. And he did this for us, without any friends, but with the fellowship of his eternal companion, to rid us and his world of all that defiles.
John Owen observes concerning the beginning of the old creation that
the Holy Ghost came and fell on the waters, cherishing the whole, and communicating a prolific and vivific quality unto it, as a fowl or dove in particular gently moves itself upon its eggs until, with and by its generative warmth, it hath communicated vital heat unto them; so now, at the entrance of the new creation, he comes as a dove upon him who was the immediate author of it, and virtually comprised it in himself, carrying it on by virtue of his presence with him.14
Owen appeals to an ancient Syrian baptismal liturgy that included this connection. Jesus’s baptism also echoes “the dove that brought tidings to Noah of the ceasing of the flood . . . and proclaimed peace unto them that would return to God by him, the great peace-maker, Eph. 2. 14–17.”15
Old Testament kings were anointed as God’s designated servant with oil, symbolizing the Spirit. Yet the Messiah—the Anointed One—would be anointed with the Spirit without measure. This prophecy is especially clear in Isaiah 61:1–2, as we have seen. The one who finally fulfills the promise of the Year of Jubilee will be identified by this anointing of the Spirit. And it is precisely this text that Jesus reads in the synagogue at the beginning of his public ministry, announcing, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:16–21 ESV). Because his hearers clearly understood Jesus’s claim, he narrowly escaped being thrown down a cliff (vv. 29–30). It is as part of the gospel itself that Peter proclaims “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38).
The answer lies not in downplaying Christ’s deity but in reintegrating the pneumatological and christological threads across the whole sweep of our theology, from anthropology to ecclesiology. When we attribute all of Jesus’s miracles exclusively to Christ’s deity, for example, a subtle Nestorianism presses us to imagine that Jesus switches from his divine nature to his human nature when he is tired, hungry, or lacks knowledge, and then flips the switch back again to his divine nature when he heals or performs other miracles. This does justice neither to the full humanity of Christ and the unity of his divine-human person nor to the Holy Spirit, “the Lord and giver of life” in relation to Jesus Christ. The attributes of deity are never transferred to his humanity. And yet the person is fully divine and fully human.
With Jesus, we are dealing with God assuming the nature and commission of humanity in creation so that he can shower his compatriots with the riches that he achieved in our nature, as our human representative and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is God. But he is also the first human being who finally does not resist the Holy Spirit. Instead he obeys the word of the Father in full acquiescence to the Spirit’s power—and he does all of this for us, in our name, as our new Adamic head. He gives the Spirit without measure because he first possesses the Spirit without measure, and through union with him we too are anointed as prophets, priests, and kings.
Throughout the Gospels the wonders that Jesus performs are not unlike many performed by prophets of old when the Spirit came upon them. He raises Jairus’s daughter in Mark 5 in a scene reminiscent of Elisha’s raising of the Shunammite’s son in 2 Kings 4. Jesus is not only the covenant Lord who commands but the covenant Servant who obeys in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is more than the Spirit-filled prophet for whom Moses longed, but he is also surely not less. Jesus himself says that attributing his miracles to Satan is blasphemy—not against his divinity but against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:29; cf. Matt 12:31–32; Luke 12:10).
Our Lord’s dependence on the Spirit for his mission is evident also in the transfiguration scene. Just as the Spirit led the Hebrews through the Red Sea by the radiant pillar of cloud, he envelops Jesus and the disciples in the heavenly cloud with Moses and Elijah, discussing “his [Jesus’s] departure [Greek: exodos], which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31 ESV). Yet the response of Peter, looking for shelter from the glorious majesty, points up that it is a temporary foreshadowing of a greater transfiguration that will envelope Christ with his saints in the age to come. Peter’s response, though typical, is not unjustified. The cloud simply is the kingdom of heaven brought to earth, its glory emanating from the Spirit. The only other time this happens is in the ascension itself: “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9 ESV). In both cases, the enveloping in the cloud occurs as Jesus is speaking his word.
Defending Christ’s full humanity, Gregory of Nazianzus stipulated, “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.”16 Similarly, we can say that whatever he did not do, as the Spirit-dependent covenant servant, is left undone. Remarkably, it was “through the eternal Spirit” that Christ offered himself “without blemish to God” (Heb 9:14 ESV), “and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead . . .” (Rom 1:4). “He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit” (1 Pet 3:18). And our being raised to heavenly glory in Christ is just as dependent on the same Spirit. “It was the Holy Spirit who glorified the human nature of Christ,” says Owen, “and made it every way meet for its eternal residence at the right hand of God, and a pattern of the glorification of the bodies of them that believe on him. He who first made his nature holy now made it glorious.”17 The Spirit is the Lord and giver not only of biological but eschatological life (2 Cor 3:6).18 The same Spirit who raised Jesus will raise us on the last day (Rom 8:11).
Given this dependence of the incarnate Son on the Holy Spirit for his person and work, we may conclude with Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas that Christ’s earthly ministry was not only conditioned but constituted by the Spirit’s activity. To put it differently, the Spirit not only applies redemption but was a principal agent of it. He clothed the Redeemer in our humanity, led and upheld him in his ministry, and raised him from the dead as the eschatological firstfruits. Because of who he is and what he did in the power of the Spirit, and because by that same power we are united to his person and work, Christ is no longer for us merely an individual in the history of this passing age but is the representative adam of his new humanity; he is the head of his body, the church.19
How can a historical individual become for us this federal head of a new humanity? Origen and his theological heirs presuppose a cosmological map in which this question does not even arise. History, bodies, and federal heads all belong, in the line of thinking descending from Origen, to the lower world from which the deified soul seeks emancipation. The question does arise—again and again—in Irenaeus, with his emphasis on Christ’s recapitulation (“re-headshiping”) of humanity. It is the Spirit who creates this union: first of the Son’s deity with our humanity, and then of each believer with Christ. Zizioulas explains:
Here the Holy Spirit is not one who aids us in bridging the distance between Christ and ourselves, but he is the person of the Trinity who actually realizes in history that which we call Christ, this absolutely relational entity, our Savior. In this case, our Christology is essentially conditioned by Pneumatology, not just secondarily as in the first case; in fact it is constituted pneumatologically.20
Because the Father gives the Son to us in and by the Spirit, the Son brings us into a relation to the Father by which we too, and by that same Spirit, can cry out, “Abba, Father” and address God as “our Father in heaven.” Just as the Logos can only become flesh by the work of the Spirit, we cannot say “ ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). Not only is the Holy Spirit the gift of the Son, but the incarnate Son is first of all the gift of the Spirit (together with the Father).
Even after spending three years at Jesus’s side, the disciples’ understanding of, much less testimony to, Christ’s person and work depended on the descent of another witness from heaven, the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus has a history, so do we, and because he has a place, we will have one also—where he is. And he will come again to take us there. In the meantime, his departure opens a fissure in history where the Spirit—for the first time in redemptive history—will not only lead, guide, and light upon the temple-people but will permanently indwell them. “I will not leave you as orphans,” said Jesus, but “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth” (see John 14:16–18).
1. This is a principal motif of N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2016).
2. Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, trans. Henri De Vries (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 24.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., 25.
5. Gregory of Nazianzus, On the Holy Spirit 26 (NPNF2 7:325–26).
6. Heidelberg Catechism, Question 36.
7. Kuyper, Holy Spirit, 87.
8. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Lewis Ford Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 2.13.4.
9. Menno Simons, “The Incarnation of Our Lord,” in The Complete Works of Menno Simons, trans. L. Verduin, ed. J. C. Wenger (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1956), 829.
10. Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.3–4.
11. Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 230.
12. Ibid., 256.
13. Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 37.
14. John Owen, A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, in vol. 8 of The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 16 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 75.
15. Ibid.
16. Gregory of Nazianzus, Letters 101 (NPNF2 7:440).
17. Owen, Discourse, 182.
18. Basil’s prose verges on poetry as he summarizes this point. Where does life come from? “Is it Christ’s advent? The Spirit is forerunner. Working of miracles, and gifts of healing are through the Holy Spirit. Demons were driven out by the Spirit of God. The devil was brought to naught by the presence of the Spirit. Remission of sins was by the gift of the Spirit, for ‘ye were washed, ye were sanctified . . . in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the holy Spirit of our God.’ There is close relationship with God through the Spirit, for ‘God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.’ The resurrection from the dead is effected by the operation of the Spirit . . .” (On the Holy Spirit 19.49 [NPNF2 8:30–31]).
19. John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 110.
20. Ibid., 110–11.