CHAPTER 4
THE SPIRIT OF LATTER-DAY JUDGMENT AND POWER
What images come quickly to mind when we think about the Holy Spirit? Do we not associate the Spirit primarily with a gentle breeze, a still-small voice, peace, love, and a sweet dove? Comforting images are present, as we will see. Yet what should strike us immediately about Jesus’s discourse is his association of the Spirit’s outpouring with judgment and power, justification and renewal. Before exploring this discourse, it is good to trace these two functions of the Spirit throughout redemptive history.
THE SPIRIT OF JUDGMENT
Modern theology has been especially allergic to judicial or forensic emphases. Typically, the location of alternative theories has been Christology, with Jesus being regarded chiefly as merely a mortal with the highest degree of God-consciousness and the forensic element submerged in mysticism (as in Schleiermacher) or moralism (as in Ritschl). It is a theological trend that continued in various fields, including biblical studies, as in the work of C. H. Dodd, W. D. Davies, E. P. Sanders, and many others.1 In various ways, these scholars exhibited a wariness of propitiation and other judicial aspects of traditional Christian teaching. Rather than see Christ’s work as involving the satisfaction of divine justice, they treated Christ’s work as affirming God’s solidarity with humanity and its attempts to overcome warped relationships and social structures.
However, a new critique of traditional teaching has emerged among Pietist and Pentecostal theologians in recent years. Some, like Stanley Grenz, have continued to locate alternative constructions in Christology.2 Others, however, appeal to pneumatology as a corrective to forensic categories.3 Even if one grants a degree of truth to the argument that a Christ-centered soteriology emphasizes the theme of judgment and a redemption that is tied to the particularity of Jesus, a Spirit-centered theology serves as a counterweight. According to Clark Pinnock, emphasizing the Spirit “helps theology speak of salvation in ‘relational, affective’ rather than forensic and juridical terms” and allows for a “wideness in God’s mercy” with respect to other religions.4 “Access to grace is less of a problem for theology when we consider it from the standpoint of the Spirit,” he adds, “because whereas Jesus bespeaks particularity, Spirit bespeaks universality.”5
However, even some advocates of Spirit-centered theologies recognize the Spirit’s association with judgment in the Bible. Mark Wallace writes about “the Spirit’s Janus-faced role as both healing, and exacerbating, the plight of victims within the stories of the Bible” and argues that unless we face these texts (and apparently expunge them), we will perpetuate “the studied ignorance of the ‘dark side’ of the Spirit within contemporary theology.”6
In the following argument I argue that this so-called “dark side” of the Spirit is the judgment that leads to salvation. I also call into question any opposition between the Son and the Spirit, either in terms of an allegedly relational versus forensic pattern or of a particular versus universalistic scope. From a biblical-theological vista, we can see the greatness of the Spirit’s judicial operations.
The Holy Spirit is identified in Scripture with “these last days” (Heb 1:2) and “last things,” because his role is to complete the work of the Father, in the Son. His presence is the harbinger of “things to come” (John 16:13 KJV): the consummation. This was true in Eden, and even earlier (Gen 1:2), as the Spirit hovered over the waters, surveying and separating. Like a foreman inspecting the foundations and reporting back to the architect and contractor, the Spirit joined his judgment to that of the Father and the Son: “It is good.”
Creation was merely the beginning. As the federal head of the human race, Adam was to imitate his Creator by a six-day trial and then enter God’s Sabbath consummation as a public representative for us all. The Spirit is the guarantee and guardian of this consummation, represented sacramentally by the tree of life. He finishes the work of turning a chaos into a cosmos (Gen 1:2) and the work of making man “a living being” by breathing into Adam “the breath of life” (2:7). He next appears “in the Spirit of the day”—that is, in judgment—to arraign Adam and Eve for breaking the covenant and thus forfeiting entrance into the Sabbath glory (3:8).
The role of the Spirit as divine witness (a judicial-courtroom role) is central to this story.7 However, it is obscured by the frequent translation of ruakh as wind in these verses (Gen 1:2; 3:8). This is particularly the case in Genesis 3:8. If it makes little sense to mention natural wind in the context of a judicial arraignment, it makes even less sense that the divine judge came “in the cool [ruakh] of the day.” Rather, given the later associations of “the day of the LORD” (yom yhwh) with judgment, the phrase should be translated “in the Spirit of the day.” On the heels of having transgressed the covenant, the royal couple take flight—not from a gentle breeze, but from the Spirit of judgment. This is why Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as the “Advocate”—paraklētos; an attorney—who will convict the world of sin (John 16:7–8). This is already what the Spirit is doing in the garden after the transgression of the original covenant.
In the prophets the Spirit’s visitation is inseparably connected to the day of the LORD, which is a day of judgment: “Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him. . . . Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18–20). Isaiah prophesies: “For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty. . . . And people shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth” (2:12a, 19). And yet, that same chapter begins with the vision of the nations streaming into Zion “in the latter days” (v. 2). The day of the LORD is identified both with the Day of Jubilee when prisoners are freed and with final judgment and everlasting peace. And the Spirit’s role is clearly in view in both aspects of the event (Isa 42:1; 48:16), particularly in Isaiah 61, which Jesus announced as fulfilled in him (Luke 4:18–21). Interestingly, though, Jesus omits the second half of the prophecy, “the day of vengeance of our God,” since this would await his return in glory.
Micah repeats the prophecy of Isaiah 2 nearly verbatim, as the day of the LORD brings judgment and everlasting righteousness and peace to the earth (Mic 4:1–5). Finally, in Joel the day of the LORD becomes the recurring theme. Of the eighteen times that the phrase appears in the prophets (Isa 13:6, 9; Jer 46:10; Ezek 13:5; 30:3; Amos 5:18–20; Obad 15; Zeph 1:7, 14; Mal 4:5), five are found in Joel. The outpouring of the Spirit in the last days will not only bring conviction, vindication, and justification, but—because of this—will transform believers’ experience of God (see for example Joel 2:28–32, which Peter quotes in his Pentecost sermon).
The character of the Spirit as divine witness is closely related to “the angel of his presence” (Isa 63:9; cf. Exod 32:34; 33:2).8 The covenant is therefore not something we arrive at only at Sinai or at best with Abraham; the whole creation narrative is rich with covenantal imagery and formulas that would become clearer in the Mosaic economy and even clearer in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit in the cloud witnessed for the Israelites and against Pharaoh and his hosts. “Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses” (Exod 14:31, emphasis added). We will recall these words when Jesus promises the coming of the Spirit who will convict the world of judgment and lead his people to faith in his Servant Jesus.
The announcement to which I have referred is followed by the Song of Moses. Here the prophet and covenant mediator adorns the exodus recreation story with language from Genesis 1:2. The floodwaters raged:
You blew with your wind [ruakh] and the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters. . . . You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. . . . You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O LORD, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The LORD will reign forever and ever. For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the LORD brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. (Exod 15:10, 13, 17–19 ESV)
The Spirit is the divine witness to his covenant people—not only in their defense but also in witness against them. He descends in his cloud covering Sinai: “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever. . . . Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire” (Exod 19:9, 18 ESV). In this covenant Israel makes the oath to keep the law, and Moses splashes blood on them to confirm their pledge. It is a dramatic courtroom scene, terrifying even Moses (cf. Heb 12:21). The goal of his coming in the glory cloud is to bring conviction—to make his word accessible to the people and to certify Moses as the mediator.
The glory cloud hovers, glowing with fiery light. Yet this witnessing, judging, and justifying Spirit is always on the move in his chariot-throne, “propelled through the winged beings,” as Kline observes. He adds that the cloud is really a “vehicle of divine judgment, moving with the swiftness of light to execute the sentence of the King. . . . Also, the dual columnar formation assumed by the Glory-cloud as pillar of cloud and pillar of fire is conceptualized in the Bible as the feet of God standing as divine witness.”9 “The ark of the covenant located beneath the enthroned Glory is accordingly called God’s footstool (Isa. 60:13).”10
It becomes obvious, especially from Moses’s plea in Exodus 33:14–17, that the divine presence (imaged in the cloud) has a judicial function of distinguishing Israel from the nations, not to mention certifying Moses’s frequently contested leadership. When the cloud rested in any place along the journey through the wilderness, the camp of Israel rested; when the cloud lifted and began to move again, the people were once again marching according to tribe with Judah in the lead. In all of these ways, we see an arrow pointing forward from promise to fulfillment in the Lion of the tribe of Judah, with the Spirit as the promise’s pledge.
Taking up residence in the earthly temple, the Spirit—wrapped in his glory cloud—remained a witness for and against Israel. Hovering, covering, filling: these are the “strong verbs” associated with the Spirit’s work in history, and these verbs do greater justice to the personhood of the Spirit than “bond of love.” The Spirit is anything but passive or shy or vulnerable, much less simply a benign comforter. He is the sovereign Lord who executes conviction, judgment, and justification.
The Spirit is associated with cleansing through judgment, often in the context of the guilt sacrifices:
And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. (Lev 9:24 ESV)
As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. (2 Chr 7:1 ESV)
Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. (1 Kgs 18:38 ESV)
The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. . . . Over everything the glory will be a canopy. (Isa 4:4–6)
It is with a recollection of such events that the writer to the Hebrews could say, “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb 9:14 ESV).
Underscoring the parallelism between the covenant with Adam and the Sinai covenant, the account of Moses’s song in Deuteronomy 32 has the future of Israel rather than the recent past of Egypt as the focus of judgment. First, he reaches back to creation, with the Spirit’s work of dividing, subduing, and filling. God “gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage” (vv. 8–9 ESV, emphasis added). God did not need a plot of land; his people are his place: “He found in him a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness, he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye” (v. 10 ESV). “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions,” he carried them to safety (v. 11 ESV). If the creation imagery were not sufficiently clear, it is instructive that the only other place in the Pentateuch where the Hebrew word translated in v. 10 ESV as “waste” (tohu) is used is in Genesis 1:2.
Just as Yahweh gave Adam and Eve a land of lavish abundance, Israel was showered with prosperity. “He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field . . . and you drank foaming wine from the blood of the grape” (Deut 32:13–14 ESV). However, the song turns dark; feasting with God turns to mourning as Israel “grew fat, and kicked . . . then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation” (v. 15 ESV). Pressing the charges in the covenant lawsuit, Yahweh rescinds the blessings, with echoes of Genesis 3. Instead of enjoying the prosperity of his presence, the people will “[waste] with hunger; and [be] devoured by plague” (v. 24 ESV). Even the beasts that God placed under man will revolt at Yahweh’s behest: “I will send the teeth of beasts against them, with the venom of things that crawl in the dust” (v. 24 ESV).
The Spirit’s judicial ministry is seen in the ministry of the prophets, God’s attorneys in the case of Yahweh versus Israel. Just as the Spirit was hovering over the waters in judgment, dividing and allotting boundaries and creature-kings over each realm; just as he hovered over Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire, controlling Israel’s experience of day and night as Jacob’s sun and moon, so he stands in the witness pillar and in the judgment cloud to judge as well as defend. And, like Adam, Israel refused to follow the cloud into God’s Sabbath rest. As Hosea would prophesy, “Like Adam, they have transgressed the covenant” (Hos 6:7 ESV). Again the Sabbath rest—though in this case, merely typological—was aborted by the infidelity of the covenant partner. The same Spirit whose presence judicially separates the people as his chosen nation testifies now to its covenant breaking by withdrawing his presence.
In truth, the exile did not begin when the people were carried off into Babylon but when they still were going about their daily lives, violating the covenant, and the Spirit evacuated the sanctuary. As long as the Spirit was in residence, the whole land had peace and lavish provisions. Yet when the covenant was thoroughly violated, the Spirit’s departure left the grand edifice nothing but a shell of its former glory, nothing but a common public building to be claimed by weeds and jackals.
And yet, although Israel has violated the law, astonishingly Yahweh promises, “My Spirit remains in your midst” (Hag 2:5 ESV). His presence equals judgment but also comfort. He “will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in” and the majesty of the former temple will pale in comparison with the glory of this latter-day sanctuary (Hag 2:5–9 ESV).
In the new exodus re-creation, Jesus—the last Adam and faithful Israel, indeed the true temple of God’s presence with us—is baptized, with the Spirit descending in avian form (like the eagle in Exodus). Hovering above the waters, the Spirit joins the Father in confirming Jesus’s identity as Son and his messianic mission. Of crucial significance is that immediately after this—indeed, it is treated as a consequence of his baptismal anointing, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matt 4:1 ESV). No closer connection between the Spirit and judgment—specifically, the covenantal trial—can be made. The Adamic scene is played in reverse. Instead of beginning with bounty and ending with a curse, this time the covenant Servant begins by sharing in hunger and deprivation but keeps God’s word over the blandishments of Satan to choose the path of self-glorification rather than obedience.
Finally, in Revelation 10 we have a snapshot of the consummation itself:
Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. (vv. 1–3a)
Given the imagery, it is difficult to imagine that this could be anyone other than the angel of the LORD of the Old Testament theophanies. The figure is wrapped in the Spirit (the cloud), beneath the symbol of God’s sworn oath of peace (the rainbow), and is a lion with a face like the sun and legs like pillars of fire. Does the apocalyptic imagery not point to the Son of Man “coming on the clouds” at the end of the age in judgment and vindication of his people? (See Matt 24:29–31; 25:31–32.) The following verses of Revelation 10 report that this angelic figure stood with one foot on the sea and the other on the land, raising his hand in solemn oath (confirmed sacramentally by the rainbow). The scene suggests nothing less than the ascended Savior’s welcoming of his people into the everlasting Sabbath that he has won for them.11
The Spirit’s judicial function in this great courtroom drama is also underscored in Romans 1:4 (ESV): Christ Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. . . .” It is common to associate the title “Son of Man” with Jesus’s humanity and “Son of God” with his deity. However, in the Jewish context the connotations were exactly the opposite. The “Son of Man” in Daniel and Second Temple literature is no less than a divine person (as in 2 Esdras), while “Son of God” was a messianic title.12
Jesus is God, eternally one with the Father, and yet the Spirit’s role in raising him from the dead pertains specifically to his humanity, and it is judicial. Of course, Paul taught that Jesus is the eternal Son who is to be worshiped as such. Nevertheless, the glorification to which he refers in Romans 1:4 is the result of his being publicly vindicated by the Spirit as the last Adam and therefore the beginning of the new creation. Elsewhere he even places the Spirit’s resurrection-vindication of Jesus as an element in a creed: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory” (1 Tim 3:16 ESV).
With echoes of Genesis 2:7, the resurrected Lord breathes on the disciples to receive the Holy Spirit in John 20:
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:19–23 ESV)
This postresurrection appearance occurs on the first day of the week, not the last, since it is the beginning of the new creation. The week of toil under the curse lies behind Jesus now. Yet all that he accomplished was for us. The apocalyptic scene in Revelation 10 of the mighty angel, rainbow-haloed, straddling sea and land with hand raised in an oath of everlasting peace, fits well with this episode in John 20. In order to confirm this and to equip them as his ambassadors of peace, he breathes the Holy Spirit into them as his coheirs of the new Spirit-filled humanity that he has inaugurated.
The chief effect is not that they will be miracle workers or hold power over nations, but that they will be given the power of the keys to forgive and retain sins in his name. Recall Jesus’s response to the seventy-two who return to report victory over demons in in his name. “And he said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. . . . Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven’ ” (Luke 10:17–20).
Just as the glory cloud in the earthly temple enveloped the judicial council of the Trinity and the hosts of heaven, the Spirit-filled apostles will pronounce his peace to the ends of the earth. Ultimately, then, to bear the image of God is to bear his scepter as viceroy, but this time not subduing and ruling creation from a geopolitical capitol, but with the judicial function of absolution and discipline in the ever-expanding temple that the Spirit alone can build.
Our Lord’s ascension-exaltation is far greater than a mere attestation of his divinity. This could only instruct us. However, in this event it is in his humanity that he shares with us that he is glorified, as the beginning of the resurrection from the dead. And just as the Spirit’s work was constitutive of his incarnate identity in its humiliation, his work of eschatological vindication is now constitutive of his identity in exaltation. In uniting us to Christ, the Spirit’s work is constitutive of our identity as sharers in the new creation. The Spirit unites us not to Christ’s deity but to the glorified humanity that is inseparable from the one divine-human person that he is.
In an explicitly Trinitarian formulation, Peter declares at Pentecost, “Being therefore [because of his obedience] exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he [the incarnate Son] has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:33). He continues by quoting Psalm 110:1: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ ” David could not have been speaking about himself, Peter adds, since he never ascended into heaven. The only proper response is to repent and be baptized in Christ’s name “for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38 ESV).
In all of these various ways, the appeal is to the old-covenant history of royal investiture that begins in Eden, with the Spirit’s breath of life, followed by all of the priestly imagery of glorious vestments and the event of Christ breathing on his disciples. “When the investiture figure is used,” writes Kline, “what is ‘put on’ is the new man created in the image of God (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), or Christ the Lord (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27; cf. Eph. 2:15; 4:13), or the resurrection glory of immortality (1 Cor. 15:53; 2 Cor. 5:2ff.). . . . In the vocabulary of Peter, ‘partakers of the divine nature’ expresses renewal in the image of God (2 Peter 1:4).”13
Joel’s prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit “in the last days” is another key component of Peter’s Pentecost sermon—and it is unmistakably judicial. Even the accusation of drunkenness by the onlookers reminds us of Jeremiah, who was called as God’s attorney to execute the covenant curses against the false prophets: “Concerning the prophets: My heart is broken within me; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD and because of his holy words” (Jer 23:9).
Raymond Dillard states that Joel 3:1–5 (2:28–32 in English translations) is a direct reflection upon Numbers 11:1–12:8. He writes:
God’s Spirit in the Old Testament is primarily the Spirit of prophecy. In Num 11, Moses’ desire for help with his burden (11:11, 17) prompts God to send his Spirit on seventy of the elders. . . . When we turn to Joel, several of these themes recur. Moses’ prayer will be answered: God will pour out his Spirit on all Israel, and all of Yahweh’s people will become prophets. Key vocabulary drawn from Num 11–12 is found in Joel 3:1–5. God’s people will prophesy (Num 11:25–29; Joel 3:1): the revelatory means that characterize prophets (dream and vision, Num 12:6) will become the experience of all of God’s people (Joel 3:1); the outpouring of God’s Spirit will not be the experience of the few (Num 11:25; 12:6), but rather the experience of all (Joel 3:1). . . . Both contexts also reflect a judicial function in the possession of the Spirit. The seventy elders are to be Moses’ surrogates and to serve as judges (Num 11:17; cf. Exod 18:13–27); in Joel, the eschatological outpouring of prophetic endowment is conjoined with the Lord’s coming in judgment on the nations (Joel 3:4: 4:12). Multitudes come not to make a decision, but to hear the decision of God (4:14). . . . Both contexts also include a fire theophany appearing in judgment (Num 11:1–3; Joel 1:19–20; 2:3, 5; 3:3). In each the outpouring of the Spirit is in a context which includes judgment for some in Israel (Num 11:31–35; 12:9–15; Joel 3:5); not all survive.14
At Pentecost, however, God manifests himself not in a devouring fire but as a pillar of witness above each believer to the very word that Peter proclaims (Acts 2:3–4).
The Spirit has returned to the sanctuary, but not to the building complex that is only steps away from the Pentecostal site. Rather, the Spirit is now poured out upon and takes up residence within each of the witnesses. This personal occupation of individuals by the glory of God, the Spirit who divides and unites, was unknown in the old covenant. The divine presence will not dwell above the Most Holy Place but within his people who have become his temple (Acts 2:3; 1 Cor 3:16–17; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:19–22). This then gives rise to the “prophethood of all believers,” notes Dillard.15 He adds:
In the Johannine material the Spirit is preeminently the Comforter to come, the agent of regeneration. In the Pauline corpus, the Spirit is preeminently the power of the new and coming age. However, it is in Luke/Acts that we meet God’s Spirit in his most common role in the Old Testament as the Spirit of prophecy. It does not come as a surprise then that when Luke records Jesus’s parting words to his followers, Jesus promises them empowerment for witness bearing when the Holy Spirit comes upon them (Acts 1:8).16
Only because of what Christ has accomplished can the old covenant be called “the ministry of death” and “the ministry of condemnation,” symbolized by the fading glory on Moses’s face as he descended Sinai with the stone tablets (2 Cor 3:7–9). In contrast, the new covenant is “the ministry of the Spirit” and “the ministry of righteousness” (also vv. 7–9). Though I do not put too much weight on the point, it makes sense to me to translate righteousness (dikaiosynē) here as “justification,” since Paul juxtaposes it with “condemnation” (v. 9). In any case, this is precisely the judicial mission that Jesus discloses as central to the Spirit’s work in these last days. The resurrected Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit—the other divine attorney—on the disciples to equip them as his instruments for this judicial mission.
It is this contrast of “letter” and “Spirit” in 2 Corinthians 3:6 that enthusiastic sects have misinterpreted as the external versus internal word. However, in context, it is clearly not a contrast between preaching or Scripture on one side and an “inner word” on the other; nor is it a contrast between the literal sense of Scripture and its deeper spiritual meaning. Paul’s point is the same as our Lord’s when he said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Since his words are spirit and life, the contrast is between the Holy Spirit’s sovereign grace and the attempts of human beings dead in sin to save themselves.
It is not because it is written that the “letter” is killing, but because the law of Moses itself is not salvific: it cannot declare us righteous and it cannot make us righteous. It can free us neither from sin’s guilt or dominion. Yet the “ministry of the Spirit” accomplishes both. Thanks be to God that the Sinai covenant was temporary and is now “brought to an end” so that we can be bound to God in a covenant that “is permanent” (2 Cor 3:11). The same point is made in the conclusion to Paul’s opening argument in Romans as it reaches its summit in 3:20–22.
Old Testament believers were justified as we are, “apart from the works of the law,” but the terms of the Mosaic law itself are precise and promise temporal blessing on the condition of fulfilling its precepts. Through its cultic legislation, God mercifully provided temporary sacrifices for sin, but, as the writer to the Hebrews made evident, this was a mere “covering over” of sins that can only be finally taken away forever by Jesus Christ (Heb 10:11–12). Furthermore, not only can forgiveness be found only in the gospel, but the new obedience can come about only when the Spirit writes his law on our heart, as prophesied in Jeremiah 31. Even in Deuteronomy itself there is the fascinating contrast between the command to the Israelites to circumcise their own hearts (10:16) and the divine promise, prophesying Israel’s inability to do this: “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live” (30:6 ESV). This is a striking adumbration of the new-covenant promise in the context of the Mosaic law itself.
Therefore, the judicial function of the Spirit is not only related to justification but also to sanctification and glorification. The third person of the Godhead is the Spirit not only of judgment but of power. These two aspects of the Spirit’s ministry overlap, with the latter presupposing the former, just as sanctification presupposes justification. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17–18 NRSV).
We see here the close connection between the judicial function of the Spirit and the concept of the image of God. Because of the ministry of the Spirit, believers see “the glory of the Lord” and are transformed by this vision, while the gospel is “veiled to those who are perishing” (2 Cor 4:3). We hear echoes of Jesus’s farewell discourse in the verses that follow:
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. . . . For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (vv. 4–6 NRSV)
Beyond the glorification of the saints, there is the vindication of God himself through the final judgment entrusted to Christ—yet not without the attending power of the mighty Spirit. “This standpoint precludes our viewing the work of the Spirit from that of the salvation of the redeemed,” Kuyper observes. “Our spiritual horizon widens; for the chief thing is not that the elect are fully saved, but that God be justified in all his works and glorified through judgment.”17 Thus, the Spirit’s ministry is no less judicial than that of the incarnate Son and is no less concerned with the salvation of God’s elect: “Those he predestined, he also called . . .” (Rom 8:30).
THE SPIRIT OF ESCHATOLOGICAL POWER: NEW-CREATION ORDER OUT OF CHAOS
Besides the judicial office, the Spirit is identified throughout Scripture with renewing and transforming power. He not only witnesses for and against sinners inwardly but also changes their hearts. He comes from above—that is, from the future, from the age to come—where he dwells eternally in Sabbath joy with the Father and the Son.
The Spirit cuts, divides, and apportions—activities associated with judicial operations—yet for the very purpose of filling and freeing creation with the power of his fructifying energies.
The Spirit not only came upon prophets as his covenant attorneys but also upon anointed kings to rule and upon Israel’s warriors for victory in holy war. “The Spirit of the LORD came on [Othniel] so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war” (Judg 3:10). The same is said of the warriors Gideon (6:34), Jephthah (11:29), Samson (14:6, 19), and even of Saul (1 Sam 11:6) and Balaam (Num 24:2).
Cyrus the Great, who amassed the largest empire in history to date, was also called God’s “anointed” (Isa 45:1), the only non-Jew to have received the messianic title. God has grasped his right hand “to subdue nations before him” and “to open doors before him that gates may not be closed” (v. 1 ESV).
For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things. (Isa 54:4–7 ESV)
The exiles should not be ashamed that their God should anoint a pagan king for their redemption. “ ‘I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward,’ says the LORD of hosts” (v. 13).
Yet it becomes clear that Cyrus merely foreshadows the greater deliverer-king. Like Cinderella’s slipper, the prophecies ultimately fit only Jesus’s feet. The Messiah proper is referred to repeatedly as an offspring of David, and yet “he will be called . . . Mighty God” (9:6). In addition, he saves Israel through his vicarious death and resurrection for their justification (ch. 53).
Returning to Isaiah 45, we discover allusions to creation in the past and the consummation in the future. First, God explains that he “created the heavens” and “formed the earth”—“he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited” (v. 18 ESV). This last statement echoes Genesis 1:2 with its connection to the Spirit’s fertilizing energies. God made the whole creation not as an empty place but as a realm filled with creatures, led behind their respective creature-kings in grateful procession before the review of the Great King. Second, the Lord declares that his people will be “saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity” (v. 17 ESV). Third, therefore,
Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: “To me every knee shall bow, and every tongue swear allegiance.” Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who are incensed against him. In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. (vv. 22–25 ESV)
With the prophecy of the new temple in Zechariah 4:6 (ESV), Yahweh assures his people, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.’ ” He is the Spirit of judgment and power.
Emphasizing his powerful agency to bring into effect every word of the Father in the Son, the Spirit is described as the finger of God. By this finger the law was inscribed on tablets in Exodus 31:18. Unable to mimic the production of gnats during Yahweh’s plagues, Pharaoh’s magicians declared in horror, “This is the finger of God” (Exod 8:19). In that light Jesus declared, “But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). It is only in Christ that all things hold together, whether in creation generally or in the church. But it is the Spirit who binds all things to him. From the Father and in the Son, the Spirit shares not only in declaring right but in making right. In both judgment and power for renewal, he is the finger of God.
1. See Mark Seifrid, “In What Sense is ‘Justification’ a Declaration?” in Churchman 114 (2000): 123–36.
2. Stanley Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: An Agenda for the 21st Century (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1993).
3. See for example Frank D. Macchia, Justified in the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). I take this same thrust to be central to the work of Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen.
4. Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 149.
5. Ibid., 188.
6. Mark I. Wallace, “The Green Face of God: Recovering the Spirit in an Ecocidal Era,” in Advents of the Spirit, ed. Bradford E. Hinze and D. Lyle Dabney, Marquette Studies in Theology (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 462n17.
7. I am indebted to Meredith G. Kline on many of these points. See his dissertation, “The Holy Spirit as Covenant Witness” (ThM diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1972); idem, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006); and idem, Images of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999).
8. Kline, Images of the Spirit, 16.
9. Kline, Images of the Spirit, 18–19.
10. Ibid., 19n16.
11. Kline, Images of the Spirit, 19.
12. See Craig A. Evans, “Jesus’s Self-Designation ‘The Son of Man’ and the Recognition of His Divinity,” in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 30–39.
13. Kline, Images of the Spirit, 29.
14. Raymond B. Dillard, “Intrabiblical Exegesis and the Effusion of the Spirit in Joel,” in Creator, Redeemer, Consummator: A Festschrift for Meredith G. Kline, ed. Howard Griffith and John R. Muether (Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 2000), 90–91.
15. Ibid., 92.
16. Ibid.
17. Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, trans. Henri De Vries (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 9.