The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
—Saint Paul
You can spend your life studying something, only to find again and again that it outclasses your best ideas. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, I confess that I love the Spirit’s passion and joy, respect for us and love for the broken, and affirmation of everything that lives and hints of beauty. I even love the Spirit’s out-of-the-box ways. But to explain the Holy Spirit is another matter altogether, and no theologian worth his or her salt would claim otherwise. Let me pause here for a moment and clarify a simple biblical fact about the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit using the pronoun he, while the Greek word for spirit (pneuma) is neuter and the Hebrew word ruach (wind, spirit) is feminine. As a way of stealing behind our prejudices, Paul Young portrays the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman called Sarayu. Personally, I find it somewhat offensive to use the pronoun it for the Holy Spirit. Most of us are at ease with “he,” yet the masculine does not tell the whole biblical truth, and neither does the feminine. While “she” may appear a touch daring or perhaps sacrilegious to some, the feminine has the deep and ancient biblical support of the Hebrew word.1 Like pneuma and ruach, sarayu is a word for refreshing wind (in an Indian language), and it sounds better than Pneuma or Ruach as a name.
I have read many books, ancient and modern, on the Holy Spirit, but I know of no book that speaks as beautifully and biblically about this person of the Trinity as The Shack. As a gesture of gratitude to Paul, and in the hope of helping us all understand the Holy Spirit more personally, I have chosen to use the feminine pronouns she and her.
Now back to my main point. We all know, scholarly and academic arguments aside, that the Holy Spirit is God of God. While I could probably string together something of a biblical argument, with a few historical footnotes, as to why we should rethink the ancient Church’s conclusions about the Holy Spirit, I would never dream of raising them with the Spirit in person. Somehow I know better. And that may be the point. When we finally face the Holy Spirit ourselves, I suspect not a one of us will say, “But you didn’t say whether…,” or “You weren’t that clear on…”
Since the Enlightenment, the West has been locked in an overly rationalistic view of knowledge. Compared to the “hard facts” of science or the logic of “pure reason,” any talk of intuitive knowledge, of personal encounter with Jesus, or of knowing in the Spirit has largely been dismissed as subjective romanticism. But as Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”2 Faith in Jesus Christ is rooted in personal encounter, not in abstract logic or in the wisdom of the age, or in “scientific fact”—and thank the Lord, for whatever “scientific fact” is, it seems to change as often as a politician’s opinions. This does not mean that faith in Jesus is illogical or unscientific, but simply that its basis is a real encounter with Jesus through the Spirit.
On his mission of persecution, Saul of Tarsus was struck blind by a light from heaven as he traveled the Damascus road. He heard a voice addressing him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Saul answered with a question: “Who are You, Lord?” And he got his answer: “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”3 Saul was shocked, to say the least, but he did not argue, and that is what fascinates me. Something indisputable had happened. Saul was a bright and highly educated man, and he had an awful lot to lose, but this revelation of Jesus simply and quickly outweighed his trained judgment and intense prejudice. The appearance of Jesus rocked Saul’s world and led him into a massive change in his way of thinking. Saul of Tarsus became Paul the great apostle and bondslave of Jesus Christ:
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.4
It is this inner world of Pascal’s “reasons of the heart” and Paul’s “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” that the Spirit loves. To speak of such a world may make a rationalist suspect that we have “a few ’roos loose in the top paddock,” as the Aussies say, but it was a reality to Saul of Tarsus and to millions of others throughout history.
In one of Paul Young’s extra-Shack essays he talks about the beauty of ambiguity, and indeed of its necessity.5 Ironclad rules negate the need for real relationship. We don’t have the original letters from John, Paul, or Matthew, or any from Moses, David, or Isaiah, and that is probably for a reason. If we did, we would likely obsess on the documents themselves, rather than pursue knowing the Lord of whom they speak. And what I know about the Holy Spirit is that her passion is fellowship with the living Jesus himself, not merely facts about him. Information is important, as are facts, but one can be in possession of all the facts yet miss their meaning.6 The Spirit knows that the meaning of the words is Jesus. As Sarayu said, “The Bible doesn’t teach you to follow rules. It is a picture of Jesus” (200). “Life and living is in him and in no other” (198).
From the beginning, the Bible is about the Lord’s desire—not as need, but as love’s expression—for real relationship with us, his mere creatures. We matter. As Papa said to Mackenzie, “We carefully respect your choices” (125). What we think, what we misunderstand, what we are utterly clueless about matters to the Lord (121f.). The Holy Spirit walks with us as we are, not as we are supposed to be or as we pretend to be on Sunday, but as we are in our strong-willed blindness, independence, and judgment. And she works in the invisible world of the heart in order that we may encounter Jesus, and experience—against our own prejudices—the life he shares with us in his relationship with his Father.
Throughout Israel’s history we see a certain irrepressibility about the Spirit. She is grieved by Israel’s disinterest and obstinate rebellion; with the Lord, her heart breaks as the leadership of Israel turns toward idols and the wisdom of the nations around them. But she never gives up. Again and again she finds a farmer, or a tender of sheep and sycamore figs, or a donkey, who will listen to her voice. And the Spirit’s voice is always odd to us, always foreign to the way everybody thinks. The apostle Paul says that the things of the Spirit are foolish to the natural mind.7 But this was not new in Paul’s day. From the fall of Adam onward, the Spirit—to our way of seeing things—is odd, out of touch, foolish. She is inconceivable.
It’s a scary thing to realize that while the Lord made us in his own image, we have been creating him in our own ever since.8 I will have more to say later about Adam’s fall and the projections of our fallen minds, but for now the point is that the Holy Spirit is passionate about our coming to know Jesus and his Father as they are. The Spirit knows that we will experience a life beyond our wildest imaginations when we see the Father’s face and know his heart, and she knows that we don’t. And the Spirit is intently doing something about it. In patience, kindness, and tenderness she walks with us as we are, in our craziness; she never gives up. And the Holy Spirit finally finds, in Jesus, her listening and faithful man; she goes wild with life, with joy, with healing and miracles and deliverance, and nothing in the cosmos will ever be the same.
It is not too difficult to set out the New Testament’s vision of Jesus and his Father. That, I suspect, is the Holy Spirit’s point: the record she has left is all about revealing Jesus to us so that in Jesus we can know his Father with him, and in knowing Jesus’ Father we can experience the shocking and liberating life of his love. It is rather more problematic to set out the New Testament’s vision of the Spirit. She is “a free Spirit” (123), and “she’s way out there” (112), as Mackenzie says. From the day of Pentecost on, the Spirit is everywhere and into everything, but never visible and always completely unpredictable (130). She is alive and powerful, and constantly moving. “Mack wondered if she ever completely stopped moving” (122). She inspires witness to Jesus and works within the deepest trenches of the human heart and its wounds. Or, perhaps I should say, she works within the root systems of the gardens of our souls.
While she can be lied to, resisted, tested, grieved, insulted, quenched, and blasphemed,9 she is remarkably comfortable with the sinful mess we have made of ourselves and our lives. For me, as we shall see, the garden scene in The Shack is one of the most powerful moments in the book. It wonderfully portrays the freedom of the Spirit to dig around in the garden of our broken souls. “Sarayu loved the mess” (140).
To describe the Spirit is like trying to count the waves of an ocean or photograph the air; it is like “tracking a sunbeam” (130). But I will try. And here I have the utmost respect for Paul Young’s amazing treatment of the Spirit as Sarayu, which I suspect is his finest contribution to Christian thought. Whatever I do or fail to do, I want to make one point clear at the outset: the Holy Spirit is about life. As Sarayu says, “I am about the process that takes you to the living answer” (200). She is good, and she won’t let you go until you find your real life in Jesus—and that means until you come to know that Jesus’ Father loves you forever, no matter what. That is what Adam lost; that is what Jesus—in the Spirit—knows; and that is what Jesus—through the Spirit—is now teaching the human race. As Papa says to Mackenzie, “That’s why we’re here” (100). “This weekend is about relationship and love” (104).
Catching Israel and the world by surprise, no one less than Israel’s Lord himself stepped personally into his own creation, became a human being, and dwelt among us.10 Who saw this coming? What prophet or seer or wise person ever dreamed of such grace? It was the shocker of cosmic history. But as shocking as the Incarnation was, it was even more surprising that the Lord Jesus lived his life in constant relationship to the One he called “my Father.” This relationship is so deep, so pure and good and right, it defies imagination. Jesus not only knows the Father; he knows the Father in a way that no other human being has ever known him. And his knowledge, his communion, his fellowship with the Father is so true and intimate, so intensely personal and unclouded, that Jesus says he is in the Father and the Father is in him. And at no point does the New Testament allow us to think of the Spirit as a mere spectator of the communion between Jesus and his Father. The Holy Spirit lives in the middle of this astonishing relationship.
According to the Scriptures, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit,11 baptized in the Spirit,12 led and empowered by the Spirit,13 given great joy by the Spirit,14 cast out demons by the Spirit,15 heard his Father in the Spirit,16 and offered himself to his Father by the power of the Spirit.17 From his conception to his death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus’ life was thoroughly filled with the Holy Spirit. Epiphanius, one of the early church theologians, spoke of the Holy Spirit as “in the midst of the Father and the Son” and as “the bond of the Trinity.”18 The Holy Spirit is always in the middle of Jesus’ fellowship with his Father.
The image of the Spirit descending as a dove upon Jesus at his baptism, which harks back to the Spirit hovering over creation19 and points forward to the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost,20 is a picture of what we might call the Spirit’s “betweenness.” The Holy Spirit is the “Go-Between God,”21 to borrow a great phrase from John Taylor. Known in the early church as “the modesty of God,” the Spirit does not like to be the center of attention. She hides herself, preferring to work behind the scenes. Her passion is fellowship: she loves to connect people. She is the “Overcomer of the Gap” and the “Space Between,” as Richard Rohr puts it so beautifully.22 Like the lighting of a great cathedral, the Holy Spirit loves to illuminate others so that encounter and fellowship can take shape—for life happens in relationship.
In an almost offhand comment, the apostle Paul says, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”23 This comment speaks to the heart of the Holy Spirit’s passion. Righteousness means right relationship, relationship that functions out of other-centered love and goodness, mutual respect, and honor. Peace means the cessation of conflict and strife. It is the calming of our own inner worlds and the calming of the world at large, and peace involves the presence of blessing, well-being, shalom. Righteousness and peace create room for joy. Joy is about gladness and delight, about freedom to be, freedom to be present for others and to be open for fellowship, freedom to share and appreciate life in gratitude.
As life is formed in relationship, in personal encounter, in knowing and being known, the Holy Spirit specializes in the inner, invisible world that makes such communion possible. As the One who gives life, the Spirit is inherently about relationship. She is at once the keeper of the gardens of our souls (89) and the surgeon of our inner eyes (209). She is the Spirit of encounter, of fellowship, of intimacy and sharing.
While it would take several volumes to chart all that the Bible has to say about the Holy Spirit, there are several simple points that need to be highlighted. First, while there are many spirits, there is only one unique or special Spirit of God. Very closely related to the presence of the Lord and the Word of the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord comes from outside creation and always commands awe and respect. She is remarkably free to be present and active within creation, yet is never domesticated, manipulated, or controlled. In Israel’s history she is called the Spirit of the Lord,24 the Spirit of God,25 Holy Spirit,26 the Spirit of Wisdom,27 the Good Spirit,28 and the Spirit of grace.29 Sometimes, when God is speaking, he calls the Holy Spirit “my Spirit.”30 In Isaiah 11:2 the Spirit is called “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.”
Second, the Spirit makes her first appearance at Creation itself and is involved with God and the Word of God in the creating and forming of all life:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.31
While the Spirit is brooding over creation, the Word of God is spoken, “Let there be light,” and the command comes to fruition. This pattern is repeated until it comes to the forming of humanity. Then the command “Let there be” is replaced by “Let Us make man in Our image.”32 Later we are told, “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”33 While technically the Spirit is not mentioned here in the breathing of life, in other places the association is clear: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”34 “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath [Spirit] of his mouth all their host.”35 As the Nicene Creed affirms, the Spirit is “the Lord and giver of life.”36
Third, while giving life to all creation, the Spirit of the Lord appears personally within Israel’s history, but only rarely. There are fewer than one hundred references to the Spirit in the Hebrew Bible, and through all of that history only two hundred or so people in Israel ever have direct dealings with the Spirit of the Lord. When the Spirit is present and active, she gives power,37 wisdom and discernment,38 and creative and artistic gifts.39 She particularly loves to inspire the prophets with the Word of the Lord,40 and anoint kings, priests, and leaders.41 On the surface it appears that the Spirit acts randomly, as she is prone to come and go at will—or, to use Paul Young’s word, “evaporate” (90)—and never stays anywhere for long. This is captured well by Young in his portrayal of Sarayu. But the Spirit is concerned with Israel walking with and knowing the Lord. It is not surprising that for the most part her activity is centered upon the very narrow circle of Israel’s leaders—Moses, Aaron, and Joshua, for example; as well as judges, wise men, priests, kings, and prophets. These chosen few were called to participate in the Lord’s communication with Israel, and to lead Israel’s response to the Lord. It is within this group of mediators, not with Israel at large, that the Spirit primarily works.
The book of Genesis was written to help Israel understand who they were and why they had been chosen by the Lord. The writer begins with God creating the heavens and the earth, and ultimately Adam and Eve. After describing what is called “the Fall,” the writer places Abraham, and thus Israel, within the context of God’s redemptive plan. The assumption in Genesis, and in the Bible as a whole, is that the Creator wants to be in relationship with humanity, and that within this relationship the Lord is determined to bless his creation with fullness and life.
After Adam’s fall, the Lord called Abram (Abraham) and through him reestablished relationship with fallen humanity. Abraham’s descendants became a nation in covenant with the Lord, chosen to be the people through whom redemption would be worked out for the world. At the heart of this covenant relationship was the Lord’s declaration, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”42 This declaration contains three critical truths, of which two are obvious and one is more implicit, but all are equally important. The first is the rather amazing fact that the Creator of the heavens and the earth is determined to have a relationship with mere creatures. The second is the even more startling fact that the Lord takes responsibility for the human side of the relationship. The second clause, “and you will be my people,” is not in the first instance an invitation, but part of God’s declaration to Israel. We could interpret it this way: “I will be your God, and I will see to it that you come to know me and live in my fellowship.” The third truth is that as Israel knows the Lord and as they dwell together in fellowship, inconceivable blessing and life will flower within Israel and spread to the ends of the earth and beyond.
The emphasis in the declaration is not on ownership, but on relationship and fellowship. The blessing of the Lord is not dispensed mechanically, religiously, or legally; it is the fruit of fellowship with the Lord. As Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”43 It is as Israel knows and walks with the Lord that the great blessing comes into being.
Since it is the Spirit who gives life, and since life comes through knowing the Lord, the Spirit is not uninterested in Israel’s relationship with the Lord; she is inherently passionate about it. She is the Spirit of relationship, of encounter, of revelation and response. The Spirit sets the table, so to speak, so that the Lord and Israel can meet. She is at work on God’s side reaching out to Israel, and she is at work on the creaturely side helping Israel know, respond to, and walk with the Lord so that life and blessing and shalom can flower.
But it is here that disaster struck Israel, as king after king, prophet after prophet, and priest after priest forsook the Lord and his love. The first clause of the covenant, “I will be your God,” never failed, as the Lord was ever faithful to Israel. But the second clause, “and you will be my people,” hardly got a foothold as the chosen leadership of Israel and Judah grieved the Spirit. Following the nations around them, they worshipped foreign gods and led the people into idolatry.
The covenant fellowship was broken and the blessing of the Lord withered on the vine, so to speak. In the Spirit the great prophets bore the Lord’s anguish and broken heart as they repeatedly warned Israel and summoned the nation back to the Lord. But the leadership had a mind of its own and, with few exceptions, did what was right in their own eyes. Their resistance to the Spirit eventually led to Israel’s exodus from the Promised Land.
In the bitterness and shame of captivity the Spirit of the Lord, ever passionate for relationship and life, began to give a new vision for Israel. The second clause in the divine declaration, “and you will be my people,” had miserably failed; but it was prophesied that the day would come when things would be dramatically different. The Lord himself would raise up a faithful servant—a true King, a true Priest, and a faithful Prophet. This vision had been in the making since Moses,44 but was now projected into the future.
It was not clear whether this faithful servant would be the whole nation of Israel itself, a group of individuals, or perhaps even just one person,45 although Peter tells us that the Spirit who inspired the prophets was the Spirit of Christ.46 But it was clear that a new day was coming. It would be a day of deliverance from all captivity, and from the darkness and deadness of the human heart itself. It would be a day of forgiveness and healing, of breathtaking blessing upon Israel, and through Israel upon the whole earth. Under the inspiration of the Spirit, a new age of international and, indeed, cosmic blessing appeared on the horizon. This deliverance and blessing, this new covenant relationship, would come about when the Lord raised up his faithful servant and anointed him with the Spirit. This Messiah (the Anointed One) would know the Lord, and in their fellowship together, the great blessing of the Lord would be released in Israel and flow to the ends of the earth and beyond.47
It is in this hopeful expectation of the coming of the Anointed One that the Hebrew Scriptures close.
After centuries of silence, the wild figure of John the Baptist stepped out of the wilderness. He was full of the Holy Spirit, with a mission to prepare the way for the Lord. Clothed with camel’s hair and a leather belt, John began baptizing and preaching. His activities created a stir among the people and so caught the attention of the Jewish leadership. They sent a delegation to ask him the question, “Who are you?”48 After a brief and animated discussion, John declared: “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the LORD,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”49 “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”50
The Old Testament closed with hope that the Lord would raise up a faithful servant who would be anointed with the Holy Spirit. This servant would know the Lord, and through him the great blessing of salvation and life and kingdom would come to fruition. It was John the Baptist’s calling and privilege to identify Jesus as this long-awaited Anointed One. But at first not even John recognized the real identity of Jesus:
I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and He remained upon Him. And I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, “He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.51
As we have seen, the Spirit of the Lord was at work within Israel’s history, but only rarely, and only within a select group of people. But in Jesus things changed dramatically, in two directions. First, the already very narrow circle of the Spirit’s personal activity was narrowed even further to Jesus alone. Apart from Mary, Zechariah, Elizabeth, John the Baptist, and Simeon, the Spirit was silent except for her profound presence in Jesus’ life. What they had in common was the Spirit’s inspiration to bear witness to Jesus. Second, in Jesus, through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the Spirit’s activity was then broadened at Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out upon all flesh.52 Today, in and through Jesus, the Holy Spirit is at work universally in the world at large, convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment;53 but before Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was focused exclusively upon Jesus, who alone among biblical characters was miraculously conceived by the Spirit herself,54 and upon whom the Spirit came and remained as an immeasurable and abiding presence.
The Spirit gives Jesus life, confidence, power, freedom, joy, and wisdom, but above all she works to enable Jesus to know his Father. This, it seems to me, is the key point. When the apostle Paul writes, “God’s love has flooded our inmost heart through the Holy Spirit he has given us,”55 he is also describing what the Holy Spirit first did in the inmost heart of Jesus. The remarkable fellowship between Jesus and his Father is not separated from the Holy Spirit, as if Jesus’ relationship with his Father and his relationship with the Spirit were two parallel railroad tracks that never meet.
In the Incarnation, the Spirit crosses over to the human side of the relationship and prepares a womb for the Son in the virgin Mary. The Spirit gives and sustains the human life of Jesus in conception and as it develops in the womb. And once Jesus is born, the Spirit works between the Father and Jesus, facilitating their relationship. She reveals the Father to Jesus and gives him eyes to see and ears to hear, so that at every level of his life he is free to be the beloved and faithful Son, the true amen to the Father. It is from his own experience that Jesus assures his disciples that the Spirit will take what is his and disclose it to them.56 For that is what the Spirit did in Jesus’ relationship with his Father.
It is not an accident that at Jesus’ baptism, when the Father declared, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom my soul delights,” the Spirit was present as a dove between the Father in heaven and the Son on earth. The Spirit was present throughout the whole of the Son’s life as the one in and through whom the Father gave himself, revealed himself, and communicated himself to his Beloved.57 And the Spirit was present as the One who enabled the Son to hear the Father’s stunning affirmation, to relate to and know the Father as his Father, and to love him with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. The Holy Spirit is, as Jürgen Moltmann notes, “the eternal light in which the Father knows the Son and the Son the Father.”58
One of the apparently strangest parts of the gospel story is the way the Spirit, immediately upon Jesus’ baptism, compelled Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the evil one.59 This is the way the modern headings lead us to read the story, but it could be the other way around, and I think it is: the Spirit was not leading Jesus into temptation so much as she was using the devil’s temptation to give Jesus sharper inner eyes, to lead him into a deeper understanding of his identity and relationship with his Father. For the temptations all have the question of Jesus’ identity at their core: “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread….”60 “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down….” The third temptation does not follow the “if You are” formula but is even more odious, as it promises Jesus the kingdoms of this world in exchange for denying his Father and worshipping the evil one.
In all three, the question was the identity of Jesus and whether or not he would live his life in fellowship with his Father, or be independent like Adam and live according to his own ideas. Adam’s history, the history of Israel, and our own histories were here being repeated; but this time the Spirit’s witness found a ready human heart, as Jesus simply and beautifully rejected the evil one’s suggestions and gave himself to his Father. He came away empowered and confident, and his anointed ministry of deliverance and life began.
When we look at the life of Christ from a human vantage point, we see a relationship between God, on the one side, and a Jewish man named Jesus, on the other, that is unparalleled in biblical history.61 Here is a relationship of profound love, of delight and adoration, of mutual passion and faithfulness, which issues forth in true oneness and union, in deep and creative fellowship. The Holy Spirit is right in the middle of it all. The most profound fruit of the Spirit’s presence and activity is Jesus’ fellowship with his Father, and in this communion the new covenant, the new relationship between God and Israel with all its blessing, is cut into flesh-and-blood existence. Through the Spirit, the ancient declaration, “I will be your God and you will be my people, and I will dwell among you with all blessing and life,” comes to staggering fruition in the life of Jesus.
The beautiful intimacy between the Father and Jesus, the face-to-face fellowship, the togetherness, the union without loss of personal distinction, and the outright life and blessing within it, are as much the fruit of the Spirit as they are of the Father’s faithfulness and the Son’s love. But how do we talk about this? How do we describe the Holy Spirit’s place in this most profound relationship and its abounding life?
Fully aware of the difficulty of describing the Spirit’s role in this relationship, yet pushed by her obvious centrality, Augustine spoke of the Spirit as the “bond of love” between the Father and the Son, and indeed as “the love itself.”62 It is in and through the Spirit that the Father loves the Son, and that the Son loves the Father. To my mind, Augustine is following the witness of the Scriptures. From Genesis to Revelation, the Spirit works behind the scenes, not whimsically or arbitrarily as if she has her own plans, but in tandem with the larger purpose of the Lord—fellowship with the human race. She is the Spirit of love, of life, of encounter, of fellowship and union, and exceptionally so in the relationship of Jesus with his Father. From a biblical perspective, if we take the Spirit out of the equation, we have no relationship between the Father and the Son. And without their fellowship, no life takes shape on earth. Her place in this communion is deep and essential; she is the bond of their love.
Nevertheless, to speak of the Spirit as “the bond of love” between the Father and the Son, or as their “love itself,” runs the risk of making the Spirit something less than her own person. The love between two people is not itself a third person. This has been a problem throughout Christian history; the Holy Spirit has been impersonalized, often reduced to a mere power or force, or even to something akin to the atmosphere in the room. But, Star Wars notwithstanding, you cannot grieve63 a force; you grieve a person. A mere force, however strong, does not speak. A power does not refer to itself as “I” or “me,”64 search the deep things and thoughts of God,65 or lead prayer and worship.66 A power does not love,67 or bear witness with our spirits that we are children of God.68
In the New Testament the Spirit has her own mind, will, and ministry.69 She speaks, informs, leads, guides, and instructs.70 She evaluates, appoints leaders, makes decisions, and gives gifts—words of wisdom, of knowledge and faith, gifts of healing.71 She inspires witness to Jesus;72 convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment; makes known the mystery of Christ; cries “Abba! Father!” in our hearts; and bears fruit in human life.73 She strengthens, helps our weakness, comforts, brings liberty and freedom, gives fellowship, fills with joy, and produces life and peace.74
She is referred to variously as the Spirit of God (or of the Lord); the Spirit of truth; the Comforter or Helper; the Spirit of Jesus, of Christ, of your Father, of him who raised Jesus from the dead; his Spirit; the Lord; the eternal Spirit; the Spirit of adoption; the Spirit of his Son; the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; the Holy Spirit of promise; the Spirit of grace, of holiness, of glory; the firstfruits, pledge, or down payment.
In her activities the Spirit is not simply the alter ego of the Father or the Son, or simply the One through whom they relate to one another and to creation. She loves and shares love, has her own mind and will, has joy and gives joy. She is a free Spirit, as Paul Young so wonderfully portrays, but not an independent or detached Spirit. As her names reveal, the Spirit doesn’t act alone; she is profoundly involved in the inner life of the Father and the Son, in their relationship, and in all that they do together.
As the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has an intimate and deep relationship to both. As the Spirit of the Father and the Son, she is in the midst of their relationship and togetherness, the bond of their love. She is so close to both, and to their fellowship together, that it is difficult to know where the line is drawn. Yet, as the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, she has her own identity and cannot be reduced to the Father, or to Jesus, or to their communion. As the Comforter, and as the Spirit of truth, adoption, life in Christ, grace, holiness, and glory, she has her own peculiar interests. She loves and shares love and creates fellowship. In her presence people come to know that they are loved by Jesus’ Father; they are set free, and fellowship and community form.
I suspect that part of the difficulty surrounding the Spirit is the way we in the West think of a person. According to Boethius’s famous (or infamous) definition, a person is “an individual substance of a rational nature.” But what if instead of trying to fit the Holy Spirit into this definition of a person and finding her wanting, we reversed the order and let the Spirit expand our ideas of personhood? The Spirit is profoundly other-centered, humble, patient, and good. She loves communication, fellowship, and togetherness. Perhaps we need to modify our notion of personhood to include being a facilitator of fellowship. Perhaps a real person is not simply an individual substance of a rational nature, but one who loves bringing others together to share life, an individual who is other-centered, relational, and full of passion for communion.
In the case of the Holy Spirit, she is so adept at facilitating love, communion, and life that it is difficult to distinguish her from her fruit (which may be why Augustine not only called her the “bond of love,” but “love itself”). But why should this mean that she is therefore less a person? Just because the Holy Spirit is so good at facilitating love that she seems to disappear in its midst doesn’t mean she is not real.
In the Holy Spirit’s world, Jesus sees his Father, and the Father sees his Son, and life and love happen. In her world, people encounter Jesus himself within their own innermost beings, and in their brokenness find healing. In the Spirit, empowerment, freedom, confidence, and assurance take form, as do love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.75 Community, relationship, and life flourish in her.
The Holy Spirit knows how to make the cosmos dance. She found her man in Jesus, and now in Jesus she has found us. Her great joy is that she gets to be in the middle of it all and enjoy the love, healing, and abounding life she brings about in others.
The Holy Spirit is the giver, former, and lover of life. She is “in the midst of the Father and Son,” “the bond of love” between them. And now, in Jesus, she is in our midst; or perhaps I should say, we are in hers. And she won’t give up until she is the bond of love between us and Jesus and his Father, and the heavens and the earth and all their inhabitants are alive with the unbridled life of Father and Son in the Spirit.