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III: The Holy Spirit that Has Been Given to Us

The Gospel of Paul is the Gospel of the power of the Holy Spirit. This power has been in operation since Creation and will continue to be in operation through eternity. On two occasions in human history it acted most powerfully and most significantly, and it is still very active in a third. The first of these occasions was when it moved over the primeval waters setting the stage for God’s first act on creation week. In 2 Corinthians 4:6 Paul makes this the foundation and model for the second occasion: “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 Christ.” Here the light shining out of darkness invokes Creation, and the glory of God in the face of Christ refers to the Resurrection. This demonstration of the power of the Spirit established a New Creation in which Christ is the Last Adam, the first of those who live by the power of the Spirit.

Since then, the dispensation of the Spirit has been in place and the Holy Spirit has been shining in the hearts of human beings, thus giving them the light that enables them “to know” about the resurrection. This dispensation is the third great accomplishment of the Holy Spirit. Since the beginning the Spirit has been making the divine light to shine in the darkness both by bringing about new cosmic realities and by enlightening human minds to appreciate those cosmic realities.

For Paul, the crucial thing is that Christians have been given the Spirit. Their life is now taking place on a different ecological system, even while they still live in the Fallen Creation of the first Adam. To live in the realm of Adam’s creation is to live “in the flesh.” In itself the flesh is not sinful. But the flesh is weak and, therefore, universally falls under the power of sin. Christians living in the flesh are not immune to falling under the power of sin; but they have also been given the Spirit (Rom. 5:5; 1 Th. 4:8). Thus, besides living in the flesh, they also live “in the Spirit.” They are the beneficiaries of “the dispensation of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:8), living in a different ecology. An ecological system is what makes life possible as it is. The dispensation of the Spirit makes possible life in the Spirit. According to Paul, this is the sine qua none of being a Christian. Living in the Spirit, “the spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one” (1 Cor. 2:15). Christians, of course, will be judged by God, but they are privileged souls even while living in the flesh because the flesh is no longer the ecological system in which they live.

Paul takes for granted that all his converts have received the Spirit. For example, he does not ask the Galatians whether they have received the Spirit. Rather, he asks them on what basis did they receive the Spirit. That they received it is a given, and Paul expects them to know why they received it (Gal. 3:2). Warning the Thessalonians of the evils of adultery, especially when it is done wronging “a brother,” Paul reminds them that Christians are not called to uncleanness, but to holiness. He justifies his admonition making the point that “whoever disregards this, disregards not man [Paul] but God, who gives the Holy Spirit to you” (1 Th. 4:8). That they have been receiving the Spirit is taken for granted. There is no such thing as a Christian who has not received the Spirit.

Because they have received the Spirit, Christians are expected to live by a higher moral compass. To the Romans Paul says “you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9). With the Spirit dwelling in the individual, the Spirit is the one leading, and “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). Conversely, Paul says that “Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9). He makes the same point from the other side: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). From these observations it is clear that those who have received the Spirit and dwell in the Spirit do not possess the Spirit. Rather they are possessed by the Spirit, and they are led by it; they belong to God and to Christ. To claim to have possession of the Spirit and to be able to order the Spirit to do this or that is not something Paul would have understood. Christians, as Paul repeatedly says, receive the Spirit and dwell in the Spirit only to be empowered and led by the Spirit. If that is not the case, they are not actually Christians.

Paul is very emphatic about the link that exists between what we earlier described as the second and the third manifestations of the power of the Spirit. He writes, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). Here Paul makes an explicit connection between the resurrection of Christ and the life of the believer who experiences the power of the Risen Christ while still living in the flesh, in a mortal body. To be a Christian is to live participating in the death and the resurrection of Christ. Thinking about the role of the Spirit, Paul’s focus is on the power that brought about the resurrection of Christ and now empowers those who, on account of their identification with Christ, are sons of God.

In To the Romans and in To the Galatians Paul says that those who are led by the Spirit are not in bondage (Rom. 8:15); they are no longer “under the law” (Gal. 5:18). Christians, who have received the Spirit and dwell in it, belong to Christ. They live in the dispensation of the Spirit. They are led by the Spirit who is their Lord, and are, therefore, no longer under the Law. While life under the law is a form of bondage, life in Christ is in freedom. The Lord leads those who dwell in Him in freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). Life in the dispensation of the Spirit is characterized by freedom and peace (Rom. 8:6).

Paul does not make technical distinctions among the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Spirit. He use these terms interchangeably (Rom. 8:9; 14:17). What is accomplished in Christians through Christ for the benefit of humanity is done by God (2 Cor. 5:5; Gal . 4:7), who does everything by means of “one and the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:8 – 11; Rom. 8:11). For Paul, it is important to emphasize the singleness of the Spirit in the divine activity.

Paul is quite aware of the existence of many spirits who exercise their influence on human beings. The world in which he lived was full of supernatural spirits who brought both good and bad things to men and women. He makes clear that God’s action in and through the Spirit was not being accomplished by various and sundry intermediaries, each one in charge of a particular task. All the tasks and ministrations carried out by God are the work of one and the same Spirit, no matter how Paul designates him in his writings.

Besides the divine Spirit, Paul understands that each human being is constituted with a spirit. Each person is a unit which functions integrally as such. He tells the Thessalonians, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless” (1 Th. 5:23). The second part of this sentence is epexegetical; it elaborates on the meaning of the first. To be kept sound and blameless is to be sanctified. The spirit, the soul and the body are not parts of the whole, but ways of conceiving the whole. Each person is a spirit when seen as an active force, a soul when looked at as a living thing, and a body when seen as a physical presence. None of the three is ever separated from the other two. Paul refers to himself as a spirit. He writes, “For God is my witness, whom I worship in my spirit, in the gospel of his Son” (Rom. 1:9, my translation). He also says that when Christians pray “it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). He asks the Philippians to be united as they faced opposition to their “faith of the gospel” and also to conduct themselves in a manner “worthy of the gospel.” To this end, Paul tells them to “stand firm in one spirit and one mind” [in the Greek original “one spirit and one soul”] (Phil. 1:27). In these cases Paul is using the words spirit and soul to refer to the whole person, not a part of it.

The mind, on the other hand, is a faculty of the person. Paul advises Christians to set the mind on the Spirit, rather than to set the mind on the flesh. He writes, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). In other words, living in this present age, Christians can choose to live in the Fallen Creation, the ecological system under the power of sin and death, or to live in the New Creation, that is under the power of the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. Two different powers are now in operation. One is the power of “the god of this world,” that is Satan, who is effective through the power of sin that brings about death. The other is the power of the Spirit that raised Christ from death and is effective as the power of the Gospel that brings about life.

Writing to those who apparently have not understood the significance of the gospel of Christ, Paul says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). In this way those who are led by the Spirit enjoy peace and live free from the power of sin. They live in a different ecology. They breathe the atmosphere of the Spirit which transforms them from one degree of glory to another by the power of the Risen Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). This does not mean that they have ceased being mortal bodies of flesh. It means that they have ceased being servants of the spiritual forces of evil that have become dominant within the Fallen Creation.

”The Last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). The first being of the New Creation did not just receive life after having been dead in a tomb. The Christian Gospel is not merely a story about a crucified dead man who now lives because God raised him from the dead. The Gospel of Paul proclaims a New Creation by the Spirit who gives life. The Risen Christ is the one in whom all those who believe live within the New Creation by the power of the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. Christianity is the religion of the New Creation in which human beings may now experience life in the Spirit, and “worship God in the Spirit, glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3).

In Paul thinking, Christians who have the Spirit are sealed by the Spirit for a future that is different from the one to which those who live under the power of sin and death are destined. This sealing is described by Paul as a guarantee, a down payment (an arrabon) that ensures the full payment of what has been promised (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5). The freedom and peace enjoyed by those who live in the Spirit and are guided by the Spirit is a foretaste in this “present evil age” (Gal 1:4) of life as full spiritual beings with spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15:44) — that is, life in the resurrection body of the Age to Come.

Those who in this life experience changes from glory to glory, “being renewed every day” as they are “worked over” by the Spirit to receive “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,” are the tangible demonstration that the purpose for which humankind had been created by God in the first place is being fulfilled (2 Cor. 4:17; 5:5). Thus the final manifestation of the justice of God, carried on by the Spirit that transforms and energizes human spirits in the likeness of the Risen Christ, will have been accomplished. Living in Christ by the power of the Spirit Christians “become the righteousness of God” effectively at work (2 Cor. 5:21).