Lots of good questions were submitted, but I won’t be able to answer them all this week. Keep them coming and I will get to as many as I can over the next couple of weeks. Here are two of this week’s questions:
1. What is your favorite theology book and why? This might be the most difficult question asked of me this week. I love books! I particularly love theology books, and picking just one as my favorite is kind of like asking me which of my kids I love most. Books are all so unique and so are their contributions, narrowing my list to one book across all the various categories is hard. So like a politician I am going to answer this question by modifying the question: what books are your favorites.
1. The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God by John Frame – this book has been incredibly formative for me in helping me develop a healthy theological methodology. Frame is a profound theologian but he writes in a very accessible way. This book works great as an introduction or prolegomena to theology. In fact, just about everything John Frame writes I love.
2. Death By Love: Letters from the Cross by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears – I have plenty of frustration with Mark Driscoll, but this book is one of the best examples of the practicality of rich theology that I have ever read. In it Driscoll takes the various aspects of the doctrine of the atonement and shows how they can be used in discipleship with broken people. It is rich theology applied to gritty life situations.
3. The End for Which God Created the World by Jonathan Edwards – Though the language and the logic can sometimes be difficult to work through, Edwards presents a profoundly God-centered approach to understanding the world. When I was still a brand new student of theology I found this book and began to read over it with intensity. At the time I had a great deal of difficulty in understanding all of it, but what I could grasp blew my mind.
I could go on, but I’ll refrain from doing so for the sake of brevity and helpfulness.
2. How can John the Baptist be said to have the Holy Spirit prior to Pentecost? This is a very astute question. Luke 1:15 does record that John the Baptist was “filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.” This question recognizes the importance of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension in particular for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So we have to wrestle with how, exactly, John the Baptist gets this special blessing prior to any of those events.
It’s helpful to remember three things: (1) the Spirit of God did rest on people in the Old Testament, (2) John the Baptist comes in similar vein to the prophets of the Old Testament, and (3) Spirit Baptism and being “filled with the Holy Spirit” are distinct things. Let me unpack this more in detail now.
In the Old Testament God filled certain people with the Holy Spirit for specific tasks. So in Exodus 31 Bezalel is “filled with the Holy Spirit” to help in the building of the Tabernacle (see also Ex. 35:30-35). The prophet Micah declared that he was filled with the Holy Spirit in order to declare the sins of Jacob and Israel (Micah 3:8). The Spirit of God came upon people in the Old Testament to empower them for specific special tasks. This is not the same was what is described by the prophet Joel 2:28-32 in the outpouring of the Spirit of God, because that event was to be on “all people.” What is being described here is individualized, and for a special task. It was a temporary filling for the completion of a specified commission.
John the Baptist’s particular “filling” with the Holy Spirit should be read in the same light. John is filled with the Holy Spirit that he might call many back to the Lord their God (Luke 1:15-16). He will go forward in the “spirit and power of Elijah” (v. 17), we are told. Verse 76 tells us point-blank that he is a “prophet of the Highest.” He fulfills the role of “preparing the way” for the coming Messiah, but he does so in ways reminiscent of the prophets of the Old Testament. His “filling with the Spirit” should be understood as parallel to the “filling” of God’s other prophets in the Old Testament.
Finally, it should be noted that in the Bible “baptism of the Holy Spirit” and “filling with the Holy Spirit” are different things. All Christians are baptized with the Holy Spirit at the moment of their conversion. Baptism was an initiation metaphor, so that as water baptism was a rite of passage into the church, so spirit baptism is the entry point into the Christian life. Paul understands this to be true of all believers, for he says to the Corinthians:
For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, salves of free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. (1 Cor. 12:13)
Furthermore, the Spirit is what distinguished believers from unbelievers (1 Cor. 2:10-14), marks the beginning of the Christian life (Gal. 3:2-3), and makes a person a child of God (Rom. 8:14-17). In short, if you don’t have the Spirit you are not a Christian!
There is a difference, however, between the Bible’s use of this phrase and it’s use of the wording “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Filling with the Spirit is a secondary and repeatable event within the life of a believer. We’ve seen how this worked in the Old Testament, but we find it in the New Testament too. People are “filled” for a special task, often centered around evangelistic purposes. So, in Acts 4:8 Peter is “filled with the Holy Spirit” as he boldly proclaims Jesus to the “rulers and elders” of Israel. Down in verse 31 the whole assembly is “filled with the Holy Spirit” after a season of prayer. This filling propels them forward to speak the Word of God boldly. In Acts 9:17 Ananias lays his hands on Paul in order that he may be healed and be “filled with the Holy Spirit.” We see Paul’s being “filled with the Holy Spirit” again in Acts 13:9. Paul, furthermore, prays for the believers at Rome – those already having the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:14-17) – that the “God of hope fill you…”. He prays the same for the Ephesians (5:18). Theologian Michael Bird defines it this way:
Being filled with the Spirit means to have God’s empowering presence fall on you. The purpose of these spiritual fillings is chiefly evangelical; they provide heavenly unction for the task of boldly declaring the gospel when human effort alone cannot succeed. Spirit filling is not a mechanical event like adding fuel to an engine; it is rather more akin to being wrapped in a blanket of heavenly joy. It is something to be energetically sought after, prayed for, and valued in church life. (Evangelical Theology, 637)
Spirit-baptism and Spirit-filling, then, are different things and making this distinction can help us better understand John the Baptists relation to the Holy Spirit prior to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (for more on this distinction see also Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 763-87).
I hope this helps to clarify some of the questions asked. There were several others that time and space would not allow me to answer this week, but look for them next week. In the meantime, keep the questions coming!
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 