A Concise Biblical Theology of the Spirit’s Mission
A Vital Force of God’s Mission
The Holy Spirit is the vital force of God’s mission in the New Testament. He is the divine apologist who convinces the world of sin, righteousness, and coming judgment, and the divine evangelist who bears witness to Christ in this broken world. He is the divine pastor-teacher who reminds God’s people about Christ and guides them into his truth. He is the divine church planter who gathers, grows, and guards the church until Christ’s final return. All these and much more are the ongoing ministries of the Holy Spirit, crucial for the success of the mission of the triune God.
The mission of the Spirit proceeds directly from Christ’s mission. His mission is the outcome of Christ’s resurrection, ascension, and session; it is the overflow of Christ’s blessings in this present age. Furthermore, God’s redemptive plan and universal purpose for all nations, are being fulfilled globally through the mission of God’s Spirit. The Spirit’s mission, therefore, comes third in the biblical story of God’s mission.
The Spirit Within God’s Mission
The Spirit’s vital work in mission often does not get enough attention.1 Scripture usually does not focus directly on the third triune person since he, as the divine author, desires to speak of Christ rather than draw attention to himself. His role in God’s mission, however, is clearly evidenced across the pages of Scripture, from his life-giving presence first at creation (Gen. 1:2) to his gospel witness with the church until the end of mission (Rev. 22:17).
You Will Be My Witnesses
Brian A. DeVries
You Will Be My Witnesses examines the witness of God’s people within the story of God’s mission, draws insights from the church’s witness since Pentecost, and reflects on practical aspects of contemporary Christian witness.
The vital role of the Holy Spirit has always been confessed by the church. Though still obscure in the Old Testament, the Spirit’s work was more fully revealed in the New Testament, and faithfully summarized by the early church in AD 381: We believe “in the Holy Spirt, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.”2 We echo this confession, and others, as we outline below seven main points in a concise biblical theology of the Spirit’s mission.
First, we confess that the Spirit is the “Giver of life” in both creation and redemption. From the beginning, the Spirit is revealed as God’s breath of life. Physical life is given and sustained by God’s Spirit (Gen. 2:7; Job 34:14‒15). The Spirit is also, within God’s redemptive mission, the giver of eternal life to God’s people, in addition to the physical life given to all (John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6). The Spirit works savingly, giving spiritual life to all those who are by faith in union with Christ and raising them into eternal life (Rom. 8:11). There is one Spirit of God with two distinct life-giving works:3 giving physical life to Adam and all his children, and regenerating spiritual life in all the children of the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45).
Second, the Spirit “spoke by the prophets” in the Old Testament. This phrase of the creed summarizes the Spirit’s ministry before Christ’s baptism. Since the same Spirit of God was at work in both Old and New Testaments, his ministry before Pentecost was not different in nature but only in degree, including his work of regenerating (Deut. 30:6), indwelling (Ex. 29:45‒46; Hag. 2:5), restraining (Isa. 63:10‒11; Micah 3:8), and empowering specific people for specific tasks (Ex. 31:2‒5). His Old Testament mission also gave hope to God’s people by announcing beforehand the gospel of Christ (Gal. 3:8; 1 Pet. 1:10‒12).
The Spirit works savingly, giving spiritual life to all those who are by faith in union with Christ and raising them into eternal life.
Third, the Spirit was active at every point in Jesus’s life and ministry. Scripture gives abundant evidence of this special work: conception (Matt. 1:20), baptism (John 1:32‒34), ministry (Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38; cf. Isa. 11:2), miracles (Matt. 12:28), atonement (Heb. 9:14), resurrection (Rom. 1:4; 8:11), and so forth.4 Concisely stated, the Spirit enabled and empowered Christ to accomplish his mission of redemption, and then the Spirit was sent on mission by Christ to enable and empower the church to obey the Great Commission.
Fourth, Pentecost is the defining moment of the Spirit’s mission. After Christ’s ascension and session, the Holy Spirit takes a more prominent role in the story of God’s mission. The New Testament gives much more attention to the Spirit who bears witness to Christ in all the world, empowers the launch of the Gentile mission, and applies Christ’s redemption in all God’s people.
Fifth, the Spirit was sent on mission by the Father and the Son to bear witness to Christ. Scripture clearly describes the Spirit’s double commission by both the Father and the Son (John 14:26; 15:26; Acts 2:33).5 Thus the Spirit’s mission completes the triune mission.
Furthermore, the Spirit’s mission is not somehow separate from God’s mission in Christ,6 since all three triune persons work together to accomplish and apply redemption.
Sixth, the Spirit’s work in the New Testament is described both personally and corporately. In many places, Paul’s letters explain how the Spirit works personal redemption in the hearts and lives of God’s people. Conversely, Luke’s second book, sometimes called “the Acts of the Spirit,” tells the history of gospel witness by the corporate church community in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Seventh, the Spirit’s work continues in the world today. In some ways, this states the obvious. Yet this observation is necessary to fence the discussion that follows. All Christians confess the uniqueness of the apostolic age, the period of church history directly following Pentecost. It was a wonderful time of special revelation when the apostles led the church, as Christ’s eyewitnesses, and when the Spirit inspired the authors of New Testament books. But the apostles all died before the end of the first century, and the canon of Scripture is now complete (Rev. 22:18‒19), which necessarily implies that some aspects of the Spirit’s ministry have ceased.7 Yet the Spirit’s witness continues, despite the cessation of the Scriptural inspiration and the unique eyewitness of the apostles. The Spirit of Christ still indwells the church and he continues to speak through the Scriptures, in and by the church, until the return of Christ (Matt. 28:20; Eph. 1:14; Rev. 22:17).
Notes:
- My dissertation addresses this lack of attention: Brian A. DeVries, “Witnessing with the Holy Spirit: Pneumatology and Missiology in Evangelistic Theory” (PhD diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2007), especially 18‒94. See also Roland Allen, Pentecost and the World: The Revelation of the Holy Spirit in the “Acts of the Apostles” (London: Oxford University Press, 1917); and Harry R. Boer, Pentecost and Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1961).
- Nicene Creed (381) (CCC 18). See the Belgic Confession of Faith, art. 11; Heidelberg Catechism, q. 53; and Westminster Larger Confession, q. 11. The classic Reformed confessions give less direct attention to the person of the Holy Spirit, instead giving considerable attention to the ministry of the Spirit, especially in the area of individual salvation.
- We must highlight this distinction since otherwise the specialness of redemptive grace in the new and better covenant is obscured by too much continuity, and general and special revelation may then be confused in practice.
- John Owen explains eleven works of the Spirit in relation to Christ’s human nature. See his The Holy Spirit: His Gifts and Power (Fearn, UK: Christian Focus, 2004), 115‒131. See also Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 35‒56.
- Note also the order of sending: the Father sends the Son (John 20:21), and then the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. Affirming the filioque clause (“and from the Son”) is necessary for faithful mission. Those who deny this clause (e.g., the Eastern Orthodox Church) tend to limit the church’s mission—at least in practice—to merely an attractive witness like the Old Testament showcase community.
- So we affirm the unity of God’s saving work in both Christ and the Spirit, while we maintain the nature/grace distinction of the “one Spirit with two works.” Some inclusivists say that God’s two hands (Christ and the Spirit) work, at times, in the world and in salvation independently from each other. For refutations, see Daniel Strange, The Possibility of Salvation among the Unevangelized: An Analysis of Inclusivism in Recent Evangelical Theology (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster Press, 2001), 197, 263; and Stephen J. Wellum, “An Evaluation of the Son-Spirit Relation in Clark Pinnock’s Inclusivism,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 10 (Spring 2006): 4‒23.
- This is not the place for a cessation versus continuation discussion. For various voices on this issue, see Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Perspectives on Pentecost: New Testament Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1979); D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12‒14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987); Vern S. Poythress, “Modern Spiritual Gifts as Analogous to Apostolic Gifts: Affirming Extraordinary Works of the Spirit within Cessationist Theology,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39, no. 1 (March 1996), 71‒101; Iain H. Murray, Pentecost—Today?: The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival.
This article is adapted from You Will Be My Witnesses: Theology for God's Church Serving in God's Mission by Brian A. DeVries.
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