HOW ARE THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN LIFE RELATED?

The Christian life has been regarded from the beginning as a following of Jesus.  Erstwhile Christians have ever been invited to step into the shoes of that first band of followers, twelve of whom He explicitly chose to be carriers of the Word-apostles.  Indeed, we may surmise that the role they play in the Gospel accounts was shaped with an eye to later followers: their humble origins; their persistent inability to get the point; the impetus desire to share in His lot, followed by their disappearance at the critical moment. And the Gospel of John reminds us how, in being called to follow Him, we are not merely being conscripted into His service, but are rather invited to become His friends (David Burrell in "The Spirit and the Christian Life."  Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks, eds. Peter C Hodgson and Robert H. King.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, p. 302)

An invitation to friendship with divinity taxes our credulity, so much that to accept it is to believe Christianly.  That seemingly impossible barrier being breached, it is a relatively small step to speak about intimacy with God-both as individuals and as a people, for this God has already acknowledged delight in being with us.  The capacity to of divinity to delight in us creates in its turn an entirely new dimension of receptivity in us.  This new person, this self-transformed, is itself a sign of the promise as he or she displays a new-found familiarity with God as well as a correlative capacity for receiving and forgiving one's fellows.  The promise of a relation between God and ourselves, which has the qualities and potentialities for friendship, opens up similarly new possibilities among ourselves (Ibid.) 

That is the character of the promise offered to humanity in Jesus.  That promise might best be called faith, if we were to understand  faith as naming a new mode of life which is a new way of relating to God (Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).

We are informed in Scripture that if any person be in Christ, that they are new creatures.  The role of the Holy Spirit as the agent of that renewal is alluded to in the Scriptures of the New Testament and in the traditions of the Church.  The Gospel according to John, and the letters of the Apostle Paul speak to the renewed life for those who are in Christ.  

The doctrine of the Spirit interacts with at least three established sectors of Christian theology: 1.  that of grace and sacramental life, 2. that of church and ministry, and 3. the distinctively Christian treatment of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Creator, Liberator, and Sustainer).  By reminding ourselves that at the outset how the Christian life must be conceived as a response to divine initiative, we have underscored the primary element in the doctrine of the Spirit.  Since we can hope to understand that initiative, however, only by scrutinizing the how Christians have deemed it appropriate to respond, we concern ourselves with with outlining and analyzing the characteristic forms which that response has taken since the momentous celebration of Pentecost in Jerusalem (Burrell, op. cit., p. 304).  

Are we to understand the role of the Spirit in the life of the individual Christian and in the life of the Church as a whole, an initial action which elicits the human response, or are we to understand it as the volitional response to the initiatory work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, both individually and collectively?  That would all depend on whether one's theology of the Spirit and the Christian life follows the Pauline-Agustinian-Calvinistic thread of theology in which it is believed that human nature is incapable of responding to the divine initiative because it is "dead in trespasses and sin," or whether one follows the Arminian thread of theology in which it is believed that as humans we have the ability to voluntarily embrace or reject the initiative of the Holy Spirit.  

This particular doctrine, just like all other doctrines in Christian theology, is "under construction."  Because the hermeneutics (interpretations) surrounding it vary, and because the spring or sources of hermeneutics are varied (experience, Scripture, tradition), it is subject to fluctuation.  

The theology of the Spirit and the Christian life will continued to be explored and expressed in a variety of ways in the days to come.  The impact of the various branches of human knowledge, i.e. the humanities and the natural and social sciences, will continue to inform and shape our theological perspectives, and the lens through which we interpret and understand these doctrines.  

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Reformed Church in America 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary