The Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church
Teddy Horsley is a character some of you may be familiar with. He’s a character in a series of picture books for very young children written to teach some of the basics of the Christian faith. “Teddy Horsley and the Windy Day” shows the effect of the wind. Balloons and leaves are seen blowing in the wind and Teddy Horsley learns that although nobody can actually see the wind, they know that it’s there because of the effect it has on things. The point is made that the Holy Spirit is much the same. Like the wind you cannot see it, yet you know that the Spirit is at work because of the effect it has on people.
Wind is a familiar and traditional symbol of the Holy Spirit for adults as well as children. When the Spirit came to the disciples on the day of Pentecost, it came, Luke tells us (Acts 2:1–21), with a sound like the rush of a mighty wind. It’s effect was dramatic. Each person heard the other speak in their own language, although they were people from many different countries. The list of countries from which the hearers came reminds us how cosmopolitan Jerusalem was, especially at festival time. The point is that although they were from diverse backgrounds and of many different nationalities, when the Holy Spirit came, they could all understand one another.
There are two ways of reflecting on this remarkable account. The two ways mirror two ways in which Christians today tend to reflect on the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Firstly it is possible to hear the story of the first Pentecost and marvel at the drama of it all. Picture the scene in your head. Hear the sound like a rushing wind. See the tongues of fire resting on each of the disciples. Feel the surprise of the devout men of Jerusalem as they heard others suddenly speaking in their own language and were able to understand what was being said by people from all over the Empire. Concentrate on the spectacle.
One way of reflecting on this event, this first Pentecost, is to keep these images from Acts very much at the front of your mind. If the Holy Spirit came amid such drama in Jerusalem then, is it not reasonable to expect similar miraculous things to happen today? If then the sign of the coming of the Holy Spirit was a concentration of amazing things and signs, should not Christians be thirsting and seeking similar signs today? Should we not expect to see then and experience then since we believe the Holy Spirit to be equally available to us as to the first disciples?
There is a growing movement within Christian circles which takes this line. We should indeed expect “signs and wonders” similar to the ones that were experienced that first Pentecost. Not only should we expect them, we should actively seek them. If we do not experience them, we simply do not have enough of an expectation that we will experience them. We should expect. For the Holy Spirit longs to pour them out. At the very least we should expect to receive some of the special gifts that the disciples expected. We should expect to be given the gift of speaking in tongues1 or of prophsying or of performing miracles of healing. If these things are not happening regularly in your fellowship then perhaps it is a sign that together you are quenching the Spirit. The Spirit is not coming to you in the fullness of power because you are not giving it sufficient space. You do not seek it or expect it enough. The priority is that you come to see that you must be baptized in the Spirit.
Indeed there are some churches in which being “baptized in the spirit”, that is experiencing for yourself some of the charasmatic experiences of that first Pentecost, is a prerequisite for being accepted as a full member of the fellowship. Such signs are the seal of receiving the Spirit. All true Christians should expect similar signs in their lives.
The second way of reacting to this story of the first Pentecost is to dwell not on the details of the drama but on the effect they had. Instead of concentrating on the spectacle of that first Pentecost, concentrate instead on what the upshot of it all was. The key point was not that tongues of fire came to rest upon the disciples but that they experienced in a profoundly new way the presence of God with them. The presence of God which later gave them the confidence to leave the room they were gathered in to preach the gospel far and wide. And the key point of the people of Jerusalem hearing each other speak their own languages was not the amazing spectacle of it all, but rather the significance of what was happening. Suddenly, with the intervention of the Holy Spirit, people who were previously unable to understand each other could do so. Those who were unable to communicate with each other could do so. Where there had previously been a babel, there was harmony. The story becomes a graphic illustration of a greater truth; that the Holy Spirit is able to reconcile and unite. We are put in mind of the story of the building of the tower of Babel in Genesis (Gen 11:1–9). The people build a tower to penetrate the heavens and to overshadow all that is around; it stands as a symbol of the human sin of wanting to dominate others and to play God. The result is that the people who before spoke one language had their languages mixed up so that communication was impossible. Out of the desire to dominate each other, comes only confusion and misunderstanding.
The events of the day of Pentecost undo this disaster. The Spirit is able to unravel that which has become knotted through human disobedience and arrogance. Unity is restored by the Spirit.
This second way of reacting to the story suggests a second way of looking for the Spirit in the church and the world today. We’re not particularly interested in seeking to find “signs and wonders” and worrying if we do not experience them. Indeed we are not so much bothered with dramatic experiences of the Holy Spirit at all. We are concerned to find and to seek not dramatic experiences of the Spirit, but rather the effects of the Spirit. What we’re searching for isn’t necessarily miraculous or spectacular. We are impressed not so much by the sound of people speaking in tongues but rather by finding people who have an urgent sense of the presence of God. We are not looking for dramatic miracles but for evidence of people being reconciled with each other in a radical way. We’re not so much concernecd by how this should happen but that somehow it should happen. It may be awakening or reconciliation so sudden that it reminds us of that first Pentecost. Or it might be gradual, an almost unnoticable process. But wherever there is renewal and reconciliation, we are certain there too is the Spirit, making it possible.
Paul was much concerned with this second way of perceiving the Spirit at work. Whilst he does not despise so called special gifts such as speaking in tongues, for him they were secondary. In themselves they were of little value unless accompnied by things of lasting value. Top of the list of these things was of course love. “If I speak in the tongues of people and of angels, but have not love, I am nothing”, as he puts it (cf. 1Cor 13:1–2). And instead of seeking miraculous outpourings, the priority is to hunger for the fruits of the Spirit. They are listed as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22–3). It’s not an exhaustive list. But it’s quite a good start!
If then we are to recognise the Spirit alive in the chruch not simply by displays of miraculous signs and wonders, what fruits of the Spirit should we be looking for? The list that Paul gives us tells us something of what we should look for and seek to build in the Church if we would be faithful to the Spirit. But they are all very general things. And they’re not particularly specific to the life of the Church. I can think of groups where, for example, there is a lot of patience exercised; but where I’m not sure that I’d exclaim that here is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A knitting circle or a model railway club may be places where patience is the order of the day; they have to be by the nature of the activity. Indeed they may also be places of peace and kindness and gentleness etc. But although the Spirit of God may be at work in some of them, for the Spirit is often to be found in the last places that religious people would expect to look, I don’t think that these groups have quite the same commission as the Church. The commission to be a body of people whose lives are governed by the Spirit.
So what are we to look for in the Church? What unique signs and calling does the Church have? What are the special marks of the Spirit in the life of the Church?
Quite briefly, I want to mention four characteristics that can be the marks of the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit; more specific than Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit, yet also more inclusive than simply a list of miraculous happenings that every congregation should expect.2
The first one comes directly from that experience of the first Pentecost. It is one we have already noted; that when the Spirit came, people who had been divided were able to understand each other. There was a new reconciliation; a new and radical peace. Later we are told that the first disciples had all things in common under the power of the Spirit. So for us. The Christian community’s life and and actions are to correspond to the peace of God in this world. The Church is to be a sign of peace in contradiction to the conflict of the world. It is to be a community that is inclusive and open to people of whatever background. The “classless society” is not the invention of John Major; it is the invention of the Spirit of God and the Church is to be the place where it is to be made a reality.
The second mark of the Spirit in the Church is that it should be a fellowship of the free. The order of the Christ’s Church must be an order of freedom. In the fellowship of Christ, people are freed from the oppression which separates them from one another. We are freed from sin, law and death. We are able to celebrate free fellowship with one another. That is why it can be stated that there is here, “Neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28) Here, in the Church, a person appears simply as God’s person; background, educational status and social importance are of no account. The constitution of Christ’s community in the Spirit is the constitution of new life in the midst of the old, of true life in the midst of what is false.
Thirdly, if the Church in the Spirit is a sign, the instrument, the breaking in of the “new order of all things”, then it directs its work and its action towards these things; it is subject to the rule of Christ. Christ is its head and we know that the mission of Christ is to bring in the Kingdom of God. The New Age. The community lives from the Kingdom of Christ and it is therefore to live for the Kingdom of Christ. It is not enough for the Church to be a club for the saved; it is to look outwards; it is to labour for the Kingdom in the world, so a sign of the Spirit at work in the Church is that it has a deep and radical concern for the world. “Mission alongside the Poor”, “Christian Aid”, the “Church Urban Fund” and the “Decade of Evangelism” are all signs of the Church being faithful, under the Spirit, to the rule of Christ.
Fourthly and finally, the Church is indeed to be a charismatic 3 and renewed fellowship, but not just in the narrow sense implied by the phrase “signs and wonders”. A charismatic and renewed Church is not just one where everybody starts speaking in tongues. A charismatic Church is a fellowship in which the Spirit is given free reign. In the passage from Acts mentioned at the beginning, Pentecost is a sign that the words of Joel are being fulfilled; “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,” says The Lord, “and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” The Spirit that is poured out is a spirit of creativity. Under the Spirit, people do things they least expect; even the old men start to dream dreams. There is an explosion of creative gifts and no limit is placed on what those gifts may be. They may be dramatic; some people do indeed find themselves speaking in tongues, but other gifts of the Spirit are more mundane. Paul writes that there are varieties of gifts and there are varieties of service. Included in his list is the gift of administration; your society secretary and treasurer are “charismatics” also! The variety cannot be limited or circumscribed. There is but one thing that the gifts have in common; they are creative gifts. The Church in the power of the Spirit is a creative Church.
Do not search for the Spirit as if you were Teddy Horsley trying in vain to see the wind; rushing winds and tongues of fire are not the priority. Let us search instead for the fruit of the Spirit and help to build a Church characterised by these four signs of the Spirit.
1 The account of the people in Jerusalem hearing each other in their own language and the phenomenon of speaking in tongues, or “glossolalia” are not to be confused. Glossolalia, a feature of penecostal or “charismatic” devotion, is the speaking (or singing) of words or sounds not recognisably in any vernacular. As a matter of sociological fact, glossolalia is not exclusive to Christianity.
2 I am indebted to “The Church in the Power of the Spirit” by Jurgen Moltmann p.289ff (SCM Press 1977) for these suggestions.
3 It is important to distinguish between the general use of the term “charismatic” (from the Greek word “charism”, meaning “gift”) and the specific use of the word to denote a particular style of worship (which includes glossolalia) and discipleship influenced by the so-called “Charismatic Movement”.
Rev Tim Elbourne (if you didn’t know) is the Anglican Chaplain at the University of York and can be contacted at Bede House, Heslington, York.