11/6/97
Modern
Pentecostal Controversies
in light of the Early Church
by Dr. Joseph B. Fuiten
Table of Contents
I have read the manuscript of this book with keen interest. Pastor Joe Fuiten has done a great service for those interested in knowing the historical foundation for the Pentecostal movement. He has shown that our present understanding of Pentecost is not unique to the Church in the twentieth century. The early centuries of the church had this same knowledge of Pentecost and, indeed, the same experience.
He has presented evidence that the experience of Jesus, in his anointing for ministry, as well as the Acts 2 experience of the disciples, formed the foundation of the early church's understanding of the Holy Spirit's anointing. The early church not only saw this as past experiences, they also saw it as the model for their experience with the Holy Spirit.
While some today would disallow the book of Acts to show us what is normative, Pastor Fuiten has cited many examples out of the early church that prove otherwise. We certainly believe, along with the early church, that what happened in Acts is exactly what we can expect to happen today.
Even though we do not place the same value on the testimony of the church fathers as we do the Holy Scripture, it is useful to see how they treated this important topic. We are indebted to Pastor Fuiten for his thorough research on this subject. I am delighted that scholars are increasingly urging the modern church to follow the Scripture and the early church into a lively experience of Pentecost.
In the early part of the 20th Century, the debate was whether or not speaking in tongues was of the devil. That debate has been decisively won by the Pentecostals. Only a few theological diehards still teach that tongues and the other gifts of the Spirit ceased with the Apostles or with the adoption of the canon of Scripture.
Today, the battle among Pentecostals is in two areas. Is speaking in tongues the initial evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit? The second area is even more fundamental. Is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit subsequent to salvation?
If the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not subsequent to salvation, there is no point to argue that speaking tongues is the initial evidence. Otherwise we would end up defending the notion that speaking in tongues is the sign of salvation. The doctrine of "initial evidence" rests upon a presumption that non-Pentecostals challenge. Since they deny that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is separate from salvation, they would only accept the signs of salvation as initial evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. In their view, since tongues is not a sign of salvation, it cannot be a sign or initial evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Prior to defending the doctrine of tongues as evidence, it is necessary to establish that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is subsequent to salvation and not part of it. This idea, the doctrine of subsequence, is essential to the Pentecostal position. Without it, it is impossible to defend tongues as evidence.
In this book, I am arguing that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is subsequent to salvation. I am basing my argument on two concepts. First, we find this analogy in the life of Jesus, among the disciples, and in the New Testament church. These analogies, taken as a group, strongly suggest that it will be subsequent for us as well. Then I argue that the post-biblical church viewed the Baptism of the Spirit as subsequent to salvation.
In my first argument, I am following some who have drawn upon the analogy of Jesus, and many who use the analogy of the disciples. Where the field gets thinner is making this argument from the early church apologists and fathers. If this book makes any contribution at all, it is looking to the early church for their views on this subject.
There is a reason why Protestant Pentecostals have neglected to look to the early church for support of our views. Catholic Pentecostals have contributed far more in this area for obvious reasons rooted in their tradition. Since the Reformation, the views of the early church have been largely disregarded among Protestants, including Pentecostals. I give some of the reasons in the chapter, "Requiem for the Reformation." Hopefully the Church will not mind meeting their grandparents.
There is a third line of reasoning which I have not developed here, but which I think could yield useful insights. I hope to follow it in some future Pentecost sermon series. In that series I want to look at the Old Testament, especially the Biblical Feasts, and see the concepts of subsequence that are built into that system.. Particularly, I want to study the connections between Passover and Pentecost. Only in the "Hebrew Roots" branch of Christianity is any effort being made to explore this aspect and even there the effort is tiny.
Those ject the classical Pentecostal position fall into two categories. First, there are those who deny "subsequence," and therefore so not feel the need to defend any further position. The second category accepts tongues as a gift for today, but not as "initial physical evidence."
I am personally convinced that the preponderance of evidence is in favor of the Pentecostal doctrine of subsequence. I believe that tongues is the critical evidence of that subsequent experience. That belief is based on the preponderance of evidence in the book of Acts. While the writings of the early church certainly refer to speaking in tongues, there is insufficient detail to draw strong conclusions in either direction. The lonely assertion of Arnobius that Jesus spoke in tongues is tantalizing. Even though we do not doubt him on the other things he has said, the sheer solitude of his report has kept his view from prevailing. (I do think it is a bit arrogant of the ANF editors to suggest that only on this point he must be mistaken.)
Even though the final brick is the wall of proof may be lacking for speaking in tongues as the initial evidence, I think it is essential that the Assemblies of God hold to this position. Others have observed before me, that when the insistence upon it is lost, it is not long until tongues itself is lost. My pastoral position leads me to prefer insisting upon tongues as evidence and seeing the experience in the lives of people over waiting until everyone conclusively agrees. I can sleep easily at night knowing that if it happened in the New Testament Church, I’m not too far off in urging it to continue today. Indeed, the only time I don’t sleep easily is when preachers yell in Church.
Joe Fuiten
December 1996
The baptism of Jesus is the prototype of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit preceded by Salvation. What we know about the baptism and the subsequent anointing of the Spirit we have from the Gospel writers. Matthew says
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.
Luke describes the same scene but highlights different details.
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
Following the two Evangelists, we have two thesis statements regarding the baptism of Jesus. First, the baptism of Jesus is really a two stage event. Jesus is first baptized in water, then he is anointed with the Holy Spirit. Second, this two-step process is the usual way Christians encounter the Holy Spirit. First we encounter him in salvation, then in the baptism in the Holy Spirit. We say that the anointing of Jesus is the first New Testament description of our experience, hence it takes on normative elements—it shows us how it should happen for those who follow.
Analogy as Precedent
Some reject the anointing of Jesus by the Holy Spirit as being normative for the Christian life. They choose to reject the event as normative for two reasons.
First, they incorrectly characterize our analogy: "Jesus is born, conceived of the Holy Spirit, through the Virgin Mary. This correlates with our supernatural rebirth or regeneration." Gordon Fee says it is difficult to "see the appropriateness of the relationship of that event to his birth as analogy for subsequent Christian experience." In their conclusions, Fee and Lederle closely follow the analysis of James Dunn.
Pentecostals, in using the analogy, do not necessarily liken the birth of Jesus to being born again. The two births are not analogous, and do not need to be, in order for the Pentecostal position to stand. The Pentecostal position is that the Spirit was alive in Jesus before he was anointed with the Spirit. They come to the correct summary of our position when they characterize the Spirit’s descent on Jesus:
"This is seen as Jesus’ Spirit baptism, which brought an enduement with power and initiated his period of public ministry which included signs and wonders. It is then concluded that if the Son of God needed this extra experience how much more do we, his disciples."
Secondly, some deny the normative nature of the baptism of Jesus because they deny the use of analogies out of hand.
Gordon Fee says, "The use of historical precedent as an analogy by which to establish a norm is never valid in itself. Such a process (drawing universal norms from particular events) produces a non sequitur and is therefore irrelevant." For Fee, the analogy of the baptism of Jesus is "of such a different kind from succeeding Christian experience that (it) can scarcely have normative value."
Fee closely mirrors James Dunn. For Dunn, the anointing of Jesus relates to his unique role in salvation-history. This event is so pivotal that salvation-history takes a decidedly different turn at the moment of anointing. Dunn says,
"Where the Pentecostalist thesis breaks down is in its failure to grasp the fact that we are dealing here with events whose significance, at least for those cord them, lies almost totally in the part they play in salvation-history.
H. I. Lederle says of our point "the argument fails to take sufficient cognizance of the uniqueness of Jesus and his unrepeatable role in salvation history." Fee makes the same argument for Pentecost. They are certainly correct that Jesus is entirely unique and no one else could have provided for our salvation. The four living creatures and twenty-four elders of Revelation 5 affirm this. After searching heaven and earth for someone worthy and finding none they proclaim of the Lamb, "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God..."
Christ’s unique role in salvation history is not disputed, but neither do these writers prove that it is relevant to the normative nature of his anointing by the Spirit. It is not sufficient just to say Jesus is too unique to count as a model. What exactly is the causal link between the unique mission of Jesus and the inability to use his experiences as a model for our own? This is always left unstated as if it were self-evident, an unchallengable premise. Am I the only one who is missing something here? Since both the Bible itself and the early church used Jesus as a model, upon what basis is he now ruled out of bounds? I wonder if this is nothing more than the prejudice of hyper-Protestantism. If Jesus becomes our model, then we might try to copy his behavior. If we copy his behavior, we might be inclined to think that by works we can earn our way into heaven. If it is by works, that sounds like medieval Catholicism. The Reformation’s thrust was to overthrow medieval Catholicism. Therefore, the unique role of Jesus in salvation history makes his experience off limits for establishing Christian norms.
Since both Fee and Lederle follow Dunn on this topic, I would like to relate to Dunn as generally representing the views of all three.
Dunn begins with the concept of the intent of the author. He argues that it was the "nearly exclusive intent" of the Gospel writers, in recording the anointing of Jesus, to show the eschatological mission of Jesus. Closely related to "intent" is the new era which is revealed. This is the announcement of his Messiahship, the beginning of a new era. "Only with the descent of the Spirit does the new covenant and new epoch enter…" This is his critical concept. The anointing begins something new. It is like Adam being created, or the first day out of the ark.
If the anointing of Jesus is the start, then someone failed to tell Luke before he wrote his first two chapters. The angel tells Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." A determined polemicist might argue that the angel’s words describe a future reality. Dunn says "only then," at the Spirit anointing, does Jesus becomes the "Christ" or "Anointed One." Only then, with the descent of the Spirit, can the messianic age begin. But Luke has a whole host of angels say, "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." For Dunn, the anointing "initiates Jesus into the Messianic age," but Luke calls Jesus the Savior from day one and even from conception. Luke reports Jesus being about "his Father’s business" long before the anointing. One has to wonder if Dunn’s "nearly exclusive intent" is as exclusive as he suggests.
The "start of the messianic era" concept is important to Dunn’s analysis, so he subpoenas some unlikely witnesses to testify. Although the dove might speak of Jesus as the sin sacrifice, for Dunn it "quite probably" is intended to recall Genesis 1:2. David sees the wings of the dove as an escape to the very desert where Jesus is anointed, but Dunn says it "should probably" be given eschatological significance. God gives the dove as a divine symbol, but Dunn chooses it to remind us of the time of Noah’s flood. Dunn sounds more like Origen when he says the dove is "a symbol of Israel," and infers from this that Mark’s Gospel is suggesting Jesus is the new Adam. This forced cross-examination is necessary because for Dunn, it must be an initiation, the start of something. If it only represents the continuation of the Spirit’s work begun in conception, continued as Jesus grew in wisdom, and flourished as he confounded the scholars, then the evidence falls into the Pentecostals’ viewpoint. But if Dunn can brush off the Spirit’s work in these areas, then his concept of a new era at the anointing at least has a stronger pulse on arrival.
Dunn himself seems to struggle with his "new era" concepts. He says that Luke believed the new era brings Jesus a new role yet he cannot finally decide if Jesus was Christ the Lord at birth, or only after the anointing at the Jordan. He admits Luke calls him both Savior and Christ before the anointing, and he knows that Luke does not contradict himself. If Dunn is right, Simeon could not have seen the Lord’s Christ as promised, but only the one who would later be the Christ. But Luke tells us Simeon saw the Lord’s Christ. Dunn says that only after the anointing does the voice from heaven call him "Son." But we either need to make the angel’s words strictly prophetic or stuff a sock in the mouth of the other voice from heaven which said to Mary "the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." Was Jesus the Christ or not? Was he the Son or not? The crown jewels of his argument are thus left dangling between the horns of his dilemma and he is left with two large dents in his "there is also a sense" argument. Luke makes Dunn admit
He (Luke) does not intend to deny what he has already written in Chs. 1 and 2, nor does he naively contradict himself; there is a sense in which Jesus is Messiah and Son of God from birth but there is also a sense in which he only becomes Messiah and Son at Jordan, since he does not in fact become the Anointed One til then and only then does the heavenly voice hail him as Son.
His dilemma is not resolved by resorting to an argument from silence. Yet Dunn employs it with regard to the heavenly voice. Do we really know that Jesus had no commending voice from heaven calling him "son" before the anointing?" There is nothing in the text which says "Today, and not before today, you are my son." First Dunn goes against Luke by denying that Jesus is the Christ until the moment at the Jordan. Then Dunn tries to implicate the Father in his conclusion because the Father never previously denied or affirmed, on the record, that Jesus was his Son. His conclusion is forced.
In one respect Dunn is correct in pointing to a beginning. It is the beginning of Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom confirmed by signs and wonders. But this is precisely how the Pentecostal sees the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is for preaching the Gospel of salvation which God confirms with signs following.
Dunn also presents the "nearly exclusive intent" argument. He says that it was the "nearly exclusive intent" of the Gospel writers, in recording the anointing of Jesus, to show the eschatological mission of Jesus. Of course, if the Gospel writers were presenting Jesus’ mission as their exclusively intended purpose, then it would not be proper to use their account to establish normative Christian activity from the actions of Jesus. This is a popular theme with those who wish to limit the influence of Acts as normative for Church life today. But was it really the intent of the authors to achieve such an exclusive goal? Can Dunn and Fee be so certain about the unwritten intent of the authors as to exclude other uses of the Scripture beyond what they narrowly say?
We have John’s own words as to his intent, "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." We also have Luke’s. Luke wanted to write an orderly account and one that would allow his readers to know how sure their teaching had been.
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
With an amazing Pentecostal flair, demonstrating the gift of interpretation, Dunn is able to transform the stated objectives of the Gospel writers themselves into unstated and different objectives. Dunn supports a hermeneutical principle which says that only the intent of the author can determine the primary meaning of a text. Then, looking through the inverting lens of hermeneutical principles which he himself invented, Dunn sees that Pentecostals have turned the account upside-down and wrongly use it for establishing norms. Why is it wrong? Because it goes against the "nearly exclusive intent" of the author. As we will show throughout this book, Dunn’s arbitrary principles would have come as a surprise to the first several centuries of Christians. Such hermeneutical principles would never have been accepted in the early church, and therefore their conclusions from Scripture were entirely different from Dunn, Lederle, and Fee.
We want to show that the anointing of Jesus for ministry is parallel to our experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Dunn and Fee notwithstanding, we will show that the baptism of Jesus was not the first, but rather the continuation of Old Testament events. It became the first of several, similar, New Testament events. When all these are added together they fit into the caveat which Fee himself allows: "for a biblical precedent to justify a present action, the principle of the action must be taught elsewhere, where it is the primary intent so to teach." We maintain that in the Old Testament anointing of priests this is directly taught. Further, that references in Ephesians point to this event as normative.
Consider the parallels:
Jesus was alive in the Spirit and by the Spirit from the beginning of his human journey. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. His early growth in wisdom, demonstrated at age twelve in the Temple, evidences the workings of the Holy Spirit. Luke notes this when he says, "And the child grew and became strong, he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him." No one can reasonably argue that Jesus needed more of the Holy Spirit. The grace of God was on Him. The Holy Spirit was alive in him.
The Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus does compare to the Holy Spirit in the life of Christians. It is here that we claim an analogy. Jesus was alive in the Spirit before being anointed with the Holy Spirit. The very definition of salvation is to receive the Holy Spirit. "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." In this reference, it is clear that Paul was referring to the Holy Spirit because he goes on to say, "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies." It is ironic that Pauline scholars such as Fee and Dunn stumble on the analogy of Jesus’ anointing since it most closely resembles Paul’s approach.
The analogy that we claim is that just as Jesus was alive in the Spirit before his anointing, so we are alive in the Spirit from the moment of Salvation. And, just as Jesus received a further encounter with the Holy Spirit beyond what he had during his early years, so we further encounter the Holy Spirit at some point after our initial contact.
That a parallel in the life of Jesus exists, is the conclusion of scholars such as Tak-Ming Cheung, who has written
The Pentecostal understanding of Spirit-Baptism has gained some support in recent scholarship. R. Stronstad points out that the parallelism between Jesus’ anointing at Jordan and the disciples’ receiving of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost implies the functional equivalence of the Spirit in the two events—that is, for charismatic empowerment in mission.
This is also the view the Robert Menzies.
The striking parallels between Jesus’ pneumatic anointing at the Jordan and that of the disciples at Pentecost suggest that Luke interpreted the latter event in light of the former: Pentecost was for the disciples what the Jordan was for Jesus.
But it is not only recent scholars who find parallels between the baptism of Jesus and the subsequent work of the Spirit and the Spirit’s work in our lives. Ancient writers do as well.
And if He was perfect, why was He, the perfect one, baptized? It was necessary, they say, to fulfill the profession that pertained to humanity. Most excellent. Well, I assert, simultaneously with His baptism by John, He becomes perfect? Manifestly. He did not then learn anything more from him? Certainly not. But He is perfected by the washing—of baptism—alone, and is sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? Such is the case. The same also takes place in our case, whose exemplar Christ became.(emphasis mine)
Another example is found in a comment by A. Cleveland Cox in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, who writes:
The seven gifts of the Spirit seem to be prefigured in this symbol, corresponding to the seven (spirits) lamps before the throne in the vision of St. John . The prediction of Isaiah intimates the anointing of Jesus at his baptism, and the outpouring of these gifts upon the Christian Church.
More than casual references, the analogy made it’s way into the earliest liturgies of the church. Being part of the liturgy, to be prayed in every service, made it at the very core of what the church practiced and believed. The editors cite Neale as to the dates of the various early liturgies. We will quote from "The Divine Liturgy of James, the Holy Apostle and Brother of the Lord." Neale says "the Liturgy of St. James is of earlier date, as to its main fabric, than AD 200." Three times in the liturgy there is a prayer for the gifts of the Spirit. In the third prayer, which comes as part of the lengthy communion, the liturgist prays for the Holy Spirit to come. Just as Tertullian urged that they pray for the gifts to be poured out at the communion altar, so this liturgist prays for the Spirit who is described as the one,
that descended in the form of a dove on our Lord Jesus Christ at the river Jordan, and abode on Him; that descended on Thy apostles in the form of tongues of fire in the upper room of the holy and glorious Zion on the day of Pentecost; this Thine all-holy Spirit, send down, O Lord, upon us, and upon these offered holy gifts.
Enshrined in the divine liturgy, the analogy takes on enormous theological force. It is not incidental or secondary. The analogy is firmly within the mainstream of early church belief. What the early Christians hoped to receive was compared to what Jesus and the disciples had received. It short, what was hoped for was analogous to what their predecessors had received.
Although he writes in the mid-fourth century, Cyril of Jerusalem is very precise in using the anointing of Jesus as an analogy for the beginning of ministry after the Spirit’s anointing. In doing so, he takes a decidedly Assemblies of God viewpoint with regard to when ministry should begin. He says:
Jesus Christ was the Son of God, yet He preached not the Gospel before His Baptism. If the Master Himself followed the right time in due order, ought we, His servants, to venture out of order? From that time Jesus began to preach, when the Holy Spirit had descended upon Him in a bodily shape, like a dove;…. If thou too hast unfeigned piety, the Holy Ghost cometh down on thee also, and a Father’s voice sounds over thee from on high….
The editors of the second series of "The Nicene Fathers" indicate very clearly the analogous nature of the anointing of Jesus for the anointing that believers were to receive. They said:
The custom of anointing the baptized with consecrated ointment is regarded by Cyril as a sacramental act representing the anointing of Jesus by the Spirit at His Baptism. "As the Holy Ghost in substance lighted on Him, like resting upon like, so, after you had come up from the pool of the sacred waters, there was given to you an unction the counterpart (t o a n t i t u p o n ) of that wherewith He was anointed, and this is the Holy Ghost (Mystag. iii. § x.)."
We cite these authors and the early liturgy to counter Lederle and Fee who wish to remove the baptism of Jesus as an illustration of what happens to us. For Gordon Fee, the baptism of Jesus is not an appropriate analogy for our experience. But the early church fathers were not so hesitant. Further, since Fee is careful to define exegesis as "what it meant then," and since the church fathers are among those who comprise the "then", their interpretation of what was meant by the recording of the event becomes important to the exegesis of the text. It would be inappropriate for us, some twenty centuries later, to deny the understanding of the Gospel writers by those who were so closely connected both in time and culture. Even when their writing is some years removed, they are communicating traditions much older than themselves. Especially since their claim to legitimacy was primarily their direct connection to the apostles and those who succeeded them, we must give careful weight to the exegesis of the early church fathers.
If Jesus had the Holy Spirit in him, then what was the nature of what happened to him on the banks of the Jordan River? Before we address that question, I want to suggest that the significant experience with the Holy Spirit did not occur in the Jordan River and certainly was not his baptism by John. On this point, James Dunn becomes an ally as he engages in his interpretive conflict with the sacramentalists.
Jesus received the anointing of the Spirit on the shore, not in the water
This point is not absolutely necessary to my main argument. However, I think the weight of evidence from the Scripture and from the church fathers makes this view at least as reasonable as the view that all the activity of the Spirit takes place in the water. When I read Matthew there is nothing to suggest that the Spirit event takes place in the water. "As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him."
We have two ideas here. First, that Jesus was baptized, and second that he went up out of the water. If we try to argue that the reference to "out of the water" somehow speaks of the baptism itself, then we would make the sentence redundant (Jesus was put in the water, came up out of the water, then he went up out of the water). Certainly baptism means to go into the water and to come back up, otherwise it is a drowning not a baptism. When Matthew adds the expression, "Went up out of the water", are we presumptuous in assuming that it was onto the shore that he went?
The choice of words in Matthew’s account matches that of Luke’s account in Acts:
As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?" And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
Of particular significance is the expression "they came up out of the water". Clearly, Philip himself was not baptized again. He was the one doing the baptizing. Yet both of them "came up out of the water". It can only mean that they left the water and arrived on the shore. That is the only sense in which both of them came out of the water.
In Acts, we do not suppose that "out of the water" refers to baptism. Yet in Acts, these are the same words used by Matthew to describe Jesus coming up out of the water. This is the point which Dunn also makes. Dunn notes that Matthew’s reference
"could be translated simply, ‘he left the water,’ and is shown most clearly by Acts 8.39, where both Philip and the eunuch came up out of the water, and certainly Philip had not been immersing himself."
In the same way Dunn concludes that Mark
does not describe the emergence above the surface of the water which follows the complete immersion; it describes rather the climbing out of the river onto the bank after the rite has been completed.
While the Greek text may not absolutely resolve the question of where Jesus was when the Spirit came upon him, when we see how the early church interpreted this, then our conclusion is more reasonable. Luke’s description and our conclusion is that Jesus was not in the water when the Spirit came upon him. Rather, he was on the shore praying.
Seldom do the early Church Fathers speak categorically to this precise point. In the other cases, we are left to assemble the meaning from the clues they leave. For example, Justin Martyr, writing in his dialogue with Typhro, seems to contrast the descent of Jesus into the river with his emergence from the river. Our main clue is that he uses similar terminology we have seen in Matthew and in Acts.
"And then, when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and when He had stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the Jordan; and when He came out of the water, the Holy Ghost lighted on Him like a dove, [as] the apostles of this very Christ of ours wrote."
Justin is helpful, but we do have more direct statements. Origen indicates that the Spirit came upon Jesus after his baptism, rather than as part of it.
The Father therefore, the principal, sends the Son, but the Holy Spirit also sends Him and directs Him to go before, promising to descend, when the time comes, to the Son of God, and to work with Him for the salvation of men. This He did, when, in a bodily shape like a dove, He flew to Him after the baptism.
Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451-521) is one who makes a categorical statement. He says that the Holy Spirit did not appear at the Jordan to sanctify the water or Jesus, but to bear witness. For Jacob, the proof of his argument is that the Spirit appeared only after Jesus ascended out of the water. In Jacob’s case we are not left to wonder. He leaves no uncertainty at all. His whole logical argument is built upon the assumption that Jesus was out of the water. It is worth noting that no one responds to Jacob by saying Jesus was in the water when the Spirit descended upon him. His conclusion is left unchallenged. If there had been a general belief in the early church that the Spirit event had occurred in the water, Jacob could not have advanced his argument. Reasoning backward from this conclusion, we suggest that it is following his emergence from the River that Jesus is anointed with the Spirit. Therefore we speculate that it was upon Matthew’s text, "at that moment," that they fixed the Spirit event on the shore, and subsequent to the baptism of John.
When Peter preached at Cornelius’ house he seems to indicate that the water baptism and the Spirit event, a term which we are using for the Spirit baptism of Jesus, were two separate events. Peter preached,
"You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached - how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him."
Typological evidence also suggests separation. The "washing" with water followed by the anointing with the Spirit is consistent with the Old Testament pattern for consecrating priests for ministry. There the priest was first washed, then he was anointed with oil. . It is commonly said that Jesus’ baptism fulfilled "righteousness" by way of being an example for baptizing of new converts. According to this belief, the righteousness fulfilled anticipated the Scripture, "whoever believes and is baptized will be saved." We do not have this belief by Scripture, but by logical deduction from Scripture. It may be that Jesus fulfilled the righteous requirements of the priesthood by being washed and anointed rather than in the baptism of repentance which Jesus did not need. In that case, this event could not be an "initiation" comparable to salvation, but would remain the final ceremony before entering ministry as a priest. Indeed, this is what we maintain when we say that the baptism of Jesus was a prototype of our Spirit baptism which prepares us for ministry.
Later, when we deal with the two-stage work of grace, we show that Cyril of Jerusalem viewed the water baptism followed by the anointing with the Holy Spirit as analogous to the Old Testament anointing of the High Priest. Cyril’s understanding and commentary on the subject, drawing upon the type, is meaningless if the anointing was not subsequent to the water baptism.
Roger Stronstad has shown Luke’s continuity of expression with the Old Testament regarding the experience of the Spirit. Even Pentecost is not the first experience with the Spirit, but a continuation of charismatic encounters that reaches back into the Old Testament.
Peter’s use of Joel, on the one hand, and Luke’s parallel between the anointing of Jesus and the Spirit baptism of the disciples, on the other hand, make it clear that Pentecost stands in continuity with the charismatic activity of the Spirit in Old Testament times and in the ministry of Jesus.
In the section that compares water and Spirit baptism we will show those who believed that water baptism was a preparation for the Spirit, but not the entry of the Spirit himself. Here, let us say that Gregory Nazianzen is one who spoke of "the bridegroom’s friend, that prepared for the Lord a peculiar people and cleansed them by the water in preparation for the Spirit." If the water is the preparation for the Spirit, then it cannot be the Spirit himself. The preparation cannot be the thing itself, otherwise it is not the preparation, but the thing itself.
Gregory makes it clear that he does not regard water baptism as the same thing as Spirit baptism. Rather, this anointing of the Holy Spirit is something which is separate and for which a person must seek:
". . .That perfecteth so as even to anticipate Baptism, yet after Baptism to be sought as a separate gift; that doeth all things that God doeth; divided into fiery tongues; dividing gifts; making Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers; understanding manifold, clear, , undefiled, unhindered, which is the same thing as Most wise and varied in His actions; and making all things clear and plain; and of independent power, unchangeable, Almighty, all-seeing, penetrating all spirits that are intelligent, pure, most subtle (the Angel Hosts I think); and also all prophetic spirits and apostolic in the same manner and not in the same places; for they lived in different places; thus showing that He is uncircumscript."
In another of his sermons, Gregory indicates that Jesus was not in the water when he received the Spirit. Rather, he describes Jesus, who,
goeth up out of the water…for with himself he carries up the world …and sees the heaven opened which Adam had shut against himself and all his posterity, as the gates of Paradise by the flaming sword. And the Spirit bears witness to His Godhead, for he descends upon One that is like Him, as does the Voice from Heaven (for He to whom the witness is borne came from thence), and like a Dove, for He honors the Body (for this also was God, through its union with God) by being seen in a bodily form.
For Gregory, all the activity which we associate with the event at the Jordan takes place after Jesus "goes up" from the water. Then he sees heaven open. There is a clear sequence. Jesus goes up, then the heavens open. Using this terminology, there is no question as to the meaning of the words "comes up out of the water" because he does not use them. He substitutes "goes up" in its place. Here I agree with the conclusion of James Dunn.
It must be stated emphatically, that the baptism of Jesus and the descent of the Spirit are two distinct events—closely related, but distinct.
The conclusions of these writers seems to be warranted based on the selection of details used by Luke. While Menzies notes Luke’s emphasis upon the Spirit’s anointing upon Jesus, we would prefer to see these events as occurring, first in the Jordan, and second, beside the Jordan.
Luke has Jesus receive the Spirit after his baptism, while praying. Luke is not concerned to draw connections between Jesus’ water baptism and his reception of the Spirit. Indeed, what was of central importance to Luke was not Jesus’ baptism, rather, his reception of the Spirit, occasioned by prayer. For this reason Luke has transformed an account of Jesus’ baptism into an account of Jesus’ reception of the Spirit.
The Baptism of Jesus as a theological model for believers
The baptism of Jesus was the model for the early church, at least in several branches of the church. In the Syriac tradition, one of the oldest, this took on some interesting aspects. "From the beginning the paradigm at Antioch was the baptism of Jesus when he was anointed with the Spirit and proclaimed Son of God."
Keilian McDonnell suggests that "Only at this rather late date (4th century) did people note that the Spirit comes down on Jesus only after he emerges from the water." The fact is, this was the understanding well before the 4th century. The rituals associated with water baptism, and the anointings which followed it, give clear evidence that the early church understood that the Spirit came upon Jesus after his emergence from the water. It was the understanding from the beginning. Particularly when you study Tertullian do you see this. McDonnell himself admits that what Tertullian wrote reflected traditions much older than himself. Tertullian writes at the end of the second century about traditions which were already of some antiquity.
Indeed, the early Christians of the Syriac and Armenian traditions, place the greatest emphasis on the baptism of Jesus precisely as our model for the descent of the Spirit:
If one is tracing the beginnings of Spirit-Christology it will be found in the baptism of Jesus.
What is significant in this creed is that the prototype of Christians baptism is the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan. The greatest theological weight was attached to this mystery. As Jesus received the Spirit at his baptism in the Jordan, we receive the Spirit at ours. At the Jordan the epiphany of the Spirit had as its function to identify and proclaim that Jesus is the one sent from the Father. This very ancient creed not only safeguards the pneumatological content of Christian baptism, but retains a Trinitarian dynamic.
We want to remember that McDonnell writes from the theological viewpoint of a Catholic. They believe that water baptism is the moment of salvation and the moment at which the baptism of the Holy Spirit actually occurs. It is particularly significant, then, that he acknowledges the separation, even though he tries to keep them together. In his conclusion he first admits the separation, then argues to put them back together. He writes:
The Spirit descends on Jesus upon or after his coming out of the water, not during his submersion in it. The sequence is noted by all the Synoptics. On the one hand this indicates that the Spirit comes on Jesus as a sovereign intervention of God (the heavens are opened) and not just because Jesus received the baptism of John. On the other hand, the descent of the Spirit is immediate (even Luke considers it part of the baptism story). Consequently, when Jesus’ Jordan baptism becomes the icon for Christian initiation (Christian baptism being modeled on Jesus’ baptism rather than John’s baptism), the gift of the Spirit must be integral to the initiation rite. The post-biblical theology, especially in the East, would distinguish two moments but it considered them inseparable--immersion into the water (seen as a union with Christ) and gift of the Spirit.
In the end, McDonnell comes to the same conclusion that I do. He says, "As Jesus begins his public ministry with an imparting of the charisms, so must also ours." For McDonnell, the baptism of Jesus is a prototype for us.
It is quite clear that the ancients such as Cyril regarded the baptism of Jesus as a prototype of our experiences and that they saw the Spirit baptism of Jesus as the moment when his ministry began.
Jesus Christ was the Son of God, yet He preached not the Gospel before His Baptism. If the Master Himself followed the right time in due order, ought we, His servants, to venture out of order? From that time Jesus began to preach, when the Holy Spirit had descended upon Him in a bodily shape, like a dove; ...If thou too hast unfeigned piety, the Holy Ghost cometh down on thee also, and a Father’s voice sounds over thee from on high--not, "This is My Son," but, "This has now been made My son.
"If thou too…" is evidence that Cyril viewed the baptism of Jesus as a suitable analogy for his use. Cyril, in another place, indicates that the baptism of Jesus had an effect upon those who were to be baptized. Jesus received grace in his baptism. In the same way, and because of what Jesus did, the newly baptized can expect to receive the grace which we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
. . . He shed forth blood and water; that men, living in times of peace, might be baptized in water, and, in times of persecution, in their own blood. . . . He was baptized, that He might give to them that are baptized a divine and excellent grace.
Hilary, a contemporary of Cyril, takes the same view that the baptism of Jesus is an analogy for our experience. We have noted elsewhere that Hilary viewed the baptism of Jesus as the time of his charismatic empowering. We will add here that he tied the imparting of charisms to being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Further, he sees a distinction between water baptism and Spirit baptism when he writes of "the sacraments of baptism and of the Spirit." Hilary again draws the analogy between the baptism of Jesus and of Christian believers. Like Jesus, we receive the gifts of the Spirit when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit. Even Dunn agrees that it was "this anointing with the Spirit which equipped Jesus with power and authority for his mission to follow."
We have more than a casual interest in when the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs. If the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs in salvation, and the gifts of the Spirit flow from salvation, then for every saved person, they posses the gifts at that moment and maybe the gifts they then possess are all the gifts they will ever possess. For most people that hardly seems adequate. On the other hand, if the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at some time after salvation, and the spiritual gifts follow, then we can anticipate a greater exercise in spiritual gifts later on.
We do believe that spiritual gifts follow the baptism of the Holy Spirit. On this point, the baptism of Jesus is critical. Only after his anointing with the Spirit does he go out into ministry with signs, wonders, and miracles. Origen notes that Jesus received the charism of wisdom at his baptism. Lactantius says that after being anointed by the Spirit, "from that time on" Jesus does the miracles associated with his ministry. In the same way that the early church saw Jesus receiving the gifts of the Spirit at his Spirit baptism, we see that it will be the same for us. We will go out from Spirit baptism proclaiming the Gospel and seeing salvation confirmed with signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Spirit.
This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
The Church Fathers understood the charismatic empowering associated with the baptism of Jesus. This McDonnell readily acknowledges:
This charismatic empowering is implicit already in the New Testament in the modeling of Christian initiation upon Jesus’ baptism, which was an anointing for the ministry of the kingdom. It becomes explicit in Acts, in Paul, and increasingly so in Tertullian, Hilary, and Cyril. Paul’s exhortation to seek the spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:1) is picked up by Tertullian and Cyril in their baptismal exhortations to seek and expect the charisms, and in Hilary’s urging the faithful to use them..
For John of Apamea one must ‘perfectly possess in oneself the power of holy baptism,’ then one will be ‘adorned with all the divine gifts.’ Further, he places this empowerment through the actualized baptism in contrast to Jesus’ life before the Jordan experience. Just as Jesus manifested himself in ‘signs and wonders’ only after his baptism, so the charisms manifest themselves only after one has perfectly possessed the power of baptism.
Our principal point of disagreement is to note that these things are not truly related to water baptism, but to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. John of Apamea’s ideas form the core of what McDonnell recommends for Catholic Christians. McDonnell wants Catholics to pray for the actualization of the gifts which they received in infant baptism. As adults, when they begin to speak in tongues, they are "actualizing" the baptism of the Holy Spirit received in salvation. The practical result is the same, but the theology is not.
Some today question the significance of Jesus’ anointing. Particularly, Lederle departs from the views of the early church and objects to the connection of the Spirit event of Jesus with the subsequent signs and wonders which he performed. But Peter was not so reluctant. Peter tied the two together as though one flowed from the other. Similarly, in Acts 4, when the disciples wanted to be able to speak the Word boldly, and when they wanted God to stretch out his hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders, they prayed to God sponded by filling them with the Holy Spirit once again. Luke wants us to see that when God wants his Word spoken boldly and when signs and wonders are to occur, it happens after people are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Luke’s Gospel relates the water baptism of Jesus to the water baptism of the rest of the people. "When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too." Luke then indicates that Jesus was praying when the Spirit event occurred. Luke does not relate the Spirit event to the water baptism but rather, attaches it to the praying of Jesus.
We are arguing for subsequence, that Spirit baptism is subsequent to salvation. We should note that Luke’s account does nothing to dissuade us from our belief. Instead, the way Luke separates the water baptism from the Spirit event encourages us to see an indication of a subsequent event to water baptism. Tertullian follows Luke’s emphasis in suggesting to those newly baptized to pray for their inheritance, the distributed charisms.
Even if we should fail to prove that the anointing of the Holy Spirit was subsequent to his baptism in water, the anointing was clearly subsequent to the entrance of the Holy Spirit into the physical life of Jesus. In reality, our point of subsequence is proved both ways. Given the separation that Matthew and Luke do show, others definitely cannot use it to argue that salvation and/or water baptism are the same as Spirit baptism since Jesus was not being initiated into anything except his public ministry.
We have said the "unique role of Jesus in salvation history" is unrelated to the question of the usefulness of the analogy of his Spirit event to that of the believers "baptism in the Holy Spirit." To argue otherwise would require that Jesus not be used as a model or example for our lives. If Scripture uses Jesus as an analogy, and if the church fathers use him that way as well, are we taking something away from the uniqueness of Jesus by noting the parallel of his Spirit event with ours? But can we use Jesus’ example to predict our own experiences?
The writer of Hebrews is not hesitant to use the parallels of the believers trials with those of Jesus. "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
The Apostle Paul notes that we are "Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." Paul indicates that the Church is built, not just upon the apostles and prophets, but in the same way, upon Christ himself. Is the church only built on his sacrifice and not his example?
Jesus himself urges each of his followers to "take his cross and follow me…." Jesus relates the cross he will bear with the cross that his followers must carry. We don’t hear Dunn and Fee objecting that Jesus should not use the analogy of his unique role in salvation history as the one who bears the cross. Jesus uses the analogy of the cross, even though it is a unique moment in salvation history. But when Pentecostals try to use the analogy of Jesus’ anointing, we suddenly do not appreciate Jesus’ unique role in salvation history. If we Pentecostals are hermeneutically ignorant for breaking the rule regarding analogies, at least we are in the excellent company of the most important figures of the ancient church.
Cyril of Jerusalem, blissfully ignorant of Dunn and Fee, is quite willing to compare the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan with that of the believers:
He washed in the river Jordan, and having imparted of the fragrance of His Godhead to the waters, He came up from them; and the Holy Ghost in the fullness of His being lighted on Him, like resting upon like. And to you in like manner, after you had come up from the pool of the sacred streams, there was given an Unction, the anti-type of what wherewith Christ was anointed; and this is the Holy Ghost; of whom also the blessed Esaias, in his prophecy respecting Him, said in the person of the Lord, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. Because He hath anointed Me: He hath sent Me to preach glad tidings to the poor.
It seems to me that the burden of proof is upon Dunn, Fee, and Lederle, and those of their persuasion, to show that we cannot build upon the life and experience of Jesus to anticipate our own experiences. It is not sufficient for them to simply assert, in light of the acceptance of it in the early church, that the analogy cannot be used. They must show why the early church was wrong to include it and why they are right to exclude it. Lederle seems to recognize the burden and suggests that the reason we cannot use the analogy of his Spirit event is because we do not carry over every aspect of the Life of Jesus and make it normative:
Neo-Pentecostals take some elements in Jesus’ life as normative for his followers while others are passed by, e.g. the fact that he remained unmarried, was circumcised, or that he waited until his thirtieth year before starting his ministry.
But Lederle is not convincing in this argument. He knows full well that circumcision was a sign of the Jewish covenant and that it was not binding upon Gentiles. Further, the age of thirty was usual for beginning the priesthood, but was not slavishly adhered to, with even the age of twenty accepted at times in Jewish history. Clearly, the age of thirty was the age Jesus chose for maximum acceptance but was not intended to be normative or Jesus would have corrected the age adaptation in Biblical history. His choice of remaining single was also an option, but equally clearly not the norm of creation or Biblical history, as indicated by Paul not using Lederle’s line of thinking in 1 Corinthians 7 when he addresses the topic of marriage.
We will be well served to recall the Gospel of John’s perspective on the Spirit event by the Jordan. The Apostle John completely leaves out the baptism by John. There is no mention of it at all. Rather, he emphasizes the Spirit coming down:
I saw the Spirit come down from Heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘the man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
If we are to consider the Apostle John’s emphasis, which leaves out the water baptism, we would have to conclude that the Spirit event was the central event. Further, God had spoken to the Baptist that he would see the Spirit come down and remain on Jesus. John’s emphasis is also Luke’s. Luke interprets the central event of the Jordan experience as the encounter with the Spirit: "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the desert...." Again, later in the chapter, Luke indicates that Jesus "returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit...." Luke also lets us hear Jesus giving his own understanding of what had happened when Jesus read in the synagogue "The Spirit of the Lord is on me..." The Apostle John joins Luke in emphasizing the anointing of the Spirit as the definitive act from the Jordan, rather than his baptism in water.
Pentecostals have no difficulty accepting the Apostle John’s account, since Jesus’ experience is akin to our own. We have already noted that Jesus had a significant relationship with the Holy Spirit prior to the moment of the Spirit event. No one would try to refute that. Yet here we have the Spirit coming down on him in a definitive act.
Was this just window dressing, or a divine show to convince John that Jesus was the Messiah? Were they seeing theatrics for popular consumption, or was this a real event? Did the Spirit really come upon Jesus in some new way?
When we consider Isaiah 42 with its vision of a coming Messiah, we are struck by the similarities with the scene from Jordan’s bank. "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight: I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations." The voice from heaven and the voice of the Old Testament prophet sound remarkably alike. The prophet indicates that God would put his Spirit on him, and that is what happened as Jesus prayed following being baptized by John.
In the same way, God has promised his Holy Spirit to us, not just in salvation, but as equipping for ministry. It happened to Jesus, and we accept it as an illustration of what God wants to do in the life of each individual believer. Across the centuries, and across the empire, the early church frequently expresses the belief that the baptism of Jesus is a model for Christian experience. It is an analogy of our Pentecostal experience.
The Analogy of the Disciples’ Baptism in the Holy Spirit
In this chapter, I want to show that the analogy of the disciples’ experience is also parallel to our Pentecostal experience. The experience of the disciples shaped their doctrine and it should shape ours. Indeed, what happened with regard to the baptism of the Holy Spirit among the disciples was used in the early church as the model for what others should expect to experience. In showing this, I will assert that those who have abandoned analogies used by the early church, have come to wrong conclusions about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Gordon Fee, among others, denies the applicability of the Easter night/Pentecost Sunday experiences of the disciples with our encounter with God in salvation, followed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In his view "the uniqueness of the event of Pentecost in salvation history, not to mention the exegetical difficulties of demonstrating that John 20:22 refers to a regenerational experience makes the analogy equally tenuous…"
J. I. Packer, Fee’s fellow Professor at Regent College, calls John 20:22 a "problem text." For him, Jesus made the believers clean during his ministry (before the cross!) "Believers were regenerated, then, during Jesus’ three years of ministry, including eleven out of Jesus’ chosen twelve." Therefore, this could not have been their moment of New Testament conversion. But the implications of this with regard to the meaning of the cross are enormous. He further thinks the Spirit could not be given until Jesus was glorified. So for him, the in-breathing is a kind of commissioning. McDonnell would disagree with Packer when he points out that "the word receive is a traditional expression for the initial gift of the Spirit." McDonnell follows Origen who said, "…in the Gospel of John the Savior having given the Holy Spirit unto the disciples by breathing upon them said, "Receive you the Holy Spirit," . . .
Packer says "The only reason why the first disciples had to be taken through a two-stage, two-level pattern of experience was that they became believers before Pentecost." Fee must have a problem with Packer’s view. Fee sees the gifts occurring as part of salvation which is the "empowerment for life, with openness to gifts and the miraculous." But if the disciples were really all that Luke describes, "Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God," then what did they need further with Pentecost?
Dunn sees the comparison of the in-breathed spirit on Resurrection night with the creation of life within man. Even though he will reject the experience as normative, or as supporting the idea of subsequence for anyone other than the disciples, he does acknowledge the merit of thinking of this as the moment of salvation.
It is the word used in Genesis 2.7, Ezekiel 37.9, and Wisdom 15.11 to describe the creation of man—the divine breath which brings life to what was otherwise a corpse. In other words, John presents the act of Jesus as a new creation: Jesus is the author of the new creations as he was of the old. If Pentecostals look for the moment when the apostles became regenerate they can find it only here and not before—only then was the spiritual life (breath) of the new creation communicated to them.
With Fee and Packer, however, their views are different from those of the early church. Several of the most important early church fathers refute Fee and Packer’s interpretation. We will come to them shortly.
The Grace of the Spirit
When modern Pentecostals read the Church Fathers for their views on the gifts and work of the Spirit, the first reading would suggest that it was not a topic in which they showed much interest. This supposed lack of interest has two explanations.
First, when the church in the early centuries debated issues relating to the Holy Spirit they were not over gifts of the Spirit, but over the nature of the Holy Spirit. Mostly, they spent their energy defending the Holy Spirit as a member of the Trinity. Their works defined the nature of the Spirit and the relationship of the Spirit to the Father and to the Son.
Secondly, their terminology for the gifts of the Spirit is different from what is commonly used in contemporary Protestant and Pentecostal literature. We talk of "gifts", they talked of "grace". For them, the gifts of the Spirit are called "grace of the Spirit."
Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.
Peter answered: "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!
When Cyril of Jerusalem summarized this same event he said it like this:
Thy money perish with thee, because thou has thought to purchase the gift of God with money ; for thou art a second Judas, for expecting to buy the grace of the Spirit with money.
In another of his lectures he uses similar terminology to describe the incident:
Peter came, and the Spirit was poured out upon them that believed, and they spake with other tongues, and prophesied: and after the grace of the Spirit the Scripture saith that Peter commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ: in order that, the soul having been born again by faith, the body also might by the water partake of the grace.
This adjusted expression has continued down through the Church. In Roman Catholic reference, for example, the gifts of the Spirit are called the grace of the Spirit, following the lead of Cyril. Once you understand that "grace of the Spirit" speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit through believers, what we call "gifts", then references abound.
Hippolytus believed the disciples received the Holy Spirit on Easter night.
The views of Hippolytus on this subject are very important because of the early date that he lived. He lived between 170 and 236 AD. Not only is he early, but he is the disciple of Irenaeus. We are only three generations from the Apostle John, one of those who actually received the Spirit on that Easter night. Hippolytus is describing the unique Christ:
This (is He who) breathes upon the disciples, and gives them the Spirit, and comes in among them when the doors are shut, and is taken up by a cloud into the heavens while the disciples gaze at Him, and is set down on the right hand of the Father, and comes again as Judge of the living and the dead.
From the context, there is no mistaking the time period. This is the resurrected Christ. Furthermore, Jesus gives them the Spirit. This is not a promise of the Spirit. Nor does Hippolytus know anything of a commissioning for future service as Packer would have us believe. Hippolytus is quite plain that Jesus here gives them the Spirit. Packer says they did not receive the Spirit and Fee says it does not matter since it is a unique event, but this important church father is plain enough on the subject.
When Hippolytus speaks in this way, he may be following the lead of the liturgy of St. Mark. Certainly he is in step with the view contained in that liturgy of which portions date before AD 200. In the liturgy, a prayer at the very beginning asks the Holy Spirit to come upon those who will be leading the service in the same way that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples on Easter night.
O Sovereign Lord our God, who …has breathed upon their faces and said unto them, Receive the Holy Spirit the Comforter…breathe also thy Holy Spirit upon us thy servants, who, standing around, are about to enter on thy holy service…
The prayer also notes that the disciples healed the sick and forgave sins. Since the liturgist was going to be engaged in the same sort of work, they needed the same spiritual aid. This liturgy is another evidence that some in the early church looked upon the Easter night experience as where the disciples received the enabling for their work. What is without question is that the liturgy viewed what happened to the disciples as analogous to what these later believers were to experience. It should be noted again that an adopted liturgy has considerably more theological force than even the writings of some important father. A liturgy represented the collected practice and belief within the church. If the Assemblies of God relies upon the analogy of the disciples experience as we pray to receive the empowering of the Holy Spirit for our ministry, at least we would not have been alone in the early church. Indeed, it is not we who would be alone, but Fee.
Hippolytus and the liturgy of St. Mark are joined by an anonymous monk or Bishop in the fourth century:
Moreover, our Lord after His resurrection, when He had breathed upon His apostles, and had said to them, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost,’ thus and thus only bestowed upon them the Spirit.
When Cyprian describes his conversion experience he says, "…by the agency of the Spirit, breathed from heaven, a second birth had restored me to a new man." Unlike Fee, Cyprian uses the analogy of the disciples’ experience to describe his own. He is born again by the in-breathed Spirit from heaven.
Cyprian argues that the disciples received the Holy Spirit on Easter night so they could forgive sins (in baptism). "…he alone can baptize and give remission of sins who has the Holy Spirit." For Cyprian, if they had not received the Holy Spirit, they would not have been in a position to carry out the assignment Jesus gave them that night. This is also the position of St. Mark’s liturgy. We might not precisely agree with their conclusion, but there can be no doubt that Cyprian and others believed that the disciples received the Holy Spirit that Easter night. Of course, it goes without saying, that they were to receive some other dimension of the Spirit on Pentecost.
The view of Lactantius is similar. For him, the disciples not only received the Spirit, they actually received the charismatic empowering that Easter night. Certainly, if they received the gift of miracles, they received the Holy Spirit Himself.
…having arranged for the preaching of the Gospel throughout the whole world, He breathed into them the Holy Spirit, and gave them the power of working miracles, that they might act for the welfare of men as well by deeds as by words; and then at length, on the fortieth day, He returned to His Father, being carried up into a cloud.
Gregory Nazianzen identifies three phases of encounter with the Holy Spirit. These are during the ministry of Jesus, at the in-breathing, and at Pentecost. His argument follows the same logic as Cyprian. If the disciples did miracles, they must have had the Holy Spirit since only the Spirit can give such power. There is no doubt that he believed the disciples received the in-breathing of the Spirit on Easter night.
...the disciples of Christ...(received the Holy Spirit) in three ways, as they were able to receive him, and on three occasions; before Christ was glorified by the passion, and after he was glorified by the Resurrection; and after His ascension…to heaven. Now the first of these manifest Him—the healing of the sick and casting out of evil spirits, which could not be apart from the Spirit; and so does that breathing upon them after the Resurrection, which we are now commemorating.
Furthermore, Gregory viewed each of these experiences as progressive. The second was more than the first, and the third was more than the second. In another of his sermons he shows that it was progressive and each one was more substantial than the next.
. . . by gradual additions, and, as David says, Goings up, and advances and progress from glory to glory, the Light of the Trinity might shine upon the more illuminated. For this reason it was, I think, that He gradually came to dwell in the Disciples, measuring Himself out to them according to their capacity to receive Him, at the beginning of the Gospel, after the Passion, after the Ascension, making perfect their powers, being breathed upon them, and appearing in fiery tongues.
No doubt it is upon Hippolytus, Cyprian, St. Mark’s liturgy, and Lactantius, as well as the Scripture, that Cyril relies when he comes to his conclusions. Gregory and Cyril share common views but Cyril brings these previous streams of thinking together in a distinctive way.
Cyril of Jerusalem sees the In-breathed Spirit as less bountiful than the out-poured spirit.
It is worth noting the literary style of the early writers. In the quotation which follows, Cyril puts words into the mouth of Jesus which do not come from any biblical text we now have. This is a common technique among the ancients. It is like an Amplified Version of the Bible. That is, he adds words which further clarify the meaning.
This is very valuable, because the additional words provide a commentary on the biblical text itself. The additional words give us Cyril’s understanding of what Jesus was actually saying. Unlike Packer, for Cyril, there is no doubt that the Disciples received the Holy Spirit on Easter night. Nor is there any doubt in his mind that what they received there was less than what they, and others, would receive fifty days later:
…the Gospel relates, that after his resurrection He breathed on them. But though He bestowed His grace then, He was to lavish it yet more bountifully; and He says to them, ‘I am ready to give it even now, but the vessel cannot yet hold it; for a while therefore receive ye as much grace as ye can bear; and look forward for yet more; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be clothed with power from on high. Receive it in part now; then, ye shall wear it in its fullness. For he ceives, often possesses the gift but in part; but he who is clothed, is, completely enfolded by his robe. (emphasis mine)
Later in the same section, Cyril leaves the words of Christ and summarizes what took place using his own words. Notice that he compares the fullness of what takes place at Pentecost with the partiality of what took place that first Sunday night. For him, both events were the work of the Holy Spirit. It was just a matter of degree.
But He came down to clothe the apostles with power, and to baptize them; for the Lord says, ‘Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. This grace was not in part, but His power was in full perfection; for as he who plunges into the waters and is baptized is encompassed on all sides by the waters, so were they also baptized completely by the Holy Ghost. The water however flows round the outside only, but the Spirit baptizes also the soul within, and that completely.(emphasis mine)
I want to be careful to point out that Assembly of God doctrine does not follow Cyril on the "in part" versus "completely" division. Our doctrine is that the Holy Spirit is received fully at the moment of salvation. Indeed, it is the very definition of salvation: "And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." However, the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation is not the same work as the Holy Spirit in the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. Cyril’s interpretation of the biblical text is clearly supportive of the Pentecostal interpretation even if he does not seem to distinguish between the nature of the two works. Rather, he sees the Spirit doing a partial work at first, which is finished in Spirit Baptism. Even if Cyril lacks the precision of Pentecostal doctrine today, he is in step with the Pentecostal way of thinking about the work of the Spirit. His views stand in sharp contrast to Packer and Dunn, and to those who believe that Baptism of the Spirit is the same as the work of the Spirit in salvation.
Not only does Cyril notice the two-phased work in the Scripture, but he expects that the work will be two-phased for those he is about to baptize.
Here Cyril stands in contrast to Fee. Fee sees no analogy between what happened to the disciples and what happens to us. The disciples were unique, so the analogy must be dismissed. But Cyril finds the disciples a perfect example of what he hopes for with his students. He doesn’t describe this scene to his students who are about to undergo baptism and have hands laid upon them for no reason. He fully expects that the historical-theological intent of Luke’s record will be repeated again.
Cyril described the procedure for those preparing to be baptized in water. They were first anointed with oil. Then they were baptized. Then, later, they were to receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Then, when you were stripped, you were anointed with exorcised oil, from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ.
Cyril then says:
After these things, you were led to the holy pool of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried from the Cross to the Sepulcher which is before our eyes.
His procedures of two-phases of anointing, speak of an understanding of the two-phased work of the Spirit. The anointing with oil, we would understand as the Holy Spirit received in salvation. It is the Holy Spirit in salvation which drives out the devil from our lives. Then we are baptized in water. Following salvation we may receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This procedure was not something invented by Cyril. Rather, it is the echo of a long-standing doctrine and practice. The Spirit in Salvation is not of the same degree as the Spirit in Spirit baptism.
Are we right in concluding that the anointing with oil after baptism should be considered to be the baptism of the Holy Spirit? We are arguing for subsequence here, so it becomes an important question. We know that Chrysostom viewed the oil as based upon the Spirit baptism of Jesus. "…the Spirit is the chief point in the unction, and that for which the oil is used." The procedures of Cyril are in the middle of the fourth century, but he did not invent them. So we rely upon those earlier than Cyril to define the procedures. Origen is very clear how he views the oil of gladness. Because he relates the oil of gladness to Jesus, then he must be relating the filling of the Holy Spirit to Jesus. In doing so, he ties the believers oil of anointing with that of Jesus.
... Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." As a reward for its love, then, it is anointed with the oil of gladness; i.e., the soul of Christ along with the Word of God is made Christ. Because to be anointed with the oil of gladness means nothing else than to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Origen sees miracles and other gifts of the Spirit going on around him. When he thinks about these gifts, he relates them to the dove which earlier descended upon Jesus and to the miracles of the disciples. His comments indicate that he viewed the empowering of Jesus and the disciples as analogous, and precedent setting, to those demonstrating gifts around him. Acts was normative.
And I shall refer not only to His miracles, but, as is proper, to those also of the apostles of Jesus. For they could not without the help of miracles and wonders have prevailed on those who heard their new doctrines and new teachings to abandon their national usages, and to accept their instructions at the danger to themselves even of death. And there are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit which appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, and perform many cures, and foresee certain events, according to the will of the Logos.
In another place, while discussing why gifts were diminishing, Origen very explicitly connects the anointing of Jesus, and the Pentecost day outpouring which followed the ascension, with the present activity of the gifts of the Spirit in his era.
Moreover, the Holy Spirit gave signs of His presence at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, and after His ascension He gave still more; but since that time these signs have diminished, although there are still traces of His presence in a few who have had their souls purified by the Gospel, and their actions regulated by its influence. "For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and remove from thoughts that are without understanding."
This is a theme to which Origen returns again and again. What he hopes to see repeated is Pentecost. He wants his disciples to experience the rushing mighty wind and the tongues of fire. He wants all that the early disciples had at Pentecost because for Origen the disciples were the analogy for later Christian experience. The historical precedent of Acts 2 still spoke to him those centuries later just like it still speaks to me. I could walk into the pulpit this Sunday and preach this. But if historical precedent cannot be used for doctrine, why should I? Without the doctrine, I have no assurance that God will do it again (unless I resort to that awful beast, experience!)
"We are risen with Christ," and "He hath exalted us, and made us to sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ," is always living in the season of Pentecost; and most of all, when going up to the upper chamber, like the apostles of Jesus, he gives himself to supplications and prayer, that he may become worthy of receiving "the mighty wind rushing from heaven," which is powerful to destroy sin and its fruits among men, and worthy of having some share of the tongue of fire which God sends.
Earlier, Cyprian had set the stage for the two-phased approach that Cyril and Origen followed:
It is also necessary that he should be anointed who is baptized; so that, having received the chrism, that is, the anointing, he may be anointed of God, and have in him the grace of Christ. Further, it is the Eucharist whence the baptized are anointed with the oil sanctified on the altar.
What is of particular interest here is that Cyprian associates the receiving of the chrism, not with baptism itself, but with Holy Communion. Here Cyprian is much like his spiritual father, Tertullian. Both want the gifts to be received at the altar, not in the baptistery. If the gifts of the Spirit are one element in the five-part conversion, as Fee would have it, then Tertullian and Cyprian know nothing of this idea. For them, the gifts come at the altar. Tertullian and Cyprian know our Pentecostal approach. Fee seems to have forgotten.
To this point we have drawn upon two critical analogies. We have observed that the early church used the anointing of Jesus and the anointing of the disciples as illustrations of what they might expect to receive. Although he does not approach the matter from the views of the church fathers, Roger Stronstad nonetheless arrives at our position:
…just as the anointing of Jesus is a paradigm for the subsequent Spirit baptism of the disciples, so the gift of the Spirit to the disciples is a paradigm for God’s people throughout the "last days" as a charismatic community of the Spirit—a prophethood of all believers.
Stronstad draws upon Charles Talbert who outlines Luke’s fourfold parallelism between the anointing of Jesus and Pentecost: 1) both Jesus and the disciples are praying, 2) the Spirit descends after their prayers, 3) there is a physical manifestation of the Spirit, and 4) the ministries of both Jesus and the disciples begin with a sermon which is thematic of what follows, appeals to the fulfillment of prophecy, and speaks of the rejection of Jesus.
When Stronstad and Talbert come to their conclusions, they do so by comparing the terminology of Luke with Old Testament references. They find patterns from the Old Testament which are repeated in Luke. From these patterns they see norms being established.
We are using the church fathers as our base of approach rather than one that starts with the Scripture. Clearly, the Scriptural approach takes precedent. However, when citing the early church apologists and fathers lied upon the Scripture, we are showing that the interpretations of modern Pentecostal theologians are in step with the early church.
The Book of Ephesians has several references that indicate that Paul may have had Pentecost at least partially in mind when he wrote it.
At one point Paul even expresses a desire to be in Ephesus for Pentecost when he wrote, "But I will stay on a Ephesus until Pentecost." I doubt if his reference to Pentecost is comparable to our referring to an event as being around Thanksgiving. It was more than a reference in time. Pentecost was a Jewish feast. If it was only a time reference, would the Gentile Corinthians have understood the Jewish reference?
We have to remember that when 1 Corinthians was written the church in Corinth was four or five years old at the most, and that the majority of its members had come out of paganism and would have known nothing of the Jewish calendar before their conversion. Would the date have meant anything to them unless it had some association with the Christian life?
Paul’s attitude may have been related to the content of the Feast of Pentecost itself. By Paul’s time it had already changed from its ancient agricultural roots to a celebration of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.
In the Tanach the Feast of Weeks is also called the Feast of the Harvest, the Feast of the First Fruits, and the Feast of Ingathering (cf Exodus 23:16). It was thus an agricultural feast, marking the end of the wheat harvest. However, in late Tanach times this festival also came to be related to a historical event, the giving of the Torah and the covenant at Sinai. The book of 2 Chronicles tells us that in the fifteenth year of King Asa (i.e. approx. 896 BC) the people renewed the covenant with God in the third month--the month when the covenant was made at Sinai and the Feast of Weeks was celebrated (2 Chr 15:10). By the mid-second century BC observance of the Feast of Weeks included also celebration of the Sinai covenant and the giving of the Torah.
This early connection with the giving of the Law is also the opinion of Kirby, Professor of New Testament at McGill University. As a summary of his lengthy defense of this idea, he says,
…while there is little direct evidence in rabbinic Judaism in the first century to connect Pentecost with the giving of the law, the evidence is clear in the ‘apocryphal’ tradition and in the Qumran literature.
There are numerous indications in Paul’s Epistle that he is slanting his comments to fit into this understanding. The passage that we associate with the so called "ministry gifts" is one example.
But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: ‘When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’ (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
In considering this passage, we first must ask, why does Paul link the ascension of Jesus with giving of the gifts of Grace?
Paul’s first thought is about the gifts of the Spirit which he refers to as "grace" which has been given to each one. Once his mind turns to the gifts of the Spirit, he turns immediately to the ascension. The question is, why does he do that? There are three reasons why Paul links the two.
First, Peter did this from the first day of New Testament Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out. That first sermon of the Gospel era linked the two together:
God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.
In Peter’s mind, there was a direct connection between the resurrection, ascension, and the giving of the Holy Spirit. His sermon simply reflects his understanding of the flow of events. On that Pentecost Sunday, the words of Jesus are still fresh in Peter’s mind. Those words form the second reason:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
For the disciples, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was associated with the promise of Jesus, a promise he gave them just before he ascended into heaven. Thereafter, to think about the ascension was to think about his promise. In the same way, whenever they received gifts of the Spirit, the new recipients were no doubt told that this was what Jesus had promised just before he ascended to the right hand of the Father.
The third reason has to do with the Scripture readings for the Feast of Pentecost. There are three Scriptures which formed the synagogue readings for Pentecost. They were Exodus 19-20, which is the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai, Psalms 68, and Numbers 18.
One of the more interesting subjects is how Psalm 68:18 migrated into Ephesians 4:8.. Of course, we believe in the inspiration of Scripture, both Old and New. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Rabbi’s had given their commentary on this passage as meaning the one who ascended was Moses, and the gifts that God had given to man was the law. One Rabbi had translated the passage, not "received gifts from men" but "gave gifts to men." Paul, if not his Jewish readers, may have had this in mind as he wrote and it shaped his understanding of the passage.
We might ask, why does this teaching emerge at Ephesus? Was there anything unique about Ephesus which made it a likely candidate?
Ephesus had been treated to some of the best Bible teaching available. Paul himself was there a long time.
They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
The ministry of Paul, Priscilla and Aquila was followed by Apollos:
Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures.
Timothy pastored there:
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer.
Even the Apostle John pastored the church, and many think wrote the Gospel of John while there. However, it is not likely that he had pastored here before the Epistle of Ephesians was written by Paul.
Given such leadership, the connection between Old and New Testament Pentecost seems unlikely to have been missed by these outstanding preachers and teachers.
Connecting the two events was done by the early preachers. This makes perfect sense when you consider God’s promise to Jeremiah.
"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Kvarme makes note of the connection between the Old and New Testament Pentecost.
In the prophetic literature of the Tanach the memory of the Sinai covenant is also connected with the hope of a new covenant. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel speak about an end-of-days act of God when he will give his people a new heart and a new spirit. Then he will forgive the people their sins and by his Spirit write the Torah in their hearts so that they will live according to his will.
These early preachers made the connection because the evidence was so obvious as to be inescapable. Acts 2 looked and sounded like Exodus 19-20. The comparisons are so striking that only God could have planned it.
The cloven tongues of fire reminded them of Sinai where the words of God divided into 70 tongues of fire, representing the tongues of the 70 nations. In Jewish thought, the world is divided into Jews and 70 Gentile nations. According to the tradition there were literally tongues of fire at Sinai which sat upon the people of Israel like a diadem or crown. It may be that Cyril was aware of this tradition because of the words he uses to describe the tongues of fire. He said, "He sat upon them in the form of fiery tongues, that they might crown themselves with new and spiritual diadems by fiery tongues upon their heads."
On the day of Pentecost, when the tongues of fire sat upon the 120, this came as no particular surprise to those present. Israel had seen it before. By seeing it again, they clearly made the connection that what God had done at Sinai, he was doing again. God had made a covenant with Israel at Sinai. Now he was communicating the new covenant with Israel and those who would believe, the Covenant that Ezekiel and Jeremiah had foreseen.
Acts 2 and the sound of the rushing mighty wind reminded them of the growing sound of the trumpet on Sinai.
On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
The great sound that accompanied God’s speaking at Sinai was echoed at Zion. Again, it was not just that a sound was present, but it was a sound that reminded them of God’s presence on Sinai and communicated that this was an event of equal significance.
Kirby gives us a possible second connection with the wind. One of the other frequent readings for this day was out of Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel. In the Book of Jubilees (10:18-27), there is a version of the story which includes a mighty wind which God sends to destroy the tower. Unlike Babel, the Pentecostal wind is not for destruction, but for construction. It is part of God reclaiming his fallen world. When we see that Cyril uses the speaking in tongues of Pentecost as a reclaiming of the confusion of tongues at Babel, we may be seeing reflection of a document which Cyril possesses which is a reflection on this event. Indeed, it may be the Book of Jubilees. If it is, there can be no doubt that the early church made the connection between Pentecost and Sinai.
The speaking in tongues reminded them that at Sinai, God’s words came first as flames of fire which then became words and voice. When God spoke, they could both see and hear his words. They could see them in stone, but also hear God speak in their language. At Zion, this was how God manifested himself. First came the sound, then the fire, then his Spirit speaking through the believers in words which could be heard. The glory of God has spoken by the Spirit in the tongues of those who were present to listen. The spoken languages were a physical evidence that God had spoken. God spoke to Israel on Sinai with physical evidences. Now he speaks to the world, also accompanied by evidence that it is God and not another who is speaking.
Jewish Sages have interpreted Exodus 20:22 as reading, ‘...you have seen in the heavens what I spoke to you.’ They say that while God spoke the Law to Moses audibly in 70 languages, He also wrote the commandments in the sky with fire for the Children of Israel to read.
Given these obvious connections between Pentecost and Sinai, it is understandable that Paul uses Psalm 68 in relation to the gifts of the Spirit. For him, if it applied to Sinai, then it must have something to do with Pentecost as well.
The third Scripture reading does not relate as directly to Sinai, but does relate to the order which was established there. At Sinai, God said:
I myself have selected your fellow Levites from among the Israelites as a gift to you, dedicated to the LORD to do the work at the Tent of Meeting. But only you and your sons may serve as priests in connection with everything at the altar and inside the curtain. I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift. Anyone else who comes near the sanctuary must be put to death.
In the minds of Israel, then, the service of those who served God in the tabernacle was seen as a gift. Peter also described the coming of the Holy Spirit as the "gift of the Holy Spirit"
Kirby reflects on this possibility of how this understanding came about:
That this Psalm (68) was connected with Pentecost in Acts is shown by W. L. Knox:
‘The Targum on that Psalm interpreted the verse, ‘the Lord gave the word; great was the company of preachers’ by rendering it ‘Thou by thy word gavest thy word unto thy servants the prophets’. So Jesus, having been exalted to the right hand of God, received from the Father the promised Spirit and has poured it out on the Apostles.’
He thinks that it is only in the light of this rabbinic view that any sense can be made of Acts 2:33, for no reason is given in Acts why the ascension should have been followed by the gift of the Spirit. In a similar way, the author of Ephesians brings in Psalm 68:18 to show that the ascended Jesus gave gifts to men.
We might comment on how this understanding played itself out in the understanding of how ministry is to be performed. If the gifts of the Spirit are analogous to the Old Testament Priesthood, then we should say that all ministry in the Lord’s Church is to be done by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, this is how Irenaeus and others described the Church as functioning.
By listing what we call "ministry gifts" in this passage in Ephesians, it is clear that Paul is relating these gifts of ministry in the New Testament to the role of the Levites in the Tabernacle. Without any doubt, Paul views the operation of spiritual gifts as the equivalent of the priesthood. In this, the vision of Zechariah is realized. The golden lampstand is the means of ministry within the Church:
`Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.
A Pentecostal view of ministry is that all the gifts of the Spirit are meant for ministry to the Church. However, in recent years some have started breaking up the various lists of gifts in the New Testament as if there were different types of gifts. The gifts of Romans 12 change into "motivational gifts," while those of 1 Corinthians 12 become "manifestation gifts." The Ephesians 4 list is arbitrarily named "ministry gifts." The labelers think they are adding clarity by making these distinctions. However, their unwarranted distinctions undermine the Pentecostal view of gifts. We really should think of gifts simply as the manifestation of the Spirit, and leave it at that.
Unlike today, the so-called "ministry gifts" of Ephesians 4 were not understood in the early church as narrowly limited to the five mentioned, but were inclusive of all ministries in the Church. If this is true, then any distinction that tries to separate the five gifts as being different from the others is a departure from what the early church would have accepted. The Pastor of Hermas, a very early church father, knows no such division:
Hear now with regard to the stones which are in the building. Those square white stones which fitted exactly into each other, are apostles, bishops, teachers, and deacons, who have lived in godly purity, and have acted as bishops and teachers and deacons chastely and reverently to the elect of God. Some of them have fallen asleep, and some still remain alive.
Hilary writes often of the charisms. In one place he writes about wisdom, knowledge, teaching, miracles, healing, tongues, and interpretations as "ministries and workings (ministeria et operationes) of the church in which (church) is the body of Christ." Hilary knows nothing of the distinctions that moderns try to place on the gifts. In fact, he specifically argues against it in Book 8, section 33. My personal view is that Pentecostals have uncritically adopted evangelical designations which make it possible for Evangelicals to have the gifts of Romans and Ephesians without taking on the obligation of the more "uncomfortable" 1 Corinthians 12 gifts.
When Paul applies the concept of the Grace of God,
he does so in all the Hebraic ways familiar to the celebration of Pentecost. He relates it to the Mt. Sinai ascension, to law as a gift, and ministry as gifts to the Sanctuary.There are tremendous pastoral as well as theological implications to this application of spiritual gifts to the law from Mt. Sinai. For Paul, the gifts of the Spirit to the Church carry the same force as the law had to the covenant community at Sinai and beyond. There is now a new dynamic in the Covenant community.
We have maintained that the anointing of Jesus is a prototype of the normative Christian experience. Some have suggested that the anointing of Jesus at the Jordan also carries with it connections to Sinai. If this is so, we have another Pentecostal connection with Paul’s teaching.
Then his people recalled the days of old, the days of Moses and his people-- where is he who brought them through the sea, with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them,…
God has put the law in our hearts and he expresses it through the people as they exercise their spiritual gifts.
Given this high place of spiritual gifts in the new covenant community, we can understand why Paul urges us to "covet earnestly" the best spiritual gifts.
The pastoral implications of this are profound. If we are to take on the role of Pastor, we must also be about the process of urging the search for spiritual gifts. We must also provide the means within congregation life for the gifts to be acquired, developed, and used. To fail in this is to fail in a fundamental function of pastoral ministry.Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.
In setting forth the priority of spiritual gifts, Paul also establishes a hierarchy of value for the spiritual gifts. He indicates that prophecy is to be prized because it strengthens, encourages, and comforts. On the other hand, speaking in tongues benefits the person who speaks. Prophecy is superior to speaking in tongues because in prophecy the church is edified whereas speaking in tongues benefits only the speaker. The indicator of the relative value of a spiritual gift is based upon the number of people who benefit by its exercise.
In conclusion, we have found several connections between the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai, and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit on Mt. Zion. These two mountains, along with Calvary in between, form the anchors of their respective Testaments. Paul, in writing Ephesians, is mindful of these connections and draws upon them for his analysis. In doing so, he reminds us that Pentecostal expressions are not an appendix to the church but part of its very core. This connection is one more brick in the wall of "normative." As Pastors, we must find ways to encourage the growth of the use of spiritual gifts within our congregations.
Let’s return to the question of the Book of Acts as the basis for theology. Paul’s use of Acts to form his theology of the church is very clear. He uses Luke’s description to form the foundation for his teaching. Acts 2 is to the church what Sinai was to Israel. Just as a Jew studies what was written on Mt. Sinai, so the Christian looks to the Acts 2 experience to be repeated in his heart. It is as though the tablets were imprinted on the heart. The baptism of the Spirit becomes a personal Sinai.
Obviously, Sinai was not a repeated event. Yet it shapes our understanding of Pentecost. Pentecost and Sinai are analogous events. Pentecost is personal, not just corporate. An event which occurred before I was born cannot impart spiritual substance to me unless I come to be a participant in it. To the extent that each individual needed to obey the law, then each individual needs to experience a personal Pentecost. The counting of the Omer moved the Israeli from Passover to Pentecost. In the same way, a Christian should move from Salvation to the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. When Paul urges the Ephesians in the direction of the gifts of the Spirit, using the comparison of Sinai, then I think he makes Acts 2 normative. Sinai and Zion, as Hebrews 12 also shows us, peer down on our theology. All other sights must have these two mountains also in the picture.
The Early Church Fathers and the Book of Acts
According to Fee, and others of his persuasion, we cannot use the book of Acts for doctrinal statements unless it was the clear intent of the writers to establish doctrine. Of course, without the book of Acts, it becomes very difficult to demonstrate that the doctrines of the Assemblies of God relating to the baptism of the Holy Spirit are true. Then, if we cannot prove that our beliefs are true, relating to subsequence and speaking in tongues as the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then they must not be true. If we can’t prove it, it must not be true. It is a difficult place for us to be. We must prove it from the Bible, but we can’t use those portions of the Bible which speak about it. The theological police have ruled the evidence inadmissible.
The reasons Acts cannot be used as the Assemblies of God uses it, is because of a hermeneutical principle which some theologians have invented. There is certainly nothing in the Scripture itself which would prevent this. Indeed, we might argue that the Bible says the opposite. Paul said, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Even though Scripture says we can, some scholars say we can’t.
Steven Land has defended the Pentecostal approach by suggesting that the Holy Spirit is back of the Scriptures. His term for the Scripture is "Spirit-Word." In his view, "the Spirit who inspired and preserved the Scriptures illuminates, teaches, guides, convicts and transforms through the Word today." Fee wants Acts limited to the actual intent of the author. But who is the author? If the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to write Acts, could there be more to the text than even Luke knew? When Psalm 22 was written, did the author know fully what was being written? Clearly, when the Old Testament was applied in the New Testament, some pretty amazing interpretations were applied. Hilary believed that each Psalm was originally given in the Spirit of prophecy. We accept these interpretations because we recognize the Spirit’s work in the interpretation. But what has happened to the Spirit today? Fee argues for what amounts to a more mechanistic approach to the Scripture. But we are not even arguing for an interpretation beyond what the Scripture actually says. We simply what to use "all Scripture." We think we can know God in the Scripture, not just read about him. There is a tension between "authorial intent" and inspired Scripture.
What is the Bible? Is it limited to the sum of its individual writers? One gets this impression with all the emphasis upon the individual approach of each individual writer that characterizes all of the modern approach. If the Holy Spirit caused each part to be written, did he also have something to do with its final collection? If he had something to do with the final collection, doesn’t the Bible have more weight than its individual parts? Then, if we observe a trend in how God works in Acts and the Epistles, are we not justified to suspect that we have this trend for a reason which God knows? What if each individual author is inspired to write a piece of the puzzle, not knowing that it was a piece and not the whole. And what if the Holy Spirit superintends the whole? Can we not, then, see the Holy Spirit as the author even as we consider each individual contribution? If this is reasonable, then our approach of assembling evidence from Jesus, the disciples, Acts, and the Epistles is reasonable in knowing the intent of the Holy Spirit.
We may not have to resort to a "collective intent" to be able to use Acts. Stronstad has suggested that it was Luke’s intent in Acts to illustrate the "universality of the vocational gift of the Spirit." No matter where the Gospel went, among Jews or Gentiles, God poured out the gifts of the Spirit. If we use Acts to suggest some things are normative as evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, are we not doing exactly what Luke did in Acts? We join Peter in reasoning that we know the Spirit is present because "God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us." Conversely, Peter would know that a person had not yet been baptized in the Spirit if it had not happened to these others as it had to Peter. The Assemblies of God gets into that line of reasoning. Like Peter, we say, if it happened to the 120, and it happened to those at Cornelius’ house, and it happened to us in the same way, then it must be the same thing.
Menzies has worried about taking the concept of primary intent too far.
An exclusive focus on an author’s ‘primary intent’ or ‘intention to teach’ too often leads to a form of tunnel vision which ignores the implications of an individual text for the theological perspective of the author. This myopia is illustrated in Fee’s treatment of the Samaritan episode in Acts 8.4-17. He argues that this passage is ultimately irrelevant to discussions concerning the doctrine of subsequence for Luke’s ‘primary intent’ lies elsewhere. Now, the primary intent of the narrative, as Fee suggests, may be to stress that the expansion of the gospel beyond the bounds of Judaism had ‘divine and apostolic approval’. And, I would agree, it is unlikely that Luke consciously sought to teach here that the gift of the Spirit is normally separate from saving faith. Yet this does not allow us to ignore the clear implications of the narrative for Luke’s pneumatology. Indeed, the fact that Luke does separate the gift of the Spirit from saving faith clearly reveals his distinctive pneumatological perspective. Paul would not-indeed, could not-have interpreted and na the event in this way. Furthermore, this separation refutes the commonly accepted interpretation of the Lukan gift as ‘the climax of conversion-initiation’. In other words, the value of a passage for assessing the theological perspective of a given author cannot be reduced to its ‘primary intent’. A passage must be understood in terms of its original setting and intention, but the theological freight it carries may transcend its 'primary intent’. Each piece of evidence must be taken seriously as we seek to reconstruct the theological perspective of the biblical author.
There are several approaches we can take to resolve the tension of the appropriate use of Acts. In this paper, I have chosen to emphasize what the church fathers thought on this subject. I think I can show pretty clearly that the early church was not at all hesitant to use Acts for their theology or to establish church norms. I’d like to offer a few examples.
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Cyril and the Acts 2 Pentecost.
There are several different ideas that Cyril develops about the Acts 2 event:
First, Cyril views tongues as the restoration of the confusion of Babel, and the fire as restoring the flaming sword of the garden of Eden. Second, he seems to suggest that the outpouring was the completion of an earlier baptism because they are now "entirely baptized". Third, this baptism seems to complete the Salvation experience for Cyril, because the fire of it burns away sin (sanctifies). While it is a rather lengthy quotation, it is interesting to listen to him "preach" on a core text.
And lest men should be ignorant of the greatness of the mighty gift coming down to them, there sounded as it were a heavenly trumpet, For suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, signifying the presence of Him who was to grant power unto men to seize with violence the kingdom of God; that both their eyes might see the fiery tongues, and their ears hear the sound. And it filled all the house where they were sitting; for the house became the vessel of the spiritual water; as the disciples sat within, the whole house was filled. Thus they were entirely baptized according to the promise, and invested soul and body with a divine garment of salvation. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. They partook of fire, not of burning but of saving fire; of fire which consumes the thorns of sins, but gives lustre to the soul. This is now coming upon you also, and that to strip away and consume your sins which are like thorns, and to brighten yet more that precious possession of your souls, and to give you grace; for He gave it then to the Apostles. And He sat upon them in the form of fiery tongues, that they might crown themselves with new and spiritual diadems by fiery tongues upon their heads. A fiery sword barred of old the gates of Paradise; a fiery tongue which brought salvation restored the gift.
And they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. The Galilean Peter or Andrew spoke Persian or Median. John and the rest of the Apostles spake every tongue to those of Gentile extraction; for not in our time have multitudes of strangers first begun to assemble here from all quarters, but they have done so since that time. What teacher can be found so great as to teach men all at once things which they have not learned? So many years are they in learning by grammar and other arts to speak only Greek well; nor yet do all speak this equally well; the Rhetorician perhaps succeeds in speaking well, and the Grammarian sometimes not well, and the skillful Grammarian is ignorant of the subjects of philosophy. But the Holy Spirit taught them many languages at once, languages which in all their life they never knew. This is in truth vast wisdom, this is power divine. What a contrast of their long ignorance in time past to their sudden, complete and varied and unaccustomed exercise of these languages!
The multitude of the hearers was confounded;--it was a second confusion, in the room of that first evil one at Babylon. For in that confusion of tongues there was division of purpose, because their thought was at enmity with God; but here minds were restored and united, because the object of interest was godly. The means of falling were the means of recovery. Wherefore they marveled, saying, How hear we them speaking? No marvel if ye be ignorant; for even Nicodemus was ignorant of the coming of the Spirit, and to him it was said, The Spirit breatheth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; but if, even though I hear His voice, I know not whence he cometh, how can I explain, what He is Himself in substance? (emphasis mine)
It is obvious that Cyril used the experience of the disciples as a model for what would happen to those he was about to baptize. If he can use this to model one part of their experience, are we so far off when we use the same event to describe another part of our experience? Isn’t it true that Cyril was using Acts for doctrine? This being part of his important catechism lectures, he is offering a systematic discussion of the Christian faith.
The miracle of tongues was in the speaking, not in the hearing. Altogether, fifteen different people groups are mentioned as having heard them speaking in their own language,
They spoke with strange tongues, and not those of their native land; and the wonder was great, a language spoken by those who had not learnt it. And the sign is to them that believe not, and not to them that believe, that it may be an accusation of the unbelievers, as it is written, With other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people, and not even so will they listen to Me saith the Lord. But they heard. Here stop a little and raise a question, how you are to divide the words. For the expression has an ambiguity, which is to be determined by the punctuation. Did they each hear in their own dialect so that if I may so say, one sound was uttered, but many were heard; the air being thus beaten and, so to speak, sounds being produced more clear than the original sound; or are we to put the stop after "they Hear," and then to add "them speaking in their own languages" to what follows, so that it would be speaking in languages their own to the hearers, which would be foreign to the speakers? I prefer to put it this latter way; for on the other plan the miracle would be rather of the hearers than of the speakers; whereas in this it would be on the speakers’ side; and it was they who were reproached for drunkenness, evidently because they by the Spirit wrought a miracle in the matter of the tongues.
Although Cyril and Gregory say important things, they are not the earliest ones to use Acts for doctrine. One of the important debates that shaped the third century was whether people who had been baptized by heretics must submit again to water baptism. A council was held at which Cyprian apparently presided over "many priests assembled at once." The results of this council were directed to Stephen, the Roman bishop, in the form of a decree. Notice that they relied upon the book of Acts to form their decree or doctrine.
Those who have been dipped abroad outside the Church, and have been stained among heretics and schismatics with the taint of profane water, when they come to us and to the Church which is one, ought to be baptized, for the reason that it is a small matter to ‘lay hands on them that they may receive the Holy Ghost,’ unless they receive also the baptism of the Church. For then finally can they be fully sanctified, and be the sons of God, they be born of each sacrament; since it is written, ‘Except a man be born again of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ For we find also, in the Acts of the Apostles, that this is maintained by the Apostles, and kept in the truth of the saving faith, so that when, in the house of Cornelius the centurion, the Holy Ghost had descended upon the Gentiles who were there, fervent in the warmth of their faith, and believing in the Lord with the whole heart; and when, filled with the Spirit, they blessed God in divers tongues, still none the less the blessed Apostle Peter, mindful of the divine precept and the Gospel, commanded that those same men should be baptized who had already been filled with the Holy Spirit, that nothing might seem to be neglected to the observance by the apostolic instruction in all things of the law of the divine precept and Gospel.
Not only did they reference Acts 10, but they also took up the issue of Acts 8. Those who felt the baptism of heretics was sufficient, argued that because the Samaritans were not rebaptized after Peter and John came to them, then it was not necessary to rebaptize those who had been baptized by heretics. The council rejected the argument, not because it was from a historical narrative, or because it was outside the intent of the author, as Fee would do, but because the facts of the case were not an appropriate ground for the conclusion they sought. The council said,
They who had believed in Samaria had believed with a true faith; and within, in the Church which is one, and to which alone it is granted to bestow the grace of baptism and to remit sins, had been baptized by Philip the deacon, whom the same apostles had sent. And therefore, because they had obtained a legitimate and ecclesiastical baptism, there was no need that they should be baptized any more, but only that which was needed was performed by Peter and John; viz., that prayer being made for them, and hands being imposed, the Holy Spirit should be invoked and poured out upon them, which now too is done among us, so that they who are baptized in the Church are brought to the prelates of the Church, and by our prayers and by the imposition of hands obtain the Holy Spirit, and are perfected with the Lord’s seal.
Elsewhere, when we discuss the Samaritans, we address the question of whether or not they were saved without receiving the Holy Spirit in baptism. Cyprian and the council of priests agree that they were saved, even though they had not received the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. As such, this early council affirms the position of the Assemblies of God and does not agree with Packer, Dunn, or Fee. Dunn, a vigorous opponent of the Assemblies of God position, will not let them be saved, but the council declares that they were saved. The difference in the conclusions of Dunn and this early church council could not be more unced. Although Fee agrees with the Council’s conclusion, he is uncomfortable with their use of the passage. Fee does not want to use Acts 8 for theology. Fee objects that such a passage must not be used for "theological precision." For the early church, Acts 8 is pressed into service exactly for "theological precision." They based their theology on it. Although it is a historical narrative, and supposedly was